Dreamcast and it's unrealized awesomeness (and under appreciated games in general)

Shagz

Shagz

New Member
Ok, I never actually owned a Dreamcast, but there seemed to be enough interest about it from the PSP thread that I thought I'd take it over here.

AHH! *runs screaming around the room* Ikaruga is one of the five best shoot-em-ups (up there with Radiant Silvergun for the Sega Saturn) EVER. As you likely guessed, I have a copy for the Dreamcast. w00t for broadband, Dreamcast Forums, and a CD burner!
Click to expand...
Yea, I've *really* been enjoying my time with Ikaruga so far. Many complained about the length of the game - 25 mins and you're done, so long as you can actually *beat it* without losing any lives - but man, the game is fantastically deep, with the chaining, bullet eating and polarity game mechanisms. I *finally* managed to get an "A" ranking on Chapter 1 (on Easy difficulty; 58 was my max chain) last night, after about 5-6 hours of practicing and memorizing the enemy waves. Whenever I play it, I actually feel like I'm playing on my own personal stand up arcade game. Gah! I love it.

There's something to be said about games that you can just pick up, play for 5-10mins and put back down again. I've been working through the single player campaigns of Half Life 2, Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow AND Homeworld 2, but they're all on hold at the moment because I don't have that hour or two handy right now to actually sit down and play through it some more. They require a real time commitment.

In some sense, we've gained a lot from games like Half Life and others that just extended a games length in order to tell a bigger, better story and put in more cinematic, set piece sequences. But the problem is that too many developers are trying to do the same thing, and perhaps we've lost that "pick it up, go and put it down" goal of some of the older, arcade-style games. At least you won't see those kinds of games coming out on consoles (although there are *plenty* of those styles of games on mobile phones, portables and in the indie game developer world) - although apparently Donkey Kong jungle beat has that kind of feel: short game play, easy to beat in a few sessions, but if you *really* want to master it, there's plenty to go back into the jungle for.

I wish more developers did that: shorter game time, but deeper game play. How many times have you gone back to the single player campaign of some FPS just to play it all over again to the end?

----

I missed Radiant Silvergun unfortunately, but if everybody says that Ikragu is the unofficial sequel to Radiant, then it must've been good. :)

----

Back to the topic at hand, did anyone ever play Cannon Spike on the DC? I never actually saw the game, but I saw some concept art from a Capcom Art book that I have and it looked very intriguing.
 
Last edited:
Shagz said:
Back to the topic at hand, did anyone ever play Cannon Spike on the DC?
Click to expand...
Yep. Got a copy of that, too. It's a decent game. Nothing particularly interesting, but fun for a half hour or so.
 
Spawn: In the Demon's Hand was really awesome. It's even better at the arcade with 4 linked cabinets. Also DC was the only console that had Virtua Fighter 3 on it, and that entire series has been my favorite fighting game since its beginning.
 
re: Spawn - that was the beat 'em up, "Power Stone"-like game, right? (I haven't played Power Stone either (funny enough, another DC-only game), but I believe these two games were similar) Third person? Destructible enviroments? And the point was to beat up a boss or x number of baddies within a time limit? I think I remember playing it in an arcade once...

@Assassin re: Ikaruga on the GC...yea, that's the version I've been playing. Good luck finding it, I had to buy mine off of EBay!
 
Continuing the topic of great and underappreciated Dreamcast games, I must list several terrific Japanese titles:

1. Musapey's Choco Marker. It's 3D. It's a puzzle game. It features weird rabbit-things hopping on blocks. And it's way more fun than it should be.

2. Golf Shiyuoyo 2. The sequel to a game known as "Tee Off" in the US. Fun golf game. Nintendo, in typical fashion, blatantly ripped off large portions of the game for their Mario Golf Gamecube title.

3. Puyo Puyo 4. Perhaps the greatest four-player puzzle game of all time.

4. Shikigami No Shiro 2. Another awesome shoot-em-up style game. I actually prefer it over Ikargua, but I recognize it's not as original.

5. Super Puzzle Fighter II X. The people who decided NOT to export the greatest competitive puzzle game of all time to America have not been arrested for their heinous crime. There is no justice in this world. If you get only one game for the Dreamcast, this should be it. True, Capcom released the game in the US for the Playstation, but didn't include the two original game modes featured only on the Dreamcast.

6. Sega Marine Fishing. No, I'm not kidding. This game rocks. And yes, I do own a Dreamcast Fishing Rod. Laugh if you will. My friends did, minutes before they were jumping up and down, trying to catch a shark.

7. Hanagumi Taisen Columns 2. Competitive Columns. Very cool. 'nuff said.

If you get the chance, check these games out. Most, if not all, did not make it to the American market. But, one of the coolest things about the Dreamcast is that it plays imports without need for any sort of modification. Sega <3 import players.

WARNING: Rant follows. Please do not read if you are a Nintendo fanboy or fangirl.

It's truly a pity that Sega stopped making consoles. Sega console titles such as Rez, Sega Marine Fishing, and Ikaruga prove that Sega was willing to take a chance on innovative titles. Nintendo, while very good at what they do, is like the Disney of the gaming world: they refuse to create original characters, preferring instead to stay in their comfort zones and produce sequel after sequel. Seriously, when's the last time they came out with a new series of characters? 1986? Nintendo is sorely lacking in creativity.

And don't think that Nintendo is nearly as innovative as Sega. Sega took a risk introducing the Dreamcast as the first console with a web browser, a dial-up modem, a broadband adapter, and memory cards that double as mini-game units. Why is Nintendo more successful? Because they wait for other companies to put something out, copy the idea, make it better, and pay their marketing people to promote the products.

Oh, and Donkey Kong Jungle Beat? Yeh, that's been done before. So while I appreciate Nintendo games as well as the next person (hey, I love Mario vs. Donkey Kong for the Gameboy Advance and Super Mario World is still my favorite platformer), they just can't match the creative spirit that drove Sega to create and license such awesome titles for their consoles. Unfortunately, bad business decisions nearly drove Sega to bankruptcy.

NOTE: Dreamcast imports are crazy expensive. If you're on broadband, you can join Dreamcast Forums, make 25 posts, access their Dreamcast Releases section, and go to town with your favorite BitTorrent client. If you fall in love with any titles, then you can decide if you want to shell out $60 or more.
 
Last edited:
NOTE: Dreamcast imports are crazy expensive. If you're on broadband, you can join Dreamcast Forums, make 25 posts, access their Dreamcast Releases section, and go to town with your favorite BitTorrent client.
Click to expand...

Their called, Collectors(Well, I call them that). They get stuff never brought in retail stores, store them, clean them, wait a couple of years, then sell them for about double or triple the original price, very good $$$.

I really enjoyed Sega Saturn's games: Panzer Dragoon 2, Virtua Cop, Guardian Heroes, Sega Rally, Street Fighter Alpha 2 and many, many others.

Got P'0ed when 99% of the retail stores/rental places never had Sega Saturn games, when I brought the console a few months LATER!

Now-a-days, you can enjoy most of Sega's games in the Arcades...

As for Dreamcast, I own that too. X_X And Marvel Vs Capcom 2 is still the best fighting game EVER!(Unless your a SNK fan...)

Used to own:

Gameboy (5 games)
Nintendo (2 games)
Super Nintendo (10 games)
Sega Game Gear (4 games)
Sega Genesis (3 games)

Previous own:

Sega Saturn (6 games)
Sega Dreamcast (6 games)
Nintendo 64 (N-64) (2 games)
Playstation 2 (8 games)

Missing(Wont need/buy):

Virtual Boy
Sega CD
Gameboy Advance
Gameboy SP
GameCube
X-Box
 
Last edited:
Yeah, I love downloading DC games, I have about 2.5 spools full of them :). I think I have most of every interesting looking DC game. Some of the best games ever made are for DC. Hey, just a thought, but I think it would be cool if we could get a PSO chapter going (it's free nowadays at psocheats.net), I would head one up if anyone's interested. It's a great game, don't hessitate to download it.
 
Killerah said:
I think it would be cool if we could get a PSO chapter going (it's free nowadays at psocheats.net)
Click to expand...
Wouldn't that only work for players with a Dreamcast, a Dreamcast modem, and a dial-up ISP? Or a Dreamcast, the Dreamcast Broadband Adapter (which goes for no less than $120 on ebay), and broadband?

Ooor are you talking about a PC version? I'm confused. ;_;
 
Old skool!

Have any of you guys heard of "Gunstar Heroes" for Sega Genesis? My friend has his sega. ancient and finicky. Takes 2-3 tries of blowing, shaking, and cleaning in order for his cartridge to be recognized by the ancient sega consol. Now I got an emulator for it on computer! :ooooo FUN GAEM!
 
Heheheh, I remember blowing the dust 'n dirt out of my old games.

And YES, Gunstar Heroes was amazing!!! I never played it at great length, only a single afternoon, but I just remember the weapons being super cool and I believe it had to be the first shooter game that actually had "throw" moves where you could grab baddies and toss them over your shoulder Double Dragon style. And wasn't there some kind of "board game" built into it? I just remember throwing "dice" around to move spaces along a board. Will have to look it up...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top