Emulated games... ON the Saturn!

[roboyle]

So I tried searching to see if a question like this was asked before, but once you search for 'emulation', that takes you down a whole other path...


Does anyone know if any of the old game collections on the Saturn were emulated? I know Sonic Jam was the MD games rebuilt for the Saturn and the likes of Tempest 2000 probably wasn't old enough to be run through emulation. Ditto the Sega Ages collection. On the other hand, the Atari collection was some fairly basic game engines running on superior hardware - were they running through emulation? I know there were MSX collections released in JPan that were more than likely emulated but just sticking to what we got in the west... anyone know for sure?

[caseh]

If the game isn't native to the hardware assume it to be emulated, it's easier and far more cost effective over recompiling the source on a system like the Saturn. Especially if those groups of games all run on the same hardware to begin with.

There are exceptions of course, i'm no expert but Elevator Action Returns and Chase HQ on the Saturn were ports whereas the version of it within the Taito Legends compilations(PS2/Xbox) is emulated for example.

[buckoa51]

Honestly I'd doubt that was the case. Developing a full blown emulator, especially with the hardware as esoteric as the Saturns wouldn't be that easy I wouldn't have thought. Maybe for the very oldest games that's what they did, but honestly I think it would be far quicker to just quickly code up a version of the popular game rather than trying to accurately emulate it.

The term "port" is miss-used a lot too. Porting code means recompiling it to run on different hardware, usually with minimal changes, but people use it to mean conversion too. Like when people say "oh Chase HQ was ported to the C64". It totally wasn't, someone wrote a game that was a bit like Chase HQ for the Spectrum, and the Spectrum code was actually ported (with some significant changes of course) to the C64.

[roboyle]

I just thought it was an interesting point to discuss - the Saturn didn't seem powerful enough to be running an emulator of previous-generation games and there weren't any tell-tale signs of emulation, like the soft picture in the myriad of retro collections on the PS2. It was probably the highest-spec'ed system (with the PSX) to run classic '90s games natively... has Street Fighter 2 ever been coded for a system since?

[haightc]

Well the Atari collection definitely looks and feel emulated.