I've been a fan of the Sega Saturn ever since I was gifted one in 1996. It had a library of games that you couldn't find anywhere else with titles such as Panzer Dragoon, Dragon Force, and Radiant Silvergun. The Saturn was also the first system I imported heavily for discovering titles such as X-men VS Street Fighter, Waku Waku 7, and Metal Slug. It is now 2019 and Saturn games are no longer cheap. To get the most out of my money and Saturn I purchased an all in one Pseudo Saturn cart from eBay seller choijustin. What does this cart do, and why should you buy one over an Action Replay?




Pseudo Saturn is a program that was developed to bypass the Saturns copy protection. This is useful for playing games that aren't in your Saturns native region or it can be used for more illicit purposes. The most popular method is to flash it to an Action Replay cart but in doing so removes the ability to save to the cart. The internal memory for game saves is small at 32kb or 0.032MB so having another place for saved games is important. The internal storage on the Saturn is notorious for data loss as the CR2032 battery used quickly drains and takes the game saves with it.


The Pseudo Saturn All in One cart has three modes or features with each mode being selected by moving a switch at the top of the cart. The Pseudo Saturn software and boot menu start the same on all three modes. The first mode activates the 4MB ram allowing games such as X-Men VS Street Fighter or Vampire Saviour to play. The second mode activates the 1MB RAM allowing games such as Metal Slug and King of Fighters to play. The third option allows it to act as a RAM backup cart and has 8MB or 8000kb of storage space. This extra space is especially helpful for titles such as Shining Force 3 which creates large saves files.


I started off my testing of the Pseudo Saturn cart by switching to the 4MB mode and played some X-Men VS Street Fighter and Street Fighter Zero 3. I was worried that there might be some graphical glitches, but both titles played without issue. I then switched the cart to 1MB mode and played some Metal Slug and King of Fighters '96. Both games played without issue. Last I switched the cart to save cart mode and tested Saturn Bomberman, Thunder Force Gold Pack 2, and Magic Knight Rayearth. All three recognized the cart as a save cart and I didn't have any save corruption or issues after repeated use.


The Pseudo Saturn cart itself is well made and feels similar in quality to an official Saturn save cart or Action Replay. The switch at the top is sturdy and slides to the appropriate position without a lot of force and won't accidentally slide to a different position when set. I tried the Pseudo Saturn cart in four different Saturns and didn't have any trouble with the system recognizing it. The Psuedo Saturn software can be upgraded by following the instructions from the Pseudo Saturn site: http://ppcenter.webou.net/pskai/#download

The Pseudo Saturn cart is a well-made product that expands the capabilities of the Saturn by adding support for 1MB and 4MB games, the ability to play games from any region (illicit or otherwise), and provides ample save space for save games. In my opinion, it's well worth the $52 asking price and should be in every Saturn owner's collection.

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