5 Forgotten Sega Dreamcast Exclusives

The Sega Dreamcast died quickly. Too quickly if you ask me. Sega pulled the plug prematurely, for whatever reason – no matter what it is it will not be good enough. While the life of the Dreamcast was short, it did give us a few exclusives that every owner should play (more than the five on this list but I had to call it somewhere). Let me know in the comments what your favorite Dreamcast exclusives are, there are plenty of them.

"Dreamcast" (CC BY-SA 2.0) by Ian Muttoo

Seaman by Sega is one of those titles that is stupid hard to explain to anyone once they know the name. There are just too many dirty minds out there and the premise certainly does not help lower those eyebrows of distrust you will receive when describing this one. Seaman required players to interact with their Seaman via the microphone attachment that shipped with the game (go ahead, say that sentence out loud and try not to laugh). The end goal here was to evolve your “fish” into a land based animal that leaves the tank. The late Leonard Nimoy worked on this game.

Illbleed by AIA is a horror game, of sorts. You play characters set in a horror based theme park. This is not just another horror game that has you shooting anything that moves, Illbleed requires you to use your noggin to figure out the unbelievable horrors your characters face. What sets this one apart is how you deal with the horror. There is an EKG style sensor across the top of the screen that crosses categories like “sight”, “hearing”, “smell”, and “sixth sense”. You just have to play this one to understand how cool it was and why it is a shame we never saw a sequel.

Fighting Vipers 2 by Sega showed that there were more 3D fighting games than just Dead or Alive 2 and Soul Calibur. Unfortunately, North American Dreamcast owners didn’t get a chance to play Fighting Vipers 2 as it was a Japanese exclusive title. Fighting Vipers 2 is a solid 3D weapon and arena based fighting game that is full of Sega’s charm.

This one was my guilty pleasure back in the day. Zombie Revenge made me want a Streets of Rage game on the Dreamcast so bad too. Anyhow, running around the 3D environments, shooting zombies, and following the story was a fun time. Even more so when I had a second player to assist in the journey. This was pretty much a spin-off of the House of the Dead series, another franchise that should have continued.

Sega Rally 2 is an amazing racing game that continued the Sega Rally fun that started on the Sega Saturn. It is a shame that Sega got into doing sequels to popular games too late in the life of the Dreamcast. Fans of Sega racing games know all about this one, or at least the franchise, and can attest to the awesomeness of a good racer.