SimCity 2000 | Reviewing Every U.S. Saturn Game | Episode 22 of 246

[@SameNameDifferentGame]

It is criminal that more people aren't watching your stuff, Pandaman.

[@NathanxLaMontagne]

Completely agreed. Absolutely amazing then. The amount of info and research in the new ones (ex Virtua Cop) is fucking bonkers.

[@Mitsuraga]

"You guys' job is to make this idiot-proof. My job is to make a better idiot." As someone who often works in quality assurance and continuous improvement, I am totally stealing that line. It's brilliant.

[@VirtuaBros]

Panda you are rapidly becoming the single greatest sega saturn content creator on the internet. Very fine work. Your thorough research and interviews make for some of the richest deep dives I've ever experienced on the topic of videogames.

[@PandaMoniumReviews]

Virtua Bros Thanks Virtua Bros! It means a lot. These videos have been a team effort lately, with people like Pimpeaux helping with release dates, and the group of Shiro dudes who have my back and bring in their knowledge. Always good to see people are enjoying it. Still love your videos too, your Virtua Fighter content is sublime.

[@VirtuaBros]

@@PandaMoniumReviews thanks! If you enjoy the virtua fighter stuff I hope you'll get a chance to check out some of the work out there on shenmue. One of my favorite series of all time

[@vinnyfanneran3116]

Sega Saturn has some amazing content creators on KZbin. Just found Panda today and he is up with the best I have seen.

[@vinnyfanneran3116]

@@VirtuaBros I will check your stuff out, VB 🤓

[@38kob]

probably the single most underrated channel i know

[@genkidroid]

Hey, i am from Portugal. I can share with you that this game was my addiction for years! In 1996 i had a IBM 386sx wich could run the original simcity but not simcity 2000. So i found Simcity for the Saturn on a used games store and i bought it for like 10€ plus a backup cart for 15€ and it was the only game for months. I remember letting the sega saturn powerd on all night and in the morning spending the money i had in changing the city and creating islands on the sea connected by bridges to the mainland. I remember it being slow but it was the only version of simcity 2000 i knew about and i loved it. Nice video! Keep up the good work! Note, i am suscribed on your channel but only found out this review because of reddit. KZbin does not like you :(

[@Mitsuraga]

Seriously. I'm a subscriber, and I still have to dig through my subscriptions to get more sweet, sweet Saturn content. I seriously only ever even heard of Pandamonium because he got name-dropped in Bofner's video about Bulk Slash. And I'm always on the lookout for anything substantial regarding this woefully misunderstood gaming console.

[@GameplayandTalk]

"But that at least saves space for Ghen War." Ahhhh, the icing on the cake!

[@Pimpeaux]

PandaMonium and SummoningSalt uploaded on the same day. 2020 redemption arc.

[@PandaMoniumReviews]

Pimpeaux I still need to watch his latest vid. SummoningSalt is a blessed content creator.

[@obiwanshinobi-pj5xh]

Not only did the saturn have the best SimCity 2000 OST, it also had the best futuristic buildings. I've had that core memory for like 20 years and I haven't been able to find footage of the future style buildings from the Sega Saturn until today. So thanks for this video.

[@retractingblinds]

Funny how the trend seems to be we're looping back around to appreciating ports that may not be the best when just 10 years ago they were reviled as "inferior versions." I think that craze coincided with console wars on the 360/ps3 side of thing where one having a different hud icon made it the inferior one. These days there's lots to really appreciate, the work done, the effort, and often love and passion pumped into projects that while imperfect, really do have value past that.

[@Eugenes84]

These reviews are mini documentaries. Great work!

[@StoneGreninja]

I bought this in a retro game store a week ago. I was nervous the whole video to see if you thought it was good. This was a great review. I wish things had turned out amazingly for Maxis Studio One.

[@novelezra]

Hey dude. I'm still going through all your stuff at the moment. But I just thought I should mention that I'd love to see some kind of bonus video that talks about the differences in Playstation and Sega advertising during this time. Since you have been showing a fair bit of both and it's clear that Sega were still trying the Gen X grunge strategy of showing young people acting up around adults; then moving on to a 'bizarre aggresive' style with surreal visuals. Whilst Playstation (from what I remember as a kid growing up in the UK during the 90s) were usually more dead-pan and dry; but in a very cool way. Appealing to the more late 20's/early 30's crowd with monochrome dream like imagery that acted like it was too cool to even show games. Like Sega was Beavis and Butthead and Playstation were 'violent yuppie' AKA American pyscho. anyway! goodluck with your vids!

[@LeoA2600]

Another great video. Looking forward to you getting to the two Arcade Greatest Hits collections from Digital Eclipse, hopefully with developer insights from someone like Jeff Vavasour.

[@DaveVoyles]

We needed this, on the worst of days in 2020.

[@fakeshemp9599]

If only there was a Nightmare universe... Craig Stadler is the total eclipse of my heart 😍

[@tveye363]

Nice! I never knew the history of SimCity, but it's pretty fascinating.

[@frankynakamoto2308]

It would been more efficient if they had a hashtree language built in the Saturn Hardware and had the games directly running as hash, this would had saved much space.

[@zyrobs]

Played this a ton, even without a save cart. All my other games were arcade-type titles, so I was only losing out on high scores and needing to reconfigure the gamepads on every launch, which was not a big deal. I actually liked it more than the PC version, because of the slowdown - on the PC version, the fastest mode zoomed past years in seconds, which took all the challenge out of it. On the Saturn, I had to leave it going for hours while watching TV or something else, then get back to the city and expand it some more. And yeah, the music was a blast. The new title theme had two versions, one playing in-game with the synth chip, and a hidden CD Audio track that sounded even better. I even viewed the in-game credits, which had some fun comments in there, as well as thanking the audio guy for the kick ass new theme.

[@jrod75]

Great video. I enjoyed it as I didn’t have a computer to play the game but it was on my trusty Saturn. I am amazed how you told the story of how this was created on hardware that didn’t exist yet and a developer manual that was multi lingual. Once they did get A SINGLE KIT, they were given such short deadlines to bring this complex PC program to an untested console is insane. I wouldn’t blame them if they stripped it to the bare bones but they brought the spirit of the game intact. Just think how awesome it would be if they had more time, the dev tools available and the knowledge to efficiently use the Saturn processing hardware. Unfortunately this is the problem why the Saturn fell short on so many quality games especially when they “converted” games from PSX. Again kudos to the Maxis team to make it work and kudos to you on a great video.

[@mysega]

Yes. Back in business😃

[@mrbig2648]

These videos take their sweet time to come out, but they are always well worth the wait! Getting interviews with the devs just adds a whole new level. I can't wait until yu get to the Lobotomy games (hopefully you can get interviews with those guys too). I loved this game as a kid. I didn't have the memory cartridge, so always had to delete whatever was saved on my Saturn before starting a new city (bye bye Sega Rally records and Tomb Raider saves). The slow speed didn't bother me (it's a leisurely kind of game anyway) and I always had a great time. I might buy the gog version on PC and play a little for old times sake.

[@TheSouthernSegaGentleman]

Was and still is one of my favorite games and experience on the console. All it's laggy, buggy, and memory eating problems included 😅

[@LazyScoutJace]

You're gonna be so big with the quality of these videos. I'm happy to be here at the beginning! :)

[@kei_nishimaru]

Ah yes, Saturn SC2K, possibly my third favourite version of the game, behind CD Special Edition and the Original. I was impressed by how they were able to make such a demanding game for such a limited hardware scale, reminds me of Red Zone and Doom SNES in a way, makes me wonder if we also could have gotten A-Train IV (which is a pretty damn good underrated Maxis gem) for the Saturn that way. Studio One deserves a major amount of credit for their work.

[@drunkensailor112]

Imo the saturn version is an amazing version. Still play it once a year for days. But you needed a memory card to play. Don't believe the opening screen! You need like 900 blocks for a city at least. I have several cities on my memory card of 1100 blocks

[@sgt.pepper253]

One of my favorite games of all time and easily responsible for my choice in career as well - Panda your craft is getting better and better with each passing video. Not only are these just reviews, their almost documentary in style and 'vibe'. I love it, I love it a lot man. There's tons of games in the Saturn library I can't WAIT for you to tackle. It's like a lost TechTV show with almost double the passion.

[@robertdanker6193]

Great video!!! Even though I don't dig Sim City this was a very interesting episode and I love the interview with Paul it really enhanced understanding the circumstances of the development!! A+👍

[@CrossingRover]

Welcome back! I was looking forward to this episode since I really liked this game when I played it a few months ago. I'm sure it's not equal to the PC original but I think it's quite passable for the standards of the time

[@ronanfaria3239]

Wow! Just amazing! How mutch fun was this. Thanks for the most special content for Sega Saturn!

[@giovannii5759]

This channel is absolutely amazing, I love especially the throwback commercials and zeitgeist of it all, so 90’s.

[@MichaelGreen-dm2ov]

Episode 22 is here! Another great episode sir. Thanks so much and please keep these coming. Have a great Halloween.

[@aortaplatinum]

Super interesting, I do wonder why they didn't just make it a separate, smaller game, using the same assets and code but removing more complicated or difficult to port variables. SimCity 2000 Lite or like SimCity 1500 or something.

[@BryanTruong]

Welcome back! I continue to be blown away at how difficult Sega made it on themselves

[@Bofner]

God damn man, you're videos are so good. Getting to hear the behind the scenes from the interviews and the fun cuts between different media is so entertaining. Also Craig Stadler

[@BrothaKyo]

I don't know if anyone ever mentioned, but if you pop in the Sega Saturn disc into your favorite CD player, there's a nice 4 minute version of that opening scene track. It has a nice synth-guitar as a solo in the middle of it. Probably one of my favorite things about this specific version.

[@PandaMoniumReviews]

I didn't know! I will have to check this out sometime soon. Thanks!!

[@Teknoman]

Saturn soundtracks just had a unique feel all their own

[@Padoca]

You guys should talk to eraserMice Interactive if you havent done already. He developed the TrueMotion video used on many Saturn games, he seems to have lots of stories about his days developing for the Saturn and Dreamcast

[@playnevergrind]

This video is full of sick little details. Well done.

[@alexmuratore95]

The man the myth the legend has returned... Welcome back comrade...

[@RetroReef]

Amazingly detailed video. I loved it.

[@frankynakamoto2308]

I love this game I am waiting for this game remastered in better graphics, same graphics just HDMI with tunnels, so we can make an underground interstate

[@Sinn0100]

Is it too much to ask...nay, demand a Sim City Robot Battle be designed?! I want to build a city and fight giant robots all over it killing all of my citizenry in the process. What's that? Taxes are too high? Well let's see what Mr. Killdozer has to say about that. Hey, this is where all of your taxes have gone. Oh my God, I have a great idea! You could cordon off blocks of the city and have giant robot block wars. Oh come on let's get it done already. ;)

[@AnAverageGoblin]

probably wouldn't be hard, just make a robot fighting game that you can export map data from SC2K.

[@tsvtsvtsv]

one thing's for sure, if they ever make a biopic about will wright then adam driver is a shoo-in for the role

[@andersdenkend]

I watched your video. Thanks for making it!

[@charliehunt6336]

Missed you!

[@CasperEgas]

Great work again. Keep it up :)

[@CasperEgas]

SimCity 2000 is a great game and played it a lot...on PC. This Saturn version isn't the best. I guess it is pretty servicable when it came out.

[@zyrobs]

There's two things I never could get in this game however, maybe someone else could figure it out? 1. how to get that Sonic statue to build? The boxart and some magazines showed it, but I don't think I ever got it in-game. One of the box pics shows it on one of the prebuilt cities, where it occupies an industrial area, so maybe it was a randomly spawned object? This has been bugging me for OVER 25 YEARS now. 2. does the game retain the Exodus sequence? There's a point in the PC version where if you have enough Launch Arcos, the game would trigger a special sequence where ALL of them launch at the same time. I could never trigger this on the Saturn, even when I specifically played with an infinite money cheat and put arcos over half the city. And the future tileset was a real treat. Some of the buildings, like the power plants, looked just plain weird. You could also randomly get a space port. It was great, looked like my city transformed into something from Judge Dredd.

[@sega-re-trop-vieux]

Nice video as usual. It is a long work to get such nice videos and information.

[@windmillmedia7555]

Maybe they should've included the 512k backup cartridge with this.

[@Kaceydotme]

I grew up on SimCity for SNES in an emulator. I desperately want to find the time and patience to play a city builder on a 90s console again one day.

[@eb3fan]

I'm continually impressed by your work Panda. The guests you have been able to get really elevate your fantastic videos. Also, Panda for Garfield Kart PS5?

[@PandaMoniumReviews]

eb3fan I would be the fastest cat. FUN FACT: the Chinese word for panda literally translates to “cat bear.”

[@VGMFan20XX]

Stellar work guy!

[@flink1231]

I played this saturn port like nobody's business and was super happy hahah (I had no PC back then!)

[@jeremygregorio7472]

Do not ask how well the bear dances, it is enough that it dances

[@elZorroN16]

I love that you concentrated your giggles in response to Paul in the left audio channel. Feels like I'm in the room.

[@MASOFENT]

If you believe that the Saturn version is slow, then try the PlayStation version... Is like watching the paint dry

[@AnAverageGoblin]

GBA version is waaay worse

[@stjohncross8011]

This was a great video 👌

[@DanHendricks]

the Arcus reference at the end tho

[@Evaldas256]

Bjork's TV, haha

[@fabiomccaree9218]

that episode is mega, too bad that they could not make the code parallel using the second cpu

[@madhatter8508]

I loved playing the PlayStation version with my PS mouse. Could not enjoy the Saturn version. The only thing I hate about the PS version is that stupid 3D tour that's easy to accidentally go into. If only Sega would have optimized their dev tools for multiprocessing so devs could actually use both SH-2s on the Saturn. It could have been just as smooth as the PS version.

[@Edexote]

I started playing this game yesterday, but I have an issue with it. The music plays just for a short time only after loading a save, checking the advisors or reading the newspaper. Is it always like this? One of the reasons I loved Sim City 3000 and 4 was the soundtrack. Doesn't 2000 on the Saturn have a soundtrack?

[@PandaMoniumReviews]

Yeah, this is how the soundtrack plays for me as well. It does not play constantly.

[@Edexote]

@@PandaMoniumReviews Well, that sucks. Oh well, time to return, my citizens need me! There are taxes to be charged!

[@PandaMoniumReviews]

@@Edexote Go collect those tax dollars Júlio!!

[@RetroMediaLibrary]

sounds like a Roland D-50 keyboard was used for the soundtrack

[@ricardoediza2690]

Ngl, Will Wright at his prime deadass looks like Javier Bardem

[@LuizMGRamos]

It's wonderful how SEGA almost gave a fuck for the Saturn providing SOME studios with the Saturn manual so that they could make a reasonably playable game. As a SEGA fan, I cannot be more proud... i mean, pissed off.

[@SamPearman]

Releasing the Japanese version first, region locking, removing Japanese from English releases and releasing updated "international" versions of games in Japan are all common practice because, as PandaMonium correctly points out, Japanese publishers are worried about Japanese importing the overseas versions of videogames for games released in Japan. The practice is referred to as "reverse importing", especially in the case where the game was developed in Japan originally.

[@HappyLight.]

Well, "Neu" is the German word for "New"

[@fabianotratetare2795]

CONTENTO

[@ciredecgellar8232]

I don't remember if the PS1 version is quicker, easier to play or if it need a entire memory card to save it.

[@irritated_name]

i wonder how much faster the game would be if they were able to optimize it

[@Liboo52]

If command and conquer doesn’t support a mouse on your console, what’s the point of having a mouse for your console?

[@evanjenkins1620]

Is that Rodney Mullen?

[@PandaMoniumReviews]

Yep!

[@fabianotratetare2795]

JAJAJAAJAAJAAJAJA

[@Gadoworld]

Stills better than SNES version

[@38kob]

2:43

[@CasperEgas]

The whole zoning mechanism (in real life) is very North American and has been heavily criticised in recent years. It increased segregation and makes cities very car dependent. Sustainable, walkable and liveable cities have a combination of functions in a single area instead of zoning. This will make the city more compact too. Of course you can't combine everything, like single family homes and heavy industry.

[@jh5124]

Too much for the Sega Saturn to chew? That's nonsense. There's no PC game of 1993 that the Saturn couldn't match easily for the power needed. If there's problems with it it's because either the Saturn wasn't supported well enough for devs or the developers just slopped it together to get the contract done.