Here’s some news of note to Saturn fans from this week.
- Suikoden I & II HD Remaster Delayed
- Chunithm adds Sega Saturn startup sound remix to song list
- Aliexpress version of SAROO first impressions come in
Suikoden I & II HD Remaster delayed out of 2023
Konami’s HD remaster of classic tactical RPG Suikoden and its sequel has been delayed, the company announced Tuesday.
In a notice posted to the official website, Konami said the remaster collection, which had been slated for release this year when it was announced last September, needed more time to “ensure the quality performance and gameplay experience our users deserve.”
A new release timeframe was not announced.
Konami ported the first Suikoden, named Gensou Suikoden, to the Sega Saturn in September 1998 about three years after making the game for the PlayStation.
The Saturn version was never localized outside Japan, but the PS1 original was brought to North America in 1996 and Europe in 1997. It was later re-released on the PS3’s PlayStation Network in 2008 in North America and 2015 in Europe.
It’s unclear whether the remaster will be based on the PS1 or Saturn versions.
Chunithm adds Sega Saturn startup sound remix to song list
Chunithm music rhythm arcade cabinets are pumping out some familar sounds to Saturn fans.
The official Chunithm account on X, formerly known as Twitter, said Thursday that the song “Sega Saturn Startup Sound [H.] Remix” had been added to the cabinets, which are connected to the Internet to receive new songs and updates periodically.
The song turns the Japanese Saturn’s startup sound into a dance track, complete with visuals to match. It was made for another Sega music rhythm arcade game, maimai, about a decade ago.
Sega first released Chunithm in November 2014. It isn’t well known outside Japan, although there does exist an international version in Australia, South Korea, Hong Kong, Macau, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam. It might be available at Round 1 arcades in North America, too, since they specialize in Japanese arcade games.
Aliexpress version of SAROO first impressions come in
SHIRO! reported a couple weeks ago that the SAROO flash cartridge that emerged earlier this year from a long dormancy had gone up for sale on retailer AliExpress. Now they’re getting into customers’ hands.
SHIRO! community member Offy bit the bullet on an AliExpress SAROO and had a bit of a mixed experience.
He initially found that games that require the 4 MB RAM cartridge wouldn’t work, but games that used the 1 MB RAM cartridge did. He said it also seemed fussy about the bin/cue formatted games that he tried to play on it.
Even games that don’t need expanded RAM had color issues, like poor Last Bronx here:
To the AliExpress seller’s credit, Offy got support from the person, who gave a couple suggestions. First, he used UltraISO to rip his games instead of ImgBurn. Second, he reformatted his SD card into FAT32 and 64 Kb sectors. And voila — his games stopped crashing on bootup.
He also got new firmware from the seller just to make it work in the first place, which seems to mean that someone other than TPUnix is developing SAROO firmware.
Even after the firmware, the AliExpress SAROO is unable to sort games into subfolders like the Satiator can.
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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.
The article says Last Bronx, but I think the photo looks like its been taken from Dead or Alive