Sega Dreamcast Love

[llj]

Cool! I think I have one....or maybe it's play action replay. Will need to check!

Action replay should work too.

[llj]

Found a copy of Bangai-O for really cheap, about $13 in very good condition. I'd been looking for this game for a while. Now I only need a Japanese version of Capcom vs SNK 2, a Japanese Last Blade 2 and a Japanese Jojo's Bizarre Adventure to complete my DC "want" collection. (I also want Resident Evil 3 for the DC...but it's less of a priority because it's easy to get)

It's one of those games where you just submit to the sheer glee of blowing shit up. I love it. I've only spent a few hours on it, but it's already in my top 5 favorite DC games.


Hell YEAH


One thing that must be cleared up is that Bangai-O HD for the Xbox live is NOT an HD version of this game, or the N64 version. It's an entirely different game. So if you want the original, you should still hunt down the Dreamcast or N64 version.

[greg]

Now I only need a Japanese version of Capcom vs SNK 2, a Japanese Last Blade 2

I just recently added these two games to my collection. CvSNK2 can be found cheaply (I bought it at a place called Otakara that sells 3 retro games for 500 yen), and I scored Last Blade 2 (I forget the long-ass Japanese name) on YAJ for about 1,000 yen or so. Other recent acquisitions are Street Fighter III (turns out it's the first one, not the second one), Sonic Adventure 2 (I think it was released in North America for the Game Cube only, IIRC, however the J DC version has English options), and Puyo Puyo Da!

I also recently bought two DC arcade sticks for only 2,000 yen in a YAJ auction (that's 2000 yen for both not each!).

Since I live in Happy J-Land, if there is something you'd like me to get, let me know and I can work something out. I've bought a few things for Path in the past.

[llj]

Thanks Greg. I might just take you up on that offer sometime. I've really only done trades through snail mail, and I'm not used to exchanging currency in these situations, though. In this situation, I might be able to pick something up for you on R1 DVD in exchange, though.

[greg]

Kevin Gifford, the Japanese gaming nostalgia guru responsible for the brilliant Magweasel blog, did an article on Why did the Dreamcast fail? Sega's marketing veteran looks back.

[llj]

The Dreamcast did try to appeal to a more mass audience...but it ended up with very "arcadey" games in an era when most gamers were demanding longer, more hardcore gaming experiences. As such, it was a system that appealed to people who were arcade gamers--and technologically, it was the closest thing to a "true" arcade machine as it was architecturally very similar to Sega's Naomi arcade board, anyway. The Naomi was one of the most versatile arcade boards of all time, able to handle games of all sorts of genres, and I think the Dreamcast was similar in that respect.

Being a fan of arcade games, I didn't mind. But I think by the 2000s, people were craving for more of those 50-60 hour journeys whereas the DC's library favoured shorter, more casual play sessions.

This is probably why DC has aged well, though. As people get older, and they have less time to play those 60 hour games with super convoluted control schenes, and they go back to the DC, as the graphics and sound capabilities of the console are still comparable to many mid to late 2000s stuff on the PS2.

[greg]

Yes, in terms of bringing the arcade experience to home, the DC was the successor to the Neo Geo. It was also the successor to the Saturn, of course. Unfortunately, it was a bit ahead of its time, and publishers didn't must the courage to release truly "Japanesey" games until more recent years after the anime boom had truly sunk in. There were a lot of great games that should've been ported to English that weren't because they were "risky." So, games like Sakura Taisen didn't get released until the age of the Wii.

My gripe is that they removed two buttons from the Saturn analog pad and turned it into the DC pad. As a result, Capcom fighting games suffered on the DC unless you had a special controller because those analog shoulder buttons are clumsy to play with. Then the FPS wave hit, and you just can't play one of those without two analog sticks. I never played Quake or Half Life on the DC, but I imagine that the gameplay is not the same as on the PS2.

The PS2 really killed the DC, and it is a shame because it really wasn't that spectacularly more advanced than the DC. They just had clever marketing and had the right people to spout praise for the system. Like having George Lucas saying that he could use a PS2 to create special effects for Episode 2 and such. And they had clever marketing nonsense like the so-called "Emotion Engine." I remember being in a game store where the clerk was demonstrating Dead or Alive 2 on the PS2. I said, "Check out the jaggies. The PS2 doesn't have native anti-aliasing like the DC has." The clerk was like, "Yeah, but look at their eyes! They're so much more expressive!" He honestly believed that the characters' eyes looked differently and that it was all thanks to some hocus pocus technology that makes game characters emulate emotions. The PS2 launch titles were just a bunch of shitturds anyway, and unlike the DC, the PS2 took a few years before it started getting interesting (in my opinion, anyway).

[llj]

The one thing I dislike about the PS2 graphically was how "soft" everything looked. It looked like every game had a hazy fog thrown over the screen. It didn't matter if you were playing a 2D game or a CGI laden game, the console just had a knack for making everything look soft or muddy. I'm not savvy enough about graphics to say if this was because of its lack of anti-aliasing, but it's the only console I have where it feels like I'm seeing things through some sort of drowsy filter. There's also the fact that the PS2 often got the worst versions of multi-platform games. If it was on the Gamecube or XBox, usually those versions were better. The Dreamcast games that were ported to the PS2 often were inferior in some way as well. I'm thinking of Marvel vs Capcom 2 in particular, which has sound issues and the graphics don't look as sharp (again with the damned filter!)

I own more games for the PS2 than any other console I have, so obviously I respect its software library, but I am really not a big fan of the PS2 as a piece of hardware. I agree with you that the controller is ace, though. It's not the most comfortable controller ever made, but it's probably the most versatile one.

[_D_]

I don't play a lot of console games. I bought the DC mostly as a poor man's Neo Geo because it had some awesome arcade ports. My friends owned the arcades, so I was always able to play the latest games but by the late 1990's the arcades were dying out. The home consoles eventually killed them except in places where there is still a lot of younger people to play in them. That is not Canada nor the US unfortunately. Our aging populations didn't help...most of us simply outgrew that form of entertainment. As to the new consoles, if I win one I might try them out but I'm not actively going to buy either system. Not a lot of interest in the games shown so far...

[kndy]

I enjoy the Dreamcast....and still use it for emulation and such. But I found myself trying to get Tokyo Street Racer, since I loved the game but sold them... Also, trying to get Seaman cheap. Also the Final Fantasy: Mark of Wolves continues to allude me...too expensive.

But happy with the games I have for it... mostly all fighting games though.

My gripe is that they removed two buttons from the Saturn analog pad and turned it into the DC pad. As a result, Capcom fighting games suffered on the DC unless you had a special controller because those analog shoulder buttons are clumsy to play with. Then the FPS wave hit, and you just can't play one of those without two analog sticks. I never played Quake or Half Life on the DC, but I imagine that the gameplay is not the same as on the PS2.

For the EVO tournaments back then, a lot of people purchased Hori joysticks for fighting game competition. The Dreamcast version of Marvel vs. Capcom 2 and Street fighter III were used in competition for many years as competitors felt it was great on balance over its other console counterparts.