Top Nine Arcade to Dreamcast Dream Ports

By | October 12th, 2022

Thinking back it feels like the Dreamcast was particularly prolific in arcade porting; Soul Calibur, Crazy Taxi, all of those CAPCOM titles… one could argue the Dreamcast’s best games started in the arcade. After doing a very quick count though, only about 8% of the Dreamcast’s library are arcade ports (I counted 77). That sounds strangely small in number. Maybe it only felt like we were getting so many arcade games with the barrage of new game announcements that were happening.

At any rate, when the shocking announcement of the Dreamcast’s plug getting pulled reached us, all of those awesome games Eric and I had heard about in magazines were now canceled; many of which were arcade games.

Continue Reading | No Comments

Top Nine Worst (US) Dreamcast Cover Art

By | June 4th, 2021

To celebrate It’s Still Thinking’s 9-year anniversary let’s have a gander at 9 of the worst US region Dreamcast cover art. Please understand this article is in jest and the critical analysis of design and illustration is by no means an attack on the original artists and designers. I would however like to aim blame on the art directors, and decision-makers of these titles because they DID have their meddling mitts all over these covers and I sympathize with the resulting frustrations.

Downward we go!

Continue Reading | No Comments

Clark’s Selection: the Top 20 Dreamcast Games

By | June 26th, 2017

This article is not an in-depth analysis of my top twenty games for the Dreamcast. Rather, it is simply a way for the readers of It’s Still Thinking to view the footage I’ve captured of my personal top twenty selection. Having said that, I do manage to talk a little bit about each game, but in an extremely general way so that newcomers to the Dreamcast can get a simple idea of what each game is and how I feel towards it. It is meant to be a visual spectacle that accurately portrays the look, sound, and feel of each game.

Continue Reading | No Comments

Top Nine (US) Dreamcast Cover Art

By | April 29th, 2016

Most of the time our Dreamcast games are busy sandwiched between each other with only their spines showing so we don’t always get to appreciate their full frontal glory.

I had to ban any Japanese cover art from this list because the majority of it is just leagues better, but since each region has its own cover style to begin with I think it’s only fair we look at one region’s games. Instead of actually playing any of these games, let’s do what any respectable collector would do and just look at the best US region Dreamcast cover art!

Continue Reading | 12 Comments

Shenmue III

By | June 24th, 2015

I used to imagine there was an alternate timeline in video game history where Shenmue III was released. Unthinkably, I am now existing in this in this alternate reality! Subsequent play-throughs of the Shenmue series has always been bittersweet. Every time you play Shenmue II, the end of disc 4 is so hard to swallow. It feels like the start of an epic adventure. But you know you can’t continue; you know you won’t see what happens to Ryo… Until now. Words can’t describe how I feel, but somehow I’m in a world where Shenmue III is going to exist. This shouldn’t be happening. I had convinced myself completely that Shenmue III was never going to happen. Like the Dreamcast, Shenmue was destined to an early death. No matter how good, how creative Dreamcast and Shenmue are, the video game business just doesn’t allow for this kind of thing to exist. Thankfully, Kickstarter is changing the business of video games. You and I can now save Shenmue through crowdfunding.

Continue Reading | 10 Comments

Hearing the Love: Ryuichi Sakamoto

By | March 15th, 2015

I cannot imagine a world without sound. It is as much of the world as light and matter, each one dedicated to giving feeling to all existence.

Video games, as a medium, is the only way to bring the sights, sounds and feeling of another reality into our own and bring together all of these senses. This amounts to a powerful and influential way to visit and display themes or ideas that can have an amazing effect for change or discovery for us.

Continue Reading | 6 Comments

Elysian Shadows: Confirming It’s Still Thinking

By | August 3rd, 2014

Oddly enough, Dreamcast’s indie scene was never something that I was really interested in. The experiences DC’s indie games delivered are perhaps not as engaging as some of the good commercial releases for the system. There’s a lot of 2D shoot-em-ups in the indie library. While I can appreciate a good shooter from time to time, these sometimes 320×240 res games aren’t exemplifying the Dreamcast’s strengths (don’t get me wrong, the 320×240 Dreamcast arcade games are still great!). I didn’t think an indie Dreamcast game could get me excited; to make me feel like we have a console that can provide modern gaming fun. But after over a decade since Dreamcast’s death, we finally have a deeper, enthralling experience us Dreamcast fans can be excited for: Elysian Shadows.

Continue Reading | 5 Comments

Rollin’ Back: Rediscovering Super Monkey Ball 2

By | July 27th, 2014

In today’s gaming world, it’s hard to think of many games that can be so easy to pick up and play casually, yet be so difficult to master. In fact, finding many games like this throughout all of the generations is no easy task. To me, it is something that can be extremely difficult to achieve for game developers, but when it is, can provide some of the deepest gameplay experiences we can imagine; allowing the well-practiced to show off their hard-earned skills to newcomers. Super Monkey Ball 2 for the Nintendo Gamecube is one of these games that has achieved the huge gap between the regular player, and the veteran.

Continue Reading | 3 Comments

Rhythm Thief & the Emperor’s Treasure Review

By | November 18th, 2012

Une, deux, trois… Magnifique! Extraordinaire! Génial! Ça, c’est un jeu impressionnant. Ah zut, that was my French coming out of me. It’s been happening ever since I started playing Rhythm Thief & the Emperor’s Treasure on the Nintendo 3DS.

Continue Reading | 10 Comments

the Typing of the Dead Front Cover

The Typing of the Dead Review

By | October 26th, 2012

Typically, this type of terse tedium treads terribly towards turning the task of typing to travailing troubles.

You do not generally jump at the chance to use a keyboard, often less now that most communication is thrown about by telephones using evolved languages that are bereft of punctuation and actual words. It’s a rather mundane experience that even grandma can do.We are taught how to use one in school, and most jobs require you to be able to at least finger peck the thing to death, words per minute be damned. So to have such a pleasantly enjoyable and skill testing experience with that pedestrian and button filled monstrosity further proves just how golden of an age the Dreamcast was in.

Continue Reading | 8 Comments