Lord Spencer's Gaming (and other stuff) Blog

In the 70 to 61 places in Retro Sanctuary's 100 Saturn Games , the site once again selected 10 games from various genres, a few of which were actually Saturn exclusives. That doesn't matter really, as the games are starting to get marginally better from the last 30 games. At least, in Mega Man 8 , we have a seriously good game. As usual, the sports games are relics of the past (and that's fine), and there are several Japan-exclusive games. Note that Iron Storm looks like it is an excellent strategy game. However, I could not figure out exactly how to play it, since there were no tutorials at all. Based on that, the two games that I reviewed in detail are Mega Man 8 and Herc's Adventure .

Hayao Miyazaki had a clear goal when making his fantasy epic Princess Mononoke , a goal he already arguably pursued with his first film under the Ghibli umbrella, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind . The goal was to portray the ongoing battle between human civilization and nature, and how this conflict between the ferocious “gods” of nature and humanity can never have a happy ending. While Nausicaa depicted this conflict at its latest stage, when humanity nearly destroyed itself in its destruction of the natural world, Princess Mononoke depicts the first steps when civilization started to conquer nature and the ancient gods ceased to exist. In typical Miyazaki fashion, this is not a preaching work, and it does not shy away from showing the complexities of all sides. Ahitaka, the hero of the movie (a male hero being a rarity for Miyazaki), is cursed by something that he and his community had no direct involvement with. As such, he reaches the forest at the center of the conflict as a ...

In the 16-bit era, LucasArts studios were known for their colorful and cartoonish graphics. Their games often looked to imitate the sort of cartoons you could find on Cartoon Network or other such channels. With the increased capability of the Saturn, you can see why games like Herc's Adventure were made by the same studio. Expertly animated and drawn with the same style, the game was also more ambitious in its delivery compared to earlier LucasArts games, like the cult-classic" Zombies Ate My Neighbours . While the game is not without its shortcomings, the effort mostly works. 65: Herc's Adventure: Year: 1997. Genre: Action Adventure. Publisher: LucasArts. Developer: Big Ape Productions , LucasArts.

Like Mega Man 7 before it, Mega Man 8 finds itself in a weird place as a follow-up to the classic series; at the same time, the Mega Man X sub-series is going strong, with the release of the excellent Mega Man X4 in the same year. As such, Capcom strangely seemed to push through two Action Platforming Mega Man games at the same time. Many saw that this game, which is much simpler than the flashier X4 , wasn't worth it. However, taking the game without comparison to others in the series, this just shows how the franchise simply edged anything else competing with it in the genre at the time. 69: Mega Man 8: Year: 1997. Genre: Action Platformer. Publisher: Capcom. Developer: Capcom.

In their top 100 Saturn games , Retro Sanctuary, like the previous 20 games, is not exactly brimming with quality. Apart from the excellent Rayman , the 10 games from number 80 to number 71 are mostly sports games that are both graphically and mechanically dated these days. To be fair, some of these games are really good in their genre, but were never actually released outside of Japan. This is probably going to be a running theme in my Saturn reviews, where I am realizing many of the Saturn's best games were actually never localized. Also, it should be noted that Enemy Zero, despite all its faults, is at least a historically important landmark for the console and games in general.

The development story of Enemy Zero is an interesting footnote at the beginning of the 5th generation console wars. Initially conceived as a PlayStation exclusive, WARP was discontent about Sony's handling of the game and its marketing. So, in a great show of contempt, the game was revealed in the PlayStation 1996 Tokyo Expo , with the PS logo slowly morphing into the Saturn's. As such, Sega gained an exclusive that was well-regarded at the time. However, in the great scheme of things, the PlayStation was not affected, and Enemy Zero is not worth much regard today. 72: Enemy Zero: Year: 1997. Genre: Survival Horror, Adventure. Publisher: WARP, Sega. Developer: WARP.

Back in a time when every developer and their mother were chasing the latest trend in 3D graphics and blocky polygons, one small developer in France decided to go the other way. Instead of the latest in technology, they decided to go back to what worked in the past and make a 2D platformer that would have been impossible to make on earlier hardware. As such, Ubisoft got its first big hit with Rayman , which is a game that is as good now as when it was first released, ridiculing in the process the early adopters of 3D technology like the absolutely horrendous Bug! . 79: Rayman: Year: 1995. Genre: 2D Platformer. Publisher: Ubisoft. Developer: Ubi Pictures (Ubisoft).