PixlBit

Well what a way to end my little hodge podge of blogs about emulator oddities than to talk about my final emulator oddity. Today I'm going to discuss the Sega Dreamcast VMU also known as the Visual Memory Unit! It's a memory card! It's a game save file manager! It's a handheld game console! It's a burrito! OH MY! Well maybe not that last one...Anyways witout further ado, let's take a look at the VMU!

 

While the most basic function of the Dreamcast VMU was to serve as a storage device, the Dreamcast was Sega's most innovative console to date. At the time things that Sega was at the forefront of was unheard of. Online gaming with keyboard chat display, a visually impressive gaming system with a excellent series of games to choose from, and of course this...the VMU.

Now for the most part when I was 9-10 years old this thing was really only used for game saves. Little did I know of it's handheld gaming capabilities, and there are quite a few games that are available, both licensed by Sega themselves and a few emulated homebrew classics. Essentially these homebrewed titles comprise of the usual suspects. You've got surprise, surprise my favorite three returning culprits: Pac-Man, Breakout, and Tetris. Of course the quality of these titles isn't grand, but it's impressive feat what hackers can do with their time.

  

Now for the most part, I'd hardly call some of the titles for the VMU as games per say. Some notable VMU features didn't feature any gameplay at all. Dino Crisis for instance serves as a health condition and ammo monitor, Seaman has it's feature set up as a microphone status, and Shen Mue gives you sprite animations of fighting moves.

That isn't to say there aren't games to be played, albeit very simple. Power Stone gives you three simple mini games to play. The first is Gunrock's Gun-Gun Slot which is just a slot machine simulator. Put virtual money in the slot machine and try to line up the correct sprites for mor virtual money. Falcon's Aerial Adventure ilooks ike a top down shmup but it's more of a top down dodge the bombs and pick up diamonds toget a high score.... fairly simple. The final is Ayame's Shurkien Training in which stick figure sprites come onto to screen. With the D-pad you move the cursor and throw shurikens with the "A" button to defeat them. Fairly simple stuff.

The Dreamcast Visual Memory Unit was fairly innovative for it's time. A memory device/handheld gaming unit had never been done before and hasn't been done since. And many of the simulators, even ones as simple as virtual pet Chao raising weren't without their charms. So with that being said, thanks for tuning into this 3 part segment of Emulator Oddities. Up next I'll be doing a different series segment discussing some NES Classics/SNES Classics/Genesis/Atari games that missed out on being in the mini/flashback systems, theories on what and how many games could make it onto a N64/Game Boy classic, some hidden gems, and some downright terrible, terrible titles. As always thanks for reading!