Andro Dunos 1 & 2 Shipping Now.

If you cast your mind back to 2021, you may remember that Pixelheart and JoshProd announced that Andro Dunos and Andro Dunos II would be releasing for the Dreamcast on an undisclosed date in 2022. With that year coming and going, it would be easy to forget these two games missing their initial projected releases but earlier this year, JoshProd gave confirmation that the games would be shipping this year with a concrete March 2023 date.

Fast forward the time it takes for these games to reach from France to their final locations and here they are! So what do we have here?

Well, Andro Dunos is a port of the 1992 Neo Geo game by Visco, it’s your usual space shooting fare with a basic levelling system and choices of weapons. Whilst Andro Dunos II is a wholly new adventure which has been developed by Picorinne Soft and released on the Nintendo Switch, 3DS and PlayStation 4 in 2022 with the Dreamcast version suffering slight delays. Although it looks fairly basic on the face of things, Andro Dunos II actually has some neat little touches to the presentation which in a prolonged play session become more and more apparent as the levels progress. You’ll find cool effects when warping into light speed and enemies who’ll appear in background before making their presence known in the foreground to dish you some damage. Some enemies will skid into the frame and others will have noticeable battle damage when you start gaining the upper hand.

The graphical presentation is something which is actually a highlight of Andro Dunos II and the atmospheric soundtrack matches the action all the way along. I was very impressed with my play though, initially sticking the game on it’s easy setting to be able to see as much of the game as possible whilst learning the enemy patterns works well with a progressive difficulty curve. The Dreamcast port of course has concessions, it isn’t able to display the high definition output of the other versions and the initial load time when booting up is rather excessive but once in the game, the levels load in quickly so can be forgiven.

All in all, if you’re in any way interested in new games for your Dreamcast and Shumps tickle your pickle, there’s a lot to like here. Both Andro Dunos and Andro Dunos II are available now at http://www.pixelheart.eu

I made a video back in 2022 when I got my hands on the incomplete build of the game which is linked here

Also I’ve taken the time to have a look at the packaging design and what you get in the case which if you’re interested, you can catch here :

Andro Dunos 1 & 2 Heading to Dreamcast.

If you have been following PixelHeart on social media, you may have recently noticed a teaser for a huge announcement from them set to be the biggest in their history – at first, I will admit that I felt a little deflated that this may have ‘just‘ been new-old-stock copies of Virtua Striker 2 which went on sale on Friday, as per the weekly ‘release‘ method that has been the template thus far from PixelHeart on their website, but in actual fact, when the video reel was finally revealed today, on the 27th March rather than the proposed date of 24th March citing technical difficulties as the reason, it would appear that the company have purchased the complete back catalogue of Visco, to which PixelHeart had worked closely with in the past with various Dreamcast releases like Breakers, Bang2Busters and Gunryo, of course, Visco were well known for their Neo Geo games with releases right up to the late 90‘s so it would make perfect sense for PixelHeart to release some of these games again for that console.

What is perhaps more interesting for you, a Dreamcast fan, is that previously announced 3DS game, Andro Dunos 2, will in fact be making it‘s way to our console of choice as well as the slew of current generation machines, it has been teased since 2020, but at last, it‘s confirmed.

If you‘re unaware of the game or indeed the ‘original‘ then you‘re not to be blamed, it was a 1992 space shooter released for the Neo Geo and later for the Neo Geo CD console where the action take place from a horizontal playing field {think Dux} across 8 levels with mankind fighting it‘s way out of peril.

Worth noting and perhaps not immediately clear, is that the first game is also getting released on DC, one would have to wonder why it wasn‘t bundled in with the second entry though, I‘m sure there is a logical reason behind this but the game does seem quite expensive in the face of the upcoming sequel.

The sequel has been developed by Picorinne Software who has previously been tied to Battle Crust. This is quite an exciting time for Dreamcast fans as we have over 20 new games to get excited about over the next year or so as well as perhaps some other surprises along the way, it‘s never been a better time to be investing in Sega‘s last machine.

Pre-order your copy of both games over at http://www.pixelheart.eu where the usual PAL and NTSC style releases are available.

Here’s Some Random Dreamcast Happenings You May Have Missed.

From time to time a few little Dreamcast occurrences come and go and we don’t report on them. This usually occurs when publishers / developers don’t bother to tag us either on Twitter or Facebook – usually we just put that down to their loss but being a DC reporting site, we also have a duty to bring you the news, so here are a few discoveries from recent times. 

Pixel Heart have started stocking ‘new old stock’ European Dreamcast titles; yes that’s correct, somehow there still seems to be a stock pile of sealed Dreamcast games out there and so minty fresh that they are still contained in their shipping cartons from the factories back in 2000, people were getting pretty worked up on Twitter about these games, with the likes of Power Stone, Soul Reaver, Sega Rally 2 and MSR being shown off with DC stalwart JoshProd teasing this to be a fraction of their haul. Reading between the lines, these seem to be the same HX Italy distributed games that littered eBay a few years ago. MSR is the first game to be ‘released’ by Pixel Heart with a further game set for sale each Friday. 

 

In other Pixel Heart related news, to coincide with the decision to sell new old stock Dreamcast games, it appears they have also began to stock Retro Sumus’ Xenocider in both standard and limited edition formats, if you haven’t already picked up this game, it’s well worth doing so now as worldwide shipping is free on the website .

 

Hopes are that JoshProd will also replicate the super limited PAL style packaging on the initial run of the game in time. Check out Sega Lord X’s review of the game to decide if this one is for you.

Also this week, JoshProd released a video demo for upcoming Dreamcast game Zangeki Warp which shows the first level of the impressive looking shooter,  it’s still unclear whether this one will be available outside the Shump Collection pack announced in 2020 but rumours are both exclusive titles to this pack with get a solus release in due course. 

In other news, something new is coming from Retro Surge games, god knows what it is – considering we haven’t heard anything about what they have already mentioned to be releasing, let’s hope it’s a clear release date. Currently these guys are meant to be releasing Summoning Signals and Flight of the Amazon Queen, again, we are a bit in the dark with what these guys are up to as they don’t seem to keep us in the loop, hopefully that’ll change in due course. Worth noting that both these games have missed their projected release dates so it’d certainly be wise to gain the confidence of the audience back by gearing a product for release soon. 

Speaking of which, are you still wondering what happened to Kickstarter no show Elysian Shadows? We here you, we are in the same boat, helping fund this once ambitious project wholeheartedly, things began taking a turn for the worst in the last few years with the team eventually fragmenting into every day life as we saw with previously ambitious no shows like Tahi and Hypertension, sadly there looks to have been no tangible evidence of any work being carried out on the game since at least summer 2020, and even then, any realistic release date could all but certainly be written off. This week however, Team ES’ most recognisable frontman, Falco Girgis came up for air on social media with a lengthy post regarding his own personal welfare but sadly no such luxuries for those wanting an update on where the game is – perhaps addressing those wanting a refund would be the correct way to handle the silence in addition to the clarification of his own wellbeing. Still, Watermelon’s Paprium finally released this year so anything is possible, eh? 

 

There’s also been a bunch more Atomiswave have been converted to work on the Dreamcast ODE systems, which is fantastic news considering these GD EMU devices are now so affordable, these conversions are an excellent showcase of the device and really show the hard work going on behind the scenes in the Dreamcast community. As you’re no doubt aware, there are a small handful of games that work from a CD disc namely Metal Slug 6 and King of Fighters XI with Dolphin Blue being just about playable as well as Knights of Valour, whether these games and the remaining ones could be compiled to run from the disc drive is doubtful but stranger things have happened, haven’t they? Check out the progress at the number one Dreamcast source on the Internet, Dreamcast-Talk.

 

That’s all for now folks! 

 

Two More Dreamcast Games Heading To The Console in 2020.

Well, it’s that time of the year again isn’t it, time for some more lifting the lid on future Dreamcast projects and as you can guess, JoshProd / Pixelheart are behind two games gracing your console real soon.

There has been some buzz recently around both Twitter and Facebook this week with the first reveal of Tough Guy, a one on one fighter that was released in the 1990’s for the PC by Panda Entertainment, this title eventually became abandonware and has since being purchased in an IP deal back in 2012, has seen tweaks to the overall gameplay and graphics in 2019 by Superfighterteam. The Twitter account for JoshProd went as far to show us some off TV footage, it’s unknown as of yet if this is taken from a native Dreamcast version and also if the console will receive the original game or the updated release from last year.

We have had a little look at footage of the game and it seems to certainly look like a smooth game that will fit the Dreamcast nicely. It isn’t known when pre-orders will open for this one, but perhaps a Christmas 2020 window is possible.

Next up, we have another shoot-em-up, one of which we semi-predicted would come to the Dreamcast eventually in this article, indeed it has now been confirmed that Astro Port’s 2015 Steam release, Supercharged Robot Vulkaiser is coming to the console, pre-orders open for this one next month and it looks to be great fun, footage of this game can be found below, which is the PC version of the game.

What are your thoughts? Will you be picking these games up? We are hoping to have an interview with JoshProd head dude Philippe Van Trong Nguyen sometime in the near future, so keep tuning in for that one.

Dreamcast Receiving ‘Shmup Collection’

On what seems to be a sneaky little footnote conformation today on social media, JoshProd have seemingly lifted the lid on Shmup Collection coming to the Dreamcast.

You may remember that Pixelheart had announced publishing a title of the same name for the Nintendo Switch and Wii U consoles both of which are due in the Summer in physical form, contained within is three Astro Port titles, namely Armed Seven DX, Satazius Next and Wolflame, in mind with the business model of Pixelheart, both of these Nintendo editions are limited.

What is worth noting here is that although the Dreamcast release may very well be referred to in the same kind of product line, there are some key differences setting this apart from being the exact item found on Nintendo’s machines. Armed 7 is already available on the console, so this naturally would most likely be omitted from any ‘collection’, we already know that Satazius is up and running on the Dreamcast and naturally Wolflame isn’t going to be a major stumbling block to develop, this would leave space for a 3rd or even 4th unknown game to fill the gap on the would-be collection, we would speculate that Zangeki Warp maybe one of these, but just as likely, although off-beat for this kind of group of shooters are Vulkaiser and Meglilo.

What is safe to assume is that these games will be available separately for PAL regions, most likely due to the case sizes one would think, whereas the usual NTSC style packaging could be more creative with a double box potentially.

More as we hear it.

Arcade Racing Legends Screams Onto Dreamcast In July, Pre-Orders Open Now.

Remember impressive looking Arcade Racing Legends by JoshProd and Pixel Heart? You may have been a backer of this ambitious title when it hit Kickstarter some time ago, watching eagerly the transitions in design and features added with baited breath. Originally the game was meant to release in time for the European 20th anniversary of the console which would place it in October 2019, as with most Dreamcast projects, sometimes a little more time in the oven is required to add some polish and take on board the feedback of gamers and testers.

Today, JoshProd have a few announcements, first of all, the game is pencilled in for a July 2020 release with pre-orders now open for those who didn’t crowd-fund, in addition to this, there are the usual variants to pick from, Euro style, USA or Japan packaging influences, with a soundtrack disc option propping up the usual trio at 10 Euros more (49,90 vs 39,00)

What is perhaps bigger news, is that the game will be ported to the PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch, bringing a host of graphical and gameplay enhancements in what is being dubbed as ‘Hight Level’. One would assume this is going to feature ideas that had to cut from the Dreamcast release due to time and hardware constrains. Both of these ‘bigger console’ releases are available to pre-order in physical form at 10 Euros cheaper than the Sega release.

If you fancy some new racing action for your platform of choice, you can head over to Pixel Heart’s website now to order, worth noting that you can also pick up previous JoshProd releases here too.

Arcade Racing Legends Dreamcast [US]