It is unfortunate that we will never know for sure if the Sega Saturn had the prowess to compete properly if, lets say, was a market leader that developers took fully advantage of.
Or at least if it could pull out more super interesting results than what we know now overall and to what extend.
But it is interesting to get an idea of the limitations and capabilities of each hardware by finding identical franchises and similar games between PS1, the N64 and the Sega Saturn.
Comparing the PS1 and the N64 games, one thing that the N64 had serious issues with are geometry and textures:
We can see something similar with Wipeout.
Wipeout shows the peculiarity of the Sega Saturn. It probably pushes more geometry, and textures than the N64, but the framerate, the strange color palette and transparency effects puts it in a position where you cant say it's better. Wipeout of course was probably not designed around the multiple processors and was running on just one. Which we can say maybe its partly the developer's fault, but then again this game was designed already using straigjt forward means. Taking that and braking it to VDP1, VDP2 and syncing properly the CPU's would have required disassembling and reassembling the game, not to mention remaking it from the ground up with the Saturn's limitations and peculiarities in mind. Which might have produced a vastly different looking game.
But taking Sega Rally as an example of Saturn's capabilities I would say it was one of the most impressive racers until the end of the console generation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cs3d6KaU-bg
The texture detail and probably even the geometry I would say is better than what the N64 ever put out there.
This is the N64's most impressive racer in my book. Looks impressive, car models are great and so is the lighting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBUhDrnVvdg
The illusion breaks once you check it on an emulator with HD res. The environment geometry though and textures are terrible.::
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfwq93Tc4iM
And this is how awesome Sega Rally looks on an emulator:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcaeiqCbRYY
Then again Sega Rally lacks any kind of reflections, proper lighting effects and transparencies. We really cant have a like for like comparison.
Any game that had to be developed for the Saturn had to be designed around what the Saturn could do. If something the Saturn couldnt do, you had to find another compensation through some smart art direction and design that exploited Saturn's peculiarities.
I.e even in games like Resident Evil where the only polygon models were some objects and the characters, had cut backs
Here is Resi1 emulated on PS1 and Saturn:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJMzZx1EymU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xm0hYQm1Ejk
Character models on the Sega Saturn were blockier, textures had banding, and the lighting on the models was flatter.
View attachment 6446
View attachment 6444
And here is ofcourse Resi 2 emulated on PS1 and N64 to check the assets:
View attachment 6447View attachment 6448
PS1 seems to punch a little bit more geometry and texture detail. If a Saturn version existed the assets would have probably had a bit more texture detail, but with worse shading and polygon numbers. It is extremely difficult to say how the Saturn competes to the N64 hardware because it works so differently.
youtu.be
www.segasaturnshiro.com
'Super is tight thrill ride and '64 could have some great multiplayer race and battle matches. Starting a Dash race felt like being ready a wide rollercoaster and getting on the kids caterpillar ride by mistake.
