When I was a child, I grew up with a massive love of everything SEGA. I was as far from the Nintendo kids as one could get. SEGA was my number one guy! The first console I remember in our household was the original SEGA Master System. You know? The big bulky one that came complete with an E-Card Slot that we never once used. My sister and I would play the hell out of that thing. Our three go-to games being Wonder Boy, Sonic the Hedgehog (the much slower Master System port) and Alex Kidd.
Time moved on and I eventually graduated to the Mega Drive. I got to say, I loved the hell out of that console as a kid. I spent countless hours with the likes of NBA Jam, Mortal Kombat II, Sonic The Hedgehog, Street Fighter II among others.
I actually skipped out on their next console, the SEGA Saturn. As much as I wanted a SEGA Saturn, my parents saw the writing on the wall as games were being cleared out on discount tables and opted for the more secure Sony PlayStation. I loved having a PlayStation but deep down, my heart remained with SEGA.
Cut forward to the year 2000 and the SEGA Dreamcast. The Dreamcast marks a special event in my gaming life as it was the first console I bought with my own money. While its lifespan was ultimately very short lived, I still had an absolute blast with that console. So much so that it remained hooked into my TV long after it had officially died in the marketplace.
The Dreamcast has a very special place in my heart and remains a console that I still play regularly to this day. So with all that said, and because I had nothing else better to write about today, let’s take a trip down memory lane as I count down my top 5 Dreamcast games of all time.
5.) Crazy Taxi
Who would have thought that the simple hook of being a Taxi Driver could hold so much appeal in a score attack arcade game? Crazy Taxi is essentially the ultimate escort game. The goal is simple. You have ‘X’ amount of time. You drive around a mock recreation of San Francisco picking up passengers and delivering them to their destination. The faster you get them there, the more time gets added to your clock. Drive with reckless abandon and you earn more money adding to your total score. Rinse and repeat until your time eventually runs out. It’s that simple score attack hook that ultimately makes this game so damn good.Crazy Taxi’s gameplay focuses on risk and reward mechanics. It’s all about stringing together drifts and near-misses with oncoming traffic to build your combo meter which results in better pay offs from your customers. Drive with reckless abandon and they will reward you...just so long as you don’t crash into anything.
I think it’s clear that Crazy Taxi went on to influence a number of Arcade Racers going forward, most notably Burnout. Burnout shares a similar sense of speed and focuses on rewarding near-misses with oncoming traffic the same way Crazy Taxi does. Also, I have to mention the soundtrack provided by The Offspring and Bad Religion. The soundtrack screams pure 90s punk and further adds to the reckless irreverent charm that Crazy Taxi has about itself. Driving down the hills of San Francisco with The Offspring’s ‘All I Want’ blaring from your car radio makes for a memorable experience indeed.
The simple score attack hook of Crazy Taxi is ultimately what makes it so incredibly endearing. Like all the best games, it’s incredibly simple to pick up but difficult to truly master. That and its infectiously cherry mood makes for a great pick me up experience on those days when I find myself down in the dumps.
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4.) Skies of Arcadia
Skies of Arcadia is a wonderful full fledged 3D RPG that takes many of its cues from early 3D Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest games. It’s a turn based adventure that takes us to the skies in flying airships. The overmap is set into six different civilizations coexisting on floating continents orbited by six moons of different colors. You play as Vyse, a headstrong and optimistic natural born leader, who is resisting the empire alongside his best friend Aika. After rescuing Fina, who is one of the survivors of an ancient civilization, they go on a journey to find the powerful Moon Crystals before the empire.Okay so the story is nothing new if you’ve played countless RPGs, but the setting is really what makes Skies of Arcadia. It’s Sky Pirates fighting in mid air on hovering ships, how can one not love that setting? But it’s really the vast array of interesting characters that help make up for the story’s more generic offerings. That and the turn based combat is really enjoyable. While it never really breaks new ground in terms of the RPG genre, it is still very much a highly enjoyable RPG and one that I sank hours of my life into as a kid. No regrets whatsoever. The soundtrack is great, the expansive world is a blast to explore, and the combat is very satisfying. All of this makes for one of the best RPGs on the Dreamcast.
3.) Jet Set Radio
Jet Set Radio is a perfect example of SEGA at its peak in terms of creativity. The best way to describe Jet Set Radio is that of a Skating/Graffiti Platformer. The aim of the game is simple enough. You ride around on turbo charged inline skates through various locations in Japan and America tagging walls with spray cans that you collect. You can string all of this together by grinding and wall-riding around the various maps to score-attack. Although the more you tag, the more attention you’ll gain from local authorities as they chase you down and try to catch you.Much like Crazy Taxi, Jet Set Radio has a very punk attitude about itself. It’s completely anti-authoritarian to the core as it revels in the joy of youth culture. Jet Set Radio is a perfect reflection of the time it came from as the 90s were a time of anti-establishment and rebellion. The soundtrack underneath it is absolutely phenomenal and plays a huge part in its lasting appeal. Its soundtrack bursts to life with a variety of genres including hip-hop, J-pop, electronic dance, rock, acid jazz and a little funk to boot.
Not to mention the visual style of the game as it was one of the first games to really highlight the use of Cell Shading. The game is incredibly bright, colorful and welcoming as its use of heavy ink lines make it look like a cartoon in game form. It was pretty mind blowing for its time having never seen the Cell-Shaded effect before.
I’ll be honest, the first time I played Jet Set Radio, I didn’t like it. For you see, I came to Jet Set from Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 and was so incredibly accustomed to the way that Tony Hawk played that I made the mistake of trying to play Jet Set as if it were a Tony Hawk clone. My thought was rational to me at the time. Both were skating games. There were already a glutton of Tony Hawk clones so I honestly thought Jet Set was just another Tony Hawk clone. Thus, I didn’t like it the first time I played it as I felt it was way too floaty and didn’t control well.
Then I played it some more and actually got used to the short/long jump mechanics. That was when I began to realize that Jet Set Radio wasn’t a Tony Hawk clone. Rather it was a platformer in the guise of an extreme sports game. Yes, the jumps are floaty but once mastered, I began to realize the appeal of the game is having full control mid-air to line up your next grind as opposed to Tony Hawk’s more magnetized grind approach. That was when I started to fall in love with it. It’s not perfect; the lack of camera controls leave a lot to be desired. But it is a game that rewards mastering and once you fully get the hang of it then it’s a pure blast to play from beginning to end chasing those Jet Rankings.
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2.) Soul Calibur
Soul Calibur is easily one of the greatest fighting games of all time. Launched with the Dreamcast in 1999, it quickly became the killer title for the Dreamcast. Not only a graphical showpiece as to what the new console could do but it also played incredibly well and was packed with single player content to keep you coming back for more. It’s one of those rare cases where it actually looks better on the Dreamcast than it did in its original arcade form. And to think, it was ported by a relatively small internal team at Namco in a very short time period.A sequel to the weapons based fighter named Soul Edge, Soul Calibur is a marked improvement over its predecessor on every level. It was the first game in the series to introduce the Eight Way Run system, which allowed for full 3D movement whereas most 3D fighters were usually limited to movement along the third axis. This allowed for a full sense of freedom in movement opening up greater strategy for the player.
But the real appeal of the Dreamcast version for me was its fantastic quest mode. Much like Mortal Kombat’s krypt, it was a time sink of various random missions for the player to complete. In doing so, it rewards them points to unlock various goodies such as concept art and other features. I spent hours of my life in that quest mode trying to unlock everything I could. With its combination of addictive quest mode and tight rewarding fighting mechanics, the game is just a true blast all around and is easily one of the greatest fighting games ever made.
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1.) Shenmue I and II
Of course! I mean how could Yu Suzuki’s grand-opus not be at the top of this list for me?
It’s hard for me to separate these two games as they do feel like one cohesive package. Shenmue 1 and 2 highlights everything that made the Dreamcast special. It was a time where SEGA was literally throwing everything at the walls and seeing what sticks. As a company, they weren’t afraid to take massive creative risks. Some could argue that Shenmue is the greatest risk the company ever took.
But unfortunately, it was perhaps just too grand a vision to ever really pay out. Rumored to have cost $70 million dollars to develop (although Yu Suzuki has said it was realistically around $40 million), Shenmue was AAA before AAA existed. It was a massive undertaking for a vision unlike any other. It was in many ways one of the pioneers of the open-world genre. Not the first, but definitely the one that took it to another level. And man, am I thankful for what they gave us.
Starting life as a Virtua Fighter RPG where you would play as Akira on his quest to become the greatest fighter that ever lived, Shenmue eventually took on a life of its own as it aimed to tell a epic multi-parted Kung Fu Revenge story by way of a full blown Life Simulator. At its core, the Virtua Fighter roots are still there as it employs the same fighting engine. Otherwise it became something very different. It’s a full blown evolution of the classic Adventure game that weaves elements of a Detective, Adventure and Action game all into one package.
What always grabbed me about Shenmue was the journey itself. It takes you on a full blown journey from your quiet hometown of Yokosuka through China as Ryo Hazuki. An aspiring young martial artist with much to learn before he can even think of facing his arch nemesis, Lan Di. It’s the little details such as the vital life lessons that makes these two games shine. I’ll never forget traveling to China and learning about the Four Wude. Four simple life principles that you could easily apply and live by in real life. While some of its gameplay may be laughed at by the mainstream, I believe there’s a real ambition to its storytelling that I greatly appreciate. It wants you to live the life of a martial artist. It really wants you to live and learn as Ryo does.
For instance, one of its more mundane gameplay moments is simply a stretch of days where you are forced to carry books out into a yard to air them out. While it’s easy to laugh at this as being a boring or frustrating quest that hinders you from the action, I actually think it’s a slice of narrative genius as it is trying to impart a vital life lesson of patience and discipline upon the player and Ryo. Much the same as a real martial artist would be taught. It’s boldly ambitious storytelling through gameplay and I have always applauded Yu Suzuki and his team for the brass balls they had in just going for it.
Shenmue 1 and 2 are very near and dear to me. For those of us who love it, we know why we love it. We love it because it really encourages us to live the life of Ryo Hazuki. We love it because it is more about the journey than the destination. We love it for its world building. We love it for its atmosphere. We love it because it feels lived in. It’s a game that you just have to soak in and let it simply carry you along at its own pace. Don’t rush it! Just take your time with it and embrace it for everything it is. These two games remain incredibly dear to me. And they always will. Not only are they the culmination of everything Yu Suzuki has done, they are also the embodiment of everything that I loved about SEGA from that era.
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So that’s my list and I’m sticking by it. But what do you say? What were your favorite Dreamcast games? Why not let us know below?
-Daniel M
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