Thoughts on the Dreamcast’s 20th Anniversary

As a Sega fangirl, the Dreamcast was bittersweet. It brought the end of Sega’s life as a console maker—and the realization that my favorite platform maker would make no more platforms. On the other side, the DC was Sega at possibly their most creative and daring.

The Master System was great, the Genesis in a class of its own, the Saturn a misunderstood workhorse. Each had their share of fantastic, groundbreaking, and engrossing Sega games.

Dreamcast-era Sega, however, was a whole different beast.

Sega, in those days, seemed to know their future was uncertain. If the Dreamcast was to be their final system, then it would be a system to remember, filled with games unchained from the restraints of either technological or game design restrictions of the past.

Of course, for me, no game stood out more than Phantasy Star Online. As someone who wasn’t into the world of PC gaming but was filled with envy by its MMORPGs, it was my first real experience adventuring in an online world filled with other real people.

My Dreamcast hooked up to my VGA monitor, controller and keyboard plugged in, broadband adapter keeping my connection solid, I ventured off into the unknown. My little HUnewearl Ayu Landale would go on to live an action-filled life across hundreds of hours.

There’s never been a game that destroyed my life like PSO did. It was the epitome of “I’ll play for a few hours after dinner,” then suddenly realizing the sun was coming up. It was a game that now seems so quaint & limited yet which, at the time, felt limitless.

One other memory that’s burned into my brain is for a game that doesn’t always get brought up: Metropolis Street Racer. There was nothing like it in that era. Driving around real cities, listing to an “actual” radio station—it felt like the future of racing games.

I know the argument: at this point, a decent chunk of the Dreamcast’s library has been ported or remade—to the point that some might think there’s no reason to still own a DC. And, sure, that’s probably true for some people. For me, though, there’s just this feeling when going back to play the originals on the Dreamcast that has yet to be matched. It’s like playing Neo games on non-Neo hardware: I know the experience is the same, but it doesn’t FEEL the same.

So, happy 20th anniversary to the Sega Dreamcast here in the West. You were a system that was never truly given the chance you deserved, and who had so much baggage weighing you down, and yet you shined brighter than anyone could have ever expected you to.