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SOJ The Gallery · Baroque
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The Baroque Gallery

One tower, six machines, two different games wearing one name.

This is the version shelf: every release of Baroque, the first-person roguelike Sting Entertainment built for the Sega Saturn in 1998 and then kept rebuilding. The original game and the 2007 remake share a plot, a tower, and a title, but they are different objects with different art, different music, and different cameras, and this page keeps them separate.

The pictures are the 1998 Japanese Saturn box, front and back, scanned at high resolution by the Sega Retro archive. The front is the famous image: the Neuro Tower as a dark mechanical column hung with spheres. The back prints the game's whole creed in English, ending with the line the soundtrack took for its closing track: hold Baroque inside.

THE 1998 BOX

Sega Saturn, Japan, 21 May 1998

The box, front and back

Entertainment Software Publishing · catalogue T-33901G · launch price ¥6,800
Baroque Sega Saturn Japanese box front, 1998: the Neuro Tower hung with consciousness orbs
FrontThe Neuro Tower rendered as a machine column strung with spheres, the Consciousness Orbs of the story. Sting and ESP logos top right; the all-ages mark bottom right.
Baroque Sega Saturn Japanese box back, 1998: the English poem and screenshots
BackThe box argues in English: "Baroque: Distorted pearls... This is the age of Great Heat. This is the world it destroyed... hold Baroque inside." Screenshots at right, catalogue number T-33901G on the spine.

Few Saturn boxes argue a philosophy. This one prints the game's five design words as ghost text behind the poem, Change, Space, Freedom, Strategy, and the Multiple System, and sells the game as a "new type RPG" about a boy who has lost his memory and kept only his guilt.

THE ORIGINAL GAME

First person, 1998 to 2020
Sega Saturn · 1998
The original. Japan only, published by Entertainment Software Publishing on 21 May 1998. First person, tank controls, 2D sprite characters inside 3D rooms. The version Sega Retro calls generally definitive.
PlayStation · 1999
The port, subtitled Distorted Delusions, 28 October 1999. Rebalanced floors, a new shopkeeper in town, gentler difficulty, a new vocal theme, and a budget reissue on 8 March 2000.
Nintendo Switch · 2020
The original returns: an enhanced port of the 1998 game released in Japan on 12 November 2020, carrying the Baroque Report materials, display options, and the opening movies of both later versions.

THE REMAKE

Third person, 2007 to 2012
PlayStation 2 · 2007
The remake, Japan 28 June 2007. Third-person camera, full 3D, redrawn characters by Kenjiro Suzuki, an entirely new score by Shigeki Hayashi, full voice acting, and adjustable difficulty.
Wii · 2008
Baroque for Wii, Japan 13 March 2008. Motion controls, widescreen, and an optional first-person camera that nods back to the Saturn original.
North America · 2008
Atlus USA released both remake versions on 8 April 2008 at $39.99, a full English dub included. Rising Star Games followed in Europe that August.
International · 2008
Japan received the Western version back: Baroque International, 23 October 2008, built on the Atlus edition. A remake of a remake, re-imported.
iOS · 2012
The remake on phones, 28 December 2012, sold in pieces: the opening free, the rest unlocked, with a score attack mode added.
What is Baroque?Collecting Baroque
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THE FIRST WORD

New pages and new pieces, first.