Phew. Finally got KoF’96 working on my Saturn. For a while there I thought the gameshark’s RAM element wasn’t compatible with the game for whatever reason. I’ve heard that KoF’95 was one of the few cart-and-disc combo games which was put out for the system, and that would certainly be a nightmare to deal with. I was hoping that ’96 was a bit more standard, but the first couple of attempts led nowhere.

I guess persistence is the key. And the result? Not half bad. It’s nowhere up to the level of the Dreamcast ports in most respects, but aside from the (incredible amount of) load time, it’s pretty darned close to the original Neo-Geo version. Here are some observations:

• MY GOD, the load times.
• The sound quality is mixed. Many of the standard grunts are of a high enough quality, and yet the special move calls will sound like they were recorded through a pillow. Iori is a great example of this syndrome: “Hah! Huaah! Mrrfsobi uua Rroore da! Hwah! Hoh!”
• As with Dream Match 1999 for the Dreamcast, the music stops and starts again between rounds. Unlike the DC game, there’s a reason for it: the ten-second load time between every two rounds. Also unlike DM1999, the music doesn’t just restart from the beginning. Rather, there’s a set point mid-theme for each tune to kick back in. This was pretty decent planning, I thought.
• At least there’s interesting character art during all of the loading that’s going on. Amongst the more interesting shots is one of Ralf in his original Ikari Warriors garb.
• Since the music is all in redbook (making for easy ripping), it’s of a very high quality. The full-vocal rendition of the Psycho Soldier theme is particularly impressive, as are Esaka Forever and the bit of Wagner that Krauser has going. However you also get the usual setbacks from direct-spooled music — particularly seek lag. There’s a lot of misalignment between the music and visual clues in instances such as the game introduction.
• It might just be me, but I think the sound is in mono. Maybe I have my Saturn arranged peculiarly, though. I’ll have to check on this.
• There isn’t as much flexibility as I’d like in rearranging the game controls.
• Being from 1996, there is unfortunately no practice mode.
• I haven’t seen any particular extras, but then neither did I expect any.

I’m now kind of curious about how ’97 fares on the system. I’m certainly not about to go out and look for it at the moment, but still.

All right. I’ve got other things to do right now.