A pair of Saturn shooters, Wolf Fang and Skull Fang, are out now on modern digital storefronts, including Western ones.
City Connection published the two-game package Wednesday for US$29.99 on the Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox and PC via Steam, although the Switch and Steam versions have a launch discount of 10 percent off.
While City Connection made an announcement on social media in English, the games themselves are not translated. They’re mostly playable for those who don’t know Japanese, but Japanese is present in both of them.
They’re the latest City Connection’s Saturn Tribute line of emulated Saturn games on present-day platforms with varying degrees of modern accoutrements.
City Connection put 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 are new features added as opposed to simple emulation with basic support for save states and rewinding.
The store listings say that in Wolf Fang, players can change the color of the mech, strengthen its armor and increase the gauge recovery speed, while in Skull Fang, players can get infinite continues, simplified commands for special maneuvers, and the ability to change screen orientation and size.
The release also includes a new arranged soundtrack.
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 game hadn’t been announced for the West, so its release there came somewhat as a surprise. It coincided with the Japanese launch, which included a special physical edition that includes two soundtrack CDs and a “special fanbook” with interviews with the arcade versions’ staff and development materials.
The previous 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.
Clear River hasn’t said anything about publishing physical versions of Wolf Fang and Skull Fang.
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.
The Saturn Tribute storefronts point out that the Saturn version of Wolf Fang includes exclusive character voices, new actions and a boss rush mode, while Skull Fang features exclusive additional bosses, extra aircraft and a trial mode.
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, 17 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, Wolf Fang and Skull Fang this year.
After Xenosaga Episode 2 I’m a little nervous when I see Shinji Hosoe’s name anywhere, but… Hey, this looks like proper arcade-y fun times. Hoping for favourable weather.