The Best Ever

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It has been a few years since the “death” of the Sega Saturn, and I found it a good time to reflect on the state of Sega, as well as take a retrospective look on everyones favorite (or not) 32-bit system.

A little background here,.. I got the Sega Saturn for Christmas of 96(?), the year the 3-free promotion was running. I was initially enthralled with the Ultra 64, so much so that I actually held SGI stock anticipating the new Nintendo system to sell millions and millions…Luckily I dumped that soon after buying, made a profit, and dont have to jump out a window because of SGI’s stock price today .. but back to my affair with Sega…

I was still a Nintendo64 lover when I went to Hades Haunted House in Villa Park, IL.. (The largest haunted house in the country!) on the way out of the haunted house, sega had a setup to display the saturn.. this is where I played “NiGHTS.. into dreams” for the first time.. It was an experience i can remember vividly to this day, and I immediately was in love.. That christmas I got the Sega Saturn.. (I also got alot of NiGHTS playtime in at various kiosks around Chicagoland when christmas shopping with the family)..

I was then what you’d call, a Sega freak. If anyone remembers the AOL screenname “YujiNaka”, that was me.. Sitting in the videogame lounge all night, reading Saturnworld.com and sega-saturn.com throughout the day.. It was sick.

But .. it was one of the funnest times, and the best time I have ever had with a video game system.

Anyone else run to the mall to get the new Next-Generation because of the Christmas Nights demo? I am sure lots of us did. Ditching school to read the e3 updates (Sonic R! woohoo!) …

Goodness, Sega Saturn was and continues to be my favorite system ever.

On spring break from school this week (Go Illini!) , I have been heavily investing time into Burning Rangers.. It seems whenever I come home, I play my Saturn more than I ever play my Dreamcast back at school.. Sure, Sonic Adventure, Phantasy Star Online, Quake 3 Arena (w/ BBA), etc etc are AWESOME games.. but cmon.. they dont have the same magic to them as the Saturn did.. maybe the fact that Dreamcast was at least somewhat successful makes me resent the games somewhat.. but I just cant find the same magic in Crazy Taxi as I can in the original Sega Rally. Sonic Adventure does well, but cant topple NiGHTS. And Phantasy Star, while AWESOME,… I’d still rather be locked in a room with Burning Rangers trying to rescue Sonic Team members!

*BUT*, I do see a bit of light at the end of the tunnel..

I think us Sega-freaks could see one last time of glory.

Now that the Dreamcast is on the way, out, there will be alot of games coming out as exclusives that will have small distribution, and will no doubt be classics for years to come.. Jet Grind Radio 2, Phantasy Star Online 2, Shenmue 2, …while not limited to 6000 as Panzer Saga, I am sure that coming across some of these last Dreamcast games will be hard eventually.. So dont hesitate to buy them on arrival!

Thanks for reading my nostalgic rant,

Long Live Sega!

-James

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