This bizarre Sega Dreamcast game from July 1999 was created by Japanese developer Vivarium. It’s a very strange indeed virtual pet concept that also got a US release in August 2000. It even turned up on the PS2 in 2001.

With its weird concept of caring for fish-human hybrid Seaman, who players talk to with a microphone accessory, the game ended up being a surprise commercial and critical hit.

Explore the Human Condition With Seaman’s Fish Hybrid

Sega’s Dreamcast was its last console before becoming a game developer only. Digging around in the 600+ games that launched on the system, there’s no denying Seaman stands out.

We remember the game getting reviewing in the Official Dreamcast Magazine and finding it such an odd concept. It didn’t launch in Europe so, being English, we’ve never been able to play the game. A hit when it was released in 1999, Seaman eventually slipped off into obscurity. That was until James Rolfe (The Angry Video Game Nerd) reviewed it on his YouTube channel in July 2015.

That and various other online tributes (including ours now) have given the title a cult following.

Anyway, the game starts with a tadpole being dropped into a fish tank. Sea man immediately begins playing out in real-time and users must rely on voice commands (thanks to the Dreamcast’s microphone). But being precise here, the build-up to the microphone bits are:

1. Drop a tadpole egg into the tank
2. Raise the tank’s heating up to a specific range
3. Wait for the egg to hatch

The game doesn’t provide any clues to what’s going on… UNLESS you read the instruction manual. A read bygone era of gaming, that. You have to read the thing to learn about the Seaman’s backstory, which is quite extravagant

This little monster has various life stages: Egg, Mushroomer, Gillman, Podfish, and Tadman. All of which play out with the dank, murky, mildly unsettling visual style.

Plus, the Seaman’s voice. Which is rather sinister.

Players are expected to check in on the virtual pet and speak to it via the Dreamcast microphone (there was a similar concept on the Nintendo 64 called Hey You, Pikachu! (1998) that also required a microphone to talk to Pikachu).

The creature has a lot of random trivia knowledge and will spout a lot of facts out you, turning out to be a bit of a pompous bore. It quite happily insults you throughout the game.

This is the “iconic” phase of the game where it resembles a cyprinid with a human face (including a, sort of, quiff bit of hairdo). The fish/human does get a little bit more friendly as you domesticate it. To do that, you need to talk to it more and more. But it doesn’t even stop condescending you.

The goal is to listen to this obnoxious prick lecture you, all whilst you look after it and get the thing to its final life cycle stage. The Frogman. It’s then able to leave its tank for short periods, although the player must use a sprinkler system to keep the thing wet.

Everything wraps up once you’re able to release Seaman into the wild.

Despite its weirdness, the game is well executed and intriguing. Vivarium’s Yoot Saito came up with the idea, which is kind of a warped philosophical take on the Tamagotchi craze.

Despite its many surreal qualities, Seaman was the third best-selling Dreamcast game in Japan for 1999 (it shifted some 399,342 copies in Japan by February 2004). It was also well received by critics, with many 8/10 reviews across the global gaming press.

And that success could only mean one thing!

Notes on the Sequel: Seaman 2

Seaman 2: Pekin Genjin Ikusei Kit (シーマン2 〜北京原人育成キット〜) launched on the PS2 in October 2007 (the Dreamcast was no more by that point, Sega discontinued it in March 2001). It was only released in Japan.

Again styled as a pet-raising simulation game, this time players assume the role of a kind of deity (rather than just a pet owner). You’re introduced to small island where a Peking Man called Gabo lives.

Once again, players got a microphone and the goal was to talk to Gabo, alter things on the island, and see how the weird little thing reacted.

The cyprinid human face thing synonymous with the first game does reappear, this time seemingly as part of a deformed albatross. All these creatures speak to you, but it’s in Japanese so we’ve no idea what the hell is going on.

Anyway, the game topped the bestsellers list upon its release and went on to sell 61,878 copies in Japan.

Another game was planned for the Nintendo 3DS (Nintendo’s dual-screen successor to the Game Boy). Yoot Saito specifically met with Nintendo’s President Satoru Iwata to discuss the game. Saito later wrote on his official blog:

“When Iwata-san came to ask me to create Seaman for the 3DS, I like to think he was in the same frame of mind as when he first came to visit me at my apartment back in 1999. I did start working on the project, but things got really complicated and I eventually let go of it. Unfortunately that brought an end to our relationship, where I could just casually visit him in Kyoto and have fun exchanging new ideas. I felt like we needed some time before we could go back to the kind of creativity-filled relationship.”

Sadly, the series died with whatever difficulties befell the project. And we haven’t seen, or heard, anything of Seaman since… other than for its lingering legacy of weirdness.