So far, my journey through the Sega Saturn's library has been pretty smooth sailing. However, this batch was a bit different. The quality in these games was all over the place, ranging from some of the coolest things the console ever did, to some of its biggest failures.
Christmas Nights: Remember demo discs? I sure don't because I wasn't born when they were at their peak, but I have always found them to be conceptually really cool. Without the internet or downloadable demos, this was the best way for people to learn about and try other video games, and they came in these neat tailor-made packages entirely for free. However, hands down the coolest demo disc ever made has to be Christmas Nights.
As I said, I've played Nights Into Dreams before, and that includes Christmas Nights. You really can't play Nights without also experiencing this version of the game, they're kind of a package deal. There's a reason the HD rerelease included a Christmas Nights mode, even if it doesn't have all the content the original Saturn version had. But what is Christmas Nights? At its core, Christmas Nights is a holiday-themed demo of Nights Into Dreams that lets you play through a winter-themed version of the game's first stage, Spring Valley. Already, this is a lot cooler than your average demo. Most demos leave the game as is, but Christmas Nights went the extra mile to completely redecorate a stage. But that's not even all, because Christmas Nights also has an entirely original rewards menu in the form of an advent calendar. Playing a round of Spring Valley lets you play a memory game, and getting matches unlocks these rewards, which range from art galleries, a music player, Time Attack and Link Attack modes, a collection of Nightopians, and best of all, the ability to play through a stage as Sonic The Hedgehog. Keep in mind, Sonic Jam nor Sonic R had come out yet. Christmas Nights was the first truly 3D Sonic game.
It's this rewards menu that gives Christmas Nights a shocking amount of replay value and content. While there is still only one level, unlocking all the rewards will take quite a while, and the sheer variety of extras really makes for one of the most jam-packed demos I've ever seen. And that's why I had to review Christmas Nights on it's own, because it's hardly even just a demo. It's basically it's own game, a fully-featured compliment to the base Nights Into Dreams game, and families got it all entirely free. To this day, this is one of the coolest things Sega has ever done.
5/5 Stars
Virtua Fighters Kids: I'm still kind of in disbelief that this is an actual game... and that it's still good.
Virtua Fighters Kids seems like a gag game, it is a gag game! It takes the VF2 cast, turns them into chibi kids, pitches up their voices, and bumps up the game speed by 20%. But despite this incredibly dumb idea, Sega was still somehow willing to improve the visuals, add content VF2 didn't have, add entirely new cheat codes, and even change the gameplay meta entirely. The upped speed isn't just a gimmick, it allows for VF Kids' gameplay to focus far more on making combos. It even comes with a full-on Combo Maker that lets you make your own combos. This makes VF Kids feel like a more accessible fighting game for newcomers, which I think is a pretty novel idea. The presentation is also polished up quite a bit, with far crisper and more expressive visuals than ever before. The menu UI leans into the game's cartoony premise, and the gameplay graphics are bright and colorful. There's even some new cheat codes to play around with, my personal favorite being the trippy first-person mode.
Look, in the grand scheme of things, VF Kids doesn't really bring anything new to the table. VF2 is still the better game here. However, VF Kids is, surprisingly enough, still a damn solid Virtua Fighter game on its own merits. It's got a lot of content, super polished visuals, and a fast-paced combo-heavy gameplay meta that actually works.
4/5 Stars
Decathlete: Minigame collections are always a fun time and you can tell Sega really tried with Decathlete. It's got a lot of their usual visual flair. However, it all depends on the minigames themselves, which unfortunately aren't the best.
Decathlete is entirely based around track-and-field, so the majority of its minigames are based around running, throwing stuff, or both. However, most of these minigames are controlled in one of two ways: Button mashing, or timing a meter. As a result, while there are 10 minigames, they all play fairly similarly. The gameplay isn't bad though, button presses are responsive and none of the games are necessarily unfair, I'm just not really a fan of button-mashers and don't think they can sustain an entire minigame collection. The modes on offer is pretty lacking too. Decathlon and Arcade are basically the same except Arcade is harder, and Practice mode just lets you play the minigames individually. It probably also doesn't help that I haven't been able to play Decathlete in multiplayer, which I assume would be it at its most fun. One thing I can say I really liked about Decathlete though are the visuals. You can tell this is a Sega arcade game, it's got a lot of that same flair and visual polish. Decathlete looks bright and colorful, and those iconic blue skies are always in view.
Overall, Decathlete's just kinda average. It's not a bad minigame collection, it's super polished and is probably a lot of fun in multiplayer, but it's held back by the minigames themselves feeling pretty samey and mechanically basic.
3/5 Stars
Mr Bones: You know, just because a console failed doesn't necessarily mean its games are bad. The Virtual Boy has VB Wario Land, the Ouya has Towerfall, and I've been mostly positive to the majority of Saturn heavy-hitters I've played so far. That is not the case for Mr Bones.
Mr Bones is meant to be this super ambitious journey where every level is an entirely different genre. The graphics are prerendered, and there are so many FMVs that the game had to be split up into two discs. However, while I respect all the effort that went into Mr Bones, and I'm fully aware it's a cult classic... I'm so sorry, this game sucks ass. Despite going through pretty much every genre under the sun, none of the levels play well. They're all brutally hard and unfair, the controls suck, and sometimes it's unclear what you even have to do. I couldn't even get past the first level so I used a cheat code to access the level select and just check out all the stages, none of them were fun. They all sucked. It also doesn't help that the at-the-time groundbreaking visuals and FMVs have also aged horribly, robbing Mr Bones of a lot of its appeal.
Once again, I admire the ambition that went into Mr Bones. You could feel that the developers wanted to make something truly special, but this is one of the most painful games I've ever had the displeasure of playing, and a surprising low point in what has otherwise been a pretty great library so far.
1/5 Stars
Fighting Vipers: Fighting Vipers was Sega's attempt at following up the success of Virtua Fighter with an entirely new boxing-centric 3D fighting game. Unfortunately, it couldn't quite match up to it for me, and some decisions made in the port didn't help.
Fighting Vipers plays mostly like Virtua Fighter, but there are a few changes such as walls around the arena not unlike a boxing ring you can interact with, being able to break off your opponents' armor, and of course the entirely new cast. Sadly, none of this really does much for me. Fighting Vipers' cast of characters is pretty unmemorable, the boxing ring mechanic means there's far less of those hilarious Ring Out physics that I loved in the Virtua Fighter games, and the armor mechanic rewards hitting the same part on your opponent over and over again rather than experimenting with more creative combos. The gameplay still feels fine and the visuals still look great, this is the VF engine we're talking about, but it just doesn't hit the same. It also doesn't help that Fighting Vipers's Saturn port specifically feels almost entirely ripped out VF2 with little having changed. The majority of modes are still the same, there's still the Extra Options menu to unlock, the menu looks the same, the loading screens look the same, and it can't help but remind me of how much more I preferred Virtua Fighter 2. Even Virtua Fighter Kids didn't give me that feeling, and it's technically even more of a copy-paste. The only truly noteworthy addition Fighting Vipers made that I genuinely loved was the robust Training Mode which, to give credit where it's due
Fighting Vipers is a fine fighting game but it just feels generic compared to the Virtua Fighter games. It lacks the memorable characters, its new mechanics limit those games' charm, and the general presentation of the port is nearly copy-pasted from VF2. As a result, it just feels stuck in the shadow of those more successful Sega Fighters that came before.
3/5 Stars
So yeah, this was probably the weakest lineup yet. When the best games in the batch (Christmas Nights, Virtua Fighters Kids) are just modified versions of other games, that's not a very good sign.
However, it's not all bad. While I've been sticking to reviewing mostly first-party or heavy-hitter Saturn games, I've also been checking out a bunch of third-party games like Batsugun, Darkstalkers, and Saturn Bomberman on the side, and they've been great! I'll give truncated reviews on some of the other Saturn games I played by the end of this series, but just know
But as for now, hopefully Fighters Megamix, Die Hard Arcade, Virtua Cop 2, and Sonic Jam will fare a bit better in my next set of reviews.
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