10 Years of the Saturn

Well where I live it's 22nd November.... that marks the 10th anniversary of the Sega Saturn! How time flies eh?

I remember 10 years ago when the Saturn first came out in Japan... back then my 2 main reads were Sega Magazine and Sega Pro...

I saw all the huge showcases of Virtual Fighter and Clockwork Knight... it all just seemed so surreal. I was a 9 year old kid who was sitting there hoping to get a copy of Sonic & Knuckles for his birthday, and I saw all these 3D extravaganza's (or extravaganza... specifically Virtua Fighter)... back then I cared not if a game was 'texture mapped' or not, and I had no concept of screen resolution or frames per second... I just knew this was worlds above what my MegaDrive could do...

It felt like a machine I would never own in a million years, some kind of mythical beast I shall only ever see pictures of...

And indeed for the next few years, I could not have one. I was too young to have any income of my own, and the console was still extorionately priced, hell I could bearly manage to get 2 MegaDrive games a year (for my birthday and Christmas), and they usually went to getting the latest Sonic game... but I saw the games come out... I played my mates consoles, so I didn't miss out... I saw the PlayStation come out, at a cheaper price than the Saturn... but it never even occured to me to get a PlayStation instead... not once. The steady stream of quality titles meant I didn't even think it... Virtua Cop... Nights... Exhumed... Fighting Vipers... Fighters Megamix... Shining the Holy Ark... they kept coming.

But in Christmas 1997, I finally got my Saturn. A package deal for 99 GBP with Sega Rally, Sonic R and Sonic Jam. I admit I actually nearly bought a PlayStation instead by that point, I was totally hooked on Pandemonium! But I got the Saturn instead. And I've never regretted doing so. While they were playing Crash Bandicoot, I was playing Nights... while they were playing Ridge Racer, I was playing Sega Rally... While they were attempting to play their port of Street Fighter Alpha, I was playing Marvel Super Heroes...

Since then I've become a lot more open format and less of a fanboy, I explored the PlayStations huge catalogue of games, in particular the vast amount of quality RPG's on the format, and have had a great time...

But when I look back on all the times I had playing Nights, Panzer Dragoon Saga, Shining Force III, kicking butt on XMen Vs. Street Fighter, Vampire Savior, Virtua Fighter 2 et al... I know I made the right decision.

To this day, the Saturn is sitll my favourite console... I've bought many consoles since... the Dreamcast, the PlayStation2, my modded XBox, GameCube, GBA, even preordered a DS... but it just never felt the same as the Saturn... I'm sure many of you remember the UK Sega Saturn Magazine... it was THE read for UK Saturn owners... and because of this, it had such a community feel to it... such a feel does not exist for a new console release anymore, the gaming scene has changed so much.

I've drivelled on enough, anyone else care to share their experiences with Sega's console?
 
TEN YEARS! wow, time really does fly. I actually didnt get to even LOOK at this system until 01' when i bought it for a mere 15 bucks with 7 games off a kid in economics class. I guess he didnt understand economics very well! I couldn't afford it prior to this and had been playing my SEGA CD habitually! I played it some but didnt get a lot out of the system until probably the summer of 01' about the time I found this site and started learning about all the great games on it! Thats when it began... Now with my DC and Saturn up and roaring with tons of games; my girlfriend got no attention. She could deal with just the Sega CD, but now theres 3 of em'! But thats off story! so back to my saturn, greatest investment I ever made.
 
I bought my Saturn on August 19, 2000 at 2:59 PM from Funcoland

I bought:

Sega Saturn ($27.99)

Virtua Cop ($1.99)

Daytona USA ($1.99)

Virtua Fighter 2 ($2.49)

RF Adaptor ($2.99)

Mom bought:

CD Cleaner ($14.95)

Fighters Megamix ($16.99)

Subtotal: $69.39

IA TAX 6.00%: $4.16

TOTAL: $73.55

PCM Redeem: $3.95

Cash (Me): $35.00

Check (Mom): $34.36

Oh man it's late, I need to get to bed. I'll tell my story tomorow.
 
CLOUD!!! where in gods name do you get this USELESS memory. You will never take the time to learn new things like words in your own damn language, but instead will remember exactly HOW MUCH you spent on a vid game system to the cent 4 years ago. I think you may want to rearrange your priorities and use that brain capacity towards something USEFUL instead of worshipping SEGA. It's about that time in your life to do that anyway! I will say I love my SEGA but as I have commented on many occasions, its about the last thing on my list of priorities; education, work, bills and GETTIN' LAID come well before it! (Except for that one story I have told ya'll but then again that was when I was 16.)
 
Wow, the Saturn. I remember reading about it in may 1995, in my brother's first (and only) games magazine. By then it wasn't released in Europe yet, and all I had was a NES. Due to the quite sketchy information (I was 10 by then, in fact the system was released in Japan 1 day after my birthday, anyhow I wasn't "in the scene" at all) it had an air of mystery and a "brave new world" feeling around it. Also, due to my age I hardly bought any games, and due to the system's rapid decline into obscurity, in the next few years I thought of it being something like the Neo Geo, a super-expensive but very powerful system that was just too expensive for most people to own. Quite ignorant of me, really.

Over the years I became a PC gamer and didn't like console gaming... but then years later, in 2001, I bought a cheap N64 from a friend and from there it started again! Shortly thereafter my hunt for a Saturn started - after having discovered it's not the uber-powerful leet hardcore system I thought it was. Saturns are very hard to come buy in Holland though, but on the gleeful 23rd of december, 2002 I bought a boxed one in Belgium for 65 euros, with Virtua Fighter and Sega Rally. From there on it went fast, and now I have over 100 games :cheers

Way to go Saturn!
 
CLOUD!!! where in gods name do you get this USELESS memory. You will never take the time to learn new things like words in your own damn language, but instead will remember exactly HOW MUCH you spent on a vid game system to the cent 4 years ago.

Haha.

That's what I'm known for. Remembering stuff right down to the minute details from years ago.

:lol: :thumbs-up:
 
I got my saturn in april/may 2001 from a place called cash convertors, it set me back 30 pounds as it was boxed and in good condition with 2 controllers.

I got Virtua Fighter 2 and Wipeout for an addiotonal £8
 
I started with Game Gear, went over to Mega Drive/Genesis II....and then there was rumour about a new, powerful console. Screenshots of stunning graphics from Daytona Arcade hardware and future Saturn games.

My story is, that I ordered a japanese Saturn short after it's release and it's first big price-drop. I spend a whole bunch of money, much more than a 15 year old boy should spend on his own. And I had to keep it secret, because of that....

Oh my good, I even disabled the door bell, so that when the Saturn arives, noone would notice it. And it worked! When I went to the post office to get my Saturn, the package was so big, that I couldn't drive my bicycle, but had to walk all the way home. In secret, of course.

So at the first time, I could only play in secret. A friend and me sat in front of the TV, looking at the Panzer Dragoon intro and thought: "When will a console ever be able to do this in real time?"

Of course it was very sad, that the PeeSX won the battle, somehow.
 
I got my saturn a year after it came out, from my eb... man I wanted it so bad when it originally came out but it was 299... I couldn't even think of affording that, but when it dropped to 199, I jumped on it... and man oh man it was a match made in heaven, what a system.. this system OWNED... I loved all the games and couldn't play it enough... I remember playing panzer dragoon at my local nobody beats the wiz, and I couldn't get enough.. I found myself going back for more and more, until I finally got my own system at home,and the fun never stopped... thanks saturn...
 
I bought it at the expensive launch price, but it was so worth it. Later, one of my Saturns (launch system never broke down) did break down around the time of the Dreamcast launch and they sent me a new one for free.

Sega is good.

And I bought it for Bug! It's a good game, really.

And how did you all wait so long to buy a Saturn? Shame on you.
 
i recieved a beat up saturn from my cousin, he gave it to me because he found it in the trash. well, the saturn i have now is dead, it had major heating problems. <_<
 
the sega saturn, my favorite sega system of all time... what a system... the games the fun, the memories....
 
I remember back in 1995 when I 1st saw the Saturn & PSX in a games mag. They both looked so exotic & mythical. In the years that followed I tried various games on both consoles at shops & I was amazed by Panzer Dragoon, Golden Axe Duel, Bug, Darius Gaiden & Thunder Force V but I was discouraged after seeing the large blocky lo-res polygons of Sonic-R, & poor conversions of Virtua Fighter 2 & Daytona USA. SEGA Rally, SEGA Touring etc... It wasn't until 1997 that I decided to get the PSX with RayStorm, CastleVania SOTN, Soul Blade, Skeleton Warriors, Colony Wars, Air Combat & Project-X2 (I was an AMIGA fan boy) These games looked so amazing & seeing as they were PSX exclusive (minus Skeleton Warriors) I got the PSX.

I bought the Saturn on Sep 2000, for the Sole purpose of playing Panzer Dragoon Series, Radiant Silvergun & the horde of cool exclusive shmups.

It wasn't until last year that I Modded it.

Saturn (New) = 10 Euros

Panzer Draoon (Used) = 4 Euros

Panzer Dragoon II (Used) = 4 Euros

House of The Dead (Used) = 4 Euros

It's a very cool console indeed.

It turned out that that the PSX has as many cool shmups as the Saturn though.
 
Originally posted by ST Dragon@Tue, 2005-02-22 @ 10:40 PM

I was discouraged after seeing the large blocky lo-res polygons of Sonic-R, & poor conversions of Virtua Fighter 2


Pretty funny you say that actually, considering how the high resolution, 60fps port of Virtua Fighter 2 is generally held in high regard, and the transparency-packed Sonic R's engine is respected by even the strongest Sonic R critic!
 
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