The world burns. Only Sega remains.

[BIL]

3rd Strike is really a turd as a port on the DC. It's even laggier than the original.

Aren't the graphics fucked too? I remember some nasty scaling on 'em. Meanwhile 2nd Impact's Alex stage (or whoever had the MURICA graffiti) looked SHA-WEEEEEET

[scrilla4rella]

I always liked the backgrounds on the SF Double Impact games better than Third Strike and I never knew why, maybe the less than stellar port of that later had something to do with it.

Back on topic: I just received a copy of F1 Live Information for the JPN Saturn that I got on ebay for 5 bucks. It's really fun. It's a weird one but so far I think its one of the better Saturn racing games sitting slightly below the Daytona ports (with Sega Rally of course sitting on the top spot). The controls and physics feel solid and the graphics are probably some of the best for a 3D racing game on the system.

What's weird is that they seemed to be going for a classic Sega racing game with some light sim elements. The races are long. 8 laps taking over 10 minutes. It's also usual in that the Japanese version doesn't have music but instead has racing commentary recorded by real race announcers. It seems relatively advanced for the time it came out. It's obvious that Sega invested some real resources in this. Overall it's interesting to hear. I guess I would like it a bit more if the races were shorter.

I'd like to hear the NA version that has music but that one goes for about $20-30 atm. Definitely worth checking out if you like Sega racing games.

[TransatlanticFoe]

Yeah every so often I remember F1 Live Information/ F1 Challenge and look it up, then remember why I never bought it. I think they cut the Grand Prix mode from the Western releases too.

On one hand, it has a full grid and lengthy races, has fairly detailed car setup and looks pretty impressive.

On the other, you can only select a handful of drivers (lol Japan, who really wants to pretend to be Ukyo Katayama?), there's no qualifying session and there are only three tracks.

This is a good example of the swing in the gaming market that went against Sega. The PSX had massive hits with the sim-lite official F1 and British Touring Car games - featuring proper full seasons of racing. Sega released this and Sega Touring Car (with the DTM - German touring car - licence) as more standard arcade affairs - compare the two and your value for money is with the PSX titles (which also had Ridge Racer for that pure arcade fix).

[cave hermit]

So this is just a general Sega console thread now because I said so.

After about a week of waiting I've gotten everything but a VMU and VGA cables so I can play Dreamcast with a GDemu clone board. Apparently the crystal on the clone board is the wrong frequency though which means I can't install dc hdmi, although I was just going to route my dreamcast through my OSSC and later through a dell CRT monitor once the quarantine is over and I can get it from my friend so I can play light gun games.

I look forward to trying the various homebrew shooters!

Also the only tennis game I've played for reference was Mario Tennis on the N64, but I tried Virtua Tennis 2/Tennis 2K2 and man it is absolutely beating the shit out of me. Like half the time I can't even return the first serve. I went into this thinking it would be simple and arcadey, am I missing something?

[BIL]

Only played the VT games briefly, but on that tangent, try out Cosmic Smash. Squash in space with Rez-esque presentation, killer solo time attack game. Preternaturally subtle controls despite being digital-only (just like its cab).

[FinalBaton]

''The world burns. Only Sega remains.''

I like that I'm okay with that

[cave hermit]

Just played a bit of Hydro Thunder.

I played the N64 version, but this dreamcast version... blows it out of the water. When I was younger I thought of the Thunder series as shallow modern arcade tripe, but playing it now it is genuinely great, has lots of exciting set pieces, and is a pretty decent challenge.

Might have some trouble getting VGA output from it apparently, although apparently the later revision fixes that? Gd emu's menu says that it is vga compatible, and it can force VGA anyway apparently.

[it290]

Yeah, the later releases fixes the VGA.

I've been playing a ton of Dreamcast lately. Tonight I've been chillin with ZOMBIE REVENGE, which is the perfect game for these dark times. I always hated on the game back in the day, but I'm learning a lot of things about it, including the fact that the characters have charge moves and alternate costumes. I've also come to realize that gunplay is drastically preferred over melee combat in most situations, how the run works, and that prioritizing ranged threats is a must. Really not a typical beat 'em up in any way. Flawed but a lot better than it gets credit for. It may not have (quite) the zany charm of DYNAMITE DEKA 2, but it makes up for it in 'depth,' for sure.

Oh, and I've been playing Border Down. What a freaking game, especially that soundtrack, damn.

Also, for anyone who was wondering: normal VGA box + OSSC is infinitely sharper than the Hyperkin cable. I plan on upgrading to a DCHDMI in the semi-near future, but this is about as good as it gets for now.

[scrilla4rella]

Border Down is such a classic. The graphics and game play just get better as the levels progress. Too bad it's hard as balls, at least for me. The soundtrack never fails to pump me up. It's the type of game the demands focus, I can't play it unless I'm well rested and sober.

When it first came out I remember being disappointed that the graphics weren't as good as Ikaruga but actually I think the levels 3 and 4 often surpass almost anything else on the system. Looks amazing on a 31 khz CRT

Cosmic Smash is another good one. It just drips with style, too bad all white shows off the burn-in on my arcade monitor.

[scrilla4rella]

This is a good example of the swing in the gaming market that went against Sega. The PSX had massive hits with the sim-lite official F1 and British Touring Car games - featuring proper full seasons of racing. Sega released this and Sega Touring Car (with the DTM - German touring car - licence) as more standard arcade affairs - compare the two and your value for money is with the PSX titles (which also had Ridge Racer for that pure arcade fix).

It's true. At the time I though the Sega Racing games on Saturn couldn't offer the amount of content that many PSX games did. After Gran Turismo I foolishly though that would be the only racing game I'd ever need. Of course now it's all about the SEGA arcade racing games for me. I don't think I could go back to the non-HD GT games.

Funny how things change. The style of SEGA's racing games give them an almost timeless quality (I still play Outrun and Virtua Racing several times a week on my Switch). If you're going for a sim then the newest tech will help. I don't know, maybe some people still enjoy playing games like Dirt 3 but for me it's either current gen or SEGA (or Ridge Racer or Touge).

[it290]

I agree. I've been playing a lot of Sega Rally 2 lately (model 3, emulated) and although it's obviously upscaled the graphics are 'good enough' and I don't really get a better sensation of speed playing the latest and greatest. Although, I will say that resolution makes a huge difference for racers since being able to see details on the horizon is key.

[cave hermit]

Tried out a bit of virtua striker. For the record I just dont play or "get" sports games outside of motorsports, but I was interested in the virtua sports games since they were arcade games and sometimes appeared as dreamcast recommendations.

Like virtua tennis 2, striker is kicking my ass pretty hard. I think I'm starting to realize part of the problem is that my only real experience with sports games are 8 bit titles and mario sports games which had characters that turned on a dime. In these virtua sports games it seems like players have momentum to them. Seems like a bit more of a learning curve than I expected, but it's fun nonetheless and seems like it would be a blast playing with friends.

By the way, what are some good racing games on the dreamcast? I got hydro thunder and f355 challenge on the SD card, Sega rally 2 and San Francisco rush 2049 seem like no brainers to add, any other good ones made by Sega or otherwise?

[scrilla4rella]

Daytona on Dreamcast is boss. Make sure you engage the analogue stick up, makes it easier to make subtle turns.

Tokyo Xtreme Racer is pretty fun if a bit basic.

I also heard the Looney stones racing game is pretty good, haven’t tried it yet.

[Despatche]

The Devil Summoner games are cool. Soul Hackers has a PS1 port, but I know nothing about it.

The Saturn version of Rockman X4 has better music. Everything loops properly in it, it's sick.

The Saturn port of Shippuu Mahou has Shooting Mode, which makes it an actually playable game.

The Dreamcast port of Hydro Thunder is godlike.

Don't forget Metropolis Street Racer.

2D powerhouse hastily retrofitted to handle basic 3D

Saturn 3D is better than PS1 3D, and the Saturn is also better at 2D, so the Saturn actually curbstomps the PS1 for free if raw power is someone cares about. People like to think it's the opposite because of the garbage anti-Saturn narrative, and that's disturbing. It's overwhelmingly obvious that devs slept on the Saturn, because things like SotN Saturn would never have happened otherwise. The Saturn is not quite as good at 3D as the N64 is, but it's so much better at 2D that it's arguably an overall better console.

hilariously mismanaged by both the Japanese and western divisions of Sega (mostly the latter)

It was almost entirely SoA. Naturally, SoA got to write the narrative.

Or I guess you could emulate for it. Good luck meeting the CPU requirement though.

The Saturn is actually really easy to emulate. Budget PCs can run SSF just fine, and slightly better PCs can run Mednafen without trouble. The only issue is lag, which is unrelated and also very mysterious.

By the way, the only reason anyone hates the Saturn outside of Japan is because it didn't have something that could be called a "main Sonic title". The rest of the world obsessed over a single questionable IP so deeply that they wanted to see an entire console die over it. This is what actually happened and what continues to happen. Note that noone ever bitches about the Dreamcast like they do the Saturn, despite the Dreamcast doing much worse.

[Ji-L87]

Don't forget Metropolis Street Racer.

Is it weird that I prefer MSR over any of the Project Gotham games that followed?
I mean...it's probably my nostalgia speaking again since the career mode sucks and the car roster is actually laughable today. An Opel/Vauxhall Vectra is offered as your first upgrade car (But the MX5, MGF and Fiat Barchetta being starter cars is a nice touch)

At the same time however, the slower cars meshes better with the tight city courses and the whole thing is a pretty cheerful experience (slapping soundtrack) that is also immensely satisfying when you got a firm grasp on the driving model.

[qmish]

Saturn 3D is better than PS1 3D

Is it? Saturn has potential to have better 3D, but never reached it due to how it was abandoned by devs for other platforms.

And while i like Saturn's 3D, i can't say that it can be compared to what PS1 managed to reach in late years. Legacy of Kain Soul Reaver, Ridge Racer Type 4, Driver 2, Omega Boost, Quake II, Alien Resurrection, Colony Wars 3, Vagrant Story etc. etc.

[CIT]

Saturn 3D is better than PS1 3D

What does "better" mean for you?

[null1024]

There's a few things I personally like about the Saturn in terms of 3D ability.

I like the Mode 7 style playfields a lot. There's a bunch of PS1 games that have these awful looking flat surfaces made of a bunch of tiled polygons, and the Saturn can do these beautiful infinite surfaces.
Bulk Slash and Sonic R are peak examples of how to use it well.

I like the way lighting on the Saturn looks. At least, when games have smooth lighting. A LOT of Saturn games are either entirely unlit [full brightness polygons and static vertex coloring] or flat-shaded.
But man, the games that do go for it look great. The results are very, very dramatic looking. Sonic R, NiGHTS, Burning Rangers, all of them have really cool, saturated looking lights. Even parts of scenes that aren't dynamically lit still have these extremely dramatic looking vertex colors, it's great.

The sort of polygon gaps you see in PS1 games aren't really there on the Saturn, since VDP1 goes out of its way to overdraw polygon bounds a bit to avoid the issue. In contrast, something like Ridge Racer on PS1 [all of them up to R4, really], have extremely visible polygon breakup.

Also, I don't think there's anything on the PS1 from 1996 that looks as good as Panzer Dragoon Zwei. There might be something, but I can't think of it.
Of course, this is compounded by the major lack of 3D Saturn games that aren't just uglier ports of PS1 games. Seriously, go through one of those "every Saturn game ever" videos, notice the massive lack of 3D stuff.

also, as nice as the absolute last set of top end Saturn stuff from 97/98 looks, the PS1 absolutely zips past just by virtue of being able to do things like environment mapping at all [Sonic R has a pure software renderer for its environment mapped objects, and was intending to use it for the metal characters, but that idea went unused and it only shows up on the title and during loading]
Burning Rangers style transparency is rather slow too -- you're re-rendering the entire scene at half-resolution and drawing it over as a blended background layer [which is why a few things are still done with the 50% mesh mode].

[CIT]

The difficulty in comparing Saturn and PS1 3D also lies in the fact that the best looking PlayStation games (stuff like Vagrant Story, RR4, MGS) were released when Sega had already moved on to the Dreamcast. Who knows what Saturn 3D games had looked like in 1999 or 2000 from developers who really understood the hardware. The only glimpse we have is Burning Rangers and the Saturn Shenmue demo.

I like the Mode 7 style playfields a lot. There's a bunch of PS1 games that have these awful looking flat surfaces made of a bunch of tiled polygons, and the Saturn can do these beautiful infinite surfaces.
Bulk Slash and Sonic R are peak examples of how to use it well.

Really good point! Bulk Slash just has really outstanding visual style in general; everything is really flashy and colorful. Towards the end of the PS1 you start getting into the "brown" period of videogames. That ghastly time in the early 2000s when every game wanted to look serious.

I like the way lighting on the Saturn looks. At least, when games have smooth lighting. A LOT of Saturn games are either entirely unlit [full brightness polygons and static vertex coloring] or flat-shaded.
But man, the games that do go for it look great. The results are very, very dramatic looking. Sonic R, NiGHTS, Burning Rangers, all of them have really cool, saturated looking lights. Even parts of scenes that aren't dynamically lit still have these extremely dramatic looking vertex colors, it's great.

The difference in lighting is also very noticeable when you compare Tomb Raider on both consoles.

[cave hermit]

So how about all those different home console variants on Daytona USA?

Personally I like the original Saturn port the best since it felt the most faithful to the arcade in terms of graphics music and handling in spite of its framerate issues. The later versions, although I haven't played them, apparently change quite a bit in terms of the graphics, music, and handling. I might give Daytona USA 2001 a go though just to add another dreamcast racer to the collection.

[CIT]

So how about all those different home console variants on Daytona USA?

Personally I like the original Saturn port the best since it felt the most faithful to the arcade in terms of graphics music and handling in spite of its framerate issues. The later versions, although I haven't played them, apparently change quite a bit in terms of the graphics, music, and handling. I might give Daytona USA 2001 a go though just to add another dreamcast racer to the collection.

Basically, you're going to want to get the PS360 port of Daytona USA, it's absolutely glorious. The graphics have been HDified, but it handles exactly like the arcade. To top it off you get lots of bonus content. For me it's on par with what M2 did for Virtua Racing on Switch — give you a classic game to play in the best possible form today.

As for the other ports:

- Daytona USA, Saturn: Apart from the choppy framerate and lack in graphical fidelity it handles just like the arcade, including the drift mechanics. I still play this one every now and then despite the better option above, just like I still play Virtua Racing on 32X.

- Daytona USA: Championship Circuit Edition, US/PAL Saturn: Second Saturn port, based on the Sega Rally engine. PAL version was 50Hz optimized, which was a big deal back then. Cleans up the graphics and adds a lot more content, but controls are different and I can't get to grips with them. Also doesn't have any of Takenobu Mitsuyoshi's singing in it. Personally, I don't like this version.

- Daytona USA: Circuit Edition, Japan Saturn: An update of CCE. Iirc the controls were changed again to make it feel more like arcade version, but it still doesn't. It did put Takenobu Mitsuyoshi back in though. I don't really like this version either.

- Daytona USA 2001, DC: Great looking (especially in VGA) port done by Genki (the Shutokou Battle folks), but the handling is different yet again. I own this one as well, cuz it's kind of a nicely put together package, but haven't played it in ages.

The good thing is that all ports are pretty cheap, so it might even be fun to compare the different versions yourself.

[null1024]

So how about all those different home console variants on Daytona USA?

Personally I like the original Saturn port the best since it felt the most faithful to the arcade in terms of graphics music and handling in spite of its framerate issues. The later versions, although I haven't played them, apparently change quite a bit in terms of the graphics, music, and handling. I might give Daytona USA 2001 a go though just to add another dreamcast racer to the collection.

The original 20fps, hilariously low draw distance version is great despite the graphical issues. It handles like a charm, it's fun, you can get used to 20fps, and the draw distance is more ugly vs actually making it hard to judge corners.
I have US CCE, and although it's certainly a bit prettier to look at, I absolutely cannot get anywhere with it. The handling makes no sense to me.

The difficulty in comparing Saturn and PS1 3D also lies in the fact that the best looking PlayStation games (stuff like Vagrant Story, RR4, MGS) were released when Sega had already moved on to the Dreamcast. Who knows what Saturn 3D games had looked like in 1999 or 2000 from developers who really understood the hardware. The only glimpse we have is Burning Rangers and the Saturn Shenmue demo.

That Shenmue demo seems really neat right until you see that it's like entirely fullbright. Also, that framerate. In fact, it seems to do the exact opposite of playing to the Saturn's strengths and tries to put a lot of geometry on screen at once, and VDP1 is slow. The PS1's fillrate is obnoxiously high in comparison. Lots of very pretty pre-baked lighting on the textures, at least.

I really think the absolute best looking game on the machine is Sonic R. It looks rock solid in a way that say, Burning Rangers doesn't.
Even if BR is full of dynamic lighting and transparency and all these neat technical effects, you really get the feeling like it's just falling apart at the seams [not helped at all by the extremely aggressive culling at the side of the screen]. Absolutely pushes like mad, but you can see that it's struggling.
Sonic R is full of smoothly shaded objects, smooth fade-ins, really plays to the system's strengths with the floor plane, and does a remarkable job of hiding its low draw distance. The game just looks rock solid [except for Radiant Emerald, which has to forgo the smooth fade-ins because everything is already being transparently blended against the background -- I think they might have still been able to do it though, and just reduce the number of transparency steps, but there might be something else I'm not thinking about]. Largely solid framerate too, except for a few odd areas.

[qmish]

i like prebaked shadows on floor/walls in Shenmue demonstration though, they give it atmosphere that dreamcast version doesn't have. (Like that corridor on 2nd minute looks like from survival horror title)

Burning Rangers also have complex level geometry though?

[it290]

By the way, what are some good racing games on the dreamcast? I got hydro thunder and f355 challenge on the SD card, Sega rally 2 and San Francisco rush 2049 seem like no brainers to add, any other good ones made by Sega or otherwise?

To add on to and second those mentioned by others above:

Test Drive V-Rally, really really good
Test Drive Le Mans, also quite good
Tokyo Xtreme 1 & 2 (not a ton of difference between the two honestly, the second one is probably the one to get)
Metropolis Street Racer

Sega Rally 2 is a fantastic game and I played the crap out of it back in the day, but the issues with the port are kind of hard to overlook. You're better off with the Windows version if you want all the extra stuff, or emulating the arcade game if you just want to play that.

[null1024]

i like prebaked shadows on floor/walls in Shenmue demonstration though, they give it atmosphere that dreamcast version doesn't have. (Like that corridor on 2nd minute looks like from survival horror title)

Burning Rangers also have complex level geometry though?

Burning Rangers is a great looking game that absolutely puts the petal to the metal when it comes to pulling out power from the Saturn.
It's still constantly flickering and polygons are disappearing before they've left the screen and it all just seems like it's going to fall apart at any second.

Shenmue Saturn's lighting is pretty. The DC version is certainly rather washed out looking in comparison.
As an aside, although a lot of things don't look quite that great about Shenmue on DC anymore, I'm still kinda really impressed at the faces, they're great. Some of them are freaky looking, but they're a damn sight better than most games for the next six years after it.

[qmish]

Test Drive Le Mans is, imho, one of most beautiful Dreamcast games.

https://youtu.be/edB-mZU1Udw

Well, Melbourne House were amazing. Their Grand Prix Challenge and Transformers Armada were also impressive beasts on PS2.

[cave hermit]

So of the 5 racing games mentioned, Test drive v-rally and le mans, the tokyo xtreme games and metropolis street racer, are these more arcadey style or sim oriented? I enjoy a sim game every now and then, but I'm looking more for arcadey stuff.

Speaking of arcadey racers, I tried some San Francisco Rush 2049. I was quite disappointed with the N64 version, and with this dreamcast version, well I'm still kind of disappointed, but not as much. Mostly my issue is with the constant frame drop.

As for the game itself, I'm already a little biased against Western made arcade games of the era compared to their Japanese competitors, and this didn't do as much as hydro thunder did to defy my expectations. The game feels a bit tacky, although I do like the backdrops with their portrayal of future civilization. The focus of the game seems to be on finding shortcuts (which are great setpieces), and without exploiting the shortcuts it seems impossible to win against the AI cars which are flat out faster than you are. Also constant hunting for shortcuts plus the constant speed means constant crashes and constant restarting, at least for me.

[Axelay]

So many great games have been listed here
I just wanted to post Guardian heroes for the sega saturn is a fun ride for how crazy it gets in later stages and the music is great.

Speaking of 3D on the sega saturn I think Thunder force V
Looks incredible.

Also wanted to mention House of the dead 2 for the dreamcast is brilliant and very addictive I have fond memories of playing it to death with my bro. And unlocking all sorts of collectables in an extra mode ?

[cave hermit]

Actually I'm planning on getting an old dell CRT VGA monitor from a friend once this pandemic is over so I can play HOTD 2, Confidential Mission, and Virtua Cop 2.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Speaking of arcadey racers, I tried some San Francisco Rush 2049. I was quite disappointed with the N64 version, and with this dreamcast version, well I'm still kind of disappointed, but not as much. Mostly my issue is with the constant frame drop.

Word to the wise - PC port (Midway Arcade Treasures Deluxe Edition, once patched up to the latest version) has got the most adjustable controls out there; I managed to map accalarate/brake onto right analogue stick's vertical axis on PC (did the same in Hydro Thunder, but a PC port of the latter was already great before Arcade Treasures). In comparison, digital-only acceleratring/braking in otherwise good GameCube ports (Midway Arcade Treasures 3) left a bit to be desired when I played it.