I was thinking about doing a blog on one thing today, and just before I went to bed last night, I started thinking about myself getting a Dreamcast at launch. I decided to blog about my Dreamcast blog story and discuss memorable moments and such with the Sega Dreamcast.


The first time I heard about the Dreamcast was within magazine issues of EGM and Tips & Tricks magazine. Once I saw the graphics and saw Sonic Adventure would be a launch title, I definitely wanted one. I understood Sega had a shaky history, but the Dreamcast really caught my eye I decided to give it a shot. Employees at Babbage’s, EB, etc, also got me more interested showing videos of it constantly in stores (when I use to travel to various cities a lot). It was launching around my birthday, so I was able to make that my birthday present. I also saved up around $200+ to buy games, accessories, and so on.

On 9/8/99, I didn’t go to school since someone really pissed me off and didn’t really feel like going. Later on in that day, I went to Wal-Mart with my Mom and saw they started selling Dreamcast games. At the time, I didn’t know much about games outside of Gamespot reviews and what I read in magazines before launch. I didn’t see Sonic Adventure or NFL 2k, so I went out and bought Blue Stinger. The employee told me they’d be selling the Dreamcast at Midnight. I decided to go out with my Mom at midnight to Wal-Mart. Funny story was at the time, we didn’t want my Dad to know we were going out that late, so we quietly snuck out of the house and didn’t close the car doors until we left the car was out of the garage. So I got to Wal-Mart just after 11:30pm, and there were two people there. I saw them talking, not really paying attention, so right when they opened up the Dreamcast, I went ahead and picked it up first (so I got the first one at midnight). Basically, I was the first one in my area with a Dreamcast, and I was so excited. I was greeted to the awesome Sega Swirl when I powered up my Dreamcast



I took the Dreamcast home and started playing Blue Stinger and the demo disk for over an hour (then went to bed and got very little sleep.

After school on 9/99/99 (Very busy day because I had a meeting with my family, principal, another student’s parents, and a few teachers over an incident that happened. Also had football practice) towards the evening, I went to Meijer to check out their Dreamcast games. I went ahead and bought NFL 2k, Sonic Adventure, VMU Card (they were the cheapest at Meijer), and extra controller. I tried playing Sonic Adventure, and it didn’t work at all. NFL 2k worked and it was excellent. So I went back to Meijer to return Sonic Adventure on 9/10/99, and come to find out, there were others having problems getting the game to work, but I still took another copy. Next copy didn’t work either. So I had my Mom return it while I was at a Football game on 9/11/99. I got my money back, went to Target on 9/12/99 to see if they had Sonic Adventure. Thankfully they did, but the first copy I had somewhat worked (took a few tries). I ended up returning it, getting another copy, which mostly worked, so I kept it (still my copy now, but seems to be perfectly fine now unless I don’t play it first). A few weeks later I bought Soul Calibur on sale at Best Buy for $33 new. By the end of 1999, I had 11 Dreamcast games not including demos. At the time, PS1 was mostly for RPGs, while my Dreamcast was for everything else (mostly two player games).


Despite enjoying my Dreamcast a lot, there’s no denying I was starting to get sucked into the PlayStation 2 hype. I ignored basically all Dreamcast game releases from January 2000 to November 2000. People at school gave me a hard time over the Dreamcast telling me it sucked. I saved up my money for a PS2 and was looking at buying many games for it (I also bought a lot of PS1 RPGs at the time). On October 26th, 2001, I thought I’d have the same magic getting a PS2 at launch again at Wal-Mart, but I failed. Due to struggling to get a PS2, I decided to give my Dreamcast another chance (or give it more spot light). I devoted my Christmas list mostly to Dreamcast games. I bought a PS2 on 12/9/00, very disappointed in it early on (tried many of its greatest games), so I sold it the next year and decided to stick to Dreamcast. I got many new games on Dreamcast such as Shenmue, Canon Spike, Grandia II, Skies of Arcadia, NBA 2k1, etc. and really enjoyed all. Despite the Dreamcast being killed off, it only made me more motivated to track down many of the great Dreamcast games and pick them up. I was worried the Dreamcast would end up like the Saturn, where many games become hard to find and not cheap to buy later, so I went on a buying spree. I had nothing but fun with the Dreamcast owning over 60 games for it at one point. I started to enjoy fighters a lot more with the Dreamcast (I use to not be into them), I started to get into vertical shooters more, and I even got into other niche genres more. Previously, I was mostly action, platform, RPG, racing, or sports. I enjoyed the Dreamcast so much, I was very hesitant I’d ever find a next gen console I’d like as much (still too bitter on Sony so I wasn’t ready to get a PS2, wanted a Gamecube but almost every game got delayed, so I decided to try Xbox first).


The Dreamcast is still a very special console to my heart, but my view about it has changed. While it may have been my favorite console at the time, I still give the edge now to PS2, PS1, and SNES as being my favorite consoles ever, but Dreamcast still has my favorite (or 2nd favorite) launch ever and definitely my favorite game lineup in just one year. Most of my favorite Dreamcast games such as Sonic Adventure 1 and 2 (screw the haters, I love them), Grandia II, Skies of Arcade, Phantasy Star Online, etc. have all been ported elsewhere, and kind of made the Dreamcast lose some charm. However, there are still a few particular exclusives that make me never want to get rid of my Dreamcast.


Tech Romancer is the main one. I figure most probably didn’t play it, but the game really suited me well. I might mechs, anime, fighting games, and games with a decent amount of story having Japanese voices. The game has all of it and I’ve played through each character way too many times.


Although Samba De Amigo will be appearing on Wii soon, the game was very memorable. I was very hesitant about it at first due to not being into music games much at the time, but decided to give it a shot since I like Sonic Team, and really glad I did. The game was tons of fun and the game that got me more into playing more music games (like DDR).


Jet Grind Radio (although it’s on GBA, just not the same IMO) was a game I had the demo of, and initially hated it. I gave it another try and really liked it. Most of my real life friends hated it, but I loved the concept, music, and art style. One of the most original games I ever played. Unfortunately, I didn’t like Jet Set Radio Future anywhere near as much (one of the main reasons I bought an Xbox).


I bought Soul Calibur due to getting a 10 at Gamespot and because I liked Namco’s other fighter Tekken a lot. It was the only game I purchased I could not find a single fault with it. Graphics were great, gameplay was great, and there were tons to do. I know it came to XBLA, but lacks the Mission Mode I loved.


Canon Spike was a shocker. I bought it because it reminded me of Contra in a way. There’s no multi-player game I played more times with friends than Canon Spike (I use to play as Mega Man). I wish it came to XBLA/PSN one day with online.

There were tons of other great games on Dreamcast also, but I only wanted to explain five I really liked. I didn’t online much with the Dreamcast. Thankfully, my Dreamcast still works great to this day and I feel like playing it on its birthday.

Anyone else get a Dreamcast at launch or something?