Well, I guess we're at the end. Obviously, I haven't played every single Saturn game but I feel like I've managed to touch on all the big heavy-hitters. And now, I only have four final Saturn games left to check out, all of which seem to push the hardware to its absolute fullest. Did the console's run end on a high note, or did Sega get a bit too ambitious?
Panzer Dragoon Saga: How... how does this game even exist? This is a full-on 3D RPG with an open-world, with so many FMVs it needed to be four discs, and somehow, it doesn't crack under all that ambition. Even the Final Fantasy games on Playstation needed prerendered environments, everything in Panzer Dragoon Saga is 3D! This game is a technical marvel, and it's a pretty great RPG in its own right from what I've played of it.
So yeah, Saga is a pretty big genre shift for the Panzer Dragoon series, from a linear rail-shooter to an open-world RPG. Hands down the highlight of Saga for me is that overworld. Being able to fly around on your dragon without restrictions was absolutely jaw-dropping at first, and the controls are genuinely great. You can even dismount your dragon in certain parts to run around on foot, so there really is a big variety in how you move throughout the overworld. While this game is technically open-world, it is divided up into fields that you transition between, but when you put all those areas together, it's impressive just how huge this game's map is. But then we get to the combat, which I'm a bit more mixed on to be perfectly honest. On its own merits, Saga's battle system is pretty sick. Visually, it's a full-on dragon battle, taking place as you fly through the air, and you can move your dragon around the enemy for a different perspective, just like in the first two games. However, I've never loved turn-based combat, and if there's a game that didn't need it, it's definitely this one. With how fun the overworld is, I can't help but wonder how cool it would've been if the shooting gameplay of the first two games were maintained. And the fact that battles are mostly random means the otherwise great overworld traversal can get repeatedly interrupted by enemies, which does get annoying at points.
What really stuns me about Panzer Dragoon Saga though is just how technically impressive it is. Like, there is no reason for a Saturn game this large in scale to look and run as well as it does. Panzer Dragoon Saga takes place in a big open world, all of which is rendered in 3D in real-time. There's an FMV for pretty much every single cutscene, and while Mr Bones may have done this first, Saga is a far longer (and better) game than Mr Bones was. The framerate is impressively consistent too. I'm not enough of a junkie to tell what the exact framerate of Saga is, but I can say for sure that I didn't notice any chugs. Even more, the environment remained consistently crisp-looking throughout the time I played Saga, which is more than I can say about a certain other game in this batch. And even more, even with all of these technical miracles, the most impressive thing is that it feels like the world of Panzer Dragoon was not sacrificed in the slightest. The art direction and musical style fit perfectly alongside the first two games, and Saga's world genuinely feels like the same place as it was in those rail-shooters, just with the rails removed.
Overall, Panzer Dragoon Saga really is a miracle of a game, a true technical marvel, and probably the furthest the Saturn could ever go without breaking itself in two. It takes the fascinating world depicted in the first two Panzer Dragoon games and expands it even more. It's a great and ambitious RPG with a stunning overworld and a fun (if slightly unwelcome) battle system.
5/5 Stars
Burning Rangers: Leave it to Sonic Team to once again push the Saturn's hardware to its limits. Burning Rangers is, somehow, an honest-to-goodness 3D platformer. While pretty obviously janky and nowhere near the same level as Nights Into Dreams, the sheer ambition put into Burning Rangers makes for a very admirable game.
Burning Rangers is an action-platformer where you run around a large building saving victims, putting out fires, and defeating whichever boss caused the fire in the first place. There's a quick-dodge to get out of the way of sudden explosions, a limit meter that increases the amount of fires the less you put out, and even a full-on ranking system just like in Nights. But coolest of all, Burning Rangers built itself on a vocal navigation feature, where a navigator instructs you on where to go within these mazelike areas. What's really impressive is just how high quality and clear the voice acting is here. In an era filled with bad dubs, Sonic Team knew that a bad voice cast or bad vocal direction would flat-out break this game, and I couldn't be more glad that they put in the effort.
However, as cool as Burning Rangers is in its ambition, it does suffer from a bit of that early 3D platformer jank (and it doesn't help that this is a Sega Saturn game rather than a 64 or PS1 game). Movement feels great for the most part, but the camera really holds this game back a bit. I actually think Burning Rangers' camera was ripped straight-out of Sonic Jam because I have very similar issues. It just moves around too much, jumps are incredibly difficult because they can cause the camera to spazz out, and the entire game taking place in interior areas compared to the open Sonic World only exacerbates the issues. I also think graphics, while definitely impressive, do look like they're pushing the console a bit too much. It's hard to really explain without just showing it to you, but it felt like the environments were just gonna collapse on me at any moment. It feels like if I was playing this game on a actual Saturn (since I was using emulation), I'd spend the whole playthrough terrified that it was going to burst into flames (which is ironic considering what this game is about).
But despite my gripes, the ambition of Burning Rangers does win over some of its more poorly-aged elements. This is still a slick, fast-paced, and fun platformer with some stellar production values, even if it may be going a bit too far in pushing the Saturn's capabilities.
4/5 Stars
Sonic R: Sonic R is yet another Saturn game I've actually played before, but my opinions haven't changed about it much. I love everything about it... except for the actual gameplay.
Sonic R looks astonishing for the Saturn. From the reflections to the level terrain, it's impressive just how great this game looks. Traveler's Tales truly were wizards at the time. The soundtrack is also amazing. I've raved about it before, but Sonic R's pop tracks are catchy and endlessly listenable. The track design is great too, there may be only five tracks but they're filled to the brim with alternate routes, really capturing the spirit of Sonic. And there's so many extra modes to the point where the lack of tracks doesn't feel all that noticeable, from collecting Sonic Tokens, to finding the Chaos Emeralds, to the several varieties of time trials. However, what prevents Sonic R from being an easy favorite on the console are those awful slippery controls. I've seen some people defend R's controls by claiming that you should just steer characters as if they were cars, but first of all, they're slippery even by car standards, and second of all, maybe if you wanted the characters to control like cars, you shouldn't make them collect stuff and do precision platforming!
Sonic R is such a mess of a game. Like, I see what TT was trying to accomplish here, and I like a lot of it, but the ungodly controls only exacerbated the bizarre progression systems and ultimately make the whole thing feel unpolished. I wish Sonic R was good, I want to like it more than I do, but it just doesn't do it for me.
2/5 Stars
Radiant Silvergun: You know, I like to think I'm alright at bullet hell games. I've beaten a bunch of Touhou games, I nailed (and loved) that The End fight in Sonic Frontiers, I fared pretty well in Batsugun and Dodonpachi Resurrection, and I've pulled off some crazy grazes that surprised even myself. Radiant Silvergun humbled the hell out of me, and I loved every second of it.
Radiant Silvergun is one of the coolest games I've ever played in my life, full stop. It's a bullet hell game that gives you seven different weapons to use, all the ships and enemies are 2D sprites but the boss fights are in full 3D, also there's like 20 different bosses throughout the game, and there's a leveling up system, and there's a soundtrack by Ivalice Final Fantasy composer Hitoshi Sakamoto, and Treasure made it, and there's explosions so powerful they cause the game to lag. Seriously, the style, scale, and ambition of Radiant Silvergun is off the charts. This is Treasure at their absolute peak, just as experimental and weird as something like Guardian Heroes, but it all actually fully clicks this time. The variety of weapons gives you so much freedom in how you tackle enemies and bosses, as does the chain system. The level design is consistently inventive, and the bosses even moreso. This might genuinely be Treasure's best boss lineup and that's saying something, every single one of them is memorable, unique, and fun. From the frantic race against the Golets, to the sick-looking wireframe fight against GEDO-0, to the dramatic fight against Penta, to... literally everything about that final boss, my god.
Of course, it's not all style, because Radiant Silvergun is also ridiculously hard. Like genuinely one of the most difficult games I've ever played in my life, and it pulls no punches right from the very start. Hell, you're likely already feeling overwhelmed by all the new gameplay systems only for the second boss to start pulling off 5th Touhou boss level patterns right off the bat... and in Easy Mode for that matter! However, despite its brutal difficulty, Radiant Silvergun is ultimately a fair bullet hell game. One of the hardest in its genre, for sure, but fair nonetheless. As mentioned before, the sheer amount of weapons you have in your arsenal allow you to tackle bosses in any way you want. You even get a homing shot if you really want to play things safe. There's also Saturn Mode, a modified Story Mode that saves how much your weapons have leveled up after each death, so every time you play the game, your weapons are a bit more powerful. And on top of that, there's also a very robust options menu that with loads of difficulty and lives settings, and if you're still feeling really desperate, Arcade Mode does have an infinite continues cheat. Radiant Silvergun may be brutal, but it accomodates for every kind of player. Treasure wants you to win, it's just going to take a lot of practice and attempts.
Overall, Radiant Silvergun is astonishing. It's hands down the most inventive and experimental bullet hell game I've ever played, and yet it succeeds in pretty much everything it's trying to do. From the complex gameplay systems that encourage player expression, to the unpredictable and consistently creative level design and bosses, to the stunning visuals and score, this may very well be Treasure's magnum opus (though I haven't played Ikaruga yet so who knows) To my utter disbelief, Radiant Silvergun has surpassed Nights Into Dreams as my favorite Saturn game, and it's probably also my favorite non-Touhou bullet hell right now too. What a fantastic note to end this series off on.
5/5 Stars
Other Games I Played But Didn't Have As Much To Say About:
- Bug!/Bug Too!: Not good, just really really not good (1/5)
- Keio Flying Squadron 2: Looks stunning but the controls just didn't do it for me (3/5)
- Batsugun: I love a good bullet hell game, truly blissful (5/5)
- Saturn Bomberman: Classic Bomberman at its peak (5/5)
- Sega Worldwide Soccer 97: Pretty solid for such an early football sim (4/5)
- Night Warriors: Darkstalkers' Revenge: Just a damn good fighting game with stunning spritework and one of my favorite casts in the genre (5/5)
- Super Puzzle Fighter 2 Turbo: Great concept, great gameplay, great spritework, why the hell is Street Puzzle Mode so hard?! (3/5)
- Waku Waku 7: Waku Waku 7 is so close to being my favorite fighting game on the console, so pretty, fluid and charming... until that final boss literally slows things to a crawl. (4/5)
- Virtua Cop 2: Literally just the first game but without the charming blue skies aesthetic, the catchy music, or the Training mode. So basically, all the things I liked about VC1 aren't there. (2/5)
- Sonic 3D Blast: The better visuals, great music, and special stages are points in this game's favor, but the slippery controls still exist and make it way harder to enjoy compared to the far superior director's cut. (2/5)
Part of why I love failed consoles like the Saturn is because of how much of an underdog they are. Their games are often underappreciated or even fly under the radar, the companies who make them often have to make compromises or take risks to keep them afloat, and their otherwise muted or negative reputation means that the console's highlights can pleasantly surprise you. From the crisp CD audio to its fantastic 2D capabilities to the weird shit that only Sega could ever make, the Sega Saturn is a weird, unpredictable, and wonderful little console that tried so damn hard even if all the odds were stacked against it. For that, the Saturn has my respect.
Now, to end things off, here's a list of my Top 10 Sega Saturn games:
- Radiant Silvergun
- Nights Into Dreams/Christmas Nights
- Panzer Dragoon II Zwei/Saga
- Fighters Megamix/VF2
- Clockwork Knight 1/2
- Daytona USA
- Saturn Bomberman
- Burning Rangers
- Darkstalkers
- Batsugun
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