While I don’t consider myself to have an adequately intimate knowledge of this infamous lost instalment of Sonic’s escapades to launch off on an exhaustive dissertation on its various merits and detriments - for which you’re all probably truly thankful - I thought that it would be of interest to highlight an article published in this month’s Retro Gamer (Issue 22, with Renegade featured on the cover. And yes, it’s the same magazine that John Szczepaniak writes for) which is focused on just doing just that. And, it must be said, it doesn’t mince its words:
The unfortunate and agonising exposure of some of the astonishingly petty turf-wars that internal relations at Sega could degenerate into makes for a bitter course of reading, that must be said, but the three-page article is nonetheless a fascinating and deeply informative read, and includes a good deal of pictures, such as an interesting redesign of Mettalix that was intended for the game, as well as screenshots of a leaked demo version which apparently caused quite a stir when a controversial auction of it was raised. It also grants Sega veterans such as myself the opportunity to reflect with melancholy of what might have been…
The magazine costs ?4.99 - and while that may be a steep fee if you’re only buying it for the one article, I’d thoroughly reccomend you make the purchase because Retro Gamer is a superlative magazine, a veritable education that’s also brimming with a genuine love for the subject.
Sonic on the Saturn was just a massive screw up by SEGA America and Japan .
SEGA Japan needed a good kicking for not having any SONIC game ready for the western launch of the Saturn, I myself would have ported SONIC Arcade just to have a SONIC game ready (I though this at the time).
Then SOA need a good kicking for the waste of space that was Extreme , for a start was they any game to it ?, It seemed a decent graphics demo and that was it. And then have things like big shinny mental spikes just goes against everything SONIC stands for in my eyes , i.e. a totally non violent game (which is why I was against SONIC Fighters and Shadow).
I?m glad the game never came out, just sorry that STI just wasted so much time on it, rather that doing a update to something like Comic Zone ect. Something that they would have had complete control over .
I’m hopping SONIC next Gen makes up for the last few SONIC console games, which haven’t great. I so wish it got back to the basics. Levels bulit around SONIC and his speed.
I’m hoping for another SONIC Adv That game was Incredible , the amount of work that went into the soundtrack alone was staggering (and must have cost a fortune), never mind the countless set pieces (like that huge killer whale) stunning levels like Windy Valley , Speed Highway and Lost World , and the countless min games . It was a labour of love and it came through in the game, in parts I liked and enjoyed it more than Mario 64
Sonic on the Saturn was just a massive screw up by SEGA America and Japan .
SEGA Japan needed a good kicking for not having any SONIC game ready for the western launch of the Saturn, I myself would have ported SONIC Arcade just to have a SONIC game ready (I though this at the time).
Then SOA need a good kicking for the waste of space that was Extreme , for a start was they any game to it ?, It seemed a decent graphics demo and that was it. And then have things like big shinny mental spikes just goes against everything SONIC stands for in my eyes , i.e. a totally non violent game (which is why I was against SONIC Fighters and Shadow).
I?m glad the game never came out, just sorry that STI just wasted so much time on it, rather that doing a update to something like Comic Zone ect. Something that they would have had complete control over .
I’m hopping SONIC next Gen makes up for the last few SONIC console games, which haven’t great. I so wish it got back to the basics. Levels bulit around SONIC and his speed.
I’m hoping for another SONIC Adv That game was Incredible , the amount of work that went into the soundtrack alone was staggering (and must have cost a fortune), never mind the countless set pieces (like that huge killer whale) stunning levels like Windy Valley , Speed Highway and Lost World , and the countless min games . It was a labour of love and it came through in the game, in parts I liked and enjoyed it more than Mario 64
I have no issues with Sonic: The Fighters as it’s so silly it really fits in with Sonic’s light hearted nature anyway, it’s hardly… violence.
Anyway, personally I’m pretty content that Sonic X-treme got scrapped… it just looked like some bizarre navigating game seen through a fish-eyed lense… a far cry from the look and feel you’d expect of a Sonic game. Developing Sonic games is best left to Sonic Team if you ask me. Sonic X-treme most likely would’ve ended up being another Spinball.
[quote=“Arcie”]I just blame it all on Yuji Naka anyway.
“Oh no, if you use the NiGHTS engine I quit! And this isn’t like the last hundred times I’ve threatened to do it!”[/quote]
I’m sure if you and your team spent countless hours trying to make a fully functional 3D engine on a console not designed for it that’s insanely hard to program, only to have some other team of coders take it without even asking, I imagine you’d be a little ticked off too.
They are in the same company, shouldn’t they actually do things for the common good rather than be selfish about their creations? Unless they thought the company they work for is so evil which would mean they should just stop working for them altogether instead of present such, well, lame threats. Or has mr. Naka never EVER used anything provided by other Sega developers (knowledge included)? It’s not like they wouldn’t get the deserved credit for their work, I bet that any game using the Nights engine would have been hyped as such, and they would of course appear in the credits…
SEGA Japan hardly shared game engines between its Japanese Teams, never mind with Teamns inthe USA. The whole project was a mess from start to finish. Even if Naka had given them the NiGHTS engine (which to me is nothing but a smoke screen) I doubt the game would have ever come out .
One could blame the Team for nothing having a game engine there in the 1st place (one of the most import parts of development) and I never read any engine complaints when showing this off at E3, quite the opposite in fact . SOA were boosting how this was one of the best game engines on the Saturn making full use of the VDP 1 and II chips. As many people that played the game said, great graphics demo, but where?s the game.
Yes, things should be done for the common good. I agree with that mentality. However, taking something without asking is stealing. It doesn’t matter if you’re in the same company or not. Respect doesn’t just get thrown out the window the moment you work in the same company. If Naka had been asked and he refused, then I would see how getting on Naka’s case would be logical.
That’s like having a fellow student photocopy your notes instead of writing their own, then not telling you about it until after the test. He could have asked, and your giving permission would be for the common good, but his just taking them from under your nose is nothing short of disrespectful.
The Nights engine wasn’t the best the Saturn could muster anyway (the Exhumed, PD Saga and Sonic R game engines built from the ground up by people who knew their way around the hardware from day one, mustered up better results), but really and truly, this is all Sega of Japan’s fault for choosing such an awkward design.
Not sharing graphics engines only threw more fuel onto the fire.
I wouldn’t say Exhumed’s engine was better and it also wasn’t from the ground up, it was a port wasn’t it? But anyway, the environments were much flatter and all enemies and objects were 2D. The other games came much later in the Saturn’s lifetime so it’s natural they bested the Nights engine. The Sonic Jam 3D section was imo the best 3D the Saturn pulled of… Too bad it wasn’t really a game.
Look at engines for the first two Panzer Dragoon games. They were pretty solid all because the team behind the games had been coding games for arcade boards with dual processors for years prior to the Saturn’s launch.
Exhumed (Powerslave in North America) has a fine 3D engine too with solid nicely-textured environments and pervading light sourcing effects. Why? Because the team knew what they were doing from the start. The fact that the game merged 3D graphics with 2D sprites played on the Saturn’s greatest strengths.
The way I see it, Sega paid the ultimate price for a messy design by leaving everyone to clean up that mess.
[quote=“Geoffrey Duke”]The Nights engine wasn’t the best the Saturn could muster anyway (the Exhumed, PD Saga and Sonic R game engines built from the ground up by people who knew their way around the hardware from day one, mustered up better results), but really and truly, this is all Sega of Japan’s fault for choosing such an awkward design.
Not sharing graphics engines only threw more fuel onto the fire.[/quote]
NiGHTS is a really powerful game engine in my view. Just have a look at some of the boss battles , and its pulling off stunning tricks . I really don’t think the Saturn was has bad as people love to make out. What really let the system down was the poor tools and the fact that you had to use the likes of Assembly to get the best out of it, when everybody was using C+.
Can’t fault Lobotomy they were ture Gods and Ezra Driesback is a programing genius .
For me the best 3D engines onthe Saturn were Pazner Zwei, SAGA (more so discs 3 and 4 were using the full power), Virtual Cop, Decatlete, Exhumed, Mass Destruction, A+M+O+K, Taromaru, Grandia (my jaw hit the floor when I 1st saw this) Dark Savoiur, VF 2.
But likes Duke says, to get the best out of the Saturn you needed to make use of the 2D and 3D , Exhumed used one SH-2 and the VDP II to draw the walls and weapons , While the other SH-2 and VDP 1 handled everything else inthe game.
Also as Wipeout 2097 showed (with not like the effort put into the PS version) The Saturn could handle some of the best PS 3D
After the great port of Virtua Cop 2 to the Saturn, I keep wondering if House of the Dead could have turned out any better if it was handled by AM2 as well.
I would have loved to see AM#1 handle the port thier selfs. They never get any credit but they pushed the Saturn a lot . Die Hard Arcade had a stunning games engine and made clever use of the VDP II to draw the floor’s and the Ceilings, and then some really good textures onthe characters. It’s was a shame HOTD never used the 4 meg cart to help with the loading times.
VC II was a great engine and showed what those SH-2 could do. As thanks to uneven surfaces , AM#2 could use the VDP II at key points and so were using the the full polygon power of the Saturn .
WWS 98 and the likes of Wing Arms, Skeleton Warriors had really good 3D engines. Wing Arms had some of the best 3D mesh effects I’ve seen in a Saturn game. Also people might laugh but Bug II had a rather good engine , the misting effects are some of the best ever. Croc was ok too with some effects not seen inthe PS version (like moving Lava)
[quote=“Team Andromeda”]I would have loved to see AM#1 handle the port thier selfs. They never get any credit but they pushed the Saturn a lot . Die Hard Arcade had a stunning games engine and made clever use of the VDP II to draw the floor’s and the Ceilings, and then some really good textures onthe characters. It’s was a shame HOTD never used the 4 meg cart to help with the loading times.
[/quote]
Wouldn’t the 4Mbyte cartridge only have decreased the amount of times the game had to load, rather than the overall loading times?