Sega Saturn buying advice

[OmegaFlareX]

Fuuuuck Saturn prices. They were bad when I had a console 15 years ago, but now, forget it. Look up Pseudo Saturn and do that instead. Unless you're a collector, in which case, GLHF broke retrogamer.

[NTSC-J]

I'm planning on getting a Sega Saturn (want to acquire more consoles before getting more games). I have over $225. What should I get?

I'm not sure what games you like, but when I got into Saturn imports back in high school (around the time you were born, heaven help me), the first games I bought were Dodonpachi, Sokyugurentai, Batsugun, and Prikura Daisakusen. I'd still recommend the latter three because the ports are all quite good, but you've mentioned you have a no-port policy at least with shmups. I think it's noble and god speed if you can stick to that, but you're going to have a hell of a time at your age and income. With the Saturn, most of the popular games are arcade ports, so I would recommend rethinking your purchase.

Also, as others have said, you were cursed to have been born when you were. Retro gaming is bad right now and, I think, only going to get worse. It's funny because when I was growing up in the 90s, everyone was prospecting comic books thinking they'd be worth a mint like the stuff from the 40s and 60s, but the answer was in front of us all the time: 80s and 90s era video games will be for our generation what comics were for our parents. My grandkids will be floored when they hear about Funcoland selling SMB NES carts for 10 cents apiece. The four Saturn games I mentioned cost me $40 apiece; now, Batsugun alone goes for over $200.

[WelshMegalodon]

Soukyugurentai and Prikura Daisakusen are ST-V games, so he'll probably make an exception for those.

[Obiwanshinobi]

I expect any physical copies, any hardware generation, to be in some demand for AT LEAST another generation of collectors (toddlers today or not even born yet) - if only because there will be no new physical releases rather soon I reckon. Some collect floppies and cassettes for crying out loud!
That doesn't mean "inflated prices forever", but some demand is pretty much guaranteed.

[Astraea FGA Mk. I]

I bought a Japanese Saturn and PARPlus4M a few years ago and have a small assortment of games that I won cheaply from auctions by fielding a large number of small bids winning a small number, being;
Sexy Parodius, Gunbird, Kingdom Grand Prix, Puyo Puyo 2, Street Fighter Zero, Earthworm Jim 2 and the Thunder Force Gold packs 1/2.
I don't believe in contributing to the aftermarket classic game sales situation, I would rather spend my money on hardware.

So I promptly chipped it.
There are number of re-releases of iconic Saturn games, among them Radiant Silvergun, Gaurdian Heroes, Nights.. I bought those, if you haven't played RSG yet you should consider the XBLA version or use the SSF emu to try it out it is a spectacular game blew my mind.

You can have a lot of fun with a small stack of games that are inexpensive, you can bide your time and eventually find a great deal on an overpriced highly saught after shmup and play it to death master it, having all of the games ruins it actually unless you have discipline which I and many others often don't.

[Bar81]

Fuuuuck Saturn prices. They were bad when I had a console 15 years ago, but now, forget it. Look up Pseudo Saturn and do that instead. Unless you're a collector, in which case, GLHF broke retrogamer.

Wat? Prices were fine 10 years ago much less 15 years ago. You being cheap doesn't make prices "bad" .

[atheistgod1999]

Holy shit fuck my life now I feel even worse about being born in 1999.

My PC isn't even powerful enough to run NESTopia at a consistent 60FPS, BTW.

[evil_ash_xero]

I bought Panzer Dragoon Saga and Radiant Silvergun, when they came out. Just saying.

[Strider77]

I have a butt ton of Saturn games.... this pleases me greatly.

[GaijinPunch]

My first Saturn import: Magic Knight Rayearth. I think I paid like $80 for it but they soon came down... the Saturn had just come out.

The prices of retro games now is pretty bad, and the sad thing is it was really cyclical for a long time...at least when I had a side business based on it I remember PC-Engine games going for crazy amounts at Medialand in Akihabara. However this was way before the internet had really taken off in Japan, and as such, Yahoo Auctions, and even Ebay were in their infancy. There were really no proxy services. A few years in, the prices seemed to fade.... then go up... then down... Would have been nice to hang on to a collection but I needed dough when I needed it and out they went. I still enjoyed most of those games and got back at least what I put in.

As for the question at hand, while the arcade ports are the Saturns forte, there are some good original games. Keio Yuugekitai which has never been super cheap. Really fun though. I might try to pick that one up again some time.

[Bitter Almonds]

Scalper prices justify downloading the ROMs for free and playing these games from your PC.

[atheistgod1999]

I hope you people are just trolling me about the price bubble lasting at least another decade or forever.














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[Obiwanshinobi]

My PC isn't even powerful enough to run NESTopia at a consistent 60FPS, BTW.

If serious, I can recommend getting a Wii soft-modded (piss-easy with just an SD card & internet connection) - then you get to play 8-16-bit console ROMs very well emulated on a console, with component (in the US; PAL units output RGB as well) colour on your SDTV, in true lo-res, no filtering, with the pretty good Classic Controler Pro.
When Sega Master System gets homebrew this good (by this very forum's Herr Schatten), I see no reason not to.

[TransatlanticFoe]

Dude, chill out.

Prices haven't so much risen as jumped. You can't predict it and there's no point being grumpy about hindsight. Also you're the same age as my Dreamcast, cool your jets - you have plenty of time to obtain and play all these games.

You get way more money as an adult (also no-one will complain if you have an all day session breaking just for the toilet or another beer). I had about 30 Master System games obtained new between 1992 and 1994 because I was a kid and only had pocket money and gifts as routes to new games. Most of those were older ones at 50% retail price!

[cfx]

.

[Astraea FGA Mk. I]

Make a topic on the trading station wanted board?
People here are nice and may give you a good deal for a bundle : )
If you ask Rancor nicely he may be able to find something for you.

About what you above say about piracy. If someone plays roms of certain games with an emulator on a computer, playing those games on the actual console is identical in legitimacy, morality. Also, I bet many people feel like me and see the value in actual retail games, they are better in every way, for the authenticity, packaging, collectability, etc. I think mentioning these subjects is inoffensive if brief and topical, especially if not a direct recommendation.

[evil_ash_xero]

Are you more interested in owning the games or playing them?

Because there are some mods, where you can run games off of an SD card. For cartridge based systems, this is a God send (with the EverDrives).

The CD based systems are getting there, but it's kind of hard to get the boards.

[atheistgod1999]

Are you more interested in owning the games or playing them?

Obviously playing them, but I want to own them as well. Owning them makes me certain that the game is legit and not hacked.

[BIL]

Are you more interested in owning the games or playing them?

Those of us who say "BOFE" and mean it are... the damned

There's no release / Until you're deep down inside! Dive, Dive, Dive!

[evil_ash_xero]

Are you more interested in owning the games or playing them?

Those of us who say "BOFE" and mean it are... the damned

There's no release / Until you're deep down inside! Dive, Dive, Dive!

It's good to be able to play them, while you save up the money for the actual cart/disc tho'.

[Bitter Almonds]

Scalper prices justify downloading the ROMs for free and playing these games from your PC.

No, no they don't.

Pirates gonna pirate, but there is no justification for it whatsoever. Piracy is annoying, but people trying to justify it somehow is far more annoying.

Scalping is terrible, too, and if there's no other way to play the game, then pirate it.

[BIL]

It's good to be able to play them, while you save up the money for the actual cart/disc tho'.

Fuckin WORD, I wouldn't own a fraction of the shit I do without careful evaluation via TEH ROMZ. Anything goes on the merciless field of battle. Investigate the target, or you will be cornholed mercilessly by your mistakes.

"lololol Planet Joker looks neat and is rarez" <--this man's rectum subsequently imploded and now he's forever chugging down metamucil

Hey ag99, this is another great boon of our tragic era! Electric communication! When I was a kid I had to rely on magazines written by TOTAL FUCKING SCRUBS, their contagion even rubbed off a little on me! ;-; But thanks to farm I'm clean and you also have such expertise at your disposal - FO FREE. If you don't have the love just stick around and we'll JAM IT UP YOU

[Bloodreign]

Bloodreign, I have to say : I love your avatar SO much.

It's such a tight and cutesy animation cycle! Plus the character is cool of course, hehe

Thank you, I love the Darkstalkers and Pocket Fighter, and my favorite character from Darkstalkers is dear Lei Lei there.

Speaking of Pocket Fighters, another middle of the road priced fighter on the Saturn, but it's a solid port of a great game.

[Immryr]

Scalper prices justify downloading the ROMs for free and playing these games from your PC.

No, no they don't.

Pirates gonna pirate, but there is no justification for it whatsoever. Piracy is annoying, but people trying to justify it somehow is far more annoying.

What a ridiculous attitude. What moral problem can you possibly have with pirating games from the nineties or earlier? It's not like the game creators get any profit from second hand game sales.

[Skykid]

Are you more interested in owning the games or playing them?

Obviously playing them, but I want to own them as well. Owning them makes me certain that the game is legit and not hacked.

What?

It's not easy to come by "hacked" ROMs bro, and believe me, you'll know them when you see them.

Real hardware FTW, and I appreciate your appreciation for old stuff (old stuff rules) but retro game prices are mostly in the realms of stupid now. Playtest on your PC, buy the stuff you really like and then master it.

And if your PC can't emulate Famicom games properly, consider buying a new one of those and a decent USB pad/adaptor before blowing your money on a Saturn.

[null1024]

My PC isn't even powerful enough to run NESTopia at a consistent 60FPS, BTW.

That's kind of rough this day and age, I'm pretty sure a machine that slow would choke watching YouTube videos in HD, maybe even in 480p.

Hell, I have a laptop from 2009 lying around, relatively mid-end, had 2GB RAM, 120GB HDD, shipped with Vista [running Win7 right now], and a Pentium Dual-Core CPU that runs everything at 60fps in SSF.
It's not a particularly fast computer at all [works well enough to do shit still, just kind of sluggishly, the HDD being slow might be half the issue]
been torn for months [years now?] on getting a new Saturn [mine's dead] because there's all this other shit I want, I don't have a CRT anymore [happened a couple months ago], and SSF works

Shit, I remember playing Senko no Ronde on a machine from 2003 in nullDC [it was one of like 3 games that kept 60fps, the others were Ikaruga and one other I can't remember off hand].

fuck, the only machine I've owned in recent memory that couldn't run NESTopia at 60fps was a literal netbook, and I might be misremembering that

[Shelcoof]

Scalper prices justify downloading the ROMs for free and playing these games from your PC.

No, no they don't.

Pirates gonna pirate, but there is no justification for it whatsoever. Piracy is annoying, but people trying to justify it somehow is far more annoying.

Buying and collecting legit copies of a game is more than just playing the game.

Example I own like 4 copies of Panzer Dragoon Orta for the original Xbox [X2 NA, JP and Pal]. If all I wanted to do was play the game I'd only own one copy of it but I absolutely love that game to death its like a work of art. Despite it being dirt cheap its still one of my most treasured games in my collection.

Regarding Piracy..... usually try before I buy
If I really like the game I go out of my way to obtain a legit version.

Oh and my advice to Saturn collecting is its not worth getting into at the moment. Games are just crazy expensive and a lot of games are alternatively available elsewhere if your just looking to play.

[Bitter Almonds]

I'll also seek out a legit way of buying the game, even if it's just a download only game from PSN or XBLA. I'll buy hard copies if the prices are reasonable, for which Saturn games are not. I'm not in this to make an opportunist scalper more money.

[BIL]

Pirates of the long-extinct SSea are a-ok with me. Yarrr. I'd rather somebody pirate rarez and share quality insights with the forum than collect legits and play them abysmally (or not at all). Soulful gaming archivists like llabnip are the ideal I strive towards but something always beats nothing.

It's counterfeiters I've a problem with. A problem that I cannot so easily work around like scalpers, but instead must pray to Santa will be remedied by each and every one discharging a big twelve inch directly into his own mouth, resulting in the painless but irreversible cessation of all vital function. I PRAY THEM DEAD

Having done all my highfalootin RAREZing years back and feeling (somewhat uneasily!) remote from the coming blast radius, I await further Neo AES-style "Check it dudes I found Aero Fighters 3 in my uncle's garden shed" fiascoes with morbid curiosity. Feel our bodies breathing as you try to stop believing.

Obviously playing them, but I want to own them as well. Owning them makes me certain that the game is legit and not hacked.

What?

It's not easy to come by "hacked" ROMs bro, and believe me, you'll know them when you see them.

I love ag99 threads, even my cynical heart wants to believe their sublime satire is entirely fluke. Yes ag buddy, if everyone worried about encountering a scurrilous EZMODO hack of Super Cannoli Bros, nobody would ever get anything done. Just get in there and if you suspect something's fishy do research. Acquiring a hard copy is wayyy the fuck down the list on the journey to ultimate truth, these checksummed and catalogued internet days (notice a recurring theme!).

[atheistgod1999]

Dude, back when I used my Everdrive, I downloaded a bad Mega Man 2 ROM from what I'm guessing is the biggest ROM site. If there were too many enemies on the screen, the game would reset.