Explain to me why the Dreamcast deserves it's crazy fan base

[drauch]

Why do people love the Dreamcast so much? I honestly don't get it. I know why people in our community like it, as it has a wide variety of shmups, and the same thing goes for 2D fighters, but why else? It baffles me to a point that I get pissed off. So many youtube videos of fanboys, blogs, collectors, etc. It's a good system, yeah, but I think it gets too much love. Is it because it was Sega's last system? I hear this from everyone I talk to, especially casual gamers, or those who think only 8 systems exist. "Oh yeah man, the Dreamcast is the best system ever!" "It's so underrated!" blah blah.

I know the big games: Shenmue, Space Channel 5, Sonic Adventure, Crazy Taxi, Power Stone, Grandia II, House of the Dead II etc, but I am not convinced. Every time I shop for used videogames around, I barely even spend any time in the Dreamcast section. I don't think it has many standout games, rather than a bunch of 'pretty good' games. Someone should explain to me why it deserves this fan base, because as of now, I don't believe you.

(Do not mention shmups and 2D fighters. This is from a casual, or all-around gamer stand point.)

[rancor]

During it's hey-day (2000-2002), I loved it for two reasons: Amazing homebrew, and it seemed to be the only system at the time that took risks gamewise. Look at the sheer depth and variety of the games available! Sega was blazing new trails with their first party releases, and the third party titles were often times just as strong. The only other system I can think of that had so many varieties of genres was the NES. Another selling point was the fact that this was a system that handled 2D just as well as 3D - something that just couldn't be said of other systems at the time. For developers I understand that it was a "dream" to program for and it continues to be kept alive today thanks to its ease of use and well developed tool set.

..Anyhow - those are my thoughts. I still love my DC to this day.

[mrsmiley381]

I'd have to say about the same. Jet Grind Radio is still amazing, Record of Lodoss War is fun in a sort of awful way, TimeStalkers is a more casual mystery dungeon type of deal, Maken X is stupidly hard but took a stab at first-person sword combat, and a bunch of other games were just fun. Not every game still holds up today, of course, but I toss the games in and STILL have fun with the system to this day. I also enjoy the general arcade feel of the system. It's always good times with the Dreamcast.

Also, SHMUPs and fighters, as you mentioned. And I love those two kinds of games a lot.

I wouldn't call it the absolute best system ever, but it certainly is my favorite.

[neorichieb1971]

When I look at stuff retrospectively I always see things differently.

When I bought an Amiga it was way better than the C64, but in hindsight I prefer the C64 1000 times more.

When It came to the DC, I liked it a lot. But now looking back, I hate it a lot. Mainly because of the stupid joypad.

But mostly I think the DC failed for me because it never attracted the big 3rd parties at all. I preferred Tekken to VF, I hated Daytona because of its control scheme being to twitchy and very little like the arcade experience. Just about every game i hated. The only highlights at the time were Soul Calibur and RE CV for me. I liked Crazy Taxi as well for a while.

But mostly, I was waiting for that WOW moment again and it just never came. I can't recommend a console on 4 or 5 games.

So overall,

Pad shit,
Catalog of games (not my cuppa)
One game I liked came out about every 6 months


But you know what. Its the same today as it was then with the DC.

Back in 99 or whenever it was I were looking forward to Dino Crisis 2 on PS1 rather than the arcade stuff that was Dreamcast. I supported it as much as I could and still have one today. But it could have been a lot more, but ended up ultimately being a major disappointment for me.

[Stormwatch]

It's all about righteous indignation: how could the clearly inferior PlayStation 2 beat such an awesome machine?

[drauch]

It's all about righteous indignation: how could the clearly inferior PlayStation 2 beat such an awesome machine?

That's for another thread. I need you explain to me, the stubborn gamer, why the Dreamcast deserves it's reputation; or in your case, why it is better than the Playstation 2.

[Ganelon]

I don't believe the DC is held in in much high regard by folks who didn't care for the arcade ports. It gets some credit for having some of Sega's most original games but that's about all I see. I do have a share of JP RPGs (Langrisser Millennium, Segagaga, The Rhapsody of Zephyr, Rayblade, Sorcerian, etc.) but it's a lot less interesting for me than, say, the Mega CD's even smaller RPG library.

[louisg]

I liked it because it had a lot of arcade ports (including tons of direct ports), and is imo a well-designed system (good performance, apparently not too hard to code for which gives a nice consistent quality to its games, not expensive.. seems like a lot of the similar things the GameCube also achieved). I love games like Virtual On, Crazy Taxi, Virtua Fighter, etc., and I'm not so much into slow drawn-out console games, many of which I see have dubious game balances and difficulty curves. If you are the opposite, you will probably not care much for the DC and would get more mileage out of a PS2 or XBox (the DC has almost no decent FPSses, for example).

The fact that nearly all the games support progressive is cool, too, especially now that everyone has a TV capable of it. Additionally, quite a few good 2d games also came out for it with domestic releases, which didn't quite happen with other systems.

It's probably popular among certain types of gamers for similar reasons to the Turbografx: Solid, niche system with lots of good games, especially considering the library size. I've definitely spent more time with the DC than any of my other consoles, though the 3 16-bitters are a close second/third/fourth/etc.

Anyway, those are the reasons I still play mine.

[Acid King]

Because it's got a lot of great games? Your mileage may vary but there are a lot of fun games on it beyond the arcade ports and I wish I still had a working one.

[neorichieb1971]

The PS2 beats the DC in every single department. It even raped the DC library of its good games. I don't know of many games unique to the Dreamcast anymore.

The first game I bought with my PS2 was onimusha and straight away I said to myself "This sorta stuff never came out on the Dreamcast". By the time Silent hill 2, Tekken Tag, SSX and a few others came a long my DC was packed away. It wasn't until the find of Mr Driller on Dreamcast along with shooters many years later I got it out again.

[drauch]

Because it's got a lot of great games? Your mileage may vary but there are a lot of fun games on it beyond the arcade ports and I wish I still had a working one.

Tell me which games, though! I mentioned some of the big ones, but if that's the case, why don't I constantly hear about the Gamecube being the most underrated system ever?

[greg]

The Dreamcast was the last true bona-fide otaku machine. It had a wide variety of genres and Sega took risks to expand the boundaries of gaming with it. And as Rancor mentioned, it did 2D and 3D just as well (unlike the Saturn). Yeah, it could've been better. The joypad should've been just like the Saturn analog, but with a VMU slot. The VMUs could've not eaten battery power long enough to make it worth buying CR2032s to put into them. There were some crappy games for it, such as The Ring and Blue Stinger (haven't played it, but I've heard it's terrible). Rainbow Cotton should've been 2D. There could've been maybe a bit more RPGs, a true Langrisser game instead of that dumb 3D weird game that had nothing to do with being a real Langrisser game, maybe Burning Rangers 2, Seeing Cave shmups on the DC like they had for the Saturn, etc. But the Dreamcast was so innovative that it was a work of art. No other console since then has touched my heart. Well, the DS has, but it's a handheld and not a true console.

[Stormwatch]

Why it deserves that reputation and why it gets that reputation are different yet closely related questions. Others have mentioned its fine library already, so I'll take another angle. Now, like it or not, this is a console war discussion; other than specs, there's quite a bit of emotional reasoning here, so your kilometrage may vary a lot... (No "mileage" crap here! Metricate or die!)

See, "better" isn't just about raw power; in fact, the PS2 could push quite a few more polygons. But it had some nasty downsides. It was harder to code for, and it had serious aliasing problems, so its early games looked quite worse than most Dreamcast games. Its optical drive was very unreliable in the first model, I hear. And its controller was, and still is, an execrable piece of junk.

Also, there is resentment from dishonesty. See, the Dreamcast could do around 5 million polygons per second. But Sony had promised the PS2 could do 66 million polygons per second. 66 million non-textured, non-shaded, non-lighted polygons per second, they failed to mention. Real performance was 1/4th of that. So, hype based on an unrealistic number ruined a fine competitor's chances.

That's the thing: in a sense, the Dreamcast was a victim of a cheating competitor. To champion it, even now, is to try to correct an injustice. I guess it's a natural human impulse.

And even putting all that aside... the Playstation's controller is such a misshapen piece of crap that I just won't bother getting one, even though some games interest me.

[drauch]

Some of you make some valid points on why it's a good console, but without all of the arcade ports, I just don't get the love. I'm almost under the impression that more than 3/4 of the entire library is mediocre at best, if not just crap. I dunno, I guess people love it primarily for the arcade ports? I guess it makes sense. I dunno, maybe I just like the SegaCD and Saturn much more.

[drauch]

Why it deserves that reputation and why it gets that reputation are different yet closely related questions.

Yeah, I guess I'm just thinking a bit too much on the subject. I think I just run into more Dreamcast fanboys than most. I'm pretty sure where I live it is a breeding ground of them. That and it seems most game review sites completely ignore tons of other good systems and focus on the Dreamcast like no one has heard of the damned thing.

[Strider77]

The first game I bought with my PS2 was onimusha and straight away I said to myself "This sorta stuff never came out on the Dreamcast".

Guess you didn't play code veronica.

[drauch]

AND yeah, I'm fucking pissed that Rainbow Cotton was 3D!!

[Elixir]

Wasn't there a video that pretty much deciphered what killed the Dreamcast?

Pretty much the hype of the PS2 combined with the piracy of the DC.

@Stormwatch: I liked your post better when it was unedited. The PS1/2/3 controllers really are garbage, I'm forced to hook up a converter whenever I want to play PC-Engine stuff on my PS3.

[CMoon]

Yo Drauch, in retrospect, it may seem the DC post-mortem rage may be unjustififed, but keep in mind, in it's time, the DC was fuckin' killer. So many great games came out in rapid succession on the system. Not giant, bloated sandbox games, but mostly all arcade style games. Honestly, the DC was the last system which primary featured games where high-score was a primary reason for replay. Sometimes the whole console-style game versus arcade-style game isn't very clear-cut, but there were a ton of DC games which you could beat in an hour. I guess now this kind of game is the sort of thing you download on PSN/Xbox live, but at the time it was very cool and the ps2/game cube didn't feature very much in that department.

A lot eventually got ported to other consoles so now in retrospect the DC doesn't seem so significant, but it definitely died way before its time. Regardless of the shitty controller, I'd buy a DC2 if it promised nothing but high quality score-based games (that I'd mostly suck at, but still enjoy immensely.)

[louisg]

The first game I bought with my PS2 was onimusha and straight away I said to myself "This sorta stuff never came out on the Dreamcast".

Guess you didn't play code veronica.

Hehe.. I had a roommate who had a PS2 and said how he was so glad he didn't buy a DC because it doesn't have the kinds of games you find on the PS2. And, I shit you not, every single game he owned aside from one GTA game was a DC->PS2 port (and he had a decent sized handful of games). I think what's posted above is astute: a lot of the rabid DC fanbase really does come from the way Sony's deceptive marketing pretty much killed it, but it is also an excellent system IMO both in terms of library and hw.

[Kiel]

VGA duh!

[Ganelon]

Also, there is resentment from dishonesty. See, the Dreamcast could do around 5 million polygons per second. But Sony had promised the PS2 could do 66 million polygons per second. 66 million non-textured, non-shaded, non-lighted polygons per second, they failed to mention. Real performance was 1/4th of that. So, hype based on an unrealistic number ruined a fine competitor's chances.

Yeah, but Sony tried the same nonsense hyping with the PS3 (to the point where people were initially referring to the 360 as an Xbox 1.5) but it didn't take long after the PS3's release before people recognized that the 2 consoles weren't much different.

[brentsg]

I loved the diversity in the DC lineup, as well as the plentiful arcade titles. It's no Saturn, but I still love it.

If I would have invested the money instead of buying JPN launch day PS2 and DC's, I could be buying cars and motorcycles like Sven.

[drauch]

Yo Drauch, in retrospect, it may seem the DC post-mortem rage may be unjustififed, but keep in mind, in it's time, the DC was fuckin' killer. So many great games came out in rapid succession on the system. Not giant, bloated sandbox games, but mostly all arcade style games. Honestly, the DC was the last system which primary featured games where high-score was a primary reason for replay. Sometimes the whole console-style game versus arcade-style game isn't very clear-cut, but there were a ton of DC games which you could beat in an hour. I guess now this kind of game is the sort of thing you download on PSN/Xbox live, but at the time it was very cool and the ps2/game cube didn't feature very much in that department.

A lot eventually got ported to other consoles so now in retrospect the DC doesn't seem so significant, but it definitely died way before its time. Regardless of the shitty controller, I'd buy a DC2 if it promised nothing but high quality score-based games (that I'd mostly suck at, but still enjoy immensely.)

Yeah, I guess a lot of it is probably for nostalgia. I remember being wowed by the graphics and the like when it came out, but I was still stuck with a PSX for a long while, and sadly got out of gaming for a bit until the original XBOX came around and I stopped playing on-line PC games. I guess I would probably feel much stronger if I would have owned when in the hey-day, especially growing up with almost every major system.

[drunkninja24]

While I agree that I think a lot of modern DC "fanboys" are just people hopping on the bandwagon (should be obvious anytime something DC-related pops up on Kotaku), I really think the system was quite solid. I got one after 8th grade in lieu of a PS2, and spent forever on games like Crazy Taxi, Shenmue, Jet Grind Radio, Skies of Arcadia, Alien Front Online, and so on. You say you don't want to talk about arcade ports and such, but that was honestly one of the big things about the system at it's time, and with Sega's consoles in general, really. It offered several people the chance to play so many great arcade games at home, for the most part pretty much identically to the arcade versions.

But like I said, I get your sentiment, I guarantee if you went into a large crowd at Gamestop and talked about Dreamcast, dudes would be like "OH YEAH BEST SYSTEM EVERZ", but then if you asked for any specifics you'd just get a blank stare.

[GaijinPunch]

I'd have to say about the same. Jet Grind Radio is still amazing,

Other than the shit US title, it is awesome. I just played through it a few weeks ago for the umpteenth time. I imagine one day when I'm out of the hobby, I'll still have a DC and the 2 versions of JSR.

Record of Lodoss War is fun in a sort of awful way,

Yep, like an ugly Diablo. I should probably play through it again.

[kengou]

I'm a bit of a late-comer to the Dreamcast, bought one only a couple years ago, but I'll tell you why I love the thing: the games. I very quickly amassed a pretty large stack of dreamcast games, all of them really good games. The console was home to a ton of arcade ports, arcade-style original games, and just plain unique titles. Stuff like Rez, NiGHTS, Shenmue, Jet Grind Radio, Cosmic Smash, all of these (originally) exclusive original Dreamcast titles are so amazing and unique and creative. I have at least two dozen games for the DC, all unique games the likes of which I can not play elsewhere (or could not have back in 2001).

[Acid King]

Tell me which games, though! I mentioned some of the big ones, but if that's the case, why don't I constantly hear about the Gamecube being the most underrated system ever?

Super Magnetic Neo, Skies of Arcadia, Sword of the Berserk, Red Dog, ChuChu Rocket, Incoming, MDK2, Metropolis Street Racer, Rez, ShenMue, Starlancer, Record of Lodoss War, Test Drive Le Mans are some of the non arcade ports I enjoyed. It also has the best versions of most ever game that appeared on other systems at the time like Tony Hawk 2, Rayman 2, Soul Reaver, and stuff that's appeared on other consoles since then like the Resident Evil and Dino Crisis updates and Grandia 2. The absolutely perfect port of NFL Blitz 2001 makes the system one of the greats automatically in my mind. Add in all the 2d fighters and other arcade ports and how is it so hard to understand why it's so loved? It's really a product of the time and an amazing one at that.

[GaijinPunch]

Stuff like Rez, NiGHTS, Shenmue, Jet Grind Radio, Cosmic Smash, all of these (originally) exclusive original Dreamcast titles are so amazing and unique and creative..

So you got that elusive DC version of NiGHTS?

[kernow]

It's all about righteous indignation: how could the clearly inferior PlayStation 2 beat such an awesome machine?

Not sure wether to lol or not.