@@yoman8027 Saturn Grandia is definitely better. It includes VDP2 effects that the Playstation version had to cut, as well as better music. These are all cosmetic though. The PSX music isn't bad at all, just not as good, and the VDP2 effects are just window dressing -- e.g. the water effects when you go to the docks, etc. Voice quality is actually a little bit better on the PSX due to hardware ADPCM compression. It's a natural difference between Saturn and PSX hardware (Saturn had a VASTLY better wavetable chip, so could generate native music better, but the PSX could play compressed audio in hardware, while the Saturn couldn't. -- You can see this in the Lunar ports on the PSX where the Saturn generates the audio on the fly from its synth chip, while the PSX has to stream it from ADPCM files on the disc.) Of course the biggest differences in the game were only in the western ports of PSX Grandia. e.g. alcohol references are all bowlderized into "coffee", etc (people who weren't aware of the changes were very confused over why the kid main character wasn't supposed to be in a "coffee shop" and why he was excited that he got a chance to drink "coffee", etc.) Any sexual humor was also cut out of the western release.
Atlus has been around longer than Genesis actually. In the NES days they developed games for LJN, Namco, Hudson Soft like Friday the 13th, Xexyz, and in Japan the original versions of Megami Tensei 1 and 2.
I just got a Saturn today lol. I'm excited to start collecting it. I have been watching your videos for awhile now. Which probably finally conviced me to buy a Saturn lol. I love Atlus games so I will probably check some these out!
I can appreciate what they were trying to do with Virtual Hydlide. Great concept, but the end result is a trainwreck. Also the protagonist walks like his last fart had lumps.
I can't help but think of Joe from Game Sack when this game comes up! Hilarious story about him pissing off his then girlfriend for ignoring her when he rented it!
I have Shin Megami Tensei Devil Summoner, Devil Summoner: Soul Hackers, and Ronde on the Saturn. Soul Hackers already has a 3ds port, but the other 2 need to be in English, including Ronde even though most people hate it for it's looks I still believe it deserves some love, even if it's hard to look at sometimes.
The PS1 version of Soul Hackers was attempted to get released in the United States, but was cancelled because Sony refused based of what it has. I think Sony USA didn't allow the early Shin Megami Tensei titles in the USA because of this, but Nintendo now allows games like that in everywhere they send to.
@referral madness Didn't Europe have a smaller Saturn install base than the U.S.? No one is going to pay to translate such a niche Japanese game knowing that they can't sell it in the massive U.S. market. Nintendo stole the idea but changed the demons to "pocket monsters" and made billions. Atlus would've had to water down or censor their games. I'm glad that they stuck to their guns and waited. There are more SMT games in English now than I have time to play.
@referral madness That bit about bug collecting is hilariously disingenuous. Pokemon is an obvious SMT ripoff, from the basic premise of recruiting monsters you battle to fight for you, to the plot of people using monsters to rule the world, to the actual rock/paper/scissors battle mechanics, to the breeding of monsters to get special traits/abilities. I always assumed that it was an unspoken homage but to hear pokemon creators lie like that causes me to lose even more respect for them. Remember when they introduced 2 vs 2 pokemon battles and called it innovation? SMT was doing that years earlier. Pokemon is a little kids version of SMT.
@referral madness to be fair, Atlus went back and ripped off Pokemon with the Devil Children ("DemiKids" in the west) series. It's interesting that Pokemon took the character out of the equation -- no more negotiation aspects and the player no longer fights. And of course they made it more kid-friendly. So Atlus said "fuck it, we'll do that, but keep our multi-pantheon religious/occult overtones". Then Summon Night took it BACK to the SMT-style player-fights-with-his-minions gameplay and made it edgier, but kept the cute pokemon-style monsters. But then the whole raising-monsters-who-fight-for-you genre is actually older than dirt. Look at "Mail Order Monsters" on the Commodore 64.
I have most of these, and while I'm a big shooter player, my favorite is Lunacy. The game has loads of atmosphere, and I have a soft spot for that style of fmv game. The Mansion of Hidden Souls games, D, and Enemy Zero all are slow, but riveting to me, and I've finished all of them multiple times.
I'm not sure Devil Summoner would have been the "Final Fantasy VII" of the Saturn - at the time, console RPGs were synonymous with, well, Final Fantasy in the west. Incidentally, I'd argue that the Soul Hackers port is the FFVII of the 3DS.
I think with its mature themes and more serious tone than many RPG's of the time, Devil Summoner would have garnered heavy coverage in game magazines, the life blood of the industry back then. It wouldn't have catapulted the Saturn to number 1 or anything, but I think it would have exposed the library to many more RPG fans.
Considering it was the most expensive game ever developed when it came out the early versions are doubtful to even really be anything but concept demos at best.
That was in the 70s and 80's, though there were still repercussions echoing into the 90's. Realistically it wouldn't have sold well unless it came out after FFVII
@@personavisceration371 the Satanic Panic was 70's and 80's, but companies were still afraid of it well into the 90's. Moreover in middle America the panic held on even longer even though it had ended on the coasts.That's why loads of occult iconography got removed from games all through that generation -- especially on Nintendo consoles as Nintendo USA was the slowest to rethink its position. It's why we almost didn't get Xenogears (there was NO way to remove the religious symbolism from it without gutting the game). Even then it got some bits of token censorship (e.g. translating "教会" as "Ethos" instead of "church")
@@NozomuYume The truth is that the west has a much more mercurial relationship with religion and spirituality compared to the east, with the US and Japan almost being on opposite ends of the spectrum. Put simply, we're prudes by comparison and have been since before our founding.
Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner would certainly have been a hit in the west i think. Would completely open new ways for it's JRPG genre In that era…
@@SegaLordX there isnt a saturn translation in the works at the moment but someone's working on the psp version so maybe someone will port the script over to the saturn version after its finished
@@jesseglidden321 I could be wrong but I think Saturn Dave makes high quality repros but doesn't have anything to do with the translations, no doubt when there's a translation out Saturn Dave and Ben Boyd will be at work.
Some of these are really unique and would've gone a long way to differentiate the Saturn from the Playstation here in the States. A damn shame. That Princess Crown looks like a system seller to me!
Another great vid! I was late to the Saturn party, I got one in '97 or so and missed all of these imports. So thanks for another shopping list and keep up the awesome vids 👍🏿
I really enjoyed many of Atlus' published titles for the sega saturn. I especially really enjoyed purikura daisakusen and groove on fight. The great thing about those 2 titan games that got ported is that they received extra content not present in the STV cart. Such as voice acting for purikura daisakusen, and in the case of groove on fight is that you can now play as the boss characters which are really fun rather than doing some crazy glitch that could if I remember correctly potentially harm the stv cart. You even taught me that Cave even did a racing game which was quite mind blowing. As always you are so well spoken and very educational for even saturn collectors like myself. Thank you for your hard working efforts :)
Atlus, Capcom, SNK, ahhh... those classic cults... I can't resist the Japanese video games, they are so memorable with every creativity they giving to us
Shin Megami Tensei was so impressive for its early release date. It could have beaten FFVII to launch by a year even they took a year to localize. 32 bit gamers were dying for something more grown up, it would have been a hit just like the survival horror genre was suddenly a hit.
I'm super into Tokyo Xtreme Drift 2 right now so I was interested to learn about the Touge games for Saturn. Good video! Saturn is the hardest to collect for for me because I never find games just out in the wild and cases are often broken even in retail settings plus since RPG's are my favorite I don't think I'll ever have any of the higher dollar offerings.
Sengoku Blade was my Jam when I have the Saturn and Koyori the Miko is my bae for a long time for obvious reasons with her special bomb attack one of the coolest in shoot'up games history.
Am glad we got the 3DS version of Soul Hackers also I hope that we get to see an official western release of Shin Megami Tensi Devil Summoners and Princess Crown in the near future.
I imagine this was the sales pitch for damn near every game in Japan at that time.... Dude! I have an awesome idea for this game!!! Ok, bro, what is it?? Dude! Its...... Demons!! Omg! Fuck yeah! That's just... Thats so fucking awesome. We'll get started on this immediately. It'll never leave Japan. Present day, everywhere: damn, we missed out on so much.
Damn, I wish they created a Persona or Shin Megami Tensei for the Saturn. The console was a 2D powerhouse if you knew all the tricks up its sleeve, and they could've used the RAM cart expansions
I love sengoku blade It's a fantastic game! The artstyle is great and the mix of 2d and 3d visuals show what the Saturn could do! It's definitely in my top 10 shoot em ups for Saturn.
Oh what I would not give for Atlus hard copy release of Princess Crown with full English translation! I can remember seeing screen scans in issues of Die Hard Game Fan way back when. It would likely never happen, but it sure would be nice.
There are some genuinely impressive games showcased here. As awesome as this video is, I find it hurts my heart to see such fantastic works go under appreciated. What you showed here would have afforded the Saturn much more leverage against the PS1 and N64. At the very least given those who bought one a positively diverse selection of software from which to choose.
Princess Crown and Vampire Savior were the first games I ever imported when they were new. Saturn imports from 97-99 were as good as anything on the PS1 and N64, in some genres they were drastically better.
Aside from the "RPGs aren't in style", I wonder if the very Japanese setting and religious references had more to do with the choice to not bring Shin Megami Tensei over to the west.
I find it funny how Stolar thought RPGs were "too nerdy" to popular... in 1997, just a few months before a little known Playstation game called Final Fantasy VII (dunno if you've heard of it) got a western release.
@TheJadeFist Remember when Persona 1 got localized here on the PS1? Tons of references to Japanese culture were removed and a lot of things in the game were renamed and changed to have a more american theme to it, Black Mark for example.
Hey, was Princess Crown develloped by the guys at Vanillaware? It looks so much like their artstyle, and Vanillaware has a long history of working with Atlus. Actually, thanks for talking about this game. I want to play it now.
Great video as always - but you missed the final Atlas release for the Saturn, which was Strikers 1945 II. btw, this format is great, I hope you do a similar one for Konami, as so many of their Saturn games were Japanese exclusives.
That fool at Sega of America should have been fired sooner than later. And eventually, he was but not before he smashed some nails on the Saturn's coffin :(.
@@KISSFan1977 I won't deny that Stolar did what he could to keep the Dreamcast afloat during his time at Sega but his actions against the Saturn left a bad aftertaste in everyone's mouth :(.
Stolar made idiotic statements like "Western audiences don't like RPG's & 2D games." back when He was VP at SCEA during launch of the PS1.. Says a whole lot!
Atlus has given us so many great games spanning almost every genre and console. I have always loved Atlus as they have a tendency to go their own way or to the beat of their own drum. While companies like Squaresoft began playing things safe Atlus always sought to bring something new to the table. The only type of game that they have never tried (I don't think) is the FPS. It may never happen but I know they could pull something magical of they tried.
Strikers 1945 on Saturn, is imo the best shooter on any platform. Yep, that's how much I like it. (Part 2 was somehow a step back, the game played less smooth)
I literally LOL’D when SLX subliminally dissed mister BS, aka Bernie Stolar when he said, “Some fool at Sega of America said no one wanted to play RPG’s”. Mister BS made a BS’ing general statement with that one. Who the hell did he talk to that fed him that fallacy, or was it just a stupid assumption?? Good job Mr. BS.
On the one hand I agree as an RPG lover he should be dragged, on the other hand I think that statement was made before FF7 was released and kinda proved there WAS a big market in the first place. I also kinda wonder if those Persona games would've sold well- they ARE set in modern times which I think could've been an advantage (didn't have to deal with the stigma of being set in a "silly fantasy-world") buuut on the other hand... FF7 had a relstively consistent world-representation, you were moving through uniquely modeled environments and dungeons, and the battle transisitions felt pretty snappy. Compare that to these Devil Summoner games where you move in first person through rather bland hallways, the overworld represents characters you can talk to as mere green dots, and the battle screens takes WAY too long to load... I don't really blame anyone for thinking people'd be more frustrated than intrigued by them. We tend to forget that the first big successful JRPG in the west was HELLA expensive to make so it could really wow people with it's immersive world and graphics- not sure if a more modestly budgeted Atlus game could've had the same effect.
You need to get a tattoo in the style of the "love mom" with the scroll going across a heart, but clearly, instead of mom, yours must say Sega Saturn; or simply Saturn. ;-p
SLX, this list is proof of why Sega eventually purchased Atlus wholesale! They (like Capcom also..) were almost a 2nd party developer for Saturn. Their output for the system was great & varied and, like You said repeatedly: Their best games were left to rot in Japan! So extremely dumb and oh so sad.. Very different world had these titles been promoted sooner. Princess Crown is a fave of Mine also and damn shame it's still so unknown. On the plus-side though, good chunk of the PC team would eventually go on to start up Vanillaware and they are a great developer! Thanks as always!!!
The thing that gets me is that Sega could have released a lot of these games in a value line since they required next to no localization for Saturn. They could have just ripped the cinemas and story out of the shooters and released them in a Saturn value line in small cases for like $25. I mean get the games out somehow, jeez.
@@SegaLordX So frustratingly true!!! But like most of the decisions made back then at Sega.. Nothing made ANY sense! Was just as if they were ACTIVELY trying to fail.. At everything really! My understanding is that SOJ was constantly dictating to SOA and NOTHING logical or sensible got done.. Explains a LOT!
This is exactly what I wanted, I hope to see more videos like this, I wish you could do more videos on atlus games but I know they are lacking for sega consoles mostly in the west, DC and Genesis had one each?
Awesome video bro! Just when u thought you'd explored every 2D fight game. Groove on fight looks good. Def gonna add them to an arcade emulator ASAP. Some might already have it but I've never heard that name.
Good stuff as usual. Your take on Sol Divide matches up with the reviews I checked out when the Switch version came out. I think some nice sprites would have helped make it more enjoyable to people. Just seeing what they did makes me think pixel-art would have suited the game nicely. I picked up Groove On Fight back in 1997 as my first RAM-cart game. I forget exactly why I got the region mod -- for a specific game or just to open up possibilities. I don't think I knew about X-Men vs. Street Fighter yet, and I wasn't really into Capcom or Marvel enough to feel the hype, though I did pick it up that winter. It worked out well though as I remember a friend taking me to a comic shop specifically to see Street Fighter 3, and I ended up falling in love with King of Fighters '97 instead and was happy to know I could play it with no worries when it came out shortly after. Back to Groove on Fight, I was just playing through that a bit a couple of months ago. It is a cool came. The sprite work isn't quite at the level of Capcom or SNK in 1997, but it's still very nice. The artwork and character designs are also very good. The final boss in that game is really tough, especially since it's basically a handicap match and it's hard to conserve life against him. The game was also my first tag-team fighting game. I think that's what really intrigued me about the game. Sadly, the 1MB RAM cart wasn't suited to the tag style. Storing data for four characters at once was tough. KOF fared better with it since there was no switching. A shame the 4MB cart couldn't have been around longer and used for more games.
Awesome video as usual, helpful and useful. I would love you to make videos from the companies that made Saturn outstand. How about a video about treasure titles, wouldn't be that awesome?!? Greetings from Spain!!!
@@SegaLordX The Saturn port is even better than the arcade original! Superb programmed, next to none loading times, extra voices during cutscenes, extra characters and the 2nd disc is pure fan-service! Oh and don't forget that beautiful box-art... ♥
Princess Crown is of course Vanillaware's first game. Kind of like Odin Sphere. The fact that only 3 of these games only came out here for the Saturn just shows how little Sega was trying at the time. By the way Sega Lord,nice little mention of a certain person who was head of Sega of America that said RPGs didn't sell. No wonder why we never got the Lunar remake for the Saturn over here.
I have Groove on Fight and Sol Divide. I'd have to agree with Sol Divide being short to play, but I do like the change of pace from a traditional shooter. I found the shooting aspect to be weak on the characters melee slightly stronger but slower attack rate. Magic was nice addition wish the magic gauge filled faster and some of the spells didn't cost so much to use. Groove on fight I like since it was also different from SNK and Capcom's efforts during that time frame. Tho at heart I'm in the SNK camp when it comes to the fighters.
