An explanation of what I'm doing here can be found in my introduction post.
This week, we will look at the games available for the North American launch of the Sega Saturn on 5/11/95: Clockwork Knight, Daytona USA, Panzer Dragoon, Pebble Beach Golf Links, Virtua Fighter, and Worldwide Soccer: Sega International Victory Goal Edition.
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Clockwork Knight
Release Date: 5/11/1995
Developer: AM7
Publisher: Sega
Time to Bored to Tears: 25 Minutes
The canonical first Saturn game to come out in North America is a 2D platformer that feels like a polygonal Genesis game. I call the platforming here 2D even though all the stuff is rendered as three-dimensional objects because the actual gameplay works exactly the same as if it were on a 16-bit console. There's nothing new or noteworthy going on here, so this is going to be a bit difficult to talk about.
The premise presented in the opening cutscene is that there is a house where children's toys come to life when no one is around. One of those toys is the titular clockwork knight, whimsically named Pepperouchau III, and when the pretty lady toy he's after gets mysteriously abducted, he and his clockwork bros go on a quest through the house to rescue her. This entire set-up is told through a wordless and off-kilter opening scene. Emphasis on "off-kilter" as the whole vibe of the thing is low-key bizarre. This setting is immediately recognizable in a way that raises some obvious questions about the timing of this thing and the movie Toy Story. I had to look this up, and apparently the first trailer for Toy Story was released in April '95 and the original Japanese release of this game was in December '94. So, this game isn't the blatant rip-off that it appears to be at first blush, but instead we must confront the reality that grown-ass adults in different parts of the world were simultaneously thinking up stories where toys come to life separately and independently of each other. The '90's were definitely a time.
As I said at the top, the actual gameplay is the most standard 2D platforming you could ask for. You walk to the right, jump between platforms, whack enemies with a key (a keysword, if you will; I'm still workshopping a name for keys that are wielded like blades…maybe knifekey?), dodge some environmental hazards, and do some light puzzle solving. There are four zones each with three levels and a boss, and if you don't run out of lives it can be beaten in less than an hour. I made it about halfway through the game in only 25 minutes before I burned through all my lives in a poorly done train level with too many death pits. The continue system puts the player at the beginning of the current zone and I didn't care enough to trudge my way back to those trains. There are a few neat tricks the game pulls with interaction between background elements and the foreground, all of which are meant to draw attention to the polygonal nature of the graphics. Speaking of which, it doesn’t look that bad and the polygons sure are there, though the music was starting to make me twitch after the first 15 minutes, so the overall aesthetic is meh.
At the time, reviewers seem to have had similar feelings. People saw all the polygons doing stuff and said, "huh, neat" but were put off by actually trying to play the thing. This is an uninspiring game to start off with and works more as a lukewarm tech demo than anything else.
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Daytona USA
Release Date: 5/11/1995
Developer: AM2
Publisher: Sega
Time to Try To Go Easy On The Car: 30 Minutes
Speaking of lukewarm tech demos…ok, that's too mean. Daytona USA was a highly revered arcade racing game with which I have not had much of any experience. Really, I only knew about the song before doing this. My expectations going in were based more around my time with Ridge Racer than anything else, since they were direct competitors in arcades. Because of that direct point of reference, I expected a similar level of quality here as I saw in Ridge Racer. This is all to say that I ended up pretty damned disillusioned with this game.
What we've got here is a port of one of the earliest polygonal racing games. As such, there are three tracks, a couple of cars, and limited race options. The only thing making this game last more than 10 minutes is the prohibitive difficulty, as with most arcade games. The theme is around stock cars in much the way that Ridge Racer is themed around tuner culture, but this isn't a NASCAR game by any stretch. I didn't get a great feel for the driving model, and it was hard to tell if the car damage did much other than bring down an obfuscated health bar.
Visually, while it is impressive, they were able to get that many polygons on screen, I kept getting the sense that those polygons looked very unhappy at their existence. It seemed like the game was constantly on the verge of massive graphical errors. I even noticed some instances of AI cars teleporting sideways in front of me, which is less than ideal. The mediocre experience is buoyed by the sound design more than anything else. The voice clips are high-energy, the sound effects are snappy, and the music jams. This is where I need to admit that I don't like the song. Hearing the singer repeatedly croon the name of the game is catchy, but it also gets old very quickly. Even still, the soundtrack is good, and I always got a laugh hearing "Rollllllling Staaaaaart" play at the start of the beginner course.
I saw what there was to see after only 15 minutes, but I stuck around for another 15 out of stubbornness before I got too bored. In the Sega/Namco arcade war of the mid-90's, I'm going to have to give Ridge Racer the upper edge over Daytona USA, as sacrilegious as that probably sounds to some people.
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Panzer Dragoon
Release Date: 5/11/1995
Developer: Team Andromeda
Publisher: Sega
Time to To Be Continued: 55 Minutes
Panzer Dragoon is the game I was the most curious about among all these launch titles. I knew of it mainly by way of reputation and some limited exposure to its sequels. My assumption was that if there was going to be any good rail shooter on a 32-bit console, it would be this one. I think my assumption was correct.
We start off with a short text crawl and a ten minute long, dialogue-free opening cutscene. This could easily be dull, but there's just enough of an otherworldly vibe to keep it engaging. That's a major achievement for the time. The strength of the artistic choices with the visual and audio design are entirely responsible for this game aging as well as it has. While environmental pop-in is as much an issue here as anywhere else, this is still maybe the best-looking game on either the Saturn or PS1 that I've yet seen. The striking, alien aesthetic of the opening movie is maintained throughout, and the extremely light plot and lore are presented well enough to keep me wanting to see where the whole thing was going.
That appeal is important, since playing this game is kind of a chore. Despite the customizable control and difficulty settings, the gameplay is an irritating slog. Being a rail shooter, the player interaction is based around maneuvering the dragon around the screen, shooting enemies with either a pea shooter or a lock-on laser, and dodging obstacles. Navigating around isn't too bad given the in-engine rendering of the environment *glares at Novastorm* but the combat doesn't feel great. Because of the conceit that you're playing as the guy on top of the dragon, there are 360° camera controls, and enemies will appear from all directions in a way to encourage use of the camera. The main drawback of this set-up is that you don't have control of the dragon while looking anywhere but forward, making it impossible to dodge enemy shots coming from most directions. And dodging shots is important because on normal difficulty there's only one continue and you start the entire level over when you die. Seeing as how there are only six levels in the game, that takes out a significant chunk of progress. This is made worse by the bosses being absolute damage sponges with fights that last way too long.
The unforgiving nature of the lives system meant that on my first run I made it only to the second level boss before getting booted back to the title screen. I changed the difficulty down to easy and had a much better time, right until I got to the end of the fourth level and hit a "To be Continued…" screen telling me to play on normal difficulty to see the ending. That's a real bastard of a thing to do, but I guess it's in-bounds when you make a game that lasts less than an hour. I was done with it at that point, but I might go back to it another time and get to the end using emulator shenanigans. Even with that, I would still call Panzer Dragoon the best rail-shooter of its day, which I suppose counts as a back-handed compliment.
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Pebble Beach Golf Links
Release Date: 5/11/1995
Developer: T&E Soft
Publisher: Sega
Time to Bewildered by Golf: 25 Minutes
Because of this game, I went down a rabbit hole that led to no conclusion. The story of my fruitless digging is more interesting than the actual game.
Getting the physical reality of this thing out of the way first, Pebble Beach Golf Links is a golf game in the True Golf series (I never heard of it either) that was originally released on the 3DO. No matter where I go, I can't escape my own personal 3DO hell. Like with PGA Tour 96, we have FMV golfers and a two-button-shot system shown on a crappy curved shot meter. Though in this case, the FMV looks more questionable, and the feeling of the shot meter is somehow worse. In other words, it's a 3DO game. Of note are the abundance of FMV videos showing weirdly un-stabilized helicopter shots of each real-world hole with highly technical narration by the most golf expert looking guy imaginable. These videos are the only enjoyable part of the game. That's because the gameplay tries to hew to what it considers to be realism. This takes the form of giving the player no indication of how aim, wind, club choice, or shot power will affect the ball's direction or landing area. You are expected to know what you're doing like a real golfer. I personally expect golf games to have at least the quality-of-life features of fucking NES Open. So, this game is almost unplayable without several hours of practice, which it makes no effort in deserving. It looks, feels, and sounds underwhelming the whole way through.
Now, the interesting part for me was in trying to figure out why this game exists in the first place. Why would a Japanese developer make a game single-mindedly focused on a California golf course? I guess Pebble Beach is a popular course for the PGA, but it's still odd. The first thing I need to get out into the open is that T&E Soft are the shit merchants behind the Hydlide series, so we could chalk this all up them being weird guys if we wanted. But something got my attention: in 1990 a sketchy Japanese businessman named Isutani Minoru bought the Pebble Beach golf club for way more money than it was worth. This resulted in his selling it off in 1992 at a massive loss and getting investigated by the FBI for possible Yakuza connections. Now, the original 3DO release of this game was in 1994, well after that whole fracas happened. BUT this wasn't the first Pebble Beach game developed by T&E Soft. It might actually be the third. They originally published True Golf Classics: Pebble Beach Golf Links for the Super Famicom in early 1992. The date of that original game lines up with Isutani's ownership…but I couldn't find any public connection between T&E Soft and Isutani. So, my fun conspiracy theory about these games originally being meant as marketing for a shady billionaire's golf property has no foundation outside of my own imagination. I totally wouldn't put it past T&E Soft to have Yakuza connections, though. You can't have legal funding and put out that many Hydlide games without going super-bankrupt.
Having invoked the Hydlide series, I am obligated to send out the first Hydlide alert. We are currently under a Hydlide Outlook. Please take appropriate precautions.
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Virtua Fighter
Release Date: 5/11/1995
Developer: AM2
Publisher: Sega
Time to Looking Up Combos: 25 Minutes
Time to Seeing If These Cheats Work: 35 Minutes
Time to Git Gud: 45 Minutes
After looking at so many 3D fighting games, it's time to confront the villain who got this whole sub-genre started. That villain comes in the form of Virtua Fighter, the brainchild of the eventually infamous Yu Suzuki, which was made to showcase the power of Sega's System 1 arcade board. This turned out to be a good idea, with Virtua Fighter dominating Japanese arcades in 1993 and inspiring the innumerable horde of copycats that we have had to wade through in the PS1 series.
Now, is this game any good? Yeah, it's alright. The controls are responsive enough, the animations are clean, and fighting feels grounded in a way that causes the various moves to make some kind of physical sense. The relative mundanity of the fighting brought me to make a comparison with Yie Er Kung Fu. Thinking about it, Yie Er Kung Fu was vital in establishing 2D fighting games by showing how things should be done at a mostly down-to-earth level, laying the groundwork for later games to get outlandish with fireballs and all what-not. In a similar vein, Virtua Fighter keeps the action tame while establishing the fundamentals of how 3D fighting games should work. Unfortunately, that historical metaphor is where my interest both begins and ends.
As far as the overall package is concerned, this is a straight port of the arcade game with an options screen added in. There's your standard eight characters and a boss, a few stages, a two-player mode, and that's it. My perennial problems with fighting games burned through most of the curiosity that I had going in, but with the relatively generous difficulty options and continue system, I was able to make it to the fifth fight up the ladder before tapping out.
There are a few more things to note about the experience. First, when you lose a round it sounds like the announcer is saying "Get Good", is this where that phrase came from? I also tried to use emulation cheats like I did with Tekken, but they didn't stick for whatever reason, so I have nothing to say about the boss or endings. Finally, having a Ring Out mechanic makes sense for what they're doing in this game even though it isn't good in any other 3D fighting game.
I suppose it makes sense for Sega to want to get a Virtua Fighter game available for the launch of the Saturn, but this is kind of hamstrung by the fact that Virtua Fighter Remix and Virtua Fighter 2 are both scheduled to come out before the end of 1995. Why buy the basic first game when multiple better versions are coming out in less than six months? The other major fighting game series held the pattern of putting out entries on consoles one version behind the current arcade version with a solid year between releases. Blasting every Virtua Fighter game out all in the same year feels like a self-defeating endeavor. Maybe because Tekken, which was a direct competitor to Virtua Fighter 2 in arcades, was scheduled for the PS1 in November '95, Sega wanted to get to parity with their own series as quickly as possible. Whatever the reason, this pattern of releases was probably a bad move that caused Sega to cannibalize their own sales potential.
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Worldwide Soccer: Sega International Victory Goal Edition
Release Date: 5/11/1995
Developer: Team Aquilla
Publisher: Sega
Time to Bottom of The League: 35 Minutes
I dreaded playing this game. A Soccer game with word diarrhea as a title just seems like it would be tedious. I was almost pleasantly surprised when this turned out to be a mostly jaunty little arcade-style sports game.
That arcade-y feel is appreciated, as it keeps the matches lively and < 10 minutes long so as not to test my patience too much. As far as the overall package is concerned, it’s a basic sports game with quick play, season, and two-player modes. The graphics are ok enough and the music keeps the mood up. There aren't too many technical nitpicks to get caught up on, which forced me to confront my inherent disdain for the concept of Soccer games.
The basic gameplay loop on offense is to get the ball, run with it or pass it, and eventually try to shoot it at the goal. The vast majority of goal shots get blocked because Soccer. On defense, you chase the guy with the ball and try to take it from him. In this specific game, having your ball get stolen is very easy and stealing the opposing team's ball is real tricky. In my experience, I kept getting fouls because I couldn't get my defender chasing the ball guy at the correct angle for a clean steal. The player switching and passing usually puts you where you want to be, but not always. Even when these gameplay loops are properly implemented, it's still basically miserable, because Soccer is basically miserable.
I played and lost three matches in the season mode before losing patience. The first match went down to goal kicking or whatever it’s called, and the mechanics for that are absolutely abysmal. It works off a rochambeau kind of system where the goalie needs to guess which of five directions the kicker is going to send the ball in a way that is almost reminiscent of the boss fights in Alex Kidd in Miracle World. Somehow, the AI and I ended up blocking each other for like 20 shots in a row before I lost due to having an out-of-body experience from the sheer tedium. This will be the last time I say it, but Blitzball is more fun than any Soccer video game.
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Not exactly the best launch line-up of all time, but I can see it being adequate on its own terms. Next time we'll look at the incredibly small number of games that came out in the Summer of 1995 with Bug!, Myst, Astal, Robotica, and Street Fighter: The Movie: The Game: The Arcade Port.
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