What to buy next?

[xDerekRx]

I need opinions on what game to buy next.

Basically the way Im building my Saturn collection is buying 1 game at a time, playing it, and when ive beat it or am done playing it I will get another one. I have a PS3/and Xbox 360 but Id rather buy Saturn games I havent played as if they were new to me!

Besides the games I already had from a kid Im up to 30.

I just beat Sonic R, Bomberman and Panzer Dragoon 2 (beat the first one last week) Ill wait a bit to get Saga.



So my next 2 games Im choosing between to buy are:


BURNING RANGERS or SHINING THE HOLY ARK


Im very excited to play both games. Shining the holy Ark is a game Ive been reading about and wanting since 1997 GamePro Issue. Same with Burning Rangers.

[grolt]

You can't really go wrong with either game. Shining is put together very well - the presentation, from the battle screens, the music and the character design is all great. Still, no matter how you dress it up, it's still a dungeon crawler, and at times can be tedious.

Burning Rangers is probably the better bet, just because of its sheer originality. It pushes the graphical limits of the Saturn, and has a lot of nice little extras, like emails from the people you've saved and complex statistics. The control can be a bit tough to master sometimes (fitting, since it uses the NiGHTS engine) but there are still a lot of heart pounding moments. When those fires burst it gets crazy. It runs at a much slower pace than NiGHTS with its labyrinthine design, but once you get past that, it's another great Saturn original that hasn't really been equaled or imitated on any other system.

[xDerekRx]

Thanks Grolt. Im probably going to get Burning first as Ive always wanted to play it.

But Im going wait a little while. I picked up Astal at my local flea market for 8$ the other day and I just popped it in. Looks like ill be working on that one for a bit.

Im trying to pace myself buying all the Saturn games I didnt play. Im treating this as if Im buying a new game as any kid today would with their Xbox or Wii. The only problem is the Saturn titles are limited and once they run out nothing left

Not too go too far off topic but its sad I never played half of these games when I was younger. I was too in to FPS. All I owned were all the FPS games, a couple light gun games, A few racing, sports, Nights, Sonic 3D blast and a handful of fighting games. Now after playing Sonic R, Panzer Dragoon series, Astal, Bomberman... missing out on the real gems! Never too late though I say.

[dbdrummer88]

I have also bee looking for more games, i have read into burning rangers and was also thinking about getting it. Is it really worth $60+? Thats what the ebay prices were when i checked them.

[xDerekRx]

DB I saw a nice condition one end at 50 the other day. I guess hold out for 50-60.

I know its silly but I look at it this way. Ill pay 50-60 for a good Saturn game if I havent played it.

I think, I paid 60 for Dead Space when it first came out for PS3, I just look at it as buying a new PS3 or 360 game (although not sealed..)

[dbdrummer88]

Thats a good way to look at it xDerekRx, it makes sense. I just wasnt planning on paying that much for a used game in general. I will keep a look out for a good deal.

[xDerekRx]

Thats a good way to look at it xDerekRx, it makes sense. I just wasnt planning on paying that much for a used game in general. I will keep a look out for a good deal.

Oh I agree. At first I was like, 60$ for House of the Dead? 40$ for Bomberman etc. But then you realize what you pay for a game you want now adays. Sometimes games I get now I dont even like as much. But I agree. USED does make it a gamble. I actually still buy Sealed saturn games if they arent too much more.

[dbdrummer88]

I guess i just have to make sure of which games i want rather than just buying random ones.

[grolt]

The thing is, buying Dead Space at $60 new and House of the Dead at $60 used, the better investment is clearly HOTD. It's held that price for years, whereas any used game for current consoles takes a nosedive in price the second you take off the shrink wrap. Look at vintage gaming as an investment that also happens to include hours of free gaming, too. Once you're done with your games, you can sell them back on eBay for roughly the price you paid for them, or more in many cases.

Burning Rangers is part of that last wave of first-party Saturn games (Shining Force III, Panzer Dragoon Saga, House of the Dead) and you all know how much those others go for. The price isn't going anywhere soon, especially for a game like Burning Rangers, which is a game that can only be enjoyed on Saturn. House of the Dead has had its share of ports, but even still it holds price because its limited pressing is a known rarity. You'll get your $50 once you decide to let it go, no doubt.

[xDerekRx]

I agree. It holds price while you could buy Dead Space 6 months after release for 19.99 probably.

although I always fear re-release.

As far as I know House of the Dead 1 has never been ported. HOTD 2 for DC was ported to Wii as HOTD 2+3 Pack. I hope they never port the original and let it be a cool Saturn only release.

Example: Saturn Bomberman. People say it used to go for 70-80. But I got a mint copy for 40 a couple weeks ago. I think its because Bomberman Xbox Live got released.

They also just released the Genesis essentials collection for PS3/Xbox etc. I wonder if they would do a Saturn essentials in 5-10 years and include Panzer Saga etc.

i hope they dont. Not only do I enjoy playing saturn games for the game itself but its fun knowing they are hard to find. Even Saturn emulation is quite difficult.

Most of the games I want were late releases. At the end of the Saturns life time I had started to convert to PC and PS1-DC etc. So I never bought all the cool games. Most of the later games like your Sonic R, HOTD, Burning Rangers , the RPG lineup are all ones I always wanted to play. And as I slowly play them they end up being the best games on the system. (outside the FPS games I bought when I had my saturn)

I like to go off topic but thats what is so disappointing about Saturn dieing off in the US, games were just starting to look and play great. Not only that. I think the Saturn game cases got better later. They got rid of the silver stripe on the binding and made it a nice solid white. Most of the covers were top to bottom full with great designs. HOTD and Panzer Saga are two of my favorite box arts.

[grolt]

I agree. It holds price while you could buy Dead Space 6 months after release for 19.99 probably.

although I always fear re-release.

As far as I know House of the Dead 1 has never been ported. HOTD 2 for DC was ported to Wii as HOTD 2+3 Pack. I hope they never port the original and let it be a cool Saturn only release.

Example: Saturn Bomberman. People say it used to go for 70-80. But I got a mint copy for 40 a couple weeks ago. I think its because Bomberman Xbox Live got released.

They also just released the Genesis essentials collection for PS3/Xbox etc. I wonder if they would do a Saturn essentials in 5-10 years and include Panzer Saga etc.

i hope they dont. Not only do I enjoy playing saturn games for the game itself but its fun knowing they are hard to find. Even Saturn emulation is quite difficult.

Most of the games I want were late releases. At the end of the Saturns life time I had started to convert to PC and PS1-DC etc. So I never bought all the cool games. Most of the later games like your Sonic R, HOTD, Burning Rangers , the RPG lineup are all ones I always wanted to play. And as I slowly play them they end up being the best games on the system. (outside the FPS games I bought when I had my saturn)

I like to go off topic but thats what is so disappointing about Saturn dieing off in the US, games were just starting to look and play great. Not only that. I think the Saturn game cases got better later. They got rid of the silver stripe on the binding and made it a nice solid white. Most of the covers were top to bottom full with great designs. HOTD and Panzer Saga are two of my favorite box arts.

Yeah, the Saturn's line-up looks pretty pithy now compared to the PlayStation's, but when Sega pulled the plug they had so many games that pushed the 32-bit limit, they definitely had a larger amount of classic, must-have games. Many of Sony's popular games, including their highest selling game, Grand Tourismo, came out after Sega had already canceled development for their console. Imagine what Sega could have done had they stuck with it...

There is a House of the Dead port for the PC, it was damn near ubiquitous at one point around 2000, so the Saturn's is definitely not the only port. The game holds value because it is just damn hard to find - it's a pretty shoddy otherwise.

I've read on other boards that Team Andromeda, who made all the Panzers, no longer have any of the original code for Saga, so if they ever wanted to port it to another console, they'd have to redesign the entire game from the ground up anew. Considering the team has split up, and the time it would take to accomplish such a feat for a niche title, that won't be happening.

Besides, the Genesis was a major system that left a large pop culture footprint. Genesis collections therefore make sense. The Saturn was largely a bust for Sega, its only renowned properties the ports it managed to secure from Sega's arcade division. In the grand scheme of things, the Saturn Sega's weakest selling console. The Master System, which is their second best selling next to the Genesis, still has yet to get any classics collection, and something like that would be easy to code for. In addition to having the least amount of mainstream interest, the Saturn is also the toughest Sega property to code for, so designing a compilation of hard to program games on a different console just doesn't really make much sense.

As far as the box art goes, I always preferred the stripes. The later releases did away with them not for stylistic purposes, but because it meant one less color pass the bulk order print runs had to go through. They also did away with the thicker covers, so without the foam inserts (which many of the later releases didn't even have) there would be major bending of the flimsy manuals. Weak all around.

[xDerekRx]

Grolt thanks for the info.

I will say its good news about Panzer and games that will or may never get ported. Thats music to a collectors ear as well as a fan.

As for the House of the Dead, I forgot that Sega ported alot of their games to PC as well. But HOTD being the only console port so far. I figured if they released a cleaner version for Wii or Xbox you might see a dip in $, maybe 40? I guess no point in speculating these things. Its one of my favorite games in the arcade so its a no brainer I love it for Saturn. That and Area 51 are my gun games of choice.

The fact that the Saturn was so ignored and bashed is one of the reasons I fell in love with it. I always liked being the underdog system with the great game here and there that my PSX buddies didnt have. Saturn also had the best of the 3 consoles Duke 3d Port and so on.

As for the cases. I guess we differ there. Although I like ALL the saturn cases. I think the idea (starting with Sega CD too) of the case size was awesome for collection purposes. It shows off the game titles bigger and better than PSx collection which looks boring my shelf!

Youre right about the flimsy covers. The hard cover was nice and firm. But I started producing my own foam inserts. I bought a huge sheet of foam for 1$ and made about 20 of those Saturn foam inserts. I use them in all of my newer games like Bomberman and Sonic R that I didnt have one for to keep the front of the manual look like its part of the case. Pet peeve of mine and prob 99% of Saturn Collectors.

But Id say the cover art got better later. Maybe it just catches my eye for some reason. But later games seemed to cover the whole case instead of only 3/4ths with their design. Bomberman is another cover I really like. Very colorful. I wish all the cases did their designs the entire cases (like PAL versions did sometimes) but thats more of a small/silly complaint.

[Warp2063]

For most Saturn games, it would probably be easier to remake them from the ground up for a port than to use the original code... or so it sounds like. Maybe not quite so bad on games that only used one of the two main processors.

I'm personally not a huge fan of the long cases. They're an interesting idea, but they're a pain to store, especially when you have a large collection. Cool for their time and cool for their historical collector's value, but not so great when you have a limited amount of space to store everything. I much prefer all the standard jewel-size cases that all my Japanese import Saturn games have come in. If there's one thing that Japan does well - it's figuring out how to save space.

[dbdrummer88]

Just to leteveryone know, i just purchased Burning Rangers, w/ case+manual for $59.99 and free shipping, I thought that it was a good enough deal. Also I think that i will be looking for shining force 3 next.

[xDerekRx]

Just to leteveryone know, i just purchased Burning Rangers, w/ case+manual for $59.99 and free shipping, I thought that it was a good enough deal. Also I think that i will be looking for shining force 3 next.

Thanks! I think that will be my next game as well. Ive seen it go in the 50-60 range lately.

Ill probably wait til I get back to snag it.