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Cire

Saturn Doom beta?

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Interesting, though have no idea were its from.

Im sure somebody will answer this shortly.

Thanks for pointing it out though, I always find Doom content interesting in any type of form :)

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Interesting; it has the music of the final version (well, at least some of it), but the sound effects of the DOS version (albeit slowed down). Actually just reminds me how much I prefer the original sound effects to the redone ones of the PS1/Saturn/N64 titles (not that the new ones are bad, because they're not - I'm just more familiar with the original ones).

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EvilNed01 said:

Did the release version run as poorly as this one does?

IIRC, the Saturn version was derided for chugging a lot. Not sure if this bad, but definitely bad.

Apparently the Japanese version is better... but I have the Japanese Saturn version, and honestly it's not worth writing home about, either.

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EvilNed01 said:

Did the release version run as poorly as this one does?


Yes. Thing is, even the superior PSX version (which the Saturn version is based on) had issues with maps like Perfect Hatred and Sever the Wicked, and while I have the EU Saturn port I've never got that far because of the framerate, so I shudder to think ...

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scalliano said:

Yes. Thing is, even the superior PSX version (which the Saturn version is based on) had issues with maps like Perfect Hatred and Sever the Wicked, and while I have the EU Saturn port I've never got that far because of the framerate, so I shudder to think ...

You could always use a password from the PS1 version to jump straight to it and confirm your darkest fears. :P

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Everything ported to Saturn chugged, and looked worse than the corresponding PC or PSX version(s). Including the much sought after version of Castlevania: SotN - it had all translucency effects, most particle effects, and a lot of sprites removed, and it was STILL slow as hell.

Only stuff written specifically for the system could have a chance, and then, it proved so complicated to program, with independent dual CPUs and a custom never-heard-of graphics unit, that few programmers ended up being able to deal with it.

It was *not* a negligible factor in the system's failure.

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Quasar said:

Everything ported to Saturn chugged, and looked worse than the corresponding PC or PSX version(s). Including the much sought after version of Castlevania: SotN - it had all translucency effects, most particle effects, and a lot of sprites removed, and it was STILL slow as hell.

Only stuff written specifically for the system could have a chance, and then, it proved so complicated to program, with independent dual CPUs and a custom never-heard-of graphics unit, that few programmers ended up being able to deal with it.

It was *not* a negligible factor in the system's failure.


It's been a while, but I don't recall Saturn Hexen chugging much at all. I enjoyed it a lot more than the PSX port, actually.

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buttspit said:

It's been a while, but I don't recall Saturn Hexen chugging much at all. I enjoyed it a lot more than the PSX port, actually.

If so, that's interesting. The PSX version is kind of slow, as well as is the N64 port (it seems to be even slower, believe it or not). Both are missing a lot of resources from the PC version.

Even then, both look quite playable and there are a lot of videos of them on Youtube.

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That's not wholly true. 3D stuff, I'll grant you; the PS1 was a far better device for that kind of gaming, and if you compare versions as such, the PS1 version is almost always the one to opt for. 2D stuff, however, was almost always better on the Saturn; this is best evidenced in the plethora of fighters and scrolling shoot-em-ups on the system. The PS1 versions frequently have to cut animation frames from the characters, and tag-team fighters are reduced to one-on-ones, with cheats that let you do the tag-team fighting only if both teams are exactly the same; the Saturn, if only due to the RAM cart expansion, gets away with near-arcade-perfect port jobs.

There were some exceptions - your cited example of Symphony of the Night, notably. Not sure what went wrong there, except maybe a lazy-ish port job (IIRC, it didn't even use the rooms dividing areas of the castle to buffer the next room's data, like the PS1 version did, but instead put it off until after you left the room, on a "Now Loading" screen instead).

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Take this with a grain of salt, but I recall hearing that SotN's problems were mainly due to the fact that they were still using a 3D engine like the PSX version instead of redoing it to use the Saturn's superior 2D modes.

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Quasar said:

If so, that's interesting. The PSX version is kind of slow, as well as is the N64 port (it seems to be even slower, believe it or not). Both are missing a lot of resources from the PC version.

Even then, both look quite playable and there are a lot of videos of them on Youtube.


Well, I have played the N64 version Hexen 64 (I actually have all 3 system ports).

I can say, from experience, that the order of those ports, in terms of quality, is (highest to lowest): N64>Saturn>PS1.

I'm kind of surprised at how superior Saturn Hexen seems to be compared to the Playstation one. The former is very similar to the latter, except having better play speeds, control, quicker scripts, none of the strange (and unwanted) gameplay quirks, more music and gibbing monsters.

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Personally, it more boggles my mind that the Saturn has a pretty darn good port of Quake, but Doom? It chokes up on it.

I mean, yeah, technically Quake is using the SlaveDriver engine and not the Quake engine (I think), and the former was written with the Saturn in mind... but still, it's kinda silly to handle the less technologically advanced title worse.

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