Anyway, I checked the mail and got a notice stating that my Saturn finally arrived!! So I hop in my car to go pick it up at the post office. I head back home and open the parcel. Geez, the Saturn's a lot bigger than I expected, but that's 1995 tech for ya. Also, it also came with this cartidge sort of thing. It had an index sticker on it, so I figured that it was a save cartidge. I don't remember buying my Saturn and having a power memory cart bundled with it, but lucky me I guess. The system came with two controllers, one pure white and one a sort of see-thruish black crystal, which looked pretty cool, IMO. When I first held the pads, they felt flimsy and uncomfortable, but that suddenly disappeared when I started to play Strikers 1945. I was amazed at how responsive the D-pad was and how egronomic the controller actually is. The first thing I did was replace the CR2032 battery in the back. I couldn't quite figure out how to get the old battery out without breaking something, until I just simply used the battery cover to pry the old battery out and popped the new one in. Geez, and I was all worried about how to change the battery.
I was also a bit worried when the console menu was all in Japanese, since I can't read it, but was relieved when I somehow stumbled upon the language option and set it to English. No language barrier problems now! The bundle also came with the following games:
Daytona USA
Ah, an arcade classic that I fondly remembered as a kid, but the Saturn port is weak in the graphics department, plus steering with a D-Pad is kind of akward. Still, some good fun and the music is so bad that it's good.
Some Pachkino Collection by Sunsoft
I wondered what the heck Pachkino was, so I popped this one in just out of curiosity. The language barrier really hurt me on this one, but I eventually figured out how to work the darn pachkino machine. It's....different than what I thought it would be, and I still don't understand the rules and scoring of pachkino. It's strangely addicting watching those metal balls tumbling down into the number slots however. The music was pretty neato and you can listen to the tracks in a standard CD player.
Virtua Fighter 2
Sega's answer to Tekken, I suppose. I found the fighting a little too simplistic (only punch and kick? Street Fighter II has like 6 attacks), but I'd guess it would be more fun with a friend.
I also got some soccer game that I've haven't played yet, looks like a club management sim is in it as well, but it's hard fiddling around with Japanese menu-driven games.
And now, on to the first Saturn game I imported:
Strikers 1945
This game is almost arcade-perfect, and is a great staple of Pyskio gameplay. The graphics look identical to the PCB's and the gameplay is left intact, unraped by bastard localization companies. The music and sound effects were a little weak, but it didn't bother me too much. The Saturn pad is truely the king of 2D pads, as I had no trouble moving my fighter and the pad felt very responisve, unlike Sony's "we hate 2D" splintered D-pads. TATE mode rocks, although I'd probably need another TV just for that purpose since having to keep moving the TV from Yoko to Tate or vice-versa may mess it up in the long run. The intro movies were pretty cool, and there's also a fighter index where you can hear some guy talk about the planes' history or something in Japanese. Nifty. All in all, Strikers 1945 is a great starter Saturn shmup.
I'm really amazed by the Saturn, truely a great console. Now I need to earn some cash for Battle Garegga or Raident Silvergun.