Top 20 Best Sega Dreamcast Games

It may not be one of SEGA’s most notable IPs (at least these days, it isn’t), but “Space Channel 5” still managed to make an impact in the publisher’s history. Face off against aliens and rival reporters as Ulala tries to sing and dance her way to saving the galaxy. While utterly bizarre in presentation and short in length, “Space Channel 5” was clever in its use of pre-rendered visuals, polygonal character models, and music selection. Some aspects in its gameplay may not hold up to modern expectations, but even today, “Space Channel 5” still sticks out as one of the best games SEGA put out during the Dreamcast’s short run.

When it comes to SEGA beat ‘em ups, most folks gravitate towards “Streets of Rage”, and understandably so. However, we’d be remiss to forget about “Dynamite Cop”. Admittedly, there wasn’t anything unique here that we hadn’t seen already; it was a 3D beat ‘em up loaded with objects that you could use to pummel foes with. And it was so much damn fun to play, just as much fun as its 2D brethren. Combine that with the overly dramatic music and ridiculous environments, and what you have is a cheesy beat ‘em up that’s too absurd to not love.

Don’t worry - we aren’t about to go crazy with a bunch of music games filling this list. However, “Samba de Amigo” is definitely deserving of some recognition here. Whereas most music games defaulted to just making the player push inputs at specific times, “Samba de Amigo” wanted you to actually get up and move with your own maracas! Shake them in specific directions to nail your beats and land the best grade possible. Of course, a hearty helping of multiplayer modes gave us enough excuses to keep the party going longer than we probably should have.

“Rival Schools 2” does not get the credit it truly deserves for just how ambitious it was for a fighting game. With a roster of twenty-two playable characters, players had enough choice to build their own formidable team of three fighters. Not only that, but every combination of each trio you put together came with their own unique team-up attacks. As for the story, you could go about it in two different ways; while Free Mode lets you play a standard arcade ladder, the Story Mode actually guided you through each school’s plot and see how they tie in with other characters. It was fairly expansive for its time, and even today, the controls and gameplay hold up surprisingly well.

Hard to believe anyone would call a fishing video game one of the greatest video games ever made, but in the case of “SEGA Bass Fishing”, it truly is one of the best games put on Dreamcast. While it is more or less a straight port of the arcade original, this version comes with two extra modes and a plethora of different lures to catch the biggest fish possible. What makes this game even more impressive is just how good the water and environments look. Sure, the game doesn’t demand a ton of technical power, but despite its age, it looks and plays pretty damn good compared to some of the games we’ve had within the past decade.

Speaking of games that play really well, the Dreamcast version of “Dead Or Alive 2” remains to be one of the greatest ports of an arcade game to ever release. The controls are super responsive, the graphics are captivating, and the fighting feels so, so good! Honestly, it is really impressive how much detail was crammed into this port between the environments, character models, and even the clothes. Sure, the jiggly nature might be a bit much for some, but you just cannot call yourself a fighting game fan if you haven’t given “Dead Or Alive 2” a fair shake.

A launch title for the Dreamcast, “House of the Dead 2” was a hell of a way to kickstart the console…even if it wasn’t going to be around for long. Even so, this iteration of the arcade game was practically a one-to-one recreation of the original - no compromises to be found anywhere! As for the game itself, “House of the Dead 2” features the most imaginative environments and fun enemy designs in the series. But if you prefer to practice your virtual literary skills, you can always plug in your mouse and keyboard into the Dreamcast for an authentic “Typing of the Dead” experience, which is just “House of the Dead 2” with typing controls.

Bullet hell shoot ‘em ups are a dime a dozen these days, but there will simply never be another game quite like “Ikaruga”. The coolest thing about “Ikaruga” is not just the music or the absurd difficulty. No, it’s the basic idea of attributing one of two polarities to the bullets you see on screen, and you can switch your own polarity whenever the need arises. Switch to black, and you’ll absorb black bullets but take damage to white bullets and vice versa. Despite the simplicity behind this concept, “Ikaruga” can definitely get overwhelming if you let it, but no matter how many times we die to one bullet we just didn’t notice, we can’t stop playing this game every once in a while.

The original “Daytona” game was already nearly perfect as an arcade racing game. The controls, the use of rubberbanding, the catchy “DAYYYTOONAAAAAA”...it was all beautiful. The 2001 iteration that was released for Dreamcast made the whole experience even better! In addition to the three courses featured in the original game, “Daytona USA 2001” came with three of its own tracks along with more cars, more detailed textures and models, and even an online mode to race the ghosts of other players. Why SEGA hasn’t bothered porting this version of the game forward with better connectivity is beyond us.

Took us this long to start talking about JRPGs, huh? Well, “Grandia II” is among the handful that everyone ought to play at least once. You play as a mercenary named Ryudo, who, after escorting a young woman to a ceremony, discovers said woman possesses a mysterious power. What follows is a beautiful story about mankind and the evils that can make a society thrive and march forward into a more progressive future. It’s heart wrenching, thought-provoking, and at times, thrilling to play with its innovative combat system.

As other JRPGs relished deep within traditional fantasy and occasional science fiction, “Skies of Arcadia” stood out from the crowd for its more whimsical steampunk aesthetics. But what made the adventure memorable was how the game focused way more on exploration compared to other JRPGs. Every location you discovered was hiding tons of secrets between items, towns, secret dungeons, and more. It truly made the game feel like an adventure made just for you. Here’s hoping SEGA finds a way to bring the game forward to modern hardware.

If there was a term we could use to describe “Power Stone 2”, it’s “sheer chaos”. The original game was already maddening (in a fun way) with its various power-ups and unique characters. “Power Stone 2” tightens the focus by making these power-ups crucial to winning and removing some of the more hardcore fighting game elements like combos. Plus, you had an entire new campaign in Adventure Mode, where you can unlock more power-ups and weapons and even combine items for more unlockables. Simply put, it was a party game for the ages, and it’s a shame that Capcom did not continue the franchise after this.

There just simply has not been another game quite like the funky, hip-hop freshness of “Jet Set Radio”. Zoom around a vast city while collecting spray paint cans to create graffiti and fending off the fuzz. It was a fun and arcade-y game that you could pick up and play whenever you wanted to, and the music really sold us on the atmosphere. “Jet Set Radio” would become one of the few successful Dreamcast games, selling more than one million copies across the globe.

Who’s ready to make some CRRRAAAAZZYYY money!? That’s the aim of “Crazy Taxi”, and it is one hell of a good time! Pick up passengers and bring them to their destinations as quickly as you can while taking them on the wildest taxi ride of their life. While most will reminisce over the soundtrack and quirky voice acting, the real draw of “Crazy Taxi” was just how many maneuvers you could pull to boost profits. Use shortcuts, weave through traffic without hitting anything, and leap off ramps to earn even more crazy money! It was a fun romp, and it’s thrilling mechanics and energetic presentation are why so many players remember it fondly to this day.

While most players gravitate towards RE2 and RE4, you’ll find an equally dedicated fanbase champion “Code Veronica” at a similar level of hype. And they have plenty of reason to! Claire Redfield’s standalone game is just as captivating as the mainline series with its imaginative locations and moody atmosphere. However, the reason why some consider it to be the best is for its technological improvements. The camera is more functional than previous games, and the use of actual backgrounds over pre-rendered ones brought more immersion to the game. Honestly, there is a case to be made here in regards to “Code Veronica” being one of the very best games in “Resident Evil” history, but that’s a list for another day.

If you truly want to look at the most graphically impressive game on the Dreamcast, look no further than “Soulcalibur”. We understand that fighting games back in the day weren’t as technically demanding as they are now. Even so, the amount of detail on display is astounding. The texture work on the clothing, the shine on bladed weapons, the animation of character clothes in windy environments, the reflection of the water… It is all so mesmerizing to think that all of this is running on something as ancient as a Dreamcast, and it’s doing so without any hiccups whatsoever. Truly a fantastic and revolutionary fighting game, and a remarkable port of an arcade game!

Even though we’ll rave about “Sonic Frontiers” or “Sonic X Shadow Generations”, “Sonic Adventure 2” will always be at the top as the greatest 3D Sonic game ever made. And we aren’t just saying that because this game introduces Shadow the Hedgehog. In all seriousness, Shadow is kind of a big part of why this game is revered so often. Not only do you have a traditional adventure with the Blue Blur himself, Tails, and Knuckles, you have an entire campaign of equal length starring Shadow along with Eggman and Rouge the Bat. As a bonus, you have the accoutremonts from the previous “Sonic Adventure” game with a fun multiplayer mode and a whole section dedicated to raising Chaos [pronounced “chows”]. It’s like having multiple games in one package, and they are all immensely fun to play.

The sad reality regarding “Phantasy Star Online” is that this game was way, way ahead of its time. Prior to 2001, online console gaming had really just started its infancy as developers were figuring out how to properly integrate online connectivity into consoles. And in addition to serving up an insanely fun action RPG, “Phantasy Star Online” was surprisingly functional in maintaining a stable connection. Couple that with the remarkably flexible combat and weapon system to let players develop their own playstyles, and “Phantasy Star Online” is easily the most innovative and revolutionary Dreamcast game to ever exist.

We have seen games that pushed graphical detail, games that pushed online functionality, and games that pushed for new ideas. “Shenmue” made a massive push for total immersion. Day and night cycles, diverse weather complete with their own effects on the environment, tons of unique interactive objects, NPCs with their own extensive scripts to follow – it was a complete enigma how SEGA managed to squeeze all of this into the Dreamcast and get it to work without any problems. Sure, some aspects may not have aged well, but when you think about the time “Shenmue” was released, it’s hard to keep knocking it for lines like, “Do you know where I can find some sailors?”.

When it comes to Dreamcast games, fighting games, and ports of renowned arcade games, none have matched the same level of quality, hype, and utter insanity as “Marvel vs. Capcom 2”. First, you have a meaty roster of more than fifty characters to choose from to build your team of three. Second, each and every character has unique moves, assists, and Hyper Combos that can potentially lead to insane combos as you tag in your other allies. And lastly, there is absolutely no compromise with this port. The Dreamcast version of MvC2 is virtually the same as the arcade version save a few extra modes and some of the roster being locked behind currency. Other than that, this is one of those games that is perfect in every way imaginable.


What was your favorite Dreamcast game? Did it make our list? Let us know in the comments.