Phew ! It’s been a busy few months for the Dreamcast! With plenty of new release buzz and also developments happening in the background so let’s get started with some particularly exciting stuff, there’s also been translation projects and new VMU mods going on too!
First of all is the existence of an early screen of Cuphead – this much loved retro cartoon inspired side scrolling game which has the player shooting from his finger at the various beautifully animated enemies whilst memorising the attack patterns. The graphics were gorgeous for the modern consoles but nobody could foresee the game running on the Dreamcast’s hardware, but that is exactly what has happened – albeit in only a limited nature thus far. You’re able to download the progress of this to play on a real DC console, it’ll be interesting to see if this will continue into a full-blown release with the blessing of the original developers or whether just a proof of concept type scenario, anyway, you can keep a tab on the progress of this promising project over at Dreamcast-talk.com. Thanks to ‘Aionmagan’ and all involved in bringing this to the console.
grab a download from Github : https://github.com/Aionmagan/Cuphead_Dreamcast
Next up is the release date for Shadow Gangs! Can you believe that we are nearing the release for this wonderful side scroller action game? Well, in recent days Wave Game Studios have Tweeted saying the game will be released on July 2nd 2022. We are very excited to give this one a try. If you are buying from the USA, VGNYsoft has got you sorted 🙂 Order your copy here :
https://www.vgnysoft.com/product-page/shadow-gangs-dreamcast
https://www.wavegamestudios.com/shop/shadow-gangs
Speaking of VGNYSoft, they appear to be stocking all of the major Wave Game Studios releases for the Dreamcast so far, with slightly different artwork, these games will set you back $39.99, consisting of Postal, Shadow Gangs, Xenocider and Intrepid Izzy as well as some of the more recent Josh Prod games and a spattering of unique stuff like a limited edition release of RetroGuru’s Hermes which originally released in Europe a few years back and was available at Dragonboxshop. This edition however, comes with a custom green VMU and updated box art, this one is bound to sell out quickly so grab it here where you can also find 240p Suite Tester, a recently released calibration tool which is handy for setting up you Dreamcast to suit your display and capture settings. Pre-order these great games from the link :
https://www.vgnysoft.com/sega-dreamcast
Next up is The Textorcist. Okay, okay. This isn’t technically ‘new’ but if you ordered the game originally when it launched, you were no doubt aware of the game breaking bugs that plagued the game. Gamefairy were working to get a revised disc out which irradiated these problems which has now been released. I haven’t gone back into the game to check to see if the issues have been resolved, but at the very least, looking around the Internet, I have seen some positivity. If you haven’t claimed your replacement disc yet, head over to GameFairy’s website to claim yours. Conversely, if you haven’t purchased the game yet, it’s still available and will have the updated disc.
Here’s another Wave Game Studios one for you. We’ve been given a hint as to what we can expect moving forward from these guys. As you may know, Wave teased a further spattering of releases for the Dreamcast this year. We already know that Postal has launched as of June 2nd and Shadow Gangs follows on July 2nd but next up is a tournament game for four players, perhaps a re-issue of Alice Dreams Tournament perhaps? Following that will be” a game where you must navigate increasingly more difficult obstacles with near flawless precision”. This could be anything really, but strangely SQRXZ sticks in my mind, but that game is already freeware unless it’s packaged with it’s sequels perhaps but let’s keep in mind that it’s probably something very different! Lastly is “a game where you must match gems to progress to the next level”, there’s been a few games like this that were meant to grace the Dreamcast over the years and a few that had actually been released so it’ll be interesting to see what comes our way, we do know that at least one of these games hasn’t been on the Dreamcast before and was/is a PC title. It would be nice to see Twist It finally make an appearance though!
This last one is particularly huge in my eyes. Regarding the Polymega. The company behind the modular retro gaming console which already allows for Saturn and Megadrive commercial game playback on it’s device have recently stated that they are actively working on getting Dreamcast compatibility! This would be very good news for the independent scene for the console, as we know, each year, more and more Dreamcast consoles die off or have their GD Rom drive replaced for an ODE unit which leads to shrinking sales of physical discs which of course would impact decisions to develop for the console, with the Polymega able to replicate the experience of playing the Dreamcast and it’s discs (even if it’s just the CD-Rom based content) we could see the door continue to be open for both gamers and developers to craft new experiences without the fear of a rapid shrinking market. Of course, GD discs are quite unique and this is most likely to cause Playmaji a headache but something is better than nothing, with all releases for the console in recent years being on CD discs, perhaps a happy medium could be reached here. Currently the team are looking at ways of trying to use the original Dreamcast unit in some way however, it would be awesome to see something totally new.
That’s all for now!
Dreamcast Today 