Japanese Sega Saturn

Takuya Matsumoto, former Sonic Team programmer (Ristar, NiGHTS, Burning Rangers), briefly talked about programming for the notoriously difficult Sega Saturn in a recent interview with Nintendo Power.

“…it was the last machine you could do everything in assembly language, so the Saturn was a very special piece of hardware to me.”

He went on to talk about programming Burning Rangers, a game that truly pushed the Saturn hardware to its limit.

“I wasn’t really in a position to compare it to the PlayStation, but I guess building the rendering engine for Burning Rangers was pretty rough. It was hard work making graphics that could compete.”

Also of note to Sega fans, in the interview he talks about memories of working on NiGHTS, his jealousy of the Panzer Dragoon Saga team, and the internal struggle in Sega in regards to figuring out a way to bring Sonic into 3D.

The interview can be found in the August 2012 issue (number 281) of Nintendo Power.