When City Connection teased last month that its Saturn Tribute line would continue, it didn’t mention how many games that would entail. It turns out that the answer is a whopping four: Steam Heart’s (sic), Advanced V.G., and Farland Saga 1 and 2.
The publisher announced the games Tuesday night on X. They’re the latest in City Connection’s line of emulated Saturn games on present-day platforms with varying degrees of modern accoutrements. The next morning, producers from the company showed off two of the games live on YouTube.
Steam Heart’s and Advanced V.G. — the V.G. stands for Variable Geo — are a vertical shoot-em-up and a 2D fighting game, respectively. The titles are set to release May 29 in Japan on the Switch, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC via Steam, according to the official website. It appears that the games will be sold individually on digital storefronts but will be packaged together in physical printings for the Switch and PS5.
No Western release was mentioned, but judging by previous Saturn Tribute launches, they likely will be available for purchase outside Japan on Steam, at the very least, when they go live in Japan.
Farland Saga 1 and 2 only have a release year of 2025 right now with no platforms announced. They’re strategy game followups to the long-running Farland Story series of RPGs.
All four games originally were published on the Saturn by TGL, which still exists today under the name Entergram. The only released in Japan.
The official website says the games will include the usual Saturn Tribute features of quick save, quick load and rewind as well as “extra options.” The live YouTube presentation showed Steam Heart’s extra options, which will be to reduce damage, have weapons carry over to the next stage, play a boss rush and add a second player. An item list can be displayed on the side of the screen, too.
The extra features for Advanced V.G. did not appear to be revealed aside from displaying a command list on the side of the screen.
Despite being different genres, Steam Heart’s and Advanced V.G. likely are being paired together for their shared sexual content. Steam Heart’s is particularly infamous for voice acting that depicts the protagonists sexually assaulting each stage’s boss after the player has defeated her, although the accompanying still-frame imagery is somewhat censored in the Saturn version — the original release on the PC-98 in 1994 was uncensored but had no voice acting.
Advanced V.G. isn’t as lurid, but it does depict each of its all-girl cast’s clothes being shredded after losing a fight. The Saturn version is also toned down from its 1993 PC-98 predecessor, Variable Geo, which showed uncensored breasts.
Steam Heart’s and Advanced V.G. will be the first Saturn Tribute games since the two-game compilation of Wolf Fang and Skull Fang released last October.
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 uses a “Saturn Tribute Boosted” label to denote 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 last year.
Now if only Hudson could somehow remaster SATURN BOMBERMAN for the switch 2, with 8-10 player online !
Shameful. City Connection is terrible and their line of Saturn “tributes” has been anything but, actually shaming the console in my opinion. Dreadful that they’re continuing this, very sad.