Hours after long-lost Saturn prototype The Sacred Pools was uploaded to the Internet yesterday, Blueskyrunner pointed out in the Shiro Discord server that it has a striking resemblance to another prototype that’s been publicly available for nearly 20 years.
That prototype had been called Rebellion, dumped and distributed on burned discs at a San Jose, Calif., retro gaming convention in 2004.
Here’s the comparison Blueskyrunner made last night between a gameplay video of Rebellion by Retro Pals five years ago and SaturnDave’s livestream of Sacred Pools earlier that evening:
While Sacred Pools’ opening CGI sequence is missing in Rebellion, the FMV gameplay is nearly identical. Considering Rebellion is only one disc while Sacred Pools takes up three, it’s likely that it’s an even earlier prototype of Sacred Pools.
Retro Dad and Modern Lad may have been the first person on the Internet to notice the connection in his YouTube video posted a few hours before:
Practically nothing had been known about Rebellion in the nearly 20 years it’s circulated — the original unlicensed release merely called it “an interesting title,” comparing it to Wing Commander’s outside-the-cockpit elements. It’s unclear how the group, OlderGames.com, acquired it.
The Rebellion prototype still can be downloaded from Hidden Palace.
Danthrax is a contributor to the Shiro Media Group, writing stories for the website when Saturn news breaks. While he was a Sega Genesis kid in the ’90s, he didn’t get a Saturn until 2018. It didn’t take him long to fall in love with the console’s library as well as the fan translation and homebrew scene. He contributed heavily to the Bulk Slash and Stellar Assault SS fan localizations, and has helped as an editor on several other Saturn and Dreamcast fan projects such as Cotton 2, Rainbow Cotton and Sakura Wars Columns 2.
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