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Post by Ex on Aug 2, 2018 9:48:52 GMT -5
Great thread dunpeal2064 ! It makes me happy to read about a fellow retro gamer enjoying classic Japanese PC gaming. The whole Japanese PC scene is a deep ocean of hidden gems (albeit usually in an inscrutable language). When you've had your fill of PC98, I hope you check out the Sharp X68000 next. But ya gotta play through Night Slave, Rusty, and Edge first though! |
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Post by dunpeal2064 on Aug 2, 2018 10:09:58 GMT -5
The Sharp is definitely something I want to mess around with in the future. Don't worry, all three of those games are very high on my list! I've tracked down and got two of them working already, but for some reason Edge has given me fits. The archive and abandonware uploads are in a weird format.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 2, 2018 12:58:35 GMT -5
Cool stuff, Dunpeal, so many hidden gems. Peret em Heru: For the Prisoners looks particularly intriguing. Most of the PC-98 gaming library seems to be for mature audiences only - pretty much the anti-Nintendo. I've been dabbling with PC-98 emulation myself lately but I still have to get the hang of it. I've been using Neko Project 2. I wanted to see if I can get Brandish 3 to work but I still can't get past the main menu.
Anyway, I'll definitely keep an eye on this thread!
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Post by bonesnapdeez on Aug 3, 2018 6:38:28 GMT -5
Just remembered that I own the Dragon Slayer Chronicle collection on PC, which has PC-98 versions of The Legend of Heroes, The Legend of Heroes II, Lord Monarch, and Advanced Lord Monarch. Not sure what emulator the compilation is actually running, I should check that out!
I love this old Japanese computer stuff. So much mystery and mystique. Many games from this era are literally "lost" - that is, no disk images have been dumped online and physical copies are scarce to the point of absurdity.
There's gotta be plenty of hidden gems hiding among the PC-98 library. Just a cursory glance reveals some of the best ARPG developers of old supported the system: Falcom, Micro Cabin, T&E Soft, Telenet...
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Post by bonesnapdeez on Aug 4, 2018 11:12:36 GMT -5
Some more APRGs to check out...
Popful Mail - the original version for NEC systems is very different compared to what ended up on the Sega CD (which itself is very distinct from the Super Famicom game). Cute small sprites and bump combat. Glorious!
XZR - The first game of the "Exile" trilogy, and the only one that received no console ports. Bizarre religious sidescrolling ARPG madness!
Rune Worth series - a trilogy of solid top-down ARPGs from the developers of Hydlide.
Then of course are the "typical" games like Ys and Xak, though many of those are probably better experienced on consoles or even other computers systems (Xak is legendary on MSX, for instance).
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Post by Xeogred on Aug 4, 2018 15:36:29 GMT -5
It certainly goes without saying, this thread rules. Have any standout OST's yet dunpeal2064 ? I haven't touched any of this stuff but have consumed a lot of its music, it completely slays. |
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Post by dunpeal2064 on Aug 4, 2018 16:08:42 GMT -5
Thanks again for all the recs, bonesnapdeez . I'll definitely look into these. Action RPGs are a genre that strides the line of playability without knowing the language, so hopefully at least a few of these will be playable for me. Xeogred Yeah man, the music on this computer is really great. Flame Zapper Kotsujin has a pretty sweet OST overall, but its final stage takes the cake for me, pure balls-out synthy goodness: Another track I quite like, this one is more ambient and dark, gives me some Streets of Rage vibes: Of course, the Touhou games are packed full of great songs too. I did finish another PC-98 game today, but I'd like to make E.V.O. the next write-up, and its proven to be longer than I anticipated! |
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Post by Xeogred on Aug 4, 2018 17:02:35 GMT -5
Yeaaaaah... that's my ear aesthetic!
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Post by dunpeal2064 on Aug 4, 2018 21:52:16 GMT -5
E.V.O. - -Theory of Evolution Also known as 46 Okunen Monogatari: The Shinkaron, this predecessor to the more well-known SNES game was developed by Almanic and released in 1990 by Enix. Similar to its predecessor, you work your way through time, evolving into new species along the way. Unlike its follow-up, though, this is a turn-based RPG.  E.V.O. is fairly traditional as far as RPGs go. You talk to NPCs to move the story along, and fight enemies between story points on the map, and occasionally in dungeon-like areas. The game is played from a top-down view, and enemies are present on the map. Defeating enemies, surviving natural disasters (Earthquakes, Volcano eruptions, etc), and finding Gaea's Tears will award you evo points, which you then use to raise one of four attributes. Once one of those attributes reaches a certain level, you will evolve. E.V.O. is broken up into 6 chapters, each acting both as a gateway to the next era of history, and a reset to the player's leveling/evolving process, as each era has a cap to evolving.        A little timeline of my evolution through the game, featuring my favorite from each eraThere were many aspects of E.V.O. that I enjoyed. The presentation in its still moments is fantastic, and evolving as you reach each new era is fun, and gives a purpose to combat. You are able to manage in what ways you evolve with stat allocation, which gives some meaning to your character build. It was also interesting seeing the story unfold, as while the game initially moves along close to our actual history, it takes more and more liberties as it goes, and its final few acts are very fantasy-driven and wild, reaching a great conclusion in an epic battle. Fantasy aside, this game also has an impressive amount of historical information, giving you sizes, habits, and periods of life for each evolution you obtain (Of which there are many).
   
E.V.O. does, unfortunately, come with some flaws as well. Earning evo happens way too fast, and in almost every chapter I found myself maxed on every stat far too early. This is just while fighting normally, too, but since random natural disasters can occur every step (Which grant massive evo), you can level even quicker by just running back and forth for a few minutes. This by itself wouldn't be a huge issue, but since enemies are on the map, you are often forced to fight when there is no gain to be had. In the later chapters, there can be huge swarms of enemies that move too fast to avoid, forcing you to fight repeatedly. Were the combat more complex, this might not be as bothersome, but until the last few fights of the game, I found just spamming attack to be the most effective tactic. There was also a very frustrating area that is full of enemies that don't attack you, but start a dialogue with you upon contact. They home in on you, and there are several of them. If they surround you, your game is soft-locked, and you have to reboot, swap discs, start a new game, load your save, and swap discs again to get back to where you were.
 The soft-lock. This happened multiple times. And, you have to revisit here! That said, while these issues are technically present through the entire game, they only really became troublesome in the last two chapters or so. I had a fantastic time at the start of this game, and was only mildly bogged down by some of these issues. Luckily, the final chapter forgoes all grinding and enemy encounters for a grand, uninterrupted finale, and is a perfect end to the game. The bad endings are also worth mentioning, most of which occur when you evolve too far into a single path. They were often hilarious and well worth seeing.
   The best bad endings that I came acrossGameplay 6/10: Evolving is fun, and going from place to place remains interesting throughout. The issues mentioned bring this down a bit, but its the overly-simple RPG mechanics that bring this score down, though not far enough to take away from its strengths. Art/Sound 7.5/10: While the in-game graphics and music do well enough to carry the game, its the still screens and character/enemy pixel art that really excels here, showing off truly gorgeous landscapes and creatures. Of the PC-98 games I've played so far, this game has the most screens I wish I could share (Over 50), and cutting down to what was shared here was not easy. Lewd Factor NA: There is a naked barbarian holding a big log suggestively at one point.
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Post by dunpeal2064 on Aug 5, 2018 4:27:42 GMT -5
Touhou Reiiden ~ The Highly Responsive to Prayers Highly Responsive to Prayers is the first Touhou game, developed by ZUN in 1995 and released alongside the second game at Comiket in 1996. While its partner in sales was more in line with what the Touhou series would become, this first game is quite unique. Rather than a danmaku shooter, HRtP is an Arkanoid/Breakout type game, where your goal is to attack an orb and bounce it around screen in order to hit cards or bosses.
While this may seem like a simple clone at first, HRtP does have a few mechanics that make it unique. While attempting to break cards or hit bosses, those enemies and bosses will shoot at you, the bosses having more shmup-like patterns to dodge through. Your character shoots, similar to a shmup, in order to hit the orb, but is also able to swing around a little weapon to hit the orb or absorb incoming bullets, and has a slide move that lets you hit the orb when its low, and move quicker in a pinch. You also have a smart bomb that clears a bunch of random cards on a stage.
Things get pretty intense when you both maintain the orb's momentum to score hits, while also dodging through waves of bullets. This is especially true off the 4 bosses in the game, which get increasingly complex. Bumping the game up to Lunatic makes things even more hectic, as cards will shoot return bullets when hit, turning the stages into boss-like bullet hells. HRtP also offers two routes to choose from (Makai or Hell) upon defeating the first boss, meaning there are 3 bosses unique to each route. I went for the Makai route in this playthrough.
HRtP is an interesting game, and impressive considering its ZUN's first work. While it is, at its core, just a single screen shooter, I think it does enough of its own thing to warrant playing, especially if you are a fan of these sorts of games. That said, I do think ZUN made a lot of improvements from here, and that HRtP stands out as the lesser of the PC-98 Touhou games by a decent margin to me. Thats not a knock on this game as much as it is praise for the others, though, as HRtP is still a unique and fun little single-screen shooter, at least for a single playthrough.
Gameplay 6/10: The character's movekit is the biggest plus. Having a variety of ways to approach different situations really fleshes out a game like this. The implementation of danmaku elements is done well, too. The orb's momentum is handled mostly well, but it does often feel like you are fighting against it (And considering it kills you on contact, this isn't great).
Art/Sound 6.5/10: Visually, this game suffices for the most part, but its combo of little anime girl against bizzare, avant-garde backgrounds is odd, and doesn't come across well to me. There is also just an overall low-quality feel to things, visually. There are some good songs in here, but the overall quality isn't quite as high as ZUN's other works.
Lewd Factor NA
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