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Comment by tosh | Hacker News Reader

The Sega Saturn had quite a few gems (e.g. Panzer Dragoon Saga, Shining Force III, Burning Rangers, Dragon Force I & II, …) that were never ported or re-made afaiu.

edit: oh, and of course Saturn Bomberman

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Don't forget Virtual Hydlide, if you ignore the absymal framerate

ALL PRAISE VIRTUAL HYDLIDE!!!

Panzer Dragoon made it to 1st gen Xbox iirc.

Saturn and following on, the Dreamcast were quite good and deserved more success.

Panzer Dragoon Orta did, along with (I believe emulated) copy of the original Panzer Dragoon embedded inside, but not Saga.

Sega created a Panzer Dragoon game for the Xbox (great game), but the original Panzer Dragoon games never got ported as far as I know

The first game had a PC port, which was later included as a bonus in Panzer Dragoon Orta.

The original Panzer Dragoon games were remade for modern consoles a few years ago. Saga still hasn't been ported though.

When you unlock Pandora's box in Orta you can play the original game...the PC port version that is

That’s not PD Saga though

Saga was a totally different game to the 2 rail shooters that preceded it

Oh I know it wasn't Saga. I own every Panzer Dragoon game(but not the remake of the original that came out on the Switch and Playstation 4 however).

The Dreamcast was great, but while the Saturn had some great game the console itself was really not "quite good" beside as a tech curiosity. It suffered greatly from being two consoles smashed in one.

I don't think it was the case for Panzer Dragoon Saga (the RPG) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panzer_Dragoon_Saga

Panzer Dragoon (the rail shooter) might have but not Panzer Dragoon Saga (the RPG). That was never re-released and the source code was lost.

I assume the complexity of the platform contributed to games being rarely ported off of it. In fact, the only games I know to exist on it and other platforms, are ports to the Saturn, never the other way around, although maybe someone can correct me.

From what I understand, emulating the platform is still tricky to this day, although there have been some significant advances in the last 10 years.

Also, if I remember correctly the source code for Panzer Dragoon Saga apparently got lost.

Re ports from Saturn to other systems: I think Grandia and Lunar Silver Star Story were initially developed for the Saturn and later ported to the Playstation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandia_(video_game)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar:_Silver_Star_Story_Compl...

NiGHTS into Dreams was ported to PlayStation 2, and thence onto PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.

Technically Tomb Raider was out on Saturn in Europe a few weeks before PlayStation and PC, but that's really being silly.

Edit: Forgot I'd already mentioned Panzer Dragoon for PC elsewhere, but there was Sonic R for PC as well, as with Panzer Dragoon, later ports of Sonic R are based on the PC version AFAIK.

There was a port of Castlevania: Symphony Of The Night made just for the Saturn that never left Japan that included new areas, new items, and a Maria mode. So far as I know nobody's been able to merge the PlayStation or PS Classics version with the content unique to the Saturn version because they're too disparate. There's a few SNK games with content unique to the Saturn like that as well, like Ragnagard and World Heroes Perfect that people want ports of. Or at least the unique content merged into re-releases.

Tomb Raider was ported off the Saturn to other platforms

I'm pretty sure it was developed as a multi-platform game from the start. It only released on the Saturn a couple of weeks earlier than the PC and PS1.

Yeah. I think the fact that the Saturn rendered quads instead of triangles made ports really challenging as well.

Plus, the Saturn just wasn't that successful. Games like Panzer Dragoon Saga are legendary but only within niche circles.

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