Sega Dreamcast. The best console ever. Why? See inside!

darkangel-212559

darkangel-212559

Banned
Listen Gaf. I don't need to write a long post about why the DC is the best console ever, but lets take a short sweet trip down memory lane.

  1. Online gaming before anyone else (Yes I know NES had a modem where you can access a limited internet network, but that was for things like ordering pizza etc)
  2. VMU. I think this was incredible. Sonic Adventure where I can download the pets found in game into the VMU, use it as a portable Tamigotchi and then reupload to the game whenever I wanted??? Amazing)
  3. Innovotive and exciting games. Seaman using the mic with the voice of Leonard Nimroy as the pet fish, Headhunter, Skies of Arcadia, Planet Ring, Power Stone, Shenmue, PS0 etc.
  4. Amazing LE consoles and import games, if you were into the import scene like I was the DC/PS2 era was the last great generation for imports.
  5. NGPC to DC link up. Forget hooking up your vita to the your PS4 or GBA to GC. The Dreamcast did it first and it worked amazingly. SNK and Sega a great match.
DONE
 
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No, I had one Japanese import before they were even released in EU. It was cool, House Of The Dead looked great, Virtua Fighter too. Jet Set And Crazy Taxi were fun as was Sonic Adventure, outside of that only a couple of interesting games (powerstone was good). But it was all over too quickly, it had no legs and went out with a wimper.
 
I support this. The Dreamcast is easily one of my favorite consoles of all time. It is easily in my top 5 ever made. Been gaming since 1984
 
I mean, sure you can't play GTAIII or San Andreas on Dreamcast at their wonderful ~20 fps as on the mighty PlayStation 2 since it was discontinued before AAA development really took off but you can play all these and many more gems so Dreamcast held its own while it lasted and holds up🤷‍♂️

I edited the timestamps, Crazy Taxi 2's last missions take you through the whole city (in impressive speeds & 60 fps), Skies of Arcadia's intro at the start is amazing but the timestamp shows one of many cool effects it casually throws, F355's intro is sweet but so is the Long Beach course etc.

I couldn't find a better quality or quicker Le Mans video showing all it has going for it with real time day/night cycles, lighting, flare, glowing, rain, lens, reflection etc. effects in full 24 car races so that comparison with the PC version of that era will have to do since it includes all of that stuff.

So yeah, it miraculously holds up and was amazing back then and until AAA productions went all in on PS2. I can't even fit videos of every looker like the Shenmues, Soulcalibur, MSG: Federation vs. Zeon DX, Tokyo Xtreme Racer 2, HOTD2, MDK 2, Zero Gunner 2, Under Defeat & much more!

PSA: When looking for Dreamcast footage be mindful of the state of the hardware (or emulation quality which I avoid, I'm only not certain about Sakura Taisen 4 above but decent footage of those games is rare). A DOA2 video I've since replaced, either due to a worn drive or because of a modded Dreamcast with the loading issues some drive replacement devices seem to have, often paused the image while taking longer than normal to load the next scene. It both looked wrong and the music got completely desynced so the last intro part was silent, here's Crazy Taxi chugging on a similarly problematic Dreamcast. Many more games look great, the Shenmues, Maken X, Grandia II or Tokyo Xtreme Racer 2 and even some of the better PS1 ports are tranformed on Dreamcast while low budget/effort stuff like the Atomiswave's bootleg Initial D wannabe Faster than Speed look solid too, showing it wasn't so hard to do well on the system (some of the best graphics are in launch window games after all, then again almost its whole life was a launch window being so short) but most companies just didn't care or even have the know how at the time, pioneering times for 3D and all.​
 
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Never saw its potential, by the time it released in 1998, Sega were already a sinking ship as a hardware manufacturer...surprising that it wouldn't have been capable of handling Metal Gear Solid 2
 
I wish some things were different. Agartha could have been really amazing, it's such a shame they cancelled it when Dreamcast went belly up instead of move it to any other system. Some parts/assets/models are more unfinished/early on than others that look better but the concept is rad.


They had some novel control ideas as well going by the playable dev prototype (showing it was more than just videos). Outdoors had a third person camera, indoors were more like Code Veronica but you had this novel pointing all around the character control that looks straight out of Wii.


They had the pedigree of the Alone in the Dark originators and the passion as well, so sad it wasn't meant... It does look similar to D2 in some ways. And also to Wii's Cursed Mountain. But I guess that's just because of all the snow and horror connotations rather than anything more than that.


I keep wanting to play through D2, it's so unique (and despite being such an early title has its moments of looking pretty great) but it's just too weird for me, lol. Very slow start (and I guess exposition cut scenes in general with these The Thing like character interactions) too. R.I.P., Kenji Eno.

And then there was GunValkyrie. The Xbox game seems like it's a quick and dirty Dreamcast port with some more effects (like water shaders) and boosted polygon counts here and there. The previously seen Dreamcast footage suggests it was going to be very impressive for it too though..!
​
 
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I loved my Dreamcast. That noise it made when connecting to the Internet 🔥 I played Quake with a co troller and got smashed by KB/M players.

VMU kept me occupied whilst waiting for wife to fart our firstborn out too. Fond memories.
 
Alexios said:
Random videos, real hardware, not emulation. There's no good footage of Aero Dancing i, it's 60fps but this video is 48fps and most others 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 single second (again, 60fps vs GTAIII's ~15-30fps and less traffic for all its fancy lighting) it's great.


So ya, it miraculously holds up and was amazing back then and until AAA productions went all in on PS2.​
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Very similar soundtrack to Sonic R,same artist did most of the tracks on here
 
darkangel-212559 said:
Listen Gaf. I don't need to write a long post about why the DC is the best console ever, but lets take a short sweet trip down memory lane.

  1. Online gaming before anyone else (Yes I know NES had a modem where you can access a limited internet network, but that was for things like ordering pizza etc)
  2. VMU. I think this was incredible. Sonic Adventure where I can download the pets found in game into the VMU, use it as a portable Tamigotchi and then reupload to the game whenever I wanted??? Amazing)
  3. Innovotive and exciting games. Seaman using the mic with the voice of Leonard Nimroy as the pet fish, Headhunter, Skies of Arcadia, Planet Ring, Power Stone, Shenmue, PS0 etc.
  4. Amazing LE consoles and import games, if you were into the import scene like I was the DC/PS2 era was the last great generation for imports.
  5. NGPC to DC link up. Forget hooking up your vita to the your PS4 or GBA to GC. The Dreamcast did it first and it worked amazingly. SNK and Sega a great match.
DONE
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Wait the NES had a modem. The NES which came out in 1985? And you could order Pizza? Hard to believe.
 
amigastar said:
Wait the NES had a modem. The NES which came out in 1985? And you could order Pizza? Hard to believe.
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The japanese famicom certainly had a modem never seen one for nes i know there was that thing called xband but i thought that was for the snes.

edit, there we are. Dreamcast wasn't the first to bring online but they did integrate it a lot more than the famicom.
1280px-Nintendo-Famicom-Modem-Network-System-Attached.jpg
 
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I loved the DC - amazing console. I remember really enjoying The Nomad Soul, mainly because of the title music by David Bowie (New Angels of Promise).
 
Impotaku said:
The japanese famicom certainly had a modem never seen one for nes i know there was that thing called xband but i thought that was for the snes.

edit, there we are. Dreamcast wasn't the first to bring online but they did integrate it a lot more than the famicom.
1280px-Nintendo-Famicom-Modem-Network-System-Attached.jpg
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Well, considering the birth year for the internet was 1983 it is possible, yes. But you couldn't order a Pizza for sure.
 
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The Dreamcast was a god-tier console. Forgetting everything else and focusing on the games it was literally hit after hit. It was PS2 hype that killed the console. You have to hand it to Sega though. They sure as hell went down swinging.
 
amigastar said:
Well, considering the birth year for the internet was 1983 it is possible, yes. But you couldn't order a Pizza for sure.
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I don't think the japanese one ever did that, i know it was used for home banking, doing stock exchange stuff and later on online horse betting. N64 had online too but by the time the 64DD was finally released after a bazillion delays the dreamcast had already been released.
 
Alexios said:
I wish some things were different. Agartha could have been really amazing, shame they cancelled it when Dreamcast went belly up instead of move it to another system. Some parts/assets/models are more unfinished/early than others that look better but the concept's rad.


They had some novel control ideas as well going by the playable dev prototype (showing it was more than just videos). Outdoors had a third person camera, indoors were more like Code Veronica but you had this novel pointing all around the character control that looks straight out of Wii.


They had the pedigree of the Alone in the Dark originators and the passion as well, sad it wasn't meant... It does look similar to D2 in some ways. And also to Wii's Cursed Mountain. But I guess that's just because of all the snow and horror connotations rather than anything more than that.


I keep wanting to play through D2, it's so unique (and despite being such an early title has its moments of looking pretty great) but it's just too weird for me, lol. Very slow start (and I guess exposition cut scenes in general with these The Thing like character interactions) too. R.I.P., Kenji Eno.

And then there was GunValkyrie. The Xbox game seems like it's just a quick and dirty Dreamcast port with some more effects (like water shaders) and boosted polygon counts here and there. The previously seen Dreamcast footage suggests it was going to be very impressive for it though!
​
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I remember getting D2 on import. God what a game.
 
Its probably not my fave console. From build quality to noise, I found it kind of shoddy. The controllers were woeful, the thing made lots of noise, I had numerous DC's that reset themselves often. My Saturn was more silent and I liked its pad (and Nights pad) better. Also better audio player imo.

But the good,

The DC had an awesome library. Considering it was on the market for some odd 2 years in the west, or even less actually. There was a huge selection of games. The launch is to me still the best launch in gaming history. On Ps5 I had Demon's Souls and the Astrobot pack in. On DC I there was Sonic, Soul Calibur, HotD2, MvC, NBA 2k, Bass Fishing, Power Stone, Hydro Thunder and we borrowed out games so I could also play Dynamite Cop and ready 2 rumble. I also have a soft spot for Blue Stinger, which is a guilty please.

I had a huge selection of games in an incredibly short time span. RE CV came out like 4 months after launch or so. Rayman 2. NBA Showtime, VF3 were all awesome.

Rez was actually one of my GOTG's when it was available for PSVR just a few years ago. Its a DC game. Shenmue HD collection was my GOTY as well. Its still unique and the attention to detail and slow pacing were things I absolutely adored.

The times we spent on Bomberman with multiple players, Chu Chu rocket, Powerstone 2, Spawn... Dreamcast was the fun machine. So many creative games on this thing; Cosmic Smash, Rez, JSR... And yeah D2 is one of my faves as well.

I forgot the VMU. I still miss it. I hated the battery drain (which would be no issue today), but the moves it displayed in Shenmue, the health in RE... etc. It was glorious and those features can't be replicated when they port games over.
 
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Capcom will always get a bye from me following their support for the Dreamcast.

It was years ago, a senior figure was interviewed by either the Official UK DC magazine or DC:UK and stated that "Capcom is determined that the Dreamcast will succeed, even if we have to do it ourselves"

ePS6TZ.gif
 
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Orta said:
Capcom will always get a bye from me following their support for the Dreamcast.

It was years ago, a senior figure was interviewed by either the Official UK DC magazine or DC:UK and stated that "Capcom is determined that the Dreamcast will succeed, even if we have to do it ourselves"

ePS6TZ.gif
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I remember playing RE CV day 1. It was very special and for the time the graphics absolutely blew me away. I've always wanted the RE CV LE DC as well. Maybe one day.
 
Orta said:
Capcom will always get a bye from me following their support for the Dreamcast.

It was years ago, a senior figure was interviewed by either the Official UK DC magazine or DC:UK and stated that "Capcom is determined that the Dreamcast will succeed, even if we have to do it ourselves"

ePS6TZ.gif
Click to expand...


Capcom was crazy. MVC was a revelation; it was arcade perfect. Power Stone was a surprise. RE CV was huge at the time. But CvS2 is perhaps the best 2D fighter ever made, I think its up there at least. And Tech Romancer was another awesome lesser known game. Project Justice is another one I would gladly see again. Also, Dino Crisis and Nemesis didn't come out that much later on DC actually (same year in EU). And they were superior.

Capcom just released a lot of software on that system.
 
It was completely ahead of its time. First time that the arcade / home console gap was (mostly) vanished. Naomi made wonders.
Still have fond memories of the console: Ferrari 355 realism first time I played Soul Edge, even arcadey games like House of the Dead were superb.
 
Still remember buying it and be more then amazed with Shenmue en DoA2 Also, start up menu (we had a blue swirl) and sound. The controller.. Seaman.... <3
 
EL1aotw.png

No%2C_I_don%27t_think_I_will.jpg


dreamcast was a good time. i thought the controller was cool, although it seems archaic now, and the graphics were pretty great with some games. i got really into a few games on there and enjoyed my time with it. the online thing was cool but only rich kids and hardcore gaming enthusiasts had the luxury of using it, so it wasnt a factor for me. but it is really neat that they were able to do it back then.

i love seeing videos of people cranking a dreamcast up for some retro gaming. it takes me back!
 
darkangel-212559 said:
Listen Gaf. I don't need to write a long post about why the DC is the best console ever, but lets take a short sweet trip down memory lane.

  1. Online gaming before anyone else (Yes I know NES had a modem where you can access a limited internet network, but that was for things like ordering pizza etc)
DONE
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There was a whole Zelda game that was online download from the NES modem.

BS The Legend of Zelda (BSゼルダの伝説 BS Zeruda/Zelda no Densetsu) was an expanded version of The Legend of Zelda that was released for the Satellaview attachment of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in Japan.

BS stands for Broadcast Satellaview (the Satellaview unit is commonly referred to as the BS-X). Using this add-on, gamers could download the game from the satellite and save it onto either the base unit's memory or onto a BS-X Special Broadcast Cassette.
Click to expand...
 
Great topic OP. I love my Dreamcast, which I played as recently as... Yesterday.

Growing up a huge Capcom/SNK fan, the Dreamcast was a godsend. For the longest time (15+ years), the Dreamcast was the only way one could play the first two Street Fighter III games on a home console. The Dreamcast also had the best version of Super Turbo, Marvel vs Capcom 1 and 2, great versions of Resident Evil 2 and 3, Dino Crisis. It also had KoF 98 and 2002 (the two best KoF games, arguably to THIS day), Garou, Last Blade 2... You get the point.

The Dreamcast is also home to arguably the greatest fighting game of all time: Soul Calibur. It was also the first (and last) time my jaw truly dropped, like "holy shit a home console is finally better than the arcade!" It's ridiculous, Soul Calibur on Dreamcast looks good to this very day. I would know, I was just playing it yesterday over VGA.

Lots of arcade games. Lots of shmups. Lots of quirky, innovative games. It's all wonderful and makes the Dreamcast an awesome console for me. So awesome that it makes me overlook that loud ass disc reader, and that trainwreck of a controller. (For fighting games I used an adaptor which allows me to use the infinitely superior Saturn controller on the Dreamcast.)
 
Great system, great games. DC, you are beloved.
 
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Fermbiz said:
One day I decided to mess around with my VMU unit... it glitched and erased all my save files... :messenger_crying::messenger_crying::messenger_loudly_crying::messenger_loudly_crying::messenger_loudly_crying:
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I had my VMU save files destroyed by a PSO hacker. I lost my Shenmue 1 and 2 save files, my Skies of Arcadia progress, my RE CV progress and my SA and SA2 clear files with my super rare Chao pets oh and my PSO save file which was proper amazing.

I actually cried.
 
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darkangel-212559 said:
I had my VMU save files destroyed by a PSO hacker. I lost my Shenmue 1 and 2 save files, my Skies of Arcadia progress, my RE CV progress and my SA and SA2 clear files with my super rare Chao pets.

I actually cried.
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I feel your pain. I hope that hacker is rotting in hell I also lost my Shenmue files, RECV, Sonic and other games I can't think off right now. I ended up downloading save files from the net thanks to the internet capabilities of the DC. Though, nothing is like having your own file with your all your hard work, it better than nothing.

Speaking of internet, back then I didnt have a cell phone and I'm not sure if text messaging was a thing yet, but there was a way to log into AOL Instant Messenger. A keyboard was a most to have because you'd always have to type out the codes for chatting, the person's screen name, and what you want to say.

The Dreamcast was OP, i miss does days.
 
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Fermbiz said:
I feel your pain. I hope that hacker is rotting in hell I also lost my Shenmue files, RECV, Sonic and other games I can't think off right now. I ended up downloading save files from the net thanks to the internet capabilities of the DC. Though, nothing is like having your own file with your all your hard work, it better than nothing.
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Yup that is what I had to do as well. Still it was really upsetting. That's my life, hundreds of hours just gone.
 
Oh man, these are borderline heartbreaking VMU stories 😂

I'm a bit paranoid so I have my primary VMU's contents backed up to a second VMU; I did that because I have some save files in which I've unlocked all characters and that took a while and I don't want to do that again. (Remember those days? Where in fighting games one had to unlock characters, they weren't DLC? 😂). In case one of my VMUs kicks the bucket, I'll have a backup.
 
They tell you how great the Dreamcast and low and behold Sega rolled over to Sony Microsoft and Nintendo. In console worlds you have to be really to last generations.
 
QuickShot27 said:
They tell you how great the Dreamcast and low and behold Sega rolled over to Sony Microsoft and Nintendo. In console worlds you have to be really to last generations.
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Is that really what happened though? If we are going to be honest with our selves the death of Sega and the hardware race with the DC came down to a few select things IMO.

1) The Saturn killed off the DC, people didn't forget and that really hurt the DC sales which also led to
2) Everyone was anyway waiting for a PS2 and so didn't buy into the DC at the time
3) Sega put tons of money into development of Shenmue, and they never really recouped that money back from sales
4) The GD-Rom, we saw this with the GC. Once you go for your own properity take on media it's never good as devs are traditonally less likely to want to develop games for it

Just my 2 cents. but in summary I think it all really points to how Sega performed and their output in the 90s. Things like the Sega-CD, and the 32X were the nails in the coffin for the DC long before it's release.
 
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The Dreamcast is pure magic.
A library of arcadey, to the point, sharply designed games that can still be enjoyed today.
Jumping from Rez, to Mars Matrix, to Power Stone, to Marine Fishing, to Daytona, to Psyvariar, to Shenmue.
Soul Caliber 1 still shames all other 3d fighting games to this day.

I did a DC playthru of Record of Lodoss War and Bangai-O over the summer and liked the games even more now than when I first played them.
 
Naked Lunch said:
The Dreamcast is pure magic.
A library of arcadey, to the point, sharply designed games that can still be enjoyed today.
Jumping from Rez, to Mars Matrix, to Power Stone, to Marine Fishing, to Daytona, to Psyvariar, to Shenmue.
Soul Caliber 1 still shames all other 3d fighting games to this day.

I did a DC playthru of Record of Lodoss War and Bangai-O over the summer and liked the games even more now than when I first played them.
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I still remember when REZ came out with that virbration attachment and lo and behold a female gamer website wrote an article about how they used it as a virbrator for fun times hahahaha. Good times and I won't deny made for some nice fapping. :messenger_tears_of_joy:
 
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darkangel-212559 said:
I still remember when REZ came out with that virbration attachment and lo and behold a female gamer website wrote an article about how they used it as a virbrator for fun times hahahaha. Good times and I won't deny made for some nice fapping. :messenger_tears_of_joy:
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Actually Gaf itself had a post on it LOL

www.neogaf.com

Rezs "Trance Vibrator" and Womens Sexuality in Games

While digging for an image of the infamous Trance Vibrator I stumbled on a story from about a week ago, written by Wired's Julie Muncy, that goes into a little more detail on the device itself, and its interesting history. "Rez's Trance Vibrator Changed the Conversation About Women's Sexuality...
www.neogaf.com www.neogaf.com

OG Article that WIRED based theirs upon: https://www.gamegirladvance.com/2002/10/sex-in-games-rezvibrator.html NFSW PICS YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED
Also it refers to the PS2 editon but still a interesting... ahem... read...
 
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Never liked, i bought all the other 128bit consoles but only tried dreamcast at some friend's house, i liked soul calibur and ready to rumble, but that's it.

Never been a sega fanboy in the slightest tho.
(I mean until they made the first condemned)
 
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