Doom and the Sega Saturn

In 1997, the id Software FPS Doom hit the Sega Saturn. It was a disappointing port that failed to take advantage of the Saturn's hardware. Here, we take a look at it.
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Opening 3D Logo By:
Jan Neves
KZbin Page - / jan3d
Opening 2D Animation By:
Kevin Bhall
Facebook - / kevin.bhall.14
Episode Notes:
1. The Jaguar footage was captured from an emulator, as I do not own the hardware any longer. It did not run correctly, so I had to really adjust its image and speed to get a usable image. That's why the HUD is out of frame. Games are as follows:
Saturn Versions: Real Hardware
Playstation Version: Real Hardware
3DO Version: Real Hardware
SNES Version: Emulated
Jaguar Version: Emulated
32X Version: Real Hardware
Xbox 360 Version: Real Hardware
Hexen & Powerslave: Real Hardware
2. Most of the music in this episode is from the 3DO version of Doom. It really is an outstanding soundtrack.
3. The Hexen footage was captured via my old setup with a cheap SCART to HDMI box. The game actually looks better than that.
4. Since my 3DO is not modded, the best video output I have for it is S-Video, which makes the capture appear a bit fuzzier than it should.
5. I can't stand the SNES version of Doom. Apologists can make excuses all they want. It's a bad looking and playing game.
6. When it comes right down to it, no console version has ever even come close to Doom on the PC. Just the fact that there were so many mods available for it make it the definitive way to play that game by far.
7. This is actually the second upload of this. I took the original down to correct a mistake. You can probably tell were it is by the difference in the audio flow. Still, the programmers deserved to be named correctly.

[@SegaLordX]

Check description guys for more info about the episode. To those saying that I could have had a PC if I didn't buy the consoles: There was enough space in between these systems for me to save for them. I started working part time in 1989, then nearly full time in 1990. I bought my own stuff from that point forward. My mother, God bless her, knew the value of hard work and recognized my love of the hobby and allowed me to keep my money. I saved and spent as these systems were released. Many of them I couldn't get at launch, but got a tad later. By 1994 I was working a good job that put cash money in my pocket every single night. That job funded the 32-bit generation for me. But I never had a massive collection back then. I bought the popular stuff and avoided most of the filler each generation. I also traded away and sold many games and systems to get new games and systems. It was a revolving door of gaming until about 1998, when I started keep and re-collecting everything again. I stayed away from Neo Geo and PC games because the cost associated would have meant missing a ton of gaming in its place, which I was not willing to do. I preferred console gaming, and that's where I stayed.

[@bmx7596]

You really don't know the history of the SNES version. While its shit, you made it look even worse by using an awful emulator version. It actually looks and plays better than that and is one of the most impressive ports ever considering the hardware it had to run on. One developer did the majority of the coding under a massive time crunch. You gave the 32x and 3DO versions credit because of the time crunch but you failed to mention the weakest version by far also had a time crunch and less programmers. SNES version also had link play, great music, and more content the most of the other version, which you also failed to mention. Getting it to run at all on an SNES was an absolute miracle and the effort put in deserves credit at the very least.

[@SegaLordX]

bmx7596 This wasn’t a retrospective of the SNES version. I mentioned it only because of the topic and used emulator footage because it looks and runs terribly anyway. The 32x version was completely playable and I only mentioned the back story of the 3DO game because it should have been better.

[@txray3409]

"and allowed me to keep my money"

[@joolsstoo3085]

@@txray3409 Rent

[@guspaz]

@@SegaLordX It looks notably worse on the emulator because that coloured static isn't there on real hardware, though that's the only overt difference that I can recall.

[@kathleendelcourt8136]

Carmack admitted years later that he did a mistake with the Saturn port.

[@atomicskull6405]

Which is a lot from Carmack because he's an "always right" with no filter.

[@JonathonTheAsshole]

Coincidentally same kind of "mistake" he made with every single ID game sttempting to be ran on AMD or ATi hardware from the late 90's all the way to 2010's. IOW completely broken in every way. Guys a snake.

[@SkipsTinyBeard]

@@JonathonTheAsshole I did not know this! Can this be the reason Quake didn't run well on ATI video cards? I have to research this!

[@JonathonTheAsshole]

ID only supported Glide and OpenGL at the time so you had to have a 3dfx card to run Quake, Q2, and Q3 Arena in hardware mode. Allegedly becase Carmack claimed he "hated Direct3d and DirectX" They didn't even bother making a driver. Fans had to make a wrapper which ran like crap. And non Nvidia gamers couldn't even play Q3 because it wasn't even given a software mode. Then when Nvidia bought 3dfx and they started doing D3D drivers they still barely worked on ATi cards. I remember all the bad publicity AMD and ATi got over the years from what was obviously developers hamstringing their products to drive market share to Nvidia. Then Carmack quit ID and took a job at Nvidia several years ago coincidentally.

[@SkipsTinyBeard]

@@JonathonTheAsshole no shit. Thanks dude.

[@voteDC]

I find it somewhat admirable that you managed to stretch "Doom on the Saturn is crap" into a 15 minute video and still somehow make it entertaining.

[@Buckincrazy]

It’s funny because I was actually amazed by the SNES version simply because it was running on 16-bit hardware. I remember feeling sorry for the Saturn gamers because Doom 64 (underrated) came out around the same time as the Saturn version and it simply made the Saturn even that more unappealing.

[@hkoizumi3134]

I remember seeing Doom back in 1993 at CompUSA being demo'ed in a massive 24 inch CRT monitor. The thing that got me was the sound. The gun, the screeches, the screams. I was only 12 years old at the time so affording the same $5000 setup was out of the question. But I heard about cheaper alternative from my dad after he found a local shop. I decided then to spend my entire year doing paid yard work around the neighborhood. About year and a half later, I was able to buy a barebones kit that included NEC 486 DX2 with 8MB of RAM. I believe I had 100MB of HDD in it too. Unfortunately, the sound card was too expensive so I couldn't get it. I remember setting up my very first PC, learning DOS commands, a little bit of programming along with it as well. By then, Doom 2 already had came out so I happily bought it from Target. I installed that sucker and started playing it. The game run like shit. I used to minimize the screen to half so I can get a decent frame rate but I didn't care, I had my own copy of DOOM! Sorry for the long story but at that moment, it pretty much cemented me with PC gaming. If it weren't for Doom, I would have missed the golden years of PC gaming back in late 90s. And I wouldn't trade that for anything.

[@entertainmentwizard2703]

Lobotomy Software should have done the Doom port for Saturn!

[@Sly2Cooper]

Lobotomy should have ported all 3D action games of that era since they had the best 3D engine at that time. At least for Saturn.

[@dave7244]

You can blame john carmack for the bad Saturn port of Doom. He forbade the guy who was porting it from using some of the custom chips.

[@thatryeguy6145]

I'd like to see someone today do a fan project and port it using the Slave Driver engine. I would even pay money for it.

[@Sly2Cooper]

@@thatryeguy6145 Search Z-Treme on KZbin. I guess that guy can make the best Doom for Saturn.

[@entertainmentwizard2703]

@@dave7244 Agreed he messed up big time!

[@reagandow850]

It blows My mind how one system can be so mis/programmed by so many and yet done right by others. Incredible.

[@MrCOPYPASTE]

The saturn isn't a good system for real 3d

[@jaekoff5050]

MrCOPYPASTE define real 3D. As far as I’m concerned, if a game engine has a Z axis it’s “real 3D”.

[@beetumdadd1]

MrCOPYPASTE doom isn’t real 3D 🤷🏻‍♂️

[@SONYPVM]

Same with PS3

[@hondamanvtec2894]

@@MrCOPYPASTE 🤣🤣🤣

[@jeremygregorio7472]

We have Carmack to thank for the crummy port. He didn't like what the porting studio's hardware engine did to his game and made them rewrite it in software. Carmack's on record saying he should have let them release the hardware based engine.

[@complexacious]

I don't blame Carmack too much. The 32X port was software too because the 32X cpus are 2x Hitachi SH-2s running at 23MHz with no hardware acceleration to speak of and it's okay, just could have used more cart space and more time in development (and a new MIDI driver). The Saturn has 2x Hitachi SH-2s running at 28.6Mhz so logically it could have done software better than the 32X. Meanwhile the Saturn's deformed quad method of polygon rendering results in fairly horrendous texture warping, worse than the PS1 in many cases if not handled correctly. We don't know what the hardware version looked like, perhaps it was shockingly bad, and Carmack would have known the Saturn could have done better. I read his statement as "it would have been better to let them release the bad version than the awful one they eventually did."

[@jeremygregorio7472]

@@complexacious I think that would have been fine if he told them day 1, but my understanding is that it was well into development

[@TMS5100]

@@complexacious look at the 32x port. it has a severely cropped window and much lower resolution. the saturn fills the entire screen and is higher res. they did a pretty good job given carmack's kneecapping of the developers.

[@clearspira]

The PSX version of Doom is still one of the best ports there is. It takes a lot out, no one is denying that, but the sound changes, the lighting changes, the graphic upgrade, the new levels; it makes the whole thing a new experience.

[@SomeOrangeCat]

It was the first version to try and add something to offset what was removed.

[@bmx7596]

At the time of release, it was the best version by far, even compared to PC.

[@MrCalverino]

So amazing in 1995

[@Lyricaldeamin]

@@bmx7596 you’d think so. But even up so the 2019 rerelease it still struggles to emulate the original pc experience

[@BryanTruong]

I would've loved to see what it looked like with the custom engine before Carmack scrapped it!

[@Roruoni]

Apparently there was another middle version of the engine that separated the walls and everything else between the SH2 CPUs. And Bagley was very proud of it but Carmack wanted him to use the vdp units for texturing this creating memory constraints. In the Saturn the CPUs are connected directly to the memory. So using the vdps to stream texture data can congest memory bandwidth. This works fine if you design a game based on VDP rendering but doom was designed with CPU rendering to replicate the doom look. And trying to use the vdps to stream texture data simultaneously would have starved the CPU for memory bandwidth.

[@Eszuran]

Saturn: Doom runs poorly, Hexen runs well PSX: Doom runs well, Hexen runs poorly

[@HexenStar]

486 MS-DOS : i eat both for breakfast...and your fancy systems :D

[@marakarthegreat]

what's wrong with the ps1 port of hexen?

[@Eszuran]

@@marakarthegreat it runs in 15 fps and has only front facing sprites

[@Espilonarge]

As someone who owns the 32X and SNES ports, the moment I brought (at the time of release) and played the Saturn port, I was beyond disappointed because it wasn't just poorly ported, the game at numerous times would either slow to an unplayable crawl or outright crash straight back to the CD player screen. A few days after dealing with the abomination, I took it straight back to the store and demanded either a refund or another game entirely (this game falls directly under the Australian consumer protection laws regarding faulty products and returns/refunds). I managed to get it replaced with Alien Trilogy instead and I'm sure as hell glad I wasn't stuck with such a shoddy dumpster fire of a port.

[@miesvaillanykyisyytta3252]

Do you have the PAL Saturn in Australia? Here in Europe I played the PAL version and it never crashed. I also heard that JAP version is the best but that may be an urban legend.

[@NightSprinter]

mies vailla nykyisyyttä Yeah, Australia and New Zealand are indeed PAL.

[@NightSprinter]

Yeah, surprising that Hexen and QUAKE got such fantastic ports. Also, hi roo.

[@PrettyBlueThings]

I really feel for Jim Bagley and co, must have been awful having to throw away all that hard work and start over

[@Lord_Deimos]

Isn't it funny that Doom on the Saturn looks and plays like ass while Lobotomy made an awesome Quake port?

[@GraveUypo]

yep. quake on pc is about 6 times as demanding as doom. it just shows what a shitty move that was that carmark did

[@mxggo9046]

@@GraveUypo Im kinda' impressed what they got out of just using the two SH2's though. I mean, if you can push those chips to their limits, and then use the other chips as well...what could the Saturn really do?

[@ShinGallon]

It’s especially disappointing considering how great the Saturn version of Duke Nukem 3D is.

[@ViciousAlienKlown]

So basically John Carmac ruined Doom on the Saturn.

[@Maulbert]

Or, you could blame Sega for the Saturn having such an absurd architectural design, which is the biggest reason it failed.

[@caseycu]

Keith Hamman the architecture of the Saturn wasn’t to blame for the poor quality of Doom, that’s the whole point. Other Saturn FPS games were of vastly greater quality than this garbage.

[@Maulbert]

@@caseycu No, but the Saturn's hardware regularly required more time and work for good quality ports than on any other system of the generation, which was the reason most developers avoided it, which is the reason it had a dearth of 3rd party software of decent quality, which is the reason it failed.

[@Lightblue2222]

@@Maulbert that's true it took more work for Saturn games but I heard they already had Doom running smooth, but the guy in charge decided it was important to eliminate the texture warping, which did but in turn made the framerate choppy. Quickly after release he realized he had made a terrible decision.

[@caseycu]

Keith Hamman the N64 was much more difficult to develop for than the Saturn. While it’s easy to chalk up Saturn US sales performance to it being “difficult to develop for”, in reality it was a much more complex situation involving a botched launch that destroyed relationships with developers and US retailers, consumers who felt taken advantage of due to the quickly abandoned 32X, inept SoA management that declined to translate and import popular Japanese titles, and infighting between SoA and SoJ. If the Saturn’s architecture alone was to blame it wouldn’t have performed so well in Japan.

[@oldschoolsaturn7020]

Would love to have a look at the port using VDP1 that they were working on! Pity it's never got leaked... It's shocking that Sega allowed this game to be released on the system in this state. It's essentially a broken game! But then Sega did this over and over again. Virtua Fighter 1 needed a rerelease as VF Remix, Daytona was a mess and hammered the Saturns reputation as a competent 3d machine. World wide soccer 98 was released with broken sound.. deadlines over quality time and time again! :( Super video as always by the way 👍

[@miesvaillanykyisyytta3252]

The Saturn Doom (I've played PAL) is slow and laggy but not unbearably so. Back in the 90's it would have been interesting back when Doom was still hot. I own the Saturn Doom and it was perfectly playable though obviously the frame rate is a weakness. The sound is unique too.

[@peter-pm7ty]

Because no one is reading the description: "This is actually the second upload of this. I took the original down to correct a mistake. You can probably tell were it is by the difference in the audio flow. Still, the programmers deserved to be named correctly."

[@AlexNintendoSega]

Just imagine if Lobotomy studios had handled the Doom port for the Saturn...

[@SegaLordX]

It would have been so much better.

[@IMDLEGEND]

@@SegaLordX That is probably why they got to do Quake for the Saturn.

[@SomeOrangeCat]

@@SegaLordX It probably would have been like Doom II on the GBA. Runs well, but feels slightly different than the original game in how it plays, as Lobotomy would no doubt have put the Doom assets into their Saturn optimized Slavedriver engine. Which honestly would have been the wise move.

[@Sega_Dreams]

If you look for a video called "Saturn Doom Gameplay (HD)" uploaded 10 years ago, you'll find a 5-year-old comment by Jim Bagley, programmer for Saturn Doom, talking about butting heads with Carmack. It's too bad. While there were plenty of other great single-player FPSes on the Saturn, Doom should have been one of them.

[@johnellis3383]

I was so hyped for Doom on the Saturn! My favorite game at the time coming out on my favorite console, what could possibly go wrong? Everything apparently.... Great video as always man!

[@pimpedoutstereos9747]

I remember wen I was a kid I had doom on my snes and that was so laggy but realistically it’s pretty cool that it was able to run. I’m surprised the Saturn’s version looked so bad

[@franklinbrown7389]

These videos are always great when you load them with personal history and perspective! That’s always the best part.

[@guarapo66]

Dont know if had been mentioned, Romero was the one responsible for giving the Go for the game, the team didnt had in on time, Romero went on vacation, the next man in charge for that task was Carmack, the rest is history, Romero said he would of course give the go for the first prototype, the programmers making the port in an interview said that they did made the game run at a smooth frame rate.

[@FPSWizard]

Great video man... my favorite game of all time. Trying to collect sealed versions of all these originals. Really enjoyed your work here.

[@Hiryu666]

Additionally, it sounds like Romero was the one who did the port approvals... But in this case, Romero was on vacation when the Saturn version was initially submitted. I think Romero said he'd have likely approved the initial Saturn version too... Here's where it gets a lot more frustrating... Purportedly the initial version for the Saturn that took advantage of the hardware... Ran at 60 fps. Now not only was the Saturn version the most disappointing for its time relative to what the hardware was capable of, the Saturn version was almost actually the best version! As others have mentioned, Carmack admits he likely made a mistake in retrospect.

[@fafling]

That rumored 60 fps is a (mis)interpretation. Jim Bagley said it ran at "full framerate". Since the PC original runs at 35 fps, that "full framerate" is most likely 30 fps on Saturn.

[@Hiryu666]

@@fafling Great comment! I went and looked into it and found the interview here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/gIKrpaRqpryriK8&t=2490 He does indeed say "full-framerate" several times... While I agree this is very probably 30 fps, I'd still like this clarified. He also explains since this version was rejected, they had to quickly try and port the PS1 version... IIRC, the Saturn version used redbook audio versions of the PS1 tracks, is missing some tracks, and some other weirdness. This very much explains why the Saturn version seems like a rushed port of the PS1 version. It's worth noting that the PS1 version had the same requirement for it... It had to render without warping like on the PC... But as it turned out, the MIPS CPU in the PS1 had some feature that made it really efficient for Doom. I think I learned of this via Digital Foundry, but I can't remember for sure. Maybe the source for Bagley's original engine is available somewhere and maybe someone will finish it... To me that would be bigger than the fixed sound driver for Street Fighter II on the Genesis/Megadrive.

[@Hiryu666]

Correction on my claim on the PS1 port... It seems they found a novel way to use the PS1's GPU rather than some neat feature of the CPU.

[@faithplus1588]

Hands down this is one of my favourite channels. Great work good sir!

[@jonbourgoin182]

3:35 Having experienced DooM for the first time at my neighbor’s house who had a PC, I knew I had to have it. I was too young and dumb to know anything about porting games and I naively expected the same experience across all platforms. I didn’t have a PC but I did have a Super Nintendo, and I asked for DooM for my birthday. 8 year old me was stoked by the super cool red cartridge. And then I played it.

[@GraveUypo]

i rented it a ton. i loved doom from playing it on my grandma's pc and i was just happy to be able to play it at home. i couldn't even tell it was bad at the time. but i still bought a pc like 4 months later anyway that ran doom deamingly. full screen, full frame rate, no drops.

[@MrNegativecreep07]

I used to borrow it from a friend, at the time we were so happy just to be able to play it on console we overlooked the flaws. But back then a decent PC cost a lot of money, and they weren't user friendly.

[@RichardCraig]

I can't argue that some of these versions were awful, but for a little perspective, I played the shareware version of Doom on a 16MHz 386 PC. At full screen/detail, it ran at 1 frame every 2 seconds. At about 50% size and at low detail, the framerate was similar to the Saturn port, just barely playable, and you better believe I played the hell out of it. Honestly, every port was better than the underpowered PCs many of us had back then. I'm still surprised Doom wasn't more of a system seller for the Jaguar... it easily had the best version considering the cost and power of the console.

[@karl-erikkald8876]

@@Josep_Hernandez_Lujan Computers back then were * REALLY * expensive. A lot of households couldn't afford a PC that would run DOOM decently. 386-based systems were still common in the business environments. Playing DOOM on a hardware that would run it decently in 1993/1994 was a privilege. So at the time the SNES/32x would have been the only option for a lot of people.

[@GraveUypo]

i bought my first pc in 1994, it was 1400 dollars total. not really much more expensive than today's pc, dollar for dollar (before correction anyway. it's probably like 3000 of today's dollars [edit] just checked, it's $2,469.08). i did the mistake of getting a 486 dx4 100mhz, but that was more than enough for perfectly smooth doom gameplay. with 200 extra bucks i could have gotten a pentium 100mhz which was at least twice as powerful. i regret that mistake to this day. if i ever get to time travel first thing im going to do is fix that.

[@HexenStar]

@@karl-erikkald8876 Not quite. Original Doom was released in the end of 1993. Sega 32X Doom was released in the end of 1994. Doom for SNES dates to 1995 (!) and the Sega Saturn Doom - as late as 1997 (bah). By 1997, computers that could run Doom - were not only cheap, but nobody wanted them anymore, as the 3D-accelerator era has arrived. If all you wanted was to run Doom (and Doom-engine games) - by 1997 that would not be a problem. If we dial back to 1995 - since the first Pentiums were already long time on the block - the 486's and 386's were becoming very reasonably affordable. At 1994, however, - PC gaming and Console gaming - were two completely different worlds, each with its own highlights and downfalls.

[@MoxieCatte]

It's impressive just how much worse the Saturn version is compared to the 32X version, especially considering how the 32X had 512KB total RAM and a 23Mhz Processor versus the Saturn's 4MB of total RAM and 28.6Mhz Processor. Doom's original (minimum) requirements on PC were 8MB of RAM and a 66Mhz 486 processor, to give you an idea of the corners they must have had to cut. 😂

[@borrellipatrick]

Had the snes version back in the day. It's all i had and i loved it and the soundtrack was great. Doom64 made up for the snes port a few years later though. Im so happy that people appreciate that game today after the excellent remaster this year

[@AlexKidd]

I hated Doom 64 when I bought it when it was new back then, the re-made version on PC is a much better game

[@GraveUypo]

@@AlexKidd i didn't like it either, but it was probably because i didn't own it. the first 9 levels are TERRIBLE. absolute garbage that doesn't even resemble doom gameplay. but from map10 onwards the game takes a turn for the awesome and suddenly is as doom as they come with only a few flaws (the biggest of them being the twin-mouthed pain elemental. what the HELL were they thinking!?)

[@bmx7596]

Best version of console doom from the ground up

[@johneygd]

I wonder how a homebrew version of doom on the saturn will look and play like.

[@CorneliusTalmadge]

That sounds like a cool mission for Modern Vintage Gamer.

[@Sly2Cooper]

Search for Z-Treme on youtube. It's an awesome modern homebrew 3D engine for Saturn.

[@MosoKaiser]

Wouldn't be surprised if a _lot_ better.

[@arcadehispano877]

I love your channel, man. Keep up the good work.

[@SuperHns]

I lol how you say "Home version" as if the PC is the "arcade" version xD

[@SegaLordX]

Force of habit. I talk arcade so often, console gaming was always the "home version".

[@SuperHns]

@@SegaLordX yeah I realized that and you left it in so I loled hehehe

[@Iliek]

It's kind of true because most of the first people who played Doom did so on company or school PCs and very few people actually owned PCs in their homes at the time since you needed about a $3,000 dollar computer to run it at full screen and max framerate.

[@RetroGamingDev]

Great video! I have often wondered if that original Saturn development version is out there anywhere... I bet it ran really nicely! I think John Carmack has been on record since saying he regrets pushing that issue.

[@Retro90sgamer]

This was a great review! I didn't know development had trouble like that for the saturn port! Awesome video SLX!

[@jeremysart]

Just look at what the homebrew community did with the 32X port in Doom Resurrection, perhaps one day we’ll get a homebrew port of Doom on Saturn using the Powerslave engine.

[@galadriusthemighty]

The fact this game runs better on a Notepad than it does the Sega Saturn really says a lot.

[@pliniomsann]

Check FIFA 98 for the Saturn. That’s really a major disappointment

[@SylveonTrapito]

We have a powerfull Saturn capable of running VF2 in hd at 60fps. "Let's render in software mode"

[@bmx7596]

Very different type of game though.

[@SylveonTrapito]

@@bmx7596 yes. But at hardware level, VF2 only used software for backgrounds and the hud, the same could be done with Doom. I guess having multiple cores is the standart now but back then it was something difficult to understand and program.

[@VegarotFusion]

In 1995 my Dad surprised the family by bringing home a new Pentium 120 with Windows 95 and Hexen which had just came out. 2 days later my brother came home from his friends house with Doom 2 which also included the Doom 1 shareware version. I would soon discover the Heretic shareware version on the Hexen disc. The graphics of both games blew the whole family away. Especially Hexen with its awesome sound and lighting effects that created a chilling atmosphere that made the world feel alive. I went from playing Zero Tolerance on my Mega Drive _(which I still love to this day)_ to Doom on PC.

[@Sega_Dreams]

Hey, nothing wrong with Zero Tolerance! Just to have a first-person shooter on a home console was a huge deal. Kids today wouldn't understand that. You were lucky to get a Pentium in 95. That was when we got a 486/66, but I was beyond happy about it. It was such a huge step up from what we had, and it allowed me to play all the then-current FPSes (and everything else). I loved that machine.

[@VegarotFusion]

@@Sega_Dreams Zero Tolerance had that awesome intro theme. And I loved how close range shots would cause chunks of blood to fly across the room, hit the wall and slowly drip down. If you then looked closely at the corpses of enemies it would have a bleeding out animation for about 10 seconds. To this day when I pick up a shotgun in a FPS I'm like "Shotgun Collected"

[@stylepartner5123]

As a Nintendo kid through and through I am fascinated by Sega and always have been. I often swapped consoles with a pal for the weekend or so and had so much fun. These videos are fantastic sir and actually have helped me through some tough times. Thankyou xx

[@WinAFreeAppleIPod]

Your video MADE me do my videos. That is awesome of you to do. Thanks for the inspiration. I love your use of FunFactor, remind me of GamEpro magazine, not sure if you had that there.

[@kidpizz]

Hi, Sega Lord X, could you do a video on the 3do games that were released on Saturn? I can't find another video online that go over all of the titles and compares quality of the Saturn ports to 3do. Thanks love your videos

[@popixel]

The Saturn version of Doom gets a world record for inducing motion sickness in me faster than any other version.

[@randomnerd23]

You seen the 3do?

[@miguelroman4294]

I noticed that quake 2 on the 360 gave me a weird dizzy like feeling after playing for about an hour. I had doom64 and don't recall having any issue.

[@alex.starostin]

@@miguelroman4294 same. which was kinda strange considering Quake 2 ran at 60fps and 1080p on Xbox 360. Then I found out that it has a super narrow field of view, which is why people can get motion sickness from it

[@miguelroman4294]

@@alex.starostin truth be told at the time I thought it was green bud that made me feel like that, but it wasn't lol it was doom 2 all along. How the hell did the devs deal with the dizzy spells while creating the game?

[@alex.starostin]

@@miguelroman4294 there's a Digital Foundry video about Xbox 360 version of Quake 2 specifically, where it said about very low FOV

[@LeeONardo]

Why did Doom fail on Saturn? Lobotomy didn't develop it.

[@HexenStar]

That kinda asks for the Total Recall paraphrasing: - what about the game that wasn't Lobotomized? - It failed. (insert Arnie accent here)

[@TristansGameRoom]

I think someone should port a new version of Doom to the Saturn. The Source Code is out there, Saturn programming is more well known. If the Saturn Version of SOTN can be optimized with a Patch, this can too.

[@user-tz4yj2bz8w]

Saturn version of SOTN optimized with a patch? What's this about, some kind of translation patch was released recently?

[@TristansGameRoom]

​@@YuoTube-vy4ej Back in May iirc, some Chinese Modder made a 4MB RAM Cart Patch for SOTN. I don't know how much has been changed, but it's worth checking out. There's a website that hosts the pre-patched Bin/Cue, so you don't have to patch it yourself.

[@efblasius]

Burger becky, aka Rebecca Heinemann is the girl that made the 3do version in one week. Said back then that al the versions are based on the jaguar one.

[@Sly2Cooper]

I wish all the 3D games of that era were ported by Lobotomy. My first Doom experience was on 3DO and I finished the game over a night despite horrible frame rate. As far as I know most console ports of Doom were rushed to the market leading to lower quality and performance than each console was capable of. And the Saturn port suffered because of Karmak's decision. Recently I've found videos of Z-Treme - a 3D homebrew engine for Saturn and it sure looks amazing. I wish they will make a Doom port eventually on this engine.

[@HexenStar]

I also first played Doom on 3DO, back in the distant 1996. And it was a blast. I have never heard of the Doom game until that point, and didn't expect much - but when i fired up that game, and heard that soundtrack, - i was instantly addicted. I played Zero Tolerance, Bloodshot and Saturn Hexen until then - and all of them are quite slow. So i didn't notice the framerate issue. Besides, if you shrank the screen - game ran faster. Which i always did in the more intense sections. 3DO also had an interesting selection of textures. A lot of the more questionable ones - were removed, while the kind that more or less has a gothic vibe - were left intact. So the game turned out to be much more gothic styled than the PC. It also had a nice, warm contrast/gamma mix, very pleasing to the eye. PC version just could not deliver these elements (and thus was left to collect dust), unless modding it to match the old glory...ha! Better put time into modding Hexen instead :D as i still do.

[@joshmartimez2235]

Great look at a port of the second FPS franchise i first played back in 1993. Now to get my Doom fix i play on the Switch. DOOM 64 on the Switch is truly an incredible game. I just might get Hexen for Saturn.

[@miesvaillanykyisyytta3252]

I bought Hexen for the Saturn a few years ago for nostalgia. It looks nice but just remember that it's not a linear shoot em'up. At one point I got stuck and could not find out where to go next. Also it does not help that my Saturn is a mess and the save function is very unreliable. Nowadays I would only buy games that can be enjoyed in one sitting without the need to take off from a save point.

[@GraveUypo]

@@miesvaillanykyisyytta3252 that's what makes hexen awesome. hexen was the first fps i finished start to finish. don't get me wrong, i played a lot of doom before it, but all i did was load a random map and play around. i mean i finished doom shareware, but not the other two episodes. the first time i did all three in sequence was back when brutal doom v19 was new. and doom2 too. ikr! heresy! and i'll tell you what. never finished duke nukem 3d in order either, to this day! only the first episode. just waiting for the perfect opportunity to do that.

[@EvilFuGuru]

My first Doom experience was on 32X. Loved it so much that when I did some research and found the PC version was far superior I went and bought a top of the line PC at the time (486dx2 with 8megs of RAM lol). Once Saturn was out though I switched back to mainly gaming on console. Doom 1&2, Dark Forces, Heretic and Duke 3D were all fantastic on that PC though. Never tried the Saturn Doom (maybe heard it was bad, I don’t remember) but Powerslave, Quake and Duke 3D were all fantastic on Saturn (RIP Lobotomy Software).

[@thomaspleacher2735]

In the 90's my Dad was into PC gaming, so I got to play Doom in MS-DOS on what was probably some kind of Intel 486. I didn't find about the ports until I took an interest to video game history in the early 2000's. I appreciate how your video gives interesting insights into what the various Doom ports were like for gamers during that decade.

[@l1uchill]

Man this game looked so different on Playstation! The saturn port had a lot of slow down and you can see the subtle differences in each port. Thanks SLX for all your hard work man we really appreciate it.

[@aodh5966]

It's so dark, thought my brightness was set to low

[@iankempster7007]

Played doom on PC first. All other versions were infior , especially after playing it on SNES. Great video as always.

[@SlyBeast]

I don't think anyone on the planet would argue that or has ever argued that.

[@cityside75]

@@SlyBeast PlayStation Doom is superior to low end (386) PC easily.

[@ajgreen868]

Ps version was pretty close.

[@iankempster7007]

@@ajgreen868 I honestly didn't even know there was a ps port , I'm definitely going to keep my eyes out for it.

[@victorlgcarvalho]

And then we started the saga of "PC Master Race".

[@singletona082]

I want to see someone taking what we know now of the saturn and the doom source and making a NEW port.

[@sergeleon1163]

Although I love playing on consoles, I also always been a PC gamer and played Doom on PC from it's release. When I tried console versions that my friends had, I was disappointed in those specially coming from the PC version. Also Hexen and Specially Hexen II brings back memories playing it on my 3DFX card

[@tonicalou]

What a bummer the Saturn’s Doom experience should have been. I like Saturn and not long ago I bought a used working console due to nostalgia. It is the only original classic console that I have, but let’s admit. There are a so many terrible ports for this console. Castlevania Dracula X, Resident Evil, Need for Speed (I like the orginal 3DO), etc...on the bright side there was the best ports for 2D fighting games Capcom and SNK..and the the jewel of Dragon Force

[@danielm2142]

One of my gaming wishes is to see the original evaluation build of this port, sadly though it's considered lost forever as Jim Bagley no longer possesses the PC or dev kit he used to create it, nor was it ever archived, I guess our only hope is if John Carmack kept the CD(?) he was sent and it's still at ID software's studio somewhere, than again, even if it was, I doubt anyone there would go looking for it.

[@stephenjones5079]

This is the only version of Doom I have never played. Great video.

[@bmx7596]

The original xbox version is the GOAT. It had Doom 1, 2, and Final Doom included with Doom 3 and all versions had coop, even Doom 3. What a beast of a machine that was too, Doom 3 running pretty well on a console when hi powered PCs struggled.

[@iliariano3126]

I have heard that there was an unofficial Doom 2 port for the Saturn. Do you know where to download it? Thx!

[@genxtasy9914]

You getting Doom on multiple consoles is like me with Resident Evil 4

[@Route-kq8xd]

This Doom port really made the Saturn look technically inferior to PS1 as a 3D machine. This was especially bad in a time when most people were moving on to 3D games.

[@Katatonia_]

Did you ever get to play the PlayStation 1 ports of Doom/Final Doom? I was console-only at the time, so had nothing to compare it to, but many a link-up multiplayer session was enjoyed on this setup. Too bad the Saturn couldn't offer up the same experience.

[@GeomancerHT]

What happened? I was watching and then it got delisted? Anyway, it was an amazing video then, and an amazing video now! Love the work, keep on it!

[@JimmyJoeMcGurl]

Hah same

[@BigSnipp]

He wanted to correct the programmers names.

[@erick103]

I used to rent this game every weekend for a month or two before I beat it. Honestly, trying to run Doom on my computer was WAY worst. I was playing it at 5-10 fps, on low settings. So this version was a Godsend! Obviously looking back at it now you can't help but laugh, but for some of us with no other options this was a great alternative!

[@XolaresTiberius]

I own every version now and its become a tradition

[@XolaresTiberius]

Started with warcraft, doom, blakestone, rise of the triad and more 😂

[@XolaresTiberius]

Saturn was very hard to program for in 3D (dual video chips)

[@Sinn0100]

Man...John Carmack really screwed the Saturn version badly. The developers made a version for the Saturn that ran better than the PC version. John Carmack forced them to remake it utilizing only one of the Saturn's SH2's. This has never set well with me and hope one day we can see the true Saturn version...at some point. I wound up getting a Jaguar for Doom in 1994. I actually used my Sega CD on a separate TV and the Doom soundtrack so I could get my music as well. Of course I dumped all of that when the Saturn and Playstation launched. I purchased both consoles the day the Playstation launched. The developer that got stuck with Doom on the 3DO was Amy Henning. You should do her story and Doom....it's nuts. Addendum- Sorry, the VDP1 and VDP2 not the SH1+SH2 processors.

[@mattsmedley.onehandedgamin9029]

To this day, I still have a PS1 plugged into a CRT TV with Doom inside it. (June 2020)

[@bmx7596]

that's super cool. Have you tried Doom in VR yet? It's even more crazy than the first time I played Doom as a kid.

[@Harerazer]

While Powerslave was indeed one if the best Saturn shooters, it's European version, Exhumed, was even slightly smoother and seemed to be a bit tougher to me. Excellent video tho. I am so glad a friend told me about your channel.

[@Rasdock]

Regarding the Saturn port: “That’s one doomed space marine!” I have never played this, but it’s very strange how it looks like mostly Doom II levels.

[@SeeD1985]

"Don't snicker at that, you bastards!" Hahahahaha! Ya got me! :)

[@RetroGamePlayers]

Awesome shoutout to HEXEN!!

[@jamesnewman4351]

Lobotomy and their slave driver engine should have done this. It would have been 150% better!!!

[@igorkrugly4842]

Thanks for bullying the SNES with its cheapest and miraculous version of Doom!

[@SegaLordX]

You can respect it for what it was, but that still doesn’t make it a good game.

[@peridux7592]

Yes! Love your videos! :D

[@HexenStar]

The real problem of the Saturn's Doom port is its absence of soundtrack. I mean the real soundtrack, the kind that was composed for the PC - and creatively arranged for the 3DO. As an ex-Saturn gamer, i remember a legit number of times when that strange mewling noise coming from that Doom game (allegedly "soundtrack") was putting me to sleep mid-game. Falling asleep In Doom! That's preposterous! One could attempt to make a claim that it was the framerate, not the mewling noise - but no, that was not the case. Cause i was insanely happy with the 3DO port, which had such a slow framerate, that more often than not - it had to played like a stealth shooter. (and you are using its powerful soundtrack in the video :-)...) Nonetheless, 3DO Doom was megatons of fun. Kick-ass-hard-rock, full volume, real instruments and clear, warm graphics made an awesome experience (imho). Saturn, on the other hand, gave none of that. Instead, you had to plod around through some type of sewer sounds with all SFX having a strange and annoying flanger/reverb combo. Plus, the game also ran at ultra-low res, with a disgusting color palette...something wrong with gamma, contrast and then some. Actually, in defense of the plagued 32X, - it beats Saturn port effortlessly...it is fast, clear, responsive, and it has actual Doom music. Strangely, however, there are missing strafe keys...well, programmable joystick can partially alleviate that for those curious.

[@stephandolby]

The 60fps hardware rendered version may have introduced a lot of polygon warping which didn't sit well with Carmack - subdividing quads closer to the camera can improve the look at the cost of some performance, which could explain why Quake was approved but the demo version of DOOM wasn't. Without seeing this version, we can't be sure. What we do know, however, is that the 32X could handle DOOM, albeit with a smaller view and reduced detail. Rage Software didn't have the time to tackle the issue further, and as such not only was VDP1 handling the rendering in a sub-optimal fashion - single pixel height sprites, which suits the Playstation's higher fill rate but not the Saturn - but elements of the Playstation version were still present on the disc.

[@rasheedmatthews]

Statement of the week:(7:30 time stamp......"AN UNBEARABLE EXERCISE IN EYE TORTURE" ) Damn X that's a new level of wack lol..... good episode bro,thanks for making this "no sports having pandemic" more tolerable lol

[@ClockedIt]

Doom on the Saturn was my first experience with a console version and even though I knew it was worst than the PC version, I still played it but could never complete it as it ran so bad. I have nostalgia for the Saturn version but there's no denying that it's trash haha great video man. Luckily I still own my original Saturn version and certainly wouldn't tell anyone to buy this version.

[@EtherBoo]

Not sure who else you watch on KZbin, but Stop Skeletons from Fighting did a similar episode. He loves his Saturn version because of how broken it is. You might enjoy. Cheers!

[@toshiyasumorita4569]

This is the first time I've seen the Doom Saturn port, and it should not be running that slowly. The Saturn uses the same two SH2 processors as the 32x but running about 20% faster. Also, Doom 32x is really only using one processor - the second processor is used only for handling sound. I know this because I wrote the sound driver for Doom 32x.

[@ralphhoskins2115]

This conversation is and was truly heartbreaking!!! I would love to see it done the way the developers wanted to do it.... why carmack??? Why

[@TheBeird]

Heh, my first exposure to Doom was the 32X version. I enjoyed it a lot at the time.

[@Sinistar1983]

Mine was the gba port, because that was the only portable version at the time

[@HexenStar]

32X is a very decent port. Among the top 2, imho.

[@JohnnyMatherson]

What happened to the previous upload?

[@austinwillcut4919]

The framerate on the Saturn port looked like Snes, that is pretty unacceptable.

[@rodmunch69]

Doom on the 32X was the first game to ever make me puke from motion sickness. First of many.

[@SnipeMD]

When the GBA version runs better than you, you know you f*cked up something fierce.

[@matthewpordes3224]

Important points. Great video.

[@travismcdowell8352]

I like to hear a review of Quake on the Saturn

[@TheWaynelds]

The first time I played the PlayStation version, I said to myself “Why the fuck is there a Pain Elemental in E1 M1 ?!?”

[@zero-theaveragegamer1159]

I wonder if YZB would ever make a hack for Doom on Saturn to utilize the 4mb Ram cartridge similar to his amazing work for castlevania. I love how fast you can shoot in the Saturn game though. My shotgun feels like an automatic.

[@bestoutrunner7070]

Bethesda censored the new releases of doom 1,2 and 64 and added DRM.

[@chrisdwyer7898]

A deadset gaming tragedy only using software rendering on the Saturn... if only someone could go back to 97 and fix it hahaha... another great video mate 👍🤟

[@ViciousAlienKlown]

I still had my Atari Jaguar at that time with a copy Doom. It blew away all other versions except the Playstation Doom.

[@oldscoolgaming.5040]

I loved,love doom,I can't remember how many times Iv'e completed the ps1 version.

[@AcidFink666]

Doom was the final nail in the coffin for me and my Saturn. I also expected the best console experience of the game given the time, 3d controller support etc. And it's completely true the further you got into the game the worse it got. Eventually I came to grips with the reality of it and traded my Saturn and all of my games for a PS1.