In no particular order:
Bangai-Oh:
Bangai-Oh is undeniable. Really, it is one of my favorite games period, Dreamcast or otherwise. It showcases brilliantly everything that Treasure does well: inventive mechanics, tight design, and playful, profound, and maddeningly difficult stages. I don’t even think the DS sequel (which has its own advantages) is quite as good… Playing a game this challenging and deep from start to finish is ultimately a form of self-discovery.
Illbleed:
This is a very “Dreamcast” game, despite not having much in the way of blue skies. It’s not exactly a “good” game but it’s effortlessly charming and genuinely demented. If nothing else, it innocently captures the spirit of the era, in which imagination and wonder seemed to predominantly drive the ambition of game designers. Illbleed set out to revolutionize the horror genre, and while it flopped, it is, in retrospect, a truly fascinating game filled with surprising design concepts and levels made with love, attention to detail, and sadistic joy. As clumsy as it is, Illbleed is one of the most memorable things I’ve ever spent time with.
D2:
(ha ha ha ha)
Ditto for this one, except the design is legitimately good, if a little broken. This game is, I think, far more true to the spirit of Twin Peaks than Silent Hill, and twice as clever. D2 is a survival horror game set entirely in white, with an RPG-inspired random battle system that combines QTE’s, first person shooting, and twitch gameplay in a way that’s surprisingly less awkward than you’d expect. I can’t even talk about the plot without either ruining or completely missing what’s so brilliant about it, but take that as a complement to the game.
Shenmue:
Slow paced, dreary, and at times hilariously broken, I still believe this game is something of a misunderstood masterpiece. Though the game makes many large scale design mistakes, and was eventually overshadowed by more ambitious (but less detailed) “open-world” games like Grand Theft Auto 3, as a videogame which tells a deeply personal story using conventions and techniques essential to the medium, it stands alone to this day. I can’t think of any other sweeping melodramatic family-crime drama videogame set against a sentimentally-cast small hometown village painted with Proustian detail. If anything, Shenmue’s blatant disregard for “rules of good design” in the name of expressing something larger should point the way for the future of the medium.
Rez:
Before Beatles: Rock Band, before Guitar Hero, before Frequency, even, there was Rez. Released at a time when no one really knew what “music game” meant aside from aping Parappa the Rapper, Rez is a triumph of experimentation and a bold celebration of vintage game aesthetics melded with modern psychedelics. It was unlike anything ever made at the time, and to this day, it’s still a stark and refreshingly original thing. Like so many other Dreamcast releases, it not only questions the nature of the medium but also points anyone who plays it towards a new and exciting dimension.
To be honest, I was deeply lapsed as a gamer when the Dreamcast came out, so I've only been able to appreciate the fruits of its brief reign in retrospect. It was a little difficult for me to think of 5 Dreamcast games that I knew intimately enough to really do justice. So -- assuming anyone is even reading this right now, I'll gladly take recommendations to expand my embarrassingly meager collection.
Coming soon: some kind of something something about Fatal Frame 2!
