A promised game that never materialized is finally playable in some form after fans released a prototype of Destruction Derby 2’s Saturn version Sunday night.
Longtime member of the SegaXtreme community VBT posted a thread to announce it, saying, “Here is the long awaited prototype of Destruction Derby 2 for Sega Saturn” with a link to file hosting site Transfert.
At the link there are two discs zipped into RARs: The first, called “DD2 frontend dump,” is the game’s title screen with main menu while the second, called “DD2 game section dump” is a playable track.
This footage recorded by SHIRO! on SSF Preview Version R37.
Destruction Derby 2 is a racing game with the twist that creatively crashing into opponents can net a win just as much as crossing the finish line first, featuring real-time damage to the vehicles. It was developed by Reflections Interactive and published by Psygnosis on PlayStation and PC in October 1996 in the United States and early 1997 in PAL territories and Japan. A Saturn port had been planned for 1997 but never made it onto store shelves.
The first Destruction Derby was ported in 1996 to the Saturn in Europe and Japan in August and September, respectively. After Sega of America criticized the game’s graphics and performance compared to the PlayStation version, according to leaked internal documents, a North American release was eventually canceled.
It appears that VBT and others pooled their money to buy the prototype from an unknown seller.
“Big thanks to the SegaXtreme community, donators, Hidden Palace and the seller,” VBT said in his post. He then thanked the following “contributors,” all members of the Saturn hacking community:
- bo bayles
- ndiddy
- frogbull
- tongara
- fafling
- wesker
- cerbero
- pinchy
- vbt
While he thanked Hidden Palace, a website dedicated to preserving video game media, there doesn’t appear to be anything about Destruction Derby 2 there yet.
At the end of the post, VBT seemed to tease more releases, saying, “next batch coming later.” He didn’t clarify what that means when asked about it later.
The prototype appears to be the same one seen in a YouTube video uploaded in 2011. “SegaSaturn.co.uk presents a video from Segafreak, donated by forum regular Anthaemia,” the video description says. “This footage shows a very early prototype build of the Destruction Derby 2 conversion for Sega Saturn, developed by Probe and cancelled in mid 1997.”
In the comments under that video, someone with the handle Andy Lunn said eight years ago that the video brought back memories.
“I was the programmer on this game for the Saturn conversion and what’s frustrating was that I actually got it 95% complete when it was completely canned,” Lunn said in the comment. “I kick myself for not keeping a gold disc master. I can attest to how hard it was to get working from the PlayStation. Had to do lots of tricks to make it work on the Saturn hardware.”
Screenshots from the prototype’s first disc.
Sadly, the prototype released Sunday does not appear to be anywhere near 95% complete.
The first disc features a short CGI cutscene, but it’s not the one that shipped with the PS1 version of Destruction Derby 2. Instead, it’s from Die Hard Trilogy, a game ported to Saturn in early 1997 by Probe Entertainment. That’s the company that allegedly was charged with porting Derby 2 to the Saturn, too. They apparently used this cutscene from another of their projects as a placeholder. (Thanks to Geraint Hughes for pointing this out in the SHIRO! Facebook group!)
After the Die Hard cutscene, the prototype displays the title screen and main menu, complete with music and sound effects. All of the menu options are in place, from Derby 2’s three gameplay modes — Wrecking Racing, Stock Car and Destruction Derby — to its seven tracks to its configuration and information screens. The credits are viewable but seem to be from the PlayStation version.
Trying to select any gameplay mode doesn’t do much, though — it just loops back to the main menu. For any kind of gameplay, the prototype’s second disc needs to be tried out.
Screenshots from the prototype’s second disc.
The second disc loads right in to the start of a race on the Pine Hills Raceway track. The speedometer doesn’t work, permanently showing the number 1, and other UI elements like race points and laps show no numbers at all. There are no other cars on the track besides the player’s. There are missing textures everywhere with cyan polygons in their place, while other textures are mirrored, showing backward text.
On the SegaXtreme Discord server, VBT said all of the cars’ textures are visible within the game code and are viewable with the Kronos emulator. “It would deserve a hack to see them at the right place,” he said.
On Discord, Fafling pointed out that the game is laggy when running it on a real Saturn console. “Yes I think it’s because of the ‘big’ command list,” VBT replied, referring to the game’s code.
Despite the problems, the car is indeed drivable around the track and the pit road mechanic works. The audio seems to be in place, with sound effects, music and an announcer’s voice all there. The game keeps track of locational damage on the car, as well — but hit a side of the car too many times on the track’s walls and the race will end, softlocking the game.
This story originally appeared on Sega Saturn SHIRO!