There's a Saber Rider kick going on...

[RHE]

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sa ... ?ref=video

Save the New Frontier from the ruthless forces of Nemesis in this action packed 16-bit 2D space western shoot-em' up. Ready to ride!

Well, as a kid I was more into Masters of the Universe and Ninja Turtles but this looks nice enough. I wonder if they will make a demo for the game.

[Ghegs]

Haha, wow. I loved the show as a kid. I even made what was probably the first fanpage dedicated to it on the Internet, back in the early/mid-90's. I'd probably buy the game for nostalgia alone.

That said, I can't see the Kickstarter succeeding. The show just doesn't have the same kind of fanbase as He-Man, Turtles, Voltron or Thundercats has. Except in German apparently, where I understand it was ridiculously popular for some reason. Kind of like David Hasselhoff's singing career.

And their stretch goals are totally assbackwards. They prioritize making versions of the game for DC, PC Engine and SNES before porting it to PS4 and XBone? Deciding to deal with the finances of porting and making physical copies for three different systems before just porting the game to current systems as digital downloads...that just boggles my mind.

One of the first stretch goals is a Caravan Mode with 2/5 minute settings "for highscore hunting", that did catch my eye.

[BulletMagnet]

Except in German apparently, where I understand it was ridiculously popular for some reason. Kind of like David Hasselhoff's singing career.

I smell a cross-promo!

[Strider77]

I only want the PC Engine version. But I don't think it'll meet that stretch goal.

[Herr Schatten]

Except in German apparently, where I understand it was ridiculously popular for some reason. Kind of like David Hasselhoff's singing career.

Sorry to disappoint you, but I was a kid in Germany when this was aired and it definitely wasn't hugely popular then. None of my friends where into it, and neither was I. The show may or may not have picked up a cult following in the meantime, but it wasn't a big deal back then.

And, not really wanting to defend my fellow countrymen whose terrible taste in music has been proven time and again, it still has to be noted that David Hasselhoff's "singing" "career" here was pretty much just one hit single. That one single's success is still as inexplicable to me today as it was back then, though.

[Strider77]

His latest hit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTidn2dBYbY

[Ghegs]

Except in German apparently, where I understand it was ridiculously popular for some reason. Kind of like David Hasselhoff's singing career.

Sorry to disappoint you, but I was a kid in Germany when this was aired and it definitely wasn't hugely popular then. None of my friends where into it, and neither was I. The show may or may not have picked up a cult following in the meantime, but it wasn't a big deal back then.

Perhaps it's a cult following then, but there's certainly something. The series was released in Germany on DVD (with German dub only) many years before it saw the light of day elsewhere in the west. And there are drama CDs where (I'm guessing) the original German voice actors read the stories. These aren't available in any other language, and it seems that the anime that was the basis for Saber Rider, Sei Jushi Bismarck, didn't have any drama CDs either. So these would have to be original stories made solely for the German fanbase. And the KS campaign has a stretch goal where they'll bring back the German cast to do voiceovers for the game, they're clearly trying to hook that crowd with that.

You're in a better position than me to figure out whether it was popular back in the day or only afterwards. Maybe it was shown on TV again around the 2000's or thereabouts and this renewed the interest for the series?

[Herr Schatten]

You're in a better position than me to figure out whether it was popular back in the day or only afterwards. Maybe it was shown on TV again around the 2000's or thereabouts and this renewed the interest for the series?

I did a little research and it seems that there were a couple of re-runs of the show in the mid to late 90s, and that's when it gathered a kind of cult following. In light of that information, the release dates of the DVDs make a lot of sense.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

I checked out the kickstarter page regarding the Saber Rider game -- apparently, there's a Dreamcast demo to d/l and burn to a CD-R worth checking out. It even has VMU support complete with the Saber Rider star logo displayed -- how cool is that?

Sometime back, on the U.S. region PSN site, there was a free episode #1 of Saber Riders to d/l -- did end up getting it and d/l'ing it just to see what it was all about. It's presented in 720 x 480 resolution with 4:3 screen format at best. Interesting premise with the old-school vehicles that combine to transform into a huge mecha robot (quite typical back in the mid-1980s for a nationally syndicated cartoon show like with the earlier Voltron series going on back in 1984).

What was interesting about Wep's (World Event Productions) Voltron syndicated cartoon series was that it was presented in stereo (a rarity for a kid's cartoon show back in the early 1980's but if your television had stereo support from the get-go, you could tell that it sounded a whole lot better than using the typical old standby of a mono sound old-school CRT-based TV back then). Back in 1983 and into 1984, RCA made and sold a dedicated 25" CRT-based TV with stereo output with the largest CRT tube manufactured at that particular point in time (that even JCPenny's sold the RCA 25" CRT TV under their own brand name as well) -- the local TV stations would tell you beforehand if a broadcasted TV show was presented in stereo (and if you had the right TV with such a stereo setup, it was an awesome experience not to be missed -- it was akin to playing the slick Centuri {licensed from Konami} Gyruss arcade upright game that was presented in stereo back in the day which was groundbreaking and a highly touted feature). Even Atari's Space Duel upright cab sported a four speaker setup + sub woofer for that added heavy bass audio enhancement -- quite something to be able to play SD in the arcades with the bass cranked up back in 1984, indeed.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[hien]

You're in a better position than me to figure out whether it was popular back in the day or only afterwards. Maybe it was shown on TV again around the 2000's or thereabouts and this renewed the interest for the series?

I did a little research and it seems that there were a couple of re-runs of the show in the mid to late 90s, and that's when it gathered a kind of cult following. In light of that information, the release dates of the DVDs make a lot of sense.

Well, I watched the show as a kid and so did most of my friends back then but no one really cared afterwards, so yeah, I also don't see much of a basis for a really big cult following but the show surely was popular at the time. Guess it's more of a really small hardcore fanbase which is still interested in it.
Always found if funny though, how the original storyline was completely butchered for the western (?) release, with even the lead being switched around. They also took a lot of freedom when it came to "translating" the dialogue (watched a japanese episode and compared it with the german one some time ago and there were more differences than similarities). Almost as much as with the Hill and Spencer movies, which imo is a good thing since the dialogue ended up being much funnier than the (somewhat dull) original.

Don't really know, why anyone should care about the game to be honest though. The team seems to be made up of hobbyists with not much to none experience in making games, which always results in a neverending story. And I may be wrong but wasn't there a kind of similar project announced elsewhere several years ago? Maybe even by the same guys?

[Strider77]

I remember that project also. I think it was for the DS then as well..... what ever current version at the time. I was wondering if this was the same guys or not.

[Ghegs]

Wow, I didn't thought it possible, but they actually reached their goal. And they even hit the first stretch goal, meaning 2/5 minute caravan modes will be included. Hot diggity.

[GSK]

You know these guys have supposedly been working on this game for 10 years and have already successfully crowdfunded this game only to do fuck-all with the money, right?

[Strider77]

When did they do it the 1st time around? I remember hearing about it some time ago as a DS game if memory serves me right.

[GSK]

When did they do it the 1st time around? I remember hearing about it some time ago as a DS game if memory serves me right.

They've announced and reannounced this game multiple times--initially on GBA, then DS, then multiple 3DS versions--but have pretty much nothing to show for 10 years of talk.

They crowdfunded this game a few years back on an obscure EU crowdfunding platform called PLING; they took over 10k EUR in funds but never delivered anything worth mentioning and didn't ever bother to explain or justify where that money went.

They also tried to claim that Manfred Trenz (the creator of Turrican) was involved, right up until he wrote a notice on his website saying "I was not and will not be involved in this game but these people refuse to stop telling people I will be, wtf".

[o.pwuaioc]

Links, please? I know the people doing the Turbo stuff are good guys. I hope for the sake of all that they too weren't scammed somehow...

Also, where were you when this was actually live. :/

[GSK]

Links, please? I know the people doing the Turbo stuff are good guys. I hope for the sake of all that they too weren't scammed somehow...

Also, where were you when this was actually live. :/

Here's their old crowdfunding campaign (I think, had to re-search for it just now): http://pling.tableofvisions.com/projekt ... The%20Game

This is the old message posted on Manfred Trenz' website (it's no longer there; this message is 5 years old!):

"Betrifft SABER RIDER!

Denaris arbeitet nicht an dem Projekt Saber Rider und hat bisher auch nicht daran gearbeitet. Diese Falschinformation wurde ohne Rücksprache mit Denaris ins Netz gestellt und trotz Aufforderung nicht berichtigt."

[Xyga]

Watermelon/magicalgamefactory were supposed to help publishing Saber Rider, however the company seems to be hiding that it's in trouble, still bogged down in endless delivery delays (literally years) and crappy lies emails.
Fonzie left and the website has been down for days now, just after they sent out another of those ridiculous emails saying they've received stock and about to ship the goods out.

[Immryr]

Yeah at this point I feel pretty sure I'm never going to receive the dreamcast version of pier solar, which was the first thing I ever pre ordered!