Sega Saturn import thread

[Great Rumbler]

I've been collecting OG Xbox games for a few months now and I'm getting my collection pretty well filled out other than a few notable omissions [Panzer Dragoon Orta and Shenmue 2 being at the top of that list], so I decided to start looking into the next system I want to start collecting for. Ended up hitting on the Saturn, since I've only ever played a few of the bigger domestic releases [Dragon Force, Dark Savior, Magic Night Rayearth, and some of the Sega games]. Domestic releases for a lot of Saturn games have gotten insanely expensive, though, games that used to be about $50 or now going for $150, so I'm going the import route, especially since there are a ton of really great Saturn games that just didn't get released outside of Japan.

Here's what I've got so far [other than a couple of domestic titles]:



And I've got quite a few more on order from eBay. Haven't really been hitting many of the big ticket titles so far, just some of the interesting/weird stuff that I can grab on the cheap.

I do actually intend to play most of these games, even though there are a lot of RPGs and I understand very, very little spoken Japanese and no written Japanese at all. I'll try to work my way through, see what I can manage. I'll post my thoughts and experiences as I play them. Also, any helpful advice about how to play these games [and what other games I should get] would be a mighty fine thing for you to do.

[bork]

Here's my collection...I haven't touched it in a while.  I'd recommend the the Cotton games (2D shoot-em-ups); I have Cotton Boomerang.  A lot of the games I have I don't care much for now because it's so easy to just load up and play the superior arcade versions.



Holy shit at the dust on the bottom!


Here's a list of the games in the front rows:

Keio Flying Squadron 2 (Euro)
Sakura Wars
Sakura Wars 2
Vampire Savior
Sega Rally Championship (U.S.)
Magical Drop III
Nights
Shin Shinobi Den (Which IIRC has a U.S. disc inside, lol)
Load Runner Extra
Fighters Megamix
Street Fighter Real Battle On Film
Dragon Ball Z Legends
Street Fighter Collection
Dead Or Alive
Dracula X Nocturne In The Moonlight
Saturn Bomberman
Bubble Symphony
Cotton Boomerang
Biohazard
Pocket Fighter
Virtua Fighter 2
Winter Heat
X-Men COTA
Street Fighter Zero
Waku Waku 7
Marvel Super Heroes
Cyberbots


Virtua Fighter Kids
Gunbird
Astra Superstars
Vampire Hunter
Elevator Action Returns
KOF '97
KOF '96
Virtua Fighter Remix
Zero Divide The Final Conflict
Street Fighter Zero 3 (4MB RAM Cart Pack)
Fighter's History Dynamite (1MB RAM Cart Pack)
KOF '95 (With ROM Cart)
Marvel Super Heroes Vs. Street Fighter (4MB RAM Cart Pack)
Groove On Fight (1MB RAM Cart Pack)
X-Men Vs. Street Fighter (4MB RAM Cart Pack)
Action Replay

There's also a Cyberbots LE in the back.

[tiesto]

Wow, a nice library there! I bought Sword and Sorcery for like $10. That game came to the US on the 3DO of all systems as Lucienne's Quest, and I payed 42x the price of the Saturn version Groove On Fight is a cool game in the Power Instinct series, though it pales a bit compared to Matrimelee (one of the later Power Instinct games), and I've heard good things about Black Matrix. I've never heard of Audvanis, Gulliver Boy, Thunderhawk 2, or Cyber Doll...

Saturn imports are definitely one of my favorite things to talk about, and there's a goldmine of obscurities - aside from the obvious (Radiant Silvergun, X-Men vs Street Fighter, Shining Force 3 part 2 and 3) I'd definitely recommend the following games:

Tengai Makyou: The Apocalypse IV (turn based RPG that takes place in a demented parody of late 19th century America)
Sakura Taisen 1 and 2 (a strategy RPG, dating sim hybrid involving a theatre troupe, these games I'd imagine would be right up your alley)
Linkle Liver Story (action RPG from the makers of Crusader of Centy with a slight furry theme)
Soukyugurentai (a decent shmup published by EA Japan of all people)
Steamgear Mash (isometric mech based game with slightly Metroidvania-ish design)
Twinbee Deluxe (contains Detana Twinbee and one of the later arcade Twinbees, it's an awesome cute em up that rarely gets its due in the US)
Bulk Slash (3d action game that has some really attractive graphics for the system)
Tryrush Deppy (platformer starring an anthropomorphic cab, very charming and colorful 2D visuals)
Farland Saga (strategy RPG with some hideously 90's cgi character design but FANTASTIC music)
Langrisser IV and V (a wonderful strategy RPG series with fantastic character design by Satoshi Urushihara)
Wachenroder (steampunk RPG)
Nanatsu Kaze no Shima Monogatari (a strange game that plays almost like a point and click, with a very unique art style delivered with beautiful 2D rendered graphics, it reminds me of something you'd see from Amanita Design)
Princess Crown (the first Vanillaware game, beautiful 2D graphics, and one of our favorite Bore posters even wrote a FAQ for it!)
Shienryu (a solid shmup that doesn't break much new ground, but it's worth a playthrough)
Battle Garegga (expensive af now, but it's a WWII themed shmup with an amazing soundtrack influenced by Detroit techno)

I'll be honest, I did a fair chunk of my Saturn collecting back before the market really took off, most of what I got here was $50 or lower apart from Radiant Silvergun. Don't know what prices are like now on all these.

[bork]

I need to check out some prices too.  All my games were purchased back in the 90s/early 2000s.

[Great Rumbler]

I need to check out some prices too.  All my games were purchased back in the 90s/early 2000s.

I bought Albert Odyssey [US version] for $50 ten years ago, and that was a slightly inflated price since I bought it from a used game store's "premium section." It's going for $150+ now. Magic Knight Rayearth, Dragon Force, and the Shining spinoffs have similarly skyrocketed in price [of games that I previously owned, but unfortunately sold at some point]. Even a lot of imports [especially of shmups and certain fighters] are through the roof in terms of price, it's absolutely crazy right now.

For now I'm just buying what's cheap and a few titles that are in the $50~ range, then waiting to see if eventually some of the super-expensive games eventually come down in price.

[bork]

Groove On Fight is a cool game in the Power Instinct series, though it pales a bit compared to Matrimelee (one of the later Power Instinct games),

They feel like pretty different games.  Different dev teams and pretty much completely different character rosters.  Groove has a tag mechanic too.  But the Saturn version is missing a lot of animation.

Matrimelee got a PS2 port, BTW.  The port removes the bonus characters from Rage Of The Dragons, but adds in some Power Instinct characters from the older games.

And then Matrimelee got a sequel (Goketsuji Ichizoku - Matsuri Senzo Kuyo) that stayed in the arcades only.  It recently got emulated in the last couple of years.

I love me some Power Instinct.  I have Power Instinct 2 on PS1, Groove On Fight on Saturn, and Matrimelee on PS2.  Had the NeoGeo version back when I was buying AES games.

[bork]

I need to check out some prices too.  All my games were purchased back in the 90s/early 2000s.

I bought Albert Odyssey [US versions] for about $50 ten years ago. It's going for $150+ now. Absolutely crazy. Magic Knight Rayearth and the Shining spinoffs have similarly skyrocketed in price [of games that I previously owned, but unfortunately sold at some point]. Even a lot of imports [especially of shmups and certain fighters] is absolutely crazy right now.

Do you know which fighters?

And wow...holy shit-- if I sold just 2-3 games on eBay, I could get enough cash to pick up one of those $600 TCL P-Series TVs I've been thinking about getting.  Insane.

[demi]

Yikes, no thanks. Imports are a no-no for this fella and Saturn is just too expensive for me

[Great Rumbler]

I need to check out some prices too.  All my games were purchased back in the 90s/early 2000s.

I bought Albert Odyssey [US versions] for about $50 ten years ago. It's going for $150+ now. Absolutely crazy. Magic Knight Rayearth and the Shining spinoffs have similarly skyrocketed in price [of games that I previously owned, but unfortunately sold at some point]. Even a lot of imports [especially of shmups and certain fighters] is absolutely crazy right now.

Do you know which fighters?

Not sure off-hand, but mostly the really niche ones, I think. The Capcom and SNK fighters are still pretty reasonably priced, though.

Yikes, no thanks. Imports are a no-no for this fella and Saturn is just too expensive for me

Certain games have gone crazy, for sure, but there are still a lot that you can get for $10 or less, and a lot more that are under $50. Of course, you can easily drop a grand on some games [Panzer Dragoon Saga, for one, where even the import versions are going for over $500].

The 12 games in my picture I probably got for about $100 total.

[bork]

Crazy to think that a decade ago, you could get pretty much any of the Japanese games pretty cheap, especially in local shops.  Now so many are on auction sites with jacked-up prices and the stores are missing all this stuff. 

[demi]

Theres no point in buying a japanese copy of Grandia when an english one already exists

Go back to Xbox, there's plenty of good stuff to get yet on it

[Himu]

Get Elevator Action Returns.

[bork]

Get Elevator Action Returns.

It goes for like $200-$300.

You can get it on one of the PS2 Taito collections.  I need to find that and get it so I can sell my Saturn copy off.

[Great Rumbler]

Crazy to think that a decade ago, you could get pretty much any of the Japanese games pretty cheap, especially in local shops.  Now so many are on auction sites with jacked-up prices and the stores are missing all this stuff. 

Part of the problem is people on auction sites trying to one-up each other, but I think the bigger issue is that a lot of these games were never available in particularly large quantities to begin with and after years of collection most copies are in the hands of collectors who aren't willing to part with them [which shrinks the pool even further]. The same thing is even starting to happen with systems that were more popular in America, like the N64.

Theres no point in buying a japanese copy of Grandia when an english one already exists

Eh, it was $6 shipped.

[Himu]

I have the Taito Legends 2.

Elevator Action Returns costs that much? Jeez.

[Himu]

One suggestion I have is to buy on amazon.co.jp

You can get games cheaper there and it ships from Japan to NA.

[Trent Dole]

Crazy to think that a decade ago, you could get pretty much any of the Japanese games pretty cheap, especially in local shops.  Now so many are on auction sites with jacked-up prices and the stores are missing all this stuff. 

Part of the problem is people on auction sites trying to one-up each other, but I think the bigger issue is that a lot of these games were never available in particularly large quantities to begin with and after years of collection most copies are in the hands of collectors who aren't willing to part with them [which shrinks the pool even further]. The same thing is even starting to happen with systems that were more popular in America, like the N64.

Theres no point in buying a japanese copy of Grandia when an english one already exists

Eh, it was $6 shipped.

The english version of Grandia is kind of aids if that helps. Bad va and all references to alcohol were changed to coffee.

[bork]

Part of the problem is people on auction sites trying to one-up each other, but I think the bigger issue is that a lot of these games were never available in particularly large quantities to begin with and after years of collection most copies are in the hands of collectors who aren't willing to part with them [which shrinks the pool even further]. The same thing is even starting to happen with systems that were more popular in America, like the N64.

You still used to be able to find tons and tons of shops in Japan that had 100s of games available.  When I left in 2008, it was still like that.  Stayed the same when I went back for a visit in 2010.  Then I went again in 2015 and it was like they discovered that there were more auction sites than just Yahoo, and fucking everything was put on eBay, Amazon, and the like and the stores were cleaned out or had closed down.   Am sure the huge rise of mobile gaming played a part in the latter.

My favorite little chain Chameleon Club was down to like one store in my former prefecture and it was half the size.  But they had a huge presence online selling all this shit that wasn't in the shop.  I actually didn't have that much trouble getting a lot of the stuff I wanted though...I just ordered it off Amazon Japan and had it sent to my in-laws'. 

[demi]

The english version of Grandia is kind of aids if that helps. Bad va and all references to alcohol were changed to coffee.

Its also in English if that helps

[bork]

The english version of Grandia is kind of aids if that helps. Bad va and all references to alcohol were changed to coffee.

Its also in English if that helps

Yeah, if you can't read the text...why get a JRPG?

But I guess he's just collecting it and it was dirt cheap.

[Great Rumbler]

One suggestion I have is to buy on amazon.co.jp

You can get games cheaper there and it ships from Japan to NA.

Prices look pretty similar to what Japanese sellers on eBay are offering from what I saw glancing through. And I don't have to mess around with a site that's in Japanese.

The english version of Grandia is kind of aids if that helps. Bad va and all references to alcohol were changed to coffee.

Its also in English if that helps

Yeah, if you can't read the text...why get a JRPG?

I can still mess around with it, enjoy the art and music and combat. I'm not gonna drop $100 on a Japanese-only JRPG, sure, but $10-$15 for something I haven't played before? Eh, why not?

[Valkyrie]

Yikes, no thanks. Imports are a no-no for this fella and Saturn is just too expensive for me

Make Bore Mobile a Bore Premium™️ feature and you're all set.

[Great Rumbler]

Mupepe has a Saturn right? He should post his collection.

[bork]

One suggestion I have is to buy on amazon.co.jp

You can get games cheaper there and it ships from Japan to NA.

Prices look pretty similar to what Japanese sellers on eBay are offering from what I saw glancing through. And I don't have to mess around with a site that's in Japanese.

You can change the language to English. 

[Positive Touch]

be careful with your saturn - they're breaking down a lot more nowadays and it's getting harder and harder to repair them. when i got mine out last summer it definitely struggled occasionally. nerds really need to come up with a great emulator so all this shit isn't lost in 20 years. there's a ton of great games for the system tho.

[Great Rumbler]

One suggestion I have is to buy on amazon.co.jp

You can get games cheaper there and it ships from Japan to NA.

Prices look pretty similar to what Japanese sellers on eBay are offering from what I saw glancing through. And I don't have to mess around with a site that's in Japanese.

You can change the language to English. 

Okay, I've done that, but it's not accepting my address for shipments, even the ones shipped directly from Amazon.

[benjipwns]

My DF Retro thread rambling led me to remember...when Sega first showed off the Saturn to the Japanese media inside their hardware labs it was actually just a carved and painted wood block.

I wonder where one could import that wood block from.

[benjipwns]

semi-related, GB did a three and a half hour video this spring with a modded Japanese Launch Saturn though they mostly just play well known (by us weirdo hardcore cool as balls types i guess) games:


But it does provide this helpful information:

Kyrr-naion3 months ago
"we've got a bucket of saturn games here"

the appropriate measurement.

[Bulleta©™®]

All I've got is like X-Men vs SF, Vampire Savior, SotN, and Nights. Not much help.

[Great Rumbler]

A game I've landed on as one that I feel like putting the most time into figuring out for now is a cyberpunk RPG called Cyber Doll. It's got a totally bonkers prologue video [with English narration!] that throws in so many crazy things that don't seem to have any real connection to each other, so it really gets things started on the right foot, in my opinion. The gameplay is random encounter, turn-based-combat, but adds in a few little twists by allowing you to attack and destroy different body parts of enemies [left arm, right arm, legs, body, and head, with the destruction of the latter two resulting in instant death] and varying distances [short range, mid range, and long range] that affect what weapons you and your enemies can use. It took me a little while to get all the basic mechanics down, but I eventually got them figured out enough to where I can work my way through the game.

The cyberpunk atmosphere is nice, with lots of dark and rainy cityscapes. The monsters you fight are so weird and cool, and varied enough in their combat styles to keep things interesting. Field sprites are relatively small and pretty meh overall, but the combat sprites are a lot bigger with way more detail. The music is just okay, definitely not one of the better Saturn OSTs but it does its job.

Fortunately, a huge chunk of the menus are in English, so it's not too hard to figure out what everything does, and the dialogue tends to drop a lot of made up English terms, enough to get an overall picture of what's going on. Would be nice to be able to read all the dialogue, of course, but so far it's playable without any knowledge of Japanese.

[Great Rumbler]

be careful with your saturn - they're breaking down a lot more nowadays and it's getting harder and harder to repair them. when i got mine out last summer it definitely struggled occasionally. nerds really need to come up with a great emulator so all this shit isn't lost in 20 years. there's a ton of great games for the system tho.

My Saturn's been having occasional problems [won't recognize that a disk is in the drive, won't recognize my 4-in-1 Action Replay, ect.], mostly due to having been in attic for a few years, hopefully it's not on the verge of dying.

[tiesto]

I went to a flea market in Farmingville and picked up some weird ass Saturn dating sims from Elf (big H-game company) and a game called Air's Adventure, which is an early 3D RPG and supposedly one of the genre's worst. All for like a fiver.

[Great Rumbler]

I'm now addicted to buying Japanese Saturn games on eBay.

On that note: Dosukube, if you ever wanna sell any of your Saturn games, toss a PM my way.

[bork]

I'm now addicted to buying Japanese Saturn games on eBay.

On that note: Dosukube, if you ever wanna sell any of your Saturn games, toss a PM my way.

Sure, $300 for Burning Rangers and it's yours! 

[Great Rumbler]

How on Earth are you not fluent in Japanese, Rumbler?

If it was all spoken Japanese, I could almost, kinda, maybe, sort of, a little bit, but not really understand it. Japanese text, though? Nah.

Anyway, here's what I've bought since the first post:

[Great Rumbler]

What the hell is Body Special?

A jigsaw puzzle game that rewards you with short, low resolution, low frame rate clips of bikini models lounging around.

[tiesto]

Some nice pickups there... I own Princess Quest, bought it because I mistakenly confused it for Princess Crown. It's not that good, though. Very low budget dungeon crawler RPG.

What's that DJ Wars game? Name certainly sounds intriguing...

[Great Rumbler]

What's that DJ Wars game? Name certainly sounds intriguing...

I thought it would be more of a DJ Hero-type rhythm game, but nope, it's a DJ simulator that's really in-depth. I might set aside some time eventually to try to figure out, but first impressions are that it won't be easy to do.

[bork]

What I remember about DJ Wars was cool artwork, crappy "game."

[tiesto]

What's that DJ Wars game? Name certainly sounds intriguing...

I thought it would be more of a DJ Hero-type rhythm game, but nope, it's a DJ simulator that's really in-depth. I might set aside some time eventually to try to figure out, but first impressions are that it won't be easy to do.

Simulator? Ehhh... I'll just stick to the real thing I guess

DJ Hero was pretty fun, though nothing like traditional DJing.

[Olivia Wilde Homo]

I went through this phase ten years ago (see thread: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=61373)

I had a pretty big collection and even got Final Fight Revenge iirc (which after a quick check now goes for $350-500 lol)  I wound up getting rid of it in a matter of months because I didn't have much time to play it, didn't know much of the language, and having a big import collection was a lot less cool than it sounded.  The only games I really bothered with were the CPS2 games like the Vs titles and Street Fighter Zero 3.  By that time, CPS2 emulation was pretty much nailed down so there was no real need to bother with the Saturn imports.

Good luck with it though.

[Great Rumbler]

I doubt I'll buy many, or any, of the really expensive games, probably gonna top out at $50-$60. So far, the most I've spent on a single game is $35 for Guardian Heroes, which is a pretty good deal even for the import version.

On the games front, Puyo Puyo 2 is crushing me. I understand the basic strategy of it [build vertical rather than horizontal, focus on racking up combos], but I'm playing on a part of the game where you do various matches to work your way up a tower and I'm stuck on the third match of the bottom tier because the AI gets so fast and so skilled that I can't keep up.

[a slime appears]

Please buy all the Saturn import games, Rumbler.

[Great Rumbler]

Okay.

[Great Rumbler]

I actually have the American version of Dark Savior, boo. 

[Great Rumbler]

Round 3:

[tiesto]

I have Blue Seed but couldn't figure it out. It's like an RPG set in a Japanese high school with card battles or something.

[bork]

I have Blue Seed but couldn't figure it out. It's like an RPG set in a Japanese high school with card battles or something.

Watch the anime instead!

[tiesto]

Also GR I bought that game in the lower left, the one from Elf. It's a waifu VN I think. I also picked up a strip mahjongg game for the system recently.

[Great Rumbler]

Also GR I bought that game in the lower left, the one from Elf. It's a waifu VN I think.

It's pretty short and there's a guide online!

[Great Rumbler]

Compare that with the American cover:

[Sho Nuff]

I'm playing EVE Burst Error's English translation now, what's wrong with me

(The music is boss though)

[Great Rumbler]

These Puyo Puyo and similar games are really kicking my butt. I understand the basic strategy of how you win [set up your blocks for consecutive matches, build vertically not horizontally], but the AI just destroys me by being faster and far more skilled at building up a good stack.

[Great Rumbler]

Batch #4:

[tiesto]

Tengai Makyou IV is one of the best import only RPGs for the system, good pick. What's that Hudson game?

I love this thread! More impressions please, Rumbler!

And also, once you get bored of collecting for the Saturn, the PC Engine CD has a shit-ton of cheap import games to go through.

[Great Rumbler]

Tengai Makyou IV is one of the best import only RPGs for the system, good pick. What's that Hudson game?

Yeah, it looks pretty interesting and I'm looking forward to putting some time into it. The other Hudson game is The Legend of Heroes 3.

And also, once you get bored of collecting for the Saturn, the PC Engine CD has a shit-ton of cheap import games to go through.

That's what I'd like to do next, but the system itself is a pretty steep starting point [$250+] so it'll be a while before I get to that.

[Great Rumbler]

Set #5:

[benjipwns]

I remember Virtual Hydlide as being a real piece of stank ass garbage, even for a launch era Saturn game. I'm totally not going to look it up in any way for a change but I remember it as a digitized sprite of a dude who has like ten frames of animation in front of a bunch of 10 fps randomized polygon dungeons that clashed and had no real system for like actually ensuring the randomization of items and shit worked within the dungeon.

Also that same awesome boxart is on the American version, with the princess seemingly pasted over that "side of a van" painting of sweet shit at the last minute for no clear reason.

I also want to say that after you got past the launch games of Virtua Fighter/Daytona/Soccer/Golf/Clockwork Knight/Panzer Dragoon that VH was like the only other game until you got close to the original Saturnday release. Bug! and Street Fighter: The Movie came out early but I want to say they were still later, and VH was like the only thing approaching an actual action-adventure type game that wasn't an arcade port outside of Panzer Dragoon. Probably even after the original launch day too because we only got shit like Shinobi.

The American Saturn really got battered by that whole era where nobody knew what to do for games so it's like waves of just trash on both consoles, but PS1 was easier to do 3D on (and so much else) so it wound up with more stuff that would eventually pan out right as the Saturn was getting shoved out of the way for the Dreamcast.

While I'm bashing the Saturn I'm still amazed that they had no conception of how they were going to cost reduce the thing and that it basically was built like an arcade PCB inside the case and would have been impossible to shrink. When the two newcomers into the industry, Sony, and 3DO both had not only clean single boards with the goal of reduction but also long term plans to basically put the whole system on a single chip before that was a thing. (M2 would have had a single 3DO chip in it like the PS2 has the PS1 CPU in there for I/O but really for backcompat. Actually, what 3DO accomplished in freakin 1995 was even include the GPU into the single chip which Sony wouldn't do until they combined the GS+EE in the later slim PS2s.) I think it's been suggested the N64 is similarly a messy board dependent on too many chips setup in a certain way, the final versions aren't any smaller than the launch ones.

[benjipwns]

These Puyo Puyo and similar games are really kicking my butt. I understand the basic strategy of how you win [set up your blocks for consecutive matches, build vertically not horizontally], but the AI just destroys me by being faster and far more skilled at building up a good stack.

I think all those games are basically built on the same difficulty scale which immediately goes to wreck up the joint mode after like the third or fourth stage. Even Kirby's Avalanche goes ham on you pretty quickly.

[Great Rumbler]

Yeah, Virtual Hydlide is straight trash. Decided to get it, though, because it was only about $5. Ya know, to relive the magic. But yeah, it has digitized sprites of real actors, really really terrible pseudo-3D locations, and slow-as-molasses gameplay. Doesn't help that the character sprite is in the middle of the screen and takes up a huge amount of space, so you can barely see what you're doing. It feels like they were trying to do an Elder Scrolls-type RPG, but with no real idea of how to accomplish that and on woefully underpowered hardware.