Parallax Pilgrimage: The Timeless Charm of 2.5D Action Video Games

sn’t it just wild what a simple addition or twist can do for a recognized formula? Just look at what tossing in a splash of Lime or Vanilla to a can of Pepsi does for the drink—the same cola base is there, only now it offers a whole new perspective to its taste, and they did this all without completely reinventing the wheel either. It took Pepsi forty years to come up with the idea, while the brilliant minds of the Video Game industry came up with their “Pepsi Lime” moment in thirty-seven with the 2.5D Platformer.

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25 years of the Sega Saturn: Part 2-The Two-Pronged Stumble

ell, this is embarrassing; I had planned to publish this entry much sooner than now, given that it’s been a little over a year since I last published the premier piece to this editorial series, but I suppose it’s appropriate since we’ve now arrived at the anniversary of SEGA’s polarizing 32-bit powerhouse once more.

When we last left off, we looked at the pre-launch hype of the Saturn and SEGA’s internal dissension over the mechanical complexity of the hardware, with technical specs that were arguably geared more at enhancing the present climate of gaming than preparing for the next dimension of gameplay the medium had been building to. The corporate disconnection only grew from there as SEGA of Japan hedged all their bets on the console with one fateful announcement during their 1995 Electronic Entertainment Expo presentation—the Sega Saturn was available now, retailing at $399 MSRP with the inclusion of Virtua Fighter to the surprise of everyone, including major retailers.

It was with this first big step that the Sega Saturn had begun its perpetual tumble towards commercial failure, as we look back at one of the most infamously mismanaged console launches in Video Game History.

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