You all made it incredibly difficult to rank the entries this year. Just a lot of amazing work all around. As you know, all nine of us judges will have our scores added up for the final tally later this week. Please do not interpret a lower rank as being indicative of bad work. I enjoyed each and every one of these entries, and want to see every ongoing project continue to get developed and eventually finished. Please keep up the outstanding work. Dr. Nova, thanks again for including me as a judge yet again, and I would love to judge next year if you will have me. 🙂
I will be releasing a more than one hour video this coming Saturnday morning to expand my thoughts and show the world what you all have accomplished in this year's contest.
In the meantime, here are my rankings.
Original Games
1: CubeCat
This, Hellslave, and Blue Skies could easily tie for first. Thinking about which of these three is "the best" was a painful process. I think 7 Shades made a large amount of strides since last year's demo, narrowly making it worthy of the top spot in my view. The new skyboxes, reflective water graphics, level features, new movement options and improved 3D models blew me away. But what really sold it was the sunset/lily pad environment switch at level 3. Also, the original music fits perfectly. This is commercial quality. Can't wait until this becomes a full length platformer.
2: Hellslave Deathmatch Demo
A fan favorite among the scene. As expected, XL2 did not disappoint this year. The new maps are insanely good looking, especially the foggy forest, frigate ship, and the god damn sun spinning around the space ship. But the real kablammo moment here is fighting up to seven bots. Having up to eight characters in a match is insane (4 humans max, with a combination of bots totaling up to eight characters). Lighting effects are clutch as always, and the draw distance is ridiculous. The framerate drops when more players are added, but it still looks 144hz compared to Perfect Dark splitscreen.
3: Blue Skies
Where to begin with this one: Can we talk about the vibes? Is that word overused now? Either way, pleasant and tranquil vibes all around. I love the GIANT 3D archipelago, combined with the wonderful sprite based plane. The level and course design had me hooked, the flight physics feel great and satisfying — and as Kunitaka Watanabe would say, "THE MUSIC IS AMAZING." Holy crap, what a soundtrack. You guys got a whole team to make the game engine, then another team to make these wonderful tunes. Makes it feel like an easy going Sega game, fit for Outrun's stereo. Great work, please keep it up.
4: Sky Blaster
Hell yeah, a shmup!! The physics felt like dragging the ship through molasses at first, but once I realized how that jives with the rest of the game, I was threading bullet needles like no one's business. The graphics are a delight, the enemies are fun to fight, and I really enjoyed the original tunes. Will definitely love to come back for a return trip if you choose to make this a full length game. Great combination of 3D and 2D, something the Saturn does oh so well.
5: Balloonatics
I REALLY want to get 12 people together to play this at its full potential. Also, you've been working on this since 2003??? That is some dedication my friend. Balloon Fight is my favorite NES game, so perhaps I'm a bit biased in saying I love this entry.
6: The Garfield Master
Hell yes. Let good memes live on. Great block puzzle port, with a Monday hating twist!!
7: Fly vs Fly
This is something I did not expect to enjoy nearly as much as I did. The style of the music is like hearing a choir of insects reminisce on the dandelion fields of summertime. The combat, the two player action, the quotes at the end screens — what you have here ties together perfectly. Like a good Warioware minigame you unlock after beating three bosses in Mona's stage.
8: Sartist
What a great idea, and so well executed. The soft piano soothed my soul with every terrible creation I drew here. I hope to see more people take this on and maybe someday we can have an exhibit of what wonderful paintings we made with the Sega Saturn. A Prifun owner's delight.
9: ZYGO
I love this game. It does need some work with game breaking glitches and graphical flaws at boss fights, but the level design is very well thought out. I appreciate the ability to backtrack and explore new parts of levels when acquiring new power ups. Please keep this up. The felt looking sprites are a joy.
10: Red Moon
This demo is rippling with potential. Great worldbuilding here, and I love the art style. You have a neat and interesting plot, and of course, giant fighting robots!!
11: Lighthouse
What a fun brief visual novel. It could use some music, but the whole story was a great way to spend an afternoon. Great use of real photographs and hand drawn sprites.
12: Everlasting Summer
The Saturn scene needs more English dating sims in the same way modern hipster restaurants need more plates. Thank you for filling this void. While I understand this is in early stages of development, seeing a 2014 game get ported to a 1994 console is nuts. I will play through the whole thing on Saturn if you finish it.
13: Final Fantasy I
Great progress on this port from Trekkies. I love that you're properly getting all the assets to work on Saturn hardware as opposed to settling for an emulated port. This is boss, and doing battle was a great experience this year.
14: Cloth Demo
Wowzers! What a great show of 3D prowess from Reye. It's not much of a game perse, but the technological achievements here are more than noteworthy. Great work.
15: Kris Mingle
YES! Very good to see this come back. I hope your 2022 allows for more free time to work on this game. It's such a great concept.
16: 15xtreme
Pony puzzles! A good throwback to the SegaXtreme discord community. This is as necessary as the Garfield memes.
Patches/Translations/Tools
1: Bulk Slash
Holy crapoli. The team of 30+ people who worked on this just redefined what Saturn fan translations are capable of. Not only is every box of text now in English, but the hundreds upon hundreds of lines were redubbed with the help of talented volunteer voice actors and actresses. (And they actually sound good too!) Don't let the small amount of dub hating ultra-weeabs get you down, this is incredible work.
2: DeathMask
I believe this translation (detranslation?) project is the first of its kind for the Saturn community. While the game itself is no Radiant Silvergun or Panzer Dragoon Saga, being able to play this interesting work of art in English on my Saturn was a ton of fun. I got pretty deep into the game and had all English FMVs despite this being not technically 100% done. Great work to the team converting these video files and injecting them to the Japanese Saturn version of Deathmask. I hope to see more projects like this in the future.
3: Wachenroder
YES. It's about time someone started this. A translation patch for this seems to be almost as requested as Princess Crown. And wow, what a dark plot line. I know you said there's still some work to be done with getting everything to fit right and re-translate a few bits here and there, but it really felt like a fully playable game when I sat down with its first few hours of content. Great work.
4: Sega Ages: I Love Mickey Mouse English 0.9.1
Hell yeah. You even brought over the western covers! Quackshot probably benefits from this translation the most with its required reading and inventory menus. Any platformer lover with a Saturn needs to play this patch.
5: Fire Pro Blazing Tornado
If memory serves correct, this is the first time Blazing Tornado was summited to the SX contest. It seems to be pretty much done, though I understand Malenko still has a few more things to patch in.
6: Fire Pro 6 Men Scramble
Lots of noticeable progress since this was entered last year. I'm still bad at wrestling games, but I do love playing Malenko's patches. There are still a few more things left to translate, but a LOT of this is done and ready.
7: Grandia English 0.9.6
The patch is basically done. Last year, Trekkies had all the text translated, but not the cutscenes. This year, the cutscenes are cracked and subbed. Apparently, there are still a small amount of bugs and typos, but one could easily play through the whole thing now and have a great time. It's ranked this low because we are being asked to grade based on progress, and while it's an incredible patch, not much has changed since last year. Thank you for the incredible work on this project.
8: Lunar 2 - English Patch Preview
We are so happy to see this project get announced. What a great surprise! It's clear that lots of work is still in order, but if Mr. Conan's first Lunar patch is any indication of how Lunar 2 will go, we're in great hands.
9: DBZ Spanish
Spanish speakers rejoice! The Dragonball game largely marketed at Spain and South America is no longer in French for some reason. The cutscenes are still in Japanese though. Still, very great work here.
10: GunGriffon II
Sam, I ranked you last because one line is patched in, but PLEASE finish this. We are all pretty damn happy to see that GunGriffon II is getting patched, and it would only make sense if YOU were the guy to do it.
