"Sega's finest CD based console - and I mean it!"

INTRODUCTION:
During the mid 90's 16-bit wars of Sega Megadrive vs Super Famicom, it seemed that Sega was gaining a fair slice of the market that Nintendo had carved up during the 80's and was becoming more popular. Sega's early experiments at 3D were proving to be successful with the launch of the Sega Model 1 based 3D games such as Virtua Fighter, Wing Wars, and Virtua Racing. 3D gaming and CD technology were slated to be the next big thing in console games, and Sega were gearing up to produce their next gen console, which was to be known as the Saturn.

Around the time of the Saturn's development, Sony demonstrated their PlayStation console in 1993 and took Sega by surprise with a more powerful system than they was designing. Sega's resolve were a few last minute changes to allow for texture rendering and better polygon count. The system was launched in 1994.

While Sega had hoped these additions would improve the console, it ultimately failed. The main reason could be put down to the Saturn's capabilities. It used 2 SH processors and 2 VDP's, which made it difficult for programmers to get the most out of the Saturn's power. Sony's PlayStation used a more simpler structure to attract developers to support it.

The Saturn fought a losing battle against PlayStation, and it was finally put out of the Western market by the launch of the Nintendo 64, and the PlayStation hit Final Fantasy VII in 1997. Despite this, the console was very popular in Japan and even beat out the Nintendo 64, due to the great 2D fighter ports, anime titles, and RPG's (Which were never released in Europe and the USA). The last Japanese Saturn game was released in 2000.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS:
Drawing upon the succes of the Megadrive and MegaCD console, the original Saturn featured a similar dark theme. A top loading CD drive with grey open, power, and reset sitting in front of it, a cartridge slot for expansion products, and the obligatory controller ports. On the back are Multi-video output, power cable, expansion cable slot, and battery compartment.

The system has a very unique shape - not quite box shape, and slightly oval on the top. A later revision featured more rounder power and reset buttons. In Japan, several special versions were released: V-Saturn and Hi-Saturn had pack in support for Video CD's, a nice white version with red buttons, and finally a see through Skeleton console featuring the phrase "This is cool".

A nice console, but it is slightly larger than the N64 and PlayStation. Too bad a smaller revision wasn't made.

FEATURES:
The Saturn had a number of accessories and features for gaming and entertainment.

CD playback - While the Saturn isn't Sega's first CD based console, it improved the experience over the MegaCD. The playback allows you to add echo, invert pitch and mute vocals on your CD's. The most enjoyable feature being the great full screensaver - a starfield featuring a ship on course towards the planet Saturn.

Internal backup memory - the Saturn uses an internal battery for saving the date and time (used in some games), and also has some space for game saving without a backup ram cartridge.

6-player controller adaptor - The Saturn only features 2 controller ports, but Sega created an adaptor wedge to stick in more controllers. I haven't seen many games that support this besides Groove on Fight.

3D controller - An analog controller designed for use in NiGHTS, and a few other games. Also works as a standard digital pad. The controller features an in-line connector for a gyroscope device that was never released. The 3D controller would go on to be the base design of the Dreamcast controller.

Backup Ram Cartridge - an external cartridge for saving games. It features a great deal more space than the Saturn's battery.

RAM expansion cartridges - An expansion cartridge that allowed the Saturn to cache extra graphics and sound, allowing for more detail than the Saturn could already use. The cart was available in 1 and 4 meg sizes and was only released in Japan. It was used mainly in 2D Capcom and SNK ports for storing more character animation and sound.

Video CD cartridge - an expansion cart that was able to decode Video CD discs, which were popular at the time.

Xband Modem - Sega went on to release a modem for online play, players could battle together over 56k modem. Very few games used it, and amazingly the unit was released in America.

Sega 64 - An addon module that was to allow the Saturn to play conversions of Model 3 arcade games such as Virtua Fighter 3 and Scud Race. It was never released as Sega probably though it would fail like the Sega 32x, and Sega had began to work on the Dreamcast.

GRAPHICS:
The Saturn was Sega's first console to use 3D graphics. Sega originally visioned the console to recreate the primitive 3D of the Model 1 arcade unit, but they upgraded it to stay in competition with PlayStation. This was evident in launch games such as Virtua Fighter, which actually had less detail than the 1 year old arcade version. Besides low polygon counts, the Saturn also lacked built in support for transparent textures, which resulted in the use of cross hatch patterns or flickering to simulate transparency. Later games included transparent support through written software.

The Saturn was also capable of playing full motion video clips which was through independent software drivers. Initial games had very poor video quality compared to PlayStation, but as new drivers were made, quality improved.

Sega and its close allies were able to create great 3D games despite these shortcommings. The Virtua Fighter 2 port was a great showcase of the Saturn's abilities - a high resolution textured 3D fighting game at a smooth framerate. Other games such as Radiant Silvergun, Fighters Megamix and Nights also demonstrare a decent 3D gaming world.

The major advantage Saturn had over PlayStation was it's ability to play accurate Neo Geo and CPSII games much faster and display more animation thanks to the use of the RAM expansion cartridge. 2D games are noticeable smoother and have faster load times on Saturn.

SOUND
Like all other CD based consoles, the Saturn was also able to play high quality redbook CD audio. However when it comes to sound effects, the sound quality is poor - only 512kb of sound memory was allocated, and to fit alot of samples in, many games have downsampled effects which can sound very scratchy as with the Megadrive.

CONTROL:
The Saturn controller is arguable one of the most praised controllers around. It has a very soft control pad which won't hurt your thumbs after hours of use, the 6 face buttons are solid and feel response, and the shoulder buttons have a mellow click like a PC mouse.

It's one of my favourite controllers, but I usually prefer to play with the NiGHTS controller instead.

GAMES:
The Saturn was blessed with many ports of Sega arcade games, as well as great original titles, but many of the best titles were never released outside of Japan.

There are plenty of 2D arcade games to keep arcade fans happy - Street Fighter, Fatal Fury, Marvel Superheroes, Metal Slug, Parodius, Samurai Spirits, Darkstalkers, Waku Waku 7, King of Fighters to name but a few.

There were also alot of great original games including Guardian Heroes, Radiant Silvergun, Burning Rangers, Anarchy in the Nippon, Virtual On, Baku Baku animal, Crows Battle Action, and many, many more!

I would go far enough to say that the Saturn enjoyed alot more great titles than even the Nintendo 64 had. If you like games with great gameplay the Saturn is an excellent choice.

OVERALL:
Despite how bad it compares to PlayStation, it's got plenty of great games if you like more than just pretty graphics. If you want to experience the best of the library, pick up an import console off eBay and start your collection. I guarantee you'll love this system.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 07/08/05