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The story
Which console was actually better, the Sega Saturn or the PlayStation, is a perennial topic that still gets rehashed regularly on 5ch, nearly 30 years after they launched. In this thread, plenty of posters argued that “for 2D stuff like fighting games and shooters, the Saturn crushed it,” and things got lively with specific titles like Sakura Wars, Devil Summoner, and Dynamite Cop. Meanwhile, some behind-the-scenes trivia about porting timelines came up too — “Darkstalkers was announced for PlayStation but never actually showed up, and since the Saturn version came out first, nobody bothered buying it” — along with nitpicky comparisons like “the 3DO version of D is the best one.” It turned out to be a thread with more nuance than a simple who-won-who-lost debate.
What people said
Don't get it wrong again, idiot.
Go play the Saturn version of Resident Evil, then come back and talk!
The pad's input responsiveness was just on another level.
For 3D fighters, Tekken takes that one.
Refrain Love
Wasn't it Refrain Love 2?
I really wanted to live in a dorm like that.
Those were Devil Summoner games, not mainline Megami Tensei, though.
Darkstalkers got announced early in the PS1's life and then just never showed up — meanwhile the Saturn got both Night Warriors and Vampire Savior first. By the time the PS version actually released, who was going to buy it?
I never even sent Bandai a postcard, but they mailed me a demo disc for this anyway.
Even the cult-favorite Black Matrix got a PlayStation port later!
Hard to call it a good game.
Though I did like the story.
This one.
I love it so much.
Before that, it was more like 'wait, the exact same game is coming out on a totally different console?!'
Ys III came out on PC, Famicom, Super Famicom, Mega Drive, and PC Engine, and used copies were dirt cheap no matter which version you got.
That kind of thing happened plenty back in the Famicom days too.
Back then Sega dominated arcades — practically Nintendo-level dominance — yet it almost never comes up.
What kind of Sega fanboy is this guy supposed to be?
The uncle's a console guy, not an arcade guy.
Arcade Sega fanboys and console Sega fanboys are basically different breeds.
I saw how bad the PS version turned out and decided to get the Saturn version instead.
I shouldn't have sold my copy of Sexy Parodius.
Houma Hunter Lime counts as light ecchi fare, I guess.
That was Saturn-exclusive, wasn't it?
The strategy guide for Yakyuu Tsukuru ("Let's Make a Baseball Team!!") was a fun read.
Enemy Zero never got a PS port because of that whole incident.
And for D, the PS version with the upgraded CG is actually the better one.
Though really, since the 3DO version includes director's-cut content, it beats both the Saturn and PS versions.
so having strong 2D performance was actually a huge advantage.
Looking at FF7 now, the graphics are pretty rough,
but back then it felt like the cutting edge.
That commercial with the suspension bridge you keep walking further out onto gave me chills.
Nah, that's a stretch.
You don't mix up Super Famicom, N64, and GameCube games, do you?
Background and Key Points of This Debate
The Sega Saturn used a two-chip setup — VDP1 and VDP2 — built around 2D sprite rendering, which often let it handle fighting game and shooter ports more smoothly than the PlayStation. The PlayStation, on the other hand, was built around polygon rendering, which gave it the edge in 3D fighting games and racing titles. The “wins” and “losses” argued over in the thread are really just based on individual users’ impressions and the quality of specific ports — in terms of actual sales, the Saturn was decisively outsold by the PlayStation, and that fact doesn’t change. Partway through, the comparison also drifted to include the Mega Drive, Dreamcast, Super Famicom, and even the GameCube, mixing systems from different generations into the same conversation. Readers should note that some of the thread wanders away from the original “Saturn vs. PlayStation” topic into these tangents.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Nanimo Jikkyo G) thread “[Proposition] Games Where the Sega Saturn Actually Beat the PlayStation.”
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