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Gamefaqs Link
Last Topic's Ratings:
Battle Monsters - ABA - 33% (3)
Blast Chamber - AAAA - 50% (4)
Deathmask - AB - 25% (2)
Hattrick Hero S - BAA - 33% (3)
House of the Dead, The - GAAAGG - 75% (6)
Puyo Puyo Sun - AGG - 83% (3)
I wanted to do some big comparison between the various ratings for Puyo Puyo Sun, considering it's the first game we've rated on all 3 platforms, but it turns out it only got 8 votes across all 3 systems combined. Of those, the Saturn version was the only one to get an A rating, but the sample size is too small to really draw much of a conclusion from that. Oh well. Blast Chamber did get the same score as on PS1 though.
Games for this topic:
Blast Wind
Casper
Golden Axe: The Duel
Olympic Soccer: Atlanta 1996
Sega Ages: Rouka ni Ichidant-R
Suikoden
Surprisingly, there doesn't seem to be a fan-translation for Suikoden on Saturn, but there's millions of guides for the PS1 version. I'm also curious to try out Golden Axe The Duel.
Blast Wind - A
ReplyDeleteCasper - A
Golden Axe: The Duel - B
Olympic Soccer: Atlanta 1996 - A
Sega Ages: Rouka ni Ichidant-R - A
Suikoden - A
Blast Wind is a super basic vertical shmup. There's not really a whole lot to say about this game, it's a game with only one ship and one weapon, so there's very little variety. The most notable thing about the game is that there are buttons you can push in some stages that lead to alternate routes, which is kind of interesting, but there's no real nuance to it. Something I noticed is that the game feels incredibly claustrophobic, your hitbox is massive and so are enemy bullets, and enemies often take up most of the screen, leaving very little room to react and dodge, however, your bomb is super strong so you can just spam a lot of those. There's not really much else to say about it, it's clearly significantly outclassed by many other shmups this gen.
Casper is pretty much the same game as on PS1, though I think this version seems to have marginally upgraded presentation. As before, it's a generally peaceful but somewhat overly cryptic adventure game that does a decent job of capturing the essence of the film, with the biggest problem being that it has too much load time when going between screens (sadly this is not improved on Saturn). Not too much else to say about this one that wasn't said already.
I figured Golden Axe: The Duel would either be amazing or atrocious, but it's not really either of those things, though it skews much more heavily towards the latter. It's basically just a really basic fighting game with bad frame data. Characters have gigantic hitboxes in this game, in particular virtually everyone's crouch fierce punch is a ludicrously godlike anti-air, and most people have other massive hitboxes that almost totally deter forwards approaches. Special moves are limited and generally bad, they very rarely combo and are typically very slow and unsafe, and there's also virtually no pressure after knockdowns as there are very few crossups and most moves push too far away on block to allow for any kind of additional pressure, particularly given the already very limited combo game. One of the game's most unique mechanics is that you can collect potions by smacking a goblin that runs around, and when you have 5 you can go into a mode that lets you do your super, but it lasts only a very short time (similar to max mode in KOF) and given the game's campy nature it's very hard to create any real offense with it. I also need to point out that this game's soundtrack is inordinately atrocious, probably one of the worst fighting game soundtracks ever. On a system with a ton of good fighting games (particularly the spectacular Dark Legend, which it released alongside) there's really just not much reason to bother with this one.
Olympic Soccer is a game that feels like it should be better than it is. The game actually has pretty good visuals, particularly for its time, and a pretty impressive 3D engine that captures verticality better than many other games. However, there's also a ton of jank that holds it back. For starters, there's the controls. The ball does not magnetize to your player in this game, so if you're running with the ball and then stop, you actually lose control of it and it will just keep moving ahead of you, which can be awkward when trying to change directions or fake out a defender. Passing is inconsistent, sometimes you'll press the direction and even though there's a player there you'll just kick it in to no man's land, and shooting is even worse. Your player will always shoot in the direction you're facing and it takes them ages to change direction, which makes onetimers nearly impossible and crosses very inconsistent. The game also has issues with changing players on defense, you'll be right on top of the player with the ball and they'll randomly decide you need to be someone else. All of it combines to make for a game that feels promising but just doesn't have the polish needed for G.
DeleteSega Ages: Rouka ni Ichidant-R is very similar to the collection that included Tant-R. Like that game, this is a collection of 2 games where one is a Japanese Quiz game that is basically unratable without being super fluent in Japanese, so we're mainly going to be looking at Ichidant-R, Tant-R's sequel. Compared to Tant-R, it plays very similarly, it's still a minigame collection that bares some resemblance to games like Point Blank or Bishi Bashi, just with fewer games. I do feel like the collection of games this time is somewhat better. The awful photography game is gone, and some of the new games, like the one where you have to track the thief by figuring out which route he could have taken, are actually pretty cool. Unfortunately, the biggest problem from the first game has not been addressed, which is that many of the games require you to complete their task too many times and they start to feel repetitive. Towards the beginning of the game, you generally have to do each task only 3 times, but as you progress through the game it increases to 5 which severely interferes with the game's pacing. It's still decent, but the third game in the series is such a big improvement that you probably want to get that one instead.
Olympic Soccer is a game that feels like it should be better than it is. The game actually has pretty good visuals, particularly for its time, and a pretty impressive 3D engine that captures verticality better than many other games. However, there's also a ton of jank that holds it back. For starters, there's the controls. The ball does not magnetize to your player in this game, so if you're running with the ball and then stop, you actually lose control of it and it will just keep moving ahead of you, which can be awkward when trying to change directions or fake out a defender. Passing is inconsistent, sometimes you'll press the direction and even though there's a player there you'll just kick it in to no man's land, and shooting is even worse. Your player will always shoot in the direction you're facing and it takes them ages to change direction, which makes onetimers nearly impossible and crosses very inconsistent. The game also has issues with changing players on defense, you'll be right on top of the player with the ball and they'll randomly decide you need to be someone else. All of it combines to make for a game that feels promising but just doesn't have the polish needed for G.
DeleteSega Ages: Rouka ni Ichidant-R is very similar to the collection that included Tant-R. Like that game, this is a collection of 2 games where one is a Japanese Quiz game that is basically unratable without being super fluent in Japanese, so we're mainly going to be looking at Ichidant-R, Tant-R's sequel. Compared to Tant-R, it plays very similarly, it's still a minigame collection that bares some resemblance to games like Point Blank or Bishi Bashi, just with fewer games. I do feel like the collection of games this time is somewhat better. The awful photography game is gone, and some of the new games, like the one where you have to track the thief by figuring out which route he could have taken, are actually pretty cool. Unfortunately, the biggest problem from the first game has not been addressed, which is that many of the games require you to complete their task too many times and they start to feel repetitive. Towards the beginning of the game, you generally have to do each task only 3 times, but as you progress through the game it increases to 5 which severely interferes with the game's pacing. It's still decent, but the third game in the series is such a big improvement that you probably want to get that one instead.
Olympic Soccer is a game that feels like it should be better than it is. The game actually has pretty good visuals, particularly for its time, and a pretty impressive 3D engine that captures verticality better than many other games. However, there's also a ton of jank that holds it back. For starters, there's the controls. The ball does not magnetize to your player in this game, so if you're running with the ball and then stop, you actually lose control of it and it will just keep moving ahead of you, which can be awkward when trying to change directions or fake out a defender. Passing is inconsistent, sometimes you'll press the direction and even though there's a player there you'll just kick it in to no man's land, and shooting is even worse. Your player will always shoot in the direction you're facing and it takes them ages to change direction, which makes onetimers nearly impossible and crosses very inconsistent. The game also has issues with changing players on defense, you'll be right on top of the player with the ball and they'll randomly decide you need to be someone else. All of it combines to make for a game that feels promising but just doesn't have the polish needed for G.
DeleteSega Ages: Rouka ni Ichidant-R is very similar to the collection that included Tant-R. Like that game, this is a collection of 2 games where one is a Japanese Quiz game that is basically unratable without being super fluent in Japanese, so we're mainly going to be looking at Ichidant-R, Tant-R's sequel. Compared to Tant-R, it plays very similarly, it's still a minigame collection that bares some resemblance to games like Point Blank or Bishi Bashi, just with fewer games. I do feel like the collection of games this time is somewhat better. The awful photography game is gone, and some of the new games, like the one where you have to track the thief by figuring out which route he could have taken, are actually pretty cool. Unfortunately, the biggest problem from the first game has not been addressed, which is that many of the games require you to complete their task too many times and they start to feel repetitive. Towards the beginning of the game, you generally have to do each task only 3 times, but as you progress through the game it increases to 5 which severely interferes with the game's pacing. It's still decent, but the third game in the series is such a big improvement that you probably want to get that one instead.
I feel like the fact that there's no translation for the Saturn version of Suikoden pretty much says it all. Not only does the game make the translation to Saturn totally intact, this is actually kind of a "director's cut" version of Suikoden that includes some bonus features, like a new battle arena and some expanded story content. The PS1 Suikoden games are extremely beloved, so you'd think this would be a no-brainer to port the PS1 translation over to this game like was done with Grandia, yet there's been pretty much no interest in it. Of course, the reason for this is obvious: Saturn does not have Suikoden 2. The Suikoden games are kind of a set, probably the most notable thing about them is the data transfer between the two games. Imagine if Saturn had a special version of Suikoden 2 that fixed some of the glitches, like the issue with transferring the Suikoden 1 hero's name over, and maybe gave us some expanded story content towards the endgame. Alas, it never materialized. Suikoden is still an alright game, it might be one of Saturn's better traditional RPGs, but without the sequel there's really not much reason to recommend playing this version over the one on PS1.
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