Sega Dreamcast Love

Especially but not limited to pre-2000 titles
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kndy
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Sega Dreamcast Love

Post by kndy »

A thread for those who love the Sega Dreamcast!

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I became a fan of the Sega Dreamcast since I first discovered it while in Japan for the launch. Not only was the hardware sleek and awesome, who knew how this system would become a fantastic console for the emulator community to play old Atari, NES, SNES, Master, Sega 16 games (Try Nester http://www.dcemulation.org/?title=Emulators). It was also a console which Sega allowed you to play the games on your computer monitor. But I own so many Sega Dreamcast games and will forever remember putting so much time to Tokyo Xtreme Racer, King of Fighters, Marvel vs. Capcom and Shenmue!
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llj
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Re: Sega Dreamcast Love

Post by llj »

The Dreamcast is indeed quite a neat and extremely versatile little console. The architecture is very similar to that of the Naomi arcade board. So it really was the closest experience to playing arcade games because it was suited for that type of gameplay. The PS2 and XBox were more powerful memory wise, but there were some things the DC did better in terms of textures and sound. DC was a very loud-reading console, though. One of the loudest IMO.

I think DC game developers would have really pushed the system even more had its lifespan lasted longer.

I don't have a lot of games for the DC and much of the library is filled with games that don't really appeal to me, but the 15 or so games I do have are as good as any console's top 15 games.

As for emulation...I've heard that CD-R boot discs can wear out the DC laser reader, but a lot of people apparently haven't run into that problem. I generally think it's better to stick with PC for emulation, and just get a gamepad. The Neo Geo emulator does intrigue me, though.
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Re: Sega Dreamcast Love

Post by _D_ »

Lots of emulators on tablets. My Blackberry Playbook has an SNES emulator that plays good and to which I installed 800 ROMs. You can get an Amiga emulator with many converted legit games now out of Appworld. There are other emulators as well. Well, back to beating up the Mad Gear gang in Final Fight...
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kndy
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Re: Sega Dreamcast Love

Post by kndy »

llj wrote:The Dreamcast is indeed quite a neat and extremely versatile little console. The architecture is very similar to that of the Naomi arcade board. So it really was the closest experience to playing arcade games because it was suited for that type of gameplay. The PS2 and XBox were more powerful memory wise, but there were some things the DC did better in terms of textures and sound. DC was a very loud-reading console, though. One of the loudest IMO.

I think DC game developers would have really pushed the system even more had its lifespan lasted longer.

I don't have a lot of games for the DC and much of the library is filled with games that don't really appeal to me, but the 15 or so games I do have are as good as any console's top 15 games.

As for emulation...I've heard that CD-R boot discs can wear out the DC laser reader, but a lot of people apparently haven't run into that problem. I generally think it's better to stick with PC for emulation, and just get a gamepad. The Neo Geo emulator does intrigue me, though.
If I recall, there were companies in Japan that were still developing games for the Dreamcast (primarily shooters) 2 or 3 years after the Dreamcast stopped being supported. But at the time, the Dreamcast had so much competition and Sega was not getting the sales that it used to. Even today, while Nintendo still makes money with the 3DS, Wii-U sales are not exactly doing great and you wonder if Nintendo should just focus on its handheld console. We'll see though if they lower the price for the Wii-U but to tell you the truth, with Nintendo products, I mostly play handheld. Had bought a few things for the Wii but rarely play it.

As for the Dreamcast, still no problem with my laser. I use NESTer, the SNES games were always a bit slow and buggy but anything 8bit or lower worked well with the system. I definitely played more of the Dreamcast than the Saturn.

I still regret not buying that fish game...lol...
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Re: Sega Dreamcast Love

Post by greg »

Wow, interestingly your last image is of Geist Force, which was a fun-looking game that was never actually released. I think it was promised for launch, but it ended up falling by the wayside.

I absolutely love my Dreamcast. Both of them, actually. I bought a US one used from a coworker a few months after launch, and I later got a pink Sakura Taisen LE Dreamcast in Japan. Unfortunately, the pink color yellowed during shipment from America to Japan last year. There is a chemical concoction you can make using vinegar and OxiClean that is supposed to brighten up and restore yellowed plastic, but I have yet to unpack my Dreamcasts yet. Perhaps soon, now that I finally have a television to play them on.
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Animusubi
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Re: Sega Dreamcast Love

Post by Animusubi »

I love the Dreamcast. It was the first time I experienced an MMO (Phantasy Star Online) and it has one of my favorite game franchises, Rival Schools/Justice Gakuen (Project Justice). It was a really good console for fighting games, most of the major fighting games came out for the system.
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Re: Sega Dreamcast Love

Post by usamimi »

omg, I still love Dreamcast and Dreamcast games ;3; I refuse to ever let my Dreamcast go, I still have all my games (and occasionally still pick up more!)

A friend of mine linked me to this on Twitter a while back and I seriously wish I could get one: A DREAMCAST CONTROLLER BACKPACK! http://geekologie.com/2013/04/better-la ... ontrol.php XD How awesome is that?!
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llj
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Re: Sega Dreamcast Love

Post by llj »

I also have to chime in that kndy has it right that being able to play the Dreamcast on a VGA monitor is the worth the time and money to hunt down a DC VGA adaptor. IMO, 480p is the perfect resolution for video games. Modern HD video games are too "film-like", and I like my games to look "gamey" yet still better than standard TV resolution. 480p just hits that sweet spot for me.
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Re: Sega Dreamcast Love

Post by Armblessed »

I have very fond memories of playing 4-player Power Stone 2. That game always seemed to be a crowd pleaser. Not to mention countless rounds of Street Fighter Alpha 3 (had way too much fun with Dramatic Battle) and Marvel vs Capcom 2 ("I wanna take you for a ride!").
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Re: Sega Dreamcast Love

Post by greg »

When I was an English teacher in Himeji in 2000, we all lived together in an apartment building. It was almost like a commune, because we could depend on each other to help each other out with living in Japan as foreigners. We held meetings there sometimes, and held lots of parties and welcomed the neighbors. Of course, I was the guy with all the video games.

We would have Marvel vs Capcom 2 tournaments in my studio apartment. It was just large enough for a bed, a sofa, and a small kitchen table. We would make teams with themes such as guys wearing green (Hulk, Doom, etc), guys with sharp objects (Wolverine, Silver Samurai, Strider, etc), robotic-type dudes (Captain Commando, Doom, Rockman, etc), hot chicks with no pants on (Chun-Li, Morrigan, Psylocke, etc), guys with Guns (cheap-ass Cable, Bulletta, Iron Man, that chick from Resident Evil, etc), big huge guys (Sentinel, Hulk, Blackheart, etc), and so on.

I am very disappointed that Marvel vs Capcom 3 uses a 3D polygon game engine. Capcom has abandoned their sprites. While plenty of other 2D fighting games still use beautiful sprites such as Melty Blood, Arcana Heart, BlazBlue, the new Persona fighter, etc, Capcom has elected to just make 2D fighting games using 3D polygons. Although they did make the Basara X game, right? The Tatsunoko vs Capcom game is plenty fun, but I wish it was sprite-based. To me, my preference for sprite-based games is analogous to my preference to hand-drawn anime.

So anyhow, the Dreamcast was stellar for fighting games (both 2D and 3D), shmups, and of course Sega arcade ports. I still wish Sega had released their own Star Wars: Pod Racer arcade game for the DC (instead of a port of the N64 one) and also Planet Harriers. Unfortunately in Japan, sales of Dreamcast consoles didn't spike until after Sega announced that they would retire the console.
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