On the eve of the Sega Dreamcast’s 20th anniversary, the game developers reflect on the era-defining but ill-fated console.

The Sega Dreamcast released in Japan in November of 1998. At the time, it was easily the most powerful console on the market, capable of graphics rendering at speed and fidelity thus far unheard of. It was also the first home console to ship with a built-in modem allowing for online multiplayer straight out of the box.

After arriving to a tepid response in Japan, the Dreamcast finally made it to the rest of the world in the fall of 1999. The console did better in North America than in Japan, but never quite got ahead of its arch-rival, the Sony PlayStation, and when the PlayStation 2 arrived in March of 2000, it ate the Dreamcast alive.

Sega discontinued the Dreamcast in March of 2001, forsaking home consoles and declaring themselves to be a 3rd-party games development and publishing company only.

You could point to a lot of factors contributing to the system's downfall, but the quality of its games certainly wasn't one of them. The Dreamcast was home to incredible titles that would live on in other systems after it, franchises like SoulCalibur, Shenmue, Phantasy Star Online, and Crazy Taxi, just to name a few.

RELATED: Rage 2 Is Now A Dreamcast Game, But Only On One Dreamcast

And because Sega was developing for both home consoles and old-school arcades, many of their games were designed to appeal to both audiences. That meant they were fast, fun, and filled with bright colors and smooth animation. In fact, many Dreamcast titles still live on in the few arcades that remain in North America, relics from a bygone era.

In honor of the Sega Dreamcast’s 20th anniversary, YouTube channel Archipel created a two-part documentary that looked back at the Dreamcast through the eyes of some of its most famous game designers.

They managed to wrangle eight people, including Tetsuya Mizuguchi (Rez), Yoot Saito (Seaman), Hiroshi Iuchi (Ikaruga), Kenji Kanno (Crazy Taxi), Masayoshi Kikuchi (Jet Set Radio), Rieko Kodama (Eternal Arcadia), Tetsu Okano (Segagaga), and Hiroaki Yotoriyama (SoulCalibur), to talk about the Dreamcast and their experience developing for the platform.

If you have even a passing interest in games history, this is a documentary you just can’t miss.

(via Kotaku)

NEXT: The 10 Best Sega Dreamcast Games Of All-Time