9 Hard to Beat Sega Dreamcast JRPGs

Every console generation says something about that time period. For example, this current generation marks us diving further into the nightmares of late-stage capitalism. Other generations were far more hopeful and experimental, and despite the circumstances that led to its decline, no console represents that concept better than the Sega Dreamcast.

It may have been a confident but desperate attempt to recover what was lost after the Sega Saturn, but no other console has the level of sincere, creative, and imaginative games in its library that the Dreamcast does. It's something that I, a writer specializing in video games spending his free time on art, deeply appreciate. (Even if I missed my chance to own a Dreamcast when I was younger.)

Coming back to the Dreamcast with an awakened love for a good JRPG has led me to uncover a treasure trove of games. Some were a bit easier than others, and I want to share some noteworthy ones for anyone else willing to take on a few obscure challenges.

9 Time Stalkers

The Forgotten Modern Mystery Dungeon

Ahead of Kingdom Hearts, and completely separate from Torneko's Great Adventure and any of Spike Chunsoft's Mystery Dungeon works sits Time Stalkers. Time Stalkers is a strange, obscure Roguelike crossover game that can be found on the Dreamcast.

Time Stalkers is an underrated gem of a game, showcasing many important popular Roguelike mechanics before they became as mainstream as they are now. To me, it looks like a true 3D Mystery Dungeon game, which is incredible to see with my own eyes as someone in Time Stalker's future.

That said, this is a list about how these JRPGs are hard to beat. Almost none of the Dreamcast's few JRPGs are truly tough to beat like other infamous games. Time Stalkers has been known to frustrate players, especially with more similar games that simplified its formula later. I recommend Mystery Dungeon fans check this game out, but the fact that dungeons reset your level to Level 1 every time, not to mention its aged aspects of character writing, might be so annoying that you'll put the game down without being pushed to your limits.

8 Skies of Arcadia

Aged Like Cheese

If you're shocked that Skies of Arcadia is on here, I urge you to read up above. Not a lot of Sega Dreamcast JRPGs are truly challenging to get through, just a bit frustrating. Still, Skies of Arcadia is worth mentioning. Because it's Skies of Arcadia. More people should play Skies of Arcadia!

The other reason, truthfully, is how Skies of Arcadia has aged. It's a fantastic JRPG that has aged fantastically in plenty of areas. It's a classic and one of the must-play JRPGS if you care about the genre. At the same time, it's designed for players who aren't addicted to instant gratification.

I've heard of plenty of people, including some of my friends, getting confused and lost about what's needed to progress near the end of the game. It hasn't made them stop playing entirely, but they've made it a drag of their own and lost interest by avoiding it until it was too late.

I suppose some parts of Skies of Arcadia aren't easy to stomach if you're used to yellow paint. So, I suppose like a lot of cheeses, it's a bit more of an acquired taste these days. (Maybe a re-release will help with that? Sega? You listening?)

7 Segagaga

A Bit Too Relevant These Days

Segagaga is mostly known for portraying the story of Alex Kidd being thrown into retirement when Sega replaced their old mascot with Sonic the Hedgehog. There's a bit more to this game than its character cameos, though, and it has satire that perfectly sits on the line of being funny and a bit too real.

You play as a boy named Taro, adopted as a Sega employee to root out what's wrong with the company to help it thrive against a Sony rip-off. You do this in a very literal way by exploring floors of the company building, finding game developers, and berating them into working harder.

Once you have these game developers (represented by very unique visual puns) working for you, you can put them in specific divisions of game development to try and make a game to save the company. Considering how much the industry suffers from lay-offs and crunch culture, it's aged a bit too well in hindsight.

You could experience this game for yourself, but do you really want to abuse game developers just to say you've beaten this game? It's like the logic behind the Undertale Genocide Route. What are you willing to do to experience a game? (Okay, it's not actually that serious.)

6 Elemental Gimmick Gear

You Are (Not) The Eggman

We've talked about the good, we've talked about the mediocre, now it's time to talk about the intriguing before touching on the weird. Elemental Gimmick Gear is one of those games that are classified as an RPG by its Japanese developers, so I'm including it here. Truthfully, this feels like a Zelda game stuck between the battles of the Nintendo 64 games and the exploration of the isometric entries.

Elemental Gimmick Gear is one of those games that's an oddity in an affectionate way. Its design is emblematic of the transitional period the Dreamcast was born in, and that's part of why it's pretty tough to get through.

A game designed for exploration, focused around puzzles, without an easy-to-understand map, is bound to be frustrating. On top of that, the best and most efficient attack in the game lowers your HP the longer you use it. The only way to fix that is if you beat an NPC in the overworld in a battle 100 times exactly. Oh, and you have to do it in a row. Yeah. It's certainly a choice, isn't it?

5 Sengoku Turb

The Best Colorful Bout of Nonsense You've Ever Seen

In a world where we have Fire Emblem and Dark Souls as stand-outs in the strategy RPG and action RPG genres, Sengoku Turb is found somewhere in between. Some say Jino and what little allies she has are still stumbling through a few game overs to this day. This isn't an exaggeration as much as my comments on SEGAGAGA would make you believe.

Sengoku Turb is a strange strategic battle RPG that has a style to it like PaRappa the Rapper taken to as many extremes as it can. You fight in 3D areas as the main character. Your units stumbling around the world just as the NPCs do, with no realm or rhythm to it at all. This makes the fights into an incredibly chaotic and loud mess where it's hard to make sense of anything going on. Your troops also come with a default command of "suicide," by the way. Of all things.

If you want a game to purposefully suck at, just to laugh at it, give it a try. You're not going to beat it, I'll tell you that much.

4 Rune Jade

Bold and Brash

I know you're thinking of a certain quote in your head, but Rune Jade doesn't belong in the trash. Far from it. It was another console-based MMORPG for the Dreamcast, the original home of Phantasy Star Online. That alone makes it quite a daring endeavor.

From the start, Rune Jade could be played both online and offline. Refreshing to find in the era of Stop Killing Games, right? It was a procedurally generated dungeon crawler that has ended up aging pretty poorly. Players who revisit it these days typically find it pretty obtuse, and the generated dungeons would fluctuate in terms of difficulty. It's also relatively slow, thanks to the limitations it was made with.

Rune Jade did a lot of new things that help it stand out against the MMOs of today, but it's hardly one I'd be eager to jump into when Final Fantasy XIV's Deepest Dungeon mode is right there. Still, if you're looking for something fun to throw a translation patch on, I don't see the harm in trying this out.

3 Seventh Cross: Evolution

Forget Fishing in RPGs, Be the Fish Instead

In 1838, Charles Darwin published his essay about population, which would come to be understood as natural selection, an important piece of evolutionary biology. In 1998, a game would come out that would serve as both the best and worst example of natural selection at work.

Seventh Cross: Evolution is a bizarre game where you start off as a single cell. You're left in the ocean with no hints at all. This aspect has helped it be one of the most divisive Dreamcast games out there. You either figured out what to do and this game became one of your favorites because you found your way around to the end by yourself, or you didn't figure out anything. All you got out of it was frustration.

I feel like this needs to keep being a game you play blind and figure out for yourself. It's insanely obtuse, liminal, and genuinely hard to master. Just because of that, it might be one of the hardest JRPGs on the Dreamcast entirely.

2 El Dorado Gate

Maybe Multiple Disks Aren't the Way to Go

There are a lot of nostalgic aspects to older JRPGs that get fans to come back. One of the biggest things that players are nostalgic for, especially those that experienced the heights of PlayStation and the Dreamcast, is the way some JRPGs span multiple disks.

El Dorado Gate is either the anti-thesis to this, or multiple disks done right, depending on how you look at it. El Dorado Gate was released only in Japan across seven individual disks for a solid year. Let me say that again. Seven. Individual. Disks. You had to buy each one to see the story to its climax.

It's a Final Fantasy VII Remake trilogy detractor's worst nightmare. It's also a nightmare for anyone who wants to find these games and see if they really are as hard as I say they are. You might get lucky and find the first few disks for $20, each or together, but these prices can and will fluctuate between volumes.

It's such a shame. It's a gorgeous-looking JRPG, and I'm sure the content matches the amount of disks. It sounds like a dream come true, if it was accessible.

1 deSPIRIA

An Uncomfortable Wild Goose Chase

deSPIRIA may take the award for being both the most grotesque Dreamcast game and the most obtuse JRPG the system has. It's from Atlus, which explains a lot, but deSPIRIA takes the studio's most unsettling ideas to the highest it can go. As Allure Valentine, you'll be reading minds and battling living thoughts with your own thoughts manifest besides you. All of this hurts the people you're investigating at the same time, so it gets pretty morally grey right away.

The battles in this game, fitting for its atmospheric creepiness, play out like they do in EarthBound. Unfortunately, it's not nearly as simple as EarthBound is. After you get far enough, the difficulty will ramp up, and you'll need to find books that teach you special attacks. If you don't, you'll get beaten to a pulp by the late-game enemies, and getting them all is a task in itself.

But hey. If you're looking for an obscure Atlus JRPG, or just a scary JRPG that'll disturb you, give it a try. It'll definitely stick with you after.