Sam's video game collection essentials

Here’s a fun game that’s not usually one of the first titles mentioned when talking about the Saturn and what it has to offer. Three Dirty Dwarves is a “beat ‘em up”, an arcade-style game, but was never released in arcades, only coming out on the Saturn and later PC.  The story is pretty weird. There are these four children who were created through genetic engineering in a military installation. They are geniuses and created another actual dimension in order to play a role-playing game. There is a gate between that dimension and the real world, and the children wish to use their three dwarf avatars from that world to come save them in the real world. Many monsters follow the dwarves through the game, so they must defeat them on their quest to save the kids.  Up to three players can team up to take on this game. But even if only one person is playing, all three dwarves are on the screen at all times. When one or two players are playing, they can switch control of the dwarves at...

“Street Fighter Alpha” is called “Street Fighter Zero” in Japan, and the Saturn version of the third entry only came out in Japan, hence the name difference. The reason this version stayed in Japan is because it was a very late Saturn release, coming out after Sega’s NEXT console was already on store shelves, way after the Saturn was completely and totally dead and gone in the West. There was also a version of this game that came out for Sega’s next console, which actually came out before this Saturn version, and the funny part is that the Saturn version is generally considered better as it has more features (notably a “reverse dramatic battle” mode where you try and fight two opponents simultaneously). Alpha 3 continues building on the strong foundation of the previous two games. There are some changes from Alpha 2’s mechanics, so it’s not a strictly better game and some actually prefer Alpha 2. But 3 definitely has more content and modes to offer, with lots of characters and a single...

What we have here is a compilation that includes three titles across two discs. The first disc contains the last two of the many interactions of Street Fighter II, those being “Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers” and “Super Street Fighter II Turbo”. The second disc contains an updated version of Street Fighter Alpha 2 (the sequel to the previous game I talked about) called “Street Fighter Alpha 2 Gold”.  Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers didn’t make quite the splash that the previous versions of Street Fighter II did. It was still popular of course, but the four characters the game introduced are not nearly as iconic or famous as the previous 12. It’s not too surprising, since releasing updated versions of the same game too many times means that fewer and fewer people are going to be interested in keeping up with whatever the latest version is.  Now, Super Street Fighter II Turbo similarly didn’t approach the levels of popularity of the earlier versions of...

Street Fighter II, as I previously discussed and as you already know if you are at all familiar with classic games, was one of the biggest hits of the early ‘90s in all of gaming. Over the next few years after its release, Capcom released several versions of the game which expanded and tweaked it in various ways, adding playable characters, faster gameplay, and eventually a meter that can be spent to unleash a super-powerful attack when full. But no matter how big these updates were, none of them were truly a new follow-up entry. This here is the first brand new Street Fighter game afterward, first released in arcades in 1995.  But rather than make “Street Fighter III”, Capcom decided to make the next game a prequel, hence the “Alpha” in the title. The game features some characters first introduced in the not-very-good original Street Fighter game, and it also has characters from their popular arcade beat ‘em up, Final Fight. This game also introduces a hidden character named “Dan”...

Also known as “Terra Diver”, this is one of very many high-quality arcade shoot ‘em ups that got ported onto the Saturn, which was known for having a strong library of these games. This one was by a company called Raizing, who later changed their name to “Eighting”.  I don’t have a ton to say about Soukyugurentai, or “Souky” as I like to call it personally. It doesn’t really bring anything different of note to the genre. It’s just really a remarkably well-made game and manages to stand out with that alone, which is remarkable considering how incredibly crowded the shoot ‘em up genre is. As is normal for the genre, you have a few different ships to pick between which have differing attributes. Gameplay consists of flying around the auto-scrolling screen dodging bullets and constantly using some form of attack to destroy hordes of enemies before they can destroy you. In addition to a regular shot that you’d expect to see in this type of game, each ship also has homing lasers. When yo...

Sonic the Hedgehog is obviously, far and away, Sega’s most popular, successful and iconic character and franchise. So it comes as somewhat of a surprise that Sonic is not strongly associated with the Sega Saturn. And perhaps that is one of the reasons why the console didn’t sell very well outside Japan. When it first launched, there was no big Sonic title available or even one coming within a reasonable timeframe for fans to look forward to. It would take a full year and a half for a Sonic title of any kind to appear on the system. And even then, it was a spruced-up version of a game that had been developed and launched for the Sega Genesis at the same time (Sonic 3D Blast), and primarily developed by a foreign company rather than the series’ creators, so it wasn’t even really an exclusive or all that special. A brand new Sonic game was planned for a Saturn release, but eventually got cancelled. Sonic Jam launched over two years after the system’s American launch. This is basically the...

We’re STILL not done with Shining Force III! Shining Force III was such a big and ambitious project that Camelot felt the need to produce a bonus disc of extras. This disc was not sold in stores. Any fans who had purchased all three games in the trilogy could send proof of purchase to Camelot, and in return Camelot would send them a free copy of this Premium Disc.  Some of the bonus features contained on this disc are fairly predictable. There’s an art gallery where you can browse various artwork for the game. There’s a sound and music test feature where you can listen to anything the (Japanese versions of the) games have to offer. There’s a video gallery where you can see stuff like TV commercials, 3D cutscenes from the games, and a developer interview. One thing that’s perhaps a little different than what you’d expect is a 3D character model viewer. This lets you choose literally any character or enemy from the games that has a 3D model for battle sequence, and you can view any v...

The epic conclusion. Scenario 1 and 2 took place at the same time, with the two games having you control different characters. The events of Scenario 3 start out much later, over halfway through the first two games. The main character, Julian, is a mercenary who is not affiliated with the republic or the empire. He joins your army in the first game temporarily, and does the same in the second game, until he leaves at the point just before when Scenario 3 begins. And of course, if you carry over your save files he will retain his exact level and items held throughout the three games. The story of Scenario 3 is a little less about politics and war, with the focus being on taking down the evil cult that has been working to stir up trouble the entire time. Again, the gameplay features are the same as in the previous two games, so do refer to my post about Scenario 1 for that information. I do think that Scenario 3’s gameplay is the most fun out of all three games. What really helps it is t...

Here we have part two of Shining Force III, tragically stuck in Japan. Speaking of that, I want to start this post by mentioning that this game (the very copy shown in the photo) was the very first game I ever imported from Japan, in December of 2004, which as of this writing is coincidentally just a month shy of 20 years ago. The possibility of importing Japanese games was first planted into my head by my late friend Brian Castleberry who I saw posting on the warppipe.com forums. I had previously been aware from sources such as Nintendo Power magazine that there existed cool games that only came out in Japan. And then I saw Brian talking about how the Saturn has a lot of cool Japanese games worth importing. And then I found out that two thirds of Shining Force III is games that have to be imported, and being a big fan, that was enough to get me to pull the trigger. Twenty years and well over 300 acquired Japanese games later, the rest is history.  While this is part two of the sto...

Here’s a big one. The previous game I covered was in Sega and Camelot’s “Shining” series, but “Shining Force” could sort of be seen as a sub-series, as seeing that word “Force” let gamers know that they were specifically in for a strategy RPG (well...that was the case when this game out anyway; later on they would break that rule). These are definitely the most popular “Shining” games, and I’ve covered a few of them already. For the third mainline entry, the developers wanted to really deliver something epic. And boy, did they ever. First of all, what’s super cool about Shining Force III is that it’s not just one game. Well…this entry I’m talking about here, what you’re looking at in the photo, is actually just one game. But in the span of less than a year during 1997 and 1998, Sega would release THREE games with the “Shining Force III” name to deliver an epic experience that covers one long storyline. Now, sadly, the Saturn was almost literally dead outside of Japan when these games w...

The first game in Sega and Sonic! Software Planning’s “Shining” series was “Shining in the Darkness” on the Sega Genesis. It was a first-person, dungeon-crawling RPG that was only decent at best, so I don’t have it in my collection and never have. After that game, they went in a different direction with the “Shining Force” strategy RPGs, a few of which I’ve already covered. On the Saturn, they decided to revisit the foundation of the first Shining game, and made it into something much greater! The game’s story is…well, I have to confess, the story and characters are very unmemorable. I struggle to recall many specific details to share. The start of the game has you controlling a mercenary named Arthur along with a couple mercenary friends embarking on a mission in a mysterious mine. After something unexpected happens leaving our heroes injured, a few spirits come to save them. The spirits are mostly good guys…but one of them is evil and possess one of Arthur’s companions, and so the re...

And here we have the fifth and final game in Konami’s shoot ‘em up series “Parodius” which I’m so fond of. The previous game, Jikkyou Oshaberi Parodius, had been made specifically for home consoles and never even had an arcade release in any form. However, Konami decided to go the arcade route again for the following entry, and so this home console port of the game is not so feature-rich. Story is not terribly important in Parodius games, but this game’s story is slightly amusing. It features Takosuke, the playable octopus character in previous Parodius games, who founds an agency which employs various playable Parodius characters (including a few new faces). This agency aims to provide a diverse array of services to whatever clients come to them with any sort of problem. This seems great…but it turns out that Takosuke is only in it for the money and the babes. Speaking of babes, the “Sexy” in the title may clue you in to the fact that is a slightly more risqué Parodius, but the game’s...

Sega was going strong in arcades in the mid ‘90s, and racing games were a very popular arcade genre at the time which benefited greatly from being in 3D. Sega Rally Championship was one of their hits of 1995, the same year the Saturn was going to be released outside of Japan, so naturally they made sure to give the fans a home console port, and they let you know it was special with the special silver-colored cover. While the Saturn couldn’t properly replicate the sharp graphics of the arcade version, this port turned out pretty good nonetheless. This game stands out from other racing games at the time because, as its name suggests, it is based on a particular motorsport called rallying. Most Americans like me probably aren’t too familiar with rallying since it’s not that popular over here, but if you’re European you’re more likely to know what I’m talking about. Being American, I don’t have a great understanding of rallying myself, but I know it’s a type of racing that involves driving...

I’ve talked about a few Treasure games previously such as Dynamite Headdy and Gunstar Heroes. They were originally founded by former employees of my beloved Konami, so the quality of their games isn’t surprising. And this is possibly their greatest work. Radiant Silvergun is a very unique shoot ‘em up which originated in arcades, but in some ways feels designed for home consoles. The vast majority of shoot ‘em ups involve power-ups of some form that drop from enemies or simply appear while going through the stage, which the player can pick up. But those are absent here. Instead, the player starts out with a whopping seven distinct weapons they can use right off the bat! Enemies in this game are either red, blue or yellow. Destroying a bunch of enemies in a row of the same color creates what’s called a “chain” which not only gives you a lot of points, but also powers up your weapons. Three of the game’s weapons are considered “primary” weapons, as the other four weapons are used when yo...