SEGA SAHTON! ------------------------------------------------------
EDIT EDIT: And now the 01/31/08 cast is gone altogether.
Download Here------------------------------------------------------
This was a furious cast. Milkman
& Shane. No wonder Sharkey & Kennedy could barely get in a word.
For as much junk as I've given Parish on past podcasts, I've got to give props, in that he is a master of working as a central arbiter and keeping issues on topic (Futurenauts, indeed). Everyone's new positions sound exciting, and if Jeremy is the one responsible for 'expanding possibilities', then here's a suggestion: Break into the lucrative news blog market and pillage for all it's worth. BUT ANYWAYS.
My experience with the Saturn came dangerously late, around the time the Dreamcast was set for launch. A friend had confiscated a gorgeous pearly white Japanese system, and Magic Knight Rayearth was the first to be loaded up. Honestly, Grandia aside, what I expected to be a role-playing powerhouse turned out to be about as equal to the previous Sega systems in selection on that front.
The Saturn was an odd duck, through and through. It was positioned to be a unit that kicked Nintendo's reliance of old media standards to the curb, and then Sony came around in their infamous press conference, and everything changed. They weren't playing by the rules, dammit (a playbook written by Sega, which consisted of endless hardware launches and forgetting valuable franchises with each generation).
The 32X had fooled about as many customers as the Virtual Boy, and finding anything outside of Virtua Cop & Daytona USA on the shelves was a miracle in itself. Don't remember Arcade-Perfect-Ports being such an issue, as much as actual selection. By the time they were pushing Sonic 3D Blast as their premiere holiday title of '96, it was all over. The awkward timing of NiGHTS with the 3D controller just as Mario 64 launched came off as more Sega hardware pushing, whereas the subtle dual shock release nearly two years later was perceived as almost classy on Sony's part.
As much as we can appreciate them now, the library selection for the Saturn was (appropriately) alien. Dark Saviour was the Synchronicity II music video come alive. Astal a Jim Henson nightmare unleashed. Fighting Vipers the neofetishism thread ahead of its time. Hell, GameFan had to review DarkStalkers TWICE due to the framerate unlock. O_o
Sexy Parodius, Sakura Taisen, and a boatload of noody puzzlers were never going to give them the edge in America (although Microsoft might want to look into that market for Japan, seems like a profitable void now). The Gundam titles were as impressive as that Godzilla on the NES, Super Tempo (while a nice gameplay successor to Little Nemo) was post-Bubsy et al, and Best Soundtrack Ever Or Not, ThunderForce was never to be a premiere title.
Was nearly ashamed to discover
&
years too late, but how can anyone on this side of the Pacific be faulted? If we were to be inundated by a dragon game, it would by All-Ages Spyro, not Panzer dammit it all. Could backwards compatibility have kept Sega in the game? By that point, no. The perception of gaming was all but morphed into something else by the time Core / Crystal Dynamics / Eidos crash landed. Which brings me to a salient point: The Dreamcast proved that the Saturn would never have conquered.
The Dreamcast fired on all cylinders. It brought back all the favorite franchises (save for two hip hopping aliens), published numerous Nipponcentric titles domestically, had plentiful shelf space, astounding reviews & coverage, and didn't rely on continual system upgrades. It still faded away, Shenmue being Sega's Final Fantasy: The Spirit's Within or not. The gamer demographic had shifted, and it did so during the Saturn generation.
Not to come off as a depressing blob, I'd agree that Capcom rocked the box like no other. Despite what is said in the cast, Resident Evil for the Saturn was superior to the PSX in many aspects, just not the Director's Cut. They even brought the Dungeons & Dragons brawlers home in one collection. Now
that was true love.
To finish, Virtual On not mentioned until 48 minutes in was a minor crime, the Outrun & Dragoon remakes
are freakish, the greatest instance of lost source code has to be Final Fantasy 3 (you all know it to be true!), props to Hybrid Heaven props, REZ & Space Channel 5 both came my way by Dirty Santa (much love, much love), and, uh, Shane can keep that MGS2 distinction.
Current Virtual Console Count:
North America: 197
Europe: 183
Australia: 184
Japan: 260 (Master System & Gamegear coming this month)
