The Sega Dreamcast Collection and Review Project
Chronicling my mission to collect, play, and review every single officially licensed NA Sega Dreamcast game ever released, all using actual original hardware.
The Mission
I’ve decided that 2025 is the year I formally begin my mission to collect, play, and review every single officially licensed NA Sega Dreamcast game ever released. According to my research, that’s 248 games. I won’t be done by the start of 2026, that’s for sure!
Game 1/248: AeroWings
To complete this entire journey, by the end I want to:
Own a physical, complete-in-box copy of each game. That means a playable authentic disc, the case with artwork intact, and manual.
Play every single game. I probably will not “beat” or “complete” all of them. I won’t force myself to finish something that isn’t for me, but I will give each game a bare minimum of at least an hour or two of my time.
Review every single game. This means a written review here on my Substack, as well as a video review on my YouTube. These reviews will take into consideration the game’s development environment, its developer’s and publisher’s legacy, the reception at the time of release, and of course how it holds up today and what the current market value looks like. I want these reviews to be informative and opinionated, not just boring rehashes of the same platitudes you can get anywhere.
As for deciding on which games to review, I plan to stick to a mostly chronological timeline in order of release. I considered just picking at random, but that seems silly, and alphabetical doesn’t make a lot of sense practically because I won’t be experiencing the console’s evolution. It would also get tedious playing sequels all in a row repeatedly. The order of release seems like the best approach to me.
If more than one game is released on a specific day, such as the launch day of 9/9/99, then I’ll default to alphabetical in those cases.
Finally, in the case that I have trouble getting a game at a reasonable price (some Sega Dreamcast games are HUNDREDS of dollars for complete copies) then I may skip them and come back later on when I can get my hands on a copy. Hopefully, it takes a while before that happens. I’ve already got most of the launch lineup which should tie me over for a while.
I don’t have issues with emulation, but for the purposes of this project, which is all about experiencing the games as they were intended, I don’t want to use it at all. I won’t be using a CRT TV due to space limitations, but I have a high-quality Pound HDMI cable and El Gato capture card that results in nice footage that looks great without “upscaling” or stretching.
Why The Sega Dreamcast?
I grew up as a Genesis Kid. The Sega Genesis was the first home console I ever had that I felt like I could call “my own” growing up and I was very attached to it and its library. In fact, I’d say I still am. I absolutely love Sonic the Hedgehog and I’ve passed that fandom on to my now 7yo son and I grew up loving the unique, quirky way of doing things that defined Sega’s marketing and approach to game development.
Some of my favorite game franchises of all-time left huge impressions on me because of their releases on the Sega Genesis such as Sonic, Golden Axe, Streets of Rage, Phantasy Star, and a slew of licensed games like The Lion King, Aladdin, Mickey Mouse, X-Men, and many more.
However, I didn’t stick with Sega. My next system was the Nintendo 64, followed by the Nintendo GameCube and eventually a PlayStation 2. I’ve been mostly a PlayStation guy with a side of Nintendo and PC ever since. Growing up, I wasn’t from a family that could afford to buy all the latest games every year or get the newest systems all the time. That led to lots of choices and sacrifices as a result. I don’t regret skipping the Sega Saturn and Sega Dreamcast because I loved the N64, NGC, and PS2. Plus, I get to experience the Saturn and Dreamcast now as an adult which has been pretty amazing.
That’s not to say I haven’t played any Dreamcast games. I had friends and family that owned the console, so I was exposed to the platform. And I got my own Dreamcast around five years ago that I’ve been enjoying and slowly collecting for. I have around 60 games right now for the system (and nearly 700 games total in my collection!) so I’m definitely not a stranger.
I also appreciate that Sega Dreamcast games are in small, square disc cases (just like PS1) which take up far less room. And less than 250 releases in North America is a number I can actually visualize physically. That’s ideal as a homeowner with limited storage space!
When Does It Start?
The project starts this week to kick off the New Year! The first game is, of course, AeroWings.
I’ve already compiled a table with every NA Sega Dreamcast game sorted by order of release date, as well as the current status of it in my collection. I’m using PriceCharting as well to track my entire collection beyond just Dreamcast.
You can view the table here of Dreamcast games, if you’d like. And if you have any Dreamcast games you want to get rid of or sell, let me know!