Saturn Turns 12 (5/11/2007)

[RCM]

Just wanted to remind everyone that the little system that couldn't, my favorite system, will turn 12 on May 11th. Feel free to share your favorite Saturn memories in this thread. Please keep this thread positive! I gotta go play some Radiant Silvergun.

[bangtango]

Sure, I remember finding my first Saturn several years ago at a flea market in a rental case for $20. I'd say around 1999-2000 or so. Even though I wasn't a kid anymore, I was at the flea market with my mother. That memory will always remain with me. I do own a Sega Saturn today but sadly it isn't that same Saturn. I ended up selling that one for $30 of fast cash when I was out of work for a few months after getting laid off at my job back in early 2003.

It isn't a blunder like you'd typically beat yourself up over. Why did it bother me? The same reason it'd bother most people. That particular Saturn did have a little sentimental value based on when and where I found it, that and I happened to be with my mother that afternoon. I'd call it one of my biggest selling regrets. When I did end up with another Saturn, it was off of frickin' Ebay from some anonymous seller and that is quite a different experience. I paid about the same amount of money, though.

I enjoyed the early (and common) arcade conversions the most on my Saturn, so I don't have any import memories or Panzer Dragoon Saga/Radiant Silvergun memories to share.

[xtremegamer]

Sadly I do not own my original Saturn either, I was forced to retire it about 7 years ago, damn thing stopped working. On a good note, I did pick up a complete in box system with the vitua fighter pack in and Clockwork Knight for $30. Systems looks as it was never played. Since I don't have any of the original games I purchased when Saturn was in it's prime, I have decided to keep this system as minty as possible.

[retroman]

i didnt get mine until Christmas 96...Still works great.

[mregashu]

I remember the day I got my Saturn like it was Monday. Wait, it was.

Just got it off of eBay with NiGHTs, Legend of Oasis, Sonic 3D Blast, Fighting Vipers, and the 3-pack the system came with (VF, Daytona, V-Cop). I'm loving it so far. NiGHTs is everything I expected and more, and despite the general consensus, I'm loving the conversion of Daytona.

I didn't realize the release was 5/11. It almost makes me wish it came a few days later!

And as fragile and breakable as those cases are, damn they look cool.

[cyberfluxor]

Yey! Happy birthday mr. Saturn!

Question: So, it was difficult to program for and not every game took full advantage of the dual processors. Or did one? Did it have much more potential we never saw due to lazy/bad programming jobs?... I'm sure it's been touched up on someplace but just didn't realize this until a few minutes ago.

[mario2butts]

Happy birthday Saturn! Definitely one of my favorite consoles. I actually wrote up the story of how I got my Saturn awhile back, and I guess now is as good a time to post it as any!

Right

Lets go way, way back in time to 1995. I was ten years old, and I remember my mom gave me this crazy kids magazine called “321 Contact!”, or something like that, to keep me from bugging her. They had a review of the two hot new game consoles of the moment- the Sega Saturn and the Sony Playstation. They didn’t have much interesting to say about either, but the pictures kept me interested enough. Ironically, the Playstation, in its small, demure, grey, curved shell looked downright wimpy compared to the dark, monolithic, intimidating Saturn. It looked pretty damn sweet, especially to an impressionable ten year old like myself who was still playing his NES on his uncle's old TV.

So I remember going to Circuit city with my dad (he was looking at stereos, we eventually got a Dolby Po Logic receiver for WAIT FOR IT analog surround sound for use with VHS tapes- hell yeah!) and I saw a Saturn sitting RIGHT THERE running Virtua Fighter. The guy there asked if I wanted to play it and I was too scared to touch the controller. It looked that awesome.

Another time I was in Toys R Us with mom when I saw another Saturn kiosk with Virtua Fighter (hey, weren’t there any other launch titles? Hmmm, I guess not). This time I built up the courage to pick up the controller, and lo and behold, I was knocked out of the ring TWICE. But I was still like holy shit… I've found my purpose in life. I begged and pleaded with my parents to get me one. But I never got it while it was still new in stores. I mean, my folks were NOT going to fork over $399 beans to watch me kick hyperactive ploygonal people in the face.

Fast forward three years. I had started reading gaming magazines (read: EGM#100 cover to cover) and my desire for Saturn goodness was rekindled. By 1998 Saturns were considered obsolete as Sony, as you all know, dominated the market with the Playstation, which I thought as a ten year old looked like a wimpy little grey box! So I thought I'd try my luck scoring a Saturn used. Much to my chagrin none of the local Funcolands had any Saturns. After several misses my dad actually suggested I buy a Playstation instead. But I would not be swayed. Everyone else had a Playstation; I wanted to be different! I didn’t want that gray little plaything, I wanted the big beefy black box that entranced me at the Toys R Us kiosk three years before (though it should be noted that I did get a Playstation a year later, and I enjoyed it very much). Finally, however, one day a very kind Funcoland manager called an employee at another Funcoland about an hour away to hold their last one for me. A long drive, an irritated pappy, and 40 hard earned smackers later, the Saturn was mine, along with a finger- raping 1st gen “fatty” controller, a then- necessary RF switch (damn my old TV!!!), and loose copies of Daytona USA and Virtua Cop. I spend the next few days racing in highly pixilated stock cars with INCREDIBLY crappy music in the background (DAYY-TOOO-NAAAA D A DD A DAY TOOOOONAAAA!!!!!) and shooting baddies in the face (oof, aah, arwllll) with the D pad since I didn’t have a light gun, laughing all the way.

My Saturn library grew slowly after that, since the games had dried up in my area and most of the better ones were (and still are) hard to come by. I gave away my copies of Daytona USA and Virtua Fighter to a girl in my 10th grade Spanish class (she had a Saturn, which was very unusual for anyone, let alone a hot chick in my Spanish class), intending to hide a note in Virtua Fighter's instruction manual but I chickened out at the last minute. It’s a good thing I did because she opened it up and looked at the manual right after I gave it to her. o_O

Anyway…

Right now I have my Saturn running via a self- hacked RGB cable to an XRGB-3 upscan converter, hooked up to a projector throwing a 77” image. Playing NiGHTS that large in widescreen (yes, it does support it! Everything else I play in pillar boxed 4:3 to maintain the original aspect ratio, of course) is freaking awesome.

There will always be a special place in my heart for the Sega Saturn, if only because of the sheer awesomeness it conveyed to me back in 1995. Ironically, I play it considerably less than my other consoles, mainly because I have so few games for it (nine completes with two on the way). For some reason Saturn games, even common ones, are impossible to find in my neck of the woods. In time, I hope to nab more of the classics, but I’ll probably have to rely on ebay, unfortunately.

Saturn FTW! :)

[MegaDrive20XX]

Bloody Fantastic day indeed! Oh Segata Sanshiro...where are you, when we need you the most...Happy Birthday Saturn!

[sabre2922]

ahh the Sega Saturn.

Segas ultimate 2-D machine (at the time).

How I miss Streetfighter Alpha 2 on Saturn at least it didnt break my heart like the Dreamcast debacle did ehh I need a drink now.

[GarrettCRW]

Oh Segata Sanshiro...where are you, when we need you the most...

http://youtube.com/watch?v=xQEdv99gkhs

Ask, and ye shall receive.

[Steven]

12 years go by fast, ne?

The Saturn, from 1999-2005, was my favorite system. It's since been bumped by the SNES but Saturn will always have a fond spot in my heart.

Here's the greatest Saturn story I've ever read

----

7-20-99

The Saturn Changed My Life -- No, Really

Here's a little history of my Sega Saturn and how it changed my life. My Saturn has been at over 10 different homes I have lived at in 5 different cities in 4 different states in the course of four years.

*Thanks to my Sega Saturn NetLink, I was able to move away from Hawaii to save myself from being homeless thanks to a good person I knew from the Sega Saturn NetLink IRC chat server who paid my way to Ozark, Missouri (of course I paid him back) where I lived for six months.

*Thanks to my Sega Saturn NetLink, I was able to meet three different sets of roommates (one roommate who ended up saving me from being homeless) and lived at three different apartments in Springfield, Missouri where I lived at for another six months.

*Thanks to my Sega Saturn NetLink, I met a girl in the Sega Saturn Netlink IRC chat server (no, I wasn't gonna go steady with her, we were just friends) who lived in Tulsa, Oklahoma who let me come live with her. Then I ended up meeting her uncle at a Christmas party and he ends up being the vice president of the Bank of Oklahoma where he actually hired me with no questions asked as a Data Entry Remittance Clerk getting paid $7 an hour.

*Thanks to my Sega Saturn NetLink, I was able to finally meet my future wife (we're getting married at the end of this year), the mother of my child (she's a month pregnant), and the love of my life after knowing her off of the Sega Saturn NetLink IRC chat server for almost 2 years.

*Thanks to my Sega Saturn NetLink I was able to move to Cincinatti, Ohio and finally get an apartment with the love of my life.

*Thanks to my Sega Saturn NetLink, I was able to attend a party in Cincinnati, Ohio of whom over a dozen people attended where I got to meet my best buddies that I knew online that I met using my Sega Saturn NetLink to IRC chat.

And finally, thanks to my Sega Saturn NetLink, I was able to live the experience of a lifetime for the past two years, meet dozens of great and not so great people, mature a lot, live in many different cities, find out that internet romances can actually work (me and Jeanette have been actually living together for six months now, not counting the two years we knew each other from the Sega Saturn Netlink IRC chat server), have a child, and get married.

Never would I have thought that a video game system would change my life in such a way. Isn't that funny? A video game system? I mean, who would of thought that a video game system could change and improve one's life this much? Anyways, this was just my story that I needed to share with you all about how my Sega Saturn changed my life and how it helped me started a new and better life.
-James Stevens

-----

wow. just wow. unbelievable. could very well be the greatest "gaming saved my life" story I've ever come across. Not that I've come across many, mind you, but still. incredible!

[Hwj_Chim]

Happy Birth day Saturn :bday: 12 years wow.

[cityside75]

Two memories I have of the Saturn:

I remember the "surprise" launch, at the time I was following the industry fairly closely so I couldn't believe it when I walked into a TRU on that May day and saw the Saturn kiosk running Panzer Dragoon. I hadn't even heard anything about it's release. I was amazed by Panzer Dragoon, and the emotional opening movie, but there was no way I could afford the $400 to buy one.

A few years ago I finally decided I really wanted one, and searched around locally for almost a month before I finally found one for sale at a local game shop for $40. I knew it was a little pricey, but it seemed like they were getting harder to find and I didn't want to take my chances buying one off ebay. Within a week of that purchase I was on a run through the neighborhood and I spot a black box sitting on the street next to a garbage can. I grabbed it and jogged all the way home holding it, plugged it in and it fired right up. I eventually collected cables and an extra controller and sold it for $30 on ebay. The funny thing was that the system had Rise of the Robots 2 in it, and I can only assume that the previous owner played that mess and just threw the whole thing in the trash!

[c0ldb33r]

I remember the day I got my Saturn like it was Monday. Wait, it was.

Just got it off of eBay with NiGHTs, Legend of Oasis, Sonic 3D Blast, Fighting Vipers, and the 3-pack the system came with (VF, Daytona, V-Cop). I'm loving it so far. NiGHTs is everything I expected and more, and despite the general consensus, I'm loving the conversion of Daytona.

Did you get the 3D controller with it? If not, get it ASAP. I love NiGHTs with the 3D controller. Without it, the game's a mess :(

[DigitalSpace]

Happy birthday!

[PentiumMMX]

I plan on buying a Saturn soon. (Wants to play NiGHTS before the sequil is released on the Wii)

[crazyjackcsa]

My Saturn is really my first, last and only videogame love. I got my Saturn with Sega Rally, the best racer I've ever played. To this day I really only collect Saturn games and have almost 95 of them. I saw Panzer Dragoon and knew that the system was for me. My biggest regret was letting go of Shining Force 3 and Burning Rangers when I was unemployed. If I could find a copy of those at a fair price I would pick them up in a new york minute. I was the only one of my friends with a Saturn and never really regreted it.

[itobandito]

Yeah I never knew anyone with a saturn when it was released. I didn't get one till like 3 years ago. Overall I think the system is good just wish it had lasted a bit longer. It definitley does have GREAT exclusive games for it though.

[diskoboy]

I'll admit, I was a late bloomer when it came to the Saturn.

About a decade late....


I played a Sega Saturn and Virtua Fighter 2 around 1996 at a Service Merchandise kiosk. I really wasn't impressed with it back then. Not really with the system, but the literal flood of fighting games on the market. The late 90's, I took a haitus from gaming.

Around 2000, I gave the Saturn another chance, and was impressed with what Sega managed to do with their hardware. Not to mention the first time I played NiGHTS and Panzer 2 Zwei, I was floored. Finally found one in 2005. It doesn't get played as often as I'd like. The only place around here that sold Saturn games, quit. I guess it really didn't matter, anyway. All they usually had were crappy sports games. The only good game I think I ever bought from them was Bug!

[Kevincal]

I remember walking around the mall in May 1995 and I think it was Babbages that me and a friend saw a bunch of Saturn system boxes...We were like "WTF!". Of course it was way too expensive for us 14 year olds...And I had just bought a 32X and Jaguar recently, which I was happy with both systems! (No, I'm not lying) ;) I read almost every videogame mag back then, and I wasn't impressed with the Saturn's games given the mediocre reviews they got. You would figure with a $400 price tag that the games would be of a bit higher quality... So, I never really wanted to buy a Saturn and the Playstation was getting a LOAD of praise everywhere so I saved up for that and pre-ordered at TRU and got one on launch day.

I did end up buying a Saturn about 3-4 years ago out of sheer curiousity. The system does have some really good games, but it really pales in comparison to the Playstation as far as great games in my opinion. So, I greatly prefer the PS. :D

[Ponyone]

12 years go by fast, ne?

The Saturn, from 1999-2005, was my favorite system. It's since been bumped by the SNES but Saturn will always have a fond spot in my heart.

Here's the greatest Saturn story I've ever read

----

7-20-99

The Saturn Changed My Life -- No, Really

Here's a little history of my Sega Saturn and how it changed my life. My Saturn has been at over 10 different homes I have lived at in 5 different cities in 4 different states in the course of four years.

*Thanks to my Sega Saturn NetLink, I was able to move away from Hawaii to save myself from being homeless thanks to a good person I knew from the Sega Saturn NetLink IRC chat server who paid my way to Ozark, Missouri (of course I paid him back) where I lived for six months.

*Thanks to my Sega Saturn NetLink, I met a girl in the Sega Saturn Netlink IRC chat server (no, I wasn't gonna go steady with her, we were just friends) who lived in Tulsa, Oklahoma who let me come live with her. Then I ended up meeting her uncle at a Christmas party and he ends up being the vice president of the Bank of Oklahoma where he actually hired me with no questions asked as a Data Entry Remittance Clerk getting paid $7 an hour.

*Thanks to my Sega Saturn NetLink, I was able to finally meet my future wife (we're getting married at the end of this year), the mother of my child (she's a month pregnant), and the love of my life after knowing her off of the Sega Saturn NetLink IRC chat server for almost 2 years.

*Thanks to my Sega Saturn NetLink I was able to move to Cincinatti, Ohio and finally get an apartment with the love of my life.

*Thanks to my Sega Saturn NetLink, I was able to attend a party in Cincinnati, Ohio of whom over a dozen people attended where I got to meet my best buddies that I knew online that I met using my Sega Saturn NetLink to IRC chat.


-James Stevens


I actually knew him. I used to go on the sega irc server with my saturn netlink. He was Hulaboy.

I think the girl he mentions (Oklahoma) was named sapphire, and the party I'm guessing was the Netlink Bash, which was put together by a scam artist. I don't remember it actually happening (guy took the money and ran) so maybe it's another party.

How odd.

[Steven]

I actually knew him. I used to go on the sega irc server with my saturn netlink. He was Hulaboy.

I think the girl he mentions (Oklahoma) was named sapphire, and the party I'm guessing was the Netlink Bash, which was put together by a scam artist. I don't remember it actually happening (guy took the money and ran) so maybe it's another party.

How odd.

Huh! Interesting. Yeah, maybe it's another party, or maybe he embellished the story. At any rate, do you KIT with him? How is he these days?

[Ponyone]

no.. i have kept one friend from those days though

[j_factor]

Long, rambling post ahead.

I got my first Saturn on December 31, 1995. I traded in a bunch of stuff, including multiple systems, and combined that credit with some Christmas money and saved up allowances to get myself a used Saturn. I accumulated enough credit/cash to nab quite a few games right off, and took home Virtua Fighter 2, Bug!, Solar Eclipse, Gex, Mystaria, Astal, Panzer Dragoon, Daytona USA, Fighting Vipers, Rayman, Shinobi Legions, Thunderstrike 2, and Virtua Cop (with gun). For three weeks I did nothing but play those games. It was gaming euphoria.

Owning a Saturn in 1996 was a wonderful thing. To this day I've never experienced a more exciting system-year. So many great fighters and platformers (my two favorite genres at the time), plus NiGHTS, and many more. Such a large number of games I wanted came out that year that I actually traded in systems to buy new Saturn games. That whole year, I pretty much had no life whatsoever and spent almost all my free time playing Saturn games (only taking a brief pause for Mario RPG, Kirby Super Star, and Vectorman 2). Some people say Saturn's only good for imports, but I didn't even think about importing until early '97, because there were more than enough domestic games at the time.

Saturn slowed down quite a bit in '97. I began to import, starting when I found an actual import store in San Francisco (long since closed) and saw Metal Slug for a reasonable price. 1997 was also dedicated to Saturn, but it didn't have the intensity of the previous year. I did buy the greats that did come out here, which was a significant number, but I turned to importing to really get "everything". I was still quite satisfied with my Saturn, and in fact a little greatful that things had slowed down. But I started to wonder where it was going. Coming off a terrific holiday season of '96, instead of building on that success it seemed to just suddenly wane. Suddenly there was no Saturn advertising whatsoever and the system was riddled with game cancellations. The games that did come out were no longer selling. E3 was a disaster, especially with that infamous comment of Bernie Stolar's (although even aside from that comment it was disasterous), and from then on, it seemed that whenever Sega released a game, they did so begrudgingly. Sega was a videogame company that seemed to not want to put out videogames anymore (at least in the US).

At the end of '97, I remember looking at a Saturn release list and wondering where all the games were. As 1998 began, no Saturn game announcements came anymore, and even then, some of what was left was being cancelled (I never did get my $5 back for that Baroque preorder...). At E3, Sega barely showed up, and they only released one single game after that. With no more games on the release schedule, I wondered if Sega was ceasing American operations. Why did the company even exist anymore if it wasn't going to release anything? Companies exist to like, sell stuff. I was baffled.

I vividly remember when Magic Knight Rayearth came out. I had long assumed it to be canned, and was quite surprised when it showed up. It was a nice farewell to the Saturn, and was also my personal farewell to the Saturn when I decided to sell the system off the day after I beat MKR. I figured if Sega was giving up, then I was giving up on Sega. I sold it all and bought a Playstation with some games. That was kind of a sad day. I became less into videogames in general, although I did enjoy my PSX (my only console for a couple years). When Dreamcast came out I didn't care.

I got a Saturn again in the spring of 2001. My friend had sold me his Nomad at the end of 2000 (I'd always wanted one back in the day), and I longed for the other systems that I once loved. Saturn and SNES were acquired at around the same time, and then I sprung into new territory with a Dreamcast that August. Ever since that point, I've been acquiring more systems and building up collections. During this "growth" period and the beginning stages of being a collector, I gained a new appreciation of the Saturn library in terms of really comparing it to everything else. I still have a particular fondness for the system to this day (and now I have 132 games for it).

[landamo]

I still have the saturn that I begged my parents to buy me back in 96. It was a pretty damn good system, I should pull it out to celebrate it's birthday

[PallarAndersVisa]

never owned a Saturn untill last year, however I vividly remember renting a Sega Saturn back when all I owned was a Genesis.

It was around the time when both the PSX and Saturn were popular, I decided to rent a Saturn from Blockbuster Video. I don't remember if I picked it over a PSX rental or if all the PSX's were rented out. But I got it and Virtua Fighter and WWF The Arcade Game. I played the fuck out of this over the summer and I loved it!

I never did buy a Saturn though. Ended up with the PSX.

Around the same time, my best friend aquired a sega Saturn with Nights and some other games that didn't matter. I didn't even know how to play Nights, but I loved flying through the levels, even walking around with Chris and Elliot.

Nowadays, my model 2 Saturn gets a lot of SFA 2 and Nights play.My model 1 Saturn sits proudly at my parents home, as a doorstop to my old room, out of commission due to a failed modding attempt.

Great system!

[jcalder8]

I remember my first and only Saturn. I found it laying on the side of the road. I played it a bit but since it was a Jap one I sold it seeing as how I can't read any Japanese. I may one day pick one up.

[thegardentool]

I don't believe I had ever seen one in person but I remember the commercials on TV offering the 3-game pack included. I begged my parents to get me one and whichever Christmas that was that they first offered the three games, my parents sat one under the tree for me. I was so excited even though I didn't get the three games offered! The BX didn't have the packages with it in it so they gave away three other games with the system along with a third party carrying case.

I received Alone in the Dark 2, Hi-Octane and Virtua Fighter Kids. My parents bought me one the first Christmas that they offered the 3-pack. I only got one more game, Virtua Cop, before I replaced the system with a N64 about two years later. Later I traded the N64 for a PSX, which was a giant mistake as the N64 was a lot better. I think I gave the PSX to my sister and it broke sometime later or they gave it away to somebody. After awhile of PC gaming I got a PS2, which I later gave to my stepfather when I moved out. I bought a 360 the first time I saw one in stock Jan. 2006 and have a bunch of games I have since bought but never beat or played through.

The Saturn always has kept a place in my heart as that system I never got to fully enjoy. I was just too young to buy games myself and it phased out so fast. One day stores were full of games and the next they sold them all at discounted prices.

Just this month, I decided to take my Saturn out of the closet, clean it, replace the battery and plug it into the TV. After ten years, I have finally bought "new" games and accessories for a classic. My wife and I have been enjoying NiGHTS, Clockwork Knight, Virtua Cop and Virtua Fighter 2. I'm waiting on Panzer Dragoon and a white Japanese Virtua Stick to arrive. Next I'll be buying two Virtua Guns and Virtua Cop 2 because the wife really likes Virtua Cop.

I foresee a lot of eBay purchases soon.