Right, so I've had my fill of shitty emulation and questionable ports so I'm just gonna bite the bullet and get myself a Sega Saturn. Now, the question is, what's the best purchase? I want to avoid modchips and the like because I'm an idiot and I would probably break the console. Thankfully, it seems that an Action Replay would let you play region-free, but there's still the problem of PAL vs NTSC (and judging by this list, a vast majority of the games I'm interested in are not PAL-optimised), so I'd have to get a Japanese or American system. What I'm trying to ask is, am I right about this? And if so, what's a good price for one? Is there a difference in price or any other convenience between Japanese and American Saturns? (The plug shouldn't be a problem—I have a stepdown converter for my PC Engine and from experience it also works for things from the US, so I should be good with connections.)
Well, the Saturn is a region-locked system, so if you got a Japanese Saturn, you'd have to have an Action Replay 4-in-1 cart to play any English-language games on it. But then, even for a US Saturn, you'd want one of those babies, because the Japanese-only library of Saturn games is well worth looking into. Beyond that, I'm not particularly aware of what price differences there are. I will say the Japanese selection of colors is wider (gray, white and black vs. black, black and black - not even counting more rare versions like skeleton Saturns), so there's always that to consider.
Get a PAL system and add a 50/60hz switch to it. Far less hassle and you can more easily get highest quality official RGB cables for it.
Couple this with an Action Replay and you should be good to go. As far as I can recall you'd only be able to not play just one game. It was a King of Fighters game if I recall.
Absolute maximum compatibility can be had by purchasing a Japanese Sega Saturn and then an Action Replay Plus (note: it has to be a Plus - "normal" Action Replays are rarer but they do exist and you don't want one). You can also get them with serial ports but that's only if you're insane about saving data. The reason you go Japanese is for three reasons a) 60Hz b) The King of Fighters '95 and Ultraman: Hikari no Kyojin Densetsu, which require the cartrige slot and an NTSC-J system (I.e. you'll have to remove the Action Replay Plus). c) you get a choice of colours! I've also heard they last longer... but don't quote me on that. and if you don't have a Action Replay Plus you get access to a library of 900 games or something ridiculous. And it has a funky intro. Japanese Saturns can be fairly expensive... but there's a lot of them, and it depends entirely on whether you care about the two games above. Alternatively you could get a PAL system and a region switch because KoF 95 was ported to PAL regions but it's a very rare thing to find. If you don't care about that, any Saturn is fine. Picture quality can vary - interestingly the Japanese were given optional Saturn SCART cables (HSS-0109 if you're interested)... and there was S-Video, and AV composite - lots of options. In many respects crystal clear visuals on the Saturn isn't something you'll desperately want - Saturn games with their often crazy resolutions can look a bit ugly on HDTVs. To me, picture quality isn't something that desperately matters - if its not RF, it'll probably be good enough. For the record the Action Replay Plus has four features - CHEATS - It removes region locking - It saves data - It can act as either a 1MB or 4MB Extended RAM Cartridge so you never have to swap things
You'll want to get a mod chip, Not just for the benefit of being region free, but also to play burned games—especially the really expensive ones like Guardian Heroes, Radiant Silvergun, Psychic Assassin Taomaru, and Panzer Dragoon Saga.
I'd like to hijack this topic for a second. I've lost the power and AV cables for my Saturn (it's Canadian, so I'm assuming it's the same as the American one). Where's a good place to buy new cables?
PAL saturn with 60hz switch should act equally, and you can further add in a region switch or even a region free bios and even if you have to buy a soldering iron for that, you are cheaper than with buying a japanese machine. Oh and japanese machines have issues with RGB cables. Action replay is cool, but it does everything in a half assed way. It can only save games as an external device, you have to copy games to it manually from the internal memory, you can't use it in-game - this alone makes it useless for a few games that require more save space. On top of being a giant chore, it also has a tendency to die on it's own. It can be resurrected by reflashing its firmware, but your saves are lost if you do that, so you are boned either way. The 4mb Ram expansion is good, but a handful of games require 1mb ram carts and while they work with 4mb carts, they have a ton of odd issues (Marvel Super Heroes and a few SNK games are confirmed to do this but I wouldn't be surprised if others did it too). The region bypass is good for most titles, but not for a few others that require rom carts, specifically the 1mb ram carts, or have in-game checks against it (ex. Panzer Dragoon Saga). It's easier and cheaper to mod the machine and burn software regionmodded titles. The cheat device is pretty fucking fun, though. Especially once you start editing system registers with it. So you'll definitely need at least a normal memory cart, on top of the AR, and maybe even a 1mb cart if you are into SNK titles. As a Saturn aficionado I suggest: - get either a Model 1 saturn or an early model 2 (serial starting with 165x or AD65x). Later model 2s have slightly worse images (rippling when the CD drive is loading, and the screen is not perfectly straight in the upper right corner). It's a very little difference but it can be an eyesore especially on a modern lcd/plasma tv. Model 2s with VA13 motherboards don't have this but they are pretty uncommon, being the last PAL boards ever made in mid-late 1997. - Fit in one of the 20/21 pin chips from Consolegoods. For a 20pin machine you only have to solder in a power cable for it, for a 21pin machine you need the power cable and connecting a small jumper pad (the 0014 one). You can solder the power cable to the 5v pins on the power supply (4th pin from the power button), or even just slide it inside the connector, it can get stuck in there nicely if you pre-tin the cable. Ignore any other setting they tell you, their guides are useless (in fact I'm in process of making them a new one). Make sure you use a multi-thread wire for power, and not one of those stupid single thread ones: those break too easy and then you'll get "mysterious" problems like the saturn not seeing any discs at all - caused by the modchip not getting power. - Solder a 50/60hz switch in. The pal machines up to VA5 motherboards have a slot on the motherboard for 50/60hz switching next to the battery, marked SW4. Just connect the middle two pins for 60hz, or leave it open for 50hz. You don't even have to cut any holes in the case, and if you add a small slide switch, it won't get in the way of video cd cards either. Your only obstacle will be that if you have a VA1 motherboard, you'll need to cut the first pin from the PLL chip (IC20, marked as 315-5746). - Make sure you get a saturn that comes with an original SCART cable and not aftermarket trash. Model 1 pack-in scarts have a unique screwed-together scart plug and ferrite beads on each end. Model 2 pack-in scarts have a completely normal screw-on stock connector, but their cables are super thick, have a ton of shielding, ferrite beads on each end, and if you open the scart plug you can see that the connectors are wrapped with heat shrink tubes. Both of these are very high quality, the model 1 has a little more audio noise but thats the only difference. Other cables, especially third party ones, tend to be waaaaay worse - tons of audio noise, image problems, etc, due to low quality cables and no shielding. - Get a memory cart for saving. The internal memory is worth fuck all on the long run. - Get an action replay plus. Plenty of places have that in stock, including Consolegoods, play-asia, etc. - if -and only if- you are a huge SNK classy gentleman, get a 1mb ram cart from somewhere... check for japanese import stores, or on ebay. Many games have it as a pack-in too, see Satakore.com for a list of those (under special search). - download and burn tosec/trurip/darkwater rips, not random shit from snesorama and other en masse direct download sites. Modify them to PAL region with Madroms' Saturn Region Patcher tool, then burn and play. - if you dislike region patching, you can install a region switch or even add a region free bios chip. Stay away from switchless mods, they are nice but much less flexible and sometimes unreliable too - you can make your own jp/us/pal region switch with just a single double pole triple throw switch (next to the 50/60hz switch you want to be separate at all times). oh and make sure you get the later pal/us controller, the one that looks the same as the japanese pads. The early pal/us controllers are criminally awful compared to how good the other pads are. Or, get the japanese HSS-0136 virtua stick if you want to pimp it up bigtime. The power cable is a stock power cable you can find in any electronics boutique. The AV cables are console specific and impossible to solder due to lack of availability of the plugs - so just check ebay, or some other console shops (google for it).
Well if you're still looking for one and are living in the US I can sell you mine for a relatively low price (along with 4 games, including Nights.) It's a US system in really good condition (I barely touched it,) with the box and everything. I'm just moving out of the country in less than 2 weeks and I need to get rid of it ;p PM me if you're interested.
If you can get someone to mod your system for you then that would be the best thing you could do. There are many great saturn games that are hard to find and expensive. Also there are some japanese games that are good too. I highly reccomend Sonic Jam, Castlevania: Nocturne in the Moonlight, and Cotton Boomerang. The last 2 were japan exclusive games.
I got S-Video cables from Racketboy. Worked great on both my US and white Japanese Saturns. They sell normal AV cables, too. No SCART/RGB, though.
You can get a Japanese Saturn from Japan Game Stock for 3,000 yen and a controller for 900yen plus shipping. The shipping is somewhat expensive... it comes out just over 100 bucks if you don't buy the power cord or video cables (which you can get cheaper from Ebay anyway.)
There is no reason to play KOF95 on the Saturn, there are many better and cheaper ways to play it. Also, it's not 98 or 2002, so there isn't much reason to play it anyway. j/k :v: 96 and 97 should work fine with the Action Replay cart as far as I've heard, if you really want your Saturn KOF fix. An Action Replay Plus 4 in 1 cart is necessary, I bought mine off of Amazon. I got a modchip for my Saturn off of Racketboy, and am having a friend install it, even if it's supposed to be stupid easy [2 wires to solder]. If he manages to break my Saturn, he has a spare that he'll give me. If you intend to get it modded ever, do not get a model 1. It it possible to mod it, but involves a terrifying amount of soldering because you can't just plug it right into the board, you have to manually connect everything due to the differing pin layout. Other than that modelwise, I don't know jack. I bought a US model 2 off of Amazon for $50. A JP model would probably be more expensive, although if you intend to play more JP region games than US, then getting a JP Saturn would be worth it. They also look much better, I bought a white w/ colored buttons JP Saturn controller just because it looked nicer. No idea on options about quality video options, my only CRT doesn't even have S-Video... Blurry composite isn't completely horrid for the Saturn -- a lot of transparency effects actually are just pixel hatching, so it depends on a somewhat blurred color signal, but clearer video would be much nicer. Getting a proper official backup cart would be nice, but they are somewhat costly, and I usually just copy to and from the Action Replay Plus on boot as needed. Also, it involves less physical cart switching, IIRC the AR cart is a bit thicker than official ones, so there might be issues related to that. Just leaving the AR cart in there is easiest.
Okay, okay, hold up. Well, all I know about Ultraman is that it exists and even if I wanted to play that specific version of KOF (which is unlikely, I can barely wrap my head around the dream match games and I have nobody who will play KOF against me :P) there are more convenient options. So really the only advantage of a Japanese system over an American one is the pretty case colours. Whoa! Okay, thanks... but I barely understand what you just said, because as I mentioned in my first post, I'm kind of dumb when it comes to how electronics work. I'm terrified of breaking the Saturn I get (which, skimming ebay, won't be as cheap as I'd like), so if I can avoid modding it, I probably will. That said, I'm playing on an older TV which I don't think has an RGB input, so the cable shouldn't be a problem. (I do know it supports NTSC to begin with, though, as I've played American and Japanese systems on it before, so I shouldn't have any colour problems.) All in all, it seems like the most convenient option for me is to get either a Japanese or American Saturn (depending on what the best deal I can find is) and an Action Replay Plus. I dunno what I'll do about burned games, though... I wanna play the Shining Force III fan translation at some point, but the whole modding thing... I've also heard there's a swap disc trick, but that seems like a bad idea to use with a CD drive this old.
Depending on your budget you could just buy a premodified model: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Region-Free-50-60hz-Sega-Saturn-bundle-PAL-NTSC-JAP-2x-Joypads-Memory-Cart-/281033623853?pt=UK_VideoGames_VideoGameConsoles_VideoGameConsoles&hash=item416ee8c92d
That one doesn't appear to allow burned games though, so getting a US/JPN Saturn with an Action Replay Plus is still cheaper. :P Plus, I'm unable to find any premodded ones—I didn't even find that one til you linked to it. Maybe I'm just bad at google.
Wrong, consolegoods sells 20pin chips. It's something like 17 pounds I think? You have to email him because he can't keep the chips in his public store due to paypal policies, but they are plenty available. I've just spent the last weekend testing them through like 10 different Saturns: unless you are unlucky enough to own a Sanyo drive machine, they'll work with pretty much any normal Saturn. And for Sanyo drives you can order their older model which does work with that. Only the pal/usa black carts are costly, japanese ones are dirt cheap and identical. The AR cart is an annoying piece of shit when it comes to saving: slow, have to manually copy over stuff from the internal memory, no in-game save options, and it sometimes dies randomly. It's still useful, but don't blame me when it decides to die with your saves. Getting a us/jpn saturn will not be cheaper due to shipping prices. I've had to pass up tons of cheap/free ntsc saturns (including a bundle of 100+ random japanese saturns) because the shipping price made them cost just way too much. And it honestly takes elementary school electronics knowledge to mod a pal saturn to 60hz, and there are shed loads of youtube guides both on modding and on handling a soldering iron. I don't understand why people are so dumb fucks about everything nowadays. How much are you willing to spend on it max. I was about to sell one of my modded saturns anyway (chip + 50/60hz switch). That will get you a machine that plays all PAL originals, either in 50hz or 60hz, accepts video cd cards, doesn't have the case altered in any form, and will play all backups. You can also play imports too by burning a region modded backup of them. You'll only need to get a mem cart and/or action replay next to it which I don't have spares of. Also, I only have spares of the ugly ass batwing controllers. Checking the ebay prices for normal machines, I'd say 85€ for it if you want it, or 100€ if you want a hq RGB Scart instead of the normal AV cable (not the crap scart cables you see on ebay, but a proper HQ one). Postage should be 18€ from here to Netherlands.
I know a guy on digitpress who modded my Saturn for under $100. He gave it both a unibios and the ability to play burned games. I sent in my US Saturn and he sent it back when he was done.
Sounds pretty sweet. So are any ("ugly batwing") controllers included in that 85 bucks? Not that I wouldn't be able to get controllers otherwise, but I have big hands and having more stuff included is always a bonus, so I figured I'd ask. :P
I did not know about consolegoods having model 1 saturn chips. Although, I could have swore the model 2 saturn is 20 pin, the model 1 saturn is 64. Ah well. And I can't find JP HSS-0111 backup carts at all, looking for backup carts I'm finding just PAL/US [at $50 a pop, I don't need to save more stuff that badly] or aftermarket ones [flaky]. Also, yeah, being non-official hardware, I'd expect it the AR+ cart to be a bit flaky. Hasn't blanked itself on me yet, but eh. Not that slow, 5-10 seconds. The big US-style Saturn controllers are pretty decent, even if the smaller JP-style ones are still better in the most important way [the d-pad is much better made and feels better -- when playing something like Galactic Attack with the US controller compared to the JP one, JP wins hands down d-pad wise, although I use my US controller when I'm playing Virtual On for some reason, it just feels nicer]. I don't have any fighting games for my Saturn, but I was playing KOF2002 today with it plugged into a USB adapter, and all my inputs came out nicely on the big US style one, very nice. Even the "bad" Saturn controller is nicer than most other ones. The L/R buttons suck on all models.
