It’s been a busy week in the world of Sega Saturn fandom. Here are some of the stories you may have missed.
Gundam translation shows off progress
The team leader for the English fan translation of Japanese Saturn exclusive Mobile Suit Gundam posted an update Monday showing off translated dialogue in the sidescrolling shooter’s first stage.
Shadowmask posted the video to the patch’s thread on SegaXtreme.
While a new playable patch was not released, the team did make one available in October with translated loadout menus between stages and subtitled FMVs on a SegaXtreme resource page.
The team has been working on the translation since August.
Sonic Jam concept art posted
One of the concept artists on Saturn exclusive Sonic Jam posted some of his old sketches on social media Monday.
Satoshi Okano posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, four photos of pencil drawings he did for locations in Jam’s 3D hub world as well as the sketch that became the front cover of Japanese periodical Sega Saturn Magazine and a hub area from Sonic Adventure, Mystic Ruin.
There are sketches of the Character House, Music Shop, Movie Theatre, Art Gallery and Hall of Fame, all of which are “museum” buildings in Jam’s Sonic World mode that players can find to check out bonus materials related to Sonic’s history up to the game’s release in 1997. There are some interesting differences, like the Movie Theatre sketch displaying “Sonic Hollywood” on its sign while the final game has “It’s Cool! Sonic Movie” there.
Playable Tails hacked into Sonic Jam
Bo Bayles, best known for uncovering secrets in Sonic Team’s games on the Saturn and writing about them on his website, found a way to make Tails playable in the 3D hub world of Sonic Jam.
He posted about it on X on Nov. 23. He even tweaked the animation to show Tails’ flying animation while falling from a jump.
Bayles got a little help from Privateye and Starman, who assembled a patch so others could try it out for themselves. Privateye put the patch up in the Resource area on SegaXtreme.
In his extensive writeup on the hack, Bayles said he plans to use the methods used for Tails to insert Knuckles from Sonic 3D Blast’s special stages into Sonic Jam.
New Retro-bit Saturn analog controllers on sale
Retro-bit’s Sega Saturn-styled wireless pro controllers are shipping now from Castlemania Games and Rondo, according to a post Monday on social media.
The company also said that the controllers are newly available on Amazon in the U.S. in both Japanese white and Western black styles.
The controllers cost US$49.99 or €49,99. A full list of retailers selling them for both North America and Europe are available on Retro-bit’s website.
Social media posts from customers confirm that the controllers are indeed out in the wild. Jeremy Tizeno posted a photo Wednesday of his purchase on the SHIRO! Facebook group. “Well this was a nice surprise in the mail today,” he said.
The SHIRO! crew interviewed a tester who worked on the controller at the Portland Retro Gaming Expo in October.
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.
Thanks for the write up, Dan.