Celebrating 25 Years of the Dreamcast and the Kaiju Monster it Rode in on

Well, shit. It’s been 25 years…or 300 months…or over 13 million minutes. That’s how long it’s been since Godzilla Generations was unleashed in Japan.

And the Dreamcast, too, for that matter.

In our house, it's always November 27th, 1998.

I was a tween when I first learned of Sega’s swansong console. Undeterred by President Shoichiro Irimajiri’s creepy disembodied head at the initial Dreamcast reveal, it was ultimately Sonic Adventure which ignited my hype for the platform and all the ambitious and imaginative experiences that would come to define it.

(From EGM #112 November 1998)
Don’t tell tween me that middle-aged me kept this tattered mag. He’d think it was weird and sad and he’d probably be right.

But the blue ‘hog was just the tip of the spear. With unprecedented visual and aural fidelity, groundbreaking online capabilities, intuitive hardware architecture, and a supplemental operating system, the Dreamcast fancied itself as both a developer-friendly haven and bleeding-edge forerunner of gaming’s future.

(Preserved by Unseen64.net)

Elsewhere on the software front, Virtua Fighter 3tb, Get Bass/Sega Bass Fishing, and Sega Rally 2 signaled a renewed commitment to Sega’s iconic arcade experiences at home. Blue Stinger, Pen Pen TriIcelon, and Climax Landers (eventually released as Time Stalkers in the West) flaunted their vibrancy and helped crystallize the Dreamcast’s aesthetic. AM2’s Shenmue – known as 'Project Berkley' at the time – promised to help reimagine how players might inhabit dense and bustling virtual spaces. Meanwhile, the presence of Biohazard: Code Veronica and D2 hinted at resurgent third party support from large and small game makers alike. And Godzilla Generations…was also there.

Although most of Sega’s in-house projects had yet to be unveiled in depth, they’d go on to spark a creative and innovative renaissance that continues to endear the Dreamcast to us a full 2.5 percent of a millennium later.

(From EGM's 1999 Video Game Buyer's Guide)
Some of the other games I was looking forward to.

In the meantime, Sega faced hurricane-force headwinds as it prepared to get the thing off the ground. The community has expressed no shortage of anecdotes for all the challenges stacked against the company at the time. Among them, people often blame the following:

• Sega’s dwindling financial resources (i.e. capitalism*);
• A merciless competitive landscape amid Sega’s diminished command of industry trends (also capitalism*);
• The upcoming launch of the PlayStation 2 (capitalism strikes again!*);
• Intracompany divisions over the direction and priorities for the Dreamcast across regions;
• Sega's squandered goodwill with publishers, manufacturing partners, retailers, and consumers through several generations of missteps;
• Minimal time to prepare for the Japanese launch, yielding a meager day one lineup and delays for several would-be launch window titles;
• Shifting tides in consumer sentiment (sometimes people just like other things, you know?)
• Sega being Sega;
• Obama.

* I mean, maybe Sega just sucked at capitalism and that's totally OK. Would we really love the Dreamcast as much today if it had been managed by a more fiscally responsible and risk-averse company?

To me, Sega’s biggest challenges of the era were inseparable from its identity. The company’s deep-rooted stubbornness and rebelliousness – while enabling its uncompromising creativity and ambition – led it to hang its fortunes on innovations the public was not yet ready to embrace (e.g. online console gaming). At the same time, Sega continued to cling to established conventions which had fueled its past success and legacy but were falling swiftly out of vogue, globally (e.g. its arcade-centric ethos). In straddling the future and past, Sega found itself awkwardly out of step with gaming's present.  Sega was a perpetual pioneer yet it struggled to meet people where they were, or adapt enough to counter its competitors’ most basic strategies to woo them. Sadly — insomuch as we can feel sad for a for-profit corporation — the world was growing ambivalent to Sega’s presence and there wasn’t much anyone could do about it.

(From the What's Shenmue? Dreamcast demo)

In many ways, the Dreamcast’s Japanese launch reflected the history of this turmoil. And charmingly, Sega owned it. The company responded by promoting the platform in perhaps the most human way imaginable. Senior Managing Director Hidekazu Yukawa (R.I.P.) became the literal face of the Dreamcast to the point his image was emblazoned on a later edition of the console’s retail box. People knew him as Mr. Sega.

Sega’s Japanese Dreamcast advertising campaign was unconventionally humble and earnest, a likely reflection of Yukawa-san himself. Abandoning the brutish bluster of Segata Sanshiro’s salesmanship, Yukawa wore a friendlier face and carried a more genuine demeanor. Acknowledging the dire situation Sega found itself in, he made a gentler appeal to players. He was simply grateful for the chance they may invite the Dreamcast into their homes.

(via Advermax on Youtube) 

Yukawa-san was just doing his best.

The Yukawa TV ads rolled with the punches with humility if not grace. In an early spot, demon children haunted Yukawa’s nightmares, exclaiming they didn’t need Sega just before a rift opened and swallowed him into an abyss. And when production challenges hobbled Sega’s ability to produce enough Dreamcasts to meet retail targets, Yukawa-san dedicated an ad to apologizing for the stock shortages while fans pelted him with trash (gamers, amirite?). Meanwhile, his wife wondered when he’d be done with making all these stupid commercials. It was a pitiful ad campaign in that Yukawa-san and Sega actively solicited our pity.

So yeah. Sega was having a rough time even without a new generation of competition looming in the next millennium. As such, the company aimed to seize as much of a head start as possible, hastening the Dreamcast to the Japanese market just to get it out into the world. No doubt Sega of Japan needed to start generating revenue and building a user base sooner rather than later. So as a byproduct of that, there was little time to develop games ahead of the Japanese launch. In fact, the Dreamcast rolled out with four whole titles on day one.

The Dreamcast lobster

I recently revisited those Japanese launch games, so I'll ramble about them next...

Christmas DreamPod - Audience Participation Sought by 30 November!

Update: submissions have now closed! You can hear the episode here.

I apologise off the bat for raising the spectre of Christmas when we are barely half way through November. I know some will be dismayed by the ever expanding time and space which this particular festival occupies - not least retail workers who are bracing for the onslaught of Mariah Carey and Slade songs on endless loop. If Christmas isn’t really your thing, for whatever reason, then that is cool by us. 

However, if you are partial to the festive spirit, and are willing to countenance prematurely dipping your toes into it, even if just for a moment, then please read on.

The Junkyard crew have been invited to partake in RadioSEGA's wonderful 'Winterfest'; a veritable marathon of Sega related audio productions which is due to take place in December. However, we've decided that we really can't be gabbing on about Christmas themed levels in Dreamcast games once again, despite how much we may adore them (except Mike, our resident Grinch, who we cherish nonetheless). Therefore, this year, we’re hoping to record an episode that is infused with a hearty dose of audience participation. 

To make our forthcoming Christmas DreamPod episode something special, we’d love to hear from you, the dear readers and listeners who make the Junkyard a worthwhile endeavour. So, pour a sherry, snaffle a mince pie from the secret stash, and send a message to dreamcastjunkyard (at) gmail dot com by Thursday the 30th of November that covers one (or all) of the following:

1. Cracker Competition: miniature nail clippers and those weird fortune telling fish are fine and dandy, but wouldn’t it be so much better if a VMU dropped out of your Christmas cracker? Pitch us your Dreamcast-themed cracker, including a) the design of the cracker and paper hat, and b) the gift(s) contained within. Bad jokes are welcome too, of course. Our esteemed guests will pick a winner on the pod and all entries will be given a shout-out. 
2. Carollers… but, you know, Dreamcasty ones: instead of politely grinning through an off key rendition of silent night, wouldn’t it be grand if you got to hear your favourite Dreamcast game song belted out on your doorstep? How about Sonic Adventure’s ‘Open Your Heart’ lovingly rendered by Metallica? Or Yu Suzuki rattling through ‘The Whole New World’ from PSO? Let us know who you want to see carolling and what they would be singing. Entries will be featured on the pod.
3. Dreamcastic Christmas Tales: For those are perhaps unsure of what to submit for the above, you could always just tell us some of your abiding memories of Christmases past that involve the little white box. What game do you replay for the umpteenth time every boxing day? Is multiplayer Power Stone brought out before or after dinner? Has Santa ever left you any Dreamcast-related gifts? A selection of submitted stories will feature on the pod, so be sure to let us know all the wee details. Photos would be appreciated immensely too if you have them and will likely feature on an accompanying blog post for the episode.

All those who lend us their Dreamcastic Christmas ideas will of course gain a permanent spot on the DCJY ‘nice’ list, and will also be entered into a draw for some Dreamcast-related stocking fillers. Two winners will be randomly selected and contacted by the time the pod airs to arrange delivery.

So, don those ideas caps and get scribbling! Once again, the address to write to is dreamcastjunkyard (at) gmail dot com. We eagerly await your response.

New Dreamcast Compatible Arcade Fight Stick heading to IndieGoGo!

We've seen a lot of new indie hardware teased or released for the Sega Dreamcast in the last few years - such as the VM2 and a number of new controllers - but what with the popularity of fighters on the system, it was only a matter of time before someone produced an arcade/fight stick for it. Well, that is exactly what is going to happen as Turkish company TR Fight Stick are heading to IndieGoGo on November the 18th to pitch their "Octopus" arcade fight stick to the world.

Based in Istanbul, Turkey, TR is known for producing precision quality fight sticks and other arcade accessories, but it was not for these products that they previously crossed the radar of the Junkyard. Back in 2018, TR advertised the "Dreamcase", a metal shell that could house your GDEMU in the interest of keeping everything compact and sleek. While this idea wasn't one I noticed taking off much with Dreamcast owners, TR's latest Dreamcast-related project is definitely sure to. I mean, who doesn't love a nice arcade stick? 

TR reached out to us the other day to inform us about this upcoming project, and I must say the Octopus looks like a really nice bit of kit, and that's just from seeing prototype images (like the one above), as well as the trailer the company put out to promote their campaign. See listed below all of the bells and whistles we can expect from this upcoming controller:

• Compatible with the Sega Dreamcast, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PC, MiSTer, and more. 
• Custom built Dreamcast Encoder PCB: this arcade stick offers a built-in next-gen backlit VMU and 10 separate internal memory cards. You can swiftly swap the internal VMUs with a combination of buttons.
• Connection is wired for microscopic latency.
• A layout inspired by the ergonomic Vewlix layout, which is designed for lengthy gaming.
• Non-slip padding ensures the controller is comfortable and stays put during intense gaming sessions.
• Both analogue and digital control modes available. 
• Changeable artwork for personal flair. 
• Activate Turbo button for turbocharged game sequences. 
• Start button on the rear and a tournament lock switch to prevent unauthorised changes. 
• Uses the Open Stick Community's GP2040-CE multi-platform gamepad firmware.
• SOCD Remover. 

While I'm not exactly quite sure what an "SOCD remover" is, I'm sure some fighting game buff somewhere just nodded their head with satisfaction upon hearing that information. Just giving you all the facts I can, folks. Anyway, check out the teaser trailer below to see some cool 3D renders of this potential product.

The IndieGoGo campaign for the Octopus launches on Saturday the 18th of November, at 8AM PST. A portion of the funds will go to aid recovery efforts for the earthquake that struck Turkey back in February of this year. TR can be found on Twitter if you want to follow them for further updates about this campaign.

Do you like the look of this fight stick? Do you think it's exactly what you need to enhance your Capcom vs. SNK gameplay experience? Let us know in the comments below or on one of our many social media pages.

Bomb Rush Cyberfunk Review or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love this Spiritual Successor to Jet Set Radio

Jet Set Radio (or as it was known in North America, Jet Grind Radio) came skating onto the scene in the year 2000. Developed by Sega's in-house studio Smilebit, the flagship Dreamcast release saw players enrol in the rollerblading GGs gang to claim their turf back from their rivals, one graffiti tag at a time, all whilst evading the clutches of the law. A platformer at heart, JSR was fun gameplay-wise, but what kept me and many others coming back for more was undoubtedly its revolutionary cel-shaded graphics, along with its premise, style and music - all a loving tribute to hip-hop and street culture. The exceptional soundtrack, the majority of which was composed by Hideki Naganuma, combined elements of hip-hop, J-pop, funk, electronic dance, rock, acid jazz, and trip-hop, and has been lauded by fans the world over to the point where it's almost taken on a life of its own outside of the game.

North American magazine ad for Jet Grind Radio

In the years following Jet Set Radio's release, Sega stopped making consoles and moved to being a third-party developer. Initially things were pretty good, with a wide range of their IPs receiving new titles or reboots, including Jet Set Radio, which received a beloved sequel/re-imagining on the original Xbox in the form of 2002's Jet Set Radio Future.

But, with series developers Smilebit closing their doors in 2004, and Sega's attention to any IP that wasn’t Sonic slowing to a drip feed over the following decade, the possibility of a new entry into the JSR series became less likely with each passing year. We did see a HD remaster during the seventh generation, which was cool, but the fully fledged third instalment many players have been waiting for just never happened.

The album cover for 2 Mello's "Memories of Tokyo-To"

During the series' absence, a cult community of fans slowly began to form around Jet Set Radio, with its art style and music finally being appreciated for how excellent it really is. A fan developed a whole website to stream JSR tunes 24/7, while artists like 2 Mello made entire albums in the style of the JSR sound. Many new indie titles like Umarangi Generation and Hover aimed to emulate that funky cel-shaded feeling we were sorely missing. Seeing this community of fans and creators blossoming around JSR really got me thinking... with the series' strongest suit undoubtedly being its aesthetic style and music, and with aspects such as the story and character's personalities taking a backseat (with perhaps the exception of DJ Professor K), it made me wonder: could someone else make Jet Set Radio? We'd witnessed it in the indie space for years, with titles like Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, Shovel Knight and Cities: Skylines filling the void left behind by the neglect of bigger developers. For me, Jet Set Radio’s best asset is not that it was made by Sega. Sure, the genius minds of Dreamcast-era Sega gave it its best assets, but the fact that Jet Set Radio's winning formula has been abandoned for so long, that it hasn't had the chance to be developed further, to become bigger and better with the power of modern systems, to be re-introduced to a new generation of gamers, is criminal, frankly. As long as the right people were involved, Jet Set Radio could come back in style, even if it meant sacrificing the name.

Lethal League Blaze

The answer to my prayers came in 2020, when Dutch indie developer Team Reptile teased Bomb Rush Cyberfunk. Having previously worked on Lethal League, an excellent series of fighting games that feature cel-shading and character designs reminiscent of Jet Set Radio, and with the second game, Lethal League Blaze, even featuring a song from Hideki Naganuma, it was no surprise that Team Reptile were going to attempt a spiritual successor to Jet Set Radio for their next release. From their short teaser alone, I immediately knew they were the right people for the job. Bomb Rush Cyberfunk looked so much like a new Jet Set Radio game that I would've forgiven you for thinking it was made by Sega themselves. The teaser even featured a Naganuma track. It was finally happening!

Despite this, I still saw a fair amount of scepticism online. Some loyalists said they'd just wait for Sega's Jet Set Radio. Some even went as far as to accuse Team Reptile of "plagiarism". C'mon guys, it has been more than 20 years since Sega released an original entry into the Jet Set Radio series. To bastardise that famous lyric from John Lennon:

"All we are saying is, give Bomb Rush Cyberfunk a chance"

On the day it released, I bought Bomb Rush Cyberfunk for the Nintendo Switch, as that was the only console it was available for initially, and I don’t have a gaming PC, so that option was out. From the outset, the game's cel-shaded look, music and sound effects all felt familiar to me. It was great to jump back into that grinding and tagging gameplay I loved so much, to be transported right back to those special moments of playing the original JSR and Future for the first time. But Bomb Rush Cyberfunk is quick to remind you that while it remains incredibly faithful to its source material, it isn't completely derivative of it. Instead, Team Reptile are here to build and improve, which is exactly what I wanted to see from a spiritual successor to Jet Set Radio. I've always sung the praises of the gameplay refinements that Jet Set Radio Future introduced to the series, and Bomb Rush Cyberfunk is no different, picking up where that game left off but now with the benefit of twenty years of hindsight in its arsenal. Throughout this review, I will be calling back to JSR and Future many times to explain how BRC successfully builds on - or even improves - the formula, but please don't understand this as me disparaging the JSR series at all. Both Jet Set Radio and Jet Set Radio Future will forever remain two of my most favourite games of all time.

Bomb Rush Cyberfunk's plot, while still containing the appropriate dose of hip-hop and street culture references you'd expect, is crazy, and immediately more involved than either of the JSR games. Rather than functioning as stylish avatars for your rollerblading escapades, the main set of characters of the Bomb Rush crew have unique personalities and converse with each other in cutscenes, much of which is humorous and often eccentric. The main character, Red, has a purpose - to get his head, which was chopped clean off his shoulders in the game's prologue, back, while also looking to investigate the past of his replacement head (I said the plot was crazy, didn't I?).

The rival crews, still serving as your opponents throughout the game, also have more purpose in the plot, as Red and his crew not only look to defeat them to become "All City" (to claim all turf in the city), but also to gain information to aid in their hunt for Red's origins. While I won't spoil the plot here, all I'll say is the whole idea of Red being a character patched together from the body and head of two different characters, and the duality that brings, is one of the more refreshing plot ideas I've had the pleasure of experiencing in a video game as of late. There are plenty of surprising twists and turns you may not have been expecting from a game that many will be turning to primarily for its aesthetic qualities, and it is certainly refreshing to see.

Bomb Rush Cyberfunk's cast of characters are all varied in design and dripping with style, with their clothing combining the aesthetics and fashion of not only hip-hop and its b-boy subculture, but also the skate culture of the early 2000s, with some sci-fi flair thrown in for good measure. Characters like Red, with his crimson "cyberhead", and the angel-winged crash dummy Solace stand out as the coolest of the bunch, while story characters like the "oldheads" are more amusing, looking like caricatures of golden age hip-hoppers with their maroon tracksuits and over-sized Kangol-esque hats. One of them even has a cyberhead that looks suspiciously like the mask of the late MF DOOM. DJ Cyber's cold cybernetic mask and long stylised lab coat really set him apart as the menacing antagonist he is and the Dot EXE crew just look fresh as hell with their pool ball cyberheads and two stripe tracksuits. Team Reptile really knocked it out of the park when it came to matching the imaginative character design seen in the games BRC takes influence from, so much so that you will undoubtedly be searching around the game's city to track down more peeps to add to your posse.

Depending on how you look at it, one potential flaw of BRC's playable characters could be that none of them have any stats, meaning that your decision on who to play as solely comes down to how cool you think they look. Jet Set Radio did assign stats to each character, which meant there was a bit of strategy involved when making your choice of whom to tackle a particular level with, but I suppose ultimately it's probably better to be able to play as your favourite character without their weaker stats holding back your enjoyment, and it does feel great to be able to constantly switch between BRC's aesthetically pleasing cast of characters just 'cause.

Credit: JREEL on YouTube

So we've got a great storyline and some cool characters, but how's the gameplay?

A Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty Prototype is Running on the Dreamcast!

Just three weeks ago, a video went up on YouTube from a creator called Frogbull showing off their very own prototype of Metal Gear Solid running on the Sega Saturn. Seemingly looking to prove wrong the naysayers claimed MGS could never have run on the Saturn, the results looked very impressive, and definitely had many Sega fans intrigued to see what was next from Frogbull. Little did I expect, however, that next we'd see Metal Gear Solid's sequel, Sons of Liberty running on the Dreamcast. But don't just take my word for it, see it for yourself below!

Seeing this game in action on the Dreamcast is simply mind blowing. It was also really cool to learn that this homebrew prototype build was developed using Luke Benstead's Simulant Engine (with tools from Jayveer and SecaProject). I also loved the tribute at the end of the video to the late Hidekazu Yukawa. Excellent job, Frogbull.

While this prototype build isn't currently available to download to play for yourself, we here at the Junkyard will definitely be keeping an eye on Frogbull's future work. If you want to do so as well, go follow them on Twitter here. They also have a Patreon that you can support here.