Rayman Pirate-Community

Hi guys, it was a while since I was asking myself a question...

Suppose that Sega did not take the "longest step of his leg" with the consequences that we all know by now, and kept the Sega Saturn for the same amount of time that lasted PlayStation and Nintendo 64 (until 2000 and 2001 respectively).
The development of the final version of Rayman 2 would probably have been entrusted (as in the case of PlayStation) to the Ubi Soft's Shanghai division. But this is just an hypothesis generated in analogy with the excellent work that in fact only the asian programmers were able to do in this excellent conversion adapted from 64-bit to the 32-bit PlayStation's hardware and where the difference for a game like that is not indifferent.

Now, everyone knows that the Sega Saturn was certainly a console of fine workmanship and able to match PlayStation hardware, but it's known that the games were difficult to program to get 100% of them and also that the machine was not able to offer a 3D like PlayStation, but a 2D just above that of PlayStation.
Moreover, the limits of the Sega Saturn can be deduced from some graphic effects absent in the versions dedicated to this one and from the full motion video much less fluid than the PlayStation version: see Wipeout for mention one.

At this point my question is simple, if at the end of the '90s the Sega Saturn remained among the direct competitors of the period (then PlayStation, Sega Saturn and Nintendo 64) as in fact had to be and the dreamcast had been produced later, maybe in the same period of playstation 2, gamecube and xbox inserting therefore in its context, that of 128bit, what would have been the final result of Rayman 2 converted on Sega Saturn? The game would have been the same or given the limits of the 3D of the Sega Saturn this version would have been worse than the PlayStation version?

In short, the final result in terms of resolution, video/audio quality, fluidity, frames and content (ie levels, graphic effects, etc.) it would have been equal, worse or better than that of PlayStation?

We always talk about the final version of the game, the 3D one clearly. Not the 2D prototype. I'm waiting for your answers.

interesting question

no one able to hypothesize? unfortunately I'm not an expert.

Well Rayman 2 was released the exact same time as the Dreamcast (except for Japan where it came out a year before that), so my assumption would be just that they had been optimising the Dreamcast version while expecting the Saturn version to not sell very well if it was to be released. The PS2 didn't come out until a year after the Dreamcast in America & Europe and it was around a year and a half in Japan from the Dreamcast release date. The GameCube came out way later, almost 2 years later than PS2.

So basically they would have thought hmm, the new SEGA is coming out, we'll port it to that because it'll be more powerful. Then the fact that the PS2 came out in NA & EU a year later explains Rayman 2's release on PS1, while the GameCube being far later (2002) simply explains the N64 version.

I can only guess that because the Dreamcast came out so early in Japan that they were planning to do that all along and skip Saturn.

If it had been on Saturn, I assume it would have ran a little better than the PS1 version. Either way they'd both be 240p and probably still capped to 30fps (25fps in EU).

I still would have liked to see the game on Saturn myself though to be honest, the Saturn is a pretty good console

It would've looked even worse than the PS1 version

No it wouldn't because of The Bog Of Murk

It would still look awful

The Saturn is more powerful than the PS1 though

Steo wrote:The Saturn is more powerful than the PS1 though

I think it would have more controller problems on saturn

and loadtimes my god

The CD-ROM drive would be similar so loading times wouldn't be much different between Saturn and PS1

Steo wrote:The CD-ROM drive would be similar so loading times wouldn't be much different between Saturn and PS1

Compared to rayman 1 the loadtimes where way longer

StelzenBomber wrote:

Steo wrote:The CD-ROM drive would be similar so loading times wouldn't be much different between Saturn and PS1

Compared to rayman 1 the loadtimes where way longer

I have a Saturn and played it, I wouldn't say way longer, not enough for me to notice anyway. Maybe the drive is 1x and the PS1 is 2x then

Steo wrote:

StelzenBomber wrote:

Steo wrote:The CD-ROM drive would be similar so loading times wouldn't be much different between Saturn and PS1

Compared to rayman 1 the loadtimes where way longer

I have a Saturn and played it, I wouldn't say way longer, not enough for me to notice anyway. Maybe the drive is 1x and the PS1 is 2x then

Yea i thought it was a bit longer
wrong memories

StelzenBomber wrote:

Steo wrote:

StelzenBomber wrote:

Steo wrote:The CD-ROM drive would be similar so loading times wouldn't be much different between Saturn and PS1

Compared to rayman 1 the loadtimes where way longer

I have a Saturn and played it, I wouldn't say way longer, not enough for me to notice anyway. Maybe the drive is 1x and the PS1 is 2x then

Yea i thought it was a bit longer
wrong memories

You could be right though, I'll look into it when I'm not so tired and see if it's a 1x drive.

Steo wrote:The Saturn is more powerful than the PS1 though

It is? Never knew that.

Alexinator wrote:

Steo wrote:The Saturn is more powerful than the PS1 though

It is? Never knew that.

Not by much but just a little. Enough that Rayman 1 has better effects and stuff on it than PS1.

Alexinator wrote:

Steo wrote:The Saturn is more powerful than the PS1 though

It is? Never knew that.

it is but not by much