Christmas kept on giving this year for SEGA fans as Assembler user ZakhooiTM has released on the internet the unfinished build of ToeJam and Earl 3 running on Dreamcast hardware. The game was originally found on a dev-kit that was purchased for $1200. ZakhooiTM was initially looking to begin a fundraiser but has instead decided to release the build as-is.
The beta is noticeably different in that it lacks some of the finer details seen in the final Xbox version. It also makes the game mechanics feel much closer to the original ToeJam and Earl game seen on the Mega Drive as there is no jump button and no cutscenes to break up the action or provide hints, likely due to the date while in development drew closer to SEGA’s exit from the hardware business. Be sure to check out their forums for more information as well as a link to download the game.
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After burning the game to a disc, unless I just haven’t done it properly, its pretty obvious that the game was not yet made to run off of a GD ROM just yet. Other than the fact that the load times are lengthy, my Dreamcast sounds like it is trying to send its laser all over the CD, which basically means the game was not really optimized to load data in proper chunks. On a dev kit, its just loading off of a hard drive, which is much quicker than a CD, which might cause some real strain on your Dreamcast laser. Your system won’t immediately keel over, but something to consider before you start playing the game on your actual Dreamcast if you don’t plan on using emulators.
You could run it on a normal Dreamcast using one of those third party SD card loaders that was released a couple of years ago to save the wear on the disc drive.