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Many (perhaps most) RPGamers have heard of the Saturn but never properly
explored its RPG library. There is a perfectly comprehensible reason for
this, of course; a very large percentage of its RPG library is permanently
stranded in Japan. Wading through Japanese text when one does not
understand the language is generally regarded as a chore instead of fun, for
which attitude I am loathe to offer a condemnation. Yet perhaps the Saturn's
RPG library would be held in higher esteem by RPGamers had more of it been
translated to enable easy egress for the English-speaking population. The
reasoning behind its paucity of titles in the last year of its life is
partially attributable to events that occurred earlier in the Saturn's cycle
of existence, but primarily thanks to Sega of America's imbecilic decisions
of 1998.
The Saturn's sorry story begins when Sony had released the specifications
for its PlayStation. Sega had initially designed the Saturn to be a 2D
powerhouse, with limited 3D capabilities. Hearing of the PlayStation's 3D
prowess made Sega of Japan order its developers to put 3D capacity into the
Saturn, which they did. The result was a machine that could do most
anything the PlayStation could, yet thanks to the last-minute modifications
was considerably harder for developers to work with. This explains the
initial stronger support for Sony instead of Sega. Sega of America
compounded difficulties for the Saturn in the non-Japanese world by
releasing the Saturn earlier than the PlayStation in May 1995 - without
telling anyone. September 2005 was to have been Saturn Day, but Sega
jump-started its sales while having a distinct lack of consoles available at
launch, far too few to satisfy potential demand. So Sega of America dealt
with this by shipping surprise supplies of Saturns to the largest video game
sellers and leaving smaller sellers out - a disfavor smaller sellers and
larger alike remembered very well when the PlayStation made itself available
to all with no last-minute surprises in store. Whatever one's feelings on
the sports genre of videogames, Sega of America neglected to take this
demographic on the North American continent into account either, resulting
in quite a few angry people who could have increased the installed base of
the Saturn in its early months. The Saturn was also $100 more than the
PlayStation in US stores, which resulted in quite a few Sony sales instead
of Sega.
Despite these unpleasant events to start the Saturn's life, it had a
reasonable RPG library accumulate on both sides of the Pacific during the
next two years. Sega of America made quite a few translations on its own,
but it had one big gun Sony did not; Working Designs. The games translated
by Working Designs for the Saturn varied a bit from sublime (Dragon Force)
to forgettable (Shining Wisdom) but were a definite plus in the early years
of the PlayStation when Sony made no effort to ingratiate their console with
RPGamers. A certain title's advent on PlayStation changed that stance,
however. Coupled with a very public spat between Sega of America (and
specifically its new head, Bernie Stolar) and Working Designs, this managed
to sever the translation company from Sega permanently. For Saturn RPGamers
this came at the worst possible time, when a huge library of worthy titles
was showing up in Japan and requiring translation.
The events chronicled presage the fateful year of 1998. At this point
third-party support, never as prevalent for the Saturn as would have been
desirable, had essentially vanished. Sega of America brought four final
titles to the Saturn, two of which were RPGs. Panzer Dragoon Saga is justly
lauded among the privileged few RPGamers who have played it, Shining Force
III Scenario 1 will be discussed at length later. Working Designs also
brought out Magic Knight Rayearth, solely because the company had vowed to
get it out. And then: nothing. The Saturn sat lifeless, except among
importers. The Dreamcast would not be released in the English-speaking
world until September 1999.
Sega of America made several moronic decisions in the summer of 1998. The
most idiotic of these was to abandon all software support for the Saturn
when they did not have its successor on hand to tout instead. Absent any
third-party support whatsoever, this meant the Saturn was turned into either
an importing machine (which is fortunately easy to accomplish) or a cobweb
collector. Stemming from Sega's decision to abandon the Saturn was its
firing of 30% of its workforce, which would not be needed now that the
company had no software to localize. Bernie Stolar bears the primary onus
of the decision to focus on the Dreamcast, a perfectly understandable goal
given the failure of the Saturn vis a vis the PlayStation by this point in
time. To have done so at the expense of those who did in fact own Saturns,
however, is unforgivable (though some blame must also be focused upon Sega
of Japan's insistence upon trying to beat Sony's successor to the
PlayStation by getting an early start). The existence of this yearlong
paucity of any titles being released by Sega could be the reason the
Dreamcast did not attain the support necessary to survive in the long term,
on top of Sega's boneheaded proliferation of hardware options in the
mid-1990's. Imagine Nintendo having utterly abandoned software support
between the Nintendo 64's last year and the Gamecube's advent: while the N64
lacked much software in late 2000 through 2001, it had a few titles and
Nintendo did not completely abandon it in favor of the Gamecube (at least
publicly - plausible deniability being a very important factor). Public
relations was damaged horrendously by Sega's action here.
The cost to RPGamers in particular was enormous. Princess Crown is a
unique action-RPG with the largest sprites outside of some fighting games in
the 2D canon that would have been most welcome. Dragon Force 2 is
essentially a rehash of 1, but that makes it just as addictive. Shining
Force III's desecration will receive a separate treatment in the future.
Had the Saturn been possessed of a larger worldwide audience, perhaps Konami
would not have so quickly tossed off Dracula X: Nocturne in the Moonlight
(aka Castlevania: Symphony of the Night for Saturn) and created an
unquestionably superior version of the title compared to the PlayStation's
original. The Langrisser titles all originated on Sega systems, and the RPG
climate of 1998 was vastly different than that of 1991, when Treco went out
of business in a failed effort to attract business for Langrisser 1's
release. Terra Phantastica came from the same team that developed Phantasy
Star 1, 2 and 4 - all the pedigree required to garner sales from longtime
Sega RPG devotees. Speaking of Phantasy Star, the Phantasy Star Collection
on Saturn is better than the more recent GBA collection by virtue of
including all 4 games along with interesting behind-the-scenes material.
The original version of Grandia was on Saturn, and had it come out in a
timely fashion for English-speakers Sega could have had a traditional RPG of
the highest quality to compete with the growing PlayStation library.
Wachenroder features more quality Shining Force-style strategy battles, only
with a high quantity of German text - something the Tactical-RPG niche would
have doubtless been glad to glom onto. Had the Sakura Taisen series begun
to enter the English-speaking world on Saturn Sega would have not been
reluctant to translate its Dreamcast and PlayStation 2 installments. More
titles forever stranded in Japan for the Saturn must be investigated on an
individual basis...
The Saturn's premature demise was unavoidable by 1998, but its leaving a
sour memory in the minds of gamers did not have to happen. This was
accomplished by Sega ignoring all public relations in its willful refusal to
give faithful Sega users any hint of activity in the realm of software for
an entire year. When so many quality titles deserving of localization were
immediately shunted to the import gaming crowd only, and when such a large
number of worthy RPGs were condemned to obscurity in the English-speaking
world, the result can at the very least be labeled lamentable. Let a public
utterance of regret be made for the unjustly ignored Saturn, and a cry of
rage at the still-unforgiven Sega of America be made as well.
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