Need Saturn Assisstance! Please Help!

[WiseSalesman]

So, about a year ago, I purchased a Sega Saturn at my local FuncoLand and (just my luck), they stopped selling games and accessories for it about 2 days later. Before that, however, I did manage to pick up Guardian Heroes (awesome), Darius Gaiden (good), and Clockwork Knight 2 (blech). All the other games they had were sports games.

Now to get to the "help me" part of the message:

Soon after this, hoping to pick up some more games, I modded my saturn, and then hit EBay to find some import games. I managed to pick up a copy of Metal Slug, and the guy also sent me a Pro Action Replay which he said would "make the game work". Now, when I boot up the game (with or without the pro action replay), I get a blue screen message in Japanese about RAM. I have posted below a picture of the pro action replay I have. I'm assuming that this is the wrong cart, and that I need to buy a ram cart, but would like some confirmation before purchasing. Is there something specific I have to do to make this game work, or did this guy scam me (at least as far as the PAR goes)?

http://wisesalesman.i8.com/images/par.jpg

(I know the text is a little hard to read. It reads "Pro Action Replay High Tech Option Series" and has a "2" in the upper right hand corner. There is also a logo the reads "Karat".)

:idea: If the picture isn't shwoing up (for whatever reason), you can also check the page where it is posted here (http://http://wisesalesman.i8.com/photo.html), but beware, there are many, many photos posted there, and it's definitely NOT for dial-up. If you DO decide to visit that page, the pic of the PAR is near the bottom.

I thank you all for your help in this matter. I hope that, soon, I'll be up and running, playing good old Metal Slug.

[icbrkr]

I'm not sure which Action Replay that is, but you need 4MB of RAM to play Metal Slug on the Saturn. You can get the Action Replay 4/5 in 1 at www.lik-sang.com or www.ncsx.com.

Brian

[BenT]

SS Metal Slug is actually a 1 Meg RAM game, but almost all such games will work with Capcom's official 4 Meg RAM cart. There's only like one or two SNK games that don't work with it. I recommend you get a Capcom cart somehow... it was included with Xmen vs. SF, Vampire Savior and a few other Capcom fighting games. I use one with SS Metal Slug and it works fine.

[Raedon]

Also word of warning those 5 in 1 action replay carts are crap, they have a high doa rate.. very high.. and watch out on Ebay as people try to push the Pro action Replay (no 1m-4m) carts as 5 in 1 carts.

[Kid Fenris]

There are several options available to you, but the most secure might be to use the 4MB RAM Cart that Capcom produced or the 1MB cart that SNK released.

I've used those 5-in-1 carts with Vampire Savior and X-Men vs. Street Fighter, but I'm not sure if I'd trust one with Metal Slug. If you decide to get a 5-in-1, make sure that the company selling it has a fair policy on returns or exchanges. Raedon's right about the gadget's level of reliability.

Congrats on snagging Guardian Heroes, by the way. It's an amazing game.

[Tempest]

As long as we have the Saturn people here, I have a question. I found out that my copy of Burning Rangers seems to have problems with the audio skipping (and with a game like BR that's a big problem). The weird thing is that it doesn't happen in the same place everytime like I assumed a scratched CD would. It usually happens towards the end of the first mission and it's only the audio, the game itself continues to play perfectly. The CD doesn't looked badly scratched, but it does have a few very minor little scratches in it (like 99% of all Saturn CD's).

Is there a good way to fix this? I hesitate to use something like a Disc Doctor on it since those never work and seems to scratch CD's up even worse then they were before. Maybe a scratch filler of sometype would work since the scratches are very minor?

BTW if you haven't tried it, Burning Rangers is a great game! It's worth the high price tag.

Tempest

[WiseSalesman]

Thanks everyone for your help. Yep, I'm pretty sure I got scammed on that Pro Action Replay, so I'll be looking for some sort of decent ram cart soon, preferably a capcom 4 meg cart.

Tempest: I'm looking for burning rangers right now, actually. I'd heard it's very good.

Fenris: Yeah, I love Guardian Heroes. It's a shame that I don't have any packaging for it (Funcoland only gave me the disc in a paper sleeve).

[Kid Fenris]

Tempest, I once noticed a similar audio glitch in my copy of Burning Rangers. The problem could lie in those minor scratches on the disc, but it might be due to the game's programming. Burning Rangers always seemed as though it was pushing the system to its processing limits.

If you want to take care of the scratches on the disc, check out your local used CD stores, which sometimes offer disc-resurfacing services.