Sega’s days in the hardware market of the video game industry are unfortunately over, but the company still continues to make a strong impression with its work as software developers. Sega can’t always replicate the magic of the past, but they still have many strong properties that are very much alive.
The Sega Saturn is a chapter from Sega’s legacy that many people skipped over, but the console is the home to some groundbreaking titles that can’t be found anywhere else. The Saturn has many games that are quicker experiences, but it also features many titles that boast a considerably longer story for the gamers that want a more engrossing challenge.
10 Burning Rangers (5 Hours)
Burning Rangers is one of the Saturn’s biggest titles, but since it’s remained trapped on the console, it’s also an entry that comes from both Sonic Team and legendary developer Yuji Naka that many people have never gotten to experience. Burning Rangers is an inventive spin on the adventure genre that centers around a team of futuristic firefighters that are more like superheroes. The game is an impressive mix of sound design and exploration. The core gameplay isn’t overly long, but it will take players a long time to master all of the content and completely finish the game.
9 Guardian Heroes (10 Hours)
Treasure is one of the most acclaimed developers when it comes to sidescroller video games and Guardian Heroes is one of the company’s most ambitious efforts. The title takes the basic structure of a beat-‘em-up game, but adds in RPG elements and a leveling up system. The “fighting RPG” features many characters, tons of branching alternate paths, and a wealth of multiple endings to unlock. Guardian Heroes is a game that rewards multiple playthroughs. A single campaign is lengthy, but those who want to explore every corner of this adventure are going to need to invest some real time.
8 Policenauts (12 Hours)
Hideo Kojima has become one of the most prolific games in the video game industry due to his impressive and ambitious work on the Metal Gear Solid series and more recent works, like Death Stranding. Policenauts is Kojima’s take on a hard-boiled detective noir and it’s a stunning experience in storytelling.
Policenauts primarily plays out with a visual novel aesthetic as players piece together clues, but it incorporates various styles of gameplay to deliver something that’s truly unique. Policenauts’ story isn’t as sprawling as the RPGs on the Saturn, but it’s still a longer than usual experience.
7 Magic Knight Rayearth (15+ Hours)
Magic Knight Rayearth is one of the better video game adaptations of an anime from its generation. The action RPG looks at three magical girls who get tasked with rescuing a missing princess. It's a fun blend of lighter anime tropes with more serious RPG conventions. It feels tonally different from other RPGs of the time and it also contains a lengthy narrative that's satisfying for those that are familiar with the full story of the anime series. It manages to expand on anime concepts, plus there’s plenty of extra content to work through.
6 Panzer Dragoon Saga (15+ Hours)
It’s an exceptionally strange idea to take a rail shooter franchise and turn it into a giant RPG adventure, but that’s part of the reason why Panzer Dragoon Saga is such a unique gem. The game tells an emotional story that spans four discs and it’s not just one of the longest titles on the Sega Saturn, but it’s also one of the very best, period. In many ways, it felt like Panzer Dragoon Saga was supposed to be Sega’s big answer against the PlayStation’s growing Final Fantasy franchise, but unfortunately it didn’t make nearly as big of an impact.
5 Dragon Force (30 Hours)
All real-time strategy RPG titles tend to be immense, but Dragon Force is really a stunning achievement of what a game of this nature could be like on the Sega Saturn. Dragon Force allows the gamer to control up to 100 soldiers and has a cast of thousands.
Dragon Force is huge, but it also features eight distinct storylines for the game’s different monarchs, all of which add substantially more. The narrative and battles feel big in a way that no other games on the Sega Saturn do and it’s easy to lose hundreds of hours into this title.
4 Langrisser III (30+ Hours)
Langrisser III is the first entry in the tactical role-playing game series that incorporates concepts from the dating sim genre. As a result, this adventure is full of alternative paths and endings that make what's already a thorough trek even more intense. Although none of them received localizations for the Sega Saturn, Langrisser IV and V also came out for the console. Langrisser III just feels slightly more accessible and less bogged down in lore as some of the other entries.
3 Albert Odyssey: Legend Of Eldean (50+ Hours)
Curiously, Albert Odyssey: Legend Eldean initially began development as an RPG by Sunsoft for the Super Nintendo, but as the process got further along it was instead ported over to the superior Sega Saturn. Albert Odyssey caters towards more of a standard turn-based RPG approach rather than prioritizing tactical strategy. Albert Odyssey has turned into a humble RPG franchise, but the first game establishes most of the series’ ideas and features a lengthy campaign that’s not unusual to the 16-bit era of titles.
2 Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete (55+ Hours)
The Lunar series works just as hard as the Final Fantasy games and their stories go to even bigger places as it tells a larger narrative that spans thousands of years & multiple generations. The original Lunar game is held back by how it debuted on the Sega CD, and Lunar 2: Eternal Blue Complete faced similar hurdles on the Sega Saturn. The franchise is comfort food for RPG purists who don't want an overly complicated battle system, but are still interested in a deep story. Lunar 2 really pushes the limits of how big a game can be.
1 Shining Force III (60+ Hours)
Camelot’s turn-based fantasy JRPGShining series are some of the best video games of all time. Shining Force has provided a mature take on the fantasy genre and the Sega Saturn’s Shining Force III attempts to do something very ambitious with its structure. The story is divided into three separate scenarios that overlap and cross over in complex ways, all of which culminates in one of the most engaging narratives that’s told on the Saturn. Shining the Holy Ark and Shining Wisdom on the Saturn are also lengthy adventures, but Shining Force III still edges it out.