Saturn Reviews D-E

In the evolution of shooters Darius Gaiden falls into that "sweet spot" between 2D playability and glorious 3D graphics. Like its more famous cousin Radiant Silvergun (Treasure, 1998) Gaiden strategically incorporates 3D elements to punch up its 2D action. Like all Darius titles, this is a side-scroller with a strong nautical theme. Heck, even in the space and desert stages they incorporate giant fish bosses that explode into delicious meaty chunks. Some of the backdrops look fantastic, particularly the undersea ruins and rotating space stations. Simple controls employ one button for rapid-fire and another to detonate "black hole bombs" that suck all enemies into a vortex (sweet). Unlike modern shooters, even when there's a lot of action on the screen the game never feels overwhelming. Your firepower is potent but enemies can sustain multiple hits and certain bosses take forever to dispatch. The explosions in this game are tremendous both on a visual and sonic level. I love the relaxing music in the opening stage, which blends soft vocals into a mesmerizing beat. Darius Gaiden's gameplay is pretty straightforward, but it does incorporate one feature I've never seen before. Certain fish have a round orb embedded in their head. If you can dislodge and grab the orb, that fish will fight for you by your side! The first few times this happened I had no idea what the [expletive] was going on! Also cool is how you can select from branching stages ("Now rushing into zone B"), but truth be told they tend to reuse a lot of elements from earlier zones. Two people can play at the same time, which is always a welcome feature. Darius Gaiden is a fine shooter and a terrific excuse to dig that dusty joystick out of the closet. © Copyright 2017 The Video Game Critic.

Here's an interesting PC title that somehow migrated to the Saturn - in Japan! Fortunately this import is highly playable thanks to its simple controls and English voiceovers. Dark Seed is a point-and-click adventure - something you never see anymore. You control a digitized guy named Mike living in a mysterious old mansion who finds himself experiencing dreams both supernatural and extraterrestrial in nature. The nightmares are rendered in gory detail via some rather unsettling cut-scenes. In one, his head is split open by aliens and a substance is injected into his brain! Mike scales nicely as moves around his house and over to a nearby town and graveyard. I find it amusing how Mike is always speaking out loud when no one's around, stating the obvious like "this road seems strangely empty, and… unoccupied." Be sure to have Mike shower and take his medicine each morning, or else he'll complain non-stop about his splitting headaches ("My head feels like it's about to explode!") You make Mike walk by clicking an arrow, and you can toggle the cursor into a question mark (to investigate) or hand (to search). Moving it to the top of the screen displays your inventory, along with a floppy disk "save" icon. For the benefit of non-Japanese gamers, the buttons down the left side of the save screen are load, save, return to game, and exit. Sorry, I can't help you with the various text clues conveyed via books, notes, and newspaper clippings. You'll figure it out - especially if you have an FAQ on hand (wink wink). The best part of Dark Seed is its brooding storyline, which conveys a tale of an alternate dimension clearly inspired by the movie Aliens. The atmosphere becomes pretty intense thanks to the nicely-illustrated scenery, digitalized sounds, and surreal organ music. Sadly, some pretty big design flaws rain on the parade. Many critical objects, like a hair pin or glass shard are really hard to see. You sometimes need to examine an object multiple times to expose a critical clue. There are actions you need to take early in the game (like hide items) which make no sense (until later). Even when using a walk-through, Dark Seed is difficult to finish, so I can only recommend it to determined gamers with a lot of patience. © Copyright 2008 The Video Game Critic.

As a Saturn launch title, this did not compare favorably with the Playstation's Ridge Racer. With its chunky scenery, rampant draw-in, wacky physics, and cheesy soundtrack, Daytona USA may be the most hilarious racing game of all time. I don't think that's what Sega intended. Even so, the bright arcade graphics and simple controls are hard to resist. You select between four stock cars and three tracks (not including mirrored versions), and compete with up to 40 other cars! Weaving through traffic is fun, so why am I not moving up the ranks? Are you telling me I've already lapped these guys? No, something's not quite right here. Equally suspicious is how CPU cars erratically dart between lanes. Your steering is not particularly responsive, and the brake sends you into tail slides you'll rarely recover from. I picked up Sega's official driving wheel to use with this game, and while it didn't improve my score, it did make the experience slightly more realistic. Your car actually models damage which affects its performance - a pretty advanced feature for the time. Pitstops are available, but unless you're undertaking the 80-lap endurance mode (and you won't), they are useless. Daytona USA is not much to look at. The pop-up/draw-in effect is so severe that you can't see things in the distance - things like the road for example! It's especially bad when you drive over a bridge and watch it being constructed before your very eyes. It leaves you with the impression that either the Saturn can't process 3D graphics very well or this game was rushed for launch. There's plenty of interesting sights including a Space Shuttle on a launch pad, but most of it doesn't appear until you're halfway past it. The cloud "reflections" whizzing over your back window look fake, and they keep moving even when your car is at rest. If you pay close attention you'll notice subtle details in the scenery like flying birds and galloping horses, but why does that statue have "Jeffrey" engraved on it? There's a lot of weirdness in this game, like how "GOAL!" is displayed as you cross the finish line. What is this, soccer? The option menu even has a setting for "enemy level". Since when did these cars become my enemies?! But the most bizarre aspect of Daytona USA by far has to be the music, which sounds like a Japanese lounge single belting out cheesy-Latin pop tunes with incomprehensible lyrics. These songs are so unintentionally funny you can't help but ask yourself, "What was Sega thinking?!" The song "Sky High" is the most hilarious of the bunch, and to this day I can sometimes be heard singing "I'm gonna fly-y-y sky high!" in the shower. Oddly enough, it's the quirks and flaws of the game that give Daytona USA an endearing charm. On a technical level it may be a mess, but it has a "so bad it's good" quality that keeps me coming back. © Copyright 2011 The Video Game Critic.

This "Championship Edition" feels a lot like an apology from Sega for the original Daytona USA, which was a complete mess by the way. You can tell this is a more polished effort simply by looking at that sharp menu screen. You now have eights cars to select from as well as five bright tracks that are a joy to race. Granted, three of the tracks are actually "remixed" versions of those in the original game, but they look better and suffer from less pop-up. The two new tracks are especially good. One is a highway that runs alongside an amusement park with a working rollercoaster. Yes, I actually pulled over and onto the shoulder to watch that thing go around. The other new track takes you through a desert with running trains and hot air balloons. Daytona's arcade mode provides a formidable challenge, as it's really hard to reach the next checkpoint without the timer running out. The steering is more responsive than the first game, but the braking controls are still a mystery. It seems like banging into walls and barriers is the way to go. Like the first game, using a pit stop is the worst mistake you can make, and it will pretty much guarantee your defeat. The new split-screen mode is a welcome feature, but the pop-up is pretty dreadful. I find it hilarious how the trailing player gets "LOSER" plastered across his screen - how humiliating is that? I like the music in this game, despite the fact that the opening tune sounds like a parody of every hair band of the 80's. Some songs from the first game have been brought back minus the vocals of that Japanese lounge singer. I never thought I'd say this, but I really miss that guy. Daytona Championship Edition isn't as memorable as the first game, but it's a far more competent arcade racer. This is probably what the original Daytona should have been. © Copyright 2011 The Video Game Critic.

I didn't have high hopes for Detana Twinbee ("Here Comes Twinbee"), but the more I played it the more I enjoyed this light, whimsical shooter. Twinbee hails from the Parodius Team which has a reputation for making wacked-out shooters. You'll soar over colorful Candy Land worlds while shooting floating pigs, rubber duckies, rainbow-colored cats, kamikaze silverware, dancing flowers, and other random targets. As in Xevious you can shoot foes in the air while bombing targets on the land below. There's a wealth of special weapons including 4-way shots, homing missiles, a flamethrower, and a big red boxing glove. The graphical style is anime to-the-max, with melodramatic cut-scenes and vibrant stages alive with activity. This is one of the prettiest shooters I've seen, but it can be hard to discern targets from other animated objects. Shooting clouds release falling bells, and shooting these bells changes their colors while pushing them up the screen. Grabbing the bells gives you power-ups and bonus points, but they're such a pain in the ass! You're always inadvertently shooting them when you want to snatch them up! Bombing enemies on the ground reveals fruit you can collect, giving the game an old-school charm. The two-button controls are simple (shoot and bomb) although sometimes the bomb button doesn't seem to work for some reason. Slowdown does rear its ugly head at times, even in the single-player mode. Twinbee's audio features a wonderfully catchy theme song that I would almost certainly sing along to if I knew Japanese. The level of challenge is relatively low, which is good since I can't read the instruction manual. I do appreciate how the message "Thank you for playing this game" appears at the end. How thoughtful! Twinbee is lightweight, quirky, and mildly annoying, but it's so damn cheerful that it's almost impossible to dislike. © Copyright 2011 The Video Game Critic.

Living up to its name, this 3D brawler offers pure arcade fun. Unfortunately Fox couldn't afford to license the likeness of Bruce Willis for the box cover, so they slapped on a picture of some sweaty alcoholic in a wife-beater instead. You play the role of John McClane out to rescue a group of hostages held by terrorists in a tall office building. One of the hostages happens to be the president's daughter, and she has giant, freaky-looking hands. Die Hard Arcade has chunky polygon graphics, but its gameplay is actually 2D in nature, since you can only engage foes lined up on the same horizontal plane (a la Streets of Rage). The Virtua Cop-style visuals are clean and nicely animated with literally dozens of attack combinations. Some enemies beg for mercy after they've been beaten down, and I love how McClane throws his gun after running out of ammo. He'll also perform devastating head butts when pinned to the ground, and act appropriately when kicked between the legs. There are always plenty of weapons lying around, including hatchets, pipes, pepper spray, and rocket launchers. Unlike most games of this style, Die Hard Arcade does not throw an endless barrage of bad guys at you. No, once you clear out a handful of enemies, you're quickly whisked off to the next room. The game has an oddball sense of humor, most evident in the hilarious bathroom stage. There's a guy doing his business in a urinal, dudes running around in jockey shorts, and everybody is slipping on loose rolls of toilet paper. The game also lets you fight alongside a friend, with player two assuming the role of a blonde chick. Die Hard's pacing is brisk, but you're constantly sitting through load screens. Don't let your guard down during the cut-scenes however, because you're often prompted to jump or throw a well-timed punch. There's a "violence" option on the option menu, but that just causes cheesy chunks of "blood" to fly around during combat. My main issue with Die Hard Arcade is its lack of scoring. Obviously your goal is to complete the game, but that's not easy, and a score would have been a nice way to gauge your progress. Oddly enough, a retro bonus game called Deep Scan included. It's probably the slowest arcade game ever made, yet still somewhat fun. The lack of scoring is a problem, but otherwise Die Hard Arcade is a top-notch Saturn title. © Copyright 2007 The Video Game Critic.

This game's predecessor, Donpachi (Atlus, 1996), walked a fine line with its vertical scrolling mayhem. Dodonpachi, on the other hand, gleefully hurls itself over the edge, plummeting into the abyss of shooter insanity. Too much is too much, and this series has passed the point of diminishing returns. Dodonpachi is one of those "manic" shooters where everything on the screen has way too much pent-up hostility! The destruction quotient is astounding, and destroyed objects leave gold stars in their wake - which I happen to find irresistible! Your ship wields a beam of destruction that cleanly wipes away waves of tanks, aircraft, and cannons. You'll soar over rocky gorges and high-tech landscapes, but there's not a whole lot to see. Like its predecessor, the well-designed controls are comfortable and leave some room for strategy. You get plenty of bombs, so don't hesitate to use them as a defensive measure. Enemies tend to bombard you with waves of missiles, but if you hang back, you can usually find a seam to slip through. The forgiving collision detection helps too. The action is nicely paced, but the visuals are a little rough. The screen is vertically cropped, although your bomb supply fills some of that black space. The scenery tends to be bland and indistinct, and the explosions are very pixelated. The voice samples are clear enough, and are provided by a female speaking English. You have the option to play alongside a friend, but with firepower this overwhelming, the two-player mode is unmanageable. Dodonpachi doesn't seem fair, but it's not the player who's overmatched - it's your enemies! Once you build up to maximum firepower, your fury practically consumes the entire display, making it impossible for most of your foes to even enter the screen! And is it really any fun when you're just mindlessly annihilating everything in sight while collecting stars that fall into your lap? Well yeah, it is, kind of. © Copyright 2009 The Video Game Critic.

This vertical shooter pushes the limits in terms of firepower and on-screen activity. But while Donpachi teeters on the edge of sensory madness, it never crosses the line. The action gets pretty intense, but you never feel overwhelmed. You select from three fighter ships with slightly different weapon characteristics. The background scenery offers traditional locations like a forest-entrenched base and a naval port. The snow stage provides a nice change of pace, and in certain areas you can see tiny people scampering along the ground. You enemies generally consist of jets, boats, and helicopters of all shapes and sizes. Bosses are huge mechanical beasts with multiple armaments that can be destroyed one by one. Donpachi's explosions are exceptional. In addition to the typical "clouds of fire", some bosses feature flames that shoot out from their sides. Your firepower is devastating, but you'll want to crank up the difficulty (to normal at the very least) if you want a legitimate challenge. In the easier difficulties, power-ups are far too abundant and the "MP" icon (maximum power) is just plain cheap. Holding the A button unleashes a steady, concentrated beam, but your ship moves slowly. The C button sprays missiles, but your ship is more agile. It's a neat trade-off that provides a layer of strategy. You also have a load of bombs which come in handy for neutralizing a barrage of incoming missiles. Larger enemies expel projectiles by the dozens, but the missiles are well defined and tend to move slowly. Donpachi suffers from some slow-down (especially with two players), but if anything, you'll welcome it! One thing I found very interesting is how despite being a Japanese import, the voice synthesis is entirely in English! "Enemy port dead ahead. Fire at will kid!" The quality of the voice samples is pretty awful though. Accompanied by unpleasant static, they sound like something you'd hear in a Genesis game. In addition to the arcade mode (with unlimited continues), there's a nice "score attack mode" that lets you play individual stages for high score. Donpachi is one of those rare shooters that strikes a fine balance between reason and chaos, and I like that. © Copyright 2009 The Video Game Critic.

Double Switch was produced by Tom Zito, the man who introduced full-motion video (FMV) gaming to the world. His first game, Night Trap (Sega CD, 1992), achieved notoriety with a bunch of bubbly girls being stalked by vampires at a slumber party. Double Switch is a little more sophisticated, calling upon the talents of 80's icons Corey Haim and Deborah Harry. The gameplay is similar to Night Trap but instead of a house you're spying on a highrise apartment crawling with all sorts of unsavory characters. Once you begin, your guide in the basement (Corey Haim) asks you to investigate a disturbance. You switch between cameras to isolate bad actors and use inordinately complicated controls to subdue them. You'll need to hit a button three times simply to arm a trap, springing it with a well-timed fourth tap. Let too many crooks get away and an annoyed Corey Haim will pull the plug on your game. Compared to the awkward and unsightly Sega CD version, this Double Switch is a pleasure to play. The six buttons map perfectly to arm/disarm three traps in each room. The interface is elegantly designed so the video consumes the entire screen, with the controls and indicators overlaid along the edge. You'll enjoy some fine tongue-in-cheek acting performances and witness a few surprise plot twists. Still, I wish the video quality was a little clearer. Thomas Dolby provides a fine musical score but some of the sound effects can be grating. Sega once again dropped the ball with super-lame cover art showing Corey peering through a small keyhole. Double Switch is not for the weak of heart, requiring a serious time investment just to figure out what's going on. Progress comes slowly but the game does record high scores at least. If you enjoyed Night Trap you'll no doubt find this to be a worthwhile piece of 90's memorabilia. © Copyright 2020 The Video Game Critic.

I see this all the time - a game with crazy potential ruined by an outrageous difficulty level. A digitized 2D side-scroller, Dragon Heart features sharp digitized sprites, decent control, and well-designed stages with gorgeous scenery. The gameplay is old school at heart, consisting of jumping action interspersed with a series of one-on-one battles. The game's production values are beyond reproach, with fantastic backdrops and characters decked out in convincing medieval gear. The well-rendered scenery includes a mysterious forest, a rocky mountainside, a well-fortified castle, and a courtyard filled with impaled bodies. There's no shortage of gore as most enemies burst into fountains of blood when defeated. As the title implies, you'll face several dragons on your quest. Defeating a dragon earns you its respect, allowing you to summon it when you need a hand. Calling on a dragon (using the L button) initiates an impressive sequence where it flies in from the distance and proceeds to incinerate all enemies on the screen. Some stages let you "ride" dragons from a first-person perspective, but these FMV (full motion video) sequences feature minimal control and are mainly just eye candy. Dragon Heart's stages are relatively short and you can purchase supplies between them. Unfortunately, the difficulty level is far beyond what most gamers are willing to tolerate. Each enemy requires an inordinate number of hits to defeat, and your "endurance meter" drains with each swing of your sword. Trust me, nothing ruins a game like an endurance meter. To retain your stamina, you must play extremely conservatively, slashing only occasionally and blocking constantly. As an unfortunate side effect, the battles tend to go on forever and are often reduced to both warriors hunched down, slashing at each other's ankles. It's unintentionally comical. When you die, you're forced to exit to the main menu and reload, which is aggravating. After failing to make substantial progress the old-fashioned way, I resorted to my Gameshark cheat cartridge, which I used to equip my character with maximum armor and sword strength. This allowed me to play the game more like a traditional hack-and-slash, and it was far more fun, and allowing me to reach stages I would have never seen otherwise. Dragon Heart really does have a lot to offer, but most gamers will never know. © Copyright 2005 The Video Game Critic.

In the mid-90's I would drool over screenshots of Dungeons and Dragons Tower of Doom in the preview section of my favorite video game magazine. Unfortunately, that game never made it to the USA, and over the years I completely forgot about it. Then recently I discovered that the game was available as a Japanese import under the name of Dungeons and Dragons Collection. D&D Collection is a two-disk set that includes both Tower of Doom and its sequel, Shadow Over Mystaria. It doesn't come cheap though, costing up to $100 (or more) on Ebay. It's important to note that these games will not play on an American Saturn console without a special device. A Saturn Game Shark is all that's required to play Tower of Doom, but the second game requires a 4MB memory extension, which I found in the Action Replay 4M Plus cartridge. Is D&D Collection worth the investment? It's hard to say. Tower of Doom's sprite graphics are stunning, with huge monsters pulled straight from the D&D Monster Manual, including kobolds, troglodytes, ghouls, scorpions, ogres, and hell hounds. And just wait until you see that huge dragon! You can be a fighter, cleric, elf, or dwarf, and each has his/her own unique style of play. Lavishly illustrated scenery ranges from forests to caves to ghost ships. Best of all, the stages branch, providing more replay value than your typical side-scroller. An elegant orchestrated soundtrack complements the fine visuals. The action itself is basically hack-n-slash, but depending on your character class you may also have projectile attacks or spells. Responsive controls let you defend, jump, slide, crouch, and dash. The battles are fine, but the animation is a somewhat rough, and it can be hard to tell what's going on at times. It's fun to encounter new monsters, but when they start making return appearances later in the game, the action starts to wear a little thin. I enjoyed some of the fine graphical details, like how arrows break in half when they are blocked, or how a troll will dance around if you set it on fire. Tower of Doom's sequel, Shadow of Mystaria, further develops the same basic formula with extra characters (including a magic user and thief), a streamlined magic selection system, additional moves, and the ability to change characters when you continue. While most critics consider Mystaria to be much better, I found it to be somewhat boss-heavy. Some of the creatures have outrageous life bars and take forever to defeat. There's quite a bit of Japanese dialogue in these games, so much that it inspired me to want to learn Japanese. On the downside, both games feature an excessive number of load screens, and the unlimited continues remove most of the drama and suspense. D&D Collection is one of those odd games where its sum is less than its parts. I'm happy to have it in my game library, but to be honest it's not as fun to play as it looks. Still, if you're into 2D medieval combat games like Golden Axe (Genesis), you'll appreciate D&D Collection for what it is. © Copyright 2004 The Video Game Critic.

This ambitious sci-fi adventure was ahead of its time. Like the Alien film, you assume the role of a woman on a deserted space freighter. The first time I played Enemy Zero I was discouraged by its plodding pace and the fact I was moving in circles. Playing Alien Isolation (Playstation 4, 2014) rekindled my interest however since Enemy Zero is basically the same game circa 1997. Most rooms are pre-rendered, so when you push in a direction the first-person view smoothly transitions. Your movement is severely limited and sometimes you push in a direction and nothing happens. I learned to use the sound of my Saturn's spinning drive as an audible cue. You enter and exit rooms through airlocks, and watching these repetitive entry scenes is tiresome. You can move freely in hallways, ducts, and large rooms, and this is where encounters occur. Unfortunately the aliens are invisible which is remarkably lame. Your beeping motion detector alerts you when an alien is near, but not in what direction. You're armed with the most clumsy, worthless weapon ever devised. You must power it up at a charging station, and a single charge only holds two or three shots. To fire, you must energize your gun for a few seconds and release at precisely the right time. Why does everything have to be so complicated? It's bad enough I can't see what the [expletive] I'm shooting at! And don't get me started with these confusing stage layouts. Computer maps save you some heartache, but maps are not always available. To navigate the endless maze of ducts an FAQ actually advises you to draw your own map! It sounds crazy but my friend Scott and I actually tried to do it. After a while however we decided we didn't have the time nor patience. It's a shame because Enemy Zero is pretty scary! The atmosphere is ominous and your beeping tracker instills a sense of panic. The audio is understated but the voices and jarring sounds are effective. I was intrigued by the futuristic computer interfaces which look much like those of the present day. You can save your progress at any time, but your saves are limited (what?!) and that's the final straw. Enemy Zero should have been an epic space adventure but somebody overengineered all the fun out of it. © Copyright 2015 The Video Game Critic.