This #PasokonSunday, it's time for PC-98 recommendations charts!
It's been forever since I promised these, but they're finally happening. 5 infographics, 84 selections, 12700069420 hours in MS Paint.
So many games you can pick up & try right now, listed with icons & quick info!
Pt 2: action, xRPGs, and shooters!
Quick facts on these reccographics:
•Nearly all games are SFW
•Most games require relatively little set-up thanks to pre-made images/emulators
•Twitter's crop changes probably messed up how these look—apologies in advance
Spread 'em around!
My usual emulation path:
•Windows users can buy some games from @project_egg & emulate that way
•RetroArch now has solid PC-98 emulation via Neko Project II—you’ll need to find ROM/font files and the games somewhere on Internet Archive
•Archive also has a Neo Kobe emulator pak
This part was hard just because of the scope of sims the PC-98 had, plus the dearth of less pervy ADVs. More work to edit, too, but it's all worth it in the end!
These will look real nice on my Carrd whenever that goes up.
"Gee, they're mostly in Japanese! How do I play 'em?"
There's also DeepL + OCRs and Textractor until said patches.
Pt 4: the wallflower corner, with doujin games, genre combos, and truly out-there stuff.
There's only more infographic after this! Care to guess what's featured in that one?
Shoutout to @Macaw45 for info on FEED and for streaming Zeta. And to @obskyr for Azusa 999's fan patch.
@Macaw45@obskyr Pt 5: a grand finale of games topping fans' translation shortlists! + a concluding addendum section
Feel free to RT & spread these around! I'd love to drop into a thread one day & see people referencing these reccographics, or for someone to improve on this format.
Updated Pt 5 to fix some mistakes, namely not having a pic of Corpse Party PC-98 in the appropriate place
On a technical level, Sorcerian is still impressive for such limited hardware. PC-88 scrolling is no joke!
This article from the doujin disk PC88 Game World (preserved by @gamepres) goes into further detail about every known trick Yoshio Kiya & co. used: gamepres.org/pc88/library/1…
I've been skimming through LOGiN Magazine's Dec '87 issue and it's chock full of Sorcerian love, with a 4-page preview & plenty of ad space.
The '87 holiday season was flush with heavyweights beyond Falcom (Reviver, War of the Dead, Daiva, Testament, etc.), but few as prominent.
This #PasokonSunday, it's a PC-88 golf game couple: Computer the Golf & Golf Island!
With the former's English fan patch from @GeofrontTeam, it's never been easier to experience Falcom's pre-Ys/-RPG period, let alone Tecno Soft's early PC games. It's digital golf for the masses!
I know, neither look as exciting as Shin Sex 2: The Sequel to the Motion Picture, but look at it this way:
Falcom & Tecno Soft got folks skipping the golf club a year before Nintendo. Why spend possibly *millions* of yen on a club membership when a PC & game went for way less?
If anything, Nintendo's Golf from 1984 owes part of its design to earlier J-PC golf titles like these. Satoru Iwata was still making PC games up through '83, after all, & he's the coder behind so many early Famicom releases.
Both games would have been very appealing until then.
Very cool video as expected. I knew Possessioner was underwhelming vs. its Western reception based entirely on said GIFs & music, but I didn't think it was *this* flawed.
If anyone asks why I'm so picky with covering ADVs/proto-VNs for any J-PC...well, this kind of game is why.
Possessioner, meanwhile, uses sex scenes much less for characterization & much more for fetishization. Beyond just male gaze, they actively waste the potential romantic dynamics between characters.
By contrast, Jewel teases nudity with thematic purpose, not just to objectify.
NHK recently aired a feature about Brother's '80s & '90s "black company" years, starring subjects like their iconic Takeru floppy software vending machines.
It's funny that Brother considers this era their "black" period, as if legally rewriting user floppies was/is dubious.
Brother's R&D team came up with Takeru in the early-'80s as a way to reuse excess disk stock from other products. It never made as much profit as the company desired, but Takeru ATMs remained in operation well into the '90s. They were home to many doujin/eroge titles as a result.
While this meant some J-PC games got commercial distribution when they otherwise wouldn't have, it's also increasingly hard to find & preserve Takeru exclusives due to how often disks got overwritten.
Brother also had to deal with pirating/counterfeiting of Takeru disks, too.
So, whenever talk about Tower of Druaga's community guides from the '80s comes up, I struggle to find good primary sources for that trend. After all, either arcades trashed those books/boards years after Druaga's peak, or they became private heirlooms.
Another example, this time for the console ports. It's neat how this game, with all its inscrutable traps & tricks, spawned a grassroots strategy guide scene. (Arguably less cool how it heralded an age of games only fun when using said strategy guides.)
This user points out the ubiquity of similar guides anywhere you'd find a Druaga cab, even ones in English! It's this "help a stranger help you" attitude, predating the Web even, that influenced the Souls series & others with similar kinds of mysteries.
This #PasokonSunday, let's de-stress with some Metal Force on PC-98!
This vertical STG from CHIME nails the bread-and-butter aspects of J-PC doujin shooters--more polished than usual.
-Great BGM from KID (of Final Crisis fame)
-Fun boost/weapon systems
-Smooth difficulty curve
YouTube longplay for Metal Force butchers its resolution/video quality, so I'll upload the lengthy intro here for now.
Though published by eroge firm Youentai, Metal Force's the work of a rather unknown studio called CHIME; its developers might have helped develop Final Crisis.
As KEYNES BLACK, a typical arcade sci-fi ace dude, it's on you to stop an enemy invasion of Earth.
Macross-like story aside, expect a robust vertical STG with audiovisuals pushing the PC-98's limits. Its composer, Daisuke Takahashi (KID), also worked on Final Crisis!