They look more vertical than expected for a console game. 

It's startex rather than exstart as it says in the readme. 

Passing along some feedback from a user on Discord (who has apparently played Saturn Quake before):

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1) Maps can seem overly dark at a gamma setting of 1.0; setting it to 0.7 seems more playable. (Intentional?)
2) Softlock in E2: there is a switch-based elevator that rises up to a room with two Ogres and a switch back down. The switch to lower the elevator one fires once, but the switch to raise the elevator can be fired multiple times; as there is no other way out of the upper room than to lower the elevator, the player will be stuck in that upper room if they go up, go down, and go up again. (Possibly a fault of the original map, but just as likely an oversight in the port.)
3) Softlock in E4 map: when the floor lifts out of the very first watery room in the map, hurriedly swim back to the center such that you ride it up. You will be locked in the starting room with no means to progress further. (Some research might be needed to see what the official map does in this scenario; even if the answer is "nothing", adding a teleporter into the water room after the floor has finished rising seems like a good idea.)
4) E4 major issue: silver key (on the ledge with the Ogre that you must leap to from a higher ledge with a Red Armor) is not present, or falls out of the map entirely, not sure which. Tested on skills 1 and 2.
5) E4 general thought: players seem to be able to jump atop certain boxes in the original that cannot be jumped atop here, notably in the cluster of four toward the right of the room (assuming "forward" is the far end of the room as seen when you first approach it).
6) E3 bug: after four rounds (winning one, losing two and then winning the fourth), player was never prompted for the fifth round. Did not attempt to reproduce; might have been one-off. Possibly related to the Enforcer's backpack lingering in the arena? (No idea.)
7) Readme mentions an exstart (or similar) map, but Quakespasm does not allow changing to a map by that name or any similar, nor does it list anything similar when using the maps console command.
8) Personal preference more than bug report, but not sure how to feel about the delay between enemies dying and backpacks dropping - this is authentic to the Saturn version, but seems a bit silly to bring to the PC version.
9) General feedback: just wanted to share excitement that somebody finally brought these maps to the PC version at all. The start is strong, just need a bit of bug-fixing to be great. 

1) The maps were a little dark on my desktop, a little bright on my laptop, so I wasn't sure which direction to take it. I'd be open to help getting a better happy medium, though.

2) Mentioned in the readme, I just couldn't come to a conclusion on how to fix it. I planned to fix this when I go back for my Coop rework.

3) I think it's possible in the original, technically, but the player is slower. I planned to fix this when I go back for my Coop rework.

4) I'll look at it and do a bugfix if needed. It was working last time that I tested it, however I did a recompile in between and it's possible something got nudged.

5) The jumping mechanics are very different from Saturn to PC. Getting that box section completable was not fun. I'd be open to some assistance getting it "right".

6) I'll look into this one.

7) Typo. Map is called startex.

8) I might take it out and save it for a possible Saturn TC ala the Doom PSX port. Dunno.

9) This is my first release so I'm not surprised I missed a couple things. 

I've spent the last couple days getting the bugs fixed.

I fixed the E4M8 key bug and the E2M7 button bug, and reworked E3M7 completely to be less buggy and more like the original.

I ran through the new versions in multiple engines, including Mark V Winquake, and everything seems to be fine.

Here is the fixed version of the mod.

If the original post could be edited to have the new link, that would be much appreciated.

If no glaring issues come up, I'm gonna take a break before doing a Coop and lighting pass. 

(Updated top post with new url) 

https://youtu.be/GLXxkUmJFpE

Thanks for porting these over! I'm surprised more of the community isn't talking about this. Has it been done before?

Also curious what the porting process was like for you? Did you pull the maps out of the actual Saturn version or did you just meticulously rebuild them in a map editor? 

I used Noesis and OBJ2MAP to convert the original geometry over from the Saturn version, then cleaned it up and rebuilt parts that got mangled by the multiple conversions.

From there, I had to texture/light/add entities as if it was a full rebuild.

So, a little of both... 

Playing the new saturnex maps realy gave me a retrospective feeling. In time I made so many maps it came as a present to play some original ID maps.
The curious feeling I got while playing them and feel the weight of all comments there are for making a good map.
A refreshment to see those levels are simple and very clear. Almost no decoration, straight away levels.
Maybe I have come a bit diluted by all attempts of making a good map.

The perfect retro feeling from the challenge of the first Quake period. 

Ages ago I downloaded Quake Saturn and dug through the data files to get the unique maps, then gave up when I realised what would be required to port them to the Quake engine.

Major kudos to iLike80sRock for actually following through with the rebuild! Must have taken a lot of effort.

The lighting is pretty patchy on most maps, but perhaps that's true to the original, so I'm fine with leaving it as it is.

A few things I noticed while playing:

1. Getting "Mod_LoadTexInfo: 1 texture(s) missing from BSP file" upon loading e1-secret.

2. On e1-secret right at the start: problem with the 2 zombies down the ramp. I knocked them down with the DBG, grabbed the YA, then ran up and got the GL and came back to find them still lying there, seemingly unable to get up. They're unkillable in this state. Is this a Saturn "feature" or a bug?

3. On e2-secret there seems to be a softlock where you can get stranded on a platform with nowhere to go. Can't jump across to the opposite room. I'm guessing this is the "known issue" in the readme.

4. On e3-secret, the player starts facing the wall instead of the room. Is this true to the Saturn version?

5. On e4-secret, there's no sounds key in the worldspawn so it tries to play Track 0.

I was using latest QSS and playing on Skill 1. 

FYI - #2 in my list is fixed by moving the zombies up very slightly - they're just stuck in the floor. 

Can we get another download? 

got it 

Great ports, they even kept some of the texture squashing that the Saturn Quake has.

Of course they miss the Saturn-exclusive features such as rain and caustics.

Anyway, after playing them now... they aged poorly, and these ports confirms that it's not a fault of the Saturn controls, the Saturn Quake physics or its low-res Slavedriver engine with slow framerate. 

...but I'd like to express my gratitudes for this mod. Especially the "startex" map that lets you play only the original secret maps.

However, what irks me slightly is that E4M-Secret: Water Grave has no music playing at all. When looking at the console, I got the message "Couldn't find a CDRip for Track 0". I'm using the 2021 rerelease via Ironwail 0.6.0, anyway.