Anyone who tunes into our award-winning* podcast, BLAST PROCESSING should know that many of us here at Pixel Verdict are dyed-in-the-wool fans of the Sega Dreamcast. It may have had a short shelf life, but it holds a high place of honor on our video game nostalgia shrine. If nothing else, it goes to show how a well-made console with fantastic games can still fail in the marketplace, for reasons beyond pure system excellence.

Recently, ThinkGeek came across a magical cache of unopened, new in box Dreamcast systems, and sold them to eager devotees for $99 a pop. They sold out in record time (but keep an eye on them, as they might get more). To mark this auspicious occasion, or to assist anyone who wanders into a used video game store and takes one of the little white consoles home for the first time, let’s run down some of the best video games for the system.

And yes, there are a lot of fighting games listed here. It was what the Dreamcast was good at, after all. Read on after the jump.

Marvel vs. Capcom 2

A no-brainer, and doubly so since we’ve been discussing it endlessly, MVC2 is a classic of over-the-top fighting, and one of the nicer arcade ports put to home console. The Dreamcast’s controller, although large and awkward at first glance, had a magnificently responsive D-pad, perfect for swinging out those infinite-hit combos. With a roster of over 50+ characters to choose from, this was madness at its most finest. And just try not get the character select song stuck in your head for days.

Street Fighter III: Third Strike

Sure, now we’ve got Street Fighter IV to play with and explode our nostalgia with, but this was ten years ago. Back then, Capcom was systematically milking the franchise for all its worth, releasing numerous upgrades/tweaks/remixes of the same games over and over. SFIII didn’t have the same romantic overtones as Street Fighter II for many fans, but hardcore combatants immediately fell in love with the complex and technical fighting system, which allowed for amazing counters and maneuvers… provided you had the chops. No button-mashing here–to excel at Third Strike, you had to know what you were doing. Even today, this game still looks fantastic, with lush animation and impressive frame rates.

The first North American Dreamcast title to be playable over the internet, Chu Chu Rocket was a crazed invention of the original Sonic Team, before they lost their minds and started creating stupider and stupider versions of Sonic the Hedgehog that nobody wanted to play. A simplistic puzzle game with one of the most insane advertising campaigns ever put to screen—even in Japan—the game is especially notable for being the first North American console game playable over the internet (using the built-in 56k modem). It was laggy and virtually unplayable at times, but this was trailblazing at its finest. If you play arcade-style games online via Xbox Live or the PlayStation Network, you have Chu Chu Rocket to thank, at least in part.

Shenmue

Ah, Shenmue. You are the Heaven’s Gate of the gaming world. A massive developmental undertaking, Shenmue didn’t just raise the bar on how deep and complex a console title could be—it blew it out of the water. Featuring ludicrous developmental costs of $70 million, full voice acting, orchestra-composed score, Shenmue was Sega’s shining star. And then, nobody bought a copy. It might have been considered a flop in terms of sales, but it did get its own sequel, Shenmue II (import only) and set future game developers down a path from which we still see games on today: incorporating cinematic narrative and visual techniques into video games. Shenmue was a masterpiece, but like the Dreamcast itself, was just a few years ahead of its time for audiences to appreciate it.

Jet Grind Radio

Are you sick of every video game in the world being cel-shaded? Lay your blame here, ladies and gentleman. Jet Grind Radio was the first game to popularize the artistic style, bringing to live a cartoon-influenced futuristic Tokyo where punk kids on rollerblades rode about spray painting the town. Set to an incredibly diverse, eclectic and vibrant soundtrack blending jazz, dance, hip hop, funk and J-pop, nobody had seen a game that looked so vibrant, so cartoonish and dynamic before. Of course, once anime game developers got hold of the cel-shading technique, it was all downhill from there. A sequel was spawned onto the Xbox, Jet Set Radio Future, which was one of the standout early titles for that console’s launch—but that’s another article.

Soul Calibur

Easily the most technically proficient and visually striking fighter on home consoles at the time, the Soul Calibur franchise is still alive and kicking. Influential for its groundbreaking graphics and sound, this was a jaw-dropping title on its release, setting the bar for how pretty you could make a fighting game look. Love it or hate it, it set the direction for fighters for the next decade.

The Typing Of The Dead

Light guns are for sissies. Real men use their typing prowess to slay zombies. A totally off-the-wall idea, creators of the House of the Dead franchise re-released their own game, substituting guns for elaborate Dreamcast backpacks and keyboards for their in-game protagonists. Each enemy had a sequence of keys appear over its head, and to “kill” the bad guy, you had to type the phrase using the optional keyboard attachment. It’s a typing tutor game, with zombies. Laugh all you want, but I don’t know a single person who’s ever been able to put this game down once they’ve started to play it.

Skies of Arcadia

This was the best RPG for the system, hands-down, so it gets a spot on the list. In of itself, the game was pretty good—nothing to write home about when you put it against the big boys of RPG like Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior games, but we Dreamcast owners took what we could get. It eventually saw a ported version created to resurrect the franchise on the GameCube, but the series never really went anywhere. A shame! Sky pirates! I mean, come on.

Virtua Tennis

You read that right. A tennis game. See, the big surprise with this title, aside from how smooth and impressive the graphics looked, was that somebody had made a sports game to appeal to die-hard sports game fans, and casual gamers alike. Virtua Tennis truly lived up to the moniker of being easy to pick up, but near-impossible to master (anyone who’s tried to beat the career mode can attest to this). Surprisingly accessible and just plain fun to play, Virtua Tennis was the most surprising entry on this list, but one very deserving of praise.

No doubt there are dozens of other games fans of the Dreamcast hold in high regard. My honorable mention goes to Project Justice, because I really enjoyed this particular franchise, and I kind of wish it went further with North American audiences. So let us know in the comments what your favorite games for the Dreamcast were! Share the love!

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have “gonna take you for a ride” stuck in my head. I need to go play MVC2.

* = from my mom who says we’re cool

By Adam Arseneau