Rare Dreamcast-powered SEGA Fish Life preserved and released by Musée Bolo

SEGA Fish Life is a bonafide oddity of the early 2000s SEGA pantheon, and one that we've covered a couple of times in the past here at the Junkyard. It's also one of the rarest, most expensive, and most bizarre variations of the Dreamcast hardware. And by 'variations,' I mean: it's a virtual aquarium which runs on Dreamcast hardware that was intended to be placed in hotel lobbies, restaurants etc.; but which was only sold in small quantities and is barely known about outside of its native Japan.

How the SEGA Fish Life was marketed to businesses (Source)

The whole unit consists of a base (which contains the derivative Dreamcast hardware), along with a touch screen and a microphone. When used in conjunction, those with a passing interest in the serene aquatic panorama playing out on the screen could interact with the various fish by either tapping on them to reveal an info panel, or by speaking into a microphone embedded in the screen.

The unit in its final form with the screen (Source)

Both the software and the hardware that run SEGA Fish Life are amongst the rarest in the whole of the Dreamcast story. But now, thanks to the hard work and dedication of volunteers at the Swiss computer and games museum Musée Bolo, you can experience it yourself for (possibly) the first time.

Tranquility is the name of the game

Before we get the to the meat and potatoes (or should that be cod and chips?) of the SEGA Fish Life unit itself, it's probably worth me reiterating just how big of a deal this whole story is for both the Dreamcast and wider games preservation communities. The various SEGA Fish Life software iterations have never been dumped online, and are considered something of a Holy Grail for fans of esoteric, Japanese oddities - me included. The Dreamcast-derived hardware on which the software runs is even harder to come by, which makes the following story even more incredible...

Rare Dreamcast-Powered Sega Fish Life Aquarium Appears On Ebay

A few years ago we looked at the Dreamcast SFL-2000P1 Control Unit, and we were pretty stumped as to what it actually was. Looking like a set-top box but with the innards of a Dreamcast, it caused quite a stir when we first investigated the unit. It turns out that it was actually designed to run an interactive aquarium designed for restaurants and hotel lobbies, and a bundled touch screen allowed people to interact with the unit and learn more about the various virtual fish swimming around. These units are clearly extremely rare and now one has popped up on eBay, complete with the Fish Life aquarium GD and the touch screen display:

Before you get too excited, we should probably tell you that the Buy It Now price is set at an eye-watering $25,000, which would probably get you a pretty large fish tank and some actual fish to go in it. That said, seller Juppon Gatana is open to offers and it's a fascinating and lesser seen variant of the traditional Dreamcast hardware that even plays games, as shown in the video below.

Interestingly, the unit being sold has the code HKS-0300 which kinda puts it in the realm of the HKT codes used on Dreamcast hardware proper (Edit: the owner of the SFL-2000P1 has told us that while it is aesthetically similar, it is not an identical unit and it has slightly different inputs). As discussed in our previous article, both the SFL-2000P1 and Sega Fish Life can play standard GDs and have rudimentary controls on the rear that mimic the Dreamcast controller. There's no slot for a VMU though, so you probably wouldn't want to buy this thing to actually play with it. However, if you've got money to burn and want a unique centre-piece for your Dreamcast collection (alongside your Divers 2000), this should fit the bill nicely.

Check out the auction here, or go read up on the Fish Life software at Sega Retro.

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!

Dreamcast Fishing Games: The Ultimate Guide

According to the old proverb, there are two types of fisherman: those who fish for sport and those who fish for fish. I'd like to add a third type to this list. The third type is the fisherman who stands in front of his (or her) TV, with a Dreamcast fishing rod grasped firmly in hand, waving limbs hither and thither in the hope they'll snare an elusive digital trout or silicon stickleback. If you fall in to the latter category, then welcome my friend. Welcome to the Junkyard's ultimate guide to fishing on the Dreamcast. I say 'ultimate,' but I actually mean 'blagger's,' so take everything else herein with a pinch of salt...and vinegar. Tartar sauce is optional.

The humble Dreamcast fishing rod is a peripheral we've overlooked for far too long here at the universe's number one repository for useless information regarding late 1990s Sega hardware™, and that's going to change over the course of the following article. From the actual hardware itself, to the games you can expect to play with the stunted controller, don your waders, fill your flask with Bovril and prepare to drink in a tidal wave of Dreamcast-related, briny and fishy goodness. Imagine eating a jar of whelks through a Dreamcast shell and you'll be on your way, oh salty and weary ocean/canal-side warrior. Let us begin by banishing the angry face of Poseidon from our collective portholes with nothing but harsh language, and examine our weapons of choice...

Rare Dreamcast-based digital aquarium sells for US$3650

Ever wanted to own one of the rarest variations of the Dreamcast hardware? With touchscreen controls and an exclusive game where you can interact with digital fish? Sorry to say you've just missed out, but it would have set you back over US$3650. so you probably aren't that gutted.

We've previously covered the Sega Fish Life Digital Aquarium here, and here. If you're too lazy to click the links, it's basically a rare curio from Japan that was mainly sold to businesses like restaurants. While waiting for their steaming bowl of ramen, patrons are soothed by the realistic looking digital fish gently swimming around, and you could even tap the glass to interact with them. Unlike real aquariums, business owners never had to ever worry about forgetting to feed them or cleaning out a scummy tank. Japan thinks of everything.

Chilean-based Juppon Gatana retro store finally sold their unit to an identity obscured ebay member r***i, who dominated the auction with a bid of US$2000 on 22 Feb, and defended against 3 other serious bidders, before the auction ended yesterday at a cool US$3650. Juppon Gatana's reserve was met, so presumably the unit will soon be on its way to a happy (and decidedly poorer) new owner soon.

Here's hoping r***i has the ability and philanthropic compassion to digitally preserve the Sega Fish Life GD-ROM and dutifully release it into the wild, so that maybe one day us mere mortals might be able to experience its esoteric delights via a suitably modified emulator. I jest, that's probably not going to happen...stupid hoarders.

Common Themes in Dreamcast-Land

Ever since I was bought a Dreamcast for my Birthday in the November of 1999, right up until this year in which the last commercial games have been released in Japan, I have probably played close to 150 Dreamcast games in some form or another. Well, that’s only a guess, but counting all the games I’ve owned, then sold off to pay for others, and the odd ISO burning, it’s probably accurate. From all this button bashing, stick wiggling, and indeed, maraca shaking, be it fantastic games like Crazy taxi and Jet Set Radio to the mediocre ones like Redline Racer Nightmare Creatures 2, once in a while a strange phenomenon of deja vu occurs. Here I list just four that I’ve noticed quite frequently, but if anyone can jog my memory of any others that are not just common themes on all consoles, then be my guest.

San Francisco
Ah yes, the city with all those steep roads and palm trees. Firstly, we have the superb Crazy Taxi. Super Runabout, a game that plays very much like Crazy Taxi (only with more modes of transport and lousy controls) is also set there. San Francisco Rush 2049 is set in a futuristic (and somewhat void of human life) version of the place, but is still San fran none the less, and then there’s the first level in Sonic Adventure 2, which was also directly inspired by the city. I've also been reminded that the city also features (in great detail, but like Rush 2049, rather empty) in MSR.

Appearances: 6

Michael Jackson
Until Sega's last console came and went, the freaky ex-pop star had only made an appearance in one game, the Mega Drive title Moonwalker, based on his film of the same name. On the Dreamcast, however, he has popped up a few times in very unexpected places. He first popped up out of nowhere near the end of Space Channel 5, in which you save him from aliens so he can join your posse. In Space Channel 5: Part 2, he is part of your team from the very beginning, and has more of his trademark moves. He also begged Midway to add him to the line up of Ready to Rumble: Round 2, although I can’t really imagine him being all too tough in a real fight, to be honest. Finally, he had a unofficial appearance in 102 Dalmatians. Well, I think it’s him.

Appearances: 3 or 4

Fish
Yes, there have been fishing games in the past on many other formats, but thanks to Sega's rather clever Fishing controller, the Dreamcast sports quite a big collection of them. It all started with Sega Bass Fishing. followed by it's much superior follow-up Sega marine Fishing, as well a aproper, but dull as hell, sequel in the console's dying days with Sega Bass Fishing 2. While us Brit's only got one of these titles, the rest of the world not only got these 3 Sega games, but a few third-party titles as well, although these were more of the simulator breed, so they would be no interest to anyone under the age of 60 anyway. These games included Reel Fishing Wild and Fish Eyes Wild, for the record. Who wants to sit there waiting for the miserable sods to bite when you can have Mako sharks falling over each other to have a nibble of your bait in Marine Fishing? It doesn't' end there though, as Fish have popped up in two more games. Sonic Adventure featured the excruciating fishing levels starring Fat-Arse the cat, that may of been a bit mode enjoyable if you could play them with the fishing controller, and finally we have the only fish on the system that you don't have to yank out of the water to weigh, Seaman, the talking, (eventually) walking fish with a miserable boat face and additude to boot. Thought fishing was sad? Try talking to a mutant fish about Evolution and Politics! Speaking of Sonic and Fishing, look below for images of Sonic being tossed out for the fishes is Sega bass!

Appearances: 7

Bruce Lee knock-offs
This is actually a trend I’ve noticed in most popular fighting games series’, not just on Dreamcast, but I need more than three common themes in over wise this post will look rather spineless. We’re talking about the characters with the same squawky voice, same muscle-bound but skinny body, same eyebrows and sometimes even a pair of nun chucks, all of which the king of kung-fu were known for. On the Dreamcast alone we have Capcom’s Fei-Long in Super Street Fighter IIX and Street Fighter Alpha 3, Jann Lee in Tecmo’s Dead or Alive 2, Liu Kang in Mortal Kombat Gold, and Maxi in Soul Calibur. That’s not even including characters that share his same fighting techniques, just the ones that act and look a bit like him as well.

Appearances: At least 5

Note to self: never write an article in Word processor then try to copy it into Blogger. This post took so long to tinker with it should be illegal.

Expanding the Dreamcast Collection: Part 4 - Atomiswave

“Welcome back to the stage of history.” It's been a long time coming, and for that I can only apologise, but this mammoth article has finally been completed so let's take a look at the fourth system in the Dreamcast family of hardware: the Sammy Atomiswave. Out of all the hardware in the family, the Atomiswave is perhaps the most similar to the Dreamcast on a technical level and was supported by three names in gaming synonymous with the console's library: SNK, Sammy and Sega. With this in mind, if you consider yourself a fan of the Dreamcast, or the Neo Geo for that matter, you’d be doing yourself a great disservice by overlooking it.

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!

I mode! You mode! We all mode for i-mode!

I want you to take a little trip with me down repressed memory lane. Cast your mind back. It's 2001. Everyone keeps telling you the Dreamcast is dead, but you're not having any of it. There are AAA titles still to come on the horizon, Dreamcast Magazine is still on the newsstand (barely), and you've got an eye on Lik Sang and Play-Asia for some exclusive import goodness. You're a true believer and you're not jumping the Sega ship yet (or ever). 

But you have a problem. You can't stay tethered to your 15" CRT TV and curled up against the warmth of your precious blue swirl baby. You have to leave the house. You have stupid lectures to attend, and that interminable bus ride awaits. If only there was some kind of portable Sega device you could take with you to while away the drudgery of public transport.

You look to your shiny new Neo Geo Pocket Color, but it's just not Sega enough for you today. You look to your forlorn and dust-covered Game Gear lying under a pile of socks in the back corner. Those capacitors have blown and leaked and it's never coming back to life. In desperation, you fish out the VMU from your Dreamcast controller, but the batteries are dead and there's only so much of Voldo's Volleyball minigame you can take. Out of options, you trudge out into the gloom, resigned to your terrible fate. 

Meanwhile, in Japan...

In June 2001, Sharp released a new generation "J-Phone" - the J-SH07. It was the first J-Phone to be compatible with Java applets, and it also came bundled with Ulala from Space Channel 5 as a kind of virtual pet / avatar on the device.

The more you used your phone, the better your "rating" gets, and as a reward, Ulala dances for you and sometimes changes costumes. You could download more Space Channel 5 related goodies from the "Ulala no Channel J" service.

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.