Dreamcast Covers that Go Hard (and Some More that Can Go Straight in the Bin)

Like the greatest album covers in the world, some games make a great impression even when sitting on a shelf. Whilst previews in the media, video trailers and word of mouth are vitally important, it would be wise not to underestimate the immediate impact a game’s cover can have on those with more impressionable minds. Generic artwork or uninspiring stylistic choices may be fine if the game has loads of pre-release hype or a big name license, but stick some glorious artwork from a talented artist on the cover and you're near enough guaranteed some extra interest.

The Dreamcast's small but beautiful library of games is jam-packed with turn-of-the-millennium style and innovation, and this is present in some of the artwork which adorned gaming shelves worldwide. Some are of course, iconic - Ulala's presence on the Space Channel 5 artwork, the striking simplicity of the PAL/Japanese covers of Crazy Taxi, Shenmue's epicness - but there are some that deserve more attention. These are works of art - they deserve to be blown up to a larger size, framed and hung in the finest of art galleries. So it's time to put my best gallery curator hat on and showcase why I think these fifteen choice cuts of Dreamcast cover art glory are examples worthy of so much praise, followed by five duds that deserve the complete opposite...

All covers used in this article come from Sega Retro, unless stated otherwise. Let's get into them...

The Dreamcast covers that go hard...

Spawn: In The Demon's Hand

I could have picked any of the cover variations of this release, as they are all absolutely epic in nature, but I've chosen the standard Japanese cover. Looking more like some great, unknown fantasy war metal album cover, this puts Todd McFarlane's comic masterpiece centre stage with a swirling mass of metal, cloak and spikes. Spawn is the ultimate badass antihero, an imposing demonic hellspawn, and a character that is designed to be visually interesting in whatever angle, pose or situation he is depicted in. As a game, In the Demon's Hand falls a little short, but the cover art surely must have led to a few extra sales.

The artwork for the standard Japanese version, as well as that used on other examples of the game, seem to have been taken from Spawn issue 95. The limited first print edition of the game released in Japan came with a cardboard slipcase with artwork similar to the US and PAL releases - all of which are based on the cover of 95.

The Japanese limited first print edition slipcase artwork (Credit: PlayAsia)

The US cover has the same artwork as both the Japanese slipcase and the PAL release. It's a bit cleaner than the standard Japanese cover, and not as impactful.

The cover art for Spawn issue 95, the artwork of which was the basis for the game covers above.

Mars Matrix (Japanese cover)

Takumi's underrated shooter delivers a depth to the genre that's unrivaled on the console, and has the best cover of any shooter on the system (particularly the Japanese version's cover). I will take no criticism of that viewpoint! This cover is a dynamic, colourful burst of energy which breaks away from the usual clichés seen on the covers of other shoot 'em ups, whilst never going so far out there that you'd be confused as to what genre of game it actually is. Taken as a whole, it's a piece of art; from the fonts used for the title (to continue with the metal references of this article, this text wouldn't look out of place as the logo for some sort of cosmic math metal band), to the colour gradation, to the sleek sci-fi lines and shapes in the background. The US cover (below) isn't awful either, but it lacks the eye-punching appeal that the Japanese release displays.

The US version does many things the Japanese version did, but the change of colours diminishes the appeal somewhat. Still, a decent attempt.

C-Smash VRS Review: A Cosmic Revival in ReVRie

Past works are lost when they stop conversing with the present. Honoring old games requires us to continue engaging with them, of course, but the onus is also on them to reciprocate. To enrich their legacy, revivals and follow-ups must do more than pander to us old fucks who were already there for them. They must also find relevance with new generations of players and creators who may be inspired to shepherd their ideas into the future. Or else let them die. Celebrating those experiences can mean reinterpreting and recontextualizing them, if not reinventing them altogether.

In this essay, I will—

And so it goes for Cosmic Smash, Sega Rosso’s modest game of intergalactic, block-breaking racquetball. The NAOMI title saw limited distribution in Japanese and European arcades in 2001, plus a stint on Japanese Dreamcasts. Following an initial run in obscurity, it has since rallied a cult following – that is, assuming the Junkyard community’s Top 200 rankings weren’t fraudulent.

At #64 overall, Cosmic Smash was voted the #5 ranked Japanese exclusive and the #1 game about swatting balls around a shipping container.

For many fans – including the creative teams at RapidEyeMovers and Wolf & Wood – Cosmic Smash’s resonance endures. Unearthing the license from under the sofa cushions at Sega’s IP lawyers’ offices (I imagine), they have developed C-Smash VRS, an unlikely reimagining of Rosso’s space station sportsball.

I’ve long respected Cosmic Smash for its melding of Rez-ish vibes and Virtua Tennish feel, but I’ve always felt detached from its primary hook. In virtual reality, though? Immersing players in the kineticism of physically swinging paddles at balls at walls in space makes immediate sense. Titles like Sparc, Holoball, and Proton Pulse have also poked at the edges of this concept in VR, albeit with mixed success. At the very least, they’ve helped buoy cyber squash as an accredited genre.

Meanwhile, the recent wave of Sega-inspired remakes/sequels/homages has set ample precedent on the nostalgic front. Yet, in the rising sea of Sega-likes, it’s easy to float adrift. Many rehash the most superficial aspects of their inspirations but fundamentally misunderstand — or fail to coherently capture — the core of why folks love them in the first place. This keeps them from fully evoking or advancing those concepts, or replicating their magic in any meaningful way.

Refreshingly, C-Smash VRS is deliberate and confident in its homage, and it wastes little time laying a foundation of its own.

VRS shares Cosmic Smash’s premise in all its minimalist glory. It has you rally a ball against a wall of blocks/panels to clear them within a time limit. As you progress, the configurations grow more layered and complex, and glimpses of puzzle elements begin to emerge. Some panels will move in patterns. Unbreakable panels will obstruct portions of the field. Special panels will clear adjacent rows, freeze panels in motion, or extend your time limit. Over time, successful hits will recharge your Power Smash ability, which can clear stacks of panels in a single shot.

The racket work feels remarkably natural. Its nuanced tracking and physics afford a wide gamut of shots, shanks, and whiffs. If you’re experienced at real-life racket sports, a few of the principles you’ve learned – like squaring yourself for forehands and backhands, anticipating timing and trajectories, etc. – will certainly help you here. If you suck at such sports in real life, though, then the learning curve will be a bit steeper. Either way, it is innately intuitive and rewarding to learn.

For their part, the PSVR2’s Sense controllers never struggle to keep up. In the game and real life, I flail in parity. And whenever I fuck up, it’s just about always my fault. The technology – or VRS’s exceptional implementation of it – simply works. That I never have to think about it is probably the best compliment I could give.

There are drawbacks, however. VRS binds several actions to the other controller, with limited options for button mapping. A Force-pull gesture serves the ball towards you, crouching helps reach low-bouncing balls, and the analog stick moves you horizontally along the baseline. It would be great to be able to remap all of these actions as needed, especially to a single controller.

Interestingly, VRS also helps me appreciate aspects of Cosmic Smash I had taken for granted. In its shift to first-person, it loses the flair of its wireframe avatar and all the cool shit they could do: The leaping volleys. The wall jumps. The aerial flips. The unlimited trick shots. The stylish replays. The celebratory flexing. They’re necessary omissions, but I underestimated their collective contribution to the original’s vibrancy and charm. Realistically, C-Smash VRS is feasible because it eschews those verbs, and players prone to motion sickness will be thankful for their absence. In that sense, VRS helps celebrate Cosmic Smash by contrast of its own sacrifices.

As with the original game, VRS’s style is integral to its substance. It preserves its clean, minimalist aesthetics and adds new flourishes of its own. It depicts a similarly optimistic future where humankind has channeled its ambitions into interstellar sports courts. VRS then expands on its setting with livelier and less claustrophobic arenas. Windows have now been installed, unveiling orbiting planets, little space guys, and other nuggets of world(s)building.

In its scope, C-Smash VRS is laser-focused on the minimum viable product, for better or worse. It practically flaunts its simplicity in its pair of solo modes. Among them is Challenge, where you progress through dozens of stages under a strict, continuous time limit to clear as many as you can as quickly as you can (i.e. Cosmic Smash). Alternatively, Zen mode works the same except failing stages doesn’t end your run and you can replay them as desired to improve your times and rankings. If that motivates you, you’ll get substantially more out of VRS’ solo-play. If not, you may be done with it after a run or two.

Hands on with C-Smash VRS

You may recall a recent post here at the Junkyard in which I was somewhat apathetic towards Cosmic Smash, the painfully stylish retro-futuristic squash-cum-Breakout NAOMI port that graced the Dreamcast during its final days as a living, breathing platform. The point of that post wasn't to bash Cosmic Smash though; it was to point out that a reimagining of Sega Rosso's quirky, super-niche bat-and-ball 'em up was being worked on for the impending Sony PlayStation VR2. Since then I have been lucky enough to be invited to sample this title - C-Smash VRS - for myself. 

While my lukewarm opinion of the inspiration for C-Smash VRS hasn't really changed (indeed even contemporary reviews - of which there are precious few - weren't overly gushing), I would now like to explain why this pseudo sequel to Cosmic Smash is probably about as close to a next-gen Dreamcast game as we're likely to see for some time.

The fridge had backup.

In order to sample C-Smash VRS, I travelled to the fair city of London and to a rather nice venue called Icetank in the trendy Covent Garden district. In retrospect, the venue couldn't have been more appropriate, with its minimalist whitewashed rooms and open spaces plastered with the familiar lurid orange concentric 'C' motif. 

If a venue was ever going to be perfect for showing off a game like C-Smash VRS, Icetank is surely it. Well, unless there's a retro-futuristic space station available for hire somewhere. The open plan nature of the venue lent itself well the multiple PS VR2 systems set up; I can only imagine the carnage which could have ensued if there had been tables full of drinks and food dotted about the place as idiots like me jumped and waved their arms and hands around while wearing a VR headset. 

Her Converse are better than mine.

Fittingly, an original Cosmic Smash arcade cabinet was positioned out of harm's way in a corner - a cabinet I naturally had to play on and which belongs to C-Smash VRS game director Jörg Tittel. I understand this particular cabinet was originally housed at Sega World in London's long lost Trocadero entertainment centre, and the story goes that if you listen closely to the speaker grill at night you can still hear the frantic pulse rifle fire and screams of the colonial marines from Alien War, trapped forever like tormented, ethereal echos of the past. Actually, I just made that up. Hudson, run a bypass. What? Where am I?

A Cosmic Smash arcade cabinet sat quietly in the corner, minding its own business...

So I played on it. Note my inferior Converse.

Props must go the PR agency 4media group for their running of the C-Smash VRS preview event, and also to Lost in Cult for their production of the rather nice Cosmic Smash themed press kits that were handed to attendees. Full disclosure here though - I was invited to the event by my Dreamcast Junkyard colleague Andrew Dickinson, who also heads up the gaming periodical [Lock-On]...which is produced by Lost in Cult. So yeah, now that little disclaimer is out of the way, let's get down to business: C-Smash VRS is a fucking disaster of a game. What were they thinking?! Of course, I jest.

I can't believe Edge is £6.50 now. It was 75p last time I bought it. Inflation in action, folks.

No, from the small snippet I played of RapidEyeMovers and Wolf & Wood's reimagining of Toshiaki Miida et al's original vision, I can honestly say I was left thoroughly impressed by the experience. This is in no small part due to the fact that the Sony PlayStation VR2 is undoubtedly one of the most impressive pieces of consumer hardware I've ever had the pleasure of sampling; but then that's probably to be expected considering the price of the thing. I've already moaned about that though, so I'll spare you the sob story again here.

Why won't they...play with me?

As this was a preview event, only two modes (three if you count the two player versus mode) were available from the C-Smash VRS main menu - a tutorial and a practice mode. Both in theory make sense in the modern era, especially since VR controls do take a bit of getting used to if you're unfamiliar with how they generally work. After a fairly intuitive calibration (where you're invited to reach out and grasp a small cuboid doodad), you get into the game. 

Cosmic Smash in VR or something

Cosmic Smash is set to 'return' to consoles in February 2023. I emphasise 'return' because Cosmic Smash is a game few people outside Japan ever really got to play; and the usual (predictable) swarm of attention is now in full swing. Sega knows what it is doing with this type of release. It can't have gone unnoticed that anything even remotely connected to the Dreamcast gets vast swathes of gushing real estate on pretty much every gaming or tech blog now; and this latest Cosmic Smash related news will no doubt have people foaming into their cornflakes. 

There is a whole new generation of gamers (spenders) out there who want to know more about these enigmatic Dreamcast games which are - in the main - really poorly documented outside of fan blogs and forums. Luckily, this fan blog is still going.

Back in 2015 we covered Cosmic Smash, and I also wrote about it in issue 179 of the physical magazine Retro Gamer. Ultimately though, what you need to know is that it is a take on Pong or Breakout, where you control a humanoid player with a racquet, smashing a ball against a wall and various blocks that form ahead of you. It also looks like Rez. A bit. Using the parameters of the court, you can fling your character into multiple impossible shapes, hitting the ball back and advancing though the stages via the Passageway as a passenger on the Cosmic Bus. I've used this piss-poor 'joke' before but I'll be damned if I'm not using it again: you wait for one Cosmic Bus, and then two turn up at once. Literally just after you've received the Call of Chuthlu and realise it's a wrong number. I refuse to be stopped.

Right then, Cosmic Smash is apparently coming back as a VR game, titled C-Smash VRS. As an exclusive for the PlayStation VR 2. Sony or Sega or someone tweeted a countdown timer a few weeks ago but we already knew what it was after glancing at it for about 3 milliseconds. And now there's been some sort of official announcement. If I'm honest, I don't really care. Cosmic Smash on the Dreamcast was/is alright, but only in a sort of 'Virtua Tennis against a wall' type way. I don't really know what else to say about it to be honest. It's certainly not a game worth all the hype it is currently (at the time of writing) getting.

I find Cosmic Smash to be a pretty boring experience personally. Once you get over the fact that you're controlling a transulcent person who appears to have no small intestine or anus (would have been way more interesting if he did - I'd love to know what he had for his tea), then you mainly spend your time trying to hit a ball back and forth against a wall and jumping round experimenting with ways you can hit a ball back and forth. People only play squash for a finite amount of time because it isn't that interesting. But this is purely my opinion, and I am wrong on many occasions.

That said: Cosmic Smash in VR could be very cool. The virtual reality tennis games I have had the pleasure of waving a paddle/shoe around in have been enjoyable. Leaping from couch to wall and then onto the ceiling while wearing a VR headset; and being generally athletic could be just the thing needed to give the VR scene the kick up the arse it needs. Oh, and C-Smash VRS looks to include a multiplayer option too (Cosmic Smash on Dreamcast is a single player affair). C-Smash VRS might be the very title VR needs to put a fire under it.

It's nice that Sega is finally looking to games in its back catalogue that aren't Sonic or Mega Drive titles; but can we be honest here? Yes lets. Sega needs to license/resurrect Sega GT, Daytona USA, Fighting Vipers, Jet Set Radio, Spirit of Speed 1937, NiGHTS, Burning Rangers, Skies of Arcadia, Virtua Cop, Golden Axe...before looking to Cosmic Smash. Even the most diehard Dreamcast fans don't really consider Cosmic Smash a Dreamcast classic. Might as well revive Soul Fighter or Hoyle Casino.

Go and get hyped over at Polygon or Eurogamer or Reddit if you're that bothered. I'm not, because I can barely afford my electricity bill, let alone a PlayStation VR 2. That said, do feel free to check out our previous article on Cosmic Smash and the multiple hidden characters only revealed 16 years later by Jeremy Hobbs.

The C-Smash VRS website is here.

A Tribute Documentary about D2 Creator Kenji Eno is on the way

A documentary about 90s gaming visionary Kenji Eno is on the way from documentary maker Archipel.

For those unaware, Kenji Eno was a maverick game developer and musician who founded WARP game studios. With WARP, Eno most famously brought us the excellent D trilogy: D, Enemy Zero and D2, the last of which was on the Dreamcast. All three games pushed the boundaries of what people at the time considered a "video game", the latter two of the trilogy in particular experimenting with multiple genres. Eno sadly passed away on February the 20th, 2013, due to heart failure brought on by hypertension.

On the tenth anniversary of Eno's passing, Archipel, a documentary maker that specialises in documentaries "about Japan's creative minds and culture" on YouTube, plan to honour him with a tribute documentary.

Back in October of last year, Archipel announced the documentary was being worked on, saying they'd recieved some "moving testimonials" about Eno, presumably from those who worked with him in the industry. They followed this up seven days ago, when they provided an update, saying they'd wrapped up shooting and that a teaser trailer will be released soon.

We've wrapped shooting. Happy and honored for all the guests who participated to the project and the conversations we've had about this truly avant-garde creator. Teaser coming soon.

— Archipel | アルシペル (@SailToArchipel) January 16, 2023

Update: On the 20th of February - the anniversary of Eno's death - Archipel finally released their teaser for this documentary. This very sombre clip shows the faces of Eno's friends, colleagues, and family who will be providing testimonials. Many highly regarded creatives from the Japanese video game industry are shown, including Hideo Kojima (Metal Gear Solid), Tetsuya Mizuguchi (Rez, Space Channel 5), Yoot Saito (Seaman), Kenichi Nishi (L.O.L.: Lack of Love), and Fumito Ueda (Ico, Shadow of the Colossus). The teaser ends confirming that the documentary will be out in 2023. Check out the teaser below.

As a huge fan of Eno's work, I'm really excited for this upcoming documentary. Will you give it a watch when it's released? Let us know via our social media channels, or simply by dropping us a comment below.

Related Articles: 

• In White 1999: The Time D2's Laura Appeared as a Model in a Japanese Fashion Magazine
• A Quick Look At Real Sound: Winds of Regret
• The Haunting D2 Music Box

Retroachievements Now Supports Dreamcast Games

It’s been a while since I’ve written for the yard, so apologies to the rest of the team for barging in like this unannounced but I recently realised a fantastic development in the scene had slipped through the cracks of the global Junkyard news network. Since February 2022 RetroAchievements has supported a selection of Dreamcast games!

Wait! Retro... what?

What is RetroAchievements?
RetroAchievements is a reward system much like XBOX Achievements or Sony’s Trophy system, integrated into the software emulation frontend, RetroArch allowing users to earn points for their favourite retro games by tracking game progress and recording it to their account.

Total accumulated points are calculated and displayed on users' profile pages, and if every achievement for a given game is unlocked, they receive a badge of honour for their profile.

My RetroAchievements profile page

Each set of achievements has a total of %200; %100 for getting them all and another %100 for doing it with hardcore mode enabled. Hardcore mode turns off save states, rewinds, fast forwarding etc, forcing you to play as you would have back in the day. So, if you want to get the full %200 of points, you’ll have to do it as they originally intended without any of the quality-of-life perks afforded to us by modern emulators. For example, in Headhunter, getting every achievement with hardcore set as ‘off’, will reward you with 700 points, but doing it set to ‘on’ will earn you a cool 1400 points. Finally, clear every achievement in a set on hardcore mode and you'll also receive a gold frame around your honorary badge (don’t worry though, you can still use regular VMU saves).

A snapshot of the Headhunter page

The second big component of the service is online leaderboards for retro games. These can take the form of high scores, speed runs or even something like number of enemies killed in a certain level, and are a fantastic way to bring players back to games from their past.

Some of the Crazy Taxi leaderboards can be seen on the right

These features are implemented, by a community of absolute heroes in my estimation, completely free of charge and without any advertising. While I’m no expert, I believe the way it works is that a dev searches memory addresses in a game's code to find variables that they can track, then set conditions using a single or even multiple of these variables which translate to achievements.

Staff Picks: Top 21 Dreamcast Games

With our 2022 Top 200 Dreamcast Games poll coming to a close at the end of March, coinciding with the 21st anniversary of our beloved console’s discontinuation (I would say RIP but she is very much still alive and kicking, if you've been paying attention to anything we've been reporting on in the last few years!), I thought it was time for a peek into the minds of the staff here at The Dreamcast Junkyard. What did WE vote as our top ten Dreamcast games, and how does that look when compiled into a list? Well, let's find out shall we?

Along with myself, I asked Tom, Mike, Brian, Lewis, Kev, James H, James J, Mark and Rich to list their ten favourite Dreamcast titles in order. I took these and did what I seemingly love to do now as I approach my forties - I made a spreadsheet! Everyone's top picks received a score of 10, 2nd place got 9, and so on. I then employed some magic formulas to tally up the totals to give us a definitive top 21 games, using the number of times a game was voted for as a tie-breaker where necessary.

The end result is very interesting! We think there's something here for everyone, and if these were the only games in your collection most people would be pretty happy! There are some surprises, and a few things that, if you've ever listened to the DreamPod, you will not at all be surprised about. 

I'll link you to the spreadsheet itself at the end of this article so you can see the full list of games and how everyone voted, for your agreement or ridicule, but first let us count down these games from last to first. Our first entry is the only joint entry, seeing three games share 19th place...

19. Blue Stinger, San Francisco Rush 2049 & Spirit of Speed 1937 (Joint)

A trio of titles start us off, a couple of which often split the opinion of fans. One thing they all have in common? A commitment to a particular time. Blue Stinger takes place in the year 2000, so each represents a very different era, though released within a short space of each other in reality. Let's hear what some of the team had to say about these games.

Upon its release, Blue Stinger was widely misunderstood and critically dismissed under the umbrella of its survival horror contemporaries. In the decades since, it has emerged a cult classic in its own right. Blue Stinger is Shinya Nishigaki and Climax Graphics' endearing homage/parody of Hollywood action and sci-fi cinema, and it plays wonderfully as a B-movie beat-em-up today. - Brian on Blue Stinger

Rush 2049 embodies everything an arcade racer on Dreamcast should be. It looks great, the tracks are full of inventive shortcuts and hidden nooks and crannies, and the actual racing is tight and exciting. A true Midway game that doesn't take itself too seriously, Rush 2049 is easily one of the best racers on the platform. - Tom on Rush 2049

Spirit Of Speed 1937 is the Dark Souls of racing games. The sad truth is that 99% of people won't play it long enough to experience where its strengths really are. It's a true to the era racer which rewards forward thinking and careful driving - something sim racers will appreciate. - James H on Spirit of Speed 1937

18. Rez

Art? Hacking? No this isn't the latest goings-on over at OpenSea, but instead best encapsulates Rez (besides, this is actually nice to look at). Tetsuya Mizuguchi's rail-shooter may have been minimalist on visuals, but it was heavy on trance beats and addictive gameplay. A gem in the Dreamcast's library and its influence is still felt to this day. - Rich

17. Jet Set Radio

Ahead of it's time in so many ways, Jet Set Radio is held up as one of the shining beacons of unfettered creativity that the Dreamcast is so well known for. From its art style to its music, its gameplay to its reverence for hip-hop and Japanese street culture, JSR is a masterclass in what a video game can be. This is Sega at their most zany, but in the best possible way. Strap on your in-line skates and grab that spray paint can, it's time to get funky! - Andrew

The Dreamcast Junkyard's choicest cuts and hottest takes of 2021

We close our eyes, and the world has turned around again. We close eyes and dream, another year has come and gone. So wrote the talented 16th century poet Allister in his priceless first folio. Ancient as these words may seem, they ring true even today, and here we are. It's approximatley 365 days since our last review of the year 2020 and we are back once again for the renegade master with another review of the past twelve months here at The Dreamcast Junkyard. 

Twelve whole months of reviews, news, podcasts and features; and we thought it only right to round them all up for your ease and enjoyment, just in case you missed some of them. We know you have busy lives, San Diego. Personally I'd like to say a huge thanks to the entire team here at the 'Yard, to the developers and community that still endeavours to create really awesome Dreamcast software/news content; and also to you - our readers - for continuing to visit and make what we do here worthwhile. Anyway, here's some curated highlights from 2021...

Reviews

• Intrepid Izzy - Lewis took a look at Senile Team's awesome action-platformer, declaring it a rather special experience that all Dreamcast owners should own.
• Xenocider - Tom cast a critical eye over Retro Sumus' years-in-the-making 3D into-the-screen shooter, decreeing it to be the Sin and Punishment homage we all deserve.
• Drascula: The Vampire Strikes Back - Mike took a look at this less than spectacular release that seemed to slip under many a radar.

Retrospectives

• Surf Rocket Racers - James dipped his toe into the waters of Crave Entertainment and CRI Middleware's jet-ski racer, and found it to be quite a pleasant experience if not a Wave Race beater.
• Stunt GP - RC vehicles tearing around locales strangely devoid of any human life? That's Stunt GP and Tom rather liked it.
• Bang! Gunship Elite - Some see it as Starlancer's poor relation, but Bang! Gunship Elite is a decent space shooter in its own right. Find out why here.
• Q*Bert - One of gaming's most well-known and foul-mouthed characters made an appearance on the Dreamcast, but was it really worth the effort?
• Taxi 2 - Derek Pascarella released an English language translation of the French exclusive Taxi 2 earlier in 2021, and James decided it was time to take a fare in this elusive movie tie-in.

• Wetrix+ - Earthquakes and torrential rain are the name of the game (poetry?) in this Dreamcast remaster of the Nintendo 64 puzzler...but is it worth a punt?
• European Super League - One of the Dreamcast's numerous PAL-exclusive soccer titles, we thought it was a good time to take a look at Virgin's poor effort in the wake of the collapse of the real-life Super League.
• F1 World Grand Prix II for Dreamcast - Tom did a few laps with Video System's Dreamcast F1 sequel, and included a potted history of the series too.
• Sega Extreme Sports - James decided it was high time to catch some radical air with Innerloop's extreme sports title, and found the time to chat with the studio's CEO Henning Rokling, too.
• UEFA Dream Soccer - At the other end of the footballing spectrum to European Super League, UEFA Dream Soccer is perhaps the finest recreation of the beautiful game on Dreamcast...for now at least.

Features and News

• New Year's Resolutions 2021 - The Junkyard team set out their resolutions for 2021. How many did we stick to before chinning them off mere weeks into the new year?!
• In White 1999: The Time D2's Laura Appeared as a Model in a Japanese Fashion Magazine - Lewis wrote a fantastic deep dive article on the strange tale of Laura from Warp's D2 appearing as a model in a Japanese fashion magazine.
• Shenmusings of Ryobots, Niaowu, and Shenmue III's Uncertain Legacy - Brian pondered the eternal question - is Ryo Hazuki an android; or does he prefer the term 'artificial human'? 
• Lost Atomiswave fighter KenJu ported to Dreamcast - Tom got to grips with KenJu, one of the long lost Atomiswave titles that was ported to Dreamcast by megavolt85 in 2021.
• Bounty Hunter Sarah: The Capcom Dreamcast Game You Never Knew About - Capcom are well known for their Dreamcast fighting games, but what of Bounty Hunter Sarah? Lewis investigated, and also spoke with the actress who stars in the game.

• The Great MSR Missing Persons Poster Hunt - Part 2: We Found Them! - Last year we investigated the mysterious 'Missing' poster found in MSR. This year, we finally found the other two posters hidden in the game.
• Trailer for unreleased horror game 'If It Happen' found - Aaron looked into the unannounced and subsequently cancelled If It happen - a game none of us even knew existed!
• Typing Jet: The lost Jet Set Radio game? - Tom goes on a trip down the rabbit hole looking for the enigmatic and presumed lost mobile version of Jet Set Radio - Typing Jet.
• Upcoming Dreamcast Indie releases - 2021 and beyond! - Mike looks forward to the indie games heading to the Dreamcast in 2021 and beyond. Some made it, others are still to come...
• Channelling Dreamcast: 3 games doing what Sega won't - A cursory glance at some contemporary game releases that try (and in some cases fail) to capture the essence of the Sega of the Dreamcast era.

• A homebrew Dreamcast MIDI Interface Cable appears! - A talented chap called Ben Ryves took matters into his own hands and created a homebrew version of the elusive HKT-9200 Dreamcast MIDI Interface Cable. He then made some music on a Dreamcast with it. What a legend.
• Dee Dee Planet: Beta of Cancelled Dreamcast game Released Online - Lewis reported on the discovery of yet another lost Dreamcast title - Dee Dee Planet courtesy of Pcwzrd.
• The original Rez website has been fully restored - A look at the fully restored Rez website, and a few words with the man who did all the leg work.
• I mode! You mode! We all mode for i-mode! - Scott went on a trip back through time to investigate the i-mode functionality Japanese mobile gamers enjoyed back in the day, and also checked out some of the Dreamcast-derived software that appeared on the platform.
• Dreamcast console shells in 2021 - Kev pondered the viability (and cost) of new Dreamcast console shells for a modern audience.

• Petrol Panic! 6 of the best gas stations in Dreamcast games - Plenty of Dreamcast games feature gas stations, and during the height of the UK's fuel shortage, Tom reviewed some of the best (and worst) filling stations to be found in the Dreamcast's library.
• Watch the Sega shareholder meeting that ended the Dreamcast - A livestream of the Sega shareholder meeting that heralded the end of Dreamcast production was captured by one savvy gamer and preserved online for posterity.
• Preview - Non Casual Encounter - SEGASaturno Productions returned with a proof of concept demo for their next title, Non Casual Encounter. You can now order one of only 100 copies of this intiguing visual novel, but be quick!
• 5 Dreamcast Fan Translations You May Have Missed - Fan translations of Dreamcast games have exploded in popularity in 2021, and Lewis took a look at some you may have missed.
• Let's take a look at Shenmue World from Shenmue Dojo - Shenmue super site Shenmue Dojo released Shenmue World earlier in 2021. Tom took delivery of a copy of this weighty tome and put his thoughts on the blog.

• New Dreamcast Prototype Found: Panic World - Veteran developer Mike Mika revealed some details about a lost Dreamcast title he had previously worked on - Panic World.
• Bokomu No Tatsujin Translation Project Released! - Aaron reported on yet another fan translation that came to the Dreamcast in 2021 - this time Bokomu No Tatsujin.
• Previously unseen prototype Dreamcast logo discovered - An eagle-eyed Redditor discovered a previously unseen prototype Dreamcast logo on the Japanese patent office website. Hidden in plain sight for all these years...chimpanzee that!

Interviews

• Out of Print Archive - Andy and Neil, curators of the Out of Print Archive dropped by the Junkyard to discuss all things gaming magazines of yesteryear. In this revealing interview we covered the origins of the Out of Print Archive, the ingestion process and how the team decides which magazines should be preserved digitally.
• WAVE Game Studios - Daniel from WAVE Game Studios stopped by to tell us about the origins of the newest publisher of indie Dreamcast games, and how they hope to kickstart a renaissance of Dreamcast physical game releases on store shelves.

DreamPod episodes

All of our podcast episodes can be found on your favourite 'podcatcher,' or simply by going to our Buzzsprout site here. Alongside our usual chaos, we did have some great guest epsiodes in 2021 and those are detailed below.

• DreamPod Episode 87: Caspar Field - Former editor of Dreamcast print magazine DC-UK Caspar Field joined the DreamPod team in January to speak about his memories of the magazine and how it all began; the short lived Mr Dreamcast magazine project; and Caspar also recounted his experiences working in game development.
• DreamPod Episode 88: Video Game Esoterica - Game preservationist extraordinaire Anthony Bacon, of YouTube Channel Video Game Esoterica, joined the DreamPod to speak about Dreamcast oddities, Kenji Eno's D2, and his own quest to educate the world on the fate of the 3DO M2.
• DreamPod Episode 90: Dreamcast in 1999 - The Dreamcast Years podcast crew joined the DreamPod for the first of 2021's crossover episodes, this time to talk about the Dreamcast scene in 1999.

• DreamPod Episode 91: Dreamcast in 2000 - Once again co-hosted by the Dreamcast Years crew, the second crossover episode of the year focussed on Dreamcast and wider pop culture in the year 2000.
• DreamPod Episode 93: Dreamcast translations - The DreamPod welcomed stalwarts of the Dreamcast fan translation scene Derek Pascarella and Burntends to talk all things Sakura Wars Colmuns 2 and the wider efforts by the translation community.
• DreamPod Episode 100: Peter Moore & Listener Questions - For the momentous occasion marking 100 episodes of DreamPod, the crew answered listener questions; but also welcomed former SEGA of America president Peter Moore onto the show to talk about his history with the Dreamcast.

Videos

You may already know that we have a YouTube channel, but we also have a Twitch channel too so be sure to check that out. On our YouTube we regularly hold livestreamed discussions (lovingly titled 'bookclubs'), and below you'll find links to some of these Kev-hosted video chats.

• Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 & 2
• Virtua Tennis 1 & 2
• Zombie Revenge
• Power Stone 1 & 2
• ESPN Track & Field, Virtua Athlete 2K and Sydney 2000

Things we were asked not to feature because we're 'content thieves, and everybody in the Dreamcast community knows it'

• Castlevania Resurrection

Once again, thanks to you for reading, listening to and watching our Dreamcast related nonsense over the past year (well, past 16 years!). If you'd like to support what we do, you can do so at Buy Me a Coffee. Please also feel free to join our Discord and get involved in the chat.

Remember to stay safe, stay cool, keep Dreaming and stay tuned in 2022 for even more of the same.

5 Dreamcast Fan Translations You May Have Missed

In DreamPod Episode 86, where we discussed what we'd like to see from the Dreamcast scene in 2021, I was quite vocal about my desire to see more English fan translation patches produced for Dreamcast games. If you're anything like me, you're too lazy to learn Japanese, but absolutely long to play many of the very intriguing text-heavy Japanese Dreamcast releases. I've covered the Evangelion typing tutor translation by Derek Pascarella, and James also wrote a great retrospective on Taxi 2, going over Derek’s patch for that, but today I wanted to shine the spotlight on some completed translation projects that we (perhaps criminally) haven't covered here on the blog before. 

Blue Submarine No. 6: -Time and Tide-

Blue Submarine No. 6 started out as a manga that was first published in 1967, with an OVA (essentially a straight-to-video anime) adaptation released in 2000. The story of BS6 is set in a post-apocalyptic future, where the sea levels have risen and flooded most of the land on Earth. What remains is being attacked by half-animal hybrids, which are fought back by humanity's submarine forces, including the titular Blue Submarine No. 6. Time and Tide was developed and published by Sega, and released in December 2000. 

This very cool game mixes some excellently-presented visual novel-style sections (that utilise cel-shaded animation to present the game's characters), with 3D underwater segments in the submarine that control really well. While this game is playable without knowing Japanese, it is vital to understanding the plot. Thankfully, over the space of year, a team comprising of Rolly, RafaGam, esperknight and Eyl put together an English translation patch for this awesome game, and released it at the tail-end of 2020, to celebrate the game's 20th anniversary, as well as the 22nd birthday of the Dreamcast console. 

All in-game text is now understandable to non-Japanese speakers, anime cutscenes now have English subtitles, and pesky spoken dialogue during submarine missions where the translators couldn't insert subtitles have been overdubbed with English text-to-speech voices. The Blue Submarine No. 6 -Tides of Time- website was also restored and translated into English as part of this project, allowing players to download the game's original DLC to grant bonus items in the shop. To download the patch, check out the project's page on SEGA-SKY.

Napple Tale: Arsia in Daydream

Developed by a largely female-orientated development team, Napple Tale released to Japan in October 2000, and was never brought over to the West for... some reason. This colourful adventure combines a 3D hub world with 2.5D platforming stages, complete with an absolutely terrific score by acclaimed composer Yoko Kanno. Similar to Blue Submarine No. 6, Napple Tale is perfectly playable without the need to know Japanese, but its whimsical, fairy-tale inspired story is definitely something worth experiencing. 

In October 2019, a team led by translator Cargodin released an English patch online, allowing non-Japanese speakers to experience Napple Tale's story 19 years after the game's initial release. The game's original website was also restored and translated into English, allowing the game's DLC to be downloaded, unlocking a bonus stage called "paffet rally". If you fancy a trip to Napple World in all its English-translated glory, you can download the patch at Romhacking.net.