Best Of Saturn
Cotton 2 #BestOfSaturn
Who doesn’t love Cotton, the cutest teenage witch this side of the Pumpkin Kingdom? When Princess Appli steals — then loses — the powerful Water Willow candy, Cotton must embark…
shmup
Best Of Saturn
Bo Bayles' Hacks & Cheats
Under the Microscope: Battle Garegga
It’s well known that Battle Garegga, the innovative shoot-em-up from Eighting/Raizing, recognizes a cheat code. Here’s how GameFAQs describes it: Access a Mahou Daisakusen character: At the title screen press…
Best Of Saturn
Kingdom Grand Prix #BestOfSaturn
In our quest to highlight Saturn fan translations this year, it’s also worth mentioning the handful of English activation patches available. Some Japanese games have English text baked right in,…
News
Overserved, Project Neon Pre-Orders Open for Saturn, Dreamcast!
[Editor’s note:] After this article was published, developers at FULLSET have confirmed effort is underway to convert the existing Joengine libraries that contain SEGA code to use the open source…
Bo Bayles' Hacks & Cheats
Under the Microscope: Layer Section II
Today we’re looking at Layer Section II, also known as RayStorm. The Saturn port came out in Japan in 1997, but it wasn’t released in North America or Europe (the…
News
Indie Developer Porting Neo Geo Shmup to Saturn
[Editor’s note: This story was updated March 29 to add Sascha’s name, clarify that Project Neon does not use WiFi for online multiplayer, add details about the cartridge prototype’s expected…
Bo Bayles' Hacks & Cheats
Under the Microscope: Thunder Force V
In this edition I’m putting Thunder Force V back under the microscope. I examined a prototype version of the game last year, but this time I’m taking a look at…
News
Live Wire Patches Radiant Silvergun on Steam After Player Discovers Infinite Scoring
The publisher of vertical shooter Radiant Silvergun’s PC port on Steam patched the game Sunday after a player discovered a way to score endlessly during a boss fight. Live Wire’s…
News
Saturn News Roundup: Homebrew Updates, RetroConnection Fest, New Saturn Merch
Here’s a quick-hit roundup of recent stories around the Sega Saturn scene. Video demonstrates Saturn sound chip calculating graphics A SegaXtreme homebrew developer named Jollyroger demonstrated that the Saturn’s audio…
Bo Bayles' Hacks & Cheats
Under the Microscope: Hyper Duel & Blast Wind
In this edition I’ve got a couple of new cheat codes for some games from Technosoft: Hyper Duel, the horizontal shoot-em-up that was released for Saturn in late 1996. Blast…
Bo Bayles' Hacks & Cheats
Under the Microscope: Steam-Heart’s
Steam-Heart’s is a game for Saturn that combines passable shoot-em-up gameplay with NSFW anime scenes. The visuals are less explicit in the Saturn version than the PC-98 original, but some…
Best Of Saturn
Time Bokan #BestOfSaturn
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
Gekirindan #BestOfSaturn
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…
Bo Bayles' Hacks & Cheats
Under the Microscope: Thunder Force V Sample ROM
In this edition we’re looking at Thunder Force V Sample ROM, a demo disc for Thunder Force V. It normally lets you play a single stage, but there’s data for…
Bo Bayles' Hacks & Cheats
Under the Microscope: Radiant Silvergun
Radiant Silvergun is a well-regarded shoot-em-up from Treasure, whose game Silhouette Mirage was previously covered on Rings of Saturn. I looked into this game’s code a while back, but didn’t…
Bo Bayles' Hacks & Cheats
Under the Microscope: Strikers 1945 & Sengoku Blade
In this edition I’m examining Strikers 1945 (Saturn and PlayStation) and Sengoku Blade (Saturn), which are both shooting games from Psikyo. In wrote previously about patches for the Saturn versions…
Bo Bayles' Hacks & Cheats
Under the Microscope: Gunbird
In this edition I’m examining Gunbird, the vertical shooter from Psikyo. I found four new cheat codes for it: The Test mode menu. NoDeath mode, which makes you invincible. Skip…
News
Advanced V.G., Steam-Heart’s Saturn Tribute Release Worldwide
Modern platforms got two new Saturn games Wednesday when City Connection released Advanced V.G. and Steam-Heart’s — even in the West, for which there was no formal announcement. They’re part…
Best Of Saturn
Planet Joker #BestOfSaturn
In early 1997, Imp produced and NaxatSoft released a polygonal vertical-scrolling shmup Planet Joker. Players take control of a flying mech and proceed to blast, bomb, and otherwise destroy their…
News
Advanced V.G. and Steam Heart’s Saturn Tribute Canceled on Xbox
The Xbox One versions of Advanced V.G. and Steam Heart’s (sic), both part of City Connection’s Saturn Tribute line, have been canceled, the publisher announced Tuesday. In a statement on…
Bo Bayles' Hacks & Cheats
Under the Microscope: G Vector
In this edition: I found some previously unknown cheat codes for the Saturn game G Vector, the 3D shooter. They give you extra modes, invincibility, a new character, and more!…
Best Of Saturn
Dezaemon 2 #BestOfSaturn
A late 1997 release, Athena’s Dezaemon 2 is a shmup-builder. Although it features some pre-built levels, the game’s focus is to allow players to put together the shmup of their…
Best Of Saturn
Super Dimension Fortress Macross: Do You Remember Love? #BestOfSaturn
The 1980s were a golden age for anime in Japan, with Super Dimension Fortress Macross standing amongst the greats with a tale of aliens attacking a futuristic Earth. The Saturn…
Best Of Saturn
Salamander Deluxe Pack Plus #BestOfSaturn
Shmup fans are well-catered to on the Saturn, having access to fresh titles as well as compilations of past-generation games. Enter Salamander Deluxe Pack Plus: Salamander (1987), LifeForce (the 1988…
News
Wolf Fang & Skull Fang Saturn Tribute Releases on Western Storefronts
A pair of Saturn shooters, Wolf Fang and Skull Fang, are out now on modern digital storefronts, including Western ones. City Connection published the two-game package Wednesday for US$29.99 on…
Community
SHIRO! Reveals November Community Challenge Game: Kingdom Grandprix
The thrilling conclusion to the inaugural year of the SHIRO! Community Challenge begins Friday as participants will compete in the Raizing-developed, shooter-racing game hybrid “Kingdom Grandprix.” Throughout the month of…
Bo Bayles' Hacks & Cheats
Under the Microscope: Gun Frontier
Xing Entertainment did a series of ports of old arcade titles for the Saturn and PlayStation under the Arcade Gears banner. One of the titles was Gun Frontier, a Taito…
Bo Bayles' Hacks & Cheats
Expansion Hack: Metal Black
The Saturn version of Metal Black is a port of the 1991 Taito arcade game. In its story, Earth is suffering under an uneasy truce with a hostile alien force….
News
Saturn News Roundup for the Week of July 29
A recreation of Tomb Raider 2 on Saturn, new firmware for Retro-Bit controllers and a line of model kits recreating robots from Saturn shooter Wolf Fang — they’re a few…
News
City Connection Announces Wolf Fang Skull Fang Saturn Tribute
The next title in City Connection’s Saturn Tribute line of modern re-releases will be a double pack — a pair of shoot-em-ups named Wolf Fang and Skull Fang, the publisher…
Community
Radiant Silvergun Patch Adds New Scoring System, Two-Button Playstyle
A new patch for Saturn shmup Radiant Silvergun adds features from other versions of the game as well as a brand new scoring system. It was created over the course…
Best Of Saturn
Kingdom Grand Prix #BestOfSaturn
We are living in the Great Saturn Renaissance… Kingdom Grand Prix, the Japan-only shmup/racing game hybrid, has been translated to English! The King has had enough of decades of conflict…
Community
Blast Wind Patch Boosts Music, Adds English Dub
A patch for Blast Wind — a 1997 Saturn-exclusive vertical shooter from the heralded shmup specialists at Technosoft that only released in Japan — came out over the weekend that…
Community
Radiant Silvergun, Cotton 2 See Improvements in MiSTer Saturn Core
A bevy of updates to the Saturn core of the MiSTer FPGA have targeted problems with specific games’ graphics. One prominent one that was fixed recently was Cotton 2, whose…
Best Of Saturn
Cho Aniki #BestOfSaturn
If The Rocky Horror Picture Show and the Saturn ever made a baby, it might be named Cho Aniki (Big Brother). A shmup, it features homoerotic digitized man-sprites on hand-drawn…