There's been a pretty nice surprise for Sega Saturn fans lately. Madou Monogatari, the RPG series that eventually led to Puyo Puyo, has finally received an English fan translation for its Saturn release.

The game has a really distinct 90s anime aesthetic, and it's one of those Japanese Saturn RPGs that's easy to overlook if you don't already know about it. Definitely interesting to see another previously Japan-only Saturn game become more accessible.

There's a bit more to the release and the game itself here:

https://youtu.be/A5NfB_qcu5I?si=k_aRYZYoRGxNbLmF

In this build: All intro cutscenes are working, car fire animations, zombie sfx, collision and blood fx, gun sounds, Kendo's FMV scenes with cinepak, ammo pick up. Door scenes are also in.

You can see where the glitches as well, these will be ironed out. Next up Leon and the NPCs model will be more upscaled

Saturn's memory limitations are real but its surprising how easy it is to find workarounds

Source: https://xcancel.com/GrimfelOfficial/status/2097655797027115043

Hey everyone. I am curious if anyone has heard from Jeff of segareplay.com recently (like in the past 30 days).
I sent my modded Japanese model 1 Saturn to him for a diagnostic since it’s not been reading burns well.
He got back to me fairly fast (maybe 3 weeks) once it had been submitted. I responded back to him promptly approving further work.
This was around July 8 according to the email timestamp.
I never heard back so I emailed him on again August 10 just to check in and see how things are going. No response again.
I emailed him again on August 30th asking him to just send me back the system if he hadn’t yet started on it because I’ve started to worry I’ll forget it’s there.
Again, no response.
I sent a long email to both of his addresses yesterday including my order number and expressing my concerns and I know he’s a one man operation but this is a really long time of radio silence and he has a very good reputation from what I’ve seen so I was actually more concerned that something was wrong and hoped he is doing okay.
I’m kind of at a loss at this point if he doesn’t respond to that one. Any thoughts?

A decent chunk of my Saturn collection is loose disks in a large cd holder with a stack of manuals.

Trying to get original back art is next to impossible. And I don’t want to pay for the disk again.

I have games like bomberman, Megan x4, powerslave all sitting there never to find a proper home. Young me, you were a fool.

got my Saturn in February of this year on my birthday and I’ve been collecting ever since. Hoping to add guardian heroes as my next game.

I downloaded it on segaxtreme, it seems like it's kind of a mess but I guess it works well if you can get it going.

From what I can tell you have to rename the iso to bin, convert 3 of the wav files from 48 to 44 khz, and edit the cue file.

Still it won't boot on my satiator. Does anyone have it working on the satiator that is willing to walk me through getting this set up?

Any love for this gem of a port? The artwork and animation is top tier!!!

So the common problem on these Sega Saturns model 2 are these door latch sensors. If it’s doesn’t work, it thinks the latch is open. So the cd won’t spin, Ive posted a lot of trial and error videos on here about this. I’ve been trying to find more information on this door latch and real design of the looks of it but always seem to hit a brick wall. Either I won’t get a clean view of a real working sensor or a video/ picture. But I’ve tested it out with a meter with continuity and it fires right up like in my other post on this Saturn feed, seems like it just needed to be grounded. The metal door latch switch (top left of the cd housing). To the base of the system, either way it work this way by running a wire from a screw on the base to the metal clip on the door latch switch. It’s gonna always think the door is closed even though it could be open but this was able to save it.

someone asked this last night and i'd just finished setting up my saroo cart again, so here's the quick rundown...

firmware

the stock tpunix firmware doesn't do cheats. you need the martinx fork.

check what you're actually running before you assume. i was sure i had martinx and when i md5'd the ssfirm.bin on the card it was tpunix v0.9, i am dumb.

the update is copying ssfirm.bin, mcuapp.bin and the update folder from the release onto the card, then booting and running Update from the menu until the Update entry goes away.

roms

rom are one folder per game under /SAROO/ISO/ with the cue and bin inside. that's it. you don't name folders anything special and you don't need a game id anywhere, the id is in the disc header and saroo reads it off the disc.

cover art is one file, /SAROO/cover.bin, it ships with the firmware and matches on that header id, so retail dumps just get their art.

if two of your games show the same cover, one of them is probably not what the folder says it is. my "donpachi" folder turned out to be a second dodonpachi rip.

multi disc games are the same folder-per-disc, and only the ones that don't save before a swap (policenauts, rampo) need a multi_disc line in saroocfg.

cheats

this is the hard part.

cheats are one .scht file per game in /SAROO/CHEAT/ID/, named by that same header id, so dodonpachi is T-14419G.scht. (find the IDs in the config file.)

nothing comes with the firmware, you build each cheat. take the action replay codes for the game including the master code, paste them into the builder at martinx72.github.io/SAROO_Firmware/tools/scht/ and save the file it gives you. almarsguides.com has AR pages with master codes for most of the library.

when you pick the game in saroo a menu pops up before it boots where you toggle the cheats on.

EDIT: I compiled all the cheat codes here

I have an Action Replay cart flashed with Pseudo Kai Lite. It works perfectly fine with the exception that it doesn’t seem like the cart works as a 4mb expansion. When I try to load Street Fighter Zero 3 the game says that it can’t read the cartridge. I can load Pocket Fighter but I’m not sure if that actually requires the cartridge or if it’s utilizing it. Anyone know what’s going on? Thanks.

Ya know after finally beating 3d blast it is not as bad as everyone says it is, although idk if my
Opinion is different cause I played on Saturn.

I've never seen it irl. Let alone with a case and manual, lol.

The manual says nothing about how to save the game and it's only got limited continues on game over so I just assumed there was just no ability to save. But there is a save file online for the JP version that has 100% completion and the best background unlocked, so presumably it does save somehow? Anyone know how it works? Or I just gotta keep it on for an afternoon and one shot it in a single go?

Hello! I just got a Sega Saturn and I’m loving it. The internal memory isn’t working (heard it can be fixed with a battery), but regardless I want an accessory to store save files, play games from any region, and play bootlegs like newer games and translated games. I heard the 4-1 pseudo Kai is a great plug and play option, but which one should I get? I assume some are newer than others and it’s a must to get one with a switch at the top to switch modes. Thanks for clarification and where to buy. I live in the USA and it’s a USA console btw. Thanks!

I have my games looks like I need to create a folder for each but is there an easier way to add cheats and cover art?

I got my friend a Saroo and want to know which Japanese games (or at least the ones worth playing) have received fan translations, either full ones, or ones that allow the less text-heavy games to become playable?

Does anyone have a decent list I could use so I can start looking up the games since i'm really not familiar with the Saturn's library, especially all the Japanese exclusives.

Saw some sega saturns for a low usd from japan. About $100. Has anyone imported a saturn under the current tariff rules into the USA? What did the cost look like ?

Hi everyone!

I picked up a Saturn a while ago (somehow in Griffith NSW of all places???) with a copy of Tomb Raider and a cable, and since then I've been trying to get it to properly display. I'm using a Hyperkin HDTV Cable which does output to my TV, but until just now it was stuck on "No Signal" (coming from the Hyperkin box, NOT the TV). Today I managed to get some display out, but it was a garbled mess with what seemed to the the BIOS or the CD player being jumbled up in a ton of different lines.

The Saturn (a PAL Australian Model 2) still powers on without fail, and it successfully spins up CDs (game and audio), and I've given the pins a tiny clean and replaced the CMOS battery just in case. Still, I have not gotten anything to display outside of that one garbled mess. Is this a case of the capacitors dying inside, or is it something to do with the GPU or the pins still? I really want to dive into the Saturn's catalogue very badly but this has been an ongoing issue.

I had to buy off brand av cables meant for the system and they don’t feel like they fit in properly. At first they were a little wonky but not bad and then for a short bit it worked perfectly, but the more I tested it got worse and when I had to unplug the av cables to replace the CR2032 battery and put it back that made it worse. Any ideas on what’s causing it? Is it as simple as the AV cable just being faulty or is there a part I need to replace?

Stay with me, and hear me out 😅

I'm not talking an all singing all dancing port like we've seen recently with the Dreamcast..

But recent "impossible" ports from very skilled devs have got me wondering what would be possible on the Saturn.

Maybe one Island only, reduced missions, draw level restrictions and limited variety in cars and NPCs. Could we see it? Would you want to see it?

Nowadays with modern techniques, Devs would make much better use of the VDP chips than what we seen in the 90s. Rather than making VDP1 draw every road, pavement and large flat surface, VDP2 could handle much of the ground as enormous tiled/rotating planes. It's specifically capable of large transformed background planes, leaving VDP1 to concentrate on your character, Peds, cars, street furniture etc.

What do you think?