Another Saturn game has entered the modern era with the release of Batsugun Saturn Tribute Boosted last week on Steam.
The previously Japan-only vertical shmup is US$29.99 and can be bought here.
Steam wasn’t supposed to be the only platform — and it’s not in Japan, where it’s also available for the Switch and PlayStation 4.
But in the West, a last-minute delay was announced for the non-Steam versions of Batsugun by the publisher, City Connection.
In a tweet less than 24 hours after the Steam launch, the Japanese company seemed to insinuate that the non-Steam digital versions of Batsugun were delayed to coincide with a physical version that small-print-run publisher Limited Run Games would distribute. Limited Run has yet to acknowledge such a release, though.
In the tweet, City Connection said it’s preparing a physical release for Europe and North America and the digital version is “coming along.”
“This might take a little time as we are aiming to polish both releases, so stay tuned for more information,” the tweet went on to say, followed by tagging Limited Run Games.
The official website lists Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions with a release date of “TBA.”
As for the Steam version, a patch released just two days after its May 24 launch to fix a crash-inducing bug.
Previous Saturn Tribute releases have featured lag that’s worse than the original games, and it appears that Batsugun is no different. A person on Twitter named Kimagre Gaming reported frames of lag in the Steam version at various monitor refresh rates with V-sync off. The person’s measurements show an average of about five and a half frames of lag.
The Saturn original has about three frames of lag, according to a person named Salt_Sudoku in the Steam discussion for Batsugun as well as a person named DrLight66 on the Limited Run Games Discord server who was discussing the game with others there.
Batsugun is a vertical shmup made by Toaplan — developers of Truxton and Zero Wing, among others — for arcades in 1993. It was ported to the Saturn in October 1996 in Japan only. It’s considered the pioneer of the bullet hell subgenre of shmups.
The Saturn version includes both the arcade original and a “special” version, which was set to release in arcades but was canceled — it features a smaller hitbox, a shield protecting the player from one hit, more powerful bombs, new scoring items and the addition of multiple loops of increasing difficulty after completing the initial loop. The Saturn version allows players to switch the game to a horizontal orientation, too.
City Connection announced the release in February, as Shiro reported at the time.
This one isn’t as barebones as previous Saturn Tribute releases, which emulated the original game and added few additional features beyond save states, rewinding and perhaps unlimited credits. City Connection calls Batsugun the first installment in a new “Saturn Tribute Boosted” line, offering new features like a “Boost Up HUD” that displays an experience gauge, the current score, hidden bonuses and the title of the music track currently playing. Modern ports from M2’s ShotTriggers line offer similar on-screen stats.
As a “Boosted” Saturn Tribute game, Batsugun also features an online ranked mode with an increased maximum score for more challenge, according to the official website.
The site mentions that a newly arranged musical score has been made for this release, too. The artists tapped for the new music include Shinji Hosoe (Ridge Racer, Tekken), Yousuke Yasui (Mega Man Network Transmission, Eschatos), Hagane (Cotton Rock ‘n’ Roll, CrossCode), Daisuke Matsumoto (Crimson Katana) and WASi303 (Psyvariar, Dodonpachi Maximum).
Saturn Tribute games are the Saturn originals running on what City Connection calls the Zebra Engine, which dataminers have found appears to be a modified version of the SSF emulator. City Connection appears to use the “S-Tribute” label for the Saturn games from Taito that it’s handling, while games like Cotton 2 and Suchie-Pie are from other publishers and sport the “Saturn Tribute” label.
So far, 14 games have been released under either label: Cotton 2, Cotton Boomerang and Guardian Force, which came out in 2021; Layer Section & Galactic Attack, which came out last April; Cleopatra Fortune and Elevator Action Returns, which came out last November; the four games in the Suchie-Pai collection, which came out last December; and Metal Black and Bust-a-Move 2: Arcade Edition & Bust-a-Move 3, which came out in January.
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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