NiGHTS into Dreams into Comics - Issue 1

While the Saturn hit the US in 1995, it wasn't until 1998 that I bought a system. A large part of why I held out was money, $399 is a fortune to an 11 year old. Also, I was having way too much fun with my Genesis at the time, a testament to the quality of the 16-bit system. The Genesis had everything I wanted: Sonic the Hedgehog and Disney Interactive games. The Saturn had a Sonic compilation of games I already owned and some goofy jester game. At the time I was oblivious to the fact that NiGHTS was a Sonic Team game (no Wikipedias or SegaNerds back in 1995, kids) and so I went on ignoring one of the greatest games and systems of the mid-90's.

During Christmas, 1996 I had my first chance to play NiGHTS on a Saturn store kiosk similar to the one Michael Jackson's estate had up for auction. Long story short, it blew me away and I had to have it. Fast forward to January 1998, I was still strapped for cash but could afford the occasional action figure and comic book. I was a hardcore Sonic the Hedgehog Archie Comics collector, with a subscription assuring every issue would come right to my door. Promos began to appear in the Sonic comics for a new SEGA mini-series titled NiGHTS into Dreams, and if that wasn't exciting enough I also learned it would be drawn by the greatest Sonic artist the US had to offer: SPAZ!

Patrick "SPAZ" Spaziante was the longtime cover artist for the Sonic comics. SPAZ's cover work was an experience in itself, sometimes outshining the story contained within an issue. Hell, the man has his own gallery at Sonic HQ. Suffice to say, if you bought a Sonic comic just for SPAZ's art, then imagine an entire mini-series done by the man!

February 1998 came and the first issue arrived. In hindsight, the NiGHTS mini-series greatly expanded on the plot of the game. The comic began by introducing a blacksmith, driven by his dreams to create a gleaming golden spire (the same spire seen on the game cover and menu screen!). Little did the smith know that he was being controlled by Wizeman the Wicked to create a spire identical to one found in Nightopia, the land of dreams. NiGHTS and Reala are introduced as lackeys of Wizeman (!) who have just captured the two dreamers of the real world who only appear once every century, these being two kids of the 1800's.


NiGHTS is quickly swayed by the young girl to go turncoat on Wizeman, as he flies off with the red dream power spheres. While fleeing, he runs into some Chao- er, I mean Nightopians, who prompt him to cram the spheres into the dream hole to reality (sounds nasty, I know). A shard of dream sphere comes loose and embeds itself into NiGHTS chest, I'm sure that plot point won't come into play during the final issue *wink-wink*. Meanwhile, the two spheres fly out of the blacksmith's spire and embed themselves into the ground outside. In a moment of inspiration, the smith describes what he saw and gives a name to the town which will someday develop from that plot of land: Twin Seeds! Thank goodness he didn't name it Two Balls.


Fast forward 100 years, Two Balls has developed into a thriving metropolis. The pinnacle of the city is a large skyscraper topped off with the blacksmith's spire. Two Nightopians emerge from the spire in search of the two dreamers. In a "small world" moment, both dreamers are found within seconds of eatchother: Elliot and Claris. Elliot is late for basketball practice, and what's worse he is quickly schooled by a Draco Malfoy-like tit named Roger.

Draco, complete with Crabbe and Goyle

Elliot is quickly beaten down with laughter and insults, but is distracted by beautiful music. He finds the source of the music, a music school, and climbs up to get a view into the window. Why it's the other dreamer, Claris Sinclair! Elliot's voyerism doesn't last long, as he is scared shitless by a Nightopian. Claris is distraced by Elliot and is derided by her beachball-like music teacher for lacking focus. It would seem both dreamers are having trouble acheiving their... dreams?

Holy shit! They can't be the same species.

After surviving a three story fall, Elliot quickly accepts that magical fairies exist and is convinced to fall asleep to enter Nightopia. As Elliot isn't sleepy, they could wait until evening when Elliot is sleepy. I reccomend taking some Benedryl-


Or give Elliot a concussion, that works too. Entering the land of dreams, the Nightmaren introduces Elliot to the Ideya Palaces (those little four pillar checkpoints that hold NiGHTS in the games). It is revealed that NiGHTS exists as even less than a dream, as he was imprisoned by Wizeman for rebelling. The only way to awake NiGHTS is for a real world dreamer to enter the Ideya Palace. Elliot is quick to enter and becomes NiGHTS, triggering the alarms to Wizeman that NiGHTS has escaped. Wizeman dispatches Gillwing (the first NiGHTS boss) and in a very Wizard of Oz moment invades Claris's dreams, turning her music teacher into the evil Puffy. Sensing that Claris is in danger, NiGHTS leaves Elliot and fuses with Claris, defeating Puffy.


Meanwhile, Elliot uses the floating alarm clock (usually something you'd avoid in the games) to his advantage as he wakes himself up before Gillwing can lay a finishing blow. As the issue comes to a close, all is well... for now! While Claris and Elliot have sweet dreams, Draco Malfoy is introduced to the nightmaren known as Reala. DUN-DUN-DUNN!

To be continued...
Images courtesy of a MegaUpload file, I own the issues but am too lazy to scan them myself.

A game worth the price tag

The sentence that serves as a title for this post is usually one of the first things that come to my mind when I think about it. You see, for there are a lot of rare and expensive Saturn games out there, some of them good, some of them bad, but all not worth the hefty prices they demand these days. But, alas, I've found one such a game! It can go from 50 to 200€/$/£, depending on region (Europe - semi-rare, USA - rare, Japan - cheap as fuck), but even the biggest price tag is thoroughly deserved.

I'm talking about Panzer Dragoon Saga!


Now, you all know I'm a big fan of the series, and this game was the only one missing from my collection (not counting the spin-off Panzer Dragoon Mini or whatever that gamegear game was called). It has been on my list for quite some time, but now I finally decided to take the plunge and just play it. And OMFG it's awesome!!!

Seriously, this game was so ahead of it's time! I'm only in the middle of disc 2 and it's already one of my favourite RPG's ever! For a start, the game is very cinematic. There are a lot of FMV's (real, lengthy videos, not just short clips) that illustrate the story thoroughly and put you in the right mood for this hallucinating trip, and not only they're technically irreprehensible, but also masterfully designed, with shots worthy of Hollywood. Then, it's freaking accessible for an RPG. For a start, everything is thoroughly explained in a series of interactive tutorials. That way you won't enter your first fight without knowing the combat system in detail.



And also, the combat system is one of the most engaging and fast-paced I've ever seen using a turn-based mechanic. It's kind of complex for me to explain here without a video to illustrate while I describe it, but just bear in mind that position matters, you have to be constantly moving around your enemies to dodge their attacks and find their weak-points, and your choice of attacks depends heavily on your action bar's charge.

Then there's the story, the surreal setting on which the action takes place and the gameplay outside the fights. You'll explore villages on foot and breathtaking scenarios mounted on your faithful dragon, reminiscing of some areas from the previous games, and the slower pace of the games let's you learn more about this strange world and admire the absolutely stunning graphics. This takes me to the graphics, which are simply amazing. It's almost impossible to get more out of the Saturn's limited 3D capabilities, but enough to make you realize how amazing the system is/was back in the day. Also, the game has a unique "Saturn look" to it. I can't really explain, but I think there are certain graphical effects that were most used on Saturn games, so that you can immediately tell this was not released on a Playstation, for example. But, more stunning than the technical aspect is the art direction, which is everything you can expect from a Panzer Dragoon game.



To sum it up, even though I'm not halfway through it yet, this is already one of my favourite game on the system, and given it's accessible nature, chances are a lot of you faithful readers will enjoy it too, even if you usually don't fancy RPG's. This game is pure magic. Go buy it and see for yourself, you'll thank me later :)

And Father K, I know you have this one. Go play it, go play it now!

Dungeons & Dragons Collection: Saturn Review

Details:
Game: Dungeons & Dragons Collection - Sega Saturn
Publisher: Capcom
Year: 1999 (Oroginal release date of games: 1993 & 1996)




First off, I was never into D&D as a kid. I could never really understand what the hell was going on, and it just seemed quite lame to me. Don't get me wrong, wizards are cool, sword welding warriors are cool, and scantily clad babes riding dragons are cool too. I've never really been a huge fan of RPG's either (I'm slowly gaining interest), but action-adventure games like Zelda, Shenmue, Metal Gear. I just can't get enough of.

When I found out that there was a D&D game for the Saturn, and it was an arcade style 2D scrolling fighter, I definitely needed to check it out. I was a really big fan of the 2 and 4 player arcade games of the late 80's and 90's, a la Final Fight, Ninja Turtles, X-Men, Spider Man and so on, but I had never seen this game before. I think it's because when these games were released I was busy playing Super Street Fighter II and Sega Super GT. The Saturn version was not released until March, 1999 (only in Japan), and by that time I was well into my N64 and PS1 hay-days. The closest that I think I ever came to playing a similar game would have been Knights of the Round which was also a Capcom game, or Golden Axe . Well, anyways I was about to enter the magical world of D&D. The Saturn version (which I now have) is quite hard to find. I got my version from Ebay, and yes....it was not cheap. Over the many months that I was humming and hawing over whether or not to buy it for the Saturn I did download the ROM for MAME, and played the game quite a bit. I finally broke down and picked up the SS version, and I am very happy with it. So, on to the review...

Game play (7.5/10): Your classic hack and slash type game play. There are quite a few different characters to choose from, all with their own fighting style and magic capabilities. The control is nice and tight, and each character is well balanced so you can play any part of the game with what ever character you want and not have too much trouble. The game doesn't really do anything that I haven't seen before (action-wise), but there are quite a lot of different attacks and magic spells that each character can perform. You can also buy axillary weapons and items, which is nice too.

The levels are well designed, and there are plenty of bad guys and bosses to take on. There are quite a lot of levels, especially for an arcade game, and you can pick different paths throughout the game, which does add replay value. This game was definitely designed to eat quarters in the Arcade, as it is quite difficult, and I find myself dying all the time....I just seem to get my ass kicked a lot. The game is much easier when there are 2 players working together, which brings me to my next point; the arcade version actually supported up to 6 players, but unfortunately, the Saturn version only supports 2.

Graphics (7/10): In a way, I'm kind of surprized that the game requires the 4MB RAM cartridge. I think this is more to support the mutliple character models, rather than deliver amazing visuals. But since the game only supports 2 players, I'm really not too sure where the additional RAM is being used. The graphics are nice, but not that impressive. They look more 1991 than 1996. The game does look pretty good when there are a lot of enemies on the screen and some big 'ol magic spell is cast. The animation on the characters is OK, it's not super fluid, but it does the job. The levels look nice, and each one is visually appealing in its own way. So let's put it this way, graphically, it's no Princess Crown, but it is still one of the nicer looking 2D games from the 90's.

Sound (6/10): The vocals are brutal....the screams and little voicing there is sounds like it came from a Master System Game. Come on now, this was 1996, it couldn't have been too hard to put together some higher quality voice acting. The rest of the sound effects are fine, but nothing special. The same goes for the level music....it does the job, but nothing that I'll ever be humming in my head a week after playing the game.

Overall (8/10): OK, so how does the game get an 8/10 for the overall score when clearly I haven't given any of the individual review sections anything over a 7.5? Well, even with its faults, the game is super fun to play, and is a definite must have for any Saturn collection. It's the kind of game you can pick up and play for an hour or so and have a great time. Oh, and by the way, did I mention that you actually get two games here: Tower of Doom and Shadow Over Mystara so you do get quite a bit of value in the purchase. Compared to the ultimate Saturn 2D beat 'em up (Guardian Heroes) D&D collection comes in 2nd place, but it's still a really good game. Think of taking Knights of the Round and Golden Axe, making them have a baby, and then giving that baby a bunch of Steroids, and there you have D&D collection. So if you can find it for a reasonable price, definitely pick it up, and even if it's an unreasonable price, you should consider getting anyways.

What if...?! Cartridge Games

So, there were those great Dezaemon 2 releases some time ago. On Volume 1 was Devil Blade 2 by Shigatake, which is simply the most amazing Dezaemon 2 Shmup yet. I decided to put it permanently on a memory card, so that I don't have to load it from the CD and copy it onto my memory card every time I want to play it. Of course it needed a nice sticker then as well and whilst designing it, I thought about how cool it would have been, if there were actual cartridge games for the Saturn available.

The Sega Saturn memory cards are roughly the same size as the Mega Drive (Genesis) cartridges and so I went out and bought a very cheap Mega Drive game, to put my memory card containing Devil Blade 2 in. Now it only needed a cover! I had a closer look at japanese Sega Saturn releases and altered the design a bit, so that it fits the new measurements. Et Voila! The Sega Saturn Cartridge Game packaging is born. Only thing missing would be a cool booklet.


Now I am planning to also do a "Best Of Dezaemon 2" memory card containing my favourite games from the first Dezaemon Save Games Manager release. I still have to play volume 2 and I guess, there I will find even more great games. Damn, I need plenty of memory cards now.

Saturn Model 2: Lost in New York

Ah, my first post at the Saturn Junkyard. So what does the Nomad do in his first article? He brings the whole place down by resorting to celebrity sightings! Don't worry, I'll make it SEGA related and will even visit a pretty sweet video game store.

Let's begin: This past weekend my girlfriend and I were visiting some old friends in New York City. Our first stop was a visit to VideoGamesNewYork, a small but jam-packed game shop that had everything from the Odyssey to the 360. On our way to the shop, things took a turn for the awesome when we spotted Kevin McCallister himself, Mister Macaulay Culkin!


I managed to snap the photo seen above just before Culkin spotted us and hailed a taxi. Seconds later, and I shit you not, Liev Schreiber (Sabertooth of Wolverine) was walking on the opposite side of the street with his son! The gaming gods must have planned all of this as upon entering VideoGamesNewYork I spotted Home Alone 2 for the Genesis and a poster advertising the next-gen Wolverine game.


So what did the store have to offer in terms of SEGA games and systems? In five words: a hell of a lot. You'd be hared pressed to even find a store back in the mid-90's that had this much Saturn stuff in one spot. There were literally hundreds of US and Japanese games available, as well as boxes full of controllers, multi-taps and 4meg carts. After the excitement receded, I asked myself "how could this much Saturn stuff go unsold?" I quickly had my answer: the prices were (for the most part) ludicrous! Games that would go for $5 on ebay were $25, shrink-wrapped stinkers like CROC went for $60 and used controllers were $25. More examples outside of the Saturn: A new Dreamcast was $140, used VMUs were $14.99 each (without caps), Sonic Adventure was $60 and a used Master System Converter was $90. Ouch.


Despite lots of overly priced items, there were some deals to be found. Many staple Saturn games like Daytona USA and Virtua Fighter 2 were between $5 and $9. The Bomberman Multi-tap was $60, new in box.


On the Dreamcast side, the often overpriced Illbleed was $9 and the rare official Dreamcast to Neo Geo Color link cable was $25 and was well stocked (I counted a dozen or so). Genesis and Sega CD games went for reasonable prices, though if you wanted a boxed cartridge you'd spend $25+ for games like Sonic 2 and Golden Axe.


In the end I left with a small amount but excellent selection of items. I snagged Floigan Bros., Illbleed and a third-party ASCII controller for $30 total. Not too shabby! Unfortunately I didn't obtain any Saturn items, as I really had my eye on their rarer games but couldn't handle their prices.

Overall, visiting VideoGamesNewYork was a great experience, if only for the opportunity to stand before hundreds of classic SEGA games. There ARE deals to be found, but I'd advise making up a list of games you're on the lookout for beforehand and comparing the online price to what VideoGamesNewYork offers. You can check out their website here and view more photos of the shop here. I also have this article reposted at The Nomad Junkyard, with a bonus photo!

A Nomad Wanders Into The 'Yard...

You may have noticed a certain blue hedgehog making a prolific amount of appearances in the comment sections of our sister site, the Dreamcast Junkyard, in the cbox in the sidebar and even adding some interesting Saturn modding advice in the comment section of the last post!

Yes it's the ever present and ever funny Barry The Nomad, so named because of his love of Sega's "bulky but beautiful" handheld masterpiece. Indeed, Barry's love for the Nomad has resulted in the creation of the Nomad Junkyard, the latest addition to the ever growing family of Sega Junkyards out there.

And what a corker of a blog it is! As slick as an eel soaked in butter, and with twice the bite, the Nomad Junkyard celebrates all things Sega, not just the Nomad itself. So what did I do when I saw his wit and talent displayed over at the NJY??? Why I hijacked him of course, bundled him into a large sack and forced him at gunpoint to agree to syphon his Saturn musings to the Saturn Junkyard! Mwuahahahaha!!!

I also sat him in front of a large black and white spiral that spun slowly inwards, and a swinging golden pocket watch which hypnotised him into a deep trance. I then played the Segata Sanshiro theme tune on a loop through some headphones for the next 72 hours, ensuring his status in the cult of Segata, and subsequent undying allegiance to the SJY! The effect on Barry was somewhat startling , as you can see from the photo evidence below. He now only wears his Judo suit, and has spent over seven hundred thousand dollars having the 'Elvis style' hair of a genuine Japanese Segata impersonator, grafted one by one, onto his own scalp.

Barry before Cult Indoctrination...

Barry after Cult Indoctrination.

So may I be the first to welcome our esteemed colleague and good friend, Mr. Barry The Nomad, to our ever expanding international team!

To The Plushiest - A very public apology!

You may remember some time ago that our newest team member, and resident Saturn shmup and 2D fighter expert, the Plushiest, made a very generous offer to send your's truly the "jizz soaked" edition of Vampire Savior. The condition of this very generous gift?

"The other condition is that upon receiving the jizz copy, you must make a video about how awesome it is that I sent it to you and post it here."

Well, true to his word, our dear Plushy dispatched a rather lovely package, all the way from the distant, wonderful transatlantic land of Canada, which arrived, rather fittingly, on my 42nd birthday. Inside was the rather luscious prospect of a copy of Radiant Silvergun as a little bonus.

Now, I messed around with Vampire Saviour, trying to get it to play, but I cannot get past the first screen, which has some Japanese writing... I've pressed button after button and it will not play (for some unknown reason) on my Saturn... Now I have quite a few Japanese games in my collection, all which play fine, so I don't quite understand why this disc won't. Could it be the jizz??

OK, onto Radiant Silvergun. Now my Saturn is not chipped, so I had to try the old swap trick. As soon as I read that I had to unscrew a part of the casing, I "bottled it". (Translation for our US readers: I chickened out...

Now, I desperately want to play my lovely gifts, and since Nebachadnezzar reported on his "Saturn chipping service" success, I've researched the possibility of getting mine done. I was thrilled when I saw this rather fantastic video over at the rather wonderful Console Passion website.



Do you think I should go for it? It'll cost me about £60.

However, none of this information negates the fact that the Plushiest (real name Sam Lieff) is owed a video declaring his awesomeness, to the SJY... Nay, to the world!!!! Until I can play them and report on how great they are, this simple image will have to suffice....

PLUSHIEST! YOU ARE TRULY AWESOME!!!

Just in time for the Star Trek Movie: The "Fazor" Lightgun For The Sega Saturn

So I was looking around the garage sales in my area with very little luck. It turns out the the garage salers around here are serious. People get up at like 5AM and video game stuff goes the quickest. On 4 separate occasions I have been told that there was a ton of video games there but someone had come and boughten it all up before 7 AM. (There is an almost gleeful tone to this statment that tends to imply that I am not a serious garage saler since I wasn't here at 6:45 AM. Those Wankers!) In this cuthroat world of North Eastern NY state I fear even my well respected skills might be hard pressed to get results...

...However, I am (according to Gagaman(n)) a "Jammy Git" (Did I get that right?) or one Lucky Son of a Gun. (Or Sly Bastard Good-for-nothing according to the urban dictionary site. Which honestly does descibe certain aspects of my personality as well.)

I did manage to grab a decent model 2 Saturn console from a seller for $7 (To be used in the retro video game events I hold at the library by people who want to play some Guardian Heroes.)

And I found the following item for .50 cents in the back of a garage.

Still in box!

The "Fazor" lightgun by Madcatz.


It's an amazing light cut down lightgun that can be used in both the Playstation and the Saturn.


The light design is nice but I am used to the extremely heavy but accurate Sega Stunner and the even heavier Noby lightguns (Including the Virtual Gun which is quite nice). However, I would assume this gun would be great for people whose wrists get tired from heavier models. It has a very nice "clicky" trigger. Of course that might be because the gun I got was still in box and still somewhat new.

Here is a review. It's just about the same conclusion I reached. The gun is very light and nice but the aiming takes some getting used to.

Certainly this gun might be a big draw for fans of Star Trek. But it might not be for you.

But hell, for .50 cents I was more than willing to add this to my collection.

The Saturn is the only logical Choice.

Some New Acquisitions

Sorry for the crappy video quality.......

Just thought that I would show off some of the new acquisitions I've made recently. First off is Marvel vs. Capcom 2 for DC.....yes, yes....I know this is Saturn Junkyard, but we're all DC fans right.....? Still not as cool as X-Men vs. Street Fighter or Marvel Superheroes vs. Street Fighter, but it completes my collection of the original 4 cross-over games as you can see.....all NTSC-J of course.

Next are some more DC fighting games. I've had the burned versions of these for years, but felt compelled to purchase the real deal. Street Fighter III 3rd Strike, Capcom vs. SNK 1&2, and Vampire Savior (special Jizz-free edition.....see post from a few weeks ago) which is one of the better fighters on the Saturn.

I'm a huge Capcom fighting fan....what can I say!

And last, but definitely not least.....the pinacle of Sega Saturn RPG, and basically Sega Saturn in General....Panzer Dragoon Saga. Yes, I broke down and bought a copy. I had some money burning a hole in my pocket, and have wanted a legit copy of this game for a long time.

I'll try to post a review of PDS and Vampire Savior....and a few other games over the next few weeks, but I probably won't post a review for PDS until I've completed it.

That's it for now.....over and out.

Neon World Sega Saturn review

Just a fan-made, two part video about the Saturn and its games. Nothing we haven't seen already, but the passionate way this guy talks about the Saturn really got to me. It really shows how many Saturn fans there are out there, who still love the console as much nowadays as they did back in the day.

Modding goodness

I got my Saturn modded! Amazing how, with a bit of luck, you can still find someone today who will mod your favourite retro system. I was that lucky, something I never thought possible in this videogame god-forsaken land. The timing was funny, since just a week or so before I attempted to do the 50/60 Hz mod thingy, based on a guide where you just had to solder two wires into two big pads on the Saturn's board. Only to find out that my board was a different model and that I needed to solder a wire either directly into a tracer in the board or into the tiny leg of a chip. Fuck.

Still, in a cosmic coincidente, I browsed miau (that's Portugal's eBay) for the first time in months, aimlessly, just for a kick, when I found a sale for the complete service of a mod chip and switch. 60 euros and two weeks later, I got my Saturn back, and it works like a charm! Bye-bye fucking swap-trick (that was annoying as hell when I just wanted to play for 5 minutes to relax) and black borders in my picture. Now it's just putting the disc in and it will play straight away, in full screen and at full speed. Yay!


Not my video, my cellphone camera is not that good

Now the only thing lacking is a region switch, but nothing an Action Replay 4M+ cart won't solve.

Radiant Silvergun - The Actual Review

OK, well if you guys had actually read all the way to the bottom of my last post you would have seen that my comments about Radiant Silvergun weren't exactly true. And for those of you that actually believed that I found it at a local garage sale....well, keep dreaming. I did pay basically an arm and a leg for it, but to own one of the rarest Saturn Games ever..........priceless. On to the review:

Graphics: (8.5/10)
This game was released very late in the Saturn's life cyle, so there is no wonder why it looks really nice. Treasure did a nice mix of polygons and sprites, and for the most part the 3D models are very clean, and the amount of content that is usually on the screen looks great. There is a nice mix of colors, and most of the weapons look really nice. My only gripe is that some of the explosions look a bit cheese, and the level backgrounds are a bit to simple. I also think that Treasure should have used polygons to render the ships. Side note: the cover art is rad. It seriously looks better than any other saturn game, and pretty much any game these days.

Gameplay: (8.5/10)
Treasure always has a cool twist on the way their games play, and Radiant Silvergun is no different. I suppose the key to mastering this game is remembering the patterns of the enemies, and knowing when to use certain weapons. I've played the game a fair amount, since I did have a burned copy for quite some time, but I still die about 50 times playing through the arcade mode....no joke I'm certainly not a pro when it comes to schmups, but this game seems to be the most difficult schmup I've ever played. It is so awesome though when you sucessfully navigate through a screen completely filled with enemy fire. The whole Radiant Sword is an awesome idea too. Even though the game is extremely hard, I keep coming back for more punishment, so obviously it's hella fun! The control is super tight just like all of treasure's other games, and the level design stays pretty fresh thgouhout the whole game. You're always shooting enemies, but the bosses are all very unique, and the overall feel of each level is different as well.

Music and sound effects: (8/10)
Really good..I don't need to say much more than that. Again, Treasure has put together a rad sound track. How do I know? Becasue I hum the theme song in the shower. The sounds effects are not ground breaking, but certainly do the trick. Each weapon has it's own sound, and when a boss apears you get a cool warning sound.

Overall: (9/10)
The reasons I really like this game: 1) it's addictive gameplay; 2) can pick it up and play it for 30 mins every day, and it doesn' t get boring; 3) very original take on the shooter type of gameplay; 4) cool music; 5) great graphics for the SS; and 6) just overall a very fresh, fun game!

So is the game itself worth what I payed for it? I would have to say no. But obviously there is a reason I bought the real game when I already have a burned copy. Like I said above, owning a peice of Saturn history such as Radiant Silvergun is really cool. Basically my philisophy on Saturn and Dreamcast games these days are: if I download the game and really like it I will buy the original version, and this is how I felt about Radiant Silvergun. Obviously my feelings about this game go a little beyond that....but whatever...all I can say is that I'm pretty damn psyched that I actually own a copy of the game.....now if I can only find a copy of Panzer Dragoon Saga!

Some New Games

Here's a few of the new titles that I recently picked up. All were very reasonably priced. I've been so damn busy lately, that I haven't really had time to do any 'real' gaming or write any reviews, but as soon as I have some time, I'll be filling up the posts. But just some general thoughts about each of these games:



Vampire Savior: awesome fighting game. I actually have all 3 titles in the Vampire/Darkstalkers series now. Any game that let's you be Red Riding Hood with a machine gun.....rules. I can definitely see where the 4Meg RAM cartridge went to work here. Nice animations, sounds etc. I'm a big Capcom fighting game fan, so this one fits in my library very nice.

Real Bout Fatal Fury Best Collection: I never really played much of the SNK fighiting games back in the day, and it hasn't been until more recently why I see that they have had so much support over the years. I think these games are geared towards a slightly more adult audience that the Street Fighter series. I haven't really played this one too much, so I can't really say much at this point.

Street Fighter Zero: I actually owned the original US verson for SS back in the day, and have another copy of it as part of the Street Fighter Alpha Anthology for PS2. This was very cheap on Ebay so I just had to pick it up. The Zero/Alpha series is my favorite of all the SF games. Zero doesn't really hold a candle to Zero 2 or Zero 3, but it is the game that introduced what would be the framework for the Alpha/Zero series....so I have to give it credit for that. It just feels clunky compared to the latter titles in the series.

Marvel Superheroes: Cool game...not my favorite of the Capcom fighting games though. Basically just an extension to X-Men: Children of the Atom. Again, mostly picked this one up as a collectors item...so I haven't played it too much. I think the overall fighting system is quite a bit different than the regular Street Fighter games, so I'm just trying to figure out moves and combos right now. Solid graphics, and has some cool game elements (high jumps and dashes) which made their way to the X-Men vs. Street Fighter et, al series.......which I totally love by the way.

Radiant Silvergun: This game totally fucking sucks.....a waste of money in my opinion. I'm glad I found this at a local garage sale for $2.00. I don't know why every one raves about this game.

Princess Crown: Really cool! I have Odin Sphere, but I never knew this game existed until not that long ago. Beautiful hand drawn graphics, with characthers that compltely fill up the screen. Great music, and as for the story.....I don't read Japanese...so It's kind of wasted on me. I just picked this one up a few nights ago, but so far I'm really impressed. I need to pick up a walkthrough so I can figure out what's going on. This is a pretty collectible game, and I got it at a very good price whcih I'm proud of!

For those of you who have made it this far in the post....thanks for reading, and I have a treat for you. I bought a stand alone copy of Vampire Savior from Ebay not that long ago, and I'm not gonna lie, it looks like some one jizzed inside of the manual. I'm not surprised if that actually happened, because it is a pretty awesome game. Anyways, I was a bit sad that I had bought a copy that really isn't in very good condition, so I spent some time on Ebay and eventually found the (box set) copy that is shown in the picture above. Anyways, the jizz copy (which I will refer to it from now on) is up for grabs. I mean, if you want it, just let me know and I will mail it to you. The game plays fine, and the front cover of the manual is decent looking, so it looks OK when it's in a case. There is no back cover because it is the version that came with the box set..so for those of you who own any Capcom fighting game box sets you will know what I am talking about. Also, the game is NTSC-J so you will need a SS that can play Japanese games, and it also requires a 4Meg RAM cartridge to play. The other condition is that upon receiving the jizz copy, you must make a video about how awesome it is that I sent it to you and post it here. By the way, if you actually believed my comments about Radiant Silvergun, then I'm not sending the game to you.

Is the import playable? Deep Fear.

I have been getting some Japanese Saturn Games from Japanese Ebay stores lately since they sell for like $2.50 plus $2-$4 shipping.

I have decided to rate some of these games playability for people who cannot speak nor read Japanese.

First on the list? Deep Fear.



I have heard that the Japanese version of Deep Fear has a ton of English language text in it and the voice acting is in English as well.

But is it fully playable? Are some of the puzzles going to be impossible without a firm grasp of Kanji?

Stay tuned and find out.

Even Suicide Girls Like The Saturn.

Kotaku is running a contest where people send in photos of themselves posing with things that are red. They are trying to promote the new Red Faction game (thus the whole "red" concept).

A Suicide Girl named Lacey sent in pictures and apparently she is a big fan of large red lightguns manufactured by Sega for the Saturn console if you catch my meaning...

...no really, she took a picture with a Sega Saturn "Stunner" lightgun.




So apparently the Saturn is a hit with nice looking young women with an affinity for fishnet stockings. Not surprising at all considering how awesome the Saturn is. Or maybe she just happened to grab the gun because it was red...

...you know what I am just going to go with my theory/fantasy that Lacey really likes the Sega Saturn and enjoys playing a round of Virtua Cop 2 or House of the Dead every once in awhile (while wearing fishnets of course).

The original article from Kotaku.

BTW: Sorry to bump your post NebachadnezzaR, but since this post featured both a girl and the Saturn I rated it critically important.