The next title in City Connection’s Saturn Tribute line of modern re-releases will be a double pack — a pair of shoot-em-ups named Wolf Fang and Skull Fang, the publisher announced last week.
They’re set for a Japanese release Oct. 31 on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Steam, City Connection said during a livestream June 26. No Western release has been announced yet, and only the PlayStation 5 and Switch versions will be released physically in Japan, with the others coming to digital storefronts only.
Both games were Japanese exclusives on the Saturn when they originally released in March and May 1997. They were ports of Data East arcade games that are loosely part of the same series as Vapor Trail, which got a Genesis port in 1991 that came out in North America and France. While Wolf Fang got ported to PlayStation in Japan almost a year before the Saturn version, Skull Fang never came to another console outside the Saturn before now.
City Connection is putting a little more effort into this package than most of their other Saturn Tribute games, as Wolf Fang Skull Fang will be a “Boosted” title, denoting that there will be new features added as opposed to simple emulation with basic support for save states and rewinding.
The only other Saturn Tribute Boosted game so far has been Batsugun, whose “Boosted” features included a “Boost Up HUD” that displays an experience gauge, the current score, hidden bonuses and the title of the music track currently playing.
The official website says that Wolf Fang will allow players to change the color of their aircraft, strengthen their armor and increase their gauge recovery speed, while Skull Fang will provide them with infinite continues and allow them to change the screen to vertical orientation. Both games will feature a new “Boosted” arranged soundtrack in addition to the original music.
The artists planned to compose the arranged soundtrack for Skull Fang Wolf Fang Saturn Tribute
The site also gives details on the Japanese special physical edition, which is planned to include two soundtrack CDs — one for the games’ original soundtrack and the other for the new arranged music — and as well as a more than 40-page “special fanbook” that will include interviews with the arcade versions’ staff and development materials.
The game will cost 4,980 yen digitally, 5,940 yen for the regular physical edition and 9,900 yen for the special physical edition — about US$31, $37 and $61, respectively.
The most recent Saturn Tribute game, Assault Suit Leynos 2, released digitally in the West on Xbox and Steam but it was delayed on the Switch, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 to accommodate a forthcoming physical release on those platforms. Swedish video game publisher Clear River Games is set to publish those but hasn’t yet, although in recent weeks it finally added a page for the game to its website with a nebulous release timeframe of 2024.
It’s unknown whether Clear River Games might handle a Western release of the Wolf Fang Skull Fang double pack, but they appear to be the most likely candidate.
Saturn Tribute games are the Saturn originals running on what City Connection calls the Zebra Engine, which dataminers have found appears to be a modified version of the SSF emulator. City Connection uses the “S-Tribute” label for the Saturn games that are only released digitally, while games like Cotton 2 and Suchie-Pie have gotten physical printings — at least in Japan — so they sport the “Saturn Tribute” label. The publisher used a “Saturn Tribute Boosted” label for Batsugun last year, denoting extra features that aren’t in their other Saturn efforts.
That emulator gives players features like rewind, quick save and quick load.
So far, 15 games have been released under the three labels: Cotton 2, Cotton Boomerang and Guardian Force, which came out in 2021; Layer Section & Galactic Attack, Cleopatra Fortune, Elevator Action Returns and the four games in the Suchie-Pai collection, which came out 2022; Metal Black, Bust-a-Move 2: Arcade Edition & Bust-a-Move 3 and Batsugun, which came out in 2023; and Assault Suit Leynos 2, from earlier this year.
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