Martin, on 23 December 2013 - 10:27 AM, said:
Great thread! Here's my two cents.
-The fifth generation of consoles was the greatest one of all. It was the last hoorah of an era where each competing console was seriously diofferent to it's competitors. These days, there's naught but trivial differences between consoles. This started with the sixth generation, but ah.. the SEGA Saturn.. the Nintendo 64 (my favorite console of all time)... and the original PlayStation. Such amazing consoles, each with pretty unique libraries, showing off what each machine could do.
PlayStation?
Fifth Gen is horribly underrated though.
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The Saturn being the 2D powerhouse, with surprising polygonal-quality in the right hands (check out Burning Rangers). Street Fighter and other 2D arcade conversions were incredible on this machine, and due to SEGA's domination in the arcade industry of that time, the Saturn often also saw ports of many 3D arcade games it was less suited to. I have very fond memories of playing Virtua Cop at a friend's house. I was so jealous I couldn't get it on PlayStation (later releaved by the awesome PSone port of Time Crisis!). SEGA's arcade peripherals were also very good. Come to think of it, the Saturn had a lot of quality extras like the lightgun, the NiGHTS controller (basically a prototype Dreamcast controller) and the arcade racing wheel for SEGA Rally.
Most underrated system ever. The new power supply came for mine in the mail today. I can't wait to install it. Daddy needs his Capcom fighters.
Saturn games aged better than any other fifth gen system, due to Sega's superior programmers and designers for the 3D games, and better hardware for 2D stuff. Speaking of better hardware...the Model 2 controller. HOLY SHIT IT'S THE GREATEST CONTROLLER EVER MADE.
It's also insanely expensive to collect for - only the Neo Geo AES is pricier.
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The N64 being a revelation in 3D control, with amazing graphics at the time. Nintendo were slated for sticking with cartridges, but I'm glad they did. Sure it made the games really expensive, and of course the meager storage capacities of the carts were a big challenge, but the disc drives of the mid-90s weren't all that. Nintendo and others capitalized on this as much as humanly possible, and later on in the console's life the limited storage space of the carts was being circumvented by clever developers anyway, in addition to using the carts as slow RAM, amongst other tricks. Had it gone with CD-ROMs, I don't think games like Zelda or GoldenEye would have been possible. As of today, it also makes the machine a delight to own and collect for, since cartridges are more robust to wear and tear and general ageing compared to CDs. 15 year-old PSone or Saturn discs are usually replete with scratches and such.
Best Nintendo system ever. They were at their creative peak and the hardware, despite being crippled and annoying to work with, was much better for 3D. It was my fifth generation choice back in the day. Only the Genesis and Dreamcast are better.
I absolutely cherish mine. It's the only system not made by Sega I've ever exalted.
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Then of course, the venerable PlayStation. Sony got it right first time. It had good 3D performance for the time (better than Saturn, not as good as N64), and could hold its own in the 2D sprite realm. I think this was crucial to the PlayStation's success, the fact that it produced better 3D graphics than its rival Saturn at launch (N64 wouldn't be available for a year or so). This was the dawn of the polygon era in gaming, and that's what people wanted to see. Out of the three consoles in question, this was the one you were most likely to have sitting under your television (at least here in the UK). This was without a doubt the most popular of the three, worldwide. This earned it an absolutely massive game library. If you had a PSone, you had a lot of software to choose from!
Fuck the PlayStation. It's 3D games are utter crap and the 2D titles can't hold their own, with the exception of that Castlevania game that got a botched Saturn port.
Comparing 2D games is painful between the two. The PlayStations weak sprite capabilities and non upgradeable RAM fucked it hard. You can't even tag team on the Capcom VS. games!
I loved it at the time, despite not owning one in it's heyday. Now, it's dogshit. The games have aged horribly. The reverse happened with the Saturn - hated it when young, revered it when old.
Also, the controller is shit.
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All three machines have examples of truly groundbreaking games, which were very different to each other. There's literally no point in owning a 360 and PS3, or Xbox One and PS4. They're just too similar. You weren't getting anything like Majora's Mask on PSone. Just wasn't possible. Likewise, you weren't getting anything like Final Fantasy VII on N64. Just wasn't possible. What a great time to be a gamer.
This I can agree with. All three fifth gen systems are unique. PS1 has the most variety. N64 has the most groundbreaking titles. Saturn is the best system for hardcore gamers with a ton of cash to burn. It was 2D gaming's last hurrah.