Capcom's presence on Saturn was a tremendous part of my childhood when it came to games like Megaman X4, SF Alpha 2, and Marvel vs. SF with the 4MB RAM cart. I would be made fun of by other kids who so disbelieved me when I claimed I had virtually arcade perfect Marvel vs. SF at home but eventually, one did come over, played it with me, and he couldn't believe it since I took enough teasing for having a Saturn before a PlayStation or N64. Obviously, so any other devs on this list were responsible for making that console so special, but as a fighting game player since forever, it was very rad of Capcom to be a profound part of the console. Thank you for giving me some warm nostalgia and keeping this fantastic channel churning out great content!
Top of my list would be Game Arts. All their games were polished, Grandia was exceptional, one of the best games on the system and made very good use of the hardware. Visually I feel Grandia 1 has stood the test of time better than Grandia II has, as there's a bit more life to its sprite-based characters. Gungriffon and Daina Airan were superb also.
I agree, there's a certain polish to their titles, they were in line with the hardware. If the Saturn was supported up to the early 00's like the PS1 and N64, we'd see many impressive games coming out from other developers as well.
Special mention for Team Andromeda when you consider that, when they started developing Panzer Dragoon, the Saturn's hardware hadn't even been finalised, so they had to guess the system's power, to which end they also had to create their own libraries and tools.
Fantastic choices! I'd include these 10 as honorable mention: Overworks, Game Arts, Hudson Soft, Technosoft, Compile, SunSoft, Camelot Software, Career Soft, West One, and Micro Cabin.
Great video, thanks SLX! I love going through old console libraries and thinking of them this way -- in terms of games made by specific developers and publishers, and games that came out from those companies in chronological order. Transports me back to those times very strongly -- and now as an older guy, I feel like I get to know a lot about those developers from their games and their companies' evolution within the gaming world of the 90s.
The Saturn has a special place in my heart. Had so much fun with that console. I had a lot of games, two stunner guns and really took care of her. I sold her off about 2006 or so to a really good dude who always wanted one. I could have made more if I sold the bundle separately but I wanted the whole kit to go to a good home. Thanks for the awesome content!
Amazing Video. I’d have put Capcom and Treasure joint top personally but can respect the others. I wasn’t Sega at all back in the day. Gamesack and you convinced me to get a Saturn 7 years ago and my sega journey began. Discovering all that Sega and partners did has been a real treat. Probably why my choices aren’t core sega.
I guess I only got a top three but it would be Sonic Team for NiGHTS and Burning Rangers, Team Andromeda for the Panzer Dragoon series, and AM2 for Virtua Fighter 2 and Virtua Cop 1 and 2
Yeah pretty much agree with this. AM2 was phenomenal on the Saturn. You knew something good was going to happen when that AM2 screen and music showed up before a game start! Exciting times!!
It's amazing how much they actually developed and published on Saturn as well. Their games were well beyond me back then as I preferred the action oriented stuff, but later on I did appreciate their games a lot more. Romance IV was quite epic.
I loved Virtual On. My memory told me the game was created by AM3. Looking into it however I notice that it was CRI that made the Saturn port. AM2 are amazing at the time. It makes me so sad that Sega are barely on the radar for games development nowadays. Sega Lord X's videos truly take me back to better years.
Thanks to this comment (with which I agree!), I just discovered your really interesting YT channel, SEGASATURN. Wow! I'm thinking about building up a YT channel of my own that will include similar Saturn gameplay content as one aspect, but hopefully with a capture-card. I won't just cover Saturn, or just cover retro games, and in fact I hope to have all kinds of content, with help from some friends. But having gameplay catalogs/playslists like you're providing is an amazing thing. I see you've done some Playstation too, and a few other games. So cool, thanks so much! I hope others who are interested will find your channel.
The funny thing is Capcom was one of those companies that always seemed to put out games with fantastic controls. Is a game that played poorly, my first thought was, should have had Capcom work on it instead.
And Capcom isn't the only company i love, but also Midway. Midway also developed for the Saturn than just PS1, but Williams was the one who were port their game to the PS1 as its launch lineup like Mortal Kombat 3.
I remember playing Silhouette Mirage in japanese back then. it took me a lot of time to figure it out, but what a fun and rewarding experience, I miss this game so much that I want a remaster so badly, lol.
I was already a complete mark for Treasure from the Genesis, but Guardian Heroes and Radiant Silvergun cemented them as one of my favorite devs of all time.
I was fortunate to get some real hands-on time with almost every console generation growing up. I had first-hand access to Jaguar, 32x, Virtual Boy, and a lot of other more obscure consoles of the time... but I absolutely NEVER got a chance to play Saturn outside of store kiosks.
I get dozens of offers every week to promote products I just don't think my viewers care about. I admit the revenue would be nice but I just don't want to pimp products I don't use myself.
What !? You're telling me you don't want the video to start straight into an ad for scam 3D glasses, cheap knives or overpriced waterproof shoes !? You must not have an exquisite taste for garbage.
Great video as usual. As for your question, I think this list sorely misses Hudson. They developed or published Saturn Bomberman, Saturn Bomberman Fight, Bomberman Wars, Shadows of the Tusk, The Legend of Heroes: Prophecy of the Moonlight Witch, Far East of Eden: The Apocalypse IV, Bulk Slash and many others. Very notable contributions to the Saturn library.
Excellent list! It just goes to show what a team of talented developers can do when push comes to shove. It is a shame Sega had so much internal turmoil in the '90s that just kind of slowly suffocated them. I am curious if some of these '90s developers continued in the game industry and what companies they are at now. Sega had some of my favorite games from the '90s and I can always boot up many classic Genesis, Saturn, Sega CD and Dreamcast games and have a fun time! Though, it always felt odd that Sega seemed to forget about some of their franchises unlike Nintendo (well, except Sonic). I wish we could get a modern remaster of Burning Rangers! Also, much respect for mentioning the underrated Silhouette Mirage. Treasure's 2D action platformers were always quirky and fun (Dynamite Headdy, Mischief Makers etc.) Although, the localization of Silhouette Mirage on the PS1 was completely butchered by Working Designs.
Burning Rangers is of of my favorite Saturn games. I got it for Christmas in '98 and I still own it. The game as fully voiced and for the hardware, had very clean voices and music.
Great point on how the shift to 3D created new genres. After watching your videos, I now wonder if the Saturn would have been more successful if its game developers had focused more on the system's superior 2D capabilities. It's ironic, considering how lucrative the modern 2D indy games have proven to be!
Good work! Appreciate of your video! I thought Treasure be on #1, but think that what AM2 did in Virtua Fighter 2 is marvelouse for history and for games at all! I think Xing should be in this list too! 😉👍❤❤❤❤❤
Just a heads up, Soul Hackers has a 3DS port with full English translation, English voice acting, and extra content. But you're still correct, it should get a fan translation on original hardware. Still holding out for the original Devil Summoner, a game we still don't have in English.
What a great idea for a video, should definitely show some love for those that didn't complain and just got to work making the SS sing. Man that's a great analogy "The Chasm" to describe the pitfall of SS game development.😉 *Not that I know what volume level to use but I've had to turn mine up a lot compared to the average video SLX jsyk.
I don't know if it wasTecmo o made the convertion of Dead or Alive, but who did it deserves respect. Acclaim also got it right once with Alien trilogy, but in terms of fps lobotomy takes the cake: those guys really had some balls.
Konami not being able to deliver transparency effects in a 2D game like Castlevania seems quite ridiculous. I think focusing on developers that delivered better versions then on ps1 would be nice, like Tecmo/Team Ninja with its Dead or Alive port or Need for Speed and Soviet Strike by someone in EA or close related to them!
Actually, most of Konami's games had great transparencies. It was only when a PS game got a rushed conversion did it become an issue. See Salamander 2 for full screen, multi-layered transparencies that looked great.
I would put Capcom at number 2 ahead of treasure and behind am2. I also feel like Game arts and Koei deserves some recognition as well with a shoutout to team adromeda for the panzer games
I feel Capcom should have been number 2, those 3 Treasure games were great but I don't feel they are enough to go on top of all those games Capcom made for the Saturn.
Besides Capcom,Lobotomy Software and Sega's own AM2,Sonic Team and Andromeda Team I would choose : 1-GameArts.Grandia and the two Lunar remakes were awesome,Sega of America was dumb to not release them in the west (corrected by fantranslators) 2-Red Entertainment.Not only created one of ot the most beloved Sega franchises for the Japanese public (Sakura Taisen) but they also realeased the awesome Tengai Makyou The 4th Apocalypse. 3-SNK .Their ports for the Saturn (besides Fatal Fury 3) were very good. 4-Atlus.Devil Summoner started as a spin off and become a franchise by itself.Princess Crown is a hiddem gem.
Always a fan of your videos, but this particular one should be used by everyone who wants a solid argument against anyone who, out of ignorance, says the Saturn sucked. Wonderful video.
Capcom and Konami were the 1st 3rd party games I noticed who developed some of the best during the 8 and 16 but eras. I definitely went out my way to rent those games.
Were the Groove on Fight games developed "internally" at Atlus, they weren't just the publisher? Didn't know that. Anyway, I'm just here to show love and appreciation for the love and appreciation for Guardian Heroes. I played it on the one person I knew who owned a Saturn back in the day, my older brothers friend. Most mindblowing game I had played at the time, absolutely absorbing.
Nice Cyber Speedway clip at the beginning. I'd like to see a list of the Top worst developers on the Saturn... it would be a mile long. I was there, I lived it, wore the t-shirt. Owning one of these consoles during North American launch all the way up to it's death by a thousand cuts was a painful experience.
8:35 when I was a kid I remember when the camera pans behind the runners I was mesmerized by the girls thong. Looking back this must have been the catalyst that made me a butt man. Thanks Sega!
Nice list, I think SNK has to be in this list, because all arcade ports was perfect and some was over arcade like some kof releases, and a lot of games, kof94 to kof 97, fatal fury 3,real bout and real bout special, metal slug games, samurai shodwn, and more more games
Technosoft are one of my favorites -- would probably be in my own top 10 Saturn developers. There are actually more Technosoft games on Saturn than there are on Mega Drive! - Kyuutenkai, five Thunder Force games (including 3 ports from MD), Hyper Duel & Blast Wind are all easily in my top 100 Saturn games. Several are top 20-30. - Nekketsu Oyako, Hyper Reverthion & Steeldom are all fair to mediocre, but at least interesting and fun to play for awhile. - Since I can't read Japanese, Kumitate Battle Kuttu Ketto is unplayable for me. Looks cute and experimental, in a good way. But I think Technosoft was about to go bankrupt then so probably couldn't polish the game like they wanted...
@@sonicmania9993 Good man, spittin facts lol. If I had only stayed the Sega path and not went to PS1, oh how different my games outlook woulda been. (money being the main factor here, not exactly the richest childhood) A recent encounter with a Saturn emulator has helped in that regard, all the old discs that did survive the test of time (an ebay Saturn, so not my own from a smaller lad.) I made my own images .. nice to boot them up from time to time without having to get the console out of the wardrobe. How good is it to be able to play games and not have to turn on Steam or w/e huh?
Sega Saturn thought large angle pixels were cool, and Playstation liked more color and natural environments. I liked what I saw in the magazines, including the Grey Saturn with the blue buttons, but we didn't get much. I think Knights is a great franchise, it just was before it's time, better controls, Sega needs to be know for controllers because that's really the only hardware you make, and you want to be known for controls for Arcade games. Fairer game, it's for a Bitcoin, and you need to win in court. I'd work with Lobodomy to launch the Sega titles on META. Sega Rally was one of the most beautiful games ever, and Nascar Arcade game is why I bought a Saturn. Capcom probably does better alongside as a Sega CGI studio of its own. I like the 3D in 2D. It's going to be moving into streaming, so to have a diversity of game types, you need multiple substudios. A small studio may have difficulty selling streaming, but big corporations buying studios, allows those studios to focus on a particular type of game and they can focus on quality because no one will want to play the same title. Kids really get one title of Sonic every 10 years, the Sonic team would make Knights, a puzzle game I want to make, and games for younger kids, but you can over use any character.
I know these things are subjective, but I really don’t understand why Treasure is so high up and ahead of Capcom… Regardless, I really appreciate the work that goes into these videos. I was born in 1982. For me, the Saturn will forever be the console that might have been. I had NES and Game Boy, and a TurboExpress (I didn’t have an actual TG console until I was old enough to drive myself to Funcoland. It’s hard to believe there was a time when Turbo Grafx-16 was less than 10 years old, yet considered a retro system), but in the 90s I was a Sega kid. I had a model 1 Genesis, a Model 1 Sega CD, a 32x, a Game Gear… Heck, I even had Sega Channel for about a month, before I returned it to Electronics Boutique. My brother had an SNES and Game Boy, also. Christmas 92 was Sega CD. 93 was 3DO (which I returned a few months later, because there were no games I liked and no stores near me rented 3DO games. I wish I’d kept it, in retrospect). Christmas 95 was PlayStation. And finally, 96 was N64. My brother went to college in 1997, and having a big Christmas thing became less important. Since then, I’ve been buying my own consoles. Anyway, my point is, with the exception of Neo Geo AES and Jaguar, most consoles found their way into my house. I still don’t know why I didn’t get a Saturn. Maybe because I felt burned by the 32x?? Maybe because it didn’t release near Christmas and by Christmas 95, the hype was all about Sony’s new console? It’s hard to say. I still remember that crazy , very 90s, very Sega, promotional VHS Sega sent out for the Saturn. (For anyone that isn’t familiar, it’s easy to find on TH-cam). I watched that thing at least 10 times. Yet, I never begged my Mom for a Saturn. I even skipped the Dreamcast at first. I ended up buying a Dreamcast after it had been marked down to under $100. I remember I was at the mall, on my break, and I stopped in to EB games. Somehow, I always ended up spending more money at my job than I made. I think I was making $6.25/hr folding sweaters at Filene’s (now Macy’s). Anyway, I ended up buying a stack of deeply discounted games, too. I can’t remember which games I got in that first batch, except Sonic Adventure 1 and 2 and Spawn. But I got like 10 games for about a $150. That was a fun night. I got a Dreamcast, an extra controller, 2 of those little memory doodads, and 10-12 games for under $300. Sure, I made less than $50 for my shift, but who can keep track?
Treasure made original Saturn games and not just ports or multiplatform titles for the Saturn. That put them up a notch for me. but as I said in the notes, you could switch them around and I wouldn't argue.
I think warp could have been on this list easily just for there commitment to Sega, when literally every other developer announced they were shifting development towards the PlayStation Kenji Eno comes out and announces all warp games to be Sega exclusives from then on. Which would remain true with there final game, D2 being a Dreamcast exclusive itself
The Saturn wasn’t quite the CULMINATION APEX™️ between SEGA & CAPCOM to quite the same extent the Dreamcast was …. But it sure was a tour de force of the mid-90’s arcade catalog of CAPCOM. And a very healthy dose of other styles of games as well. If only we could have gotten THE PUNISHER, ALIEN VS PREDATOR, MEGA MAN: POWER BATTLE, MEGA MAN: POWER FIGHTERS, and sidestepped Bernie Stolar for NTSC-U/C versions of ALL the CPS-2 fighting games that the PlayStation just couldn’t come close to doing justice to.
I don't know if I'm dumb or what, but I could never understand Nights into Dreams, I tried it several times over the years (not on Saturn, on PS2 and PC), and I find it confusing. Next time I should probably look for a guide.
Well, it definitely feels better to play on Saturn (with analog '3D controller'), but you do get most of the experience with those newer ports. A guide might definitely help -- especially if you like the aesthetics and the game appeals to you, but you just can't figure out how to make the most of it. There are several ways to play, including: 1. Fly around and have fun, enjoy the music and the scenery, just get minimum passing grades to progress. 2. Score chase (which some players do super-seriously) -- it is a really great game for this, and gameplay guides/playthrough videos would be essential to help you see what to do. Perfect runs through a stage feel absolutely amazing. 3. Get into the whole A-life mood-tracking of the Nightopians. When their mood changes, the music changes to a 'remix' of the original track as you fly through the stage. Again, a guide would really help with this.
CS2 also developed the Advanced World War series, the last part on the Saturn, Last of the Millenium is a title few people actually get into, it's a showpiece and a very impressive title, technically, the 3D scenes have a certain polish to them, dynamic lighting, water effects, night/day cycles. Like the Worldwide Soccer series, when these games continued on the Dreamcast, they lost their touch, they don't look nearly as interesting, like the team changed members or just lost their inspiration with the new generation. Maybe Sunsoft could be an example of that when the NES era ended, they basically didn't release a well polished game on the 16-bit generation. I know art style is subjective, but in terms of 2D action/platform games, I find Rayman and Lomax beautiful games, Lomax on the PS1 surpasses Rayman at times, the backgrounds, the animation, Astal's character design is a bit odd and the gameplay is laggy, the visual effects feel more experimental and less consistent with its scaling/rotation effects, funny to think that a Japanese developed game don't play nearly as good as the western games I mentioned, things started to change in the 32-bit era. Also, at that time, Pandemonium! was the perfect game to show how a platform should play onwards, it's fast and fun.
There's this arcade collector on YT which downplayed the SCD, PS and Saturn ports of Nightstriker, we know the Sega CD is really blocky and I consider the PS port decent, albeit it suffers from slowdown, the Saturn is the smoothest and fastest of them. You mentioned Nightstriker S is an enhanced version, better than the arcade original, I'm wondering if that collector was being an elitist, do you have any comparison or specifics about the Saturn release? Speaking of which, in a Playstation one special series from Digital Foundry, they compare many of the early arcade Konami ports on both the PS and Saturn, I didn't know some of the Saturn releases were improved, in the sense they actually used the full horizontal resolution, so in games such as Gradius and Parodius, you can actually see more horizontally even than the arcade originals. This also comes to show many arcade ports, specially from Capcom didn't take advantage over this, also Castlevania, so they have shimmering or jaggy edges, etc. It's great that early on those developers actually chose the harder path, instead of just copy-pasting assets without a care.
All great Developers mentioned. Treasure and Lobotomy would be the most outstanding for me, closely followed by CS2 and Capcom. But this is totally subjective B)
To this day, the Saturn is THE 2D fighting machine, and Capcom being the masters of the genre straight up SHINE on the platform In terms of 2D fighters, the Saturn is just an enormous step forward from what was available on 16 bit consoles. Nostalgia is fun, but Street Fighter 2 on the SNES/Genesis leave a lot to be desired compared to what the Saturn was putting out But as impressive as that leap forward was, what I find truly impressive is that the Saturn manages to outshine consoles that came out AFTER it in terms of being a fighting game machine. The Dreamcast had fighters that were just as high quality as what was on the Saturn, but the library of 2D fighters isn’t as deep. And the 2D fighters on the PS1 were downright laughable at times in terms of how poorly optimized they were
I still feel Saturn is THE retro fighting game machine. You have PS2 and Xbox 2D fighters that are arcade emulations and have the animation, but still don't look as nice or have any of the extra modes the Saturn often had.
The Saturn version of Street Fighter Alpha 2 is still my Street Fighter game to this day as well as one of my favorite fighting games of all time. I also have to mention that the Saturn controller was well suited for all fighting games imho.
@@mrlaidback83 solid agee! SFA2 is also my personal favourite. No one can downplay the pad (Saturn S) - capcom couldn't have made a more fitting tool themselves. Saturn was a 2D powerhouse and all those CPSII games were magic on saturrn. It was a perfect coupling.
Reminds Me Of The Days When I Used To Envy My Friend For Having Tekken 1 And 2 On His Playstation. Being The Saturn Owner, I Once Had This Crazy Dream About Tekken 1 Being Available On The Saturn. The Funny Thing Was It Had Ring-Outs. It’S Like I Was Seeing Virtua Fighter With Tekken Skins (A Concept That Would Actually Come True Many Years Later).
VF2 for Saturn has to be my most vivid memory of a "I can't believe I'm playing this at home, this is the most extreme gaming experience I've ever had" moment.
If anyone ever does a Top 10 Developers for the N64, Acclaim would be on it. Probably not Capcom though, while Konami might just make the cut. One for Glenn Plant to consider.
Capcom's presence on Saturn was a tremendous part of my childhood when it came to games like Megaman X4, SF Alpha 2, and Marvel vs. SF with the 4MB RAM cart. I would be made fun of by other kids who so disbelieved me when I claimed I had virtually arcade perfect Marvel vs. SF at home but eventually, one did come over, played it with me, and he couldn't believe it since I took enough teasing for having a Saturn before a PlayStation or N64. Obviously, so any other devs on this list were responsible for making that console so special, but as a fighting game player since forever, it was very rad of Capcom to be a profound part of the console. Thank you for giving me some warm nostalgia and keeping this fantastic channel churning out great content!
Your videos always come when we most need it in tough times. It's great travel to Saturn every once in a while
Hope you feel better, man.
Thank you, things will get better. Your content always helps to cheer up and remember my hobbies such as playing on the Saturn
Top of my list would be Game Arts. All their games were polished, Grandia was exceptional, one of the best games on the system and made very good use of the hardware. Visually I feel Grandia 1 has stood the test of time better than Grandia II has, as there's a bit more life to its sprite-based characters. Gungriffon and Daina Airan were superb also.
I agree, there's a certain polish to their titles, they were in line with the hardware. If the Saturn was supported up to the early 00's like the PS1 and N64, we'd see many impressive games coming out from other developers as well.
Great video!
My top 3 developers:
1) Capcom - no brainer for me
2) SNK - Fatal Fury, KoF
3) Konami - just Deluxe pack series is awesome.
So I cycle through A LOT of TH-cam content, and every single retro gamer should be subscribed here. Your content is top tier.
I knew capcom had to be in there. The arcade ports they did are spot on dude
For making these videos, I love you man
Appreciate that. Thank you.
Special mention for Team Andromeda when you consider that, when they started developing Panzer Dragoon, the Saturn's hardware hadn't even been finalised, so they had to guess the system's power, to which end they also had to create their own libraries and tools.
Overworks!!! Fuckin shinobi ps2, gun valkriye, and skies of Arcadia!
Fantastic choices! I'd include these 10 as honorable mention: Overworks, Game Arts, Hudson Soft, Technosoft, Compile, SunSoft, Camelot Software, Career Soft, West One, and Micro Cabin.
Excellent choices.
Great video, thanks SLX!
I love going through old console libraries and thinking of them this way -- in terms of games made by specific developers and publishers, and games that came out from those companies in chronological order. Transports me back to those times very strongly -- and now as an older guy, I feel like I get to know a lot about those developers from their games and their companies' evolution within the gaming world of the 90s.
Thanks!
The Saturn has a special place in my heart. Had so much fun with that console. I had a lot of games, two stunner guns and really took care of her. I sold her off about 2006 or so to a really good dude who always wanted one. I could have made more if I sold the bundle separately but I wanted the whole kit to go to a good home. Thanks for the awesome content!
When you’re a kid and you start spending your own money you start researching stuff at a PHD level.
It certainly makes a huge difference spending your own money.
At this point in my life, the research is more enjoyable than the product half the time.
@@modestmac8379 i relate to this so much. I feel like I research videogames more then I actually play them anymore.
@@readifersame here
@@modestmac8379 damn, that's so true!
Amazing Video. I’d have put Capcom and Treasure joint top personally but can respect the others. I wasn’t Sega at all back in the day. Gamesack and you convinced me to get a Saturn 7 years ago and my sega journey began. Discovering all that Sega and partners did has been a real treat. Probably why my choices aren’t core sega.
After Sakura Wars 2 and Lunar 2: Eternal Blue, the Saturn Atlus games are what I want for my translation line-ups.
I guess I only got a top three but it would be Sonic Team for NiGHTS and Burning Rangers, Team Andromeda for the Panzer Dragoon series, and AM2 for Virtua Fighter 2 and Virtua Cop 1 and 2
Dude, every video you make takes me back. Love each one!
Thank you for the kind comment. Really appreciate it.
I loved my Saturn back then and still love it to this day!
Yeah pretty much agree with this. AM2 was phenomenal on the Saturn. You knew something good was going to happen when that AM2 screen and music showed up before a game start! Exciting times!!
I love paying my model 1 (day 1 May 12th 1995) Sega Saturn on my Sony Trinitron CRT today. The system never gets old.
Really enjoyed this video. I would also put Koei up for consideration. Their sims, while definitely heavy, were pretty stellar.
It's amazing how much they actually developed and published on Saturn as well. Their games were well beyond me back then as I preferred the action oriented stuff, but later on I did appreciate their games a lot more. Romance IV was quite epic.
I loved Virtual On. My memory told me the game was created by AM3. Looking into it however I notice that it was CRI that made the Saturn port. AM2 are amazing at the time. It makes me so sad that Sega are barely on the radar for games development nowadays. Sega Lord X's videos truly take me back to better years.
Fantastic now I have something great to watch thankyou
You are welcome. Thanks for watching.
Amazing video !
I love games from VING, GAME ARTS, and TECNOSOFT !
Thanks to this comment (with which I agree!), I just discovered your really interesting YT channel, SEGASATURN. Wow! I'm thinking about building up a YT channel of my own that will include similar Saturn gameplay content as one aspect, but hopefully with a capture-card. I won't just cover Saturn, or just cover retro games, and in fact I hope to have all kinds of content, with help from some friends. But having gameplay catalogs/playslists like you're providing is an amazing thing. I see you've done some Playstation too, and a few other games. So cool, thanks so much! I hope others who are interested will find your channel.
Great review! I really enjoyed this episode! Nice job SegaLX!
AM2's little palm tree logo is a seal of quality on itself.
Capcom because of the Ram expansion. And it still my favorite developer for Saturn, even PS1. 😌
They were awesome on Saturn for sure.
@@SegaLordX Yeah, totally.
The funny thing is Capcom was one of those companies that always seemed to put out games with fantastic controls. Is a game that played poorly, my first thought was, should have had Capcom work on it instead.
And Capcom isn't the only company i love, but also Midway. Midway also developed for the Saturn than just PS1, but Williams was the one who were port their game to the PS1 as its launch lineup like Mortal Kombat 3.
I remember playing Silhouette Mirage in japanese back then. it took me a lot of time to figure it out, but what a fun and rewarding experience, I miss this game so much that I want a remaster so badly, lol.
I would swap Lobotomy for Technosoft, personally. But a great list overall. You could also make a pretty good argument for GameArts...
I considered Technosoft, but I feel many of their offerings were a tad underwhelming compared to their 16-bit work.
I was already a complete mark for Treasure from the Genesis, but Guardian Heroes and Radiant Silvergun cemented them as one of my favorite devs of all time.
I was fortunate to get some real hands-on time with almost every console generation growing up. I had first-hand access to Jaguar, 32x, Virtual Boy, and a lot of other more obscure consoles of the time... but I absolutely NEVER got a chance to play Saturn outside of store kiosks.
I respect how you never sell out to advertisers.
I get dozens of offers every week to promote products I just don't think my viewers care about. I admit the revenue would be nice but I just don't want to pimp products I don't use myself.
@@SegaLordX as long as you promote a real product and not mobile shovelware I wouldn't mind 🤷👍
If I ever get an offer for something I can honestly support, I'll cover it.
@@SegaLordX Yeah of course bro. Some people just go overboard with it and it gets annoying.
What !? You're telling me you don't want the video to start straight into an ad for scam 3D glasses, cheap knives or overpriced waterproof shoes !? You must not have an exquisite taste for garbage.
Great vidéo. I didnt knew that some amazing capcom games on the Saturn were handled by outside developeurs.
Great video as usual. As for your question, I think this list sorely misses Hudson. They developed or published Saturn Bomberman, Saturn Bomberman Fight, Bomberman Wars, Shadows of the Tusk, The Legend of Heroes: Prophecy of the Moonlight Witch, Far East of Eden: The Apocalypse IV, Bulk Slash and many others. Very notable contributions to the Saturn library.
Excellent list! It just goes to show what a team of talented developers can do when push comes to shove. It is a shame Sega had so much internal turmoil in the '90s that just kind of slowly suffocated them. I am curious if some of these '90s developers continued in the game industry and what companies they are at now.
Sega had some of my favorite games from the '90s and I can always boot up many classic Genesis, Saturn, Sega CD and Dreamcast games and have a fun time! Though, it always felt odd that Sega seemed to forget about some of their franchises unlike Nintendo (well, except Sonic). I wish we could get a modern remaster of Burning Rangers!
Also, much respect for mentioning the underrated Silhouette Mirage. Treasure's 2D action platformers were always quirky and fun (Dynamite Headdy, Mischief Makers etc.) Although, the localization of Silhouette Mirage on the PS1 was completely butchered by Working Designs.
The anime games on the Saturn are undeniably amazing!
Love your presentation style
Great List. I still love my Saturn and play it and collect to this day.
Burning Rangers is of of my favorite Saturn games. I got it for Christmas in '98 and I still own it. The game as fully voiced and for the hardware, had very clean voices and music.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard you mention a Tokimemo game before. You should do a video - heck, a whole video series - on the games :)
Great point on how the shift to 3D created new genres. After watching your videos, I now wonder if the Saturn would have been more successful if its game developers had focused more on the system's superior 2D capabilities. It's ironic, considering how lucrative the modern 2D indy games have proven to be!
5th gen gaming made 2D graphics peak. It is shameful 2D games was a afterthought back then. Im glad 2D made a comeback all thanks to indie developers.
Good work! Appreciate of your video! I thought Treasure be on #1, but think that what AM2 did in Virtua Fighter 2 is marvelouse for history and for games at all! I think Xing should be in this list too! 😉👍❤❤❤❤❤
Just a heads up, Soul Hackers has a 3DS port with full English translation, English voice acting, and extra content. But you're still correct, it should get a fan translation on original hardware. Still holding out for the original Devil Summoner, a game we still don't have in English.
Love lists like this
What a great idea for a video, should definitely show some love for those that didn't complain and just got to work making the SS sing. Man that's a great analogy "The Chasm" to describe the pitfall of SS game development.😉
*Not that I know what volume level to use but I've had to turn mine up a lot compared to the average video SLX jsyk.
I don't know if it wasTecmo o made the convertion of Dead or Alive, but who did it deserves respect. Acclaim also got it right once with Alien trilogy, but in terms of fps lobotomy takes the cake: those guys really had some balls.
Konami not being able to deliver transparency effects in a 2D game like Castlevania seems quite ridiculous. I think focusing on developers that delivered better versions then on ps1 would be nice, like Tecmo/Team Ninja with its Dead or Alive port or Need for Speed and Soviet Strike by someone in EA or close related to them!
Actually, most of Konami's games had great transparencies. It was only when a PS game got a rushed conversion did it become an issue. See Salamander 2 for full screen, multi-layered transparencies that looked great.
I would put Capcom at number 2 ahead of treasure and behind am2. I also feel like Game arts and Koei deserves some recognition as well with a shoutout to team adromeda for the panzer games
Honestly the only thing that would keep me from putting Capcom at the #1 spot would be it's lack of Saturn exclusives
@@joeyjo-joshabadu9636 good point
Great Stuff, as always!
I feel Capcom should have been number 2, those 3 Treasure games were great but I don't feel they are enough to go on top of all those games Capcom made for the Saturn.
Capcom...i so wanted to import a saturn for the arcade perfect fighting games lol
Another great video, as always!
Team Andromeda which are also known as Sega Sports R&D, were pretty good too.
Besides Capcom,Lobotomy Software and Sega's own AM2,Sonic Team and Andromeda Team I would choose :
1-GameArts.Grandia and the two Lunar remakes were awesome,Sega of America was dumb to not release them in the west (corrected by fantranslators)
2-Red Entertainment.Not only created one of ot the most beloved Sega franchises for the Japanese public (Sakura Taisen) but they also realeased the awesome Tengai Makyou The 4th Apocalypse.
3-SNK .Their ports for the Saturn (besides Fatal Fury 3) were very good.
4-Atlus.Devil Summoner started as a spin off and become a franchise by itself.Princess Crown is a hiddem gem.
I'd love to see you cover more lesser known games on Sega hardware that deserve attention, including reproduction titles!
Great video! Thank you!
That first song was stuck in my head the first time I played Panzer Dragoon
Labotomy software were my school day heros... along with AM2 & 3
Yup. They made owning Saturn something special.
Technical feats- Silicon Dreams- World League Soccer, Travellers Tales- Sonic R, Zyrinx- Scorcher.
Bandai who put out the excellent Mobile Suit Gundam Side Story: Blue Destiny trilogy.
Nice top ten list.👏
New stuff from our Lord! S E G A !!!
7:03 I played this demo over and over
Always a fan of your videos, but this particular one should be used by everyone who wants a solid argument against anyone who, out of ignorance, says the Saturn sucked. Wonderful video.
Capcom and Konami were the 1st 3rd party games I noticed who developed some of the best during the 8 and 16 but eras. I definitely went out my way to rent those games.
Yasss!! @segalordx way to start the long weekend!! TY!! 🙌
What happened to SNK ports?
SNK didn't develop most of the SNK ports to Saturn.
Another fab Saturn vid
Were the Groove on Fight games developed "internally" at Atlus, they weren't just the publisher? Didn't know that.
Anyway, I'm just here to show love and appreciation for the love and appreciation for Guardian Heroes. I played it on the one person I knew who owned a Saturn back in the day, my older brothers friend. Most mindblowing game I had played at the time, absolutely absorbing.
No such thing as a perfect developer? So true.
So very, very true.
MS2 Portuguese game case made my day as MS2 was my first console.
Nice Cyber Speedway clip at the beginning. I'd like to see a list of the Top worst developers on the Saturn... it would be a mile long. I was there, I lived it, wore the t-shirt. Owning one of these consoles during North American launch all the way up to it's death by a thousand cuts was a painful experience.
8:35 when I was a kid I remember when the camera pans behind the runners I was mesmerized by the girls thong. Looking back this must have been the catalyst that made me a butt man. Thanks Sega!
Dragon Force was indeed the best game on the system and Capcom was a monster on the system.
Nice list, I think SNK has to be in this list, because all arcade ports was perfect and some was over arcade like some kof releases, and a lot of games, kof94 to kof 97, fatal fury 3,real bout and real bout special, metal slug games, samurai shodwn, and more more games
Actually SNK did not develop most of those games, they just published them.
Given the bangers that Technosoft gave the Mega Drive, its a shame they didn't manage to produce more for the Saturn then they did huh.
Technosoft are one of my favorites -- would probably be in my own top 10 Saturn developers. There are actually more Technosoft games on Saturn than there are on Mega Drive!
- Kyuutenkai, five Thunder Force games (including 3 ports from MD), Hyper Duel & Blast Wind are all easily in my top 100 Saturn games. Several are top 20-30.
- Nekketsu Oyako, Hyper Reverthion & Steeldom are all fair to mediocre, but at least interesting and fun to play for awhile.
- Since I can't read Japanese, Kumitate Battle Kuttu Ketto is unplayable for me. Looks cute and experimental, in a good way. But I think Technosoft was about to go bankrupt then so probably couldn't polish the game like they wanted...
@@sonicmania9993 Good man, spittin facts lol. If I had only stayed the Sega path and not went to PS1, oh how different my games outlook woulda been. (money being the main factor here, not exactly the richest childhood)
A recent encounter with a Saturn emulator has helped in that regard, all the old discs that did survive the test of time (an ebay Saturn, so not my own from a smaller lad.) I made my own images .. nice to boot them up from time to time without having to get the console out of the wardrobe. How good is it to be able to play games and not have to turn on Steam or w/e huh?
Sega Saturn thought large angle pixels were cool, and Playstation liked more color and natural environments. I liked what I saw in the magazines, including the Grey Saturn with the blue buttons, but we didn't get much. I think Knights is a great franchise, it just was before it's time, better controls, Sega needs to be know for controllers because that's really the only hardware you make, and you want to be known for controls for Arcade games. Fairer game, it's for a Bitcoin, and you need to win in court. I'd work with Lobodomy to launch the Sega titles on META. Sega Rally was one of the most beautiful games ever, and Nascar Arcade game is why I bought a Saturn. Capcom probably does better alongside as a Sega CGI studio of its own. I like the 3D in 2D. It's going to be moving into streaming, so to have a diversity of game types, you need multiple substudios. A small studio may have difficulty selling streaming, but big corporations buying studios, allows those studios to focus on a particular type of game and they can focus on quality because no one will want to play the same title. Kids really get one title of Sonic every 10 years, the Sonic team would make Knights, a puzzle game I want to make, and games for younger kids, but you can over use any character.
I'm not sure if "heads and tails" above the competition was a mixed metaphor, or deliberate, but I enjoyed it either way,
Same video idea, but *DREAMCAST*
👍🥰👍
I know these things are subjective, but I really don’t understand why Treasure is so high up and ahead of Capcom…
Regardless, I really appreciate the work that goes into these videos.
I was born in 1982. For me, the Saturn will forever be the console that might have been.
I had NES and Game Boy, and a TurboExpress (I didn’t have an actual TG console until I was old enough to drive myself to Funcoland. It’s hard to believe there was a time when Turbo Grafx-16 was less than 10 years old, yet considered a retro system), but in the 90s I was a Sega kid. I had a model 1 Genesis, a Model 1 Sega CD, a 32x, a Game Gear…
Heck, I even had Sega Channel for about a month, before I returned it to Electronics Boutique. My brother had an SNES and Game Boy, also.
Christmas 92 was Sega CD.
93 was 3DO (which I returned a few months later, because there were no games I liked and no stores near me rented 3DO games. I wish I’d kept it, in retrospect).
Christmas 95 was PlayStation.
And finally, 96 was N64.
My brother went to college in 1997, and having a big Christmas thing became less important. Since then, I’ve been buying my own consoles.
Anyway, my point is, with the exception of Neo Geo AES and Jaguar, most consoles found their way into my house.
I still don’t know why I didn’t get a Saturn. Maybe because I felt burned by the 32x?? Maybe because it didn’t release near Christmas and by Christmas 95, the hype was all about Sony’s new console? It’s hard to say.
I still remember that crazy , very 90s, very Sega, promotional VHS Sega sent out for the Saturn.
(For anyone that isn’t familiar, it’s easy to find on TH-cam).
I watched that thing at least 10 times. Yet, I never begged my Mom for a Saturn. I even skipped the Dreamcast at first. I ended up buying a Dreamcast after it had been marked down to under $100. I remember I was at the mall, on my break, and I stopped in to EB games. Somehow, I always ended up spending more money at my job than I made. I think I was making $6.25/hr folding sweaters at Filene’s (now Macy’s). Anyway, I ended up buying a stack of deeply discounted games, too. I can’t remember which games I got in that first batch, except Sonic Adventure 1 and 2 and Spawn. But I got like 10 games for about a $150. That was a fun night. I got a Dreamcast, an extra controller, 2 of those little memory doodads, and 10-12 games for under $300. Sure, I made less than $50 for my shift, but who can keep track?
Treasure made original Saturn games and not just ports or multiplatform titles for the Saturn. That put them up a notch for me. but as I said in the notes, you could switch them around and I wouldn't argue.
I am surprise to see SNK not being on your list. Considering they were like Capcom with just less games.
I thought the same.
SNK did not develop most of the games it published on the Saturn.
I think warp could have been on this list easily just for there commitment to Sega, when literally every other developer announced they were shifting development towards the PlayStation Kenji Eno comes out and announces all warp games to be Sega exclusives from then on. Which would remain true with there final game, D2 being a Dreamcast exclusive itself
Can’t really argue with this list.
As in times of Master, GG and Mega, Sega was the best developer, however Capcom did a decent job that followed in Dreamcast.
The Saturn wasn’t quite the CULMINATION APEX™️ between SEGA & CAPCOM to quite the same extent the Dreamcast was …. But it sure was a tour de force of the mid-90’s arcade catalog of CAPCOM. And a very healthy dose of other styles of games as well.
If only we could have gotten THE PUNISHER, ALIEN VS PREDATOR, MEGA MAN: POWER BATTLE, MEGA MAN: POWER FIGHTERS, and sidestepped Bernie Stolar for NTSC-U/C versions of ALL the CPS-2 fighting games that the PlayStation just couldn’t come close to doing justice to.
Please make second part with those developers that couldn't get into the top 10
I don't know if I'm dumb or what, but I could never understand Nights into Dreams, I tried it several times over the years (not on Saturn, on PS2 and PC), and I find it confusing. Next time I should probably look for a guide.
Well, it definitely feels better to play on Saturn (with analog '3D controller'), but you do get most of the experience with those newer ports. A guide might definitely help -- especially if you like the aesthetics and the game appeals to you, but you just can't figure out how to make the most of it. There are several ways to play, including:
1. Fly around and have fun, enjoy the music and the scenery, just get minimum passing grades to progress.
2. Score chase (which some players do super-seriously) -- it is a really great game for this, and gameplay guides/playthrough videos would be essential to help you see what to do. Perfect runs through a stage feel absolutely amazing.
3. Get into the whole A-life mood-tracking of the Nightopians. When their mood changes, the music changes to a 'remix' of the original track as you fly through the stage. Again, a guide would really help with this.
CS2 also developed the Advanced World War series, the last part on the Saturn, Last of the Millenium is a title few people actually get into, it's a showpiece and a very impressive title, technically, the 3D scenes have a certain polish to them, dynamic lighting, water effects, night/day cycles. Like the Worldwide Soccer series, when these games continued on the Dreamcast, they lost their touch, they don't look nearly as interesting, like the team changed members or just lost their inspiration with the new generation. Maybe Sunsoft could be an example of that when the NES era ended, they basically didn't release a well polished game on the 16-bit generation.
I know art style is subjective, but in terms of 2D action/platform games, I find Rayman and Lomax beautiful games, Lomax on the PS1 surpasses Rayman at times, the backgrounds, the animation, Astal's character design is a bit odd and the gameplay is laggy, the visual effects feel more experimental and less consistent with its scaling/rotation effects, funny to think that a Japanese developed game don't play nearly as good as the western games I mentioned, things started to change in the 32-bit era. Also, at that time, Pandemonium! was the perfect game to show how a platform should play onwards, it's fast and fun.
There's this arcade collector on YT which downplayed the SCD, PS and Saturn ports of Nightstriker, we know the Sega CD is really blocky and I consider the PS port decent, albeit it suffers from slowdown, the Saturn is the smoothest and fastest of them. You mentioned Nightstriker S is an enhanced version, better than the arcade original, I'm wondering if that collector was being an elitist, do you have any comparison or specifics about the Saturn release?
Speaking of which, in a Playstation one special series from Digital Foundry, they compare many of the early arcade Konami ports on both the PS and Saturn, I didn't know some of the Saturn releases were improved, in the sense they actually used the full horizontal resolution, so in games such as Gradius and Parodius, you can actually see more horizontally even than the arcade originals. This also comes to show many arcade ports, specially from Capcom didn't take advantage over this, also Castlevania, so they have shimmering or jaggy edges, etc. It's great that early on those developers actually chose the harder path, instead of just copy-pasting assets without a care.
All great Developers mentioned. Treasure and Lobotomy would be the most outstanding for me, closely followed by CS2 and Capcom. But this is totally subjective B)
To this day, the Saturn is THE 2D fighting machine, and Capcom being the masters of the genre straight up SHINE on the platform
In terms of 2D fighters, the Saturn is just an enormous step forward from what was available on 16 bit consoles. Nostalgia is fun, but Street Fighter 2 on the SNES/Genesis leave a lot to be desired compared to what the Saturn was putting out
But as impressive as that leap forward was, what I find truly impressive is that the Saturn manages to outshine consoles that came out AFTER it in terms of being a fighting game machine. The Dreamcast had fighters that were just as high quality as what was on the Saturn, but the library of 2D fighters isn’t as deep. And the 2D fighters on the PS1 were downright laughable at times in terms of how poorly optimized they were
I still feel Saturn is THE retro fighting game machine. You have PS2 and Xbox 2D fighters that are arcade emulations and have the animation, but still don't look as nice or have any of the extra modes the Saturn often had.
The Saturn version of Street Fighter Alpha 2 is still my Street Fighter game to this day as well as one of my favorite fighting games of all time. I also have to mention that the Saturn controller was well suited for all fighting games imho.
@@mrlaidback83 solid agee! SFA2 is also my personal favourite. No one can downplay the pad (Saturn S) - capcom couldn't have made a more fitting tool themselves. Saturn was a 2D powerhouse and all those CPSII games were magic on saturrn. It was a perfect coupling.
what about game arts ?
Sega Lord X Continuing Sega’s Legacy
I've been an Atlas fan since the SNES days.
SNK and Hudson Soft?
Early upload! What's up with that? I'm so used to these vids dropping right before I go to bed
I actually put them up as I finish em. This one was just done earlier in the day.
Imagine if Namco also developed games for the Saturn
Reminds Me Of The Days When I Used To Envy My Friend For Having Tekken 1 And 2 On His Playstation.
Being The Saturn Owner, I Once Had This Crazy Dream About Tekken 1 Being Available On The Saturn. The Funny Thing Was It Had Ring-Outs. It’S Like I Was Seeing Virtua Fighter With Tekken Skins (A Concept That Would Actually Come True Many Years Later).
Best developer on Sega Saturn: Sega ☺ Thanks buddy! SEEEEEEEEEEGAAAAAAAAAAAA!
VF2 for Saturn has to be my most vivid memory of a "I can't believe I'm playing this at home, this is the most extreme gaming experience I've ever had" moment.
Also, Daytona gets shat on, but it was impressive to me :-)
If anyone ever does a Top 10 Developers for the N64, Acclaim would be on it. Probably not Capcom though, while Konami might just make the cut. One for Glenn Plant to consider.
Fairly early on in 2000 Capcom abandoned the Dreamcast,never understood that.