[Edit, Oct. 18: The veracity of the footage discussed in this story has been confirmed. See our story on it here. The original story remains unedited below.]
A hobbyist modder named Frogbull posted a YouTube video Monday that appears to show a homemade prototype of PlayStation exclusive Metal Gear Solid running on the Saturn.
Playable files have not been released to the public as of yet and SHIRO! cannot confirm whether the video is genuine.
“Sadly for the moment I won’t share the ISO to the public,” Frogbull said in a thread they made on SegaXtreme. “I don’t want to see scammers selling it on eBay in a fake Saturn blister [pack].”
When asked in the thread whether a video could be recorded an off-screen video of a real Saturn booting up and running the alleged prototype, Frogbull said that it’s not running on real hardware in the video but rather on an emulator within the RetroArch framework.
“[Of course] I can make a record on Retroarch, open the Shaders, change them in live but even with that with so many people convinced that the Saturn sucks in 3D I’m sure there would still be skeptics,” Frogbull said.
The video shows a Saturn bootup screen followed by logo screens for Metal Gear Solid publisher Konami before a title screen appears, all while original music from the game plays. “New game” is selected, bringing up a difficulty screen. After the player chooses “Hard,” instead of showing the in-game cutscene with credits that are in the original game, this video shows a brief green-tinted Codec conversation screen, complete with the voice of main character Solid Snake.
On the left is the PS1 version of Metal Gear Solid. On the right is a screen depicted in Frogbull’s YouTube video. PS1 screengrab is courtesy of World of Longplays’ video. The sprites appear to be smaller in Frogbull’s version and the font is different.
Then it jumps right into gameplay, with Snake moving around the first room of the game. There are no enemies, no radar in the upper-right corner and no credits appearing on top of the gameplay. Some game elements are demonstrated like using cigarettes from the inventory and bringing up the first-person-view binoculars.
On the left is the PS1 version of Metal Gear Solid. On the right is a screen depicted in Frogbull’s YouTube video. PS1 screengrab is courtesy of World of Longplays’ video. Frogbull’s version appears to be zoomed out more than the PS1 version and it lacks a radar and credits appearing on top of the gameplay.
After a little more than a minute, a Codec call rings — prompting the player to press C instead of pressing Select like in the PS1 original — and another green conversation screen appears. But this one quickly turns into a joke, as Sega of Japan mascot Segata Sanshiro appears while his theme song plays. Once the theme ends, so does the video.
On the left is the PS1 version of Metal Gear Solid. On the right is a screen depicted in Frogbull’s YouTube video. PS1 screengrab is courtesy of World of Longplays’ video. Frogbull’s version says “PUSH C” instead of “PUSH SELECT” when the Codec call comes in.
In a Patreon post, Frogbull said they wanted to know whether the Saturn could handle a game like Metal Gear Solid or if it really were dependent on the PlayStation’s supposedly superior 3D capabilities.
“I’m quite happy with the result and I think I was able to achieve my goal to demonstrate that Metal Gear Solid could very well have been released on Sega’s 32 bit and that the Saturn could have shown us much MUCH more,” they said in the post.
Frogbull also discussed how they made the alleged prototype:
At first my [prototype] was based on the Jo Engine (made by Johannes Fetz) and I moved after on the Z-Treme Engine (made by Maxime “XL2“). Big respect for you guys! You are Saturn experts and crazy geniuses!
— Frogbull
On French gaming forum Gamopat, Frogbull — under the nickname Saturnin — was asked whether they planned on completing the game. “It would take a long time to do the whole game,” they said, admitting that Konami might not appreciate such a move, regardless. But they’re still open to working on it more to some extent for the “pleasure of the hack.”
One person on that forum asked if Frogbull used a “reflection” mesh under the floor to create the water puddles seen during gameplay. “Yes, the reflection technique comes directly from the PS1 version,” Frogbull replied, “we hide quads (the Saturn doesn’t know triangles) with blurred textures under the ground (part of which is transparent to see through but with ‘dirty’ pixels to avoid having the impression of seeing in the void) and with the right angle it gives the change, they were smart on Kojima’s team.”
Frogbull is a French hobbyist modder whose Patreon appears to have started earlier this year. It contains posts about mods they’ve made for PC games like Supreme Commander and Pro Evolution Soccer 2013.
Two years ago, they made a mod changing 2016 arcade game Daytona Championship USA to be more faithful to the original Daytona.
Community skepticism
Some established members of the Saturn homebrew development community expressed skepticism at the video and its lack of publicly playable build.
It remains to be seen whether Frogbull will take any steps to allay their apprehension.
This story was written as a collaboration among Danthrax, TraynoCo and SaturnDave.
If this is real, it’s absolutely phenomenal – I’ve always wanted to see this game running on Saturn. Let’s hope this isn’t some joke and is legit!
I would be excited to see a full game available. And with the recent progress Ive seen of projects, I dont think its a far cry from a reality. I can only imagine how many discs it would be.