Dreamcast Online Update: New Games Join the Online Line-Up, including Sega Rally 2 & Sega Marine Fishing!

It’s been a busy few months for the world of online gaming on the Dreamcast so I thought a summary of the major news was in order...

It seems fitting to kick things off with the news that Sega Rally 2 is now back online! Yes, that’s right, it’s possible once again to race against three other people in Sega’s smash hit arcade racer.

Time to dial into the Sega Rally Network! (Say it in the Sega Rally guy's voice).

UK and USA readers may be surprised to hear that Sega Rally 2 was ever an online multiplayer title on the Dreamcast; and that’s because the mode was only ever present in the Japanese version of the game. In fact, Sega Rally 2 was the first ever game on the Dreamcast to support simultaneous players playing online on the console. So it’s pretty cool to have it back online.

I’ve played Sega Rally 2 a lot since the online multiplayer has been resurrected (70+ races at the time of writing) and I intend to play a lot more! It’s fantastic. You can use all of the cars you’ve unlocked in the single-player mode and there are loads of tracks. 

Menus are in Japanese but it doesn't take long to figure it all out.

One really nice touch with Sega Rally 2’s online mode is the “boost” mechanic. Similar to how the CPU controlled characters act in games like Mario Kart 64, with this enabled (which it is by default), it means whoever isn’t currently in first place will get a rubber-band-like boost to keep them in the race. Whilst purists who pour hundreds of hours into perfecting their drifting technique may scoff, it’s a great addition to allow players of all levels to have a good fun time racing without someone 20+ seconds in the lead.

You can check out some footage I recorded of my first few races online here:

Next up, a lesser known title -and another Japanese game- Culdcept II has been fully restored for online multiplayer - and it’s been translated to English as a bonus!

It's just like Monopoly... but without the hat, or dog, or race car, or...

Culdcept II is essentially a board game which plays a lot like Monopoly. The objective is for you to control enough land so that your opponents (of which there can be up to three) have to pay you magic tax for landing on the squares of land that you own. The wrinkle is that rather than just coughing up the tax if you stumble onto a rival’s territory, you have the option to fight them for control instead. To do this, you use the monster cards you have in your deck and a short back and forth contest plays out based on health and hit points. If you have support cards in your deck -such as swords or magic scrolls- you can boost your health or hit points to swing the fight in your favour.

Waiting to start an online match against PC Wizard.

The game is super addictive and really has that “one more go” feel about it. It’s great to see it back online and fully playable. The fact that it has been translated as well makes it so much easier to get your head around in your first few matches. I played against (and got battered by) Dreamcast Live’s very own PC Wizard in an online match which you can enjoy here:

Moving on, the online functionality in Sega Marine Fishing has also been fully restored! Whilst there is no real-time fishing alongside your friends, Sega Marine Fishing has a few interesting online features which can be enjoyed.

Download an entry for the tournament and fish until you can't fish any more!

The first of these is the online competition. Running for a set period (the current tournament runs until December 31st), you must first download a valid tournament ticket from the game homepage and then you can play offline to achieve your highest score.

The competition which is currently live (the Sega Cup), sees you make your way to the Coral Reef location for you to catch the biggest Great Barracuda that you can fit onto your boat. The really nice thing here is that there is no time limit, so you’re left to take your time and try out all the different lures available in your attempt to snag the big one. Once you’re happy with your catch, you simply upload your fish via the homepage to register yourself on the leaderboard. If you think you can do better, you can keep on coming back to try to find a heavier fish.

Oh, a big one! But you'll need to get a bigger one to get to the top of the online leaderboard!

The other unique online feature of Sega Marine Fishing is the cutely named “Fish Mail” mode. Here you can upload a Fish Mail to any location of your choosing by selecting which type of fish you want to include and you can write a message for the user to read when they catch your fish. When you go to play the Fish Mail mode, you get a time limit at your desired location to catch as many fish as you can, and once you’ve caught them you can read the message that the person uploaded when they sent the Fish Mail. You can even reply to them to their registered Dreamcast email address! All silly fun, but a very unique way to add online functionality to a game like this.

Email! With fish! 10/10, must-play game.

I have found that a fishing session in between grinding out racing game leaderboard times has been a lovely change of pace, and you can see some footage of the Sega Cup competition mode here:

To round things off, there have also been a number of other games which have seen online modes restored in the last few months, as well as some general upgrades. Reverse engineering extraordinaire Shu has upgraded the Mobile Suit Gundam: Earth Federation Force vs. Zeon server to make online gameplay a little smoother. This fantastic game did suffer from lag quite a bit, but that has now been improved significantly with this update.

Racing game Vanishing Point’s online leaderboards and weekly challenges have also been brought back to life and are proving very popular with the online community. Each week, two new challenges are generated which gives you a car, track and mode combo to grind for that particular period. Points are awarded for your finishing positions and determines where you sit on the overall leaderboard. Along with some other regulars over on the Sega Online Discord, we’ve been grinding these out each week, exchanging tips and friendly insults with each other as we get closer to crunch time!

Vanishing Point online challenges are getting very sweaty!

There have been so many updates to the online Dreamcast community this year, it’s hard to keep up with it all. I’d recommend that anyone wanted to get online to check out the Dreamcast Live website which not only has every online guide you could ever want, but is also a great place to find out what the latest news is within the online Dreamcasting world.

Hope to see you online soon!

Japan-Exclusive Dreamcast Title "Boku Doraemon" Gets English Fan Translation

Doraemon is an absolutely legendary series in its native land of Japan. The titular Doraemon is a blue robot cat who is sent back in time to tell a ten-year-old to get his shit together, otherwise his future great-great-grandkids won't lead good lives. No pressure, or anything. Naturally, plenty of classic anime hijinks ensue.

Although the series is primarily aimed at children, it's also caught the attention of a certain crowd of adult men because of one Japan-exclusive Sega Dreamcast game based on it, called Boku Doraemon ("I Am Doraemon"), which is an intriguing entry in the Dreamcast library due to its appealing visual style (a combination of 3D environments with 2D sprites) and quirky mini-games. Junkyarder Aaron wrote a great round-up of it back in 2015, and friend of the Junkyard, Dreamcast Enjoyer, made a great video about it too.

Doraemon should've hit up the Dreamcast instead.

Anyway, for those who have been looking to experience this title in English, an individual who goes by "cpc" has translated the game into both English as well as Catalan. As far as I'm aware, this makes Boku Doraemon the first ever Catalan translation of a Dreamcast game, as I don't think even retail releases for the console were available in that language - so that's cool.

Check out some footage below of Jaz playing the English translation.

Playing through the patch, the English translation leaves a lot to be desired, with some missing punctuation and odd quirks with the in-game font to boot. In one section, for example, the text ran off the edge of the screen. Still, it's manageable for anyone who wants to get an idea of what's going on plot-wise. 

The AI chatbot Claude is listed as a "contributor" in the GitHub repo, but honestly, the translation here feels too inconsistent to have been generated by AI. So, I'm thinking Claude was more likely used in the hacking process. Regardless, what is currently here could definitely do with a few more goes over. Hopefully it's improved with subsequent patch updates.

Anyway, if you want to give it a go, head over to the GitHub repo and download the patch. Then use Universal Dreamcast Patcher to apply it to an existing GDI of the game.

Star Wars Trilogy Arcade - Model 3 fan port coming to Sega Dreamcast

I love Star Wars, me, mate. In fact, my wife said I was a Star Wars nerd because I knew what a Jawa was, which I guess makes me an expert. Anyway, a developer who goes by the - frankly excellent - online pseudonym of "ToastedGreedo" has been working on a conversion of the Sega model 3 arcade rail shooter Star Wars Trilogy Arcade for the Dreamcast, and the current results are looking spectacular. 

The project started as an experiment to try and get assets from the arcade title running on the Dreamcast, but as Yoda said, "do or do not, there is no try", so now ToastedGreedo is attempting to port the whole thing to the console instead. Back in the day, a port of Trilogy Arcade was rumoured to have been in development for the Dreamcast but ultimately never saw the light of day (on any home system for that matter), so this will serve as yet another attempt from the Dreamcast fan community to rewrite the wrongs of gaming history.

Time to get revenge for that shit Boba Fett TV show.

So far, two stages have been recreated and are running on real hardware: the Yavin Death Star stage, which has players blasting at TIE Fighters (typical Star Wars fare, then), and the Boba Fett Duel, where you deflect Mr. Fett's blaster fire with Luke Skywalker's lightsaber. Footage of both can be seen below, with the most recent video of the two also providing a peek at the intro/attract sequence as well as the stage select menu. It's all looking very slick and professional, and offers a taste of what the official port that never released might have been like.

These two stages will be released soon for free as a "demo disc", and I'll be looking forward to seeing the entire game reproduced somewhere down the line. I'm also curious to see what other Model 3 arcade games fans might be able to bring to the Dreamcast in the future.

Regarding the development of this port, ToastedGreedo goes into further detail in the description of their YouTube video:

"The Boba Fett Duel was the first stage I recreated for the project and has served as the foundation for bringing the original Model 3 arcade experience to Dreamcast hardware. It's been especially exciting to see the project progress from an early technical experiment into something that increasingly feels like a complete Dreamcast game. I plan on releasing this Demo Disc for free soon, which will contain the full Yavin stage alongside the Boba Fett. I am continuing to work on bug fixes and ensuring the game is stable on real hardware. Reminder that this is a non-commercial passion project created for the Sega Dreamcast community, and I am not selling this game in any way."

To stay up to date on this project, go subscribe to ToastedGreedo's YouTube channel, and if you're feeling extra generous, they also have a Ko-fi page for donations.

Update 19/09/26: the demo has now released and is available to download here.

Are you excited for this one? Which do you think is worse: the prequel or sequel trilogy? Let us know in the comments below or via our social media.

RuneScape 2 is Coming to Sega Dreamcast

Ah... RuneScape. I have a lot of nostalgia for the countless hours I spent roaming the blocky world of Jagex's famous JAVA-powered MMORPG. Being called a "noob" by random passers-by for the crime of being a lower level... getting my rune armour stolen by a guy who claimed he could trim it with gold... Formative experiences were had, and life lessons were learned.

Interestingly, the friend who owned the Dreamcast that I'd play when I was younger also sort of got me into RuneScape. Of course, the browser-based game I played back then called "RuneScape" wasn't the same game that is retroactively referred to as RuneScape Classic, which was the original version of RuneScape. The game I spent my entire life playing back in 2005 was actually "RuneScape 2"... which was also reissued in some capacity later as Old School RuneScape? You lost yet? Anyway. The reason I'm bringing all this up is because for the past year or so, a developer who goes by "Lobotomy" has been working on getting RuneScape Classic running on the Sega Dreamcast with a project known as "RuneCast". With some kind of wizardry, Lobotomy has somehow managed to get RSC playing online on Dreamcast at close to 30 FPS, as well as implementing mouse and keyboard support.

Runescape Classic running on Dreamcast.
Photo credit: enfilade.

RuneScape Classic was something I didn't really play much back in the day, but was a fun little novelty for the limited hours I spent on it, probably when my RuneScape 2 friends were offline. The nostalgia for Classic was never really there for me, so I am yet to play this Dreamcast version. Regardless, the fact that Lobotomy managed to pull it all off is as impressive as a blue party hat, or actually seeing Zezima in-game (impressive, basically).

Ever since the news reached online spaces about Lobotomy's triumph, I was as desperate as a dude standing in Varrock bank spamming "buying GF" to know if my beloved (to be honest, it was actually kind of shit, but nostalgia blinds) RuneScape 2 would ever make it to Dreamcast. Lo and behold, on the 27th anniversary of the Dreamcast's North American launch, Lobotomy would post to the Dreamcast-Talk forums to announce it was in the works. "DreamScape", as this version will be known, has been confirmed running on a stock Dreamcast, although the large town of Falador is currently not available to be visited (maybe for the best, as it is still a location that brings back traumatic memories for some), but that will get sorted at some point. Lobotomy is also working on getting a server up and running for the online play.

The hours I spent here farming goblins for experience...
Screenshot credit: Lobotomy

Do you have nostalgia for RuneScape? Would you be interested in playing either RuneScape Classic or RuneScape 2 online on your Dreamcast? Did you know that Junkyarder Harvey (Pizza Hotline) actually produced an officially licensed RuneScape drum and bass remix album? Let us known in the comments below or on our socials!

Complete ports of Sonic R and Zelda: Ocarina of Time are now available on Sega Dreamcast

What's this? News has reached us that not one, but two complete ports of beloved retro titles have finally landed on the Sega Dreamcast. We've covered both of these here at the Junkyard in the recent past (here and here), but as of right now you can download the means to sample complete ports of both Sonic R and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time on the hallowed Dreamcast.

Captured on Dreamcast hardware.

Both ports come courtesy of Dreamcast porting genius jnmartin84, the same magician behind the Dreamcast ports of DOOM 64, Star Fox 64, Mario Kart 64 and Super Mario 64. Sonic R has been cooking for quite some time, and jnmartin84 has been steadily releasing previews of the work in progress over the last few months, but now the final build is here...and it looks - quite frankly - stunning. I was never a huge fan of Sonic R back when it released on the Saturn, but having sampled this new PC-derived Dreamcast conversion I'm happy to report that it really pops visually on the Dreamcast. Here's some gameplay footage:

As described over on the Sonic R GitHub, you'll need to provide your own game files in order to play this on a Dreamcast, but it is very much worth your time and effort to get it up and running.

As a bonus to what is already an impressive port, an online multiplayer mode is also available, although at the moment, only Dreamcasts rocking the pricey broadband adapter are supported for online play.

I'd get a headache if I lived here.

Hey, listen!

Hot on the heels of Sonic R (no pun intended) also comes the news that The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time has now been completed and is similarly ready to rock and roll on a Dreamcast near you. This is quite timely, considering all the hype around the recently revealed Switch 2 remake that should be hitting Nintendo's swanky handheld in the coming months (at the time of writing).

Knocking about in downtown Kokiri Forest.

Ocarina of Time absolutely dominated my life when it came out on the Nintendo 64 back in 1998, and to see it on the Dreamcast, running as well as it does is quite a sight to behold. The version here is the Master Quest iteration, meaning that if you're an old hand at Ocarina, there will be some new challenges lying in wait if you decide to once again pull Link's boots on and set out from the comfort of Kokiri Forest to avenge your father's death at the hands of Lan Di...or however the story goes. Here's some footage of the game running on a GDEMU-equipped Dreamcast console:

I'm aware that the use of AI tools in these sorts of ports is a hot topic currently, and I'm certainly no fan of the slop being pumped across the internet like a tidal wave of liquid excrement, so it's probably worth mentioning at this point that it appears as though Claude was used to assist in some small way in both of these ports; however unlike the recent Sonic CD port (which was pretty much completely done with AI tools as far as I'm aware) there was also a hell of a lot of human talent and effort involved too. If however you are in the market for some pure, uncut slop generated by AI, then go and read GenerationAmiga. Because GenerationAmiga is the epitome of AI slop.

A scene from the cool intro dream sequence.

Anyway, if you'd like to sample The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time on your Dreamcast, you can find out more over at the project's GitHub and you can also find some lovely cover art mockups for your GDEMU over at Dreamcast-Talk.

HyperSolar is Soaring onto Sega Dreamcast Soon — We've Played It!

The Dreamcast is no stranger to top quality indie titles. Sega's machine has long enjoyed ongoing support from talented indie teams since its untimely official demise. The latest game looking to wow us is HyperSolar (formerly SuperSolar) from Ninja Dynamics.

Imagine if After Burner and Star Fox came together one drunken night and you'll have a good idea of what HyperSolar is all about. We were sent the current build by the developer, and it looks absolutely gorgeous. From rich blue skies to midnight city skylines, everything about this game screams '90s videogames at an extremely high volume.

The current build that we've played allows you to take flight in one of three different stages, namely; Ocean, Lava and City. As you'd expect, each stage offers luscious arcade-style environments based on each of these different locations.

Blue skies!

The city stage is without doubt the most impressive. You must navigate through the various skyscrapers as you tackle enemy crafts and it is easy to get distracted with the view instead of your crosshairs. Buildings are partly lit with office lights left on, vivid neon advertisements demand your attention, and underneath you the traffic is flowing with their headlights on. It's a real treat on the eyes. All at 60fps with widescreen support.

The City stage is very easy on the eyes whilst running at 60fps.

Controlling your fighter plane is done with the analogue stick, whilst the A and X buttons control your machine gun and missiles respectively. Control is crisp and instantly drew a comparison to Star Fox 64 in my mind as to how easy it was to pick up and play.

There isn't much to the game at the moment; it's currently more of a tech demo to set the scene for what is to come. You shoot enemy crafts down with the stage effectively on a loop. The plan for HyperSolar is to include unique stages with boss fights, similar again to how Star Fox 64 is structured.

HyperSolar - Dreamcast Version

This is the final iteration of the city stage, finally running at nearly stable 60fps. It features hexagonal buildings, ground level facades and lighting, cross-shaped trees, new traffic algorithm, lightning and thunder in the sky, audio engine… pic.twitter.com/snMGILORkt

— 🇵🇹 Ninja Dynamics (@ninjadynamics) September 6, 2026

I spoke to Ninja Dynamics about the game and they were keen to highlight that this project does rely on the usage of AI for its code generation, but explained that the design of the game and the algorithms are "very much [their] own".

It's worth reiterating that HyperSolar is still very early in development. The game we've played is a product of just four months of effort. Ninja Dynamics have clearly spent this time making sure the game not only looks fantastic, but also runs great as well.

HyperSolar being played at Gamescom 2026.

HyperSolar was recently shown off at the 2026 Gamescom event where it seemed to gather a lot of attention. It's always pretty cool to see Dreamcast games at "the world's biggest event for computer and videogames" in the modern day!

We'll bring you more on HyperSolar as it progresses.

New Sega Dreamcast Games in GameStop? — Ten Indies Being Reissued by VGNYsoft

While an onslaught of homebrew ports and other crazy projects have been hitting the Dreamcast on an almost weekly basis this year, the commercial indie scene seems to have taken a bit of a backseat. Although we've recently seen a few new larger scale projects being announced for future release, for those who still love the ceremony of placing a physical disc containing a brand-new game into their Dreamcast, the options have certainly become less frequent than in previous years.

But fear not, young hoarder, for VGNYsoft, the publishing arm of Videogamesnewyork, is reissuing ten Dreamcast indie titles, with one of them even getting a special limited edition version too. The games are Cyborg Force, GemaBoy Zero Origins, Captain Barrel, Andro Dunos 2, Breakers, Ganryu, FlashBack, Another World, Escape 2042, and Arcade Racing Legends.

The majority of these titles have received praise from the Junkyard in the past, as demonstrated by review quotes from us that you will find emblazoned on the back covers of these new VGNY releases. Of course, it's worth mentioning that we don't receive any monetary kickback for endorsing these games, we simply wanted to share our praise for some genuinely good indie titles, and VGNYsoft thought that was a great idea too.

Tom Charnock's flash poem about Flashback.

We're particularly happy to see both Cyborg Force and Captain Barrel from developer Neo Byte Force make a return, as they were originally self-published back in 2024, but the developer decided to cease publishing their games themselves. What's more is Cyborg Force will be recieving a special limited edition as well, which will include a super cool VMU shell featuring artwork of the game on it. 

This isn't the first time VGNYsoft has done one of these VMU shell editions for their games. They released one for Sturmwind back in 2024, so anyone who grabbed that will be familiar with what to expect.

Currently, all of the standard editions of these games are ready to purchase from VGNY's site, with the exception of Captain Barrel, which will be available from Monday. The Cyborg Force limited edition with the VMU shell will be going up for pre-order at 10am EST on Wednesday the 9th of September.

Speaking with VGNYsoft, they also let me know that international shipping is now also available. Previously, VGNY haven't offered this option, so it's great to hear that those outside the States will be able to easily grab these as well.

These releases will also be available through Canadian online retailer Video Games Plus.

What's this about new Dreamcast games in GameStop?

Yeah, you heard that correctly. VGNYsoft has also informed us that this particular run of Dreamcast indies will be available at GameStop stores across the U.S. as part of the chain's GameStop Retro initiative. Six older VGNYsoft releases will also be sold alongside the ten titles already mentioned: Shadow Gangs, Sturmwind, Reknum Souls Adventure, Hermes, Xenocider, and Ploid. These six games are already available for purchase on GameStop's site.

Whether you love GameStop or not, seeing a brand-new Dreamcast game on the shelves of a chain that big in the year 2026 is pretty cool, right? Better than endless aisles of Funko Pops, anyway. We just need CEX to do the same here in Old Blighty, especially seeing as they've now said they'll be focusing more on retro too.

Credit: IGN

So, what do you think of the selection of indies VGNY are repressing here? Let us know in the comments below, or via social media!

We Played the Unreleased Game "Ring: The Legend of the Nibelungen" for Sega Dreamcast

What could've been. Cover created by Dreamcast Me That.

Developed by Arxel Tribe in the late 90s, Ring: The Legend of the Nibelungen is a point-and-click adventure game that would be released for the PC in 1998. It turns out that the game was supposed to be ported to the Dreamcast a few years later, but ultimately ended up on the mammoth pile of unreleased titles which never saw the light of day on Sega’s console. And no, we’re not talking about The Ring: Terror's Realm, which unfortunately for us, did sneak its way into the console’s release library.

However, thanks to the ongoing preservation efforts of Comby Laurent from Sega Dreamcast Info, this previously unreleased title is now available to download and play via emulation or, even better, on a real Dreamcast with a real controller in your sweaty hands.

But before we get into how this title should’ve ended up on the Dreamcast sometime in the year 2000, let’s talk a little about the game itself.

I asked this chap what he thought about the Dreamcast.

Ring: The Legend of the Nibelungen is loosely based on Der Ring des Nibelungen; four German-language epic music dramas composed by Richard Wagner. Yes, that’s right, a game based on an opera. I’ve officially heard it all. Indeed, the game itself features music from various performances of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by the legendary Georg Solti himself.

I had to Google Georg Solti as well, don’t worry. You’ll find out he’s a Hungarian-British orchestral and operatic conductor who’s won countless awards including a British CBE, a knighthood and a whopping 31 Grammy Awards. Bet you didn’t think you’d learn that on a Dreamcast blog, did you?

Even if you’re not an opera fan, you will absolutely know the Ride of the Valkyries score which was featured in Der Ring des Nibelungen. In fact, I’ll give you a moment to go and search for it on YouTube so you can have it playing in the background as you read the rest of this article; it’ll add to the overall experience.

Anyway, back to Der Ring des Nibelungen. The scale and scope of the story told in these works is so epic that I simply don’t have enough time to cover it all here. It follows the struggles of gods, heroes, and several mythical creatures over the eponymous magic ring that grants domination over the entire world. In the game, there are four characters which you assume control of. Alberich (a cruel and sadistic dwarf king), Loge (a fire spirit), Siegmund (the son of the god Wotan), and Brünnhilde (a Valkyrie warrior).

Some of the areas in the game are beautifully atmospheric.

There are loads of additional characters and even a family tree to help you make sense of it all. In fact, the story and puzzles in Ring: The Legend of the Nibelungen are so complex that the PC release actually included an entire walkthrough in its own instruction manual! Arxel Tribe clearly had little faith that their playerbase would get their head around it all, either.

As I mentioned, Ring: The Legend of the Nibelungen did actually get a release on PC in 1998. Whilst it did enjoy significant commercial success -shifting an impressive 600,000 lifetime copies according to Arxel Tribe’s Guillaume de Fondaumière- the reviews were not so favourable. IGN described it as a “complete travesty when it comes to gameplay” on the way to awarding it a 2.7/10 score, whilst GameStop said it was “so utterly uninviting” in their 3.7/10 appraisal.

Magic frogs. For the diving helmet. Obviously.

News of a Dreamcast port in the UK media at the time was sparse, despite the fact that from what we can see now, most of the game was finished and not far away from being ready to rock. Whilst flicking through some issues of the UK’s Dreamcast Magazine, I did find a small news bite tucked away in the corner of issue four which read:

“News has broken on a forthcoming Dreamcast game from Success. The game is to be a port of the hit PC game Ring: The Legend of Nibelung, which is currently in the midst of conversion and should be with us sometime during 2000.”

No accompanying screenshot or half-page spread. It’s fair to say that this port was somewhat under the radar and so it’s unsurprising that many Dreamcast fans hadn’t heard of its existence before. IGN also reported that “the makers of Rainbow Cotton for the Dreamcast will be bringing The Ring of the Nibelungen to Japanese DC gamers. Currently, this game is listed on the Success web page as being set for release on the PC in Japan on October 29th of this year.” But again, no screenshots or noteworthy details.

The Dreamcast version of Ring: The Legend of the Nibelungen was seemingly lost forever at some point after this. Well, I say lost forever but what I actually mean is lost until the efforts of Laurent and his team managed to preserve the title for us all to enjoy.

A prototype version of Ring: The Legend of the Nibelungen was actually discovered and dumped a few years ago, but it was only a partial dump. Some of the three discs were missing meaning that the game could not be played in any logical order. But all was not lost. In a recent post, Laurent has managed to obtain dumps of all three discs and additionally some VMU save files which allow for each of the games’ chapters to be loaded and played.

Panzer Dragoon Is Being Ported to the Sega Dreamcast! — First Level Available to Play

Artwork mockup by Frogbull.

When the Dreamcast was unleashed upon the masses, Sega seemed determined to create brand-new, never-before-seen experiences for adopters of the console. As a result, the system spawned a wealth of new franchises, with far fewer sequels to the staple titles of Sega's previous console - the Saturn - than you might expect. You could find NiGHTS in a capsule toy in Shenmue, but you couldn't actually play a game starring the genderless purple harlequin on the Dreamcast itself. Another example of this was Team Andromeda's dragon-riding rail shooter Panzer Dragoon. Akihiko Mukaiyama was quoted in an interview with Famitsu that the eventual sixth-generation return of the franchise - Panzer Dragoon Orta on the original Xbox - was originally slated for release on the Dreamcast, but the console "didn't meet [...] technical specifications". Oof.

Perhaps this is why Frogbull, the King of proving things once thought impossible possible, has been reverse-engineering the original Panzer Dragoon and porting it to Dreamcast. He's previously showcased proof-of-concepts demonstrating that Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty could have run on the Dreamcast, as well as Crash Bandicoot and Final Fantasy VII on the Saturn, and that's just a small selection of his work. While those projects were primarily created as proof-of-concepts, Frogbull does hope to port Panzer Dragoon to the Dreamcast in its entirety one day.

He showed off footage of Panzer Dragoon's first level (or "episode 1", as the game calls it) running on Dreamcast via his YouTube channel on Tuesday, and it's looking great. A far cry from the original Saturn visuals, Frogbull's port looks closer graphically to the 2006 Japanese-exclusive Sega Ages 2500 PlayStation 2 version of the game. There is some quite obvious slowdown in busier sections of the level, but I'm sure this is something Frogbull will be working to improve as this project continues. 

Frogbull has also made a cool video that compares his port to the original Saturn version, so check that out below.

At the moment, only the first level is ported and playable, with limited access to the version 0.1 build available through Frogbull's Patreon for those wanting to play it for themselves. This build is expected to be made publicly available at some point in the near future. Frogbull's long-term plan is to release more levels gradually, as and when he reverse-engineers them.

Are you excited for this port? Let us know in the comments below, or on our social media pages.

Intrepid Izzy & Rush Rush Rally Reloaded are now available on ZOOM Platform

Well this is a nice little surprise. Intrepid Izzy and Rush Rush Rally Reloaded (or R4, to those in the know) - two of Senile Team's most highly regarded Dreamcast titles - are now available for the PC via ZOOM Platform, while a third Senile Team release, HypnoTiles, has also made the jump to everybody's favourite DRM-free storefront.

If you've been around the Dreamcast scene for any length of time, you'll no doubt be familiar with Senile Team's pedigree. They are the studio responsible for some of the Dreamcast's finest post-mortem moments, with the Beats of Rage engine signalling their arrival in the indie space on Sega's final console back in 2003; before going on to release Polyko's Super Jelly Bean Quest in the Sketchbook of Illusion in 2012, and more recently Rush Rush Rally Racing in 2009 and 2017 (in the form of the updated Reloaded) and Intrepid Izzy, also in 2017.

We were/are big fans of both titles, stating in our glowing review of Izzy: "...the game has everything a great action platformer should have: great gameplay and controls, charming artwork and beautiful animation, varied and well-themed levels, and a great sense of humour...The many years of development experience that Senile Team have under their collective belts shines through here - resulting in an incredibly polished final product."

Similarly, we gushed the following about R4: "Rush Rush Rally Racing is a fantastic title even if you don't have the option of playing the multi-player games on offer. The vehicle handling is amazingly intuitive, it sounds great and the game is peppered with numerous imaginative details (just don't hit the cows!); and while it's very difficult if you're generally shit at games like I am, with perseverance there's a lot of fun to be had." We even spoke to the man himself Roel van Mastbergan, Senile Team's lead designer, artist and programmer back in 2017 - check out the interview here.

Intrepid Izzy launched to overwhelming critical acclaim on Dreamcast.

To celebrate the re-release of both Intrepid Izzy and Rush Rush Rally Reloaded on ZOOM Platform (and the release of puzzle title HypnoTiles), there's currently a special offer of 25% off the asking prices. Naturally, we asked Roel for his thoughts, alongside ZOOM Platform's Jordan Freeman, who is a former colleague and business partner of the late, great Bernie Stolar and someone who is known to enjoy a bit of Dreamcastic action in his down time:

"Well, what can I say? It's always exciting to bring a game to a new audience, and now it's three games at once! Thrice the fun! Jordan and ZOOM Platform in general have been a pleasure to work with, so I hope this marks the beginning of a long and fruitful collaboration."

- Roel van Mastbergan, Senile Team

"It is our pleasure to announce that Senile Team’s legendary catalog has come to ZOOM Platform. Roel and his team, like us, hold Dreamcast near and dear to their hearts. It’s a match made in Heaven. Tremendous classics such as Intrepid Izzy and Rush Rush Rally Reloaded combined with exciting new releases like HypnoTiles are exactly why the incredibly fertile Dreamcast indie scene remains alive and well to this day!"

- Jordan Freeman, ZOOM Platform

If you enjoyed 16-bit Micro Machines, you'll love Rush Rush Rally Racing.

If you've never played either Rush Rush Rally Reloaded or Intrepid Izzy on your Dreamcast (there's no excuse, to be honest), then now is the perfect time to give them both a whirl on your computing device of choice. As long as it's a Windows PC. And don't forget HypnoTiles, which looks like a fun variant on the Tetris formula with a bit of Lumines thrown in. Find out more over at ZOOM Platform.

Disclaimer for anyone interested: this isn't a paid or sponsored post or anything like that. I just like Intrepid Izzy and Rush Rush Rally Reloaded so if more people get to experience them, that's a bonus. Cheers me dears!

Atlus' Japan-Only Dreamcast RPG deSPIRIA Receives English Fan Translation of its First Chapter

These days, Atlus is a worldwide brand, what with the massive success of its Persona RPG series, but once upon a time, not every title they developed was done so with an international audience in mind. They developed the earlier Persona games for the Japanese market, while their first Sega Dreamcast game, Maken X, was done so knowing it would be distributed across the globe. The only other game Atlus released for the Dreamcast was deSPIRIA, which remained exclusive to Japan and was its own beast entirely. Its dated gameplay and visuals for its release year of 2000 make it hard to believe it would've ever been considered for a Western release, and had it been, the gaming press would've torn it a new one. But without those same contemporary "everything must be polygonal" goggles on, deSPIRIA is a very novel —if not incredibly niche— horror experience in the Dreamcast's library, and today I am excited to report that its first chapter is now playable in English thanks to a team consisting of rio de popomocco (translation) and DinoJesus (programming), with more to come later.

"Ma'am, this is a Wendy's..."

The game puts you in the shoes of Allure Valentine, a woman working for an organisation known as "the Church" and has you exploring a dystopian underground version of Japan, getting into psychic mind battles with the creepy individuals you encounter. That's the operative word here, "creepy", and one deSPIRIA embraces proudly, with "grotesque" being how its opening disclaimer message describes some of its content. I mean, the protagonist snorts some kind of parasitic worm thing up her nose in the opening cutscene... for plot reasons. Graphically, it is filled to the brim with those cold, uncanny, pre-rendered visuals often seen in horror games from the 90s. Graphics that were aged on arrival back on release, but in retrospect, only further serve to up deSPIRIA's unsettling atmosphere.

The exploration takes place in first person, and is basically point-and-click, with a sort of slideshow quality to proceedings. You can rotate on the spot to survey your surroundings, then click on an area of the environment to move there, triggering an FMV of you moving towards it. Those who have played and enjoyed titles like D and Kowloon's Gate before will feel right at home here. Well, it's hardly homely, but you know what I mean. The game also features some pretty psychedelic —at times nightmarish— battles in which the protagonist jacks into other people's psyches.

To play deSPIRIA's first chapter in English, you will need to go to the translation project's GitHub repo and download a patching tool, which will apply the translation patch to your existing GDI of the game. The patching tool isn't available for Mac or Linux, so you will have to find a roundabout way to get it to work on those operating systems, or alternatively get a friend with Windows to do it for you.

Interestingly, the creators of this patch offer three different modes for gameplay speed, which reduce random encounters and rebalance the game for those who just want to focus on the story. 

Unfortunately, as of writing this, I have been unable to get my patched GDI to play properly on GDEMU, with it crashing on a certain scene right at the start. I was, however, able to play the game successfully (and take the screenshots you see in this very article) via the Flycast emulator.

Those who have heard me witter away on the podcast before will already know how stoked I am for this translation, and I will be eagerly awaiting any future preview instalments (there's no word as of yet as to whether this is how they wish to release the rest of the patch going forward), and of course the full patch somewhere down the line. Will you be giving deSPIRIA a go? Let us know in the comments or on our socials.

New Dreamcast Survival Horror Title 'White Creek' is Getting a Visual Upgrade

We recently reported on the reveal of JoshProd, PixelHeart and Storybird Studios' upcoming survival horror title White Creek, and the general consensus is that it looks (no pun intended) pretty cool. Interestingly, the mainstream press also seem to have cottoned on to White Creek's existence, and in some cases made disingenuous claims that it represents the 'first new Dreamcast release for 25 years.' I guess those outlets missed stuff like Rush Rush Rally Racing, Pier Solar, Intrepid Izzy, Xeno Crisis, Xenocider, The Textorcist, Driving Strikers, Sturmwind et al.

Anyhow, White Creek is now a known quantity, and promises to be an intriguing mix of D2, Silent Hill, Alone in the Dark and The Ring: Terror's Realm. Actually, scratch that last one. One of the main criticisms I saw levelled at White Creek when it was first revealed via trailers and screenshots, was that it didn't really look like a Dreamcast game, and instead looked more like an original PlayStation title. A fair criticism as far as I'm concerned. Looks like the fine folks at JoshProd also took heed at these observations and have given White Creek a bit of a visual upgrade just in time for the upcoming release of a playable demo.

Original left, upgrade right (click for a bigger version)

Original left, upgrade right (click for a bigger version)

These screens are taken from the video posted on the PixelHeart YouTube channel, and as you can see the background details have been reworked to give the impression that the game really was intended for the Dreamcast, and not one of those piss-poor, cash grab PS1 ports we so commonly received back during the Dreamcast's natural lifespan (yes I am indeed looking directly at you, Nightmare Creatures II).

Original left, upgrade right (click for a bigger version)

Original left, upgrade right (click for...you get the idea)

I'm personally hoping for an increased level of visual detail in the character models too, though I'm not expecting to see the kind of fidelity on display in something like Code: Veronica (the Dreamcast game, not that new one that's just been announced, obvs). 

So what do you think about this graphical upgrade? Are you more interested now that White Creek appears to look a bit more like an actual Dreamcast game? White Creek doesn't have a firm release date as yet, but it will be releasing on modern platforms as well as Dreamcast and you can find the game's Kickstarter campaign here.