The World's SMALLEST Dreamcast Games!

The Dreamcast's GD-ROM format was a strange beast, being ever so slightly bigger than a CD-ROM but nowhere close to the capacity of the impending, mighty DVD-ROM. Packing in 1GB per disc, a majority of the Dreamcast's retail game library barely even tapped into this extra available space. As we will explore here, storage space isn't everything though: you can squeeze some pretty darn good games into not even a tenth of a GD-ROM's space!

In this day and age of being able to store Dreamcast games on many different kinds of hardware, like SD cards or hard drives, it is possible to strip these games of any blank data that is used to fill up the rest of a GD, leaving just the necessary files to save space. This can be a risky move, as doing so can break games if they're not optimized correctly, but there are "means" to find games that have already been shrunk down to be used on a optical drive emulator such as GDEMU or MODE.

My entire shelf of Dreamcast games and more fit on this! What a time we live in!

It's via this technique that I have been able to put together this list of games that are all less than 100MB! Take note, I am not including indie releases, prototypes, unreleased games, Atomiswave ports or software like web browsers and Fish Life. Also I haven't downloaded every game ever released so there are probably some visual novels out there that are tiny in size for all I know.

15. Silent Scope - 96.91MB

Konami's Dreamcast output was kind of disappointing. When they weren't busy cancelling Castlevania games for the system, they did throw out the odd bone with some arcade ports such as this here sniping-romp. It's a real shame the Dreamcast wasn't blessed with a sniper light gun like the Xbox, as the game played with a standard controller feels like it's missing something. Much like Samba De Amigo, though, it is playable enough this way but you can't help feeling like it's a lesser experience. Oh well.

14. Ooga Booga - 91.49MB

This very unique collection of mini-games, with an emphasis on online multiplayer, released exclusively in North America and was touted as one of the big hitters during the push to sell people on SegaNet. Luckily, this is one of those games where online play has been revived, though even if that wasn't the case, this would still be worth checking out as there is nothing else quite like it on the Dreamcast.

13. Evangelion Typing Project E - 71.59MB

I won't go into too much detail about this one as it has been discussed here at length in the past after Derek Pascarella treated us all to an English translation! Evangelion Typing Project E gives us another game to practice our touch-typing skills on, but instead of gunning down zombies with words you er...do Evangelion stuff! Like the anime! I dunno, I haven't really had a chance to play much of it yet, but definitely give it a shot if you're a fan of the show! There are in fact two translated Evangelion typing games, but I couldn't properly shrink the other one without it breaking, so I assume if optimized well it'd probably be a similar size to this one.

12. SEGA Tetris - 62.56MB

This was the first Japanese import Dreamcast game I ever purchased from eBay, if I recall correctly! Why this one stayed in Japan is beyond me, but the console rights for Tetris have always been a bit of a confusing ride as Sega themselves found out when their Mega Drive/Genesis release had to be recalled... But this is Sega Tetris, not to be confused with Tetris...by Sega. Got it?

I really dig the presentation in this game. It's also kind of notable for being one of the last arcade Tetris games before the new rules came into play like swapping, hard drops and now legendary T-spins. The gameplay of this one gets ridiculously fast-paced, making it one of the harder Tetris games out there, though there are plenty of modes to mess around in, including a UFO catcher claw game with cute Sonic 1 remixes!

This is another one on the "someone get it translated and back online if at all possible" wish list!

11. Plus Plumb - 62.53MB

No, I wasn't going to pop down the shops just to buy a plum to photo this with. That'd be silly.

Only 3kB less than Sega Tetris, we have another Japan-only puzzle game! Plus Plumb is a pretty obscure one as far as I know. I discovered it back in around 2000 when a car boot sale I went to every week had a store of bootleg games (oh no! ☠️). These bootlegs were incredibly low effort, literally just plain CD-Rs with the game's titles penned on them, most of which were random Japanese games I'd never heard of until I took them home and fed them to the rotating Utopia reindeer.

Plus Plumb is a pretty standard match 3 versus game with some Pokémon-looking mofos chatting in between stages (with full voice acting!). I played quite a bit of this back in the day (did eventually buy a legit copy, don't worry) so the music from this is one of those earworms that has stuck with me for 20+ years!

10. Planet Ring - 62.44MB

Also within the 63MB range is this PAL exclusive, online-only mini-game collection that was given away on the front of magazines and the like. I never got around to trying this one out when the original servers were up, but luckily it's one of those games that is back online today! It even has voice chat so you can talk to someone other than your mutant human-faced fish for a change!

A Quick Look At Namco Museum

Namco's output on the Dreamcast is curious. The Japanese arcade masters came out all guns blazing with the launch of Soul Calibur, and the game was never bettered as far as arcade fighting games go. Many tried, but ultimately the likes of Dead or Alive 2, Project Justice et al - while amazing games in their own right - never usurped Soul Calibur as the king of the 3D brawlers on the Dreamcast. After Soul Calibur though, Namco seemed to go a little quiet. The only other games the firm released on Sega's little box were retro compilations or games in that mould.

Mr Driller was a variation on the earlier Dig Dug; while Ms. Pac-Man Maze Madness was an updated version of the classic dot-gobbler with added 3D platforming elements thrown in. Both of these games are of above average quality, that's undeniable, but these were hardly the types of offering many early Dreamcast adopters were hoping for as follow ups after the initial impact made by Soul Calibur. Namco did release another game for the Dreamcast though and - surprise - it too was a retro-themed title: Namco Museum.

Namco Museum was only released in North America and was a continuation in the trend of repackaging older games for a new audience. The Dreamcast played host to a number of these compilations, with things like Atari Anniversary Edition, Midway's Greatest Arcade Hits and Yu Suzuki Game Works representing the higher end of the genre, and Sega Smash Pack occupying the opposite end of the spectrum. Where does Namco Museum fit into this little party? Well...somewhere in the middle to be honest. It's a collection of Namco's most important arcade games repackaged for play on a home system, but it's not perfect by a long shot. Before we delve into the reasons for this though, let's have a look at the games included on this compendium of Namco's rich history...