Sega Saturn, Switch-O! Switch to get various Taito arcade ports originally on Saturn

[ArugulaZ]

City Connection Announces Multiple 'Saturn Tribute X Taito' Releases For Nintendo Switch eShop

Layer Section & Galactic Attack S-Tribute arrives 28th April

www.nintendolife.com

Apparently, the "Zebra engine" that brought Saturn obscurities Cotton and Guardian Force to the Switch will also be used to revive several Taito arcade games, including Elevator Action Returns, Puzzle Bobble 2x and 3, Metal Black, Cleopatra's Fortune, and Layer Section. This is good news for two reasons. The first is, hey, Elevator Action Returns. You could play it on a few other formats (Legends Gamer Pro, Egret Mini II, Taito Legends 2 for Xbox), but this is the Saturn version, so you're getting an extra button for flinging grenades and additional music.

More importantly, this flings the door wide open for other Saturn games on the Switch, games that haven't seen release on other formats for over twenty years. Just imagine, Fighter's Megamix! Virtual On! Burning Rangers! And dare I say it, Panzer Dragoon Saga? I do! All Sega has to do is get involved, perhaps as an extension of its Sega Ages line.

 

[Peklo]

Cotton and Guardian Force as presented by the initial version of this emulation engine had probably the most severe lag of any commercially released port of vintage material in memory, reaching truly unbearable levels, so if that was the baseline to look forward to, this would be a real monkey's paw situation. Fortunately, the criticism has been deservedly vocal, and likely with time understanding the software's quirks has deepened, so judging from demos and previews on the new batch things promise to be in much better order the next time. Hopefully the engine updates can be retroactively applied to whatever utilizes the wrapper.

Outside of emulation concerns, this is really a peerless selection of games that's coming up, covering many of Taito's lofty best. Really exciting.

 

[Octopus Prime]

You had me at Layer Section, and kept me with Elevator Action

 

[WildcatJF]

Replaying EAR on my Egret II Mini only strengthened my love of this amazing game, and I can only hope that this port does the Saturn version justice.

 

[ArugulaZ]

The animation in this game, geez. Note that when Edie Burett throws back her hair, her entire body moves with the motion, but only subtly. The whole game is full of that life.

 

[Becksworth]

Layer Section has a demo on the Japanese eShop. I didn't notice any lag so that seems like a good sign for this batch of Zebra Engine releases. I'm not sure that means anything in regards to emulation refinements though. I recall that people who had hack the previous releases to play other Saturn games said the input lag was dependent on how difficult individual games were to emulate, so it could be an issue of the Switch lacking the raw horse power to fully emulate the Saturn.

 

[muteKi]

Come to think of it I got the Taito Legends first series for PC but not the second. It was just a licensed MAME distribution under the hood (though the specific rom distributions are not compatible with more recent releases of MAME!) but it was a good selection...

 

[ArugulaZ]

Something I find intensely amusing is how Taito will, many years later, refer to itself as "Taitronics," which is the kind of thing that only sounded high-tech in 1981. It was such a long time ago... a distant, zeerusty time when people used terms like "micro computers" and "powerful, 4 bit processor!"

 

[Exposition Owl]

zeerusty

A billion points to ArugulaZ for the Meaning of Liff reference.

 

[ArugulaZ]

What can I say? I love it when people offer visions of the future that are hilariously dated and out of sync with the actual future. (It's also cool when people accurately predict the future... 2001: A Space Odyssey featured tablet computers as a common appliance. Nice guess on Arthur C. Clarke's part!)

 

[Kirin]

Ol’ Arthur C was dead-on the ball with so many things, I’m not entirely sure he wasn’t a time traveler.