Roundup: Showcasing Entries in the SEGA Saturn 29th Anniversary Game Competition

There were dozens of entries this year in SegaXtreme’s SEGA Saturn 29th Anniversary Game Competition and each of them are worth checking out. Here’s a closer look at a handful of them.

Shining the Holy Ark – More Than Just Hard Mode v3.52

Developer Rikapso submitted a pair of entries related to their work on Shining the Holy Ark. In the Hacks, Patches, and Translations category is a hard-mode mod that includes a number of additional features and unlockables, including:

• Making unused items obtainable.
• Making changes to treasure and shops.
• Making changes to some monster spawns and drops.
• Fixing minor bugs.
• Unlocking the Sound Test and some shortcuts on the world map.
• Adding monster stat variety depending on the area where they are found.

Note: This patch is specifically for the USA version of the game (version MK-81306 V1.003)!

From the developer: “This mod is mainly for people who played the game before, love the game, and want a different experience.” They’ve also included save files for the SSF emulator at the beginning (right after the initial long dialog to gameplay in Desire mine) and middle of the game (mountain cave), if you’d like to jump ahead and see some of the changes without starting a new playthrough.

Additionally, Rikapso submitted a set of tools developed to make editing of Shining Force game assets easier to the Utilities category, including:

• Several programs to edit certain files in all Shining Force III’s scenarios.
• Another program that generates ASM code to assist in editing.

For more info and download links: https://segaxtreme.net/threads/sega-saturn-29th-anniversary-game-competition.25411/post-184526

Sonic 3D Blast / Sonic 3D: Flickies’ Island – Special Stage Edition 1.0

Next, I spent some time playing through a pair of Sonic hacks by Bo Bayles. He submitted a pair of mods for Sonic 3D Blast, which he refers to as the Sonic 3D “Oops All Special Stages” mods. You’ll have to patch two disc images to try them with either Tails or Knuckles, then enjoy these Sonic 2-inspired special stages back to back, and collect the seven chaos emeralds.

From the developer: “These special stages are considered by some to be the best in the Sonic series, but comparatively few people have played them… Rumor has it that they are rescued bits from a scrapped Sonic game, but who can say, really?” While that certainly sounds exciting, it’s quite fun to simply spend an hour collecting all the emeralds and brushing up on your special stage skills.

For more info and download links: https://segaxtreme.net/resources/sonic-3d-blast-sonic-3d-flickies-island-special-stage-edition.239/

Sonic Jam: Tails World 1.0.1

Also from Bo Bayles is Sonic Jam: Tails World. This patch modifies Sonic Jam’s Sonic World mode, adding Tails as a playable character. While at first it may look like a model swap, the developer also implemented a flying mechanic that allows Tails to achieve greater heights than Sonic can — as it should be! Bo would like to credit Starman at Sonic Retro for help identifying the 3D model locations, which he says was combined with his work on Burning Rangers and NiGHTS to create this hack.

For more info and download links: https://segaxtreme.net/resources/sonic-jam-tails-world.242/

Sonic Boss Tech Demo 0.5

Continuing with Sonic-themed submissions, developers am.25 and ShadowJackal submitted the Sonic Boss Tech Demo. Ostensibly a continuation of their impressive tech showcase Sonic Ringworlds, this is a super cool demo that recreates the Egg Hover boss fight from Sonic Adventure on the humble Saturn. The level geometry and Eggman vehicle was created by am.25, while the Sonic model (below) is from Sonic Jam. The map textures are modified assets from Sonic Adventure.

The demo gives a tantalizing glimpse of the fully 3D Sonic game we never received on the Saturn. Unsurprisingly, there were features that had to be cut to make the deadline. Among those are a moveable camera, end screen and additional graphical content using VDP2. We’d love to see these features added in an update soon!

While still a tech demo that’s missing gameplay features like attacking and taking damage, I was amazed to learn it was done in only 24 hours! Gotta go fast!

For more info and download links, or to contact am.25 for questions about the impressive development timeframe: https://segaxtreme.net/threads/sega-saturn-29th-anniversary-game-competition.25411/post-185172

Jacky Car

Jacky Car is a simple homebrew racing game adapted from a TI calculator program. Developer cafe-alpha jokingly compares it to “Outrun, but viewed from the top, and without beaches, and without open cars too.”

In Jacky Car, the player must navigate a winding, procedurally generated road surface. To do this you must first choose a vehicle, of which there are four. The “Xboxer,” “4×4 51,” “deudeuch” and “mouche,” which is a speedy fly. Each vehicle has greater speed than the last, so I suggest you start with the slower Xboxer. 

The game runs smoothly and is quite challenging at faster speeds, but if you need more incentive to reach the endgame, the developer says that there is a “small demo that can be displayed when the score reaches 999999.” I’m not totally sure if that’s true or not, so if you grind it out and nothing happens, at least you’ll be really good at the game.

For more info and download links: https://segaxtreme.net/threads/sega-saturn-29th-anniversary-game-competition.25411/post-185168

Sega Saturn Film Tools 2.1.0

Last but not least, noted Shiro Insider, developer and all-around busy guy TrekkiesUnite118 submitted version 2.1.0 of his Sega Saturn FILM Muxer to the utilities category. Coded in Java, this tool makes the life of any Sega Saturn localizer tasked with creating/editing/subtitling Cinepak video, a common Saturn FMV format, much easier. It mainly removes the need to re-encode videos (resulting in a loss of quality) if all you need to do is replace the audio track with something else. This makes dubbing or un-dubbing games that use Cinepak a much simpler workflow, removing the need to set up a Mac OS9 virtual machine to encode video. It also ensures that the audio is in the correct format, avoiding occasional pops and clicks sometimes audible with previous methods.

Notable additions for this update are:

• The ability to extract audio from a Cinepak file.
• The ability to use RAW PCM, WAV and ADX audio files as source.
• The ability to mux ADX audio into any Cinepak file.

From the developer: “The last one is still rather experimental as we don’t have the ADX Cinepak libraries to properly test it. However I have been able to test the files by injecting them into Sakura Wars 2 where they do seem to work.”

For more info and download links: https://segaxtreme.net/threads/sega-saturn-29th-anniversary-game-competition.25411/post-184771

Be sure to check out the other amazing contest entries, and stay up to date with contest results at https://segaxtreme.net/, and catch the awards stream or make a donation to the prize pool at https://emeraldnova.com/.