*Sega of Japan catalogue page (Japanese): [https://web.archive.org/web/19970129032704/http://sega.highway.or.jp:80/sega/saturn/rpg/vhl/gs_9012.html Saturn]
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* Sega of Japan catalogue page (Japanese): [https://web.archive.org/web/19970129032704/http://sega.highway.or.jp:80/sega/saturn/rpg/vhl/gs_9012.html Saturn]
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Virtual Hydlide (ヴァーチャル ハイドライド) is a 3D remake of the 1984 action RPG Hydlide released exclusively for the Sega Saturn in 1995. It was the second Hydlide game for a Sega platform, following Super Hydlide on the Mega Drive.
In the kingdom of Fairyland, three magic jewels were enshrined in the palace to maintain peace in the kingdom. One day, an evil man broke into the palace and stole one of the three magic jewels. Without the third jewel, the two remaining jewels lost their magic sparkle. The magic spell that sealed the power of Varalys, the most vicious demon in the kingdom, was broken. During the turmoil which followed, the last two jewels were stolen. Varalys cast a special magic on Princess Ann, turning her into three fairies, and hid her somewhere in the kingdom. He then let loose a horde of monsters across the land and became the ruler of the kingdom.
The young knight Jim stood up and took action to restore peace in the kingdom. He bravely made his way into the wilderness in full armor to fight the monsters...
Gameplay
The game is played from a third-person perspective using polygonal environments with digitized sprites for the player and enemy characters. The game's worlds are somewhat randomly generated, with twenty different level layouts for each of the seven dungeons and the overworld, leading to 25.6 billion possible combinations, all but guaranteeing that each playthrough of Virtual Hydlide is different.
This game has been criticised by the gaming press for having poor AI and a bad rendering pipeline, occasionally causing the game to dip to as low as 5FPS.