Time for something a lil' bit different. Everyone has watched countless top 5's and 10's (or 100's if you're feeling brave) of games for any specific system, citing the same old classics that we all know and love. Lord knows I like Virtua Fighter 2 and Sega Rally as much as the next guy, but sometimes you're craving something a little different. There are many great games on the Saturn, and they don't have to be flawless or all-time classics to leave an impression on us. Sometimes the games that are simply "good" or even "average" for other gamers, are deeply cherished titles for us.
Maybe they were the first games of that genre that we've tried, and showed us a whole new world of possibilities. Or they were a gift from a very special person. Or we were simply stuck with them, and only them, for long periods of time and were left with some kind of gaming Stockholm's Syndrome, our brains furiously trying to convince us they were actually good and not some big pile of trash.
No matter the reason, some games are special to us, even if they're mostly unknown to everybody else, or even considered bad games. Like a baby, we love them no matter what.
Well not much to say about this month's saucepot. We don't know his name, or from whence he hails, in fact, we don't know anything about him. Now if I were Thomas Charnock, founder of the Dreamcast Junkyard, I would have used my powers of detection, to hunt him down across the world wide web.
But I'm not and I haven't. So we'll just call him the Saturn Muscle Man. Rumours that it might be Junkyard member and Sega Rally Master Alex Lieng, in the middle of one of his Triathlon training sessions, have neither been confirmed or denied.
So we'll let those rippling muscles speak for themselves! Next month back to the ladies!
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from the Junkyard Crew!
In keeping with the season, we have an awesome surprise in store for you. Thanks to the hard work and dedication of David Lee, a host over at Sega Saturn, Shiro!, we now have beautiful US Long Box artwork for Christmas NiGHTS Into Dreams. To do even better, the guys over at the Sega Saturn, Shiro! Podcast have made the PDF files availible so you can make your own.
I wasn't planning to contribute much to this blog, given the dearth of recent news about the Sega Saturn... but somehow, I managed to turn up something relevant. Retro-Bit claims that it will launch a series of devices based on Sega consoles, including the Sega Genesis, Sega Dreamcast, and (wait for it...) the Sega Saturn.
The announcement, unfortunately, comes with no small measure of confusion. Retro-Bit describes these upcoming products as "accessories," making you think that they're just going to crank out some compatible controllers and call it a day. Yet later in the press release, the company claims that these accessories "feature the same great quality as their original Sega counterparts like the original console port, but also with modern upgrades such as a USB® port for PC compatibility and Bluetooth® wireless technology." That sounds a little closer to the plug 'n play devices we've been getting from companies like Radica, AtGames, and more recently, Nintendo.
Adding to the confusion is the fact that the Sega Saturn has been stubbornly resistant to emulation thanks to its peculiar hardware design. Could Retro-Bit really deliver on a Saturn plug 'n play when Saturn emulation has never advanced beyond "barely adequate?" Furthermore, the massive size of Saturn games relative to the cartridge ROMs in past plug 'n plays prompts questions about what would be included in this device, and what could realistically fit. The Super NES Classic has 512MB of storage... that would be just enough room for, uh, one sixth of Panzer Dragoon Saga.
You can find more information about Retro-Bit's upcoming plug 'n play consoles (what little there currently is...) by clicking this link. The systems will be shown off at the Consumer Electronics Show held early next month, and believe me when I say that I will be watching this reveal very, very carefully.
This post is not going to be a classic epistle, it's more of a cathartic exercise. I need to get something out of my system... I've been bitten, infected if you like. I've got the bug... its a Christmas based bug, it's a Saturn based bug. It's the game that the Facebook group (The Saturn Junkies) know very well is my current love, my 'jeu du jours', my consuming obsession, my Christmas NiGHTS.
In this episode of TitanCast we go over each of our "Building A Saturn Library On A Budget" list. I tasked myself, Simon, and Brian to find seven titles, all under $200, that would make a decent beginners library.
This is part one, three of our seven of our titles. Stay tuned for part two in a few weeks.
Don't forget to like, subscribe and share this video around if you enjoyed it.
As a little bonus to celebrate the Saturn Junkyard's 11th Birthday, we thought we might set a competition. It's going to be something different to the weekly challenge on the Facebook page, something that utilises the creative skills of the members!
The brief is simple... To design a graphic or pictorial image for the Saturn Junkyard's 11th Birthday.
This rather lovely graphic (pictured below) was made on our 1st anniversary, way back in 2007. So it's high time we had a new one.
Use modern technology or good old fashioned crafting skills to create a captioned picture that celebrates us as a community!
The closing date for entries will be January the 1st 2018. So you've got around two weeks to knock something up. I reckon that's enough time!
Prize! Every competition needs a prize and we've got three!
First prize: A white 3D Saturn Controller with beautiful coloured buttons, that would enhance both the gameplay and aesthetics of any Saturn console, but particularly a Japanese Saturn...
Second Prize: A copy of Official Saturn Magazine. Thumb through the pages of this 1996 journal devoted to our favourite console and you'll be transported back to the days when the Saturn was king...
Third Prize: A copy of Sega Rally. (Are you beginning to wonder where all this crap is coming from? 😜) So you've already got one? Well come third and you'll have a spare!
Post your entries on the Facebook page and we'll announce the winners in the New Year!
The tenth birthday of the Saturn Junkyard, a huge milestone in website lifespans, was something that should have been celebrated with pomp and fanfare. But at the time, the blog was barely alive. Think ET lying in the stream, cold, pale and barely breathing on the day after Halloween... Or 'Flynn's Arcade' when Flynn Jr, turns up on his superbike at the start of 'Tron 2'... Or Star Fleet's finest pointy-eared Vulcan, floating through space in a state of suspended animation in 'Search For Spock'... I'm sure you get the picture. In short, it was knackered.
But earlier this year, in a crazy scheme cooked up by two slightly unhinged middle aged chaps with a penchant for gaming, the rusty old gates of the 'Yard were swung open, like Wonka's factory on the day specified on the golden ticket. Machinery was heard coughing and spluttering, cogs, once well oiled, but now rusted and seized together, began to turn once more and before you knew it, the old place was living and breathing again!
But in just one day's time we'll be cracking open a huge bottle of bubbly, to celebrate the 11th birthday of our little blog. It's back, it's primed and it's ready to run and run...
We’ve all heard of games being cancelled. It usually happens midway through development when the publisher cuts the funds or forces the developers to work on another project. At the end of the Saturn’s lifecycle it also became alarmingly common to pull the plug on games that were all but finished, usually multiplatform games where the Playstation version went out as usual while the Saturn one got dropped in the bin. Frustrating as that was, at least you could still play the game, albeit on another platform, so all was not lost.
And then there were games that simply died on the final stretch and never saw the light of day, period. Armed (alternatively known as Aftermath) was one of those games. Until now.
Unlike many of my friends and peers i suck at games, just wanted to clear that up before i ramble on! however my suckiness has never dissuaded me from being a gamer, and it’s not hampered my enjoyment of said games i think as I’ve got older most of my mates just find it endearing particularly as they can kick my butt at most games. But how does this tie into my Sega Saturn and equally beloved Sega Dreamcast? What i love about these consoles is the ability they have to perfectly transport me back to the arcades of the 90’s. Being a London kid i was often found in Sega World at the now defunct Trocadero. Sega World was a grandiose arena of gaming opulence, machines spilling out of every square foot, it was a sensory hit of lights and sound and it reeked of the 90’s. Ultimately it failed commercially and like Sega’s ill fated consoles of the mid to late nineties although it was amazing it lost them money, the world was moving on from the arcades, but quite a few of us didn’t want to come, i was led kicking and screaming into the arms of the Playstation 2 and X box as i watched the Sega console empire burn. What this did do was make my passion for the company even more vociferous and i felt it was my duty to keep the flame burning with my Saturn and DC. Although it didn’t always faithfully port classic arcade games i’m not technical enough to notice, i’m just glad the games made it to the systems i love!
Theres not much i can say about Virtua fighter 1 and 2, Sega Rally , HofD and Daytona that hasn’t already been said ! These games particularly Sega Rally are like
a great movie you can watch over and over and not get bored, Sega Rally is my Empire strikes back in movie terms unfortunately when it struck back on the DC the sequel left me underwhelmed, perhaps due to the perfection of Sega rally on the Saturn.
Since i’m so sucky at the games i won’t go on about them too much , what i would really like to focus on talking about is the sense of camaraderie that has been spawned out of these supposedly defunct and ailing consoles. I knew the Saturn was special a year or two after it’s release due to the fiercely loyal communities that developed around it, the same can be said of the DC which had an even shorter European lifespan. The Saturn excelled in niche gaming areas it has a fine array of RPGs and Smups and truly was and still is a 2D powerhouse! The very fact that I’m still exploring the gamut of games on offer for a console that ceased productions quite a few years ago is testament to it’s excellent library and unearthed gems of which the good and far more knowledgeable folk in the Sega Saturn and dreamcast junkyard are helping me to dig up! More in part 2!!
What were you doing in 1996? I suppose if you're here, it was playing the Sega Saturn. I was too, on week nights. But at the weekend I would pursue a different form of entertainment, in the nightclubs of Manchester and occasionally Liverpool, London or Sheffield. I was, what I believe you would call, a raver. Rave culture - dancing to frenetic "acid house" music in fields or nightclubs - had been around since the late 1980s, and I bought into it big time. By 1996, the whole rave scene had exploded and it's repetitive beats and ecstasy influenced visuals had permeated all aspects of society - fashion, advertising, radio and television etc. but perhaps none more so, than it did gaming culture.
The fact that the Saturn appeared at this period of history, means that it's games will forever have musical, and sometimes graphical links to the rave scene. The 'go-to' gaming soundtrack up until this point had been chip tunes, soft rock or sweeping orchestral scores. But in the mid nineties more and more games started to appear with house, techno or drum and bass soundtracks... I'm sure you'll remember this as a feature of several Saturn games... Wipe Out, Sonic 3D Blast,and Steep Slope Sliders to name but three. Games such as Wipe Out were actually produced with ravers in mind, and the idea of fusing raving with gaming culminated in the mighty Rez produced for the Dreamcast just a few years later.
In this episode of TitanCast, I sit down with one of the original members of the Junkyard's creative team. We discuss his beginnings with the Saturn, how it fell from favor, the rise and fall of the Junkyard, and his re-entry to The Saturn Junkyard version 2.0.
Ladies and Gentlemen, let me reintroduce you to Nuno, the one and only NebachadnezzaR.
You can also listen to the podcast over at our Buzzsprout:
Anyway! It's our first foray into this uncharted territory, so feedback would be much appreciated.
Speaking of the game, Falcom Classics is a compilation disc released in 1997 exclusively in Japan, featuring reworked versions of three of their classic games: Dragon Slayer, Xanadu and, of course, Ys. I'm talking specifically about this game only because, not being fluent in nihongo [although I did once memorise the entire hiragana syllabary, which can come in handy when confronted with simple choices like はい (yes) and いいえ (no) - and little else], the best I can do is replay a game that I've played so many times already, in so many different systems, by now I could do it blindfolded. Almost. Tried my hand at Dragon Slayer and...yeah, I couldn't get very far.
I touched upon the most important aspects of this port in the video, from the basics of the gameplay, to the beautifully arranged soundtrack, to the graphics and various gameplay enhancements, so there's not really much more to say.
The story is cool, if a bit incomplete since it only comes to a conclusion in the sequel.
I'm afraid we (at the SEGA SATURN, SHIRO! Podcast) have been playing our Saturns perhaps a little TOO hard, as we've gotten dreadfully behind in sharing updates on the Junkyard... Many apologies!
However, if you've already listened to the excellent TitanCast more than a few times and are now twiddling your thumbs at what to do with yourself until those boys drop their next bomb-track.., we've got you covered with a few episodes to fill the time... ;) Cheers! -Patrick, Dave & Ke
(Thanks again to Father Krishna for the warm welcome and invitation to share with the Junkyard!)
Episode 3: Let's Get Technical
We talk media, backups, swap tricks, carts, drive replacements.
Public release of Armed (Aftermath), a previously unreleased game.
Episode 5: Getting Saturn Online...
We talk SEGA's online history and interview SEGA RPG FAN &
ItsStillThinking1999 regarding the NetLink over VoIP exploit!
Episode 6: LOVE or HATE
We discuss several polarizing Saturn games that often stir up debate.
