Dreamcast: the best 5 games that made us hope for a dream future

Dreamcast

Come on, a few stories, where were you on October 14, 1999? And with whom? Interesting ah: in short, you don't have an alibi, huh?

Ok let's start, let's see if this refreshes your memory: the author of this article was in a small electronics shop in the province, in line, waiting to try Dreamcast, the new SEGA wonder box that promised boos and bangs. Yes, the problem is that then the bang really did it ... but not in the sense that we all hoped for, ending out of production just a year and a half after the European publication, slapped by the arrival of Playstation 2.

For every self-respecting fan, October is therefore the month of Dreamcast, and we have decided to pay homage to it with a very personal ranking of the 5 titles that had deceived us, giving us hope for the success of a console of which we know very well the tragic ending.

Keep your handkerchiefs close at hand and prepare a credible excuse for those who catch you crying with nostalgia while reading this article, we have warned you.

5 Sonic Adventure

In Sonic Adventure the adrenaline flowed. Not opening with Sonic would be like starting a list of typical Roman dishes and leaving out the cacio e pepe. Beyond the easy gastronomic comparisons, however, only one data would be enough to justify the presence of Sonic Adventure in this list: it is the best-selling Dreamcast game ever, period.

Ah, are you still here? Uff ... okay, then we will tell you that the sixth chapter of the series was a concentrate of speed and frenzy, which launched the blue hedgehog and his friends like a Formula 1 one on a straight. Adventure also arrived on Gamecube and PC, but the conversions were not up to par and the judgments of the public and the specialized press turned out to be rather lukewarm.

Risen ten years ago on PS3 and Xbox 360, Sonic Adventure nevertheless had the audacity to push the historic mascot SEGA towards the true third dimension for the first time and the merit of being one of the most explosive killer application ever.

4. Soulcalibur

Soulcalibur was a truly innovative fighting game Spears, swords, nunchaku, sticks ... in practice, among the lethal weapons of Soulcalibur only the our mother's carpet beater and the picture would be complete. Upon its release, the new, dazzling Namco fighting game established itself as a reference point for 3D fights, re-proposing the tasty use of sidearms inherited from its predecessor, Soul Blade.

In a word, the sector Soulcalibur technician for the time was impressive, even superior to its arcade version and many of us will remember with satisfaction the facial paresis of our friends, amazed at the moment of seeing us throw the opponent out of the arena for the first time. >
The fighting pace was significantly more restrained than that of his half-brother Tekken, but the stellar gameplay and innovative character movement system that exploited the eight directions in depth made it an unrivaled masterpiece - WA-TAAAA!

3. Resident Evil Code: Veronica

Resident Evil Code: Veronica is considered among the best chapters ever At the dawn of the new millennium, a few months after When Dreamcast landed in stores, SEGA users also finally received a Resident Evil of their own. And what a Resident Evil!

Code: Veronica is in fact the first episode of the successful Capcom saga to make the direct leap towards 128 bit, and its success forced the Osaka software house to a re-edition published in 2001 on PS2 and later on GameCube: Code: Veronica X. In this fourth, full-bodied installment of the main series, the action returned to Claire and Chris Redfield, joined by Steve Burnside in a dangerous investigation of the island of Rockfort.

Considered one of the best Resident Evil ever , has gone through countless generations of machines through porting and emulated versions: from PS3 and Xbox 360 to PS4. For Dreamcast it was a real show of muscle, acclaimed by the critics and adored by the public, and it represented further confirmation of what a bright future for the platform could be expected.

Yep: the famous last words.

2. Skies of Arcadia

In Skies of Arcadia the references to other works are innumerable Pour plenty of Hayao Miyazaki, a pinch of Jonathan Swift, a splash of Captain Harlock. Garnish with a slice of "Treasure Island" and serve with steampunk sauce.

The recipe for Skies of Arcadia was more or less this and the cocktail that came up was an old RPG school that the public gulped down in one gulp, considered by anyone to be one of the finest products in the Dreamcast line-up. As the pirates of Vyse, we had to sail the seven skies aboard a flying vessel, in the company of our runaway crew in order to ruin the vaguely megalomaniacal plans of the Valua Empire. If the general structure was already a classic, what aroused amazement was the particular reputation system that increased the notoriety of the protagonist in the ports of Arcadia based on the decisions made in battle.

Perhaps SEGA used a floating coal galleon to distribute it, who knows, the fact is that, despite its undoubted qualities, Skies of Arcadia placed just over one hundred thousand copies around the world. This result earned the brand a window seat for a flight to Scomparilandia after a short stopover on GameCube.

1. Shenmue

Shenmue is a real milestone in the world of Se Dreamcast video games had he been our partner in a hypothetical love story, his Shenmue would have represented the merit that could lead us to ask him to marry us. Yu Suzuki's masterpiece was a work of such power that it wiped out its few flaws from our minds and made us remember only what it actually was.

It was the first video game for which it was necessary to coin the term FREE, Full Reactive Eyes Entertainment, an expression with which the developers defined a new gaming experience that definitely broke with the past to look straight to the future

It was the first product to make Quick Time Events a mechanic widely used, which would then have a lot of luck in the years to come. Maybe even too much.

It was the first, true blockbuster in the world of video games, with development costs that literally give the numbers: there are those who speak of forty, some of fifty, some even raving about a budget of seventy million dollars and a kilo of chestnuts.

And it was perhaps the first title for which Dreamcast owners would have sold their family to the black market of human beings in order to grab it.

The sales of Shenmue and the sequel were good but unsuccessful if combined with the massive investment from the production point of view, a factor that inevitably sent to recall the existence of Dreamcast and, more generally, of SEGA in the console market.

Special mention: Crazy Taxi

Crazy Taxi completely rewrites the driving school manual And here we are in the fon ... No, no, no, no! We know: we promised you five titles, but we can't leave without mentioning one of the reasons for our chronic youth poverty.

A game that we begged for chips, begged for an allowance increase, and allowed ourselves to squander a heritage with nonchalance even we were Elon Musk. This is why the arrival of Crazy Taxi on Dreamcast was greeted by a collective sigh of relief: with a single expense we could have darted endlessly for a fictitious San Francisco, ready to load the most idiotic customers on board our taxi. of us.

Faithful to the humorous tenacity of its protagonists, this absurd racing game then arrived everywhere, ranging from Playstation, GameCube, PC, mobile systems and Steam. However, the first love is never forgotten, and if there is another reason why we felt seduced and then abandoned by Dreamcast, this is the crazy Hitmaker kamikaze driving simulator.

Did we forget something? Of course we did it, and we did it on purpose, just to hear from you which games made you bet on a rosy career for Dreamcast when they came out, only to bring you to the harakiri.

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