Remember the Sega Saturn? Of course you do, it’s the console everyone loves to say was a failure and the demise of Sega as a video game hardware company. That’s its defining characteristic in many peoples’ eyes which obscures its notable success in Japan and the fact it had a great roster of games, despite the over-documented difficulties in making them.
So for this list of relaxing games, I took a stab at finding some in the Sega Saturn library and hopefully that’ll shake off the console’s stigma and get you to try some of them out by whatever means necessary (not a threat—I mean either through official hardware, emulation, or FPGA if that’s your bag.)
(If you want to know the criteria for a “relaxing Sega Saturn game”, check out my criteria for GBA games.)
The list
Games marked with an asterisk (*) are Japan exclusives.
- Actua Golf
- Albert Odyssey
- Baku Baku
- Bust-A-Move 2
- Daytona USA
- Grandia
- Hanagumi Taisen Columns*
- Lode Runner
- Lunacy
- Lunar: Silver Star Story*
- Magic Knight Rayearth
- Moon Cradle*
- Mystaria: The Realms of Lore
- NiGHTS into dreams (maybe until some of the boss battles)
- Panzer Dragoon Saga
- Policenauts*
- Puyo Puyo Sun*
- Puzzle Bobble
- Riven: The Sequel to Myst
- Sega Rally
- Shining the Holy Ark
- Sonic Jam
- Sonic R (if you don’t take the racing and janky controls too seriously)
- Tetris Plus
- The Legend of Oasis
- Tomb Raider
