I cannot restate this: Thank you all for participating and for contributing to our wonderful scene. We eat very well in the Sega Saturn scene and it is all thanks to you.
Here are my rankings. They are being combined with those of the other judges to eventually dump out into the final rankings later tonight.
Original Games:
1: Micro Motor Mayhem
This is a complete racing game. With 14 tracks and eight cars, this has already surpassed many of the Saturn's commercially released racers in terms of quantity. The quality of Micro Motor Mayhem — totally delivers in my opinion. It seems you have noted some of the physics fixes that need to be implemented, but even these were issues I seldom ran into. I only had to reset a couple of races. Splitscreen multiplayer worked really well. The artistry, original music, the item boxes, the jumps and cliffs, dynamic uses of each environment, I could go on. This is incredible. If this is v0.2 as you stated, what in the hell will v1.0 look like. Godspeed.
2: Shenmue
Blown away by the creamy 3D graphics here. Great show of what could have been if Virtua Fighter RPG made it to the finish line. I love the sprite based adventure bits. Thank you very much for finally sharing one of your "impossible" Saturn ports with the public. This was a treat to play and a great entry to the contest. Great idea to incorporate vbt's emulator into You Arcade.
3: Pixel Poppy Pong
Wow, leaps and bounds since last year's submission. I really love the intro sequence, the fresh UI and the music from Random slaps hard. Four-player mode!! You have made incredible progress with this game. The fighting game style one-player mode made me happy.
4: Lost Days 0
Great continuation of your series!! As usual, great original artwork and a fascinating storyline.
5: Pulitzer
Though the demo is short, this is super well put together. The menus, art style and gameplay setup are very reminiscent of your past work. Great voice work at the intro sequence too, from whoever provided the vocals. If you finish this game, I will play the whole thing.
6: Puff Pastry Panic
Creamy 3D graphics and a funky world. The dialogue made me laugh quite a bit. Loving what you're doing here. Jumps are a little too "moon physics" for me, but maybe more cigs and coffee will get this froggy moving. Outstanding work on this demo.
7: Seniriu
A promising step in a very ambitious project. More importantly, this is helping with one of the biggest steps in advancing Saturn homebrew development software. Take your time with the final product. It is sure to be a smash.
8: MOAI Talks
MOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOUGH.
For real though, this looks sick.
9: Haiku
A lovely haiku. Best of luck with your future projects in Saturn homebrew, keep at it!
Patches/Translations/Hacks:
This is the hardest year for judging this category, all are fucking bangers. So many of these could easily take first place. I went back and forth on the top spot many many times. Like, almost all of these should be top 3.
1: Shining Force 3 Online
The amount of reverse engineering and hours of work that went into this is unfathomable. Holy hell my dude. The couch multiplayer build is very welcome for those who lack a Netlink. Seriously, extremely good work here.
2: Doom fix
You made Saturn Doom good. Thank you. I can actually play this thing and have fun! The fact that this is marked as version 0.2 makes me sweat just thinking about what the future of this project looks like.
3: Mobile Suit Gundam
Such an outstanding translation patch that not only injects great looking English text and translates the game well — but it also subs the cutscenes while upgrading their resolution. Incredible, and for such a great game too. I feel like balls for marking this as third place. Again, I went back and forth on first place and top 3 so many god damn times. This year was tough.
4: Silhouette Mirage
Again, incredible work here. Thank you for carefully re-translating this game so that we may finally get a proper English release more than 25 years later. I absolutely loved the big pdf included with the download. Great way to show off the differences and what work went into this. Translated comics were also a nice touch.
5: Bomberman Fight
An outstanding translation patch! I understand a lot of work from a lot of people went into this one, and I know many fans are enjoying it — me included.
6: Jung Rhythm
Such a great addition to the Saturn library and a welcome addition to the massive amount of English translations for our enjoyment! Is tonight kick chop?
7: Burning Rangers Co-op
Great job getting this out of the game's code, then modifying it to work throughout the entire one player mode. Such an interesting piece of history that we can now experience for ourselves. Awesome job.
8: Logic Puzzle Rainbow Town
Translating the tutorial — something the world needed. Bless.
9: Rabbit
Derek, I know you said this was a testing ground, so allow me to say thank you for getting into Saturn homebrew.
None of these should receive the designation of "last place." All of these are "top 3" quality. Many are "first place" quality. This category was so incredibly hard to judge. Very very good work.
Tools/Utilities:
Based on my interpretation of the merits to each entry and the contest judging guidelines, I have ranked this category as such.
1: SaturnRingLibrary
2: Cinepak Movie Disc
3: NYA model converter
4: SF3Tools
5: Seniriu Terrain Demo
6: Sega Saturn Film Tools 3.0.1
7: Savefileconverter
Thank you all for keeping the Saturn scene the very best retro scene in existence. Us players are eating super well. We are thriving. Keep up the incredible work.
