Episode 297: Sega Saturn

A JP/EU release that never came to the US? Intriguing!

Diamond Feit

Bit late, but really enjoyed this episode. As a horror fan, Deep Fear has been my holy grail for a long time. I have no idea if it's any good or not, but it does look mechanically interesting, which is more than can be said for most of those early Resi clones.

Alex Bullock

I remember being blown away by playing Daytona USA with the racing wheel at my cousin’s house around the time it came out. Past that a friend sold me a Saturn in 2002 for $10 bucks that I kept for about a year before giving away. Got another from eBay a couple of years ago for $80 and have been slowly building the collection. I acquired Die Hard Arcade from my local game shop just the other day.

Eric Plunk

Enjoyed what I've heard so far, though I do wish you had a regular member of the Retronauts crew that was as well versed in Sega as your core group is about Nintendo. There's lots of little nerd details in this episode (not a critique; just a statement of fact) that would never go uncorrected if it was about Nintendo systems. Just feels like a pretty big blind spot to me. On the topic, I bought my Saturn in July 1995 from a Toys R Us. The only game I had for a bit was the pack-in, Virtua Fighter. The first time I turned it on I was blown away but how incredible it looked and how it sounded. $400 was so much money then but felt completely worth it to me.

David G

OG Saturn ep was great too!

Carl Petroff

I bought by Sega Saturn in 2010 off a department dean from a nearby major university who seemed to be getting rid of it to spite her ex. Paid a $100 for the console and it came with Guardian Heroes and Dragon Force. I wanted to play it so much in the 90s, but couldn't justify the price, but I love the aesthetics of the system, it's bootup screen, etc.

Z-Man Barzell

Any hot takes on Astal? It’s currently my most wanted Saturn title.

Eric Plunk

Loved this episode, I was someone who purchased a Saturn in the mid-00s to catch up on my FOMO and mostly the Shining Series, as there was also a good little dungeon crawler in Shining the Holy Ark that was also worth a mention and of course Shining Force 3. Before Camelot got relegated to the Mario Tennis factory they made a lot of good stuff. Keep up the good work and be safe.

Cody C.

To add to Diamond's comment, I still know people today who don't understand why anyone would possibly play a retro or retro-style game especially on a current gen console when there is cutting edge stuff available.

littleterr0r

Great episode!

Kormakur Gardarsson

Just want to add the perspective of someone who has no memory of ever seeing or playing a Saturn at the time it was out (or ever, for that matter) I know that I was aware of its existence at the time, but I don't have any memory of seeing or playing one in stores, or even considering wanting one. I couldn't have told you what games were on it. I would have been 11 - 14 while it was out, so make of that what you will.

DarthObvious

We all recorded our audio tracks separately, so there's no transmission dropout. It's my preferred way to handle remote recordings, but it doesn't always work out for various reasons.

Jeremy Parish

I actually don't remember any burning hatred of Sakura Wars, but any crimes against good taste that game may have committed are long since absolved by... well, basically the entire PSVita library.

Jeremy Parish

I believe the exact phrasing was "big-tiddy", as is the correct terminology for anime

Jeremy Parish

Great episode, I really liked the guests. One important game IMO you missed was Virtua Fighter 2. My friends and I were completely blown away by the graphical upgrade from the first game—it felt like a PS1 jump to PS2 on the same system Another game I recommend for strategy fans is Iron Storm. It combines Advance wars style combat with a really deep World War 2 simulation where you can play the Nazi, Japanese or American campaigns. It was crazy fun and I can’t believe nothing like it has been tried again considering how popular advanced wars is.

Mikey Cox

Gonna agree with everyone- did not notice any significant quality issues from the setup and think this is an excellent crew. Also, did anyone else have Jeremy saying “big-tittied anime girls” on their Retronauts bingo card? 😂

Justin M

Great episode and great guests. I'm always worried about the sound quality on remote recordings, but it was perfect. Would love to hear more from this crew.

Andrew Eikum

I actually just started going through the original Retronauts podcast from 2007/2008 and had just finished the Saturn and Dreamcast episodes from back then. They're good companions to this one, not too much overlap and incredibly interesting to hear Jeremy talk about the Saturn at length 12 years apart and not repeat himself. What I missed from the current episode that was in both Sega episodes of 2008 was Jeremy Parishes absolute hatred of Sakura Wars that comes out of nowhere and was hoping this episode would continue that joke.

SilverHairedMiddleAgedTuxedoMask

Diamond was on an SNK-focused episode recorded in Japan a couple of years ago! This is the first time (of hopefully many) the blogging team has recorded together, though.

Retronauts

This episode has perfect timing, as I just finished reading "The Rise and Fall of SEGA" and the book talks about the Saturn in depth. Interested to see Retronauts take on the Saturn.

Jared Blankenship

This episode TOTALLY made my morning! YES!

Everyday Patrick

Been on a Saturn kick recently. Great timing!

Really excited to give this a listen - Diamond's on air debut and the only major console of my life I really feel like I missed out on. Hopefully one day there'll be a Saturn mini and I can catch up!