Best Of Saturn
Note: The #BestOfSaturn posts will be a little bit different for 2026. I won’t cover any original retail games, and that means pausing the Gold and Silver as well. Instead,…
Best Of Saturn
Rayman first hit the Atari Jaguar in September 1995 before being ported to the Saturn with slightly rebalanced gameplay and a superior Red Book soundtrack for a November release. The…
Best Of Saturn
The Saturn absolutely hums when in capable hands, and nowhere is this more apparent than in Irréel — a demo of the first Unreal game that was created from the…
Best Of Saturn
Sankyo Fever, hitting store shelves at the height of pachinko popularity in 1997, is the first in the Fever series of Saturn releases. A pachinko simulator, the game features four…
Best Of Saturn
“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…
Best Of Saturn
SEGA AGES was a single release in the West, but in Japan, it was an entire series of classics from SEGA’s past. Phantasy Star Collection, released in 1998, featured the…
Review
The Renaissance Period We are living through a Saturn renaissance. Buckets of titles previously locked away in Japan are seeing new audiences, thanks to the herculean efforts of small but…
Best Of Saturn
Late 1998 saw Bandai release Digital Monsters Ver. S: Digimon Tamers exclusively in Japan. An evolution of sorts of the Tamagotchi concept, players hatch, care for, scold, clean up after,…
Best Of Saturn
By 1998, the Saturn was gasping for life in the West. Releases had slowed to a trickle before drying up for good by year’s end. Game over… but don’t tell…
Best Of Saturn
A fusion of 2/3 visual novel and 1/3 strategy RPG, Devicereign from Starlight Marry Corp hit the Saturn in early 1999. Three high school friends are suddenly accosted by a…
Best Of Saturn
Whizz is a Flair Software isometric platformer that first saw life on the DOS, Amiga, and CD32 back in 1994 before being ported to Saturn and releasing in Japan and…
Best Of Saturn
Acclaim, Acclaim… once the darlings of American third-party publishing houses, they fell into disrepute in the mid-’90s by increasingly releasing games that simply weren’t the best of Saturn — or…
Best Of Saturn
What hasn’t been said about SNK’s sweet, sweet Metal Slug? Initially a NEO GEO game, it was ported to Saturn in early 1997 by Yumekobo and is one of the…
Best Of Saturn
A late 1997 “complete version” of a 1996 PS1 release, Banpresto’s Time Bokan is a colorful vertical cute-em-up featuring all the vehicles from all the Bokan series up until that…
Best Of Saturn
Released in time for Halloween 1997, Atlus’ Ronde is an SRPG set in the Majin Tensei universe. Strange crystal statues have been unearthed, and one comes to life as the…
Best Of Saturn
A 1995 science fiction-themed shmup, Taito’s Gekirindan, or “Time Travel Shooting,” is an overhead vertical scroller in the vein of the DonPachi games. The Saturn conversion of the arcade original…
Best Of Saturn
The 1998 Japan-only Saturn port of Time Commando sees you taking on the role of Stanley Opar, a special forces soldier thrust through various time periods with a goal of…
Best Of Saturn
“I wanted to make a game about the sensation of flying…” so said then-Sonic Team head Yuji Naka. After pumping out Sonic hit after hit on the Genesis / MegaDrive,…
Best Of Saturn
Jungle Park, developed by several software houses and unleashed on Saturn in Japan in 1998, is an unusual point-and-click puzzle / action game, with mini-games here and there. You live…
Best Of Saturn
Released by Scholar in 1996, Minami no Shima ni Buta ga Ita ~Lucas no Daibouken~ (roughly: The Pig of South Island: Lucas’ Great Adventure) sees you control a portly pig….
Best Of Saturn
Ported from the PC FX by Success and published on Saturn by Human in 1997, Blue Breaker is an RPG that features anime FMV scenes, lots of gorgeous still art,…
Best Of Saturn
Released first in arcades on the Titan board, then ported to Saturn, Master System, PC, and Game Gear in 1996, Baku Baku Animal: World Zookeeper Contest is one of the…
Best Of Saturn
Released in 1998 and fan-translated by Maud in 2025, Waku Waku Puyo Puyo Dungeon (Exhilarating Puyo Puyo Dungeon) is a roguelike that sees the player take the role of either…
Best Of Saturn
Originally released on PC in 1994 as GunBlaze, the game was ported to Saturn in 1998 with upgraded graphics and retitled GunBlaze S. An RPG done in anime-style, it is…
Best Of Saturn
Initially slated for 1996, then a 1997 release, Re-Loaded by Gremlin Interactive was eventually cancelled completely — but not before a demo snuck out on a couple of European demo…
Best Of Saturn
What do you get when you mix up some pew pew with some splat splat? Loaded, that’s what! A 1996 top-down run and gun, you take control of one of…
Best Of Saturn
Unleashed in December 1997 in Japan, and subsequently in mid-1998 in the West, Shining Force 3 Scenario 1 is the beginning of what is perhaps Camelot’s magnum opus. Arriving late…
Best Of Saturn
A summer 1997 SNK port of the (arguably superior) NEO GEO CD title, Shinsetsu Samurai Spirits Bushidou Retsuden is an old-skool JRPG universe set in the Samurai Shodown universe. Play…
Best Of Saturn
An early 1998, Japan-only Chunsoft production, Sound Novel Machi presents a “day in the life” perspective of eight characters living in the same town. This visual novel consists of still…
Best Of Saturn
Developed by TamTam and published by Pioneer LDC in 1996, The Mysterious World of El Hazard is a visual novel-style game based on the anime of the same name. The…
Best Of Saturn
Developed by AM3 for the ST-V “Titan” arcade board and then ported to the Saturn for a summer 1996 release, DecAthlete (Athlete Kings in Europe) is an Olympic-style sports game…
Best Of Saturn
Imagine heading to China to learn about the nine mythical dragons, only to discover one has reawakened… and he’s evil! As the foreigner Ken, your task in Imagineer’s 1997 graphic…
Best Of Saturn
A late 1997 Japan-only release, Tactics Formula is a self-described tactical board game. It’s a racing game but rather than controlling your vehicle in real time, you select moves in…
Best Of Saturn
Mahjong games were plentiful in Japan, and this 1995 Imagineer-published title gives the strategic game the “18+” yellow-label treatment. Mahou no Janshi: Poe Poe Poemy boils down to a riichi…
Best Of Saturn
Daytona USA roared into gamers’ Saturns at launch in the West as the most hotly anticipated arcade conversion of early 1995. SEGA’s promise of “arcade in the home” was fully…