Independence Day (Saturn) review "Today We Celebrate... Not This"

Technologically-advanced aliens from the far reaches of space have gone from one civilization to another, all for the purpose of eradicating species and completely depleting them of their resources. Terrifying... and now these horrors have arrived on Earth! The alien mother ship has released ginormous saucers and positioned them over all major cities, and if Earth's inhabitants aren't able to defend themselves, they are next in line for extinction.

Based on the 1996 summer blockbuster movie of the same name, 1997's Independence Day plot seems to loosely take place at the tail end of the film; with the virus uploaded into the mother ship, all alien craft no longer have impenetrable shields, meaning Earth's remaining forces are now on the counteroffensive. As you take to the skies in this 3D "flight sim" for the Sega Saturn, the main objective in most stages is to navigate your plane into combat and destroy the overhead saucer. Unfortunately, you won't be doing this with someone from the movie's star-studded cast, but instead an unnamed fighter pilot; your dream of controlling a president, a stripper, or a dog with zero survivor instincts will remain a dream.

The first stage sets up the basic structure of the game: in the middle of a desert, you'll blow away generators off the saucer while also avoiding fire from alien aircraft that are adjacently-sized to yours. Once all generators are gone, the primary laser weapon in the saucer's center will open and power up, giving you only a few dozen seconds to destroy it. There are variations along the way, with one stage asking you to "protect" an AWACS aircraft by distracting the enemy, and another stage tasking you to destroy satellites that the aliens are manipulating. Regardless, the end result of nearly every stage is to destroy a saucer's primary weapon.

Now calling this a flight simulator is being too generous, as it's more a combination of arcade and sim elements. Your plane moves too freely and loosely without consequence, and with the presence of a lifebar you can sustain hits and literally bump into several buildings without fear of exploding. But then you also have things like altitude and radar HUDs to keep track of all the enemy crafts, stage-related targets, and friendlies on the field. Combat is both very simple and very frustrating depending on what you're actually attacking; stationary objects are obviously easier to blow away, but dogfights are tremendously luck based. Like yourself, aliens move too freely and loosely without consequence, and on top of that they fly fast.

In turn, most stages feel unnecessarily difficult due to how these aircraft are programmed during battles. The Washington D.C. stage where you have to protect the AWACS is the first instance of this mess, as you're literally spending the entire time turning in circles to get behind anyone. If you look over at your radar, it accurately summarizes what's happening: you're being swarmed by a bunch of flies that are difficult to swat down. The satellites stage in New York City is another example, as the alien crafts are now programmed to chase after your pilot aggressively, and considering how fast they move and turn, this quickly becomes an issue. The amount of times you are hit, become blinded by a flash attack, or get knocked off target in this stage is ridiculous.

Just to make things perfectly clear: these are the early stages.

The dev team's idea of difficulty escalation is to make everything insufferable. Take the aggressiveness presented in the New York City stage and amplify that with each passing stage; by the time you arrive at the penultimate stage in Las Vegas, you can easily die within the first minute of the action starting. For further context, the reason this can happen is because, when every stage begins, you are spawned already surrounded by enemies ready to attack. Absurd. You can do some of the slickest maneuvers and dodges imaginable, swerving between buildings at low altitudes during high speeds, and yet enemies are still on your butt with attacks. Don't think you can win the battle by meticulously getting rid of every aircraft one by one, because most enemies respawn endlessly.

It's not even the battles themselves that are messy, as the entire game is awkwardly structured and programmed. The hit detection is sloppy, as several of the buildings and signs have invisible boxes outside of their visual representations; it's as if the developers thought there could be no way players would attempt cool tight aerial moves with planes. The radar's accuracy is also abysmal: you can line your plane up with a target as shown on the tracking device, but when you get close, it's either to the left or right. More times than not, you end up making an annoying U-turn.

Then there's the convoluted save and continue system. Saving is only done right before a stage starts, like, a button press away and the combat starts instantly. The reason this needs mentioning is because, despite the selection cursor being over the SAVE text, if you press the wrong button... the game won't save and it goes straight to combat; if you fail the current stage, you'll have to load to the previous one. And as for loading a save, you can only do it in the Options menu for some reason. This game also has one of the worst lives system committed to a video game: lives come in the form of different plane types, and they are found as pick-up items and can only be used within the current stage. So if you really want to fly a specific aircraft, you have to find it, destroy your current plane, and redo the stage. Beyond stupid.

The developers did a fantastic job unintentionally replicating the dread and sheer helplessness of the film, and failed to instill any of the hope. Independence Day frustrates from the very beginning, whether it's the infuriating combat, the roundabout way it makes you do basic stuff, or the fact that Will Smith's character is a secondary, non-controllable pilot who is obviously being voiced by someone else. Exercise your personal independence by avoiding this awful tie-in; watch the original movie, play a much better Sega Saturn game, or, in the words of the game itself during the ending cutscene, "go outside" to avoid this disaster.

Community review by dementedhut (July 04, 2026) Ray tracing in the 90s.