As topic title states, I'm thinking of getting into the DC homebrew (and port) scene.
I had a DC at launch and throughout it's retail run. Over the years, I've played most of the heavy hitters and/or own their modern ports. The post-death homebrew titles and ports really do interest me though. Truly is amazing to see what's come out the past ~25 years. Feel like I'm missing out on a cool piece of the DC scene.
Any positive experiences? ... Or talk me out of it
I owned a slew and sold off most of them except one.
Past games:
Dux/Redux (meh)
Last Hope: Pink Bullets (not that great)
Fast Striker (decent)
Gunlord (good if you like Turrican, though I just kept wanting to play Turrican)
Neo XYX (also decent)
Alice's Mom's Rescue (meh)
Sturmwind (not perfect, but still a great shooter)
I also owned Pier Solar, but not on the Dreamcast. Technically, Under Defeat (originally a G.rev arcade game) is also aftermarket. It's not personally what I'm looking for in a shooter, but my friend loves it so much he has a huge tattoo of it on his arm. It is well received and worth a look.
I realize most of these are shooters, so I hope you like those. Not that there aren't more options, especially now.
It does seem VERY shooter heavy. I'd probably pick a couple of those vs all (or super pricey).
Thanks for naming those. Gunlord & Pier Solar high on my list. On Under Defeat via Wiki:
A port for the Dreamcast was released in 2006 and marketed as the last game for the system, although two more were released the following year.
... wonder what those 2 were. That limbo window between commercial and later, straight-up homebrew has always interested me. The Atari Jaguar went through the same thing with late Telegames releases and Battlesphere.
So-- when you say "Homebrew," are you only talking about the unlicensed games independently published after the discontinuation of the console? (Stuff like Karous, Triggerheart Excelica, Under Defeat, and Radirgy were all actually officially licensed releases pressed to GD-ROM.)
I don't really tend to think of those as homebrew, personally (though I guess they are, more or less, by definition), and as sort of separate from the standard homebrew scene for the Dreamcast that distributes images for passion projects executable with the hardware. In the case of the latter, at least, I got an SD card adapter last year and futzed around with Dreamshell. It's a pretty handy tool for all sorts of things, but I also tried to get the Atomiswave arcade 'ports' going with it, and had pretty tepid results. Documentation seems to be pretty terri-bad, and maybe just based on a group of people taking shots in the dark with settings. I got Neogeo Battle Coliseum and Kenju going, but they didn't run all too well. The SD card I'm using seems to meet the specs required, though. Apparently someone ported Cave Story to the Dreamcast, which I would kind of like to try also, as long as there's an option for the Japanese interface.
In the case of the former, I have (I think) all of the NG.DEV.TEAM games (also Sturmwind, and sadly Redux which I had unfortunately backed on Kickstarter). I don't particularly like any of them as much as most of the licensed shmups on the console, but they're generally pretty good, aside from Redux which is just boring af. I pretty much didn't like Last Hope at all initially, but I remember Dunpeal tried to talk some sense into me, and I enjoyed it a little bit more from there. Not a lot, but a little bit.
pierrot wrote: ↑Sat Jan 04, 2025 5:42 pm
Redux which I had unfortunately backed on Kickstarter
Same boat, captain. But I didn't learn my lesson. At the time, though, I gobbled all the homebrew up. I think I've purchased only two homebrew games in the last seven or so years, but back then, it felt a bit more wild, wild west.
Personally of the ones I listed, I'd only go for Sturmwind. But Gunlord and Pier Storm, for what they are, are good, too. In retrospect, Gunlord is probably the best NGDev produced.
It's just a really fun game. At this point, it's available on a lot of different platforms. It plays really nice on the Dreamcast. The DC controller layout works better for this game than the Genesis controller.
From the games mentioned, I thought I'd just add that Sturmwind, Gunlord and Xeno Crisis are all awesome in my opinion. Gunlord is the best in my opinion. If you're a fan of Turrican, it's basically a modern take on that kind of gameplay. I do think the Switch and PS4 'remaster' is the better way to go though... It has a number of quality of life improvements. Sturmwind is also on modern platforms too, although I have only played the Dreamcast version, so can't comment on the modern ports and if they are enhanced in any way, besides resolution. Xeno Crisis is also on modern platforms.
And honestly, as someone who was massively into the posthumous homebrew/indie/afterlife scene on Dreamcast for years and years, the above issue is why I have slowly moved away from it. It has begun to feel more and more like a novelty. I guess in some ways, it always was, but the relative ease of developing games and the huge explosion in the indie scene, means that these kind of games can quite easily come out on modern platforms and indeed often do. So, although I have Xeno Crisis on both Genesis/MD and Dreamcast and got nice physical versions for each, is there really any point in playing them over the Switch version that is just a bit more convenient?
I guess the interesting ones then, are the ones that have never been ported to other platforms.
By the way, that GTA III port is ridiculously impressive though. It really is mind-blowing what people can do now. For years a whole load of experts have said that GTA III would have been impossible on Dreamcast. I remember John Linneman from Digital Foundry saying it would be impossible and would have never happened, as the limited RAM and weaker hardware would have rendered it unfeasible. I'd love to see him and the DF team now take a look at it and analyse how the team pulled it off. I know Modern Vintage Gamer took a look it.
Own: Sega Mega Drive, Sega Saturn, Sega Dreamcast, Playstation 1, Playstation 2, Playstation 3, Playstation 4, Playstation 5, PS Vita, Super Nintendo, Nintendo 64, Nintendo Gamecube, Nintendo Wii U, Nintendo Gameboy Advance, Nintendo DS, Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo Switch, Xbox, Xbox 360
o.pwuaioc wrote: ↑Sun Jan 05, 2025 2:00 am
Same boat, captain. But I didn't learn my lesson. At the time, though, I gobbled all the homebrew up.
Oof. I was looking at an article that indicated to me I would have backed Redux for $65 in 2013/14 money, which-- yikes. I remember there was some issue where I wasn't even sure if I would end up getting the game. TBF, I kind of like Dux 1.5, and thankfully it was so long ago there's absolutely no reason to still feel any sort of bitterness about it, right--?
I was actually, coincidentally, reminded of Redux about a week ago when going through the shooters on Steam: I noticed Ghost Blade HD, and was like, 'Oh yeah, that was that other game from HuCast after Redux that was released on Dreamcast for a premium price.' Looking at the Steam reviews, it sounds like Ghost Blade is about as unimpressive as Redux.
This is an area of gaming I've been getting into a bit the past year or so as well. Last year, I picked up Shadow Gangs and Intrepid Izzy as they were both well reviewed indie games for the console.
Shadow Gangs is an action platformer in a similar vein to the Shinobi games. I found the difficulty to be pretty high, and only got a few levels through it. Overall, this didn't really click with me but I'd like to give it another try. There is a prequel in the works, which I believe will have a version on the Genesis.
Intrepid Izzy is an action-adventure game in 2D, that I think is comparable to a Monster World title. I played through a bit of this and liked what I tried of it. Might be one for you to look into and check out. Dreamcast Junkyard also ranked it as the best indie game on the system, for what it's worth.
Sturmwind also looks amazing, and it was just reprinted by VGNY soft so it's easily available again. I actually just picked it up in late December a day or two before my holiday travels. Looking forward to checking it out when I'm back home in the next few days.
