Doom Game Sample - Sega Saturn
0Ugh, the Sega Saturn version of Doom... in some ways it's even worse than the 32X port! Some often tout it as the second worse Doom port, second only behind the 3DO version, and I think that sounds reasonable.
While the game does feature mainly all the levels and many of the enemies from the original PC game and has a good resolution, it's missing textures, lighting, some transparency effects, etc., but the real butcher here is the framerate, which either makes the game unbelievably easy or practically unplayable. This game moves around 20ish frames on a good day (when nothing is really on screen or moving), but as soon as you move, if you're not facing a wall, the game can drop to what feels like 5-10 frames instantly, but the player is mostly unaffected by this slow motion. You can shoot an enemy three or four times and kill them and still have time to side step and avoid a projectile. It's as crazy as it sounds.
The audio is also different from the PC game, though it's not bad. I enjoy the original music more, but this music isn't what I'd call inappropriate; it's a matter of preference. One thing that is annoying about the audio though is the sound our great space marine makes whenever he drops down even ONE LITTLE STEP. I don't recall this happening in the PC game and if he sounds like he's hurting and out of shape just from going down a flight of stairs, how is he ever supposed to keep the likes of "The Pain Elemental" and any other demon scourge from attacking Earth?
Some weapons and enemy placement is different in this version and while the game is titled "Doom", it features Ultimate Doom and Doom II. Some enemies are in versions they weren't in originally and the game still has neat weapons and secrets to find, but this game should have been so much better than what it was. The Sega Saturn would get some redemption and (in a sense) mercy/pity with the release of "Quake", which was not released for the at-the-time main competitor of the system, the Sony Playstation. I should add that it's a great conversion of Quake... well, we own that too, so we might as well make a video for it. This video shows the first level of Ultimate Doom and Doom II.