“The Saturn can’t handle the additional complexities of Tomb Raider 2”… so said Core Design in the late ’90s, but no one told modern hero RetroRaider John.
Hot on the heels of porting the “Unfinished Business” additional content from TR1 to the Saturn, RRJohn has been working to bring Tomb Raider 2 across to the system. Progress has at times been slow and challenging, but it’s becoming more and more clear that the Saturn is quite capable of accommodating Ms. Croft’s second outing.
Every screenshot here is a Saturn screenshot… this is the stuff that Saturn dreams are made of! #WeWantTR2OnSaturn
Tomb Raider 2, Croc 2, Pandemonium 2, Resident Evil 2, Gex 3, King of Fighters ’98, Marvel vs Capcom and many more sequels that didn’t come to the Sega Saturn got me, then a 13yo teenager really sad, magazines were showing 90% stuff for Playstation, 9% N64 and 1% for Saturn.
Even then, I never bought into the technicalities, there are absolutely no technical reasons why, it was always business.
Let’s consider how developers, some even with passion, hated the Playstation 3 architecture, but later in that generation, and of course, since Sony’s brand is so strong and had two major megahit consoles, they had to keep on with the machine, and they learned, mostly, how to harness its true potential.
Games such as Burning Rangers, albeit rushed, shows the Saturn not only could house any classic Tomb Raider, but more, the thing is, Sega’s 5th gen console didn’t stay long enough and didn’t have the same appeal to devs from 1997 onwards.
Take IRRÉEL, for instance, and the dev said it has room for further improvements on performance and more.
I loved Tomb Raider and played it and Resident Evil on the Saturn, not having its sequel then was sad and I know many Saturn owners who wanted to play sequels, forcibly had to move to another platform.
This project shows that I’m not alone, so props to the developer to not only had started the project, but kept on with, hopefully, the full game can be played on the console.
I thought KoF 98 did come out on saturn? I must be mistaken
Unfortunately, it didn’t, the PS1 received up to KOF99 and I did enjoy it a lot, too, they even should had released 2000 for the PS1, it still had a strong install base for it to become profitable, but I gather that since SNK was basically bankrupt, it didn’t help, still, the GBA received a port of 2001, and it’s great for the handheld.
The Saturn should have received at least, KOF 98, 99, SFIII and Marvel vs Capcom, then, I’d be mostly satisfied.