Basically, I'm just writing about five Sega Saturn games that I enjoy and think are interesting/cool. This is because I recently "GOT" a new Sega Saturn from a friend.
Yep! You heard me right... A video pinball game. A game where, instead of having the interesting sensations of pressing a button on the side of a machine, where the ball jumps up and around in real life, you instead operate virtual hands...
The ball jumps up and around because you press a button on a CONTROLLER!!!. And it's actually pretty AWESOME. But this one is especially awesome. Because it has a very fun and interesting pinball "map," with fun characters abound, and a little icon inside your ball, depending on
which "guy" you choose. The sword kills guys easier, I think. I'm not sure about all the mechanics of the game, though. It also has little BONUS! stages, where you try to, e.g. score a soccer goal with the ball against a demon goalie, or something to that effect. Below is an image of the SOCCER bonus stage:
Figure 1. Soccer Pinball Game
Baku Baku (or Baku Baku Animal) is a crazy and fun puzzle game that hit store shelves with the force of an electron volleying against the hard glass of a CRT. It sold like HOT CAKES! (I don't know if it did).
But, in any case, it's still good. This game, or should I say, this experience is a FUN one. Gone are the days of your traditional falling-block puzzle games. Your Puyo-Puyo, your Tetris, your Panel de Pon.
We're in the current year now buddy, and you have to bring your A-Game, and by A-Game, I mean new and WEIRD gameplay mechanics. Like... I don't know - Making ANIMALS eat their preferred dietary fuel (food).
If it's a bamboo, you gotta line up the PANDA to eat it.
Monkey eats banana. Dog eats bone. You get the picture
Figure 2. A Wonderful GamePlay Screenshot from SegaSaturnShiro
In 1995, Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest Released on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Ha! I didn't know that the SNES had Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID)! Anyhow, while the losers over at NintenDON'T were NOT figuring out how to make pretty games
But instead how to make fake 3D pixelslop (I like DKC2 this is a joke), the demons over at SEGA made a very pretty game. And that's most of what you can say about Astal. The gameplay is "OK" and "fun enough," but the reason you play it is for the VIBES bro.
Figure 3. Showing Off The Game's Visual Beauty from HardcoreGaming101
Only the pure of heart can look at a game like this and love it. To have flat, 2D sprites of a golfer-of-whom-you-have-no-clue absolutely BLASTING balls across the fairway, or even from the ROUGH, Oh yes, that's fun!
In my undergraduate years, I took a course on Golf Course Design. I waited until the last day (it was an asynchronous, online class where all the assignments are due on the last day), hammered it out in 12 hours, and was still at home in time to steal one of my roommate's frozen food! Sorry Buddy! But I learned a lot. Namely, that Alister MacKenzie is the coolest name ever, Followed by that Alister MacKenzie is an awesome golf course designer.
He worked making military camouflauge, and became well-known for incorporating illusions and camouflage into his golf course designs.
That's irrelevant. What is relevant is that golf is not just for wealthy, white elites. It's for anyone who can grab a controller and have a BALL!
Figure 4. In lieu of a picture of the game, here's a picture of Alister MacKenzie
What?! Out Run? That game came out AGES ago on the SEGA Arcades! And AGES ago on the Master System! And AGES ago on the Genesis! Yes buddy, it did. But it didn't come out on the Saturn until 1996. And once it did, the rest is history.
Out Run is one of the greatest games of all time. It is one of my personal favorite games of all time. Since the time I wrote my 22 games list, I forgot to include Out Run on it. What a ROOKIE mistake. So I have come to rectify it with a post leading up to Out Run on the Sega Saturn.
That Music, the one you are hearing if you have audio on, on this page - that's the "Game Over" or "Score" screen of Out Run. You may have just thought it was chill vibes music. No pal, it's from Out Run. Also, the AGES thing earlier was a joke.
Because Sega AGES is the line of retro Sega games that they port to newer consoles. At the time, the Saturn was new. In fact, at the time, everything is new. There's a little philosophy for you. Time progresses buddy boy and you're just a blink of the eye in it.
You Can't Out Run death.
Figure 5. What We All Become