Sega Saturn RPGs

Hey guys :)

I just picked up a SEGA SATURN console at a garage sale and was hoping to gather a list of the North American RPG releases (do European releases play on a N.Amer Saturn?)

Anyhow, I tried searching on the net for a list, but I keep getting mixed lists, and usually don't get reviews etc.

Can you guys suggest the best RPGs to get for it?

THANKS :)

The best RPGs (Grandia, Soul Hackers, Tengai Makyou IV etc). are in Japanese but the best RPGs released on the west would be:

• AZEL: Panzer Dragoon RPG
• Shining: The Holy Ark
• Dark Savior
• Albert Odyssey Gaiden
  
• The Story of Thor

And if you want Simulation :

• Shining Force III: Scenario 1 - God Warrior of the Kingdom
• Riglord Saga
• Dragon Force

panzer dragoon saga

I've never played it but I hear Skies of Arcadia is pretty good.

I've never played it but I hear Skies of Arcadia is pretty good.

Ragnarok1051

[QUOTE="Ragnarok1051"]

I've never played it but I hear Skies of Arcadia is pretty good.

Panzer_Zwei

[QUOTE="Panzer_Zwei"]

[QUOTE="Ragnarok1051"]

I've never played it but I hear Skies of Arcadia is pretty good.

Ragnarok1051

its okay Brent, I have Skies of Arcadia for my GameCube.

Panzer's list is pretty much complete tbh so use that as a guideline

to give a little more info -

If you're looking for PS1 Final Fantasy 7 style RPG's for the Saturn then your only choice is probably Panzer Dragoon Saga which is extremely expensive

Shining Force III - is a very good strategy RPG, kinda' similar to Fire Emblem (but at the same time very different LOL)

Shining the Holy Ark is also very good, its 1st person orientated and emphasises maze exploration and puzzle solving along with the usual leveling up and story focus, it feels very different to most JRPGs but personally I like it a lot, it is a little older than the famous PS1 RPGs though so don't expect the huge amounts of FMV and storyline focus that PS1 RPGs tend to contain.

Dragon Force - Strategy RPG where you control huge armies, really classy game.

Dark Savior is similar to Landstalker on the Genesis (same people made it) or Equinox on SNES, its isometric view and contains a lot of platforming elements

Those five games are probably the best RPGs on Saturn, but in my opinion all of them apart from Dark Saviour are extremely overpriced

Blazing Heroes/Mystaria/Riglord Saga is another strategy RPG, its pretty good and I think reasonably priced, it is one of the oldest games listed here I thnk though.

Albert Odyssey is a nice SNES style RPG which is obscenely overpriced

Legend of Oasis/Story of Thor 2 - is the sequel to Beyond Oasis on the Genesis, its more of an action adventure game in the fashion of Zelda

One game I'll add is Shining Wisdom, another Zelda style game, but only pick it up if you can find it cheap because whilst fun the game is little more than a jumped up Genesis game (it even looks like one)

All in all I wouldn't recommend collecting Saturn RPGs unless you are really serious about it because the likelihood is that it will cost you a helluva lot of money, Panzer probably won't like this but in my opinion the PS1 has better RPGs which are much cheaper.

During the time they were competing the Saturn was actually better for RPGs than the PS1, mainly because a lot of the best Saturn RPGs came out prior to Final Fantasy 7, whilst most of the best PS1 RPGs came out after Final Fantasy 7 (by the time FF7 came out the Saturn was on its last legs in the west)

Yeah, the western RPG line-up is very restricted due to the ridiculous prices most of those game go for nowadays. And it would seem people care more for them as collector's items than as anything else, which is a shame.

That said I still prefer the smaller (Japanese) SS RPG line-up over the much bigger PS one. And even though some of them like Grandia, Soul Hackers and the Lunars were eventually ported to the PS after the system was discontinued. They still were SS exclusive games during its lifespan and more importantly, they are better on the SS.

Grandia which came out on the same year than FF7 in Japan was regarded by most publications as the FFVII killer. Even GS were influenced by this it seems, since their review title was "Grandia beats FF7 in all the ways that count" or something like that. It was a terrible mistake that such a stellar and highly-rated game wasn't localized since it would've profited the system hugely.

Shining Force III was another huge mistake that pretty much caused Camelot to part ways with SEGA. The Shining Force III trilogy games are in my opinion still the best games in the genre. I still haven't seen another Simultation RPG as ambitious or with such cool battle maps like the SF III trilogy.

So yes, Shining Force III scenario 1 is an excellent game, but incomplete without the other two.

Dragon Force on the other hand, is a highly-rated game that I personally consider it to be overrated. I really liked the game when I first played, and like most people, I became totally addicted to its gameplay. But eventually as I started to master the game, the serious gameplay flaws became more and more apparent. The biggest issue being the braindead enemy A.I. that just ruins any real challenge you can expect from the enemy.

Dragon Force II fixed most flaws and is a much better game. Unfortunately for some reason only very few people outside of Japan know a Dragon Force II game was actually released.

As for Albert Odyssey Gaiden. Yes it's your decent 16-bit RPG that it's only expensive for the sole reason that it was released by Working Designs.

And speaking of Working Designs. They ruined Magic Knight Rayearth. One of the early SS RPGs was the last game to be released in the west. They also removed a lot of stuff to make space for the lously spoken character diaries.

Thanks for all the help guys.

This SATURN seemed like a decent thing to pick up, bit it looks like the games I'm going to want are $70-$150 apiece!! :) Still, I do alot of trading and dealing in rare games (I'm still sitting on spare copies of Suikoden II and Valkyrie Profile) so perhaps I'll have to see about tracking some of these games down.

As for the Grandia thing, I can only hope the SATURN Grandia isnt' the same one as the PSone Grandia (which I already have). I bought it on PSone because some people were telling me it was amazing and better than FFVII, but what a dissapointment.

Anyhow, thanks for the great info, I'll try and pick some of these Saturn games over time (I didn't realize how expensive the good games would be, LOL, thank god the system was cheap!)