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Dreamcast 22nd Anniversary |OT| Still Dreaming

Evil Calvin

Afraid of Boobs
Good points, although I wouldn't criticise Sega too much when it comes to the Dreamcast sports titles - Visual Concepts was a very wise purchase and made some incredible games (plus we did get Virtua Striker from Japan). I wish Sega would rivive Sega Sports and take on EA again.

Some Saturn games could definitely have done with a Dreamcast port, especially stuff like Burning Rangers and Panzer Dragoon Saga. It would have been like how Nintendo ports Wii U games to the Switch nowadays.

It's a shame that the Japanese launch was so underwhelming. Why do you think they felt in such a rush, especially given the Saturn's relative success in Japan? It's a shame that Sega never managed to get success in all 3 major markets at the same time with any of their consoles.
I don't think ports were a thing back then (from generation to generation), There were multiplatform games and sequels but not really ports, from what I can remember.
 

Evil Calvin

Afraid of Boobs
I know I cannot be 'mis-remembering' but I swear that I recall seeing a performance or seeing in print Sega Dreamcast sponsoring Linkin Park to promote the Dreamcast sometime early in their career. It had to have been around 2000. I cannot seem to find any info regarding this on the internets. Anyone remember this?
 

Ragnarok

Member
I don't think ports were a thing back then (from generation to generation), There were multiplatform games and sequels but not really ports, from what I can remember.
There were plenty of ports from PlayStation and N64 to Dreamcast.

Shadow man
Soul Reaver
Star Wars Podracer
Resident Evil 2 and 3
Rayman


Among others
 

Evil Calvin

Afraid of Boobs
There were plenty of ports from PlayStation and N64 to Dreamcast.

Shadow man
Soul Reaver
Star Wars Podracer
Resident Evil 2 and 3
Rayman


Among others

I would consider those multiplatform games as they all came out pretty close to each other (i.e. Shadowman came out in August 99 on N64 and November 99 on DC). I was meaning different generations. The only one I can remember is Sonic Jam.
 

Alexios

Cores, shaders and BIOS oh my!
I would consider those multiplatform games as they all came out pretty close to each other (i.e. Shadowman came out in August 99 on N64 and November 99 on DC). I was meaning different generations. The only one I can remember is Sonic Jam.
But those he mentioned are different generations. How is PS1/N64 the same gen as Dreamcast? And how would the Dreamcast version not count for being too close despite the generational gap but then the GameCube (same gen as DC) versions of the RE games would count for being later?

And where did Sonic Jam get ported other than Saturn (and irrelevant game.com)? Or do you mean the included games? Might as well consider them retro releases of the era. They had actual SEGA Ages games on Saturn (and PS2 onward), stuff like Outrun and Space Harrier and Afterburner II.
 
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Evil Calvin

Afraid of Boobs
But those he mentioned are different generations. How is PS1/N64 the same gen as Dreamcast? And how would the Dreamcast version not count for being too close despite the generational gap but then the GameCube (same gen as DC) versions of the RE games would count for being later?

And where did Sonic Jam get ported other than Saturn (and irrelevant game.com)? Or do you mean the included games? Might as well consider them retro releases of the era. They had actual SEGA Ages games on Saturn (and PS2 onward), stuff like Outrun and Space Harrier and Afterburner II.

I meant the Sonic games included.

Playstation, N64 and Dreamcast all overlapped during the late 90's and early 2000's. A lot of games were on all three systems roughly at the same timeframe. Although many DC games were 'ported' to PS2, but even then that was only a year or so later (2001?).

I was talking about the fact that you didn't see much porting of games from 2 generations+ back like we see today on all systems (Crash Bandicoot, Star Wars Jedi Outcast, Forsaken, Turok, etc......just to name a few out of hundreds)

But, yes, it would have been cool to see Panzer Dragoon Saga port from the Saturn though
 

Scotty W

Member
Eh, 3S had major issues and parries in general hurt the game more than they help. I've been competing in 3S since before Evo was even Evo and I've just completely lost my taste for it as time went on.

My problem with the game was the music. There was one song, on the African stage I think, where the music was so bad I muted it.
 
Out of all the consoles I own, the Dreamcast is the second most console I find myself wanting to play to this day, behind the N64. So many great games. The system was also a terrific console for arcade ports.

Oh, and it had Re-Volt. Too bad my copy broke into pieces due to an accident.
 

Romulus

Member
I'm on vacation at my brothers. He has a shitty laptop from like 2012. It wasn't even a gaming laptop back then lol. We got Redream running on it flawlessly, 10-12 games tested all locked 60fps. Probably one of the most impressive emulators I've ever used.
 

SkylineRKR

Member
Best launch ever. Even a fucking lightgun + game.

NBA Showtime with Arcade stick.
MvC1 arcade perfect (DC had this resolution issue which was different but it offered more, absolutely zero load times etc.. this game impressed me when I saw the JP ver. running)
Power Stone
Sonic Adventure (yeah, well, I hate it now but it was fun in 1999)
Hydro Thunder, my cocaine in 1999, finally on console and pretty much perfect.

VMU..! I god damn miss it. The battery problem would've been solved today. It was so cool having that little screen on your controller without getting in the way.

And a shout out to Blue Stinger. It wasn't good. No. But I love it. Why? Because it was so god damn quirky and they don't make em like this anymore. That game would be revered nowadays for its ridiculous VA, X-mas music and massive amounts of coins coming out of monsters. I miss it.
 
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JLB

Banned
1. Got mine by the end of 99, nov or dec, cant recall.
2. Connected to dial up at home and reading some bulleting board about the release in america.
3. Many, similar to ps1, had great moments with the demo disc (included games like sonic adv, house of the dead, bass fishing). Best game of the system for me is Jet Set Radio, but had awesome moments with soul edge and pso. Also, first ever multiplayer game i played was in dc: Quake Arena.
 
I was in the process of buying a Dreamcast and all the modern upgrades until the SEGA Discord informed me that an emulator exists. I’m here for the games, after all.
 

DeaconOfTheDank

Gold Member
I know I cannot be 'mis-remembering' but I swear that I recall seeing a performance or seeing in print Sega Dreamcast sponsoring Linkin Park to promote the Dreamcast sometime early in their career. It had to have been around 2000. I cannot seem to find any info regarding this on the internets. Anyone remember this?
You might be thinking of the Linkin Park's Reanimation album:
Remix-Reanimation_Cover.jpg


... Which, despite being a clear reference to Gundam, looks surprisingly similar to FromSoftware's lesser known mecha title, Frame Gride:
Frame_Gride.jpg
 
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Alexios

Cores, shaders and BIOS oh my!
Idk why the Dreamcast appreciation and emulation thread is locked so I'll post here.

It took me too damn long to realize this. Using RetroArch and Flycast (to me the best Dreamcast emulator by far) and keeping what I thought was system accurate options for the most part, The King of Fighters: Dream Match 1999 of all games kept having these weird seams on the sprites indicating some kind of upscaling at work. I "knew" I wasn't upscaling since I left the default 640x480 so I couldn't explain it and chalked it up to bad emulation for that one game. After pondering it today I realized this is one of the games that actually used the Dreamcast's 320x240 low resolution mode (that a Dreamcast switches to after the boot up screen but the emulator forces everything at the preset resolution), those that didn't support the VGA cable and couldn't even be forced to do so. So yeah, you're meant to emulate this game in 320x240 folks, then it has no graphical issues (on Flycast, though the boot up will look all pixelated).

For future reference (though maybe not all present issues, some are fine with getting upscaled) google says these are all the 320x240 Dreamcast games:

Bangai-O
Black Matrix
Gunbird 2
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure
Marvel vs Capcom
Princess Maker Collection
Street Fighter III: Double Impact
Street Fighter Alpha 3
The King of Fighters: Dream Match 1999
The Last Blade 2
Twinkle Star Sprites

All (?) other games that look like they should be low res like these, such as Giga Wing, The King of Fighters 2k1/2k2, SSFIIX, etc., are upscaled by DC internally to 640x480.

As a bonus by holding Start + L as Street Fighter III: Third Strike boots up you can also get the proper crisp pixel non interlaced/non upscaled 320x240 output mode on that.

Funnily enough that one first showed me Dreamcast 2D games often looked ugly due to the internal upscaling causing thinner scanlines every half row of art pixels (every row of output pixels) so I opted to play/emulate the arcade versions instead (except for exclusive editions like the above KoF) yet it's the one game you can fix.
 
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Alexios

Cores, shaders and BIOS oh my!
Here's some random Dreamcast footage from the interwebs. Real hardware, not emulation. There's next to no good footage of Aero Dancing i, it's a 60fps game but this video is 48 fps and most others are 30. Other than some old school special effects it's beautiful as the series showed tangible improvements with each new iteration despite how fast they were churning these out. Compared to contemporary PC flight sims like IL-2 Sturmovik from many months later, the planes have great detail, the terrain textures are of good resolution and the pop-in for the 3D structures is quite good (granted some Aero games, i included, also released on PC). That Le Mans video isn't the best in image quality but it shows a full 24 car race with changing tod and weather. I can't find great MSR footage that shows off the insane amounts of fully modeled track detail either. I guess people mostly go back to the arcadey Dreamcast games instead of those that demanded quite some time investment when recording and uploading. Also, anyone who says Dreamcast couldn't do sandbox based on Headhunter forgets the Crazy Taxi games with their great vistas and tons of traffic that could easily be halved and still look dense if it was necessary to accomodate different types of gameplay or increase individual polycount. The pedestrians and what not don't look too bad either and yes, there's pop in, but considering all it throws up every second (again 60fps) it's great.


So, ya, of course it was powerful and didn't just have Shenmue to prove it. The polycount of the characters in DOA2L and even the dodgy VF3tb surpassed that of TTT and VF4 on PS2 (which btw halves the arcade's so ya they were still very powerful too even if cheaper than before, Naomi 2 was a beast) and destroy that of SoulCalibur which was a crossgen kind of remaster. As great as it looked due to the great modelers at Namco, it's modest technically for what DC could do, so it could have had more such advanced game ports if it had lived longer. Many lesser DC games push more polys than you'd think but don't look like it due to their very inefficient use from either a lack of talent, budget or time, or simply the era's still evolving know how that meant not all studios were equal in their artistry, hence many early PS2 games not looking better for the most part either.

BTW, you lot should know that SEGA Retro's relevant Aero Dancing i entries are WRONG. They mention that the bonus disc released in Japan is actually an "upgraded editions" of the original game with more stuff, but in reality the dic only has the "more stuff" and doesn't include the content of the original release.It's like a DLC or expandalone and will seem barebones and/or like it throws you off the deep end if you play it first so make sure you get the original game first and the bonus disc after you exhaust it. It's the same for the whole series. For Aero Dancing i you first want just that, not Aero Dancing i Jikai Saku Made Matemasen! Of course the first couple of games in the series also released in the West, without the bonus content. I just wanted to make sure everyone is aware as that info is scarce and SEGA Retro is usually on point. It's probably what negatively affected some of the reputable sources of games (ie some archive org redumps) so they only include the bonus disc which also threw me off. https://segaretro.org/Aero_Dancing_i vs. https://segaretro.org/Aero_Dancing_i_Jikai_Saku_Made_Matemasen
 
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Kazza

Member
It's that time of year again, so I think this excellent thread is worth a bump!

To celebrate the occasion, I'm going to play Sonic Adventure. While I have the Redream emulator set up on my PC, I hear that the steam version is the best to play, so I'm going to go for that one (apparently, you get the 60 fps of the Gamecube version, but with Dreamcast style graphics - after modding, anyway)

Apart from that, I'll play a bit of Crazy Taxi 2, as I never really got to play that 2nd city too much.

How's everyone else marking 9/9/21?
 

kunonabi

Member
I wonder what I should pop in today. Maybe TimeStalkers or I could try beating my head against the wall and try Industrial Spy again.
 

Wulfer

Member
Happy Birthday DC such an incredible machine that was denied it's time. Thanks for the entertainment you added to my life.
 

NeoIkaruGAF

Gold Member
I bought a used one in summer 2003. I tried Soul Calibur and I was absolutely hooked for days. Had to force myself to stop playing that game for a few days to study for a university exam. SC was so good, it’s hard to say with words. One of the last games that truly blew me away and kept me coming back for more.

Dreamcast was Soul Calibur and Ikaruga for me. I didn’t need anything else on the machine. I finally sold my DC when I switched to a flat TV and its best games became available elsewhere, but I’ll never forget those colors and textures. It was the last console to display that unique Sega blue on your screen, and everything looked so crisp on it - PS2 looked so blurry in comparison. I even liked the controller - I wish modern systems had such a good stick and D-pad. And the console itself was so compact and sturdy.

DC wasn’t discreet, though. That loud BEEEEEEEEEP! when you turned on the machine with a depleted VMU battery was awful. And whenever something was loading from the disc, there was no way you could not hear it - Skies of Arcadia literally telegraphed random battles to the player, so loud was the loading noise.
 

Drew1440

Member
I miss the times when consoles were small and compact, Dreamcast was such a fantastic little machine that deserved so much better, yet it was a console caught between two generations.
 

cireza

Banned
Awesome console, with a nice mix of arcade games, shmups and adventure games. Aside from the well known games, here are some of my favorite picks on the console.

Cannon Spike
Shikigami no Shiro 2
Psyvariar 2
KOF 99 Evolution
Capcom vs SNK (first game)
Super Runabout
Evolution (first one)
Dragon's Blood
Lodoss
 
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IbizaPocholo

NeoGAFs Kent Brockman


The Dreamcast is long gone, but the games listed here live on as some of the most beloved games made. Aware that its time in the console business was almost over, Sega said to hell with it and went all-in on fascinating, weird experiments, from the delightful rhythm games like Space Channel 5 to strange curiosities like Seaman. We sought to create a snapshot of the Dreamcast's legacy, which encompassed everything from burgeoning online play to wild peripherals. With that, here are the 10 best Sega Dreamcast games of all time.

Shenmue should be in that list.
 
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