How is your Dreamcast gaming going on?

[TEKTORO]

Found these in the wild earlier today, so I played all three with my daughter to test the working conditions.

Dead or Alive 2[b]- Fluid frame rate, tight controls, pretty to look at and super fun!

[b]KOF Dream Match 99- No manual got for a fiver, I have to mess with this when I have time. Like the huge line up of fighters.. Starting to want a DC Fight stick now. My little one wasn't interested either after DOA2

Vigilante 8 2nd Offense- Some split screen coop action quick play. Very nice port crisp graphics and nice controls, was a little skeptic wanting the PS1 port instead, but really impressed! PS1 port crossed of list.

Snagged all three for $20 not bad for a local pit stop. Moral of the story was happy to have a Dreamcast session today.

[SpoonyBard]

I used to play Vigilante 8 like crazy when it came out. Really fun games, and a shame that the series just kind of dropped off after the second game. (although I guess there's a remake on XBLA?) Good find, i've been looking for that one on DC for awhile now.


And the stick is absolutely worth it. You may not experience a huge benefit from it on the fighters you just bought. But any of the 6-button ones I find to be next to impossible to play on the regular pad.

[RCBH928]

I am amazed by how much love the Dreamcast is getting from this forum. I thought Saturn was the top favorite console here


@sp597

I think its almost impossible to get online now. Servers are hard to find and you have to inform others to meet at certain time period , and given that the web is global, your 2pm could be another's guy 3 am. Even more, you need a dial-up connection which I am not sure if it is available much which means you will not find it OR you will have to subscribe for a dial-up connection which last I checked charges by the minute? There is a DSL converter/dongle kind of thing but its super expensive.

So its a lot of trouble. I too would like to experience Dreamcast online but its pretty difficult.
I wonder if Dreamcast online will work with "backup" copies since Sega is not administering these servers.

[CD AGES]

I wonder if Dreamcast online will work with "backup" copies since Sega is not administering these servers.

It will.

[jinx]

This thread is making me want to play PSO v2 again. Guess that's what I'll be doing this weekend.

[Mad_Hatter]

Someone before mentioned that there are places that offer backups that won't do a big toll on your Dreamcast when burned on a CD R? Anyone know any websites/communities that offer such backups? I currently use a site like CoolRom and put it on a CD R and just play. Looking to get Skies of Arcadia with VGA patch.

rcbh928, thanks for letting me know. I didn't know it was so dead. Probably won't trouble myself with it now.

Does online Dreamcast offer any updates for the system or games? I'm sure they don't, but I'm not for sure.

[RCBH928]

That system has been dead for like 10 years , the console itself does not have a HDD to store any updates.

[Original_Name]

Does online Dreamcast offer any updates for the system or games? I'm sure they don't, but I'm not for sure.

The closest you would get to that would be DLC for Skies of Arcadia, Phantasy Star Online, Samba de Amigo, Chu Chu Rocket!, Sonic Adventure, Sonic Adventure 2, and Rayman 2, as well as custom graffiti for Jet Set Radio, and maybe some extra VMU minigames. There was also a modification to the Dreamcast bios screen that was activated through Puyo Puyo Fever that maybe required online functionality in order to access at the time... I'm not certain on that one, it may have just been accessed off of the game disc through an option or achievement.

All of this DLC is available on the game discs from the start, though -- it just took little VMU files (the one I used for Skies of Arcadia was only one block) to unlock them. Definitely not worth the price of the Broadband Adapter (or the headache of other methods) to access, since all of this information has been preserved on homebrew apps such as the VMU Backup CD, and the Puyo Puyo Fever and Jet Set Radio customization can be done through the wonderful VMU Tool. I'd strongly recommend picking this up most of all, though: the Capcom Fighting Collection. It's basically the most insane thing anybody ever made for the Dreamcast -- VMU Backup CD + Action Replay to boot imports + about 1/4 of Capcom's output for the Dreamcast + Ikaruga + other goodies.

In terms of added content, the only other thing I could think of is an adventure game creator called DreamStudio -- I know that it had some sort of online component that may have allowed for players to trade their games with each other (makes me wish that there had been a Dezaemon release for the Dreamcast), but I seriously doubt that any such function could be accessed so long after 90% of the servers have been pulled.

I do know that NullDC offers online functionality, although I have no idea if it emulates any of the old SegaNet stuff, or if it just simulates local multiplayer through the Internet. Anyway, the only up-and-running Dreamcast online title that seems interesting and can't be played more easily on a PC is Planet Ring. So you'd basically be shelling out $100 for a Broadband Adapter so that you could do various (admittedly very cool) things that you could do much more easily through a PC/Dreamcast homebrew disc... and play Planet Ring.

...I kinda really want to play Planet Ring though, to be perfectly honest.

[MulishaSoldier929]

A couple years back I heard that some people had dedicated servers to PSO still. I thought about looking into it but just never had the time. Does anyone know if that is still around?

[noiseredux]

Yeah sylverant server. Several of us here have been on there.