Very possible. A game like Legend of Oasis (which I consider very good and one of the best of its kind) getting trashed for looking and playing "too similar to the first one" and not even getting a detailed explanation for that is just weird. I mean, a sequel being like the original... isn't that kinda the point?
I think you can decide that for yourself.
Especially weird is how the review is not really saying anything but "The Legend of Oasis is a solid title and contains a lot of good gameplay", but "it's too similar to the first so 6.4/10, lol".
Yeah '90s gaming media has a lot of high points but one of the bad things about it, particularly mid '90s, was how 2D was practically shunned in an instant once the 3D systems came onto the scene. I get that it was revolutionary, but a lot of these 2D games were still pinnacles of sound design and many of them have aged better than their 3D counterparts from the same era.
Like was said earlier, I think Sega was running out of good will with not just gamers but also gaming press at the time, but if that led to gaming press just flippantly running with commentaries they knew were not or could not've been proven true without more time, then they should've withheld on that. TBF, not every Western gaming magazine turned on 2D games and I think most of them were still partial towards Saturn when the Sega games like VF2 (that got tons of excellent press at the time) and Sega Rally were released. Magazines like GameFan, Next Generation, etc.
But 2D games on 5th-gen system were generally shunned by Western press or just dismissed as more of the same; Sony of America had a strict policy against 2D games on PS1 and in fact several early 2D ports or games from Japan never got American releases because of it. Again I'm not saying it's a documented fact that certain parts of the gaming press may've yanked on Sega's chain at the benefit of Sony due to behind-the-scenes agreements for early access, perks etc. but it's unheard of because we've seen that happening in the film industry regularly, Rotten Tomatoes and several film reviewer-types got exposed for being a bit too partial towards Disney due to the early access and press perks they'd get.
Sony obviously had other entertainment divisions at the time like movies and music, in fact some people from those went to the PlayStation division (whatever it was called at the time), they brought their experience with them, that could've included any certain "other" things. I'd need to do more research on it though before ever suggesting this is something they definitely engaged in, there's just a lot of coincidental, circumstantial stuff if anything.
To be fair though, it was weaker than both the N64 and PS1. Especially the PS1 which had a far more powerful polygon engine that could push a lot more polys than both N64/Saturn.
Actually this isn't true; Saturn could draw more polygons than PS1, 500K vs. 360K. However, it was drawing quads whereas PS1 drew triangles, and of course other differences plus some bottlenecks in Saturn's design meant it couldn't display 500K polygons even if it could theoretically draw more.
Outside of maybe transparencies and built-in hardware support for MPEG decoding, and better features for lighting there's not much that actually separates PS1 and Saturn in terms of 3D capability, just in terms of paper specifications. In practice several things helped PS1 hold 3D better, but it also had a longer commercial life so the big-budget games got a chance to shine just about around the time the Saturn was being phased out for Dreamcast.
For example, by mid 1997 Sega were no longer funding new major AAA productions for Saturn, just finishing up ones that had already began beforehand like Panzer Dragoon Saga and Burning Rangers. Meanwhile PS1 would go on to get: RE2, Parasite Eve, FFXIII (and IX), Vagrant Story, MGS, Silent Hill, Valkyrie Profile, GT, GT2 etc. Most 1P Saturn games past mid 1997 were relatively simpler arcade ports (with not a lot of extra content) or games they had started before that inflection point, like PD Saga and Burning Rangers. 3P AAA support also dropped off massively after the mid 1997 point, but continued in earnest for PS1.
You can see that in many games having more complex 3D objects and more details. The N64 could get away with fewer polys because of the perspective correction so it draw large surfaces with only a handful. But even the N64 could match or even exceed the PS1 in polygon counts using custom microcodes that could alter other features 99% of games used as standard.
Issue with that microcode is that Nintendo banned it, and the few games that used it were lucky to get away with doing so. There were very serious bottleneck flaws in N64's design Nintendo were probably aware of before the system launched, hence why they banned the microcode. The effective bandwidth of the Rambus RAM was one of the key issues, check out Zygal Studios on Youtube for a video on N64's architecture that details it way better.
I'm not sure what exactly games you are referring to having more complex 3D objects and details on PS1 compared to Saturn, because if you're referring to games like GT2 or FF XIII, those games don't really have Saturn equivalents from the same time period making that comparison moot. If you mean ports of PS1 games like Wipeout and RE1, it's commonly agreed those ports either did not leverage the Saturn hardware specifically to its strengths, were quick rushed jobs, or done by external teams with little 3D experience on Saturn (the RE1 port is interesting because Capcom did that port themselves, but they had no prior 3D experience coding on Saturn, all of their other games were 2D and their only other 3D game on Saturn, Final Fight Revenge, was done by an external dev IIRC).
Yes, there are quite a few great looking Saturn 3D games in this topic. But if we could compare them with the finest looking PS1/N64 games, they would still pale in comparison.
No, not really. For starters, your timeline for those "finest looking PS1/N64" games are probably well after Saturn's commercial period as a serious contender, and you're probably comparing AAA PS1/N64 games to AA Saturn releases from smaller teams, let alone late 1998-onward games to 1994-1997 Saturn titles.
Sure, Saturn still has the best looking Duke Nukem 3D port but that's because it was treated by some of Saturn's best devs, while the PS1/N64 ports aren't even considered as the best looking games on the platforms, in any way.
Well FWIW DN 3D isn't considered as the Saturn's best looking game, either. I don't think it being the best-looking port of the three should bar it of what it accomplished; it's still a fine-looking port and compared to many of the PS1 and N64 shooters that released around the same time frame, is a superior-looking game.
Labotomy were wizards with the Saturn but oft-times were also cash-strapped. In many ways we never got to see what they could truly do with the Saturn, if they were given a AAA-sized budget to work with. Such a shame Sega didn't consider picking them up or funding them as a second-party developer when the time was ripe.
