My Lame 'Nuts & Bolts' Saturn

Before you execute a Segata stanglehold on me for not posting a pic from a Saturn game, let me explain. I recently picked up the 360 game 'Banjo-Kazooie Nuts & Bolts' and am throughly enjoying it. Particularly the vehicle building aspect. Finally a way for me to play with Legos as a grown man! Of course, my first order of business was to build a Sega Saturn car. As you can see above, I did a so-so job. As this is my first vehicle, and my parts inventory is small, I ask you to forgive me and let me have another crack at it once my skills improve. Expect a "model 2" in the coming month. Do I get extra points for adding the memory cartridge?


Fun fact: 'Nuts & Bolts' has one degree of seperation from Segata Sanshiro. Banjo & Kazooie appeared in the 360 version of 'Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing', and Segata himself was considered as a racer early in the dev stages. They even drew up concept art (which has yet to be seen)! His lack of inclusion was, in part, due to Sega not owning the likeness of Hiroshi Fujioka (Segata's actor).

Obligatory vintage Hiroshi image:

UPDATE – I gave it another try and made a much better Saturn vehicle:

Games you need in your import collection pt1

I thought it might be useful to collate some of my import collection for those of you new to the scene. It's easy enough to get games in your own territory, but people often rave about Japanese games circa 1990-2000. 

The thing is, a lot of these games are now overhyped or just plain old expensive. Let's hit on a few that are great games, but won't break the bank. Welcome to part 1 of my import special.

Saturn Bomberman Fight!

Oh yes. It's Bomberman! What a cainer. Blow the crap out of your opponents. The best part? Having a sleep over? No problem. With a multi-tap or two, you can have up to 10 players. 10 players. Most teenagers these days don't have that many physical friends*. Anyway, this is a great game. You all know bomberman and this is one of the best. Get it!

Layer Section

This is an often overlooked shooter. Everyone raves about Radiant Silvergun. It's often sold for over £100. Sod that. Don't bother unless you are a collector - which you would have to be to pay that for it. It's a good shooter, but overratted. Layer section is pretty old school but feels really tight and can be found cheaply.

Panzer Dragoon

Yes, this can be found PAL for cheap cheap cheap, but... look at the artwork on the Japanese game. Worth the price of an import Saturn if you ask me. Which you aren't, but I am telling you anyway. Gorgeous.

Great game too!

This concludes the round up of the games you should own on your import Saturn. Part 1. Stay tuned!

*complete guess and probably quite offensive. If you're a teen, write in to let us know.

Saturn comes back around to show you everything...

Lets you choose what you will not see then,

drags you down like a stone or lifts you up again,

spits you out like a child, light and innocent."

I have not become a poet. Far from it. These are lyrics to a Tool song called "The Grudge" but somehow when I was listening to it during a transpennine train journey with my Chao, it struck me that I had neglected the Saturn somewhat. (Also, I was thinking it's about time I wrote on here again!). See Tool perform the Grudge live below:

At 128-Bit, the Dreamcast is clearly the console that modern gamers on a budget would pick up - especially if they saw the games on offer. Great games, great graphics. There is however, an often overlooked console also from SEGA: Sega Saturn. And there's still a compelling reason, or two, to buy a Saturn in this century.

Most people will remember it, either fondly or with disdain, but most will remember it. Games such as Virtua Fighter, Panzer Dragoon and the excellent SEGA Rally Championship cannot be forgotten. 

NiGHTS is another excellent game that is often subject to over-hyped nostalgia, but is actually still an excellent game, though it looks somewhat dated when played on a TV with a screen larger than 14".

Most PAL gamers will have these games - and they damn well out to get them today if they haven't! There are some import gems that don't require you to master Japanese - or even learn any of it (why have I been wasting my time and money...). There are some fantastic PAL games that everyone raves about, some import games that people rave about. I thought it would be more value to list a few of my own favourite games, that I currently play, rather than just another "Saturn Top Ten". So, without further ado, I present to you a list of a few of my favourite games that I think should be in anyone's 2009 Saturn collection:

Twinkel Star Sprites:

 Forget Radiant silvergun. Unless you have serious money, don't even bother. It's a good game, but it's not worth the high prices. Find something else to play. There's better for cheaper. This is not dirt cheap though - that tells you something!

Elevator Action Returns! 

Absolutely great game. Picked this up without knowing what it was and have really enjoyed playing it with my brother. It's a great two player coin-op co-op, with tons of replay value and is great for a quick blast.

Saturn Bomberman

Amazing game. Haven't played it much recently, but there's nothing quite like bomberman!

Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter

X-Men vs. Street Fighter

RAM Cart (4MB) needed for both of those bad boys above.

King of Fighter's '97

Burning Rangers

Metal Slug

Chase HQ and SCI

Strikers 1945

So, there you have something to get your teeth into! Get these great games as they are still great fun today and could give your Saturn a new lease of life! Worth getting your system modded or picking up that sexy white Saturn...

Tokyo - City Of Dreams?

So, there I was. In Tokyo. The city, which I heard so much about. All my retrogaming dreams would finally come true. Well, at least that's what I thought. Many of my mates on the internet already warned me about Tokyo not being the retrogamer's paradise, which it used to be. I took a mental note but still thought, that it at least must be better over there than in my hometown in Germany. And well, it was. Sort of.

~Akihabara~

On day 2 of our visit, we went straight to Akihabara, to check out some retroshops. At first we had some trouble finding one, but then we found the quite famous "Super Potato" shop. We went up the stairs to floor 1 and the amount of retrogames you'll find there is a bit overwhelming at first. You have dozens of Super Famicom carts, even more Famicom carts and also Sega Saturn games. A whole shelf full of them! In a neat little glass showcase, they stacked up the really rare items. A little bit of hardware can be found here and there as well. So that sounds great, doesn't it? Well it was to a certain degree. What wasn't as nice, were the prices of the games. A Guardian Heroes did cost around 24 EUR there. I already bought that for 7 EUR on ebay.de! The other prices were mediocre at best, too. Especially the rare items were really expensive. So the only bargain you could obtain were 100 Yen (0,60 EUR) games like Virtua Fighter, Daytona USA or Fighting Vipers. I managed to get some great bargains here and there (Like Miniskirt Police for 13 EUR, which I have to review in some days!), but I was still a tad dissapointed. Other Retroshops in Akihabara (and there aren't too many of them either!) have roughly the same pricing, so if you are after the good Sega Saturn games, you might want to continue browsing ebay.

But hey, I was warned, wasn't I? So I had a look for some boxed hardware and... uhm... found nothing. The Super Potato shop had that boxed white Saturn, but with a 80 EUR price tag and a definitely not mint box, I had to pass. I bought the even more rare V-Saturn on ebay.de for around 70 EUR for example. I wasn't even able to find some boxed Joypads or something like that. Not to speak of truly rare and / or unique items like the Sega Saturn backpacks, SegaFan Issues or the Segata Sanshiro action figure. If you are a collector of unboxed Famicom games, then Tokyo is still your paradise. But regarding Sega Saturn games Tokyo is not a must anymore. If you are there to see the extraordinary city, then it's fine to browse some Saturn Games here and there and save some money whilst buying a shitload of 100 Yen games.

~Bars~

When staying in Tokyo, your brain is constantly exposed to an immense amount of flashing lights, uber sized billboards, incredibly gorgeous girls and incredibly loud sounds. So it's just natural, that you want to relax somewhere and drink as much beer, as you can. A mere days before we flew to Japan we actually found two Tokyo based videogame themed bars in the internet. 8-Bit Café and 16 Shots. They were even just minutes away from our hotel, so it was clear that we'll hang out there and drink like crazy. We first visited the 8-Bit Café, which is nothing more than an apartment located on the fifth floor in one of Tokyo's skyscrapers. It's quite small, but you can squeeze a lot of people into it, if you want. And more importantly there was gaming goodness lying around everywhere. Super Famicom carts, two Sega Saturns, a showcase filled with odd stuff and a lot of videogame related books. Of course you can play all that stuff as well! We immediately ordered some beer and for some odd reason they only had german Löwenbräu beer. That didn't stop us from drinking, though. After some rounds of Street Fighter II we also managed to get in contact with some true locals, who already were kinda drunk. It was a really nice evening there.

The next day, we wanted to visit the 16 Shots bar, which was only 5 Minutes away from the 8-Bit Café. It was even smaller, roughly fitting max. 7 people inside. 4 at the counter and 3 around a great cocktail cab with Raiden Fighters 2. The first thing you noticed was the music. In the 16 Shots bar the playlist was filled with videogame tunes like the Segata Sanshiro Theme (!), Virtua Fighter tunes and countless of other stuff, whereas the 8-Bit Café was mainly playing "ordinary" electronic music. The 16 Shots bar had a lot of gaming goodnes flying around here and there, as well. But the really great thing about it was the toilet, which had a pinboard with business cards on it. Those weren't normal business cards but business cards from people who work at Sega, Grasshopper Manufacture, Sony Computer Entertainment America, Famitsu, etc. Nearly the whole industry was there and I was peeing right next to them. When visiting the 16 Shots bar more often during our stay, we noticed why there were so many business cards hanging at the toilet pinboard. Those people actually visit the bar quite frequently! We managed to meet people from Climax (Dark Saviour anyone?), Grasshopper Manufacture, the guy who made Every Extend Extra and most importantly a very nice and friendly guy from Sega. We drank a bit, talked a bit and whoops, the next day we had an appointment at the Sega Headquarter in Ootori.

~Sega~

The next day we arrived in Ootori on time and already saw a huge Sega sign when we stepped out of the JR line station! We didn't hesitate and went straight to it, posed infront of the Sega sign at the doors and went in. Inside it looked like your ordinary office building, with (gorgeous) secretaries running around and people waiting in the foyer to be picked up. It did take quite some time until our acquaintance came. But it was our mistake. We went straight into the Arcade Division Building and the Sega guy was waiting at the true Headquarter, just two blocks away, which we totally missed. The main headquarter was more representative with a huge Sonic in the Foyer, huge display windows with Sega memorabilia and some LCD screens with trailers of upcoming games running on them. We went into an empty conference room on the third floor and takeld a bit with him. Mostly about Dreamcast stuff, since the interview was mostly lead by a mate from Dreamcast-Scene.com.

So there wasn't too much Sega Saturn related stuff involved in our conversation, but we got a glimpse of how it must have been to work at Sega at that time. The guy, whom we talked with, was actually working on Burning Rangers and some other big games for the Sega Saturn. He also saw Shen Mue running on stock Sega Saturn hardware, which brought some tears to my eyes, once I heard that. I wish I would have been able to ask more interesting questions about the Sega Saturn, but time was scarce and he wasn't able to answer the truly interesting questions, since he didn't work in the responsible departments. And besides, there is not much unanswered stuff left, I am afraid.

~Tokyo In General~

So there you have it. That was Japan for me. Few retrogames, the ones you find are either very common and thus only about 100 Yen, or very rare and very expensive up to 98,000 Yen (roughly 600 EUR for an "Heim Waltz"). The girls in Tokyo are incredibly gorgeous, with the majority of them wearing (no matter how cold it is) nothing but Miniskirts, high heels, stockings and crazy tops. 99 % of them are super skinny and very cute as well. Contrary to popular belief, Tokyo is actually quite cheap. A can of coke out of a vending machine is 120 Yen (0,60 EUR), a Big Mac is 240 Yen (1,50 EUR, WTF? It's currently over 3,10 EUR in Germany!) and you can get the cheapest Metro ticket for around 100 - 140 Yen. So, Tokyo isn't really expensive. You can actually live there and you can especially afford a vacation there. Our flight was around 600 EUR and the 2 stars Hotel 400 EUR for 9 days. And let me tell you, that 2 stars in Japan are like 6 stars over here! It was incredibly noble and just perfect. I'll definitely visit Tokyo again some day.