Mega Drive Mini 2 Announced (Includes Mega CD Games)

Considering Saturn Emulation has come a long way since they released all the Mini consoles previously, and that even Success has a working Saturn emulator running on the Switch which is almost perfect... I'd guess a Saturn mini would fit an announcement.

After all, the Saturn was a really beloved console in Japan, had Sakura Taisen, and a toncrap of games that people seemed to love, even a pretty unique port of Symphony of the Night, flawed as it is. But yeah: Daytona Championship, Sega Rally, Sonic Jam, Sonic R, Virtua Fighter 2, Fighters Megamix, Nights, Guardian Heroes, Panzer Dragoon, Shining Force, Radiant Silvergun, Virtua Cop, Die Hard and many, many, Capcom ports from CPS2... There's just too many good Saturn games to pass the oportunity if they can get a few licenses here and there for cheap.

 

I think you're being overly optimistic about the state of Saturn emulation. Is there a sub-$100 device that can handle Saturn emulation consistently across games? These mini consoles are price-restricted. I'm not saying there's no way, but I'll believe it when I see it.

 

If we could manage "broken PlayStation" in 2018, I'd like to think four years and M2 can crack the Saturn at around the same price point.

Mednafen's Saturn emulation is very good these days - a clear step up from the dark ages of a few years ago, where a subset of the library might run if the planets were aligned (supposedly you can get decent Saturn emulation performance from the latest Raspberry Pis too). It's very possible that M2 have reached a similar level of quality for targeted titles... but I'd still put money on it being a Mega Drive combo-related thing, if not just because of those trademarks.

Maybe you'll see the Saturn in a couple of years time when there's a 30 year anniversary to celebrate or something.

 

Regarding the comments about the limited number of Mega CD and 32X titles, there's no reason why you couldn't bulk out the library of a mega drive tower mini with some more 16-bit mega drive titles that weren't included on the original mega drive mini.

Even though it hurts the wallet, I'd love to see different designs for each region, like the PC Engine mini (if it leaves Japan).

Japan - Mini Mega drive II + Mega CD II + Super 32X (since the model 1 mini was basically already released)
Europe - Multi-mega mini (with 32X support, despite lack of plastic mushroom)
USA - Neptune mini, finally putting that unused design to good use

 

Haha, no, sorry, Raspberry Pi 4 doesn't even come close to emulating Saturn well. Sure, you might get some games to run well with frameskip enabled, but good luck on games like Burning Rangers.

I feel like anybody saying this is going to be a Saturn Mini really doesn't know the state of Saturn emulation and the CPU power required (please, Sega, make me eat my words). Saturn emulation is orders of magnitude more complex than PlayStation emulation. You can't compare the two.

Edit: That said, there are promising results coming out of some cheap mobile phone processors, like the one used in the Retroid Pocket 2+, which can run a lot of Saturn games well with frameskip.

Nevertheless, a Saturn Mini is hard to imagine unless 1) Sega is willing to raise the price, or 2) Sacrifices are made in terms of emulation quality.

 

I'd quite like a game gear mini that's actually just a sensible size and weight, with a modern crystal clear screen. You could easily pull that off with current single board computer tech.

 

So, here's the thing, some companies like both Arcade1Up and Sega itself with the Astro City mini have been using higher specs lately for their projects. Arcade1up has Outrunners running and the Astro City comes with Rad mobile, which both run on the System32 board, which are expensive to emulate (and run like crap on a Pi4).

Lately, Success (the company) has worked on many Saturn to Switch emulated "ports" for a few collections they made, and they seem to have perfected a version of SSF that runs almost every game at the Switch lower clocks even (1100mhz) with heavy 3D Games like Daytona Championship running at 1300mhz for full speed. So i'd not be that surprised if they could manage that to work on a similar spec'ed mini console. The MegaDrive mini alone can run at 1366mhz... pair that with a decent gpu and they can probably get Saturn at full speed.

The other think I could probably think of, is a Naomi-mini like their Astro cabs, but I doubt it, it's too "new", and it has too many licenses for it to make sense to be profitable most likely. Then again, it's all speculation on my part lol.

 

That's quite interesting. Got a similar list for Saturn or Dreamcast?

 

I'm not going to watch it, but I caught a minute or two at the start. Mega Drive Mini 2 with Mega CD. Over 50 games and I think they said there'd be a new game as well? Dunno if they're going to announce the included games now or later, but I'm busy watching something else right now, so...I'll leave it up toy you guys to tell me what I missed.

 

Looking like its a Mega Drive Mini 2. I wonder how its going to differentiate it from the previous model.

 

Well, if we don't know the game list yet, I'll make my call. I didn't buy the original Genesis Mini because it didn't have enough games to grab me, though the inclusion of Mega Man: The Wily Wars tempted me. If this new one keeps Wily Wars and adds Rocket Knight Adventures, I'm guaranteed there.

 

Sega CD games are Slipheed, Shining Force CD, Sonic CD, Yumemi Yataka no Monogatari (not sure, just grabbed the name as I saw it) and Popful Mail. Some new MD games are Virtua Racing, Bonanza Bros., Shining In The Darkness, Thunder Force IV, and Magical Taruruuto-Kun which is a game done by Game Freak. There's also an exclusive Fantasy Zone port, done by the person who ported Darius.

Neat lineup, it seems. Sonic CD apparently has You Can Do Anything vocals intact, which is surprising. There is supposedly more coming, including unreleased games (!!!)

EDIT: Not only does Sonic CD have the vocals intact, but apparently there's a toggle for the US and EU/JPN soundtracks?

Jeez, that's pretty nice, lmao

 

I guess no Sonic 3 & Knuckles as they probably would have included it as part of the first games announcement.

You would think if it was fine for Origins, that it'd be fine for the Mega Drive Mini 2? Even with the prototype music in it?

We'll see what happens, but I'm doubting it right now. Unless they're going to announce it being included after Origins gets released.

 

Not surprising at all. That issue was resolved ages ago.

EDIT: I would have preferred a straight up CD mini. The MD Mini already had the appropriate slots where the CD fits for immersion.

 

https://sega.jp/mdmini2/

 

Is this the 1st time the Sega CD version of Sonic CD has been playable in any form outside the Sega CD itself?

 

Yes. Assuming it IS the CD version.