Sega Dreamcast - What Games Are Good?

[Gregory DG]

Yeah, yeah... all the typical Soul Calibur, Crazy Taxi, Hydro Thunder, Power Stone (which I never cared for anyway), Gauntlet Legends recommendations are here... but there's one I don't see for a game that I really loved on the Dreamcast...

 

Looney Tunes Space Race

 

That game is a total blast!

[cimerians]

I liked this one weird RPG where you hit monsters with a frying pan, Evolution. It got panned a bit by IGN and those places but I liked it.

[+wood_jl]

Oh, forgot to say "Test Drive V-Rally."

 

It's the best rally-racing game on the system.

 

IGN review here: Test Drive V-Rally

 

 

As this Wikipedia article explains, it is actually not a "Test Drive" (series) game, although it was branded as such on the Dreamcast. It's a superior version of the similar "Need For Speed: V-Rally 2" game on the Playstation (One), which wasn't really a Need For Speed (series) game either, although it was branded as such on PS1.

 

I have it on both systems and it's great, but the Dreamcast version is (of course) better.

[Austin]

The only first-person shooter on the system I can think of that is similar to original Quake, Heretic, etc., is KISS: Psycho Circus - The Nightmare Child. I can't really recommend it past the first episode though as the framerate becomes unbearable by then and so much content was cut from the PC original. I think it was rushed as well, as the first episode is decent, then the rest is lacking, and a lot of features that the development studio promised never made it in (like keyboard and mouse support, and online play).

 

It looks like you snagged Slave Zero, and it's kind of close, but you will probably be playing mostly 3rd person (the first-person camera is wonky).

 

I highly recommend learning how to burn Dreamcast ISOs and download some aftermarket titles, like the original PC Quake ported to the Dreamcast, the unreleased Half-Life, NX DOOM (a source port of DOOM, DOOM II, Final DOOM, etc)., etc. I believe there is Heretic as well, but it didn't work 100% last I tried it a few years back.

 

As far as my own legitimate game suggestions that are sort of in-line with what you requested:

 

Tokyo Extreme Racer series: One of the coolest sets of racers on the system from a visual standpoint, and they both feature unique gameplay concepts and highly addictive gameplay. Start with the first one (it's cheaper), and move on to the second game if you like it enough. It's my favorite "realistic" racer on the system.

 

Armada: This meets your "Star Control 2" criteria. Sort of. Armada is a mesh of Asteroids-style gameplay (i.e., the Star Control 2 battle sequences) with traditional RPG grinding gameplay. You have town hubs and so forth and when you leave them you are shot back into the solar system, where onslaughts of enemies come your way. Everything gives you experience points and your ship grows more powerful over the course of the game. There's a lot more to it than what I've described, but I highly recommend it.

 

Expendable: A pseudo-conversion of the PC game. The Dreamcast version has new levels (and better level design, IMO), and overall it's an awesome top-down arcadey shooter.

 

Silver: A port of the PC game by the same name, and is a solid western-style RPG (or at least western-style in a late '90s/early '00s sense).

 

Record of Lodoss War: Often billed as a "Diablo Clone", but really plays very little like it. It's much faster paced and offers a really unique open-world system. It looks good, sounds great, and has challenging yet high-addictive qualities to it.

 

Some other thoughts:

• Shmups: If you enjoy this genre, some of the best from this gen were released Stateside for the Dreamcast. Mars Matrix, Gunbird 2, Giga Wing 1 and 2, and the hybrid beat 'em up/shmup game Cannon Spike are all worth checking out.
• Pretty much any arcade port with Sega or Midway's name on it is worth checking out.
• Light gun shooters. There are a few good ones on the system, like House of the Dead 2, Confidential Mission, and Death Crimson OX, all worth checking out. They are even fun without light guns, surprisingly enough. Picking up the Sega Smash Pack, a package with haphazard emulation of Sega Genesis games, also 'nets you an excellent conversion of Virtua Cop 2 which was available in Japan as a standalone release.
• There's a ton of stuff out there that's good for the Dreamcast. Start looking at release lists and start watching YouTube vids to do some research.

 

I really appreciate the advice, it looks like there's TONS of games for the Dreamcast, more than the Jaguar even... it just doesn't make sense to me that it failed.

 

About five times the amount of games, sitting somewhere around 260+ USA releases alone. That's also not counting a few European exclusives and loads of Japanese imports and homebrews worth picking up.

 

Anyway, quick question. I've got the VGA cable adaptor... so I have it hooked up to my HD TV directly using the VGA adapter. I've noticed on a couple of games including Evil Dead, and some other one that I have, that a pop-up comes on and tells me it doesn't support that connection type. What the heck? Any idea why it does that? Is there a connection type that is supported across the board?

 

Not every game is VGA compatible. There is a code you can use to force-enable it for some games, but it doesn't work for all titles. I believe Gunbird 2 is one that just will not work at all. In this case you are probably best off using an upscaler from composite-out. The picture won't look nearly as good as it does now (likely), but it ensures 100% compatibility.

[Nebulon]

Flag to Flag, Soul Calibur, Crazy Taxi, Space Channel 5, and Virtua Tennis.

 

And yes, I'd love to try Looney Tunes Space Race some day.

[82-T/A]

Guys, I really appreciate the responses... I'm literally buying almost everything you guys have recommended. I've got like 10 games coming in the mail. I'm going to go look for Armada and do a buy it now too.

 

The one thing that's really totally crazy about all of this... I've just bought about 15 games in the past couple of weeks because of this thread, and the total amount of money I've spent combined, doesn't even come close to the cost of a single NIB Atari Jaguar game like Defender 2000 or Alien VS Predator.

 

I really think that the Dreamcast is such a great system, and there are so many excellent games out there for it, that if anyone was looking to have a "collection" so to speak, THIS is the time. I'm not so inclined, I just want the system and a bunch of games (and put them in a case-logic folder)... but for those who are looking to go all-out... I can't think of a better time than now.

[+Cafeman]

It's funny how I can't remember games to recommend until somebody else does. A couple good titles were mentioned -

 

Looney Tunes Space Race - I've never seen this on another system. It's a bit maddening in the "Mario Karts / can't avoid weapons fired at me" sense but if you love your Bugs Bunny, Sylvester , and Wile E. Coyote, this game is a lot of fun.

 

Tokyo Extreme Racer - I absolutely loved this when it first game out! I was watching the old 70's film Solaris (the Russian version) on TV, and the same stretch of Tokyo highway was in a sequence, and I recognized it (from playing the game). I love when the bosses roll up to you and challenge you. The 2nd one is technically more impressive but was less fun, to me. You only need 1 of these.

 

V-rally - you can create & save your own tracks, complete with elevation! I had fun with this one too.

[Nebulon]

It's funny how I can't remember games to recommend until somebody else does. A couple good titles were mentioned -

 

Looney Tunes Space Race - I've never seen this on another system. It's a bit maddening in the "Mario Karts / can't avoid weapons fired at me" sense but if you love your Bugs Bunny, Sylvester , and Wile E. Coyote, this game is a lot of fun.

 

Tokyo Extreme Racer - I absolutely loved this when it first game out! I was watching the old 70's film Solaris (the Russian version) on TV, and the same stretch of Tokyo highway was in a sequence, and I recognized it (from playing the game). I love when the bosses roll up to you and challenge you. The 2nd one is technically more impressive but was less fun, to me. You only need 1 of these.

 

V-rally - you can create & save your own tracks, complete with elevation! I had fun with this one too.

 

Oooh! V-rally. Now that I know you can make your own tracks, I'm gonna' check that one out.

 

Ikaruga's been mentioned, but I thought I'd add it here anyway. Oh, and Rez too.

 

 

Your post reminded me that I'm about due for another viewing of the 1970s Solaris. I can't believe that the remake chopped the main monologue right out of the script. That's like removing the thesis from a paper.

[Mendon]

Dreamcast is still my favorite system and mine is still hooked up and gets regular use. Reading this thread has been a blast and brings back memories of the many games I enjoy.

 

Lately, I've been on a Sim kick, playing some Civilization Revolution, Tropico, etc and one of the games I really enjoyed on the DC was Railroad Tycoon. This was a great port of the game to a console and the use of the controller was quite good.

 

I also enjoyed the Namco - Atari - Midway compilations, Airforce Delta, Dragon Riders: Chronicles of Pern, Samba di Amigo (I still have the original pad), Bass & Marine fishing, Rainbow Six, Speed Devils Online Racking, and many, many more.

 

I also think I'm one of the few who really enjoyed Blue Stinger. It was a great play while waiting for Code: Veronica.

[Austin]

I really think that the Dreamcast is such a great system, and there are so many excellent games out there for it, that if anyone was looking to have a "collection" so to speak, THIS is the time. I'm not so inclined, I just want the system and a bunch of games (and put them in a case-logic folder)... but for those who are looking to go all-out... I can't think of a better time than now.

 

No, the time was about three or four years ago when I first started building my collection. $.50 sports games then command $5 now, ha.

 

In all seriousness, it's still pretty inexpensive to get into compared to most other classic platforms. Given the quality of its library, it surprises me more people aren't getting into it.

[English Invader]

 

No, the time was about three or four years ago when I first started building my collection. $.50 sports games then command $5 now, ha.

 

In all seriousness, it's still pretty inexpensive to get into compared to most other classic platforms. Given the quality of its library, it surprises me more people aren't getting into it.

 

The problem with the Dreamcast is the high failure rate of the hardware; especially the optical drive. You can fix them to some extent if you know what you're doing but I wouldn't recommend a huge financial investment. £20-30 tops for the machine and not much more than £30 for any games you want (most of the common games can be bought for a lot less).

 

The good news is that there is plenty of new old stock available because Sega way over-produced back in the day. You should have no trouble getting a new controller, VMU, vibration pack and even games for only a few quid. It's also possible to make bootleg discs for the Dreamcast (including emulators) but bear in mind that non-GD discs put a lot more strain on the drive.

[omegadot]

 

The problem with the Dreamcast is the high failure rate of the hardware; especially the optical drive. You can fix them to some extent if you know what you're doing but I wouldn't recommend a huge financial investment. £20-30 tops for the machine and not much more than £30 for any games you want (most of the common games can be bought for a lot less).

 

The good news is that there is plenty of new old stock available because Sega way over-produced back in the day. You should have no trouble getting a new controller, VMU, vibration pack and even games for only a few quid. It's also possible to make bootleg discs for the Dreamcast (including emulators) but bear in mind that non-GD discs put a lot more strain on the drive.

 

That's always a concern of mine for disc based systems. I feel much less comfortable with ownership issues for electronic games but they seem to bridge a longevity issue between carts and spinning discs. I didn't realize the CD homebrew / bootlegs / emulators strained the drive more. I might have known years ago when I was really watching that scene and forgotten, though... I had dial-up during the heady days of both Dreamcast commercial and homebrew success so I didn't delve into as much of that as I might in the infinite bandwidth modern times.

[English Invader]

 

That's always a concern of mine for disc based systems. I feel much less comfortable with ownership issues for electronic games but they seem to bridge a longevity issue between carts and spinning discs. I didn't realize the CD homebrew / bootlegs / emulators strained the drive more. I might have known years ago when I was really watching that scene and forgotten, though... I had dial-up during the heady days of both Dreamcast commercial and homebrew success so I didn't delve into as much of that as I might in the infinite bandwidth modern times.

 

The Dreamcast has a high failure rate even compared to other disc based consoles. The Saturn is built like a tank in comparison.

[cybercylon]

 

That's always a concern of mine for disc based systems. I feel much less comfortable with ownership issues for electronic games but they seem to bridge a longevity issue between carts and spinning discs. I didn't realize the CD homebrew / bootlegs / emulators strained the drive more. I might have known years ago when I was really watching that scene and forgotten, though... I had dial-up during the heady days of both Dreamcast commercial and homebrew success so I didn't delve into as much of that as I might in the infinite bandwidth modern times.

Supposedly, you could fill up the CD with "dummy" space to help alleviate the strain on the drive.

[Austin]

 

I didn't realize the CD homebrew / bootlegs / emulators strained the drive more.

 

Dreamcast GD-ROM discs hold more than standard CD-ROMs, so getting that data smashed on to a normal CD-R can be problematic and for greater technical reasons I am terrible at explaining, causes the greater strain on the system. I want to say some disc images had portions of the game chopped out or downscaled (like large FMV sequences) in order to allow the images to fit on standard CD-R discs.

 

 

The problem with the Dreamcast is the high failure rate of the hardware; especially the optical drive. You can fix them to some extent if you know what you're doing but I wouldn't recommend a huge financial investment. £20-30 tops for the machine and not much more than £30 for any games you want (most of the common games can be bought for a lot less).

 

The higher-than-usual failure rate shouldn't be that big of a detractor though. Maybe if this was the Neo-Geo CDZ, sure, I'd believe it, but considering how cheap Dreamcast hardware is, one could simply go out and buy another replacement for next to nothing. A console-only replacement (should anything serious ever happen) can be had for $20 USD over here in the 'States.

 

Also, interestingly, of all the units I have had (about a dozen), I haven't had one die on me completely. That's not to say I haven't had some weird issues (some models have frozen more frequently, another model giving odd video issues here and there, etc), but I fortunately haven't run into one that just won't turn on, or give black screen or something.

 

The good news is that there is plenty of new old stock available because Sega way over-produced back in the day. You should have no trouble getting a new controller, VMU, vibration pack and even games for only a few quid. It's also possible to make bootleg discs for the Dreamcast (including emulators) but bear in mind that non-GD discs put a lot more strain on the drive.

 

It sounds like you are talking from a UK perspective here. Would explain why some shops over here have been getting NIB UK controllers. For the most part the same has been the case for the US as well, but I think NIB product is starting to dry up here, VMUs aside. Get it while you can, I say, before it becomes less common (like with NIB Jaguar stuff) and prices shoot up on it.

[Blazing Lazers]

Oh cool, the monthly Dreamcast thread is up! Anyways, pretty much everything I would recommend has already been mentioned, except for a few:

 

Illbleed. This has always been a hard to find title, but it is worth it if you like survival horror or creepy games.

 

Get a fishing controller, and Sega Bass and Marine Fishing. Also get the Reel Fishing Wild game too.

[BDW]

RPGs:

Grandia II

Skies of Arcadia

 

Action:

Heavy Metal: Geomatrix (has a real bitchin' soundtrack)

Shadowman

 

Fighting games:

SF3: Third Strike

Project Justice

Capcom vs SNK 2

 

2spooky:

Alone in the Dark: New Nightmare

Carrier

Blue Stinger

[Austin]

Looney Tunes Space Race - I've never seen this on another system. It's a bit maddening in the "Mario Karts / can't avoid weapons fired at me" sense but if you love your Bugs Bunny, Sylvester , and Wile E. Coyote, this game is a lot of fun.

 

When I go on another Dreamcast binge (probably sooner than later), I should try this one. I have it, but have yet to play it. I did recently try Wacky Races for the first time however, which I believe is sort of a prelude to Looney Tunes Space Race. It's pretty solid, so I'll be looking forward to trying Space Race sometime.

[82-T/A]

I got Armada in the mail yesterday... I only had a few minutes to play it (had a meeting early the next morning), but man was it awesome.

 

I also got a few others in the mail today... going to try to play some of them this weekend... awesome!

[sega_SHARK]

Q*Bert. Seriously, it's fun with all of the maze variations.

[xenomorpher]

The best time I've had with Armada is with friends. If you can get other people involved in the game and invested in their ship, the fun factor goes way up.

[DemonoidTentacle]

Fatal Fury: Mark of the Wolves along with the DC arcade stick is great.

[Cobra Commander]

Sega bass fishing is real fun with the Fission Controller. Tony Hawk's pro skater has a Dead Kennedys video playing on a jumbotron on one of the levels. If I ever get another console it will be a DC.

[DemonoidTentacle]

Sega bass fishing is real fun with the Fission Controller. Tony Hawk's pro skater has a Dead Kennedys video playing on a jumbotron on one of the levels. If I ever get another console it will be a DC.

 

I always forger about Bass Fishing as I don't have the controller. One of these days I'll pick it up and reel in the big one.

[English Invader]

 

I always forger about Bass Fishing as I don't have the controller. One of these days I'll pick it up and reel in the big one.

 

You can play Sega Bass Fishing with a regular DC controller. I always have and I still love the game.