Topic: Dreamcast: Still Worth the Buy?

@spizzamarozzi I guess difference of opinion. I got a DC at launch and loved every minute of it. But I hardly buy the piracy helped the PS1 reasoning. Looking at the software sales on PS1 shows that people weren't just pirating all their games like some want you to believe. Sony got people with the whoa 3D bit but that's spinning way off topic.

The Dreamcast is worth getting... if you have an Xbox, a GameCube (And a GB Player / GBA), and a PS2. Honestly, I know I'm going to get flak from Dreamcast fans, but I gotta call it like I see it, and what I'm seeing, is that those are just much, much better systems with more to offer, they're much easier to collect for, and have better hardware (It's newer, I know),

My county (I live in the sticks) game store has a full wall of PS2 games, and a fair share of Xbox and GameCube games, but just a few odd and ends for the Dreamcast. The other 3 just simply have more accessible, and more substantial libraries. Not to forget, Dreamcasts are not very reliable at all, quite the opposite, and the GD-ROM drive (Which is very loud when seeking!) is quite prone to failure. A lot of Dreamcast fans even have a backup or two, IIRC. I'm not too hot for the controller either to be honest, it doesn't feel sturdy, the (single) analog stick and d-pad are made out of hard, sharp plastic, and the cord comes out of the bottom of the controller.

That being said, the Dreamcast is by no means a bad system, and it does have enough to justify buying one if you're into classic games, but I really would not recommend it based on your current system collection, per your Backloggery. I would really suggest getting the other systems of the generation first. It's the hardest to collect for, and has by far the least amount of games (In America). Most of its best games have been mentioned before in this thread, but the problem is that a lot of them (Maybe most of them) have been ported to other systems.

Going to have to side with @spizzamarozzi here, sorry Dreamcast fans. As a newer Dreamcast owner, I really cannot say it lives up to the hype, but I do think it's a good system.

PSX launched in 1995, but the big bulk of sales was between 97 and 98 when piracy on the system became popular - in one year Sony sold three times as much as it sold in the previous two years. Developers and publishers all know that when a system uses a common support (CD, DVD, USB Storage etc) it will eventually become piratable - what they hope is that that system sells 100 million units, thus incrementing their chances to sell original games. If you're a publisher, it's a much safer bet to release your game on a piratable console with 100mil users rather than a non-piratable one with just 10mil owners. Granted, they key to a console's success is not piracy but great games. PSX happened to have them both in spades.

I also want to point out that I'm one of the biggest Dreamcast fan you'll ever meet and I think I know the machine rather well, that's why I feel I can be critical. After all, there's the tendency to twist Sega's history and to romanticize the Dreamcast, its library and its capabilities. Dreamcast is a great system to look at from a retro perspective, but so is any other system ever released. If we put it into its historical context, it has to compete with PS2, GameCube and XBox - among these giants, what exactly makes Dreamcast "one of the best consoles ever"?!

I picked up a Dreamcast probably in the last year or two of its life and I loved it (thus one of my shelves still has a model Crazy Taxi ...err taxi, on it), and you probably don't need me to mention any more games at this point because everyone's already supplied some cracking lists, but I will have to join in with others and say I was getting a lot of disc reading errors after a couple of years so be careful picking one up second hand, but if you can get one super cheap with a decent library I'd say it's worth the risk.

SEGA did what Microsoft, Sony and Nintendon't.

No console since has captured and retained the feel of the arcades.

yeah - fail and retire from the hardware business!

Yep and that is basically exactly what I want. (Most of the rest of the world seems to not like anything it is possible to fail at.)

Ignore the hater and have fun with the games. Just like every console ever made there is good and bad.

Well I got a chance to sit down and try out the Dreamcast I bought everything works fine and I played some Sonic Adventure. So I guess time for what I think since I have never played a DC before.

OMG!!! The graphics, the voice acting (as bad as it is but that's not what I am getting at it's just the amount), the soundtrack to Sonic Adventure I can say I can see what all the hype is about this machine. Honestly if this system had the support and the library that the PS2 had Sega probably wouldn't have probably left the console industry. This thing at the time of the PS2 release clearly blows the PS2 out of the water. While I am not saying that the PS2 was bad the DC clearly at the time of the beginning of that Gen was miles ahead of Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft.

Now to get a few more games.

Any Sega system is made for a certain group of people. You can feel Sega's rich arcade heritage on any of their systems and 3rd party games on Sega consoles are either arcade games or games that have an arcade style of play(mostly). If you miss arcades and love the types of games found in them then any Sega console is pure bliss. If you don't like that arcade vibe then it is hard for me to honestly recommend anything Sega.

I would love to buy a DC because I had one back in the day. It died down so I kept the games and the VMU.

What is holding me back is the fear that it won't last long, for having to get an used console, and reading some of those comments that the lens are not that reliable.

Soul Calibur
Metropolis Street Racer
Virtua Tennis
Chu Chu Rocket

These games are the main reason I have fond memories of my Dreamcast. The other highlights were the Arcade games which (as noted above) nobody seems to make any more.

eventhough i never played dreamcast, i did researches about it..
very high quality game console for its time (sega always made great consoles)

but techincally there is almost impossible to find lens (its gonna die after some time) or games etc

i would recommend to buy a ps2, you can still find new ones.. hardware is no problem, games are no problem (thousands of games)

and you can find a component cable (5 input ones) so you can have a really good picture on lcd tv

there are also games that support progressive scan (such as tekken 4-5, god of war 1-2) so you can have a great picture quality

I picked mine up last year and I really don't regret it. The console's got some really great games. In fact, we're playing through Seaman right now on youtube, which you can find here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgA_ZyMUnF8&list=PLVMCPTyi...

But seriously, it's got games like Shenmue, Jet Set Radio, Skies of Arcadia, EGG and many others that are really worth the effort tracking down! Not to mention my personal favorite puzzlers, Chu Chu Rocket! It was way ahead of it's time and is worth a look... Just don't pay above the odds for one!

@Waveboy: Yeah totally agree with you on the PS2 compared to the DC. Heck the main reason I did go with a PS2 first that gen was cause of the build in DVD player and the fact that I didn't have to buy an addon like the Xbox to use the DVD player part. In fact it was my first DVD player lol.

So far I played Sonic Adventure and Crazy Taxi on it and I have to say the graphics are alot better then the PS2 launch title games graphics, so much smoother and crisp compared to the blocky polygon graphics of the PS2.

But yeah after launch of the DC due to various reasons it just floundered compared to the PS2, Xbox and heck even the Gamecube. I am looking forward to picking up a few more games like Powerstone and such but that will have to wait when I get some more money and once I get my retro game section set up in my new place. It may sound a little weird but I like to have my retro section set up just right before I plop down for some retro goodness.

u kiddin me.. ps2 fat version is one of the best designed video game console ever

check out dc controllers, uncomfortable

ps1-ps2-ps3-ps4 use the same design, just because it fits the hand perfectly

and check out pc gameapds, almost all of them have the same design

like it or not, ps2 controllers are the best

and fat ps2, looks the best.. the simple black box, like if it drops from 5th floor nothings gonna happen.. blue-green ps2 logo on it.. i used to have xbox (first one) but ps2 has the best ldesign among all consoles

ps3, xbox 360, dreamcast, gamecube.. looks like child toys.. i mean, as i said my older post.. dc has high quailty games but not the design.. definetly not.. even firs tlaunch ps1 look better than dc

wii has a very good design too

I never have played on a dreamcast yet, so I can't comment on the controller. But the Playstation controllers are the worst controllers ever. They're just way too small to be confortable. And the joystick is in the wrong place! Xbox 360 and Gamecube controllers are the best I've ever used.

@Wolf-EyE: Sony Fanboy? I honestly can't stand the PS2 controllers for one thing they feel very cheaply made compared to any other controller. They feel like I can just snap them in half. And the stick position? Well I guess its good if you like your thumbs bumping into each other. I am glad that they fixed that problem with the PS4. As for your PC gamepad argument I wouldn't know cause I use the Xbox 360 controller on my PC either that or a SNES controller. As for the design I have to agree with Waveboy here the PS2 design both fat and slim was very plan indeed.

@GanonDorf: Yeah the GC and Xbox 360 were good if for anything the position of the sticks. Still the Wavebird is still my favorite controller of all time.

Honestly, I think that the Dreamcast controller feels a million times cheaper. I feel like if I dropped it an inch it would shatter. The DualShock 2 is almost as sturdy as the (Nearly invincible) GameCube controller in comparison. The only DualShock 2 I've seen with problems was one exposed to grime and dust, I've never had a problem with a DS2 kept clean.

For Chu Chu Rocket fans who have an original DS or DS Lite, there's a great GBA version which includes literally thousands of user-created levels from the Dreamcast version, drawn from those old online servers. It still goes with me everywhere!

I'd love to see a Skies of Arcadia 3DS remake, it remains one of my favorite games ever played.