lovely.
Have you gotten DUX or DRILL? They're fan-made games that are actually pretty decent. DUX in particular has really weird graphics... colorful as hell.. hard hard hard game. I would reccomend plenty of other games before them but they're inpsiirng since one dude did all the art/grahpics/programming/music/etc.
Super excited for the NEXT dreamcast game, FAST STRIKERS
Thinking of preordering it honestly. SHMUPS are my favorite genre of game, by far. I have 17 for the Dreamcast, 33 for the PS1, 19 for the PS2 (though that includes Capcom Classics Collection and Taito Legends and shit which has a shitton of Shmups on one game.. also includes Red Star which is part Contra, part Devil May Cry, part Streets of Rage, and part Gradius), and then all of 'em for the SNES/Genesis/NES. My other favorite genre is puzzle (Tetris Attack, Puzzle Fighter, Mr. Driller, Puyo Puyo, Gunpey, Bombastic, and so on), 2D fighter (Guilty Gear!!!!!!!!), and strategy (Disgaea, Soul Nomad, Phantom Brave, Stella Deus, Growlanser, Makai Kingdom, La Pucelle, and so on).
I also LOVE "games made by one or two dudes in a basement". ALIEN HOMINID was totally one of my favorite games from last gen, and Castle Crasher sis really fucking fun too. When my girlfriend moves out with me in a month or two, we're getting her wii, and I'm going to be playing a shit ton of motherfuckin WiiWare games (CAVE STORY ON THE WII! FUCK YEAH! MEGA MAN 9 AND 10! WHOO!!!!O THER GAMES!).
Joe,
get Cave Story asap. I'm trying to get someone who port that fucking thing to the Dreamcast. It's freeware and like 1mb. I fucking love it. I have played it for 2 hours. Imagine Super Metroid for the NES (but, y'know, not the original Metroid). Fun as hell!
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Never heard of Armada. I didn't like Elemental Gimmcik Gear very much. It was kinda just goofy. As a huge RPG fan, it just felt really silly and insubstantial. There were times when it felt like it was trying to be Landstalker, and when it switched to the 3D robot battles, that was sorta neat (though not in the epic way I was hoping -- this ain't no Xenogears/Saga). But man, it was just such a silly game, the reason I put it on my list at all was for the music and destroying stuff when you spin around. I wasn't much of a fan. I deleted my save game last week actually, I was 9 hours into it. Felt kinda like a kid's game, but then some of the enemies took off way too much health (not the bosses, just regular enemies). It felt INSANELY like a PS1 game, like Granstream Saga or Azure Dreams, one of those.. but not as good. I dunno. Running around and killing enemies brought to mind some Enix games at times, Terranigma and such, but man, when the DC has Grandia II and Skies of Arcadia.. I dunno... those games were epic and awesome. I respected what they were trying to do, but it felt unbalanced, and needed to be faster. It really did have some amazing colors and soundtrack though. Please play Landstalker or Beyond Oasis ASAP, they are very similiar in the "going-around-and-beating-shit-up-in-your-isometic-perspective' way.