Battle Arena Toshinden URA - Sega Saturn Review

Sega doing the most Sega thing, ever. Releasing a game nobody asked for.
I'm now on Patreon! Help support the channel.
/ segalordx
Check out my Sega Lord X merchandise page!
segalordx.thre...
If you would like to support the channel directly:
www.paypal.me/...
Head over to Facebook to hear me ramble about various things:
/ segalordx
I'm now on Twitter!
/ sega_lord_x
Opening "Sega" jingle is from Astal for the Sega Saturn.
Ending Music during the credits is from Batman for the Sega Genesis.
SLX Logo
By: Jan Neves
KZbin Page - / jan3d
Intro by Evan S.
portfolio.tses...
Outro Animation by Kevin Bhall
KZbin Page - / nigh11
Episode Notes:
1. All footage from real hardware.
2. The Saturn URA has a number of stage redesigns, a different story, 5 new characters, 3 missing characters, and different details on many of the fighters.
3. The image quality in this game is very strange. It looks both high rez and low rez at the same time. The screen has that interlaced look of using the 704x480 mode of the Saturn, but everything looks kinda pixely and blurry.

[@ragingraven7915]

Sega and making terrible decisions in the 90s, an iconic duo.

[@OhKayEl]

Making a Street Fighter clone worked for SNK tho... It's the execution that's bad.

[@Cade_The_Squirrel]

SEGA of America*

[@ailaxl]

In truth it was both Japan’s STI and Sega of America that made terrible decisions lol

[@avalond1193]

Mid 90s during the 32 bit era

[@avalond1193]

​​@@Cade_The_Squirrel what could they do? They were told not to create eternal champions 3 which was popular in the u.s. and Sega Japan was blocking them from bringing games from Japan like X-Men vs street fighter

[@Canadian_Gamer]

This game was a technical showpiece on the PS1 back in the day.

[@joaopires1761]

You mean the original one, I presume? URA was never on the PS1.

[@budgiecat9039]

@@joaopires1761 Yeah. You know what's interesting about BAT series: To my knowledge, despite it being lackluster in some parts compared to the big ones (Tekken, Virtua Fighter, Soul Blade, Dead or Alive), it pioneered three major things in video games: It was the first 3D weapons based fighter It was the first 3D fighting game to be in actual 3D due to the dive roll mechanic. It was also the first console game(BAT3) to feature graphics vs performance options (choice of playing with background textures at 30fps, or without background textures at 60fps) So it innovated these three aspects.

[@EveUnknown]

My aunt and uncle got me this for Christmas one year. I was so excited to give it a spin, I loved fighting games more than anything back then, having been spoiled with Virtua Fighter and especially Fighting Vipers when I first got my Saturn, then later experiencing VF2 and my all time favourite Saturn game Fighters Megamix. All the characters looked so cool to me on the fighter select screen, I was sure I was in for a great time... then I played it. I was difficult to disappoint when it came to fighting games ~25 years ago, but this one sure managed. I still have fond memories of playing it but solely for nostalgic reasons, I can't say it's one I'd ever go back to.

[@joaopires1761]

This could be about nostalgia and the fact there weren't many alternatives I could understand back then, but Toshinden URA is a large part of my childhood. Sure gameplay's got its quirks, but the game had brilliant visuals, AMAZING music, and was generally fun to play.

[@ICAMPR]

You sound like a true sega lord. I feel the same. Not all the games have to shine in graphics and whate evrybody expects from them. The game hours we had with it and the experiece the sega saturn gave us during that first generation of virtual games was a great experience to all of us True sega fans.

[@Pally356]

If it makes you feel better, I also used to love the TOshinden series. I absolutely loved this game and Remix, and heck I even had a sweet spot for the anime that came out.

[@goranisacson2502]

As someone who played this game back then (but on playstation) I agree that Toshinden had an amazing sound track and aweinspiring visuals (for the time)... but once I had Soul Blade, in terms of gameplay? I did not look back. I can't really disagree with anything Sega Lord has to say about the gameplay, unfortunately.

[@budgiecat9039]

9:00 haha one good thing about URA over the original BAT 2, is Sofia stage got fixed. No longer does it have the epilepsy seizure inducing brightly lit dance floor the PS1/arcade version had. It's been significantly toned down thankfully. Funny thing: I was watching on KZbin, a Battle Arena Toshinden 2 tournament held yearly in Finland. They use the original Arcade cabinet that Capcom has published. Whenever Sofia's stage would come up they'd just reset the match because that stage is banned from competition 😂 Anywho, I actually prefer URA over BAT2. The graphics may not be as clean, and Ripper and Ronron are crappy new characters (shoulda kept Uranus and Master and carried over Cupido from BAT Remix instead imo), but the gameplay feels tighter and more responsive and faster imo. For instance, the dodge roll mechanic in BAT 2 is slower than it was in the first game on PS1/Remix on Saturn. It's. Dry sluggish. But in URA, they sped it back up. and I prefer Sofia to have a black outfit like the first game

[@joaopires1761]

@@budgiecat9039 fun fact: they swapped Sofia's themes over. BAT2's Round 1 theme plays on URA's Round 2, and viceversa. Yeah, I remember checking those Finnish tournaments out! I once asked one of the guys why not URA instead of 2, and the reply was that it's objectively worse. 😅 By the way... I love Ripper. The mysterious metalhead badass trope resonated with me back in the day, and he also had character i.e. his throw.

[@85futureshock]

That BAT2 Eiji theme is amazing.

[@MetaSynForYourSoul]

I loved this game back in the day but the more i think about it the more i realize that it was probably that my friends would play it with me cuz they had a decent chance at winning due to the fact that you could pull off Special moves with 1 button and super moves with 2. Also there were 6 codes you could put on before the game starts which gives you the last 4 roster characters so you don't gotta unlock em and allow you access to 2 secret menus with all kinds of special effects for stages and your characters and stuff. I made my own 2 secret modes: 1 called "Shadow Mode" where it made all the characters black and white and the move effects transparent, and the other was "Gold Mode" where three characters were gold and black and it made the effects gigantic. That was kinda hard to play on cuz even though the effects were bigger, the hit boxes were the same. It was the first game i ever bought for my Saturn after i got it for Christmas. I remember it was because i was at Media Play and their Saturn display had this game in it. And because the specials were mapped to a button, it was so easy to play. It was the first time I'd ever gotten to play a Toshinden game. I saw it in magazines all the time showcasing moves and such, but no arcade around me invested in a cabinet. But there was one time, for about 2 months, the Walmart had gotten the Toshinden2 cab and i played it then. It was switched for Marvel Super Heroes i believe. This series i kinda want it to come back. It's only claim to fame is the pioneering of the sidestep manuver. But i believe it was also the first 3D Tag fighter with Toshinden 4. And completely enclosed stages with a usable ceiling.

[@ZayAlexander420]

Battle Arena Toshinden was my first playstation game in a bundle holidays 1996. It aged but the memories. Plus that soundtrack still holds up.

[@danielengel4593]

The soundtrack was simply amazing, Kayin (if the Toshinden 2 theme from the PS1 version) and Ellis stage were my favorites. I listen to them from time to time and everytime I get goosebumps.

[@matthewbarrios1028]

I still have my original copy of Remix and actually really like it. I feel the camera is a little smoother than on the PS1. The textures don't bother me because, regardless of the opinion at that time, they didn't look that great on PS1. Street Fighter vs xmen still plays and looks way better anyway. I appreciated that Sega wanted this franchise on the Saturn and I loved playing it.

[@budgiecat9039]

The gameplay on Remix is tighter than the PS1 version, and URA's game speed is faster than Toshinden 2 PS1 especially the dodge rolls

[@TexasHollowEarth]

Love Toshinden 1 and 2. Excellent character designs and phenomenal soundtracks! 😎👍

[@KayinGD]

100% correct opinion here. Was just listening to the soundtracks yesterday, and good memories came flooding back. Also, look up 'first turn around' for penny racers. Very similar music to that found in the Toshinden games, by the same company.

[@joaopires1761]

Fully agreed. The soundtracks are BRILLIANT.

[@naliboi93]

Toshinden 3 soundtrack is up there as one of my favourite soundtracks (we don't try not to talk about the gameplay much 😶... but the secret characters are fun to use and their portrait tiles fill up the character select screen very aesthetically).

[@FolkerHQ]

Played it on DOS back then. Was overwelmed with all the options of SEGA MegaDrive + 32x + SEGA CD, Playstation and Saturn, ... so I never had any of these consoles and tried to get the best out of a 80486 with 66 MHz an about 10 MB of RAN. Later got a 2x CD Drive and played the Demo of Tomb Raider 1 as well. I had to scale everything down to somehow get it playable.

[@eamonokane2469]

I actually really like them music samples you played, has real 80s metal and 80s action movie vibes

[@DesertRainReads]

Definitely, always enjoyed the music, especially from Toshinden 2.

[@MoonScythe1]

Yeah, he missed the ball here. The music in Toshinden 2 is fantastic.

[@heilong79]

@@MoonScythe1 I would say some of the most memoriable of that generation.

[@captainsigismund6449]

Sega Lord X, I picked up a near mint copy of Panzer Dragoon for my Saturn for cheap the other weekend. Thanks for the recommendation, it has been a blast to play.

[@SegaLordX]

It's one of that generations best.

[@cognoggingames]

Loved the video. That music track posted actually seems like kind of a banger, though. I was inclined to look it up after listening to that section at 8:00 (it's the Eiji theme if anyone else is curious).

[@DesertRainReads]

Toshinden 2 has an excellent soundtrack, better than the first one all around. Just sucks this version got the shaft.

[@adamokon358]

Although I only know the Playstation versions, it was always strange for me, that the B A T games never appeared in the Playstation Store (at least in Europe). The games are no Soul Calibur for sure, But Battle Arena Toshinden 1 was the reason, why I wanted a Playstation.

[@JT-iw3dp]

I understand that these things are subjective, but I must also speak up in defense of the toshinden 2/URA OST. It stands out as one of my favorite soundtracks of any era; I have several of the tracks on my special Playlist for grading papers. The Rungo, Ellis, and Chaos (Tracy in URA) themes are absolutely stellar. But hey, if we all agreed on everything, life would be boring.

[@bjraleigh1439]

toshinden was the first title i ever saw running on the playstation. Quite the looker at the time of release.

[@CrawlingPanther]

I really enjoy and appreciate all your Saturn videos. I just picked up a Saturn on my most recent trip to Japan and your videos have been a huge help. This was one of my favorite series on Playstation growing up.

[@PaperBanjo64]

Are Saturn games reasonably priced in Japan?

[@AssaulteedOne]

As long as you're not buying the rarest schmups (like Radiant Silvergun), you can get a lot of Saturn titles for reasonable prices if you shop around. Got Japanese Guardian Heroes for 4,000yen, Sega Rally for 500yen, and lots of others within the last year when I was there too.

[@CrawlingPanther]

Guess my second reply did not show up. Yes aside from the really rare games it's very easy to find good deals on Saturn games. The Saturn I got itself was about $80 and came boxed with manual and cables still sealed inside. I don't think it was ever used, but I seemed to luck out with that price compared to other models I saw.

[@gotsu87]

Man I gotta say I loved this series I grew up on the first toshinden and was fun to me and I played it single player for the most of the time the soundtrack is excellent I really enjoy it I still listen to it often playing URA felt like it was all over the place and I still pefer playing the first one dispite it being clunky but I was 8 at the time and have fond memories of it to this day

[@lazarushernandez5827]

Battle Arena Toshinden was a pretty cool first generation Playstation game. It's controls were of the Street Fighter 2 variety with some extra commands for 3d motion. It was pretty easy to pick up and play, and scratched that Street Fighter itch for a bit. I knew of the Saturn versions, but Sega's Virtua Fighters, Fighting Vipers, Fighters Megamix as well as Tecmo's Dead or Alive (imported that last one) kept me busy on the Saturn side.

[@budgiecat9039]

No Last Bronx??

[@lazarushernandez5827]

@@budgiecat9039 I never picked that one up🥴

[@budgiecat9039]

@@lazarushernandez5827 nooooooooo You messed up! VF2 Fighters Megamix Fighting Vipers (JPN version) Last Bronx Dead or Alive These were the top 5 3D fighters on the Saturn hands down. And the three must have RPGs were Shining The Holy Ark Panzer Dragoon Saga Magic Knight Rayearth And the top racers were Daytona USA Sega Rally Gale Racer And the top underrated 2D fighters were Groove on Fight Astral Superstars

[@mattb6522]

Good review! I completely forgot about the Battle Arena Toshinden series. I played some of them way back in the day and they always felt completely lackluster even then. I think the only reason it gained any attention was that it was one of the first 3D fighting games to hit the market during the mid '90s. As time went on, it had stiff competition from dozens of much better 3D fighting games and just couldn't compete.

[@mrbransformer4184]

i LOVED this game. my friends used to come over and play all the time. i was the coolest kid.

[@SegaLordX]

It's significantly better in multiplayer.

[@davidt3563]

I loved Toshinden back in the day. I had it on both consoles and the VHS OVA.

[@ENiceGeo]

Oof, the OVA. Even Toshinden fans wince at that one.

[@davidt3563]

@@ENiceGeo It's on KZbin. I rewatched it again and it held up better than I thought it would. It made me super nostalgic though, back when I had to hunt down VHS tapes from an Asian goods store. I used to pay upfront to have her order the tapes from Japan.

[@harrymasonsm]

The game may not be worth that much, but that intro for it for some reason just locks me in as awesome. 😅

[@Mde7FPV]

I was a huge fan of the series back then. I never thought those were bad games. But to be honest, the games did not aged very well.

[@jocothemen]

Really really love your work and the attention you put on your content. Please keep giving us more Sega nostalgia! A big hug from Portugal 🇵🇹👍💪

[@SegaLordX]

Thank you for the kind comment. Really appreciate it.

[@enriquepinero707]

I was literally playing all versions of these games yesterday, because of how much I love the soundtracks. Gameplay is pretty fun in a jerky kind of way, but is notably better on playsation. But as you say; there are far better fighters on each of the respective platforms at the time, but this was the first on the playsation and it gets nostalgia points.

[@gamingtherapy7587]

Loved this game and will like to play it again

[@parazels83]

It's always so pleasant to watch the straight Saturn's textures after shitty textures on PS1!

[@Pythoner]

was always curious about this one. Thanks Sega Lord X, you got me covered.

[@m.i.smithology]

The music on the playstation though...... Woohoooo...... 🤣👍

[@Ratchetcomand]

Good job. I would love to see you review the Street Figther EX games one day.

[@umbrellacorp.]

I loved Battle Arena Toshinden for the PS1 back then but I never saw one for the Sega Saturn. 🤔

[@tomstorm255]

Anyone else prefer the excellent Game Boy Toshinden over any of the 3D ones? That game was great.

[@megamix5403]

I second this.

[@joesshows6793]

This was pretty good for PlayStation

[@Computerguy81]

Battle Arena Toshinden was one fighting game series i never got around to playing. I need to finally give it a chance one day.

[@Kaido_928]

Better try the ps1 versions honestly

[@michaeldietz2648]

Great review but I disagreed with you on the soundtrack, I love this game soundtrack!!! I still listen to it to this day

[@KayinGD]

Man, I loved this series. Mainly because of the characters, soundtrack and overall vibe it had. Some of these stages were damn cool to boot - I'm a sucker for stupidly high deathtraps to fight on, and Toshinden had them in spades. It did drive me nuts in the second game how the soundtrack would quit and restart from the beginning of each track after every round. Such a weird choice.

[@ENiceGeo]

Very weird thing to do, especially because usually in the last minute the track the music would change into something different than what you heard for the first two minute loops. You'd never get to hear this unless you set infinite time or played it in a cd player. URA kept his track restarting but it's music tracks cut off the last minute completely for all the music it brought over.

[@KayinGD]

@@ENiceGeo Yeah, it's super weird. I remember hoping Plus had fixed it, but no such luck. Annoying as some of the tracks are superb.

[@irkalla100]

It was the only Toshinden I could play. I loved it lol I was a kid at the time and haven't tried since.

[@roguerifter9724]

I never played the Saturn version but the PS1 version of Toshinden 1 and Bloody Roar 1 are probably the PS1 fighting games I spent the most time playing. A friend had the PS1 version and cousing had Bloody Roar then I got copies later.

[@Yojimbo8]

The best version of Battle Arena Toshinden is actually on the Game Boy.

[@simonrobinson1566]

The SS was missing flashy weapons based fighters like Tekken and Toshinden, so it's a shame neither port was much cop. Some of the backgrounds here show some nice bits of imagination, but it never really gets off the ground.

[@Prizrak-hv6qk]

Tekken was not a weapons based fighting. From what I recall, Namco was thoroughly in bed with Sony. BTW, Last Bronx is a really good weapons based fighter on the Saturn.

[@Hektols]

@@Prizrak-hv6qk Unfortunately Last Bronx was like most arcade ports for Saturn and barely had new content in comparison with the arcade, unlike Namco's arcade ports for the PS1.

[@Prizrak-hv6qk]

@@Hektols I agree. Sega kind of failed to realize that people were starting to expect more than just straight up arcade ports. Heck, during the Dreamcast days, people were losing interest in arcade styles games period, expecting deeper experiences on home consoles, while Sega was still all about the straight up arcade ports. Then again, while I appreciate what Namco did with Tekken and Soul Edge ports, with the CGI intros/ending, extra game modes, costumes, etc, I honestly don't remember ever investing any time in those extra things. Mostly just played the regular 1P mode and VS with friends. Never liked Fighting Vipers but definitely had a lot of fun with the VF series and Last Bronx.

[@tec5x5]

Aw I like URA though and the first 2 BATs on the PS1 BAT 3 is the one that suffers the most

[@Hektols]

When the Saturn was released one of it's selling points (according to Sega) was that it would have hundreds of third party games and Sega's exclusive games while the PS1 only would have third party games (Sony was not yet first party developer it is today), Toshinden was both the PS1's first fighting game and the game that humiliated the Saturn's poor Virtua Fighter port in graphics, it's one of the games that led to many users to choose of the newcomer Sony's console over the veteran Sega's console so it's understable that they wanted to get the franchise and show that they can do it better (unfortunately they couldn't) This game is another good example of the main problem of the Saturn, only Sega and very few companies could properly exploit it's 3D graphic potential.

[@Zahir658]

I like the character design on the Saturn though.

[@Jokerwolf666]

They had the opportunity to go in the other direction and make a superfluid hand-drawn animation style since the Saturn was so good at handling 2D. Imagine if it had looked more like a samurai shodown with tons of background things going on

[@eponymous7910]

The NA market didn't want anything to do with 2d in that era unfortunately. It would've been savaged by the gaming press

[@jamesburchill7522]

URA was the first Toshinden game that didn't feel like it was playing under water, or on the moon. While it wasn't my favorite, it did it better than the PS1 version. They of course, made concessions to make it run this fast. I see what you are trying to say here. However URA played better than 2. Comparing it to Sega's arcade ports, is silly

[@ENiceGeo]

Definitely played better than Tsd 2. The overdrive meter doesn't seesaw like crazy and the matches don't end in 5 seconds. Unfortunately the AI plays worse and provides no real challenge.

[@mercster]

Heh... Battle Arena Toshinden is actually the first 3D fighter I ever played, on a relatively weak PC. The graphics were worse than this and it ran at about 5fps 😂 But I enjoyed it cuz I was easily amused, as I guess we all were as younguns. Thanks.

[@NEONTRASHPRODUCTIONS]

I’m probably in the minority here (the vast minority I’m sure!) but honestly…I was actually a fan of this incarnation of the game. In my opinion it ran faster than the earlier incarnations and it had a weird, dark, Sci-Fi vibe to it. Also, the secret characters were extra cool too if I remember correctly. I would love to see some of these more obscure “old school” games for the CD based consoles get some love in the form of affordable app options on systems like the PS4 and PS5.

[@goranisacson2502]

Toshinden- early to the playing field, but left behind by pretty much all of it's competitors. I was a little surprised to find so many people nostalgic for it in this comment section, but I can't deny that it has an aesthetique that helps it dig it's claws into people- not just the graphics, but also the music and the general atmosphere of it all. This was a pretty sluggish game and other 3D titles played better, but even so.... it can't be denied that it struck a nerve. Pity that Tamsoft couldn't make it grow, but I wonder if there's ever a world where they could've honestly competed with Namco, Virtua Fighter, or even DOA....

[@mikemadsen7926]

When this game came out I finally switched over from a 2d Sega to the saturn this and virtua fighter were my 1st 3d experience and I loved it

[@Carsonj13]

Oh, SLX, you might THINK your work is done with this series but you've yet to review D Xhird!

[@registereduser]

New outro :D

[@stargazerlaurent6780]

I liked it back in the day

[@ottagol1985]

Yeesh, poor RonRon. This nerdy little cutie got lambasted by the gaming mags of the day.

[@akumajobelmont]

I have a really soft spot for this game. I actually like the gameplay. The Story Mode was fun too. But I have to completely disagree with you about the music - almost all of it is 100% memorable, with high production values and awesome melodies.

[@cartmann94]

I remember magazines at the time saying that the URA stood for Ugly, Repetitive and Awful.

[@projectmayhem6898]

Thanks!

[@SegaLordX]

Really appreciate the support, my friend. Means a lot.

[@garrynorth6269]

Would love to hear your thoughts on the fan made turbo outrun reimagined game.

[@J.Crooner]

Clearly Battle Arena Toshinden URA was meant to be a Sega 32x game that they tried to pass off as a legit Saturn title and it backfired. Between 1994-1996 Sega was in a for certain frenzy mode on what to do next to stay afloat in the video game market. In order for them to had remained in 1st place they would of have to had scratched the 32x and Saturn projects from the beginning and debuted the Sega Dreamcast in 1996 instead of 1998 with the launch of the N64. Had Sega chosen to do that Sony's Playstation would of been derailed from history.🙏

[@Sensei.shonuff]

I didnt know toshinden came out for saturn i haf it for playstation didnt matter if it was trash During the transition from 2d to 3d alot of ppl including myself just played cuz we were in awe of the graphics

[@MoonScythe1]

Spot on with the visuals and gameplay for this game in your review. But you are way off about the soundtrack. This game has one of the best soundtracks in a fighting game for the time, and hell, still holds up to this day.

[@SomeOrangeCat]

Sometimes it feels like Sega was actively *trying* destroy themselves.

[@britneyspearsvillarosa]

I love Battle Arena Toshinden 2 on PS1

[@fazares]

Come on..the ost is the only thing no one can bash about.... any toshinden....period....it's phenomenal!

[@ENiceGeo]

Except maybe the music for third game.

[@SegaLordX]

I didn't bash it. I said it was nothing special. Mostly generic rock you got in any game back then.

[@mojo-eq4ln]

👍🏾 Great review, now review D-Xhird for Saturn 😂

[@ENiceGeo]

The tech demo of a game doing things said to be impossible on the Saturn.

[@Captofthisship]

Noted. The first time I played Battle Arena, it was on the Saturn. Remembering how terrible that game was, I never even wanted to try the PS1 version. I'm gonna check that one out now, thank you, sir.

[@DieselJT]

This looks like a awesome Saturn pick up to me....

[@SegaLordX]

If you enjoy Toshinden, you should enjoy it.

[@punchabunchabuttons]

whaaa?! unless they're different from the psx ones, this game has some awesome gems in music. Im a trucker and I literally have some tunes in my phone right now just to listen on the road. From BAT 2 : Credits/Ellis/Kayin/Sho/Sofia From BAT 1: Duke/ Ellis/Sophia.... I also recognize it has other bangers to like Kayin or Mondo in Bat1, its not my type but i definitely recognize the feel and personality they gave the characters with music alone... I couldn't disagree with you more on the music department. If there is one thing that got better with time like a fine wine on this game, brother it is the music.

[@ENiceGeo]

With the exception of the new characters, the music in URA is the same as the music in Tsd 2, except for some reason all the tracks have the last minute trimmed off.

[@germantorre1422]

URA has better and faster gameplay than any other verdion.

[@petergrimm1776]

Could you do a Virtual On review? I remember having it but don't remember much about it.

[@RetroGamesBoy78]

I picked this up several years ago, played it for 20 mins then put it in the drawer, and there it sat for years, then maybe a year or so ago, looking through all my Japanese titles, i come across URA again, "I've hardly played this, lets boot it up again" ...... after a couple or rounds "arhhh, now i remember why its sat there in the back of the drawer for so long!" 👌

[@felman87]

Toshinden was fun but it's definitely an early 90s game and porting it over to the Saturn didn't make a whole lot of sense considering it would release in 1996. By this point Virtual Fighter 2 had been out for almost a whole year.

[@platinumd1]

I still have that game. Is there a way to fix Sega Saturn games? A few of mine have minor scratches and "freeze" sometimes.

[@eponymous7910]

I always viewed Toshinden as a glorified tech demo for the psx, it was a very limited game in many ways but man did it look good

[@MagisterHamid]

Exactly! It was a shallow game in a beautiful shell.

[@ENiceGeo]

It was a tech demo for the Saturn as well. The problem for Remix was it was just highlighting the difficulty in pulling off PSX graphic effects on a Saturn. As for URA, I don't think they were given enough development time to make it look better. The hidden options shows that they were working on stuff that didn't make it for the main game.

[@Dorelaxen]

When GamePro didn't like something, you knew it was bad. They liked EVERYTHING.

[@yenk82]

I’ve never expecting you to cover this average fighting game but I’m positively surprised 😊 I own the Japanese version but I’ve played the PAL one back in 1997, it was a great disappointment! Italian videogame magazines gave it good/very good scores (Mega Console 89%, Game Power 80%) and none of them mentioned the broken AI when you play against the CPU. Hi-res graphic is only about the energy bars, animations are strange, fireball effects are pixelated like a 8-bit game, music is not bad but it stops at the end of each round and we cannot appreciate any track. It would be amazing if you could review “D-Xhird”, another Takara fighting game that was never released outside Japan: it was the lowest point on Saturn

[@baxterwilson368]

I played this first on PlayStation (had to rent the system from Blockbuster) and Saturn (my native system). I was really disappointed with the graphics. I have the PlayStation mini, which includes this game, so that’s a great nostalgia trip.

[@CousinHubertRetrogaming]

Hi! great video as always! this is not U.R.A. but "ura" 裏, meaning behind, backside, alternate, underground... you get the meaning 🙃

[@SomeOrangeCat]

Or in this case: ASS! /james rolfe

[@masrrr]

Mighty max holidays.

[@samghost13]

90's at it's best! I love that game! We had the PS game Is the Saturn one really that bad?

[@ENiceGeo]

Toshinden Remix plays slower than the PSX counterpart. URA fixes up some issues with the game play found in Tsd 2. The overdrive meter doesn't buildup absurdly fast and damage seems reduced, so matches last longer but the AI is brain dead.

[@rancid_]

I was so sad when this game landed on the Saturn, it was the fuel my PlayStation friends needed to make me feel like shit for buying the console.

[@GTONeko]

Yeah, BAT 2 in general was a mixed bag, but to see and hear how much was gutted from the Saturn port is just UGH! Really, the main redeeming thing for the game itself is the OST actually having some fun tunes here and there (some are definitely stronger than others), but otherwise, definitely a hit or miss on this one.

[@entertainmentwizard2703]

I could understand Sega releasing this if they had achieved parity with the PlayStation version or even better it was better than the PlayStation version but releasing an inferior version was a bad move!

[@kalvinravn8431]

Classic case of just because you can do a thing doesn’t mean you should….

[@AltimaNEO]

Oh man, the polygons weren't even lit on the Saturn?? Between that and the flat, unanimated 2D backgrounds, what was Sega thinking? This looks like the programmers were rushed to churn this release out and got a half made game.

[@ENiceGeo]

It does seem that way, especially when you look at the hidden options and see that they were tinkering around with graphic effects that were never implemented.

[@drakabeko5145]

At the time, I saw Toshinden 2 in stores and thought it looked so awesome, but I was stuck with a Saturn. When URA came out, I bought it in Japan. The low res polygon models and the high res background looked terrible. I also bout D-Xhird, but that was more or less the same.

[@denraimei32]

Baffling how SEGA of America would be okay with this and not support AM2 into porting Sonic the Fighters instead.

[@Chalkaspis]

Saturn less than Playstation?! Story of SEGA's life!

[@mjdf122]

Sega Lord X time

[@nimaiiikun]

Verm is definitely broken

[@almeidachannel7121]

Nice Video ! Sub & Big Like ! And Love Sega Saturn Games !

[@johncraw8572]

Amazing video please do more thanks 👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

[@MegaShingo97]

I wonder if it would have been better to have Samurai Shodown Warriors Rage and Fatal Fury Wild Ambition on the Saturn instead of these two Toshinden ports🤔

[@donalcrowley7682]

I think they should of bought Sonic Fighters insted of this.

[@48hourrecordsteam45]

Review the genesis top 100 games. One by one

[@Riz2336]

I have a burned copy of this but haven't played it. I've played through the remix version and wasn't too impressed with that so I doubt this would be much better

[@juljuldur241]

New video, thump up for the Lord!

[@HJRIV]

Saturn = 2D Playstation = 3D Simple. Too bad the Saturn just didn’t stick to what it was good at. Eternal Champions on the Saturn would’ve ruled

[@anthonyrizzo9043]

Its a shame sega made such bad decisions, i think they still would be around making consoles today if they didnt make such crazy decisions, they had some great games on their systems and good hardware, and were usually ahead of the curve on trends.

[@joshoshea3194]

5:43 As a long time fan of your channel I was very shocked to hear you use the word "Sp*****". I don't know if its meaning is accounted for in America as it is here in England but when I turned on the subtitles just to check if you said what I thought you said KZbin wont even show the word in text, instead it just skips over it pretending that you never said it. Like I said I'm a long time fan so I honestly don't believe that you meant anything by it or maybe just weren't aware? Apart from that I still enjoyed the video and didn't even know that this game was even released on the Saturn.

[@goranisacson2502]

If memory serves me right, that word is actually not considered a slur in the US, while it very much does in the UK. Which is odd because I believe it means the same, but the connotation just isn't seen as insulting in the mainstream US mind. It's kind of like how "idiot" is technically also a slur for a particular mental disability which then became so ubiquitous that people don't really associate it with that particular disability anymore. In the US, it's simply never really been re-evaluated.