It's a bird, it's a plane, no, it's Metal Gear Solid on a Sega Saturn! But wait, that’s not right. Doesn't Saturn's 3D rendering capacity fall years short of PlayStation where Metal Gear Solid first spun its reels in 1998?
Welcome to the newest comedy in town, orchestrated by a French hobbyist developer Frogbull, who as posted a video that allegedly shows Metal Gear Solid operating on Sega Saturn. Yes, you got that right. Sega Saturn, the gaming console about as contemporary as a T-Rex.
Before you break a rib laughing, Frogbull is quite serious, folks. The video shows the good old Sega Saturn boot-up screen, followed by the logos for Konami and Konami Computer Entertainment Japan, in quick succession. But what follows is hilariously brief. Absent are the long, cinematic intro credits, as Snake and the Colonel engage in a short Codec scene, and then wham! It jumps straight into the opening docks scene.
For the skeptical out there - which let's face it, is basically everyone - Frogbull adds a kicker. A Codec call from Sega of Japan mascot Segata Sanshiro! Talk about a tongue in the cheek roll call.
But the comedy doesn't stop there. The video description dives into "urban legend" territory with Frogbull citing rumors of a Saturn version of Metal Gear Solid, which supposedly got axed following the pumped-up hype about the release of Dreamcast at the 1998 Tokyo Game Show. Frogbull apparently sees this humorous stunt as a means to quell naysayers about the Sega Saturn's 3D capabilities.
As you’d expect, this knee-slapper has spurred hilarity and disbelief online. Some just can't believe their eyes, while others are hailing Frogbull as some sort of hilarious industry prankster. The man himself invites intrigued onlookers to his Patreon account for juicy details of the "prototype" and engaging in friendly banter on SegaXtreme forums about the apparent months of effort that went into this uproarious joke.
Frogbull even states that the video isn't running on actual hardware but on a Sega Saturn emulator, with the addition of a CRT shader. When the whipping winds of skepticism got louder about the ownership of the prototype, Frogbull put his serious face on to remark: "Sadly for the moment, I won’t share the iso to the public, I don't want to see scammers selling it on eBay in a fake Saturn blister pack".
But, like a comedian who always has a new joke up his sleeve, our prankster didn’t rule out working on more rollicking projects in the future. So, as much as we may chuckle at this audacious act, this jokester of a developer has surely given the gaming community something to chortle about, and maybe even pause and commend the sheer audacity of the claim. Let's face it, who doesn't love a good tech joke now and then?
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