Sega Saturn Astal Isopure
Asking Saturn fans, who devote money and time to the Saturn, whether its 'worth it' might result in a bias opinion. That said, I will do my best:Yes The Saturn is worth it, but only if you are willing to put in the effort, and yes, Some Money. Although some of the absolute best exclusives are definitely expensive, not every exclusive worth owning on the Saturn is expensive. Considering how rare Saturn games are, they aren't as easy to come by at retro stores.
The places to get games are to check out retro forums or use eBay (which has inflated prices). I get a lot of my games these ways. Forums often have better prices, but since you are buying from other anonymous users, there is always a risk (although I have never had a problem). Any good collection takes time and isn't easy. One important thing to note about the Saturn, which is more true than any other console I can think of; A hefty number of the games worth owning are imports. The Saturn was incredibly successful in Japan, so it had a ridiculously large library over there. Most of the really good Imports can be played by non-Japanese speaking gamers.
Astal Rom
The easiest way to play Imports on your Saturn is by buying an Action Replay 4 in 1 cartridge, that plugs in the back of your system. They are cheap, they have a memory card built in, and the ram cart built in.Here are some lists of Saturn exclusives that are worth your time. Many of these games can either be the USA, Pal, or JP version and they are still fully enjoyable to non Japanese speakers.
Sega Saturn Astal Isopure Vs
I've owned a Sega Saturn around launch, bought it over Nintendo 64/PSX craze at the time.I've enjoyed it mildly (Astal, Rayman, and Capcom titles) and around 1999 ended up buying a PlayStation. Never cared for Virtual Boy, or Nintendo 64 and still don't.Now around 2001 I've discovered ISO torrents online, had my console modded (should have did it myself, in retrospect) and ended up having the next ten years devoted to Sega Saturn, and Sega Dreamcast games. With the help of the, now defunct, communities Underground-Gamer, and Saturn Torrents.Playing well over 90% of both SS, and DC catalog.Four years ago my console lens wore down, and I've ended up buying a Imported JP Sega Saturn console for under 100USD, and since 2013 I've started collecting CIB JP Saturn titles.In the end, its worth getting into if you are into the games. All of those allow you to play burned discs, but the method is a bit different. Swapping: you replace an original disc with a backup at boot time, once the console has validated the protection code. Easy to do, but it gets boring fast. Doesn't disable region locks (you need to patch the disc image before burning it).
Modchip: inserted in-between the disc drive and the motherboard. Easy, as there's a single solder point and its not tricky at all. Removes region locks.
Astal Saturn
Pseudo Saturn: flash a memory card, which you'll leave in the console and it will boot burned games without the need to swap. Your memory card will no longer work as intended, and the Saturn slot will be occupied. Removes region locks. Requires an initial disc swap to run the flasher software.