I think X4 is, along with the original X are my favorites from the entire series, I’ve played it quite a lot on the Saturn around 97/98 and obviously as kid, I never noticed anything such as transparencies, I actually only learned about these things quite recently, maybe 6 years ago, or so. I think the PS1 version holds up pretty well and I don’t think I would notice the backgrounds being less detailed, or not having animation. What I think it’s true, though, is how the Saturn’s sound more clearer, specially sound effects and voices, which was mostly true for many of its games, 2D and 3D.
The PS1 has less bandwidth, less memory and this is very clear with arcade ports, King of Fighters 97 is a good example developers set the sound sample way down, cut a lot of animation in order to shorten load times, the Saturn has a higher pitched sound that is a bit funny, but very nostalgic to me, I’ve played all these arcade ports on the Saturn back then, and 98/99 on the PS1 later. KOF 96 has more animation and better sound quality on the PS1 compared to the 97 version it got later, but the loadings are longer, while the Saturn is basically identical to the NEO GEO CD and obviously has shorter load times, KOF 95 is, to my eyes, really accurate as far as animation and sound goes on the PS1, and basically perfect with the Saturn, almost without loadings.
With all that, the PS games play really well, the compromises don’t degrade gameplay, as they are faithful to their original counterparts, I don’t think even Metal Slug is bad just because it has less animation and mid-stage loadings on Sony’s machine, the game is still the same and it even received X later.
I think the biggest offender on the Playstation would be X-Men vs SF, Marvel vs SF and the such, but even so they are still competent fighting games and it got Marvel vs Capcom, Capcom vs SNK, SFEX and more that I really wanted for the Saturn back then. With its killer catalog of games, it was hard to dismiss even compromised ports of the era.
I strongly believe if the Saturn wasn’t discontinued, it would get Street Fighter III, Garou and much more, that came to the Dreamcast. Speaking of which my favorite SFA3 version is on the Saturn, even better than the PSP port that has input lag on original hardware, and I still consider the PS1 version a miracle, probably the best Capcom effort on the console, aside from longer loadings, very solid.
An unusual example almost no one talks about are the versions of Dragon Ball Z - Idainaru Dragon Ball Densetsu for both the Saturn and PS1, this game has a different fighting style and requires a bit of getting used to, but it’s quite fun, I only knew the Saturn version from back in the day, and I noticed the PS1 version suffers a bit with frame rates, I may be wrong but it really seems this game is taxing the PS1 CPU as there are times 6 characters are fighting simultaneously, while the Saturn basically won’t feel it. I’m not sure if this game uses both CPUs properly, as many games used one, and if so, maybe this is the case why this game performs smoother than the PS1 version, and also sounds clearer, maybe this game was made with Saturn’s hardware in mind and is a bit harder to do on the PS1, maybe it wasn’t a perfect port if that’s the case, who knows:
Update, actually the PS1 release performs much slower than I remembered, it runs at 20~FPS with all characters on screen:
PS1
I’m not sure if there’s a way to display the internal FPS on other emulators other than Bettle PSX, the Saturn probably runs this game at a steady 30, it feels really smooth, playing both versions it’s clear it outperforms the PS release. One might argue this is mostly a 2D game, with sprites, so that isn’t surprising.
This isn’t a RAM bottleneck, though, SNK and Capcom games needed VRAM, not much CPU, this game is hectic and requires much more raw CPU power, I may be wrong, but this really feels like a CPU limitation.
Saturn
