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Must-Have Games For The Dreamcast?
Thanks to EntDepot.com for their roundtable discussing the shiniest, best, and most under-rated Dreamcast games, as Sega's defunct console starts approaching cult status. The article starts: "It seems as though Sega has been all but forgotten as the system innovator that it was. As cliched as it sounds, the Dreamcast was years ahead of its time", and some of the now-inexpensive recommended DC titles include Mars Matrix ("a simple top-down, vertical shooter that we have all grown to love and cherish"), Samba De Amigo ("Get a pair of third-party maracas, [and] come to terms with the fact that you'll soon be flailing your arms around like a jackass"), and the less easily purchasable Propeller Arena ("the best game AM2 never released.")
Chu Chu Rocket! You really need other people to play it with, but find them and you have a game that can almost challenge the mighty Bomberman for multiplayer mayhem. I hear the network play was very laggy but playable, but since all the Dreamcast online servers are now dead this is a dead feature now. But the four-players-on-one-system mode is a masterpiece. (There is a GBA version of this game, and a small 1p version is a secret in Billy Hatcher.)
Grandia 2. Some people mentioned it on the site already, but yeah, they're right, this is a severely underrated game. Some of the best writing and voice acting you'll hear in a RPG. Not too challenging (unless you count the secret extra dungeon late in the game, which has some hard foes in it), but the brilliant combat system created for the first game really comes to shine here. And the trademark loveable, personality-filled Game Arts characters are the icing on the cake. (There are also PS2 and PC versions of this game.)
Crazy Taxi & Crazy Taxi 2. The first game is available for all three current consoles now, but the sequel was never released for anything besides the Dreamcast. This is the game I spent the most time on on my Dreamcast, and for a while there I was in the running for, what was it again, 8th place in the Twin Galaxies record books when they were running a high score contest, with a score of over $69,000. (I never sent in my tape, though.) These are among the best designed games for any system. I thought that CT3 (X-Box) didn't have enough additions over the second game, though it was nice being able to explore new places in the original arcade city. (CT1: also available for PC, GC, X-Box and PS2, CT2: DC exclusive.)
Seaman. Yeah, it was funky, and kind of boring after a while, but it was truly fresh and different, and for a little while actually caused us to forget we were playing a game as we talked to a little Japanese-headed fish/frog guy with a microphone plugged into the controller. Ten times cooler than Nintendo's Hey You Pikachu!, which is the only other game of this type I can name. (DC exclusive)
Space Channel 5. The hippest videogame of all time. It doesn't look like it at first, but it is.
NesterDC/DreamSNES/GNUBoy/other emulators. Yeah, they're free and quasi-legal when played with ROMs, but these babies can pack new life into your DC. http://www.dcemulation.com/ for more information. Of special note is the Atari 800 emulator, which can emulate M.U.L.E., possibly the best designed game of all time and a formidable multiplayer game, flawlessly and with the exact same four-controller-port configuration the original computer had. NesterDC emulates almost all NES games perfectly, and on your TV screen. That is too cool for words.
As cliched as it sounds, the Dreamcast was years ahead of its time
And this still rings true. No system since has been able to reproduce 2D arcade games as well, and its 3D arcade ports can't be beat either. Simply said, the Dreamcast is the ultimate realization of the arcade experience at home. The Dreamcast *should* have been the final deathblow to the waning arcade situation, but for some reason people just didn't want arcade perfect ports... odd.
But all that aside, the Dreamcast continues to stand as my favorite console for a single reason: VGA support. After the VGA box was released for the Dreamcast, I thought to myself, "So this is where console games are going..." Crystal clear visuals just reinforced the system's already amazing graphical prowess. But again I was wrong, and the VGA standard was not adopted even as an option by the current crop of systems. Sure, output to HDTV is nice, but I still don't feel the amazing clarity that comes from a nice monitor.
And while we're at it, my top 5:
1. Phantasy Star Online: First Online Console RPG. I logged over 500 hours on the first version of it, and loved every Rappy beating minute of it.
2. Rez: The PS2 port doesn't do this game's visuals justice in the least. Beautiful wire frame graphics wrapped around the best rail-shooter since Panzer Dragoon Saga, all while thumping to one of the best video game soundtracks ever.
3. Jet Set Radio: Invented the oft-repeated cell shading graphical style, and the game play was brilliant as well. Tony Hawk + Rollerblades + Juvenile Delinquency.
4. Samba de Amigo: I was lucky enough to have pre-ordered this game and a set of official maracas, still one of the best gaming decisions I've ever made. Sure Dance Dance Revolution is a lot of fun, but this is even more fun (and completely playable) when you're drunk, while DDR simply is not.
5. Shenmue: Ground-breaking blah blah blah masterful storytelling blah blah blah cat petting simulator blah blah blah Yu Suzuki is a God.
- colin