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Games That Defined The Dreamcast
Retrogaming with Racketboy has a piece looking at some of the console-defining titles we miss from that little white box. From the article: "Phantasy Star Online - Sega was one of the main pioneers in online console gaming. While they had modest online offering with both the Genesis and Saturn, the Dreamcast was the first of their consoles to have online capabilities built into the stock machine. The Dreamcast came standard with a 56k modem and also had a (expensive) LAN/Broadband adapter available as an upgrade. Phantasy Star Online paved the way for Sega's groundbreaking online network and for later networks like XBox Live."
soul calibur. Only game I bought the system for, and the best game of the generation by far.
was of course Crazy Taxi.
Those 2 were, to me, the defining dreamcast experience, for me. Though, I think you could kind of make a case for Hydro Thunder. (porting that arcade game to the console was cool... though, it was really more than the console could handle). I also really liked Rush 2049. The DC really did have some wonderful games. Heck, the only real sports game I picked up in the past several years, was the NFL 2k title. :-) Using the little display in the controller to pick plays, was pure brilliance. (so, I would have to add NFL 2k to that group)
What a great system. You were taken from us too young, may you rest in peace.
Nobody mentions Rez? Sure it had a PS2 version, but the dreamcast one actually ran better. And it was astounding.
Phantasy Star Online was easily one of the most gorgeous games I've ever seen; vibrant colors, detailed artwork, and the music was pretty kickass too. The gameplay was more like a networked Gauntlet rather than a real MMORPG, and there's nothing wrong with that.
The cheating, however, made it completely and utterly unplayable. Stupid game genie or gameshark or whatever the hell those cretins used.
The only other system that has this game is the Playstation 2. This game isnt available to arcade emulators either, because the Capcom got smart and started encrypting stuff. Althougth the Dreamcast emulator Chanka will play this game.
Phantasy Star Online did indeed support the Broadband adapter. I wasted several months of my life on that game.
The US release would use the BBA if it was configured, but you didn't have a way to configure it without the Japanese Broadband Passport disc (which I had).
Quake III Arena was the other game that supported it (the US release) and it worked really damned well.
You should definitely try the PC version, and the new game of the series coming out, called Phantasy Star Universe. Blue Burst (Aforementioned PC version) has episode 4, which is short, but very cool, IMO, and tons of the cool online quests. And no iffy console-to-the-internet issues. I'm kind of playing on-and-off, but once I get my new MacBook Pro :)
Capcom vs SNK 1 and 2, Guilty Gear X, Marvel vs Capcom 1 and 2, Street Fighter 3: Third Strike (still great on DC despite the input flaws), Garou: Mark of the Wolves, Soul Caliber, SFZ3 (IMO, I know a lot of people disliked the balancing + the errors in translation from arcade), the Dark Stalkers collection, Project Justice, Virtua Fighter 3, Power Stone 1 and 2...
So yeah, it had the fighters lined up. For a lot of the DC fanatics, much like the Saturn fanatics (since that had a great turn out for fighters as well), the volume of near perfect arcade translations made the DC amazing. But, I guess that could be attributed to the quality of the arcade/console hardware as well. Naomi 1 and 2 and Atomiswave all being based around the same system making translation to the DC so easy really created a fighting game monster.
1 (short ton / firkin) = 89.1432354 slugs / keg
SC was the game that made the Dreamcast for me and pretty well everyone I worked with. The combination of a DC with the arcade sticks couldn't be beat. Hell, we had the Japanese version first and when it was released over here we switched over to the North American release, but the Dreamcast in the lunchroom never went more than half an hour without someone starting up a match. It was a game that was fun for a newb and got more fun as you learned. I love the way you could basically make your own combos and you didn't need to memorize 15 button moves to kick butt.
Y'know, it's nice that this person put Chu Chu Rocket in his "Games That Nobody Played - But You Should" list. Really, it is. I've always considered it a classic and hope that Sega eventually makes a WFC version of it for the Nintendo DS.
But for as much as this guy likes the game, it'd be nice if he wrote his own synopsis rather than cutting-and-pasting verbatim sections from the Wikipedia article on the game (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chu_Chu_Rocket). I kinda recognized key phrases (especially "Although a simple concept, this quickly becomes frantic with the relentless speed of the mice and four players fighting over them."), given that I wrote the majority of the article over a year ago.
This somewhat makes me want to look up, on Wikipedia, the other games he mentioned. I wonder if I should be a jerk.
Demanding constant attention will only lead to attention.
I love the Dreamcast. Still have mine plugged in, and my collection of Dreamcast games close at hand.
My top five would be:
1. SoulCalibur. It still looks great, still plays great. Raised the bar on fighting game quality higher than any other game had, and kept it high for a long time after the Dreamcast was dead.
2. Jet Grind Radio. Possibly the only Dreamcast game I've played more than SoulCalibur.
3. Skies of Arcadia. I consider this to be one of the top 5 console RPGs I've ever played, and boy have I played a lot. Huge explorable world, a plotline you didn't see every twist coming a mile off in, and characters that weren't paper cutouts. And at the time the graphics were jaw dropping.
4. Toy Commander. One of the most difficult "kids games" I've ever played. The replay value is great, it's quite a long game, the variety of vehicles and environments are awesome. It really does feel like playing with toys as a hyper-imaginative kid.
5. Ikaruga. I downloaded this game once it became obvious that it wasn't going to be released in the US for the Dreamcast (and its release was unconfirmed for the Cube) and this was the title that decided that I was buying a GameCube. It may not be the best shoot-em-up ever made, but it just blew my mind the first time I played it.
There are SO many more awesome games that hit this system that languished in obscurity that I could (and have) talk for hours about them. The day the Dreamcast died was a sad day for me.
Good lord, what luddites we have today! The voice acting wasn't that bad, and you were waaay too caught up in it. And it gets better as the game progresses, which you didn't apparently do. In fact, what you played was completely non-representative of what the game was about. Hell, you probably never got to the training or fighting parts at all. Play it all the way through, and you may understand why I think criticizing the voice acting is just petty. Complaints about slow pacing or having to wait for things to happen are much more valid complaints, although I also think those are misplaced. I always had plenty of interesting things to do while waiting, and in fact that's part of what made the game cool. But complaining about the voice acting is like complaining that Mario is too kiddy to be enjoyed by adults. Rubish and besides the point.
Ecco the Dolphin: Defender of the Future, simply amazing.
great graphics, sound, music locations and story.
great fun to serious and causual gamer alike.
I brought it into work and used the VGA adaptor to show someone who had just bought one of the first PS2s and he was blown away and vowed to buy a dreamcast just to play the game.
Hell, even my mum like swimming about as ecco just for the experience.
Why they never released an official sound track I will never know, but check around on google and you can download all the tracks as ripped from the PS2 version.
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