Love the look of early polygonal systems? Can’t get enough pixelated transparencies? Slip on the SEGA Saturn Sunglasses: where dithering isn't a flaw, it's a feature. Perfect for fans of chunky graphics, checkerboard "transparency," and that unmistakable 90s charm. See the world through the eyes of a VDP1 chip.
These Sunglasses are actually not made by internal SEGA, rather they’re made by a third party under license from SEGA. Sorry for the confusion about transparency!
If you’d like, there is a version made in house by SEGA AM2! Comes with a demo for Shenmue!
Only releases in Japan though, so all other regions… uhhh….
Ymir is still early, but I'm camping the GitHub page and everyday the dev puts a couple of commits, he's working hard in it.
Burning Rangers have some issues, the training area is very bugged graphically and the voices of the characters cut abruptly. So yeah, I'd recommend it, but with the disclaimer that while its development is very active, it's still initial. Other games I tested and ran great was Daytona USA CCE, Castlevania Symphony of the Night (vanilla, didn't test any ROM hack), Sonic R. Daytona USA CE (japanese updated version of CCE) didn't work. I posted some videos in the Ymir thread. And now I noticed I should put my PC specs in the description of the videos, I got a Ryzen 5 3400G.
Saturn can render transparencies properly (just look at the Astal and Burning Rangers pics) it is just that it is a *massive* pain in the rear to program and the majority of devs didn't bother
No and yes. The fact of the matter is that the system could do them BRILLIANTLY!!!!
… if a game was build for its weird architecture. There’s a massive gulf of visual quality between the in-house Saturn games and everything else, sadly. Transparencies could be poor in many games, especially early titles and ones ported from other systems. It’s just a perfect example of how the hardware was built like an arcade board, but then handed off to console developers who, especially in the west, had no idea how to get the most out of it.
Listen, Saturn has become my baby. It’s now my favorite SEGA system thanks to the INSANE variety of software on it, tons of hardware charm, amazing controller, and very underrated first party software.
But, it’s got its issues. The sales for the system were low in non-Japanese regions for a reason, because not many western devs knew how to get the most out of the device. That’s why it’s so wild that Visual Concepts came out of nowhere to make Powerslave and the double whammy of god ports for Quake and Duke Nukem 3D.
One lesson that has to be learned over and over in tech is: raw specs don't win. A successful device needs power, usability, and affordability. Miss one and you're in trouble.
Here are a few classic examples:
3DO - Powerful and usable, but way too expensive. Great tech, but out of reach for most gamers.
Nintendo 64 - Affordable and easy to use, but less powerful than the competition (especially in storage media).
Neo Geo AES - Extremely powerful and very playable, but wildly unaffordable. It became more of a collector’s item than a mainstream console.
Sega Saturn - Powerful on paper, but complex architecture made it hard to develop for. Not very usable for devs, and the price didn't help.
PlayStation 1 - Not the most powerful, but hit the sweet spot of usability (easy to develop for) and affordability. That’s what made it a legend.
Wii - Easily the least powerful of its generation, but super affordable and incredibly approachable. It sold like hotcakes.
The winning formula is not just power. It's the right balance. Power alone is just a flex if no one can use it or afford it.
One lesson that has to be learned over and over in tech is: raw specs don't win. A successful device needs power, usability, and affordability. Miss one and you're in trouble.
Here are a few classic examples:
3DO - Powerful and usable, but way too expensive. Great tech, but out of reach for most gamers.
Nintendo 64 - Affordable and easy to use, but less powerful than the competition (especially in storage media).
Neo Geo AES - Extremely powerful and very playable, but wildly unaffordable. It became more of a collector’s item than a mainstream console.
Sega Saturn - Powerful on paper, but complex architecture made it hard to develop for. Not very usable for devs, and the price didn't help.
PlayStation 1 - Not the most powerful, but hit the sweet spot of usability (easy to develop for) and affordability. That’s what made it a legend.
Wii - Easily the least powerful of its generation, but super affordable and incredibly approachable. It sold like hotcakes.
The winning formula is not just power. It's the right balance. Power alone is just a flex if no one can use it or afford it.
At the end of the day, what’ll sell your console isn’t what’s inside it: its optics.
Since it’s a Saturn thread, I gotta say, Virtua Fighter is both what made the system have its golden ticket and also give it a ticket to an early grave, since the Japanese launch of the system saw that game almost sell at a 1:1 attach rate. The Japanese arcade scene WAS video games, and Virtua Fighter was THE arcade game with smooth gameplay that kept you playing and the 3D fighting visuals getting you in the door.
In the west, people messed with it, but the fighting game competition was multiplied by a million thanks to western made fighters that never had a chance in Japan but thrived overseas. Combine that with the perception of arcades being kids stuff at best and a dealing ring ridden with fleas at worst, and you have why the arcade was never the west’s favorite way to game unless the place was clean. After the Japanese launch, the Saturn in the U.S. launched early with little software BUT THATS OKAY because we have Virtua Fighter!
It was not okay.
What people tolerated and loved in Japan for being a port of a game they already loved was ripped to shreds by western media covering it nearly a full year later with more advanced looking games on the horizon. If Daytona USA had been a showpiece, maybe that would’ve flipped the narrative, since that game was far more popular in the wider world than VF was. Problem was, as good as it played, Daytona too suffered from Saturn’s early development struggles, while Ridge Racer on PlayStation was a day one comparison point that was frankly unfair thanks to the arcade version’s lower scope than Daytona, but became a beat stick for the Saturn right out the gate, since SEGA had marked the system up to a price higher than the competition or any other platform they had made beforehand.
The real final blow of disrespect came from Sony themselves who, and this is anecdotal, made direct deals with stores to push the PlayStation. Sony money is big money, and they already had the clout to make the sell off name alone thanks to prior tech successes, so while them entering games was weird it also wasn’t out of the question for them to nail it. As such, and this has been supported by multiple people who bought Saturns at the time, the stores would be pushing PlayStation even when you were heading in with your mind set on Saturn. SEGA in no small way literally became the victim of their own commercial on that one.
Point of the paragraphs is that SEGA lacked the clout to sell their console on name alone after their own mess ups, and they didn’t correctly predict what the market would want. Meanwhile, Sony had the clout and power to make their dream work, as well as the accessibility to development on the behind the scenes side, so people who went PlayStation were much more likely to be happy with their purchase quicker than Saturn people who had to wade through software droughts thanks to the Saturn’s hardware being icky.
Saturn is a beautiful thing that was simply a victim of the mess that SEGA themselves had created, and it’s just a tragedy.
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(That was a long one. Sorry about that! I just feel bad for the Saturn’s fortunes as a whole and have been searching to find exactly why it had such a bad run financially.)
(That was a long one. Sorry about that! I just feel bad for the Saturn’s fortunes as a whole and have been searching to find exactly why it had such a bad run financially.)
The Sega CD and 32X played a big role in this mess too. Sega was trying to sell those at the same time they were promoting the Saturn. People didn’t know what to buy. Should they get a 32X? Should they ignore it and wait for the Saturn? It was all over the place.
Sega’s marketing at the time was saying the 32X would take the Genesis to the next generation. But at the same time, they were hyping up the Saturn as the real next-gen system. It was way too confusing. One minute the 32X was the future, the next minute it was already obsolete.
The Sega CD and 32X played a big role in this mess too. Sega was trying to sell those at the same time they were promoting the Saturn. People didn’t know what to buy. Should they get a 32X? Should they ignore it and wait for the Saturn? It was all over the place.
Sega’s marketing at the time was saying the 32X would take the Genesis to the next generation. But at the same time, they were hyping up the Saturn as the real next-gen system. It was way too confusing. One minute the 32X was the future, the next minute it was already obsolete.
They were trying to create a high end market and a low end market, but the confusing messaging and lack of compatibility between the two pieces of hardware led to them having a NO end market.
It would have been interesting if the Saturn was able to accept 32X carts... of course, each system was designed by a totally different team on opposite sides of the world, but that might have saved the whole thing for them.
Love the look of early polygonal systems? Can’t get enough pixelated transparencies? Slip on the SEGA Saturn Sunglasses: where dithering isn't a flaw, it's a feature. Perfect for fans of chunky graphics, checkerboard "transparency," and that unmistakable 90s charm. See the world through the eyes of a VDP1 chip.
Love the look of early polygonal systems? Can’t get enough pixelated transparencies? Slip on the SEGA Saturn Sunglasses: where dithering isn't a flaw, it's a feature. Perfect for fans of chunky graphics, checkerboard "transparency," and that unmistakable 90s charm. See the world through the eyes of a VDP1 chip.
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