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Post by segafan2000 on Aug 17, 2024 16:47:52 GMT
Starting my gaming life with the MegaDrive I was very well served, to the point where I think platformers made up half of my collection back in the day. We had the likes of the Sonic series, Dynamite Headdy, Ristar, MegaMan, Earthworm Jim, Gunstar Heroes, World of Illusion, Aladdin, I really could go on. So going into the Saturn I expected the same, boy was I disappointed.
Obviously during the 5th generation 2D platformers went out of fashion somewhat, but 3D platformers were the new big thing, and looking at the N64 and PlayStation they had great to good 3D platformers coming out of their ears...
Nintendo 64
Mario 64, Banjo Kazooie, Banjo Tooie, , Donkey Kong 64, Conker's Bad Fur Day, Space Station: Silicon Valley, Rayman 2 etc...
PlayStation
Ape Escape, Crash Bandicoot trilogy, Spyro trilogy, Rayman 2, Gex: Enter the Gecko etc...
...yet when it comes to the Saturn there was seemingly nothing. The closest we got in the west was Croc (which was let down by tank controls) and the Japanese exclusive Ninpen (which was fairly average).
So how about 2D platformers, again really nothing to should about, we got ports of the classic Sonic games in the form of Sonic Jam, the not so classic Sonic 3D and a port of Earthworm Jim from the MegaDrive. Sega had 3 attempts at new platformer mascots in the form of Clockwork Knight, BUG! and Astal, all pretty in terms of graphics at launch but incredibly lacklustre to play, later we got Mr Bones, which had some cool ideas but bang average when it came to platforming . Then there were ports of some pretty average PS1 titles like Rayman, Pandemonium and Lost World.
Meanwhile the PlayStation got some great 2D platformers, like Abe's Odyssey/Exodus, Klonoa and Tomba which never saw the light of day on Saturn.
So what went wrong with platformers on Saturn? Obviously the whole Sonic X-Treme debacle has been done to death on here, but what about the rest?
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Golvellius
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Post by Golvellius on Aug 17, 2024 20:15:48 GMT
My gaming life started properly with the Master System, and platformers were plenty within my collection. I thought Psycho Fox was great, and games like Zillion, Wonderboy in ML and Sonic all took up plenty of hours.
I just think by the time the Saturn and PlayStation came along, developers thought gamers wanted the likes of Syphony Filter, Tenchu, Enemy Zero rather than 2D playformers. Games like Tomb Raider and Resident Evil had been unachievable before the advent of 3D, so that’s where the media praise and the commercial success seemed to focus on.
It’s a shame that Astal plays so slow, as it shows how beautiful platform games could have been. Admittedly the PSOne got some decent ones, but it was still a small portion of the full catalog, although Symphony of the Night is a platform game at heart and one of the best action adventures ever made.
3D platformers didn’t really do it for me. I quite liked the first Crash, but Bug, Croc etc.. I couldn’t get into. I’ve still never played Clockwork Knight, although it is on my ‘to try’ list of games I really should have played.
Therefore i’m going to vote for Shinobi X too as there are few faults with the gameplay. I think the story, level and enemy design was a bit lazy but it’s the best true platformer exclusive to the Saturn I’ve come across. It’s telling that I did probably play Rainbow Islands on the Saturn more than Shinobi X though!
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Post by segafan2000 on Aug 17, 2024 20:40:15 GMT
3D platformers didn’t really do it for me. I quite liked the first Crash, but Bug, Croc etc.. I couldn’t get into. It’s quite remarkable how many things Crash Bandicoot and Mario 64 got right back in 1996 so far to say that they’ve aged quite well. Neither have the right or wrong philosophy, Crash went for a rather fixed camera linear style where as Mario 64 went for a free camera free roaming style (though there are a few camera niggles). Testament to this is the fact that Crash 4 and Mario Odyssey are both excellent recent titles that don’t deviate too far from those 1996 titles. Back to Sega’s attempts, BUG!’s grid style hit a dead end (well, apart from Kula World) and the only time you’ll see anything akin to Sonic 3D’s style these days would be the world maps on Mario games. |
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Post by Team Andromeda on Aug 18, 2024 8:41:46 GMT
My gaming life started properly with the Master System, and platformers were plenty within my collection. I thought Psycho Fox was great, and games like Zillion, Wonderboy in ML and Sonic all took up plenty of hours. I just think by the time the Saturn and PlayStation came along, developers thought gamers wanted the likes of Syphony Filter, Tenchu, Enemy Zero rather than 2D playformers. Games like Tomb Raider and Resident Evil had been unachievable before the advent of 3D, so that’s where the media praise and the commercial success seemed to focus on. It’s a shame that Astal plays so slow, as it shows how beautiful platform games could have been. Admittedly the PSOne got some decent ones, but it was still a small portion of the full catalog, although Symphony of the Night is a platform game at heart and one of the best action adventures ever made. 3D platformers didn’t really do it for me. I quite liked the first Crash, but Bug, Croc etc.. I couldn’t get into. I’ve still never played Clockwork Knight, although it is on my ‘to try’ list of games I really should have played. Therefore i’m going to vote for Shinobi X too as there are few faults with the gameplay. I think the story, level and enemy design was a bit lazy but it’s the best true platformer exclusive to the Saturn I’ve come across. It’s telling that I did probably play Rainbow Islands on the Saturn more than Shinobi X though! I started out on the ZX Spectrum, but like you I really got balls deep into gaming with the Master System and platform games were a massive part of that. Platform games was the one aera for me (along with F1 games) The PS1 had a massive advantage over the Saturn (for me) and it killed me that Tomb Raider 2 wasn't on the Saturn. I really like Astal mind and loved Bug 2, but that game was just too hard for its own good, much like Keio 2. I reaally liked Ninpen too and that showed what could be done on a Saturn, it features some amazing 3D graphics and some of the best VDP2 clouds going Shinobi was ace on the Saturn, but it was such a letdown in the GFX dept, when it should have been a showcase for the Saturn 2D . I can only think using the digitized sprites eat into Saturn Ram? Funnily enough platform gaming is a area that the XBox has always been lacking in compared with SONY. And I find it a massive cock-up to get rid of the likes of Toys for Bob myself |
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Post by segafan2000 on Aug 18, 2024 10:03:56 GMT
Platform games was the one aera for me (along with F1 games) The PS1 had a massive advantage over the Saturn (for me) and it killed me that Tomb Raider 2 wasn't on the Saturn. Yeah the announcement of Tomb Raider II was a dagger in my heart at the time, I loved the original on Saturn. For those on here not from the UK back in 1997 you couldn’t move without seeing two things, Spice Girls and Lara Croft. Owning a Saturn just didn’t feel the same after that. Funnily enough platform gaming is a area that the XBox has always been lacking in compared with SONY. And I find it a massive cock-up to get rid of the likes of Toys for Bob myself True, Sony have always delivered good to great platformers, in fact they’re one of the best companies for it when you look at their history. PS1 had Ape Escape, Crash trilogy, spyro trilogy. PS2 had the Jak and Sly trilogies. PS3-PS5 have the Ratchet & Clank games (though they often feel more like shooters than platformers). I think the new Astro game could be the best of the lot, getting some serious 3D Mario vibes from the trailers. As for Microsoft, yeah they don’t seem to have done much, there was Blinx on the original Xbox, and I remember Xbots were talking up Lucky’s Tale on the Xbox One, though I can’t understand why. |
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Post by davyk on Aug 20, 2024 14:46:19 GMT
SNES and MD had so many 2D platformers that the market was stuffed with them. And too many of them were identikit licenced jumping about. For every Gunstar Heroes, Super Shinobi or Super Mario World there were 50 run-of-the-mill games.
When PS1/Saturn/N64 came along there was a 3D agenda (too much in my opinion) at the expense of good 2D games. There were some like Castlevania:SOTN but the genre in 2D was done at that point. It's a pity as a proper big 2D Sonic game would have been excellent on Saturn.
And to me 3D platforming on N64 was where it was at. I didn't experience anything on PS1 or Saturn that came close. The N64, like PS1 was built for it more than Saturn was (all the more reason for a powerhouse 2D Saturn platformer which we didn't get), but N64 had that 99Mhz processor as well as the Silicon Graphics style graphical capabilities (and I'm not going to mention carts!!!). Nintendo and 3rd parties also went for a more cartoon like look on N64 which was simpler (likely because of the smaller texture cache) and looked cleaner and better than the attempts at realism on PS1/Sat which were for the most part damn ugly. Sony and MS started giving out better 3D platforming on PS2 and Oldbox.
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Post by Team Andromeda on Aug 21, 2024 7:50:01 GMT
SNES and MD had so many 2D platformers that the market was stuffed with them. And too many of them were identikit licenced jumping about. For every Gunstar Heroes, Super Shinobi or Super Mario World there were 50 run-of-the-mill games. That is so true and its one of the reasons the 32X was a total cock up along with SEGA America believe in the 16-bit market future. You would see in reviews in game mag's, shows like Gamesworld people were just sick to death of the same left to right scrolling 2D platform game so many were ready to move on and those of us who started out on systems like the Zx Spectrum, NES Ect We were reaching adulthood and had the disposable income to buy high price consoles. something with Tom and the rest of the muppets at SEGA America couldn't contemplate. I will disagree with you mind on 3D platforming. While the N64 was brilliant at it. I enjoyed a few on the PS1 and Saturn and Tomb Raider 1/2 were for me the best 3D platform action game on any system and also loved the likes of Croc, Ape Escape, Medievil Ect. I think was didn't help the Saturn was at the time studios were getting their heads around 3D world and camera systems was the time most developers were dropping the system: think I'm right in saying Medievil started life as Saturn game and of course you had the muppets at SEGA America messing up Sonic and by the time the project was given to the Sonic Team, it was a bit too late and so the project was moved up to DC and that never helped Saturn. I really wished SEGA hadn't made Bug or Bug Too so bloody hard and didn't allow users to save at each checkpoint (the less said about Bug save system the better). I so enjoyed Bug Too, it looked and sounded amazing and loved how each level was a parody on a film, but it was just too hard for its own good  I also wished Shinobi had been a better showcase for Saturn 2D, because the gameplay was there. I really don't know what happened to that game as some of the early preview shots looked so much better, especially the shots that came with the Saturn flyer for the Japan Saturn launch system |
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Post by segafan2000 on Aug 21, 2024 9:18:16 GMT
Agree with all of the above there TeamAndromeda.
I’d also like to add that when it comes to 3D on the Saturn apart from a handful of games like Sega Rally the system really struggled with “full 3D”, which is why the best looking 3D games like Virtua Fighter 2, Athlete Kings and Panzer Dragoon Zwei/Saga use flat VDP2 floors.
I’ve previously mentioned how great it would have been if Sonic Jam’s Sonic World would have been if expanded into a full game, however I don’t think it could have been done with the slopes and loops that are essential to a Sonic platformer. Maybe using the Sonic R engine would have been the best bet.
Another potential way of doing Sonic in 3D on Saturn would have been the Crash Bandicoot route (apparently Crash’s code name was “Sonic’s Arse” as they wanted to do a Sonic style game with a rear camera. There could have been a mix of rear view and side scrolling levels.
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Post by davyk on Aug 21, 2024 10:28:02 GMT
We have had many conversations about 3D platforms on N64 versus PS1/Saturn. Noone's going to change their mind!  But I will restate my case. Mario64 was revolutionary and transformative. As was Ocarina of Time. The hardware, game media and controller were all designed to deliver those two experiences which were unique that generation. Everything else on other consoles were implemented as chamber and corridor experiences with nowhere near the freedom of movement or fluidity of control and that big two on N64 had. The evidence is there - in the game libraries - there is nothing equivalent to them on anything else at that time. Some other games like Bandicoot or Tomb Raider cleverly gave the illusion of such a thing but it simply wasn't and paled in comparison. That's not to say they weren't great and enjoyable games at the time. Would be a bit of shock to go back to them now though - not so with Mario 64. When I was a student my year in industry was spent in an MOD research establishment. People there worked on simulations running on the super computers of the day ('89-90). I was privileged to be there. When I went back and visited them a few years later even they were extremely impressed with Mario 64 - it was the talk of the industry at the time - achieved on an affordable piece of hardware. They saw through the PS1 and Saturn efforts as the corridor games they were. The true 3D environments achieved on the N64 truly impressed these usually understated people. The closest thing I saw was the hub world on Sonic Jam. But that was nowhere near the scale of a Mario 64 level, nor was the Sonic control anywhere near good enough for navigating in such a space. The acceleration, friction and general feel of motion and weight imbued by Nintendo in Mario 64 was stunning and it's easy to forget how good it was at the time. I'd argue the Mario control was better (at least more fluid and richer) than Zelda though it introduced z-targeting to solve the combat/camera problem. I would have liked to have seen more games like Clockwork Knight on that gen of consoles as it's a very pleasing look and feel and retains the precision of older 2D platforming. Mystical Ninja 2 (aka Goemon's Big Adventure) on N64 was of a similar design and that's one I really enjoyed. But the obsession with move anywhere 3D minimised that type of game. Full disclosure - I was a Nintard around the SNES era but I waited until all 3 consoles came out. I got an N64 first and a year later got a Saturn. Both consoles together gave me all the experiences I desired that gen. I got a PS1 later on for a few of its odd games like Vib Ribbon and Bishi Bashi. That was the gen my outlook expanded. And now I follow the games not the consoles. And here I am - long time member of a Saturn forum. |
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Post by Team Andromeda on Aug 21, 2024 12:17:37 GMT
Agree with all of the above there TeamAndromeda. I’d also like to add that when it comes to 3D on the Saturn apart from a handful of games like Sega Rally the system really struggled with “full 3D”, which is why the best looking 3D games like Virtua Fighter 2, Athlete Kings and Panzer Dragoon Zwei/Saga use flat VDP2 floors. You just had to use the system and plan better with given the market was not worth most 3rd party's time. While it's called an RPG, Dark Saviour played more like a Platform game to me (like Zelda N64) and that game showed how you could combine the VDP1 polygons with the VDP2. Overlooking that, Ninpen Manaru also showed what could be done and I liked how Willy Wombat used 2D sprites and 3D polygons backgrounds or you could just brute force it like Tomb Raider and we all know that wasn't fully optimised |
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Post by Team Andromeda on Aug 21, 2024 12:30:54 GMT
We have had many conversations about 3D platforms on N64 versus PS1/Saturn. Noone's going to change their mind! But I will restate my case. Mario64 was revolutionary and transformative. As was Ocarina of Time. The hardware, game media and controller were all designed to deliver those two experiences which were unique that generation. Everything else on other consoles were implemented as chamber and corridor experiences with nowhere near the freedom of movement or fluidity of control and that big two on N64 had. The evidence is there - in the game libraries - there is nothing equivalent to them on anything else at that time. Some other games like Bandicoot or Tomb Raider cleverly gave the illusion of such a thing but it simply wasn't and paled in comparison. That's not to say they weren't great and enjoyable games at the time. Would be a bit of shock to go back to them now though - not so with Mario 64. I really disagree with you over Ocarina of Time. While I would say the Z button camera lock-on was revolutionary , for me Saga was more revolutionary a full 3D world with time of day changes and everything in complete 3D and where every character spoke and while I loved running around in Mario 64, it was Pilotwings 64 that I played the most when I got my launch import USA N64 off Lee/Dreamware. I also think you underplay some of the 32-bit titles like Soul Reaver and even the 1st two Tomb Raiders |
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Post by davyk on Aug 21, 2024 22:15:14 GMT
Time of day changes and speaking are hardly compensation for a fully realised "go anywhere" 3D environment. Colour Palette swaps linked to a clock and streaming speech recordings off a CD are hardly technical miracles. They do add to the atmosphere but it's window dressing.
What I will say is I rate Mario 64 above Zelda. I didn't like the look of Zelda - found it to be on the ugly side as it was representing a more realistic world much the same as Tomb Raider did in that respect. Panzer Dragoon Saga is hardly a looker either though I appreciate its design and ambition. But it does successfully present a marvellous world and story and that can compensate for technical shortcomings. Its crying out for a proper redux. But I believe the original source code was lost.
I'm not saying there weren't good games on PS1/Saturn in that genre, just they weren't experiences like Mario 64 or Zelda. So I wouldn't sell those games short. Didn't mean to come across that way. I just wasn't interested in that type of thing which always felt pre-scripted and have you following a predefined route down a corridor with some distractions to make it look more than it really was. I was able to see through it and rarely enjoyed it.
And as for cut scenes. Have me reaching for the start button every time.
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Post by Team Andromeda on Aug 22, 2024 7:46:48 GMT
But Zelda wasn't go anywhere and also wasn't fully 3D you go in the likes of the market and you get 2D coming into play in Saga everything is in 3D and I don't think you needed to work in the MOD to see that likes of Mario or Zelda also have limits over freedom and masked it cleverly
I don't agree with you over Saga graphics, while for some reason the 1st disc graphics are rough, the game clearly goes up a scale on the latter discs and sonically it's such a massive step up most N64 titles. Not that the game is close to my fav RPG mind.
Also, Zelda suffered from the usual N64 technical shortcomings, the frame rate was barely past 20 FPS, low res and blurry graphics. I give credit to Mario 64 mind, that was a game which it suffered no such issues and was a launch game.
I've always liked my N64 but the system was such a letdown in the display, frame rate and sound depts most of the time
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Post by buckoa51 on Aug 22, 2024 11:28:40 GMT
All games have limits to their maps in some form or other, for me nothing really came close on PS1 or Saturn to the feeling you got the first time you reached Hyrule field on the N64. Even over on the PC space a lot of the big open world games like Fallout were still turn based.
The N64 definitely had the edge when it came to bigger, more open levels. There were some good efforts on PS1 in particular, Soul Reaver is a technical masterpiece. Driver 2 made a decent effort at a GTA 3 style game on the console though fell somewhat short.
I remember reading how they had to put multiple copies of textures on the Soul Reaver CD to get around the PlayStation's long seek times. Programmers really had to know how to optimise in those days.
For me Astal gets my vote not because it's amazing but it looks great and plays okay.
Surely "Super Tempo" should be on this list too. That's well worth a play.
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Post by Team Andromeda on Aug 22, 2024 12:28:35 GMT
I was never impressed with Zelda 64 and it never helped that I couldn't get past the Tree Puzzle. I thought Saga was a game trying to do more on many levels It's amazing when I look back at how well and open games like Elite was and also the sadly overlooked Hunter on the Atari ST was nothing short of incredible
For sure N64 did open-world style games better but I was always letdown with low res, low frame rates and basic sound in so many N64 games. I'm very glad SEGA Japan turned its back on the N64 tech myself
I'll also like to say The Story of Thor 2 is real nice platform style game with RPG's elements, very much like the overlooked and underrated Dark Saviour. To me they play far more like Platform games than RPG's very much like earl Zelda IMO
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But I will restate my case.