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Post by Chema on Dec 2, 2020 12:27:16 GMT -5
I'm using the emulator flycast because, to my knowledge, it has the most accurate recreation of some of the system's graphical quirks. What kind of graphical quirks are you referring to? I thought about using Flycast, but I didn't see any immediate advantages to doing so, if one is playing via Windows PC. Except that Flycast does better on the broadband adapter/modem utilization, which doesn't matter to me. From what I was reading, Flycast's game compatibility is lower than DEmul, as in Flycast can't run some of the games DEmul can. Transparencies and some odd effects where textures cross over polygons (for example, animated hair in Shenmue). However, I may be wrong and the other emulators also solved those issues. EDIT: Having done some research now, it seems I was wrong. There's not much difference between flycast and Demul except for some code here and there that can make the experience of some games better or worse than the other. The only major difference appears to be that flycast is in active development, so it may offer the superior experience in the long run.
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Post by Xeogred on Dec 2, 2020 12:30:11 GMT -5
On my quest to secure some games today, this was one of the weirdest discoveries...
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Post by Ex on Dec 2, 2020 13:20:07 GMT -5
The only major difference appears to be that flycast is in active development, so it may offer the superior experience in the long run. That is an important distinction. At the moment Flycast and Redream are both in active development. Ultimately it will be one of these two which evolve into the apex Dreamcast emulator. That said, DEmul's final revision is very good, and has the highest compatibility ratio of all current DC emulators. That's why I'm using it presently. I do actually own a legit Dreamcast, which is capable of playing burnt CDs, and I also have a VGA to HDMI adapter to go with it. But DEmul is so convenient right now, I haven't felt the impetus to dig my real DC out of the closet and hook it up. I would bother to do so if I were playing long RPGs or SRPGs. But I'm focusing on shorter action games for this theme. - I probably wasn't aware of the Dreamcast when it released in 1998 in Japan. But I remember being aware of the Dreamcast when it released in 1999 in the USA. There was the " It's Thinking" campaign, on TV and in every gaming magazine at the time. I could not afford the console myself when it released, because I was working poor class and also had a one year old child to support. It wasn't until 2000 that I got to play a Dreamcast myself. A friend of mine ended up selling his Dreamcast to another friend of mine, who happened to be my roommate at the time. This gave myself access to the Dreamcast, because my roommate was nice enough to share the console with me. However, I did not play single player DC games at that time, instead just playing multiplayer DC games with him. Said roommate was savvy enough to implement the Utopia bootdisk method, so we had unlimited DC games to play as a result. We had a ton of fun playing DC together, as the console has plenty of great competitive and co-op multiplayer experiences. I fondly remember endless matches of Guilty Gear, Power Stone, and Tech Romancer, among many others. But ater 2000, I basically forgot about the Dreamcast for ten years. I was simply busy playing PC games and other consoles. But in 2010, I strangely found myself nostalgic for the console, so I bought one off eBay in mint condition for $15. And so in 2010, for a few months, I got hardcore into playing Dreamcast again. I beat some single player games, including the required Shenmue, highly enjoying the console once again. I also bought the fishing rod controller, and played through every fishing game on DC - which was way funner than it sounds. At that time, I'd also just started dating the woman who is now my wife, and she and I beat a few co-op games on DC. Including Zombie Revenge, Dynamite Cop, and Confidential Mission, among others. She was not a gamer historically, but even she enjoyed the Dreamcast. Based on these experiences, whenever I think of the Dreamcast, I always think "Fun". The Dreamcast's library is mostly geared towards colorful and frantic action games, many derived from or appealing to, arcade design ethos. This makes the Dreamcast's library easy to pick up and play for anybody. Also as someone who grew up as a SEGA fanboy, the Dreamcast holds a special place for me, due to it being SEGA's final console. And a damned fine console at that. Long time HRG readers may have noticed that sometimes I type SEGA and sometimes Sega. There is a difference to me. The real SEGA is the company that existed before the Dreamcast died, the company that made its own hardware and exclusive games for decades. Sega however, is the company that existed after the demise of the Dreamcast. Sega is the hollow shell, a rotting husk of the giant SEGA once was.
But hey, let's not end this on a sour note. The Dreamcast lives on as a cult favorite console to this day. Its games are still as fun as ever, its library is impressive and diverse considering the short lifespan, and Dreamcast emulators are improving every year. The Dreamcast was a bastion of gameplay creativity, to the point that even its memory card was a portable gaming device unto itself. There's still plenty of life left for players to discover within SEGA's last hurrah. Oh yeah, it's definitely still thinking.
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Post by toei on Dec 2, 2020 13:38:17 GMT -5
I followed the Dreamcast's development back when it was known as the Katana, and then the Dural, probably in 1997 or so. At one point, I think the rumored Saturn follow-up was even known as the Neptune. I followed the Japanese launch and read the launch game reviews... then I started secondary school (junior high & high school, basically) the summer before it launched, and I stopped paying attention completely, living my teenage life. I didn't actually get to play one until it was either dead or dying. I remember going to a store where you could play games with a friend and playing Dynamite Cop. I thought it was great. Emulated it later with NullDC, played through Shenmue 1 & 2, Grandia 2, lots of Virtua Fighter 3 and a little of some other fighters (Dead or Alive 2, Fighting Vipers 2, whichever Soul Calibur it is), Dynamite Cop, a little Crazy Taxi, Zombie Revenge and Cannon Spike (though I didn't finish any of them).
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Post by Xeogred on Dec 2, 2020 15:35:27 GMT -5
The "Neptune" sounds more familiar to me than "Katana". Love reading these history tales though. It's weird that I don't have much experience with Dreamcast honestly, but thinking about it and its time kind of puts me in a happy place. Just looking at that official magazine cover makes me smile. When it was new and I still only had an N64, Genesis, and SNES, for one my birthday's my parents rented a DC from Blockbuster. This was late grade school, so I was still pretty young compared to some others here. Even as a kid though, I knew right away that seeing Sonic in a realistic NYC styled area with whales and female humans, was so very wrong. That wasn't the Sonic I knew. The first level was such a glitchfest, my friends staying over for the night and I didn't bother to stick with it for long. I'm not even sure what else we played, but I think there were other games. We were blown away by the graphics and how smooth most of the games seemed to run. Even to this day, I'm impressed when I go back to this era and see some games running at 60FPS. Crazy Taxi is one I played a lot at some friends. It was cool how the DC had some ports of PSX/N64 games too, like the Tony Hawk games. Or even had some home versions of awesome arcade games at the time, like Hydro Thunder. I kind of like the controller in a way, but hate how the cord comes out the bottom. In middle school I must have secured some allowance money at some point to get a DC myself for cheap. As it stands, I only have 6 games though, so it shows that I didn't really put much into the system. Of all the games I own, I played Power Stone and Soul Caliber the most. I remember kicking myself for not picking up Power Stone 2 at a Vintage Stock once, because I never saw it again and the prices spiked big time on that one. I remember thinking the DC version of Rush 2049 was weird and lacked features the N64 version had, and I don't know if you could save your progress. Surely I had one of those cool memory cards... So my experience with the DC is more than I had with the Saturn, but still not really much. I'll admit I think a large reason why I stopped caring for the DC I had is because it quickly turned yellow/brown for some reason and was extremely loud when the discs spin. I know most of them run pretty loud, but the one I got seemed extra bad. Just a weird but goofy unfortunate thing that kept me from wanting to use it much. Now, I will probably just stick with emulation. A lot of its library and popular games hit the PS2 and other platforms. Grandia II is probably the coolest one I played. Some fans would always talk about how the DC version actually ran better.
I have a few games in my mind I'd like to check out this month. The library and exclusives it does have definitely seems pretty solid.
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Post by Sarge on Dec 2, 2020 16:24:23 GMT -5
Speaking to Grandia II, it really does run better on Dreamcast.
And yeah, I remember both "Neptune" and "Katana". I also remember thinking it would be a while before I got one, but because of Grandia II, I knew I needed to find a way to get it. Funnily enough, I ended up buying my Sega Genesis and Sega CD right around the time the Dreamcast launched. I always find that somewhat amusing.
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Post by Ex on Dec 2, 2020 21:46:29 GMT -5
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Post by Sarge on Dec 3, 2020 1:20:56 GMT -5
Well flippin' crap. I was playing through Sword of the Berserk: Guts' Rage, finally get through a really tough boss, go through a long stage, and... the dang game fails to load. Great. No idea if it's a bad rip, failing laser, or a degrading burned disc. But I'm bummed out enough that I might not revisit this one - that boss fight is considered the toughest in the game, and I was hoping I'd get to another save point before I quit.
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Post by toei on Dec 3, 2020 1:25:37 GMT -5
That really sucks. You just reminded me of the other game I wanted to play, though.
If you beat him once, it'll probably be easier to do it again, but then there's the whole issue of the game potentially failing to load again. I guess the best you could do would be to make a new copy so you can still use your save game. Or emulate, if you're not too far in.
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Post by Sarge on Dec 3, 2020 1:30:02 GMT -5
I may consider dropping the difficulty to "easy" and be done with it. I've gotten through the worst of it, and to be honest, I haven't been terribly impressed by the game. You see it pop up on a lot of lists, but I don't think the combat feels all that good.
EDIT: Got back there really fast on Easy and it froze at the exact same spot. Going to snag a different ISO and burn to a better disc.
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