If you are not familiar with Cold Case then let me fill you in quickly. It is a 3rd Person action adventure inspired by Silent Hill and Resident Evil. Leaning more into Silent Hill territory as Cold Case is full on 3D rather than static backgrounds and set camera angles like Resident Evil. It looks absolutely amazing running on the Sega Saturn – a console notoriously hard to develop games on for just about everyone that has tried. Now the hospital level has been revealed and it looks wild.
Saturn 3D At Its Finest
The Sega Saturn is not known for having amazing 3D capabilities. Sure, some companies, Sega of course but others like Capcom and Eidos, were able to get decent 3D out of it. For the most part, no, the Sega Saturn simply did not do 3D on the same level as the Sony PlayStation. It is a harsh truth, a handful of games with good-to-good 3D do not prove the console was as capable as the competition that seemed to sneeze great looking 3D games on a whim.
With that said, it is amazing to see how much developer jberetta has been able to eek out of the Sega Saturn hardware. I don’t think they are using any official Sega development kits here either, simply a good understanding of the hardware.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8c-sw1DodM
Not Perfect, It is Sega Saturn
Anyone coming into this thinking of modern 3D is in a for a rude surprise. This is clearly 32-Bit 3D. That means jumpy textures, whole sections popping out of the darkness, jagged edges, etc. All that adds charm to the graphics.
The hospital seems big and features several rooms with things to collect, avoid, etc. Most importantly, it has the look of an abandoned hospital, not just in name but in graphics appearance. It is grungy, dirty, unsettling. Just like it should be.
32-Bit era fans know exactly what to expect and so far Cold Case appears to be delivering.