The Sega Saturn NetLink League

I believe saturn can in fact do 3d transparencies, just look at the water in Burning Rangers or Panzer Dragoon Saga. In the levels of BR the water rotates and is completely transparent. Too many people seem to think Saturn doesn't do this.

I've read somewhere (don't have the link, unfortunately), that the cool transparency effects in those games were achieved by "faking" the effect.

The hardware only features half-transparency as a built-in effect. (Basically it halves the color values of the transparent item, halves the color values of the item behind the transparent item, and then adds them together to get the value for that pixel. Simple but only so good.) To achieve full transparency, game designers had to write their own specialized code. I remember reading that a few developers achieved this, but I don't remember which ones, and I don't currently know how they did it.

It has been done a few times. Burning Rangers as already mentioned, and probably best with Sonic R. Graphics wise, that's that best display of the Saturn's power. The entire final level is devoted to transparencies within a crystal. Awesome stuff.

for an example of bad saturn transparency, in Resident Evil, examine the empty bottles in your menu and watch with horror!

capcom didn't take the time to get it right i guess.

hmm... spoiler isn't very good...

For an example, just play Megaman X4 on the Saturn and on the PS on the "first" stage.

Of course only this can't define absolutely what to expect from other games, but it's not so far beyond the truth...