Sega may have published Rez simultaneously for Dreamcast and its killer, the PlayStation 2, but it’s clear this unique rhythm shooter was always meant to be the Dreamcast’s prize to showcase.Įthereal and unusually calming for an on-rails shooter, Rez utilized enhanced vibration technology to help immerse the player in its world. Look, there’s no way to not make this game sound weird, but from a technical standpoint, few other games available at the time boasted its ambition, its layers of tangled evolutionary puzzle intrigue, or even its unusual control scheme. There are several more stages to go before you can release this squamous horror into the wild to propagate more… sigh…Seamen. The goal of the game is to muddle your way through nursing this … thing out of its parasitic stage until it turns into a fish with a face that, unfortunately, resembles Jeff Bezos. May we suggest the “Ballad of Bilbo Baggins?” Leonard Nimoy’s voice guides players through the art of raising this strange new species, which means the game’s already bonkers experience can be enhanced by playing one of Nimoy’s albums while you explore this title’s many possibilities. This life simulation game was controlled entirely by a microphone a then-unique accessory bundled with the game. It’s saddled with an off-putting name and centers on a creature that’s horrifying to look at, but Seaman (don’t say it) was a Tamagotchi unlike any other. Most notably, Shenmue’s living city, and its vengeful hero, Ryo Hazuki, serve as the ancestors of the Yazuka franchise, Gacha capsule machines and all. While Shenmue never earned mainstream acclaim, its legacy remains. It was like nothing else available at the time. Its NPCs follow individual schedules, the days pass with new events to discover, the weather regularly changes, and the city arcades offer full games and other diversions. In Shenmue, though, the sprawling Japanese city of Yokosuka is laid bare for players to explore. It’s 1999, and proper open-world games won’t become standard for at least three more years. Shenmue may very well be the poster child for games ahead of their time. Private PC and Dreamcast servers for the game are still alive today, and loyal fans are still out there hunting for the right drop. Imperfect but satisfying, Phantasy Star Online refined ideas no other console game had really even tried yet. Its streamlined gameplay loop demanded one more run to feed our serotonin, rushing through different biomes to find out what cool drops you’d get from the bosses. Online RPGs were already familiar to PC gamers, who grew up with text-based MUDs and early traditional MMOs, but Phantasy Star was fresh for reasons that go beyond the novelty of its platform. Phantasy Star Online used the Dreamcast’s incredible innovative built-in modem to dial you into an online world filled with other adventurers looking for loot. However, there was a time when that genre and its ideas were truly a novelty, especially for a generation of console gamers who could only dream of such experiences until Phantasy Star Online came along. Today, it feels like so many games are chasing that MMO feeling, rendering the console landscape into a wasteland of “games-as-a-service” trying to retain our attention long enough to rifle our pockets. From the arcade to our couches, Soulcalibur was the kind of port gaming previously only dreamed of. Yet the original game endures, thanks to each character’s distinct fighting style, their legendary weapons, and their unique designs that are just as vibrant today as they were in 1999. The Soulcalibur franchise has gone quiet since its sixth iteration in 2018, and it’s arguable that the later games relied too much on the allure of novelty characters such as Geralt of Rivia in VI and the no-longer-available Darth Vader in IV. Let’s put some of these revolutionary classics back in the spotlight. Those of us lucky to still have an operational Dreamcast care for it, select spare TVs based on compatibility with it, and enjoy a slate of some of the most advanced games the turn of the century had to offer. Instead, the Dreamcast would fail in less than two years and crash at the feet of the PlayStation 2. It handled different graphical styles, like cel-shaded adventures and 3-D modeling, with ease. It could have been a revolution. The Dreamcast was a fifth-generation console loaded with gimmicks ahead of their time (like online capability, unique accessories, and a custom operating system that allowed arcade ports to run with perfect fidelity). Its fate would be a modern retelling of the myth of Icarus. It would take until September of 1999 for the console to reach North America, where fans welcomed it after roughly three years with the weakening PlayStation and the chunky Nintendo 64. The Sega Dreamcast made its Japanese debut just in time for Christmas 1998.
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