I had never played it until a few months ago. I bought a box of old broken down consoles to fix up and sell, a Dreamcast among them. It had a copy of Soul Calibur with it that had the data layer scratched so I had to buy another game to test it. Virtua Tennis was the cheapest thing for the system at my local retro game store. Once I got it fixed, I ended up playing the hell out of that game. I really didn't expect to. I wasn't buying either thing to play for myself. But I tore it up. I don't even care about tennis at all.
When the dreamcast came out there truly was nothing like it. The things modern gamers take for granted like online play and fully realised 3d worlds. Shenmue, jet set radio, crazy taxi, powerstone, soul calibur, doa 2 and sooooo much more. Man the dreamcast was truly ahead of its time. There was and never will be anything quite like it.
While the 32 bit era had great 2D games those 3D polygons have aged terribly. N64 was mostly kiddie games and could not give us anything like Final Fantasy VII. PC gaming completely dominated. Until Dreamcast came out I wasn't all that impressed for a long time. It was the last console that I was interested in.
Along with it's sequel it's by far one of my greatest experiences in gaming. And I didn't get to play it until it came out on Steam and was supposibly very dated. And I have been an avid gamer for over 40 years now starting with Atari 2600. Shenmue was the ultimate experience.
Its not an RPG, The genre called FREE (Full reactive Eyes Environment) by Yu Suzuki himself if I remember it correctly (there is no Open World genre back in the day AFAIK). CMIIW.
Welcome to what I believe is one of the greatest console of all time. I find myself playing on it every other day, mainly because it has such an amazing abundance of easy pickup 'n play arcade titles. :) It's been 23 years since I bought it and it is still soldiering on as one of my favorite consoles
I would rank it top 5 consoles of all time...I used to rank Dreamcast #2 all time behind Xbox 360 only, but then my love for PS4 increased over time. And PS5 is pretty fucking awesome so far.
@@johncook9392 I would agree with you except that I have never owned the newer ones but did play the ps4 so other than that I agree. And for when it came out and what not the xbox 360 is my all time favorite with the Sega Genesis #2
Shame many missed out on it bitd... if more had given it their attention during its shelf life then maybe we would have seen even better results and even a true Sega console successor 🤠
There's at least one exception to the avoid-Acclaim-on-Dreamcast rule: Acclaim distributed the home version of one of the best racing games on Dreamcast, F355 Challenge, but that one was actually developed by Sega AM2. Sega had to make a home distribution deal with Acclaim to be able to afford the expensive Ferrari license. Vanishing Point is also alright.
Acclaim did alright with Bust A Move 4 (Puzzle Bobble 4) as well, which I know is mostly a PS1 port, but the visuals have been given a nice hi res upgrade, without breaking the games fundementals, plus the game is downright fun. In some cases, sometimes games even got backported to the PS1 (Capcom Vs SNK Pro and Puyo Puyo~n), those 2 I have in my collection as I don't own a DC, but they are still fun regardless.
Usually Acclaim is a no go but I will never forget that they also released the first Burnout games for the PS2. Therefore I saw the logo so many times as a child.
Vanishing Point is a good game on the PlayStation. This is one game that was made worse with the higher framerate of the Dreamcast. The game is not perfect either, but the physics model makes sense on the PS, on the Dreamcast it makes the game too twitchy and floaty to control
personally here's my DO's and DONT's about the Dreamcast Library: DO take your time and enjoy the games DONT be afraid to play games from genres that you may not be a fan of DO try them all DONT feel too sad that you missed out for so long ok, that last one may have been a bit much, but i think everyone gets what i'm trying to say. XD
from a historical perspective Quake III is still a wonderful technical curiosity. Sure, you can play it better on PC today. But I find it fascinating how well the game looks-, and runs on the Dreamcast. (Much thanks to Raster Productions who utilized the hardware effectively) I remember owning a Riva TNT on my PC back then (140$ for the card alone in 1998), but the Dreamcast held up really well against it. The game showcases support of "fog effects", "multi-texturing" for things like metal surfaces, as well as "lightmaps" for baked shadows and dynamic lights... Many techniques which are actually still used in games today. Sure the game ran at a solid 30fps unlike many of Sega's own 60fps titles. But it doesn't make it less impressive. The tech at display was actually VERY impressive AND demanding for its time. With online-, and split-screen support together with PC-like performance, I can understand why people bought a mouse and keyboard for this game alone as a gateway into the world of premium PC gaming. :)
@@KrazyKupo That's true! And it also offered unique levels as well (Although these weren't very good). They were optimized for split-screen play (even four players). I think this is why the game has to be considered more than just a "port". It's a unique version of Quake III Arena, and Raster Productions basically rebuilt the engine to support native dreamcast features (without Windows CE or common tools at the time). adapting arenas for the different game modes, as well as textures for the insane hardware texture compression that Dreamcast offered (if used correctly the Dreamcast's 8MB VRAM could theoretically offer 64MB worth of texture memory)
Quake 3 DC is fun in the same way an NES arcade port (Double Dragon for example) was fun, even though the original version would be the definitive way to play
@@gc3k absolutely! I mean, I could just remove it from my GDEMU, but I still appreciate this version and play it from time to time (mostly out of an inherit technical curiosity) :)
Talking about the Dreamcast always makes me so amazingly nostalgic. It wasn't a perfect console nor one that was really allowed to truly spread its wings, but for the short time it got, it had incredible library and much like the Saturn had an absolutely fantastic extended run in Japan. The Dreamcast will live on forever as one of the greatest short-lived consoles that ever was.
I'm so glad I was born when SEGA was around, this is gaming in its purest form. Mindless fun, nothing else. SEGA didn't care for the cinematic experience as the competitors (mainly Sony) and took more risks than Nintendo. SEGA games had this pick up and play magic, maybe because they had arcade roots? Doing games like this is a dying art that only Nintendo and a few others still care for, even SEGA has mostly forgotten how to do them.
@@etenby699dude even going back to Panzer Dragoon, Zwei and Saga; they were all SUPER cinematic, especially with the way they incorporated their orchestral scores into the experience.
Same ,. cept me it was for OG xbox stuff. i had such a huge DC library of games too. a few years back a friend sold me his black sports DC and a few sports games he had with it , but a couple months after i got it a power surge during a storm killed the deck.
I only sold mine a couple years ago, a brand new Saturn and stacks of games for both! I sold em cheap as too, I charged em $10 a game and gave em the consoles for free!!! What an idiot!?
My biggest problem with the Dreamcast is the rose colored glasses people have for it, its nowhere near as good as a PS2 or even a GameCube, not because it's life was cut short either.
Clear, concise, and correct. Even if someone disagrees with your opinions on particular details, they’re presented fairly. This video is a good idea that is well-executed.
As a Sega fanboy and collector myself, I'm thankful for videos like this. I've had the opportunity in the past couple years to acquire a Saturn and Dreamcast. Videos like this help me with discovering good games for these consoles, especially since I never got the opportunity to play them when I was growing up. Thank you for all you do for the gaming community. Your videos are quite a bit of help with collecting for different pieces of hardware, namely the Saturn and Dreamcast.
Since the start of the pandemic, I've been gradually building up my retro library and like you, got myself a Saturn and Dreamcast (first time in my life). Pretty damn good consoles, though I modded them both to avoid the hassle of paying for expensive copies of games.
@@ultraspinalki11 ya don't even have to mod a dreamcast with iso files but I don't know if its very healthy for it!? I've never had any problems but my first dc died and I only ever did the right thing!?
@@pauldutton1082 if you look up retrorgb, he gives a list of trustworthy modders from around the globe. If you're lucky, there might be one near you that you can pay to do the job for you.
Just to tag on to the Capcom DO point: SNK was another company with good ports to the system, mostly fighting games. If you're a fan of Capcom's fighting game ports to the console, you will probably also enjoy most of SNK's offerings like the KOFs entries that made it to the system (including most fans' favorite entry in the series, KOF 98', whose best port may have been the Dreamcast version), I believe it got a Samurai showdown as well as some Metal Slug ports, and then there's SNK's finest ever offering, Garou Mark of the Wolves, one of the greatest 2D fighting games of all times and its port to the Dreamcast is maybe the best version of the game. Seriously, don't sleep on SNK games for the dreamcast
No Sam Sho's or Metal Slugs made it to DC, but if you go the DC route for SNK games, make sure to get the Japanese versions. The US versions of Last Blade 2 or Garou Mark of the Wolves were either censored (white blood in LB2's case), or made the motor in your DC run super loud, and in MotW's case, the US version uses Terry's voice clips from the Real Bout series, while the Japanese version uses the proper voice clips from MotW. Last Blade 2's Japanese version has the blood, instead of the white milk seen in the US release. KoF 98, aka 99 Dream Match isn't all that hot (98 UM years later is the best port of 98 to have), but KoF 99 (aka Evolution), 00, 01, and 02 are fine on the DC, and were good enough in fact to be directly ported to the PS2 in Japan for KoF Nests Hen compilation, aka Nests Saga, which ports 99 Evolution, 00 and 01 onto 1 disc, along with their AES counterparts on the same disc. As far as I know, only 6 SNK games made it to the DC, though recently some of SNK's Atomiswave arcade games have been fanported to the DC, without the extras found in the PS2 console versions.
@@Bloodreign1 I always hated garou on the Dreamcast because of the voice clips making a lot of noise accessing the disc all the time. Are you saying the japanese release doesn’t have this issue?
I remember being absolutely blown away by NFL2K when it came out. Me & my friends played it all the time! It was by far the best football game that had ever came out at the time.
I really like this kind of videos. Not only does it give good advices for newcomers on the system, it also spreads nostalgic vibes to the old fans of the machine. I realize there are some titles that I forgot about and still would like to check out, so this video was a good reminder.
Always going to like and comment on a Dreamcast video. I got into the Dreamcast at exactly the right time from a collector's point of view. I picked mine up at Game Stop in early 2002 for around $20. games that sell for well over $100 today, like MvC2, Power Stone 2, Shenmue, and Ikaruga were mine for $5-10, complete in box. The Dreamcast was done in 2002, but still current gen.
I would have loved it if the Dreamcast had a full lifespan and we started to see remasters of Sega's arcade Saturn ports to the Dreamcast all cleaned up.
Plus other arcade compilations and more previous 1st/2nd party sega games. Especially sonic gems collections, Capcom, and midway arcade treasure series and ect. Since sega robbed us from a solid run with the saturn due to poor management and marketing. The dreamcast lifespand will become longer. I wish sega would've port there compilations to the Xbox instead of snubbing them completely.
Can you imagine a Panzer Dragoon Saga 2? A Shenmue II release in america, and a Shenmue III striking while the iron was still hot? We would have had so many more excellent shoot-em-ups, racing games, fighting games (IMO this was the genre's peak period), and even lightgun games would have been a really viable genre to explore more. Games were wildly creative at that time too, not settled into just a few tropes! There was even talk that someone was developing a first person sword fighting game using the fishing rod controller... imagine that!
Brother, you are right on the money with the more "awkward" releases. Chu Chu Rocket, Samba de Amigo (the maracas are a must), Space Chanel 5, and Rez were so much fun when they released and hold up so well today.
@@rosskwolfe That's true but Dreamcast version has a bonus circuit, is easier to play today ( no Windows xp and above, not that easy to "emulate") and gamepad support work pretty great
@@zanrek5021 Re-Volt is easy to get running on modern PCs thanks to RVGL. It runs smooth as butter and looks better than ever, and as a bonus it also includes the Dreamcast-exclusive track and cars.
I played those demo discs so dang much lol. I think most of the games I bought were ones I liked from them. Played the crap out of Rush 2049, Virtua Tennis, and Tony Hawk. The Toy Commander Christmas demo was sooo good too. My real Toy Commander disc stopped working for some reason not long after buying it. Was pretty bummed out. Around that time I figured out discjuggler (2002 ish) so I just sailed the seven seas for Toy Commander lol. Damn takes me back. Crazy memories.
Playing Phantasy Star Online when it first came out was such an amazing experience. It was the first mmorpg I had ever played and was just so much fun playing online.
Ahh, just hearing the Skies of Arcadia music playing when you discussed the RPG's was soothing. What a wonderful game. Those simple cartoony visuals have aged surprisingly well over time. I need to finish my emulated playthrough. Sadly my Dreamcast gave up the ghost and it's the only way I can play it reliably.
This is your best video in a while. Highly recommended. Although Soul Reaver was a PSX port that was vastly superior on DC, and the Dreamcast version of Dino Crisis was crisp and far nicer than the dodgy PC version. Also the DC SW:Racer was fantastic. Ok just an upscale N64 game but the N64 version was great so to have less frame dips and higher res was amazing! Great work!
Quake III Arena on Dreamcast is a good buy IMO, for some good old fashioned split screen multiplayer. On PC you had to play remotely online or LAN up, which wasn't always feasible. I had lots of fun with the Dreamcast port.
“They sucked ass far more than not” As someone who has been gaming since 85, that quote fits Acclaim’s track record to a T. The DC was both my first system I purchased with my own money and my first import system. Power stone kept me entertained for days. Great system. Great memories.
Great video. Thanks segalord x. Picked up a Dreamcast 6 months ago so this is helpful. Already at 17 JP games - Mercifully none of them in your avoid list. It’s a great system. As someone who grew up Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft it’s been a real treat to discover all Sega Platforms as a retrogamer - I can see why you love their games like you do!
The unfortunate image of both Saturn and Dreamcast is that they're Arcade Consoles with gratuitous amounts of shooters and fighters and very, very little else. Which just doesn't appeal to many gamers who prefer action, adventure and/or RPG titles. I however disagree and think the Saturn is a "thinking man's" console while Dreamcast has many interesting titles on it's own as well. Not always the greatest, but Lunacy on Saturn for example, or 7th Cross on Dreamcast. The latter of which was just SO painfully weird and obscure that I thoroughly enjoyed every janky moment of it. What good consoles. Damn...
Saturn had a ton of great rpg titles: Panzer Dragoon Saga,Sakura Taisen 1-2,Dragon Force 1-2,Shining Force III trilogy,Grandia,Lunar 1-2,two Devil Summoner, Tengai Makyou 4th apocalypse. That was one of the reasons the system was a success in Japan...and why Dreamcast failed there as well .
@@carlosaugustodinizgarcia3526 Yup, exactly. Dreamcast had some in Japan too, but not that many, and they were really minor in comparison it would seem. Apparently, it had tons of VNs though. Nothing beats PSP (and, probably, Switch) in that category though, as far as consoles go.
I went from my ps1 to the Dreamcast and it blew my mind. Seeing Skies of Arcadia for the first time was amazing I love and miss my Dreamcast since it died few years back.
With so few being sold and so many ways to resurrect them I am equally sad and curious as to what became of it? Optical Disc drive emulators and even modern upgrades available for the power board and fan means so long as the mother board is good, all is not lost.
Why then don’t you get another Dreamcast? Seems the obvious thing to do. I got one this year skies of Arcadia is cool but it seems to take a while to get into, I’m just at the first pirate sky island ‘windmill island’ or somthing. The Dreamcast I got is region free, modded for better specs and has changeable LED lights in the controller ports via Bluetooth, it’s dope.
Love your videos, Bro! If it wasn't for you, I would have never tried the SEGA DREAMCAST. Now it's one of my favorite Consoles of all time. I only wish I tried it sooner. Thanks for bringing me and the DREAMCAST together.
Regarding Acclaim I do agree except for a few games. The games were Re-Volt. It's a great game developed by them. And still one of my favourite games to this day on the Dreamcast. As well as Shadow man. And Trickstyle.
Revolt needs to be on PC. I believe the custom level community is alive and active. Even the lego editor is decent. One of my favorite games of all time. The fact that you could even edit the corse graphics maps was a blast.
Rayman 2 and Soulreaver for example were not basic ports from other consoles, specifically PSX, they were properly developed for the Dreamcast. So if you own them on PSX or N64 then maybe consider trying the DC versions.not only are they beautiful but also come with additional features not seen or heard elsewhere.
Rayman 2 is one of my all-time favorite platformers. It ran super smooth, had gorgeous art, controlled well (even better than Sonic), a nice story and length, memorable music and sound, and... look, if you like adventure or platformer games at all, you just need to play this.
It forced sega to release the dreamcast too early due to losing a lot of money during the end of the early to mid 90s. Which cause the saturn to fail in the west and Europe by sega bad decisions.
@@maroon9273 Saturn unfortunately had already failed in the west. SEGA wanted to release the Dreamcast before the PS2. But the damage had already been done. People were brain washed with the PlayStation brand name so much that they compared the PS1 to the Dreamcast.
@@majimamike4097 Since the saturn failed two holidays years in 96 and 97 due to sega horrible marketing and management. It lead to Bernie stating the saturn is not the future and the dreamcast was born. I guaranteed had sega did the right marketing it would've sold more than the n64 (34 million) and even twice with a powerful cleaner hardware. The ps1 did not stop the n64 having a successful run in the west and Europe. 33 million consoles sold and the mario 64 (11.9 million) outselling ps1 grand turismo (10.9). Had n64 used optical disc, it would've sold more units.
@@maroon9273 I agree. Marketing is everything. You can sell literally nothing by using good marketing. SEGA could have saved its hardware part by showing it off more to the customers. The twin-cpu obstacle would have driven developers away but still Saturn had some of the best games of its genre.
@@majimamike4097 dual processing and difficult dsp limit the console reaching its performance during its lifespand. Similar thing happened with previous hardware that were underpowered against the saturn including sega cd, 32x/32x cd add-ons and the atari jaguar. At least n64, ps2 and ps3 hardware were pushed to its limits nearing the end of its lifespand. Had sega cared about the marketing the saturn well in na/eu. We would've seen developers push it to its limits during the end of 90s and to the Yes, especially 3D based games. We would've seen 3D games being pushed to its limits during end of the 90s and the 00s if sega marketing was better during its earlier days. At least the n64, ps2, ps3 were able to push their hardware to its limits nearing the end of their systems lifespand. Same thing with the genesis. Genesis had a slump during 1993 to 1994 due western developers creating low quality engines instead utilizing dma channel on the gpu. Which is difficult to access due to the genesis exapansion unfriendly limited hardware. It took 9 years for the genesis to use software scaler scaling sprites (jurrasic park lost world) with sega cd add-on. Also, other games that pushed the system to display 32-bit like graphics in the mid 90s without the 32x add-on.
LJN/Acclaim/THQ have a really interesting history, which when you look into can explain a lot of the weird things in the games. For example, back to the future couldn't secure the music rights so they sped it up to an unrecognizable degree. It doesn't make the games any better it does make you laugh at the things you got frustrated with back in the day.
15:00 So far I only own one Aklaim game for DC, Trick Style… and it’s actually dope. It has really fun gameplay and quite unique as a game plus the soundtrack is fucklng top tier. It takes some skill and learning the courses the progress but the investment in learning the game is well worth it. Should have at least mentioned and given credit where it’s due.
Both SW Episode 1 Racer and Nightmare Creatures are fun games that look and run far better than their PSone / N64 versions. In fact Episode 1 Racer was a favorite on the Dreamcast for most DC owners back then.
I appreciate this video. Not everybody will have the fortune to have been retro-collecting before the pandemic caused prices to skyrocket so it's a good idea what to skip and to focus on.
Skies of Arcadia is, hands down, the single BEST game in the entire Dreamcast library. And that's a hill I'll die on. By far one of the most unique and fun RPGs ever made, for all intents and purposes, you can make the argument that it's two games in one with boots on the ground combat and airship battles.
I have such fond memories of skies of Arcadia. I just started it again and it is more wonky than I remember and the battles definitely come a little too often. Still a great game though.
Unfortunately, the Dreamcast’s age is catching up to it. The GD-ROM drive is very vulnerable to breakdowns. The controller board has a design flaw in one of its resistors that will make using controllers impossible until you fix it. The power supply is very sensitive to clean connectors. Do your research before getting a DC. Fortunately, many of the DC’s problems are easy to fix. The GD-ROM can be replaced with a MODE (Multiple Optical Disk Emulator), which is better than the original GD-ROM anyway. The resistor is quite easy to replace even for novice repairs. The power supply problem is easy to fix with q-tips and alcohol. These simple problems can net you great deals if you know how to restore game consoles. I once got a “broken” DC, 2 controllers, 2 “non-working” VMU’s, and 5 Sega Sports games for only $30. The problem was simply replacing the controller board resistor. I got $100 worth of supposed junk for dirt cheap!
As a game I still play to this day, I was a little sad to see Episode I Racer lead off on the Star Wars segment, but it really was the only Star Wars game even worth considering. If nothing else, you can just throw the disc in a Dreamcast and it'll work as intended, which isn't so much the case with the PC version these days.
Yeah, I was surprised Sega Lord X bagged on it so much. The poly count was higher and framerate was better on the DC than N64, and it was actually an upgrade for me versus the PC version.
I like it too. Its got more to it, if you really get into it and its sorta relaxing because of the way you don't really have brakes, or use them. Ya just get in the zone and its peaceful.
A Dreamcast classic console would absolutely be amazing. I'm not sure if Sega would be interested in pursuing it but it's something I think old and new fans would jump at to get.
Yeah, it was almost like Soul Reaver and Rayman 2 were developed for the Dreamcast first, then ported to everything else. At least, that's what the quality feels like :D
Totally agree. From 20fps on ps1 to 60 on dc. This guy didn’t do his homework enough. I bought the PS one version later and I was like oh my god this is hideous
Even though I was around back then I will admit by the time the Dreamcast came out I had pretty much already given up on Sega. I did play it back then but only at friends houses. I didn't own my own untill 2020. I found it to be very expensive to try and collect for. The the games I want are the pricier ones. I HIGHLY recommend if you're just getting into Dreamcast do what I ended up doing. Get an original model with a 1 or 0 on it then get a GDEMU and a fully loaded SD card. I had to but my card off of eBay because I do not own a computer to make my own, but now I own EVERY game for it and am still on original hardware. Kinda spendy the way I did it but in the long run it was way cheaper than trying to buy all the disc I wanted.
@@costumeninja1914 you can only get a clone now. That's what I got. Your Dreamcast has to be an original one with a 0 or a 1 on the bottom. The GDEMU was only $45. I do not own a computer so I bought a fully loaded sd card and that was $145. And a single resistor to take the load off the power supply was just a couple of bucks. That all you need to get going. So $200 all in if you already own the Dreamcast, and then you'll have every game.. I also bought a 3D printed tray to hold GDEMU down and hold the SD card.that was only $15.
This had to have taken a good bit of work, but thank you for doing it! My favorite console, this was an amazing watch. Love your content as always, this was a special one for me though. Cheers!
I convinced my older non gamer boss back in 2001 to get a Dreamcast, and he bought one with Rayman 2. I often wonder if it was the only game he ever played, or if he ever beat it.
PlayStation mini is a good option. It’s easy to hack and will play tonnes of cool stuff like any PlayStation game doom wolf 3D Tyrian apps. Highly recommend
Having picked up a Dreamcast for the first time earlier this year, I've had a lot of fun collecting for it more so than any other console in recent memory. I can definitely agree with the whole embracing of the weird. Some of the best and coolest games of that gen were on the Dreamcast and you honestly don't see many games of that caliber anymore. Another great video Sega Lord X!
Back in the day, I was the only one who had a Dreamcast... and the unique library was a good reason for friends to agree to come to MY house instead of me just going to theirs.
I was so excited by the prospect of playing Dreamcast games on the Steam Deck. HOWEVER, I get artifacts, both in flycast and redream. These artifacts do not crop up anywhere else but dreamcast emulation. I have a Ryzen 2500U laptop and I tried SteamOS on that one as well, but it doesn't exhibit any artifacts.
Great video as always! I disagree with some things for example, some ports from the ps1 were much better on the dreamcast, Dave mirra bmx was a master piece and didn't deserve to be on the list of bad games, other ps1 port that was better was Tony hawk 1 and 2, tomb raider last revelation, soul reaver, Dino crisis, alone in the dark new nightmare, urban chaos, even that there are barely no new things on the ports, the performance and resolution were much better and the experience was outstanding, I had all of ps1 ports to the dreamcast back then and I still played them these days, well, it's just my opinion and don't take it the wrong way, I love your content and never miss any videos, keep up the amazing work and greetings from Portugal
Those games are how they would look as ps1 games with the 3dfx graphics card on pc! They don't have any extra detail or anything in the 3d models, under the textures. He's not saying they are all crap but the were half arsed ports, they didn't do anything and that's a shame. Most of them are OK but they're pretty primitive compared to the real dreamcast stuff. I don't wanna disrespect the great Dave Mirras legacy, but that and urban chaos were stinkers. Soul reaver, Tony hawk etc were all awesome on ps1, and that's how it worked. They didn't have to change up the games but they could have least changed the models to what dc could do. Look at soul calibre!? Its a million times better than the arcade version, forget about the ps version! That was mind blowing at the time.
I got my Dreamcast Christmas of 2000 and crazy taxi was the first game I got with it along with jet grind radio and nfl blitz 2000. I’ve had so many different consoles in between but I can honestly say the Dreamcast was the most fun I’ve had with any console
Some additional advice: *DO* get a GD-EMU for your system, because that GD-ROM inside is probably not long for this world. *DO* play the Atomiswave games recently ported to the system. They play best from a GD-EMU. *DON'T* play Toy Commander without cheat codes. Trust me, you'll want that extra help.
Absolutely insane to think that Quake 3 had PC and Dreamcast cross play. Sega really pushed the boundaries! Me and my bro still play ready to rumble weekly to this day, super competitve about it haha
I love my Dreamcast, the library is an epic time capsule and it looks so good through S-video on a CRT! Hope to get my hands on a 31khz CRT monitor someday.
If you're able try out VGA. Some games don't support it but thats easily bypassed with a Pelican Codebreaker disc. I have my Dreamcast hooked up to a 26" flat-screen from 2016 and it's amazing 😊.
I am constantly surprised by how rare it seems to be someone who has had very extensive experience & knowledge with every single console since the NES. I could easily create one of the most knowledge rich TH-cam channels out there if I really wanted to put in the work for it. It's difficult though to be able to relate to other gamers on TH-cam when you have more experience than almost all of them. Makes it a bit difficult to join in with the community when you can't really have a discussion without feeling like you need to give a lesson or correct something someone is saying. That being said, being someone with that sort of experience & knowledge makes me appreciate channels like this that are made by others who clearly have deep experience with video games & know their stuff & also create deep, knowledgeable content. Even though I know all of these game libraries well, I highly enjoy videos like this for the Nostalgia trip alone. It's nice being reminded how great some of these games were when you played them back at launch.
I just bought a Dreamcast and found this video extremely helpful! Tx for making it. I’d love to start emulating the Saturn (don’t have space for an actual Saturn console, now that I have a DC 😟), so a similar video about the Saturn would also be great!
like! I really wish I had a Sega dreamcast at its height. I was too young to afford one but I remember hearing stories about how awesome it was! Great information and awesome video content SLX!
Underrated game! Sonic Shuffle is pretty rough in some ways, compared to Mario Party, but it had some great ideas. I liked the added strategy of choosing which cards to use, and how to use them in navigating the board, even if it slowed the game down a bit. (And for a while, the Mario Party series completely eliminated this aspect, by putting everyone in the same vehicle! Boring!) It also gave extra rings to the winner who carried the team in a 1v3 match, which was nice. And the cheesy cutscenes, enemy battles, and Sonic's Room were all nice touches. But yeah, the loading... :( I should go back and see if Retroarch/Flycast has fast loading, as that would make a big difference. Oh, and the mini-game explanations are incomprehensible at times.
Mars Matrix. LITERALLY the reason why I bought another Dreamcast after selling mine years back. The fighting and driving/racing games were, also (for the most part), really well done. Great video. Cheers!
The funniest thing with Acclaim is, their Dreamcast output was probably the best they ever had with Shadowman, Re-Volt, Tee Off, F355 Challenge, Dead or Alive 2 and Fur Fighters all having that "beloved" logo on the case. And somehow the first 2 Burnout games would also sport their logo later that generation.
@@Waifu4Life it was published by Acclaim, at least in Europe. That was why I said having their logo on the box rather than they developed them though :)
Great videos, and thank you for highlighting so many amazing games! (Project Justice!!) I will say that my friends and I played a ton of Jedi Power Battles as it was the first time I felt someone nailed the feel of being a Jedi.
Virtual Tennis is amazing on Dreamcast. Even if you don’t like Tennis, it’s a real awesome game
Lunchtime matches were a staple round mine for the boys
I had never played it until a few months ago. I bought a box of old broken down consoles to fix up and sell, a Dreamcast among them. It had a copy of Soul Calibur with it that had the data layer scratched so I had to buy another game to test it. Virtua Tennis was the cheapest thing for the system at my local retro game store. Once I got it fixed, I ended up playing the hell out of that game. I really didn't expect to. I wasn't buying either thing to play for myself. But I tore it up. I don't even care about tennis at all.
My thoughts exactly. When a friend brought it over, I was wary. But it ended up being an awesome game.
Played the demo with my buddy and immediately headed out to buy it the same day.
Virtua Tennis is up there with Mario Tennis for best tennis game, period.
When the dreamcast came out there truly was nothing like it. The things modern gamers take for granted like online play and fully realised 3d worlds. Shenmue, jet set radio, crazy taxi, powerstone, soul calibur, doa 2 and sooooo much more. Man the dreamcast was truly ahead of its time. There was and never will be anything quite like it.
Sucks that it was Sega's swansong, and they wouldn't go on to make more consoles. I loved Sega consoles and games.
While the 32 bit era had great 2D games those 3D polygons have aged terribly. N64 was mostly kiddie games and could not give us anything like Final Fantasy VII. PC gaming completely dominated. Until Dreamcast came out I wasn't all that impressed for a long time. It was the last console that I was interested in.
@@AngryCalvin 32 bit era polygons have their charm though ; some games still look great
I bought one due to the ps2 being sold out, way better in my opinion and it still functions perfectly today
The Xbox is it’s spiritual successor
Shenmue stands apart from all the other RPGs. Shenmue is to the Dreamcast was Zelda was to the NES. It's a groundbreaking adventure by Yu Suzuki.
Along with it's sequel it's by far one of my greatest experiences in gaming. And I didn't get to play it until it came out on Steam and was supposibly very dated. And I have been an avid gamer for over 40 years now starting with Atari 2600. Shenmue was the ultimate experience.
Its not an RPG, The genre called FREE (Full reactive Eyes Environment) by Yu Suzuki himself if I remember it correctly (there is no Open World genre back in the day AFAIK). CMIIW.
Playing Shenmue as a 13 year old was a magical experience. I will never forget it.
Shenmue 2 is so much better than the first game. I’ll say shenmue 2 is a top 25 game of all time
Playing 1&2 first time right now, absolutely deserves the legendary status and glad it can continue
I just bought a Dreamcast recently, so this definitely helps
Yup. Folks like you were my primary target for this video.
My hidden gem recommendation is Jedi Power Battles.
The playstation version is really bad, but the Dreamcast version is amazing.
Welcome to what I believe is one of the greatest console of all time. I find myself playing on it every other day, mainly because it has such an amazing abundance of easy pickup 'n play arcade titles. :) It's been 23 years since I bought it and it is still soldiering on as one of my favorite consoles
Get Shenmue.
Gonna get a GDEMU?
The dreamcast was and still is a great console
I would rank it top 5 consoles of all time...I used to rank Dreamcast #2 all time behind Xbox 360 only, but then my love for PS4 increased over time. And PS5 is pretty fucking awesome so far.
@@johncook9392 I would agree with you except that I have never owned the newer ones but did play the ps4 so other than that I agree. And for when it came out and what not the xbox 360 is my all time favorite with the Sega Genesis #2
@@hoseahosanna6700 Yeah I rank Genesis very high also, definitely one of the best systems of all time!
Shame many missed out on it bitd... if more had given it their attention during its shelf life then maybe we would have seen even better results and even a true Sega console successor 🤠
Yes it is , like bought mine on the intial release and the games I have play and still look great.
There's at least one exception to the avoid-Acclaim-on-Dreamcast rule: Acclaim distributed the home version of one of the best racing games on Dreamcast, F355 Challenge, but that one was actually developed by Sega AM2. Sega had to make a home distribution deal with Acclaim to be able to afford the expensive Ferrari license.
Vanishing Point is also alright.
avoid acclaim in general rule
Acclaim did alright with Bust A Move 4 (Puzzle Bobble 4) as well, which I know is mostly a PS1 port, but the visuals have been given a nice hi res upgrade, without breaking the games fundementals, plus the game is downright fun. In some cases, sometimes games even got backported to the PS1 (Capcom Vs SNK Pro and Puyo Puyo~n), those 2 I have in my collection as I don't own a DC, but they are still fun regardless.
Usually Acclaim is a no go but I will never forget that they also released the first Burnout games for the PS2. Therefore I saw the logo so many times as a child.
Vanishing Point is a good game on the PlayStation. This is one game that was made worse with the higher framerate of the Dreamcast. The game is not perfect either, but the physics model makes sense on the PS, on the Dreamcast it makes the game too twitchy and floaty to control
Did they not release trickstyle? That was a great game
personally here's my DO's and DONT's about the Dreamcast Library:
DO take your time and enjoy the games
DONT be afraid to play games from genres that you may not be a fan of
DO try them all
DONT feel too sad that you missed out for so long
ok, that last one may have been a bit much, but i think everyone gets what i'm trying to say. XD
know about the Great Reset?
@@donkeyparadise9276 no
from a historical perspective Quake III is still a wonderful technical curiosity. Sure, you can play it better on PC today. But I find it fascinating how well the game looks-, and runs on the Dreamcast. (Much thanks to Raster Productions who utilized the hardware effectively) I remember owning a Riva TNT on my PC back then (140$ for the card alone in 1998), but the Dreamcast held up really well against it. The game showcases support of "fog effects", "multi-texturing" for things like metal surfaces, as well as "lightmaps" for baked shadows and dynamic lights... Many techniques which are actually still used in games today. Sure the game ran at a solid 30fps unlike many of Sega's own 60fps titles. But it doesn't make it less impressive. The tech at display was actually VERY impressive AND demanding for its time. With online-, and split-screen support together with PC-like performance, I can understand why people bought a mouse and keyboard for this game alone as a gateway into the world of premium PC gaming. :)
Also it had a unique soundtrack unlike the PC version which I always quite liked.
@@KrazyKupo That's true! And it also offered unique levels as well (Although these weren't very good). They were optimized for split-screen play (even four players). I think this is why the game has to be considered more than just a "port". It's a unique version of Quake III Arena, and Raster Productions basically rebuilt the engine to support native dreamcast features (without Windows CE or common tools at the time). adapting arenas for the different game modes, as well as textures for the insane hardware texture compression that Dreamcast offered (if used correctly the Dreamcast's 8MB VRAM could theoretically offer 64MB worth of texture memory)
The new OST on dreamcast was great.
Quake 3 DC is fun in the same way an NES arcade port (Double Dragon for example) was fun, even though the original version would be the definitive way to play
@@gc3k absolutely! I mean, I could just remove it from my GDEMU, but I still appreciate this version and play it from time to time (mostly out of an inherit technical curiosity) :)
Talking about the Dreamcast always makes me so amazingly nostalgic.
It wasn't a perfect console nor one that was really allowed to truly spread its wings, but for the short time it got, it had incredible library and much like the Saturn had an absolutely fantastic extended run in Japan. The Dreamcast will live on forever as one of the greatest short-lived consoles that ever was.
I'm so glad I was born when SEGA was around, this is gaming in its purest form.
Mindless fun, nothing else. SEGA didn't care for the cinematic experience as the competitors (mainly Sony) and took more risks than Nintendo.
SEGA games had this pick up and play magic, maybe because they had arcade roots?
Doing games like this is a dying art that only Nintendo and a few others still care for, even SEGA has mostly forgotten how to do them.
Sega dead
"SEGA didn't care about the cinematic experience"
*Shenmue, D2, Space Channel 5, Sonic Adventure 1-2, Skies Of Arcadia have entered the chat*
@@etenby699 Six games out of how many?
@@etenby699dude even going back to Panzer Dragoon, Zwei and Saga; they were all SUPER cinematic, especially with the way they incorporated their orchestral scores into the experience.
My biggest console regret was selling my dreamcast back in the day when i upgraded to the PS2. The dreamcast was a amazing console
Same ,. cept me it was for OG xbox stuff. i had such a huge DC library of games too. a few years back a friend sold me his black sports DC and a few sports games he had with it , but a couple months after i got it a power surge during a storm killed the deck.
I only sold mine a couple years ago, a brand new Saturn and stacks of games for both! I sold em cheap as too, I charged em $10 a game and gave em the consoles for free!!! What an idiot!?
I never sold a console, but it was my big brother's. My first own console was the PS2 and I still regret not getting a Dreamcast as well.
My biggest problem with the Dreamcast is the rose colored glasses people have for it, its nowhere near as good as a PS2 or even a GameCube, not because it's life was cut short either.
Clear, concise, and correct. Even if someone disagrees with your opinions on particular details, they’re presented fairly. This video is a good idea that is well-executed.
As a Sega fanboy and collector myself, I'm thankful for videos like this. I've had the opportunity in the past couple years to acquire a Saturn and Dreamcast. Videos like this help me with discovering good games for these consoles, especially since I never got the opportunity to play them when I was growing up. Thank you for all you do for the gaming community. Your videos are quite a bit of help with collecting for different pieces of hardware, namely the Saturn and Dreamcast.
Since the start of the pandemic, I've been gradually building up my retro library and like you, got myself a Saturn and Dreamcast (first time in my life). Pretty damn good consoles, though I modded them both to avoid the hassle of paying for expensive copies of games.
@@ultraspinalki11 ya don't even have to mod a dreamcast with iso files but I don't know if its very healthy for it!? I've never had any problems but my first dc died and I only ever did the right thing!?
@@ultraspinalki11 I'd love to learn how to mod consoles, especially for the Saturn. It's games are quite expensive.
@@pauldutton1082 if you look up retrorgb, he gives a list of trustworthy modders from around the globe. If you're lucky, there might be one near you that you can pay to do the job for you.
Just to tag on to the Capcom DO point: SNK was another company with good ports to the system, mostly fighting games. If you're a fan of Capcom's fighting game ports to the console, you will probably also enjoy most of SNK's offerings like the KOFs entries that made it to the system (including most fans' favorite entry in the series, KOF 98', whose best port may have been the Dreamcast version), I believe it got a Samurai showdown as well as some Metal Slug ports, and then there's SNK's finest ever offering, Garou Mark of the Wolves, one of the greatest 2D fighting games of all times and its port to the Dreamcast is maybe the best version of the game.
Seriously, don't sleep on SNK games for the dreamcast
Tons of emulation snk options on the caster of dreams too
No Sam Sho's or Metal Slugs made it to DC, but if you go the DC route for SNK games, make sure to get the Japanese versions. The US versions of Last Blade 2 or Garou Mark of the Wolves were either censored (white blood in LB2's case), or made the motor in your DC run super loud, and in MotW's case, the US version uses Terry's voice clips from the Real Bout series, while the Japanese version uses the proper voice clips from MotW. Last Blade 2's Japanese version has the blood, instead of the white milk seen in the US release. KoF 98, aka 99 Dream Match isn't all that hot (98 UM years later is the best port of 98 to have), but KoF 99 (aka Evolution), 00, 01, and 02 are fine on the DC, and were good enough in fact to be directly ported to the PS2 in Japan for KoF Nests Hen compilation, aka Nests Saga, which ports 99 Evolution, 00 and 01 onto 1 disc, along with their AES counterparts on the same disc. As far as I know, only 6 SNK games made it to the DC, though recently some of SNK's Atomiswave arcade games have been fanported to the DC, without the extras found in the PS2 console versions.
@@Bloodreign1 actually there are but you have to burn the discs yourself
@@Bloodreign1 I always hated garou on the Dreamcast because of the voice clips making a lot of noise accessing the disc all the time. Are you saying the japanese release doesn’t have this issue?
@@Bloodreign1 technically atomiswave ports of samsho 6 and metal slug 6 run on the Dreamcast
I remember being absolutely blown away by NFL2K when it came out. Me & my friends played it all the time! It was by far the best football game that had ever came out at the time.
I really like this kind of videos. Not only does it give good advices for newcomers on the system, it also spreads nostalgic vibes to the old fans of the machine. I realize there are some titles that I forgot about and still would like to check out, so this video was a good reminder.
Always going to like and comment on a Dreamcast video.
I got into the Dreamcast at exactly the right time from a collector's point of view. I picked mine up at Game Stop in early 2002 for around $20. games that sell for well over $100 today, like MvC2, Power Stone 2, Shenmue, and Ikaruga were mine for $5-10, complete in box. The Dreamcast was done in 2002, but still current gen.
I loved my Dreamcast back in the early 2000’s!!!
I'm seriously loving this new video format. I would love to see more Do's and Don'ts. I agree with everything you said!
I would have loved it if the Dreamcast had a full lifespan and we started to see remasters of Sega's arcade Saturn ports to the Dreamcast all cleaned up.
Plus other arcade compilations and more previous 1st/2nd party sega games. Especially sonic gems collections, Capcom, and midway arcade treasure series and ect. Since sega robbed us from a solid run with the saturn due to poor management and marketing. The dreamcast lifespand will become longer. I wish sega would've port there compilations to the Xbox instead of snubbing them completely.
Can you imagine a Panzer Dragoon Saga 2? A Shenmue II release in america, and a Shenmue III striking while the iron was still hot? We would have had so many more excellent shoot-em-ups, racing games, fighting games (IMO this was the genre's peak period), and even lightgun games would have been a really viable genre to explore more. Games were wildly creative at that time too, not settled into just a few tropes! There was even talk that someone was developing a first person sword fighting game using the fishing rod controller... imagine that!
Brother, you are right on the money with the more "awkward" releases. Chu Chu Rocket, Samba de Amigo (the maracas are a must), Space Chanel 5, and Rez were so much fun when they released and hold up so well today.
Samba is even capable of teaching proper rhythm vs. the Rock Band stuff. Very challenging and fun. A perfect party game.
Nice video! (as usual!)
One exception for Acclaim woud be : "Do play Re Volt!" This game was very good and innovative!
That one might fall under PC ports though.
@@rosskwolfe That's true but Dreamcast version has a bonus circuit, is easier to play today ( no Windows xp and above, not that easy to "emulate") and gamepad support work pretty great
@@zanrek5021 Re-Volt is easy to get running on modern PCs thanks to RVGL. It runs smooth as butter and looks better than ever, and as a bonus it also includes the Dreamcast-exclusive track and cars.
And Trickstyle.
Toy Commander is a good weird one. I also like the stellar presentation of the Dreamcast Magazine's demo discs, which deserve their own video.
I played those demo discs so dang much lol. I think most of the games I bought were ones I liked from them. Played the crap out of Rush 2049, Virtua Tennis, and Tony Hawk. The Toy Commander Christmas demo was sooo good too. My real Toy Commander disc stopped working for some reason not long after buying it. Was pretty bummed out. Around that time I figured out discjuggler (2002 ish) so I just sailed the seven seas for Toy Commander lol. Damn takes me back. Crazy memories.
I think other than powerstone and shenmue, toy commander was my favourite DC game
Toy commander was awesome both single and multiplayer.
Playing Phantasy Star Online when it first came out was such an amazing experience. It was the first mmorpg I had ever played and was just so much fun playing online.
Skies of Arcadia is one of my all time favorites since it came out
Ahh, just hearing the Skies of Arcadia music playing when you discussed the RPG's was soothing. What a wonderful game. Those simple cartoony visuals have aged surprisingly well over time. I need to finish my emulated playthrough. Sadly my Dreamcast gave up the ghost and it's the only way I can play it reliably.
This is your best video in a while. Highly recommended. Although Soul Reaver was a PSX port that was vastly superior on DC, and the Dreamcast version of Dino Crisis was crisp and far nicer than the dodgy PC version.
Also the DC SW:Racer was fantastic. Ok just an upscale N64 game but the N64 version was great so to have less frame dips and higher res was amazing!
Great work!
Do you mean Pod Racer? I didn’t even know that came out on Dreamcast, I loved that game on the N64.
NBA 2K and virtua tennis were my addiction for like all of ‘99-‘00 then jet grind radio & shenmue… loved it
As usual, great work, u put alot of work in your videos and it shows.
I appreciate that! Thank you.
Used to love my Dreamcast, just recently bought one back and enjoying amazing games like DOA2 and Sonic Adventure 1&2 again! What a system!
Quake III Arena on Dreamcast is a good buy IMO, for some good old fashioned split screen multiplayer. On PC you had to play remotely online or LAN up, which wasn't always feasible. I had lots of fun with the Dreamcast port.
Blue stinger will always be one of my favorite games. I'm happy you put it on the do list. Great game
Cool video...the Dreamcast really casted a lot of dreams come true
Excellent video - definitely a few things here I will pick up. And great to see some Blue Stinger love!
“They sucked ass far more than not”
As someone who has been gaming since 85, that quote fits Acclaim’s track record to a T.
The DC was both my first system I purchased with my own money and my first import system. Power stone kept me entertained for days. Great system. Great memories.
Sucks that it took so long for us as kids to realize Acclaim sucked, despite their licenses being so appealing.
Acclaim a lot people may not know is really LJN by a different name
@@avalond1193 yes and no. They were sold to Acclaim in like the early 90s I believe and folded up in the mid 90s
I mean if it wasn't a Turok game or shadow man (and a few other random ones) then yeah if it had acclaim on it avoid it at all costs.
AKA lame
Great video. Thanks segalord x. Picked up a Dreamcast 6 months ago so this is helpful. Already at 17 JP games - Mercifully none of them in your avoid list. It’s a great system. As someone who grew up Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft it’s been a real treat to discover all Sega Platforms as a retrogamer - I can see why you love their games like you do!
honestly an episode like this for saturn would be stellar! i hope you consider it!
Always happy to see a new video by Sega Lord X!
The unfortunate image of both Saturn and Dreamcast is that they're Arcade Consoles with gratuitous amounts of shooters and fighters and very, very little else. Which just doesn't appeal to many gamers who prefer action, adventure and/or RPG titles.
I however disagree and think the Saturn is a "thinking man's" console while Dreamcast has many interesting titles on it's own as well.
Not always the greatest, but Lunacy on Saturn for example, or 7th Cross on Dreamcast. The latter of which was just SO painfully weird and obscure that I thoroughly enjoyed every janky moment of it.
What good consoles. Damn...
Saturn had a ton of great rpg titles: Panzer Dragoon Saga,Sakura Taisen 1-2,Dragon Force 1-2,Shining Force III trilogy,Grandia,Lunar 1-2,two Devil Summoner, Tengai Makyou 4th apocalypse.
That was one of the reasons the system was a success in Japan...and why Dreamcast failed there as well .
@@carlosaugustodinizgarcia3526 Yup, exactly. Dreamcast had some in Japan too, but not that many, and they were really minor in comparison it would seem. Apparently, it had tons of VNs though. Nothing beats PSP (and, probably, Switch) in that category though, as far as consoles go.
I'm learning to code purely to make 3D platformers for Dreamcast.
Also to hopefully male unofficial ports for games like Rayman 3, Sonic Heroes etc.
I have a huge dreamcast collection amassed from its launch. Still play it religiously. It is the most innovative console for its time.
The games still look great. And they are a blast to play!
I went from my ps1 to the Dreamcast and it blew my mind.
Seeing Skies of Arcadia for the first time was amazing
I love and miss my Dreamcast since it died few years back.
With so few being sold and so many ways to resurrect them I am equally sad and curious as to what became of it?
Optical Disc drive emulators and even modern upgrades available for the power board and fan means so long as the mother board is good, all is not lost.
Why then don’t you get another Dreamcast? Seems the obvious thing to do. I got one this year skies of Arcadia is cool but it seems to take a while to get into, I’m just at the first pirate sky island ‘windmill island’ or somthing. The Dreamcast I got is region free, modded for better specs and has changeable LED lights in the controller ports via Bluetooth, it’s dope.
Love your videos, Bro! If it wasn't for you, I would have never tried the SEGA DREAMCAST. Now it's one of my favorite Consoles of all time. I only wish I tried it sooner. Thanks for bringing me and the DREAMCAST together.
Regarding Acclaim I do agree except for a few games. The games were Re-Volt. It's a great game developed by them. And still one of my favourite games to this day on the Dreamcast. As well as Shadow man. And Trickstyle.
Revolt needs to be on PC. I believe the custom level community is alive and active. Even the lego editor is decent. One of my favorite games of all time. The fact that you could even edit the corse graphics maps was a blast.
@@trebleboost7 Cool. Thanks for the info 👍 I have a PC myself so I'll try it out
Even South Park Rally was fun, although I understand why people dislike it.
I like how organized and informative this channel is. Great delivery 👍✨
Chu Chu Rocket was my first videogame that I played through online. The console was way ahead of its time and under appreciated.
I LOVE IT when you do Dreamcast videos. It's how and why I found the page. I had a genesis growing up, and a Dreamcast now. I love the Dreamcast.
Rayman 2 and Soulreaver for example were not basic ports from other consoles, specifically PSX, they were properly developed for the Dreamcast. So if you own them on PSX or N64 then maybe consider trying the DC versions.not only are they beautiful but also come with additional features not seen or heard elsewhere.
Rayman 2 is one of my all-time favorite platformers. It ran super smooth, had gorgeous art, controlled well (even better than Sonic), a nice story and length, memorable music and sound, and... look, if you like adventure or platformer games at all, you just need to play this.
DC is extremely underrated. Loved owning it
Dreamcast is the most underrated console ever. It was made to dominate the market but SEGA's sins doomed it to failure.
It forced sega to release the dreamcast too early due to losing a lot of money during the end of the early to mid 90s. Which cause the saturn to fail in the west and Europe by sega bad decisions.
@@maroon9273 Saturn unfortunately had already failed in the west. SEGA wanted to release the Dreamcast before the PS2. But the damage had already been done. People were brain washed with the PlayStation brand name so much that they compared the PS1 to the Dreamcast.
@@majimamike4097
Since the saturn failed two holidays years in 96 and 97 due to sega horrible marketing and management. It lead to Bernie stating the saturn is not the future and the dreamcast was born.
I guaranteed had sega did the right marketing it would've sold more than the n64 (34 million) and even twice with a powerful cleaner hardware.
The ps1 did not stop the n64 having a successful run in the west and Europe. 33 million consoles sold and the mario 64 (11.9 million) outselling ps1 grand turismo (10.9).
Had n64 used optical disc, it would've sold more units.
@@maroon9273 I agree. Marketing is everything. You can sell literally nothing by using good marketing. SEGA could have saved its hardware part by showing it off more to the customers. The twin-cpu obstacle would have driven developers away but still Saturn had some of the best games of its genre.
@@majimamike4097 dual processing and difficult dsp limit the console reaching its performance during its lifespand. Similar thing happened with previous hardware that were underpowered against the saturn including sega cd, 32x/32x cd add-ons and the atari jaguar. At least n64, ps2 and ps3 hardware were pushed to its limits nearing the end of its lifespand. Had sega cared about the marketing the saturn well in na/eu. We would've seen developers push it to its limits during the end of 90s and to the
Yes, especially 3D based games. We would've seen 3D games being pushed to its limits during end of the 90s and the 00s if sega marketing was better during its earlier days.
At least the n64, ps2, ps3 were able to push their hardware to its limits nearing the end of their systems lifespand. Same thing with the genesis. Genesis had a slump during 1993 to 1994 due western developers creating low quality engines instead utilizing dma channel on the gpu. Which is difficult to access due to the genesis exapansion unfriendly limited hardware. It took 9 years for the genesis to use software scaler scaling sprites (jurrasic park lost world) with sega cd add-on. Also, other games that pushed the system to display 32-bit like graphics in the mid 90s without the 32x add-on.
Great video, I love the Dreamcast so many memories of playing back in the day. Building my collection back up now.
LJN/Acclaim/THQ have a really interesting history, which when you look into can explain a lot of the weird things in the games. For example, back to the future couldn't secure the music rights so they sped it up to an unrecognizable degree. It doesn't make the games any better it does make you laugh at the things you got frustrated with back in the day.
Every time a sega lord X video pops into my stream, I immediately start practicing my Sega Lord voice
Rare Sega Star Wars Trilogy reference!! Insanely good game. Also I do love Jedi Power Battles as well…
15:00 So far I only own one Aklaim game for DC, Trick Style… and it’s actually dope. It has really fun gameplay and quite unique as a game plus the soundtrack is fucklng top tier. It takes some skill and learning the courses the progress but the investment in learning the game is well worth it. Should have at least mentioned and given credit where it’s due.
Both SW Episode 1 Racer and Nightmare Creatures are fun games that look and run far better than their PSone / N64 versions.
In fact Episode 1 Racer was a favorite on the Dreamcast for most DC owners back then.
On PC ports. Dell ultra-sharp 4:3 monitor, vga box, DC keyboard and mouse is all you need 😎
I appreciate this video. Not everybody will have the fortune to have been retro-collecting before the pandemic caused prices to skyrocket so it's a good idea what to skip and to focus on.
Imagine spending 2 Seconds on Shenmue and Skies of Arcadia ... these two titles made Dreamcast a must have for any gamer.
And Grandia 2!
Skies of Arcadia is, hands down, the single BEST game in the entire Dreamcast library. And that's a hill I'll die on. By far one of the most unique and fun RPGs ever made, for all intents and purposes, you can make the argument that it's two games in one with boots on the ground combat and airship battles.
Way too often random encounter. You can cheese it by listening to the disc revs, but... it's still something obnoxious.
@@chauhoanglongnguyen7790 Are the battles as frequent as the ones in VAY? Because that would be scary!
What did you think of Grandia 2, I felt I had more fun on grandia.
I have such fond memories of skies of Arcadia. I just started it again and it is more wonky than I remember and the battles definitely come a little too often. Still a great game though.
i played it on a dc emulator so i could quickmap 2x speed for doing the random battles@@nicholasadamson2103
I swear that intro music is the most epic nostalgia blast ever...
Unfortunately, the Dreamcast’s age is catching up to it. The GD-ROM drive is very vulnerable to breakdowns. The controller board has a design flaw in one of its resistors that will make using controllers impossible until you fix it. The power supply is very sensitive to clean connectors.
Do your research before getting a DC.
Fortunately, many of the DC’s problems are easy to fix. The GD-ROM can be replaced with a MODE (Multiple Optical Disk Emulator), which is better than the original GD-ROM anyway. The resistor is quite easy to replace even for novice repairs. The power supply problem is easy to fix with q-tips and alcohol.
These simple problems can net you great deals if you know how to restore game consoles. I once got a “broken” DC, 2 controllers, 2 “non-working” VMU’s, and 5 Sega Sports games for only $30. The problem was simply replacing the controller board resistor. I got $100 worth of supposed junk for dirt cheap!
Huge huge Dreamcast fan here, great video brother thank you
Appreciate it!
As a game I still play to this day, I was a little sad to see Episode I Racer lead off on the Star Wars segment, but it really was the only Star Wars game even worth considering. If nothing else, you can just throw the disc in a Dreamcast and it'll work as intended, which isn't so much the case with the PC version these days.
Yeah, I was surprised Sega Lord X bagged on it so much. The poly count was higher and framerate was better on the DC than N64, and it was actually an upgrade for me versus the PC version.
I like it too. Its got more to it, if you really get into it and its sorta relaxing because of the way you don't really have brakes, or use them. Ya just get in the zone and its peaceful.
Got my first Dreamcast recently and I'm loving it, this video is perfect for me
Do: buy Power Stone. One of the most underrated fighters by Capcom.
Power stone 2 is better
A Dreamcast classic console would absolutely be amazing. I'm not sure if Sega would be interested in pursuing it but it's something I think old and new fans would jump at to get.
One exception for the PS1 ports is Soul Reaver. The DC version is actually better than the PC port and the best way to play it.
Cracking game. Needs an update/remaster
Yeah, it was almost like Soul Reaver and Rayman 2 were developed for the Dreamcast first, then ported to everything else. At least, that's what the quality feels like :D
Totally agree. From 20fps on ps1 to 60 on dc. This guy didn’t do his homework enough. I bought the PS one version later and I was like oh my god this is hideous
And the Tony Hawk games.
Star Wars: Demolition on Dreamcast is a MASSIVE improvement over the PS1 version.
You put a lot of quality into this video. Well done. I like the transition tunes
Even though I was around back then I will admit by the time the Dreamcast came out I had pretty much already given up on Sega. I did play it back then but only at friends houses. I didn't own my own untill 2020. I found it to be very expensive to try and collect for. The the games I want are the pricier ones. I HIGHLY recommend if you're just getting into Dreamcast do what I ended up doing. Get an original model with a 1 or 0 on it then get a GDEMU and a fully loaded SD card. I had to but my card off of eBay because I do not own a computer to make my own, but now I own EVERY game for it and am still on original hardware. Kinda spendy the way I did it but in the long run it was way cheaper than trying to buy all the disc I wanted.
Your mistake for not buying a Dreamcast in 1999 like the rest of us.
I bought it 1999 and Saturn in 1995. How much to upgrade your DC with the GDEMU?
@@costumeninja1914 you can only get a clone now. That's what I got. Your Dreamcast has to be an original one with a 0 or a 1 on the bottom. The GDEMU was only $45. I do not own a computer so I bought a fully loaded sd card and that was $145. And a single resistor to take the load off the power supply was just a couple of bucks. That all you need to get going. So $200 all in if you already own the Dreamcast, and then you'll have every game.. I also bought a 3D printed tray to hold GDEMU down and hold the SD card.that was only $15.
This had to have taken a good bit of work, but thank you for doing it! My favorite console, this was an amazing watch. Love your content as always, this was a special one for me though. Cheers!
I convinced my older non gamer boss back in 2001 to get a Dreamcast, and he bought one with Rayman 2. I often wonder if it was the only game he ever played, or if he ever beat it.
If you were only going to play one game... not a bad choice. Rayman 2 was iconic. I wish Rayman 3 felt more like it.
I would absolutely love a Dreamcast Mini. A great way to play many of these gems.
PlayStation mini is a good option. It’s easy to hack and will play tonnes of cool stuff like any PlayStation game doom wolf 3D Tyrian apps. Highly recommend
Regarding the wrestling games, in DO's, please mention explore Japanese wrestling games like Toukon Retsuden 4 and Giant Gram series
Having picked up a Dreamcast for the first time earlier this year, I've had a lot of fun collecting for it more so than any other console in recent memory. I can definitely agree with the whole embracing of the weird. Some of the best and coolest games of that gen were on the Dreamcast and you honestly don't see many games of that caliber anymore. Another great video Sega Lord X!
Back in the day, I was the only one who had a Dreamcast... and the unique library was a good reason for friends to agree to come to MY house instead of me just going to theirs.
Just got my steam deck a few days ago I'm about to throw a Dreamcast emulator on that bad boy so this video hit just in time
I was so excited by the prospect of playing Dreamcast games on the Steam Deck. HOWEVER, I get artifacts, both in flycast and redream. These artifacts do not crop up anywhere else but dreamcast emulation. I have a Ryzen 2500U laptop and I tried SteamOS on that one as well, but it doesn't exhibit any artifacts.
@@PixelShade sigh so far this thing is so so. I wanna see it a year from now tbh.
I don't know why I have never forgotten Silver after playing it on a demo disc; but it's definitely on my bucket list.
Great video as always! I disagree with some things for example, some ports from the ps1 were much better on the dreamcast, Dave mirra bmx was a master piece and didn't deserve to be on the list of bad games, other ps1 port that was better was Tony hawk 1 and 2, tomb raider last revelation, soul reaver, Dino crisis, alone in the dark new nightmare, urban chaos, even that there are barely no new things on the ports, the performance and resolution were much better and the experience was outstanding, I had all of ps1 ports to the dreamcast back then and I still played them these days, well, it's just my opinion and don't take it the wrong way, I love your content and never miss any videos, keep up the amazing work and greetings from Portugal
Those games are how they would look as ps1 games with the 3dfx graphics card on pc! They don't have any extra detail or anything in the 3d models, under the textures. He's not saying they are all crap but the were half arsed ports, they didn't do anything and that's a shame. Most of them are OK but they're pretty primitive compared to the real dreamcast stuff. I don't wanna disrespect the great Dave Mirras legacy, but that and urban chaos were stinkers. Soul reaver, Tony hawk etc were all awesome on ps1, and that's how it worked. They didn't have to change up the games but they could have least changed the models to what dc could do. Look at soul calibre!? Its a million times better than the arcade version, forget about the ps version! That was mind blowing at the time.
I got my Dreamcast Christmas of 2000 and crazy taxi was the first game I got with it along with jet grind radio and nfl blitz 2000. I’ve had so many different consoles in between but I can honestly say the Dreamcast was the most fun I’ve had with any console
Best console ever
It's a classic for sure.
My favorite console of all time
@@aegisreflector1239 Same here,amazing how so many great games were on the Dreamcast with only two years on the market.
Very interesting video concept on speaking more on what kinds of games to check out rather than just recommending individual titles
Some additional advice:
*DO* get a GD-EMU for your system, because that GD-ROM inside is probably not long for this world.
*DO* play the Atomiswave games recently ported to the system. They play best from a GD-EMU.
*DON'T* play Toy Commander without cheat codes. Trust me, you'll want that extra help.
I got mine when it dropped to $99. I loved it. So many great games.
NFL 2k is better than any current Madden game, change my mind...
Absolutely insane to think that Quake 3 had PC and Dreamcast cross play. Sega really pushed the boundaries! Me and my bro still play ready to rumble weekly to this day, super competitve about it haha
I love my Dreamcast, the library is an epic time capsule and it looks so good through S-video on a CRT! Hope to get my hands on a 31khz CRT monitor someday.
If you're able try out VGA. Some games don't support it but thats easily bypassed with a Pelican Codebreaker disc. I have my Dreamcast hooked up to a 26" flat-screen from 2016 and it's amazing 😊.
The intro is better than ever!
This is the best list of recommendations I’ve ever seen for the Dreamcast! Even hit the gems and gave the shmups some love!
bought dreamcast as a kid in 1999 and played a lot of these titles in your video, ah nostalgia :)
I am constantly surprised by how rare it seems to be someone who has had very extensive experience & knowledge with every single console since the NES. I could easily create one of the most knowledge rich TH-cam channels out there if I really wanted to put in the work for it. It's difficult though to be able to relate to other gamers on TH-cam when you have more experience than almost all of them. Makes it a bit difficult to join in with the community when you can't really have a discussion without feeling like you need to give a lesson or correct something someone is saying.
That being said, being someone with that sort of experience & knowledge makes me appreciate channels like this that are made by others who clearly have deep experience with video games & know their stuff & also create deep, knowledgeable content. Even though I know all of these game libraries well, I highly enjoy videos like this for the Nostalgia trip alone. It's nice being reminded how great some of these games were when you played them back at launch.
I just bought a Dreamcast and found this video extremely helpful! Tx for making it.
I’d love to start emulating the Saturn (don’t have space for an actual Saturn console, now that I have a DC 😟), so a similar video about the Saturn would also be great!
like! I really wish I had a Sega dreamcast at its height. I was too young to afford one but I remember hearing stories about how awesome it was! Great information and awesome video content SLX!
Aside from the bad loading times, Sonic Shuffle is actually a pretty fun party game. Power Stone was one of the funnest games on any system.
Underrated game! Sonic Shuffle is pretty rough in some ways, compared to Mario Party, but it had some great ideas. I liked the added strategy of choosing which cards to use, and how to use them in navigating the board, even if it slowed the game down a bit. (And for a while, the Mario Party series completely eliminated this aspect, by putting everyone in the same vehicle! Boring!)
It also gave extra rings to the winner who carried the team in a 1v3 match, which was nice. And the cheesy cutscenes, enemy battles, and Sonic's Room were all nice touches.
But yeah, the loading... :( I should go back and see if Retroarch/Flycast has fast loading, as that would make a big difference. Oh, and the mini-game explanations are incomprehensible at times.
@@3dmarth yeah def had flaws, but me and my friends always enjoyed it back in the day
Mars Matrix.
LITERALLY the reason why I bought another Dreamcast after selling mine years back.
The fighting and driving/racing games were, also (for the most part), really well done.
Great video. Cheers!
Just bought a Dreamcast and have a MODE on the way, thanks for the video!
I know this video is gonna be awesome just based on Marvel vs Capcom 2 music playing in the introduction. Great work as always, Sega Lord X!
I remember being able to see the mesh detail on the football jerseys in NFL 2k and being blown away by that attention to detail.
Thank you for adding Blue Stinger on here! Definitely a hidden gem!
The funniest thing with Acclaim is, their Dreamcast output was probably the best they ever had with Shadowman, Re-Volt, Tee Off, F355 Challenge, Dead or Alive 2 and Fur Fighters all having that "beloved" logo on the case.
And somehow the first 2 Burnout games would also sport their logo later that generation.
I agree with Shadowman, Re-Volt and Fur Fighters, but why Dead or Alive 2, Tecmo published it.
@@Waifu4Life it was published by Acclaim, at least in Europe. That was why I said having their logo on the box rather than they developed them though :)
Great videos, and thank you for highlighting so many amazing games! (Project Justice!!)
I will say that my friends and I played a ton of Jedi Power Battles as it was the first time I felt someone nailed the feel of being a Jedi.
best way to start the day