Burning Rangers (Sega Saturn)
One of the last and best looking Sega Saturn games, how does it hold up?
Frankly, the game looks amazing but it really starts to push the Sega Saturn to its absolute limits. We have the last game produced by the Sonic Team for the system in 1998, building upon the engine they used for NiGHTS into Dreams. Where NiGHTS was fluid, vibrant and akin to a 2D platformer set in a 3D environment, we actually got to see a peek of how the game could work in 3D at the start of each stage when controlling Claire and Elliot (or if you have the Christmas NiGHTS disc, you can control Sonic the Hedgehog as well).
Burning Rangers on the other hand was very closed in, close to the action and intense as the stages start to explode around you. Graphically, Burning Rangers is a set above with dynamic lighting effects around the fire, transparent flames and some amazing underwater sequences but the cracks start to show with the pop-up and pop-in. It’s usually confined to the corners of the stage where the edge of a room might sit right on the draw distance but certain areas make it a lot more noticeable than others.
True to Yuji Naka’s desire at the time to create non-violent games, Burning Rangers doesn’t feature any real ‘fighting’. Occasionally there’s an out-of-control robot or a mutated stage-boss, but most of the time, you’ll be shooting fire to collect crystals that are used for evacuating people trapped within each stage. Initially, I was concerned fighting fire was going to be extremely tedious but the stages themselves,the way the fire can spread and how intense the destruction sequences get make for an awesome experience.
You get a counter that displays the amount of fire left within that stage. Let it reach the peak and the whole place will start to explode around you but if you can keep the fire in check, save the trapped civilians quickly and keep a cool head, you should make it out fine.
So for this review, I picked up the Japanese version of Burning Rangers assuming I could get through using a guide. After playing through two stages, I started to realise how playable Burning Rangers is without knowing Japanese. One of the unique gimmicks is the navigation system where you receive commands in-game depending on your location… What I realised was, if I followed the crystals, I could navigate the levels fine. I missed the story here but in terms of gameplay Burning Rangers was very playable without knowing Japanese.
As the final game made by the Sonic Team for the Sega Saturn, it does beg the question, “What happened to Sonic the Hedgehog?”. We got spin-offs like Sonic R and Sonic 3D Blast, compilations like Sonic Jam with a built-in 3D world to explore and as mentioned before, Sonic’s first 3D appearance in Christmas NiGHTS.
Apparently, the next full 3D Sonic game was supposed to be a Sega US project and went through countless iterations from the humble 32X right up until the end of the Sega Saturn. Sonic Team Japan (previously developed Sonic CD and Knuckles Chaotix), went onto create NiGHTS into Dreams and Burning Rangers while blocking the use of the game engine from SEGA US to use in the next Sonic project, causing internal conflict… Though the team at Sonic Retro have created an amazing resource with plenty of information regarding Yuji Naka’s involvement, Sonic X-Treme’s history and various concepts, demonstrations and the current, unofficial release.
If you’re after some more amazing Saturn games, I’ve also covered Deep Fear and Panzer Dragoon Saga. When it comes to picking up games for a console, like the Sega Saturn, I really enjoy picking up a few titles that really show off what the system could do. It’s a powerful console that didn’t get much love compared with the Sony Playstation and the Nintendo 64 but I have enjoyed checking out these unique Sega games from the end of the Saturn era.
A quick word about the Leftover Culture Show, this video was part of a project to create a bigger, TV-show like episode full of reviews, recommendations & lists and Action Figures. You can go on to check out the other segments to this show here; Best Atari Lynx Games and my review on the original Resident Evil Action Figures. The TV show format didn’t feel like it worked tying these various reviews together and that’s evident by the fact these segments work so well as separate videos.
