Japanese PC Gaming General: End of Summer Edition
Thread anthem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGYNHn-i_fw
//Pastebin//
>Links to vendors, emulators, game info, fansites, &c.
http://pastebin.com/g99LycCJ
//Games//
>ROM sites w/games, tools, OS packs, &c.:
http://www.retroprograms.com/
https://archive.org/details/PC98_Games_1813
http://www.theoldcomputer.com/roms/index.php
>Project EGG's for legal downloads (takes PayPal, subscription service). Collecting should use Suruga-ya for mail order. Try bidding on Yahoo! Japan, too; use a middleman service like From Japan for shipping:
http://www.amusement-center.com/project/egg/
http://www.suruga-ya.jp/
http://auctions.yahoo.co.jp/
http://www.fromjapan.co.jp/
>/vr/ Anon's PC-98 dump:
https://mega.co.nz/#F!F59WkSqQ!quGKSFIswBgv0rxAAaF8Pg
>PC-88 dump:
https://mega.co.nz/#F!10IGCLjQ!Aim8asXQ62YKRqzGfAqX5w
//Emulation//
>lllusion City blog has primers on emulating the PC-88, PC-6001, and FM Towns platforms:
http://illusioncity.net
>Guides to Neko Project II & making bootable HDI files for PC-98:
http://fullmotionvideo.free.fr/pc98/neko.html
http://fullmotionvideo.free.fr/pc98/articles/hdi/hdi.html
>MS-DOS and Windows 3.1 work for the PC-98; consider Ko-Window or SX-Window for the X68k (FM Towns has proprietary OS). The 8-bit machines run mainly BASIC.
//Music//
Misty Blue (PC-88, Koshiro): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KOiDPpHFgw
Golvellius (MSX2, Miyamoto): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXvBmHndSxM&t=7
Star Cruiser (X1, Yamanaka): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kc1vUz87_Yo
Rhyme Star (PC-98, Abo): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PA_rvNRNBg
AZURE (FM Towns, Umemoto): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTolqkb6cQo
Code-Zero (X68k, Random House): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIleersmwMo
Power DoLLS 4 (Windows, Saitoh): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hZAUQaCDg8
//Translations//
romhacking.net
>Most active J-PC group:
http://heroesoflegend.retro-type.com/forums/index.php
Okay, let's get started with some juicy Artdink. Tokio was their simulation game most akin to SimCity, giving you the role of mayor running an orbital Island Three-style space colony. This PC-98 city-building title diverges from the company's flagship series A-Train by ditching mass transit as the means of expansion and city growth; you can do things much like in a Maxis game, albeit with more economic and political customization/options than usual. You have three panes of the colony to build your city on, all the while running as incumbent and trying to profit from space shuttle fares despite the upkeep. You can even chat with residents via randomly-generated phone calls, probably the hardest feature to translate if and when someone does a patch for this game.
Here you can see great hand-drawn pixel art courtesy of Artdink's house designers from 1992. I'm not sure if Tokio and its sequel use the same engine as A-Train III/IV, as it supports greater detail for objects while sacrificing animations the other series is known for.
Now for the underbelly. This space-port's where most of the A-Train holdover influence can be found. You also have to maintain your colony's energy resources and climate, which factors into both domestic and economic policy.
Anyone know of good [translated] detective games out there worth playing? I would especially love if there was something like Asenheim Project that provided them in browser.
Night-life is exciting as always in an Artdink game, where all the lights are on all the time.
>>2646842
The J.B. Harold installments Murder Club and Manhattan Requiem have translations—they're interesting plots with plenty of questions worth asking your suspects. I've been playing the iOS version of the latter (using the rough translation first used in the LaserActive port) recently. You can play the DOS conversion of the former in browser via Internet Archive, and that will keep your saves as well.
Japanese PCs were home to a number of good shooters, some unique and others conventional. Recently I've been playing Telenet's Luxsor, a multi-platform STG blockbuster of sorts when it released. The X1 version has my ideal balance of aggression, fast rail-shooter segments (the bosses take much too long though), and variation in patterns. Being able to bomb ground targets means it ultimately one-ups the FM77AV version, which, for all its smooth scrolling and flair, is simpler and less exciting. Problem with every other version, though, is that scrolling's choppy; the PC-88 version suffers from having tiny bullets that faze on and off the screen even when they're still there, leading to sudden deaths. Basically the same thing happened with Luxsor and Valis: their X1 versions aren't perfect but at least work appropriately and are decent fun, while the other ports are either simplified or excessive.
![Larry_Butz_Thumbs_Up_2[1].gif](https://i.imgur.com/lnR0OZ3.gif "Larry_Butz_Thumbs_Up_2[1].gif")
>>2646850
thanks I'll see what I can find
>>2646743
What the shit is that game?
>>2647006
Deep Forest, a side-scrolling action adventure made by Sein Soft in 1987 for the FM77AV (an upgraded model able to display way more than 8 colors out of a potential 4096, plus some memory and processing enhancements). I haven't played much of it yet, but this game was one of the company's big projects, before they became known for shoddy ports and internal strife/crunch like no one else on the market.
The Windows era was effectively an afterlife for all the developers who once made games on non-Wintel PCs, but every now and then something unique popped into the picture like in the old days. Hired Explorer was one of a few Diablo-likes produced around the turn of the millennium (one of those, ShadowFlame, was released overseas to some recognition). I found the official web-page here; http://web.archive.org/web/20030808084447/http://studio-van.com/game/he/he.htm
Combining standardized isometric battling with a relationship system and more open-ended quest structure helps this one stand out. I just wish there was footage I could show or link to, since I haven't found a dump of the game anywhere.
Bumpin'.
I've gotta play some Relics now as I wrap up on my website project, but I can play a whole bunch of stuff on request, even some games heavier on moon supposing I can learn the menus and get somewhere. You'll get WebMs out of this offer, that and/or /jpc/ can get consistent regulars after a bad summer.
Is Lunatic Dawn too new to be in these threads? This series looks great, but my Japanese is not nearly good enough to attempt to play these games.
>>2647486
Any LD games currently sold online by Artdink/Degica (via the Legend Pack and related Steam/EGG releases) are good here, just not the console-exclusive games like Tempest. There was some discussion of the PC-98 games a while back in this HG101 thread, that might tell you how to get a game started: http://hg101.proboards.com/thread/11963/lunatic-dawn-project
What Derboo/Trickless don't mention is that, if you're using emulation, you need to first do HD installs for the PC-98 games, which can be a hassle if you don't have an image like this one: http://nfggames.com/forum2/index.php?topic=5463.0
I really love the level of detail put into LD and can't wait to give II and/or Passage of the Book a shot.
>>2647013
There's some footage at niconico:
http://www.nicozon.net/mylist/35484899
There was also a demo version available at vector.jp but unfortunately it's something from over ten years ago and Internet Archive doesn't have it stored so we can retrieve it. Too bad cause the patches fixing some in-game errors are still downloadable from the official site heh
On the other hand, there's also this game, Will, which seems to be more like a prototype for Hired Explorers. This one's still available at Vector (http://www.vector.co.jp/soft/win95/game/se181270.html) though you can only play until the 3rd floor (if I'm not mistaken) unless someone manage to crack it somehow.
Will was also released along with The Cageling - another title from Studio VAN - (under the name Princess Will and Dark Revenger respectively) in a GameLand set.
>>2649017
Damn, it seems they were a doujin group before making HE into a commercial release. This became more interesting than I expected.
>>2647823
Someone dumped The Mars Project 3 a while back, and I heard (maybe from Kogado Anon last year) that a dump of the original's around, but that's not in my library. However, we now have access to all the Windows Relics games (Recur of Origin, 2nd Birth, Rinne, Anniversary) thanks to a couple of recent contributions.
You all are my best bet at finding out about an old game I played on my uncle's PC98 back in the 90s
It was a raising sim where you had a cute fairy in one of those glass vacuum chambers you would find in a laboratory, and she would evolve into other forms depending on her stats. But I can't remember the name of it.
The art was that late-80s/early-90s anime style.
>>2649621
Sounds like Mercurius Pretty: http://www.mobygames.com/game/mercurius-pretty
There's enhanced versions for Windows 9x and Dreamcast, but I don't know where to get the former online. Here's a playlist of all the endings you can get: http://www22.atpages.jp/wipeout/MercuriusPretty/index.html
>>2649632
You just made me nostalgia on my keyboard, thank you
![ura-game-2009-01-04T15_17_00-43[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/nSxT8nh.jpg "ura-game-2009-01-04T15_17_00-43[1].jpg")
>>2649204
So apparently until 2000 or so their main game was The Cageling. Several updates in their homepage show it being presented in different PC magazines like Westside's Otanoshimi CD, DOS/Vmagazine, DOS/V POWER and Gekkan Monthly PC. There's also this nifty preview available at Vector dating from 1999:
http://www.vector.co.jp/magazine/softnews/991204/n9912041.html (includes download links for The Cageling 1 and 2 at the end)
It also seems that there was an interview of some sort for Nikkei Click (2001/August) but I wasn't able to find anything about it.
Also in 2001 by the time they(?) formed Net Trust, Studio VAN became it's brand for releasing games or so it'd appear.
Gotta say, this whole thing made me curious to hunt down some more background information.
>>2649621
Not gonna add anything useful but it just reminded me of Pixy Garden someone in the last thread was trying to play.
Wonder how things turned out.
Marchen Veil's difficulty fazes me not. It's not anywhere near as inscrutable as Tower of Druaga, the immediate influence on this game. Level design here (plus the pre-stage story texts) gives plenty of hints to new players on what to watch out for and how to predict enemy behaviors. Keeping the controls simple (tenkey movement, some function-key commands, and the spacebar for shooting) also leads to players learning they can scramble back to safety if they fall off a cliff/surface. The whole premise of the game is cool: you play the prince of the Lake Country in this world called Felix—before wedding the Wood Country princess after winning a contest vs. other suitors, a jealous sorcerer transmogrifies and teleports you to the edge of Felix, requiring a long journey home. Game's tough but, true to Japanese players' description of the original as a Druaga-like for PC users both at home and in the office (you can blank the screen immediately both to pause and, presumably, to hide your delinquency during working hours), it's accessible and distinct from anything else released that year.
I'm reminded of how Fantasy Zone's premise sets expectations for players that are both reinforced and subverted; Marchen Veil is similar, tightly designed and understandable even without reading the manual (at least the most important aspects, as I don't know how saving works exactly). Anyway, it's worth a try if you want something better than Hydlide that doesn't try for what Xanadu and Legend of Zelda focus on.
>>2649972
Awesome! Thank you for digging up this info. I'm gonna play a bit of these games soon enough.
Shoot Range is another one of those accessible J-PC games you can easily find and get running immediately. It's the wargame companion to Bit^2's Chitty Chitty Train (other way 'round actually), with Battleship-inspired targeting and a balanced team of robots you must use to defeat the enemy on many different maps. Audiovisuals stand out in their own cute way, even amidst other X68k games.
This got posted on a Twitter account recently. Amtrak was going to be Square's first simulation game, a railway tycoon game set in their interpretation of the U.S. Too bad they cancelled it, though maybe it just wasn't going to be as good as Artdink's first A-Train game that got more and more press attention in the same period as Amtrak. We have one magazine-sourced image of what the game would have looked like, but Tanaka and co. have no doubt lost any of the essential source files/assets needed for preservation.
>>2652532
It also seems that one of the reasons Amtrak got cancelled was due to Blassty being developed at the same period and most of the budget/dev team was focused on it. By the time Blassty was finished, Square had almost completely lost interest in the PC market :(
![145003202[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/UAQ7Ulk.jpg "145003202[1].jpg")
>>2649972
>>2652085
I figured I might as well leave some links for the magazines here for further reference:
>Nikkei Click
https://web.archive.org/web/20000301103557/http://cl.nikkeibp.co.jp/cl/index.htm
>Otanoshimi CD
https://web.archive.org/web/20040607193038/http://westside.co.jp/otacd/index.html
>DOS/V Magazine
https://web.archive.org/web/20010424032857/http://www.vwalker.com/vmag/
Just for the record Otanoshimi CD's homepage is still available but some of the past content isn't there anymore.
Folks at Tokugawa also seem to have gathered some of the PC98 files that came with the magazine a while ago. As for the magazine's contents, that's probably another matter. Will try and see what I can do over there.
>>2654637
I love how Otanoshimi CD 11 came with cheats for games as distant as Diablo and Wiz's BLACK MAGIC. All of this will be interesting to peruse in the future; I just wish the revival issue of Oh!X from the early-2000s was archived so I could play the demo of K. Yoshimura's Galaxy Knights (spiritual successor to Star Cruiser).
On another note, I just took a look at Valna (PC-88, Sacom) in MadEdit. The first two disks (system, data A) have naked, Shift JIS-encoded text strings (monospaced) that can be edited, which is funny since I would have thought Sacom knew how to compress their games almost too well. Marchen Veil by contrast is a mess to read in any encoding and takes up just less than half the allotted disk space! Valna's a decent game to maybe translate and patch, but I'm not sure if there's strings on data B that are compressed.
Algarna seems to play better on the X1, and I'll be getting some footage of that just for the cool parallax scrolling. I can dig Providence, but so far it feels barebones, maybe it and Valna were rushed to market based off of projects rotting away within Sacom. These Ys III-/Hydlide-likes either died on arrival or evolved into bigger things, rather than stay at this size.
Hey guys, someone mentioned Galseed II in a different thread the other day but my quest to find it using my usual sources, as well as the entirety of the google database has proven futile. Does anyone know where I can obtain a (separate) dump of it? From whatever info I could find scattering around I know that a dump does exist somewhere out there.
I'm interested in translating some games. Where would I begin? I translate for a living, mostly small time mobile games these days, but I'd like to have a project that I'm more connected with so some older untranslated games would be much more fun. It's this or novels.
>>2655372
I know it's included in the NPG v4 pack.
http://nfggames.com/x68000/Games/
I haven't actually tried it out but there are some tutorials explaining how to boot the image at their forum :)
Anyone have experience with MSX2 computers? Are they import friendly? Will they fuck up if I hook them up to a US monitor?
>>2656251
Caius @ Tokugawa and NFGgames is looking for the floppy versions of Galseed II, so it wasn't a bad question for >>2655372 to ask. V4HDD is pretty big, so now I want to peek inside.
>>2656315
Japanese MSX PCs work off the NTSC-J standard, which is compatible with NTSC monitors from the U.S. But you will need to get voltage settings just right to avoid malfunctions either temporary or permanent. Good luck finding a reasonably-priced model on eBay or some other popular English-language online market. Importing a nice Panasonic MSX2 is a good deal when done right.
>>2655408
I just mentioned a game above called Valna that could be easier to build a table for and extract text from, though I don't know how re-insertion would turn out given disk B doesn't have the same lack of compression as the first two. You can find the game here either by its English title or ヴァルナ: http://mega.co.nz/#F!10IGCLjQ!Aim8asXQ62YKRqzGfAqX5w
Aside from this, I'm not educated about compression schemes and so I don't know how to quickly identify which one's being used for which games, but Heroes of Legend (they're linked in the OP) is working on some J-PC stuff right now and is knowledgeable, just like Helly/Mr. Richard at RPGCodex and BTAxis (did the Farland Story PC-98 translation patches) wherever he is.
This port's from the same guy who did Tiny Xevious. Very cool, and an early success for Dempa.
>>2656330
Thanks for the tip. I'll look into Varna when I get a chance soon here. Looks like I'll have to start getting back into programming as well if I'm going to do the whole romhack too.
I also looked at 46億年物語THE進化論 because supposedly it has a mountain of text. I saw someone on a random forum saying they had a script already as well, which means it might not be too bad to extract though not sure on the reinsertion.
>>2655408
Illusion City! One of the best and most original rpgs of it's time, with a strong cyberpunk feel. Also there are two partial translations for it already done, ofe for the MSX (nearly completed) and one for the PC98 (partial).
>>2654791
You mentioning this revival, just reminded me that a couple of weeks ago Project EGG did something similar with Disk Station. Actually it's more of a compilation of the most noticeable games that appeared in the magazine along with some extra stuff, including some interviews and illustrations.
I just wish I could get a physical copy of it for the price they are asking though.
Took a shot trying NFG's V4 hd image file and those guys really did an amazing job. LHES interface sure looks neat and there's so much interesting stuff inside it.
Galseed 2 boots fine but I couldn't figure out how to start the game. Tried pressing all the buttons, even using the virtual keyboard but without success. I'm hoping it's just stupidity from my side.
>>2659670
You need to set Joystick Type to Atari Standard, set Device to JoyKey, and then make sure Buttons A & B are mapped to Z and X on your keyboard so you can use them in JoyKey mode. I had to do this for Cho Ren Sha also, not sure how to make profiles for each game but it helps to know.
>>2658395
Re: Disc Station seems pretty cool. Right now I'm looking at getting Dragon Garden, a working version of Meo's Mystery Adventure, and maybe the Windows Hydlide remakes from EGG.
>>2657531
Man, what a game. I'm going to get some footage of the partial translation later this month for WebMs. Pic related, that was for the very first thread.
>>2656618
BlueMike's put this project on and off for some years now. Definitely get in contact and see what he thinks at the moment.
>>2657531
Man, it really does look pretty cool. Which version of it is the best? FM Towns one?
>>2660234
FM Towns, X68k, and PC-98 versions (ported by Takeru) have nasty copy-protection built to make them hard to dump, but they run faster than the MSX turbo-R original + have better arrangements for music tracks. SuperDeadite has the FM Towns version but hasn't been able to dump it yet and crack the game for our enjoyment; all the versions can be purchased at Project EGG.
>>2660130
>profiles
Sounds like Joy2Key will help this
Any good non-mech platformers on the X68000?
>>2660130
Fantastic! Worked like a charm!
Totally forgot to set up the joystick.
>>2656330
When the Pasokon Deacon site is up y'all should do a "help wanted" board or something to get the hackers and the translators together.
Is there a list of old PC games that someone wants translated floating around? I'd like to work on something, but I know next to nothing about Japanese PC gaming. I could also pick an old SNES game or something, but I'd have to find someone to extract the ROM's text for me.
>>2661480
Not quite what you've asked for, but you can try doing a quick search at romhacking.net to see what games have already been translated/are in the process of being translated. You can also check out the HelpAds section over there.
Now for games that people want some kind of translation, I'd guess Falcom stuff usually are a pretty popular request. People at Heroes of Legend are already working at some of their titles but you can always check out if they need any help.
>>2661634
Help Wanted section will probably do, thanks.
>>2661480
I want you to translate Dead of the Brain 1 and 2.
Do it.
Do it
Do itDo It
>>2661652
Other translator here, there's also a translation request wiki that seems to be regularly updated with requests here.
http://datacrystal.romhacking.net/wiki/Translations_Request_List
I found out about something that interests me there called Libros de Chilam Balam on the PC-98.
Now if only KingMike would get back to me on 46 Okunen, though it has been like 7 years since he posted a translation request for it. Maybe he's given up on the game.
>>2661694
Also found out about this lovely game's existence there. Sadly I'm not very interested in adventure games otherwise I'd be working on it in an instant.
>>2661729
Enix adventures from that period were all over the place, Hokuto no Ken being a weird shift in their licensed works after Wingman. Another post-apocalyptic adventure, Kami no Machi by Panther Software (also for PC-88), is quite big and deserves a thorough look in the future.
>>2661694
>Sharp X68000
>anything but Star Cruiser listed
For shame! I just played a bit of that last night while testing HDD V4, and the first two dungeons are quite well-designed. Figuring out how to refuel and repair via shops on Jupiter's is easy w/o text, but I already know there's a lot I'm missing because I can't read Japanese. At least someone remembered to add First Queen (and IV) to the PC-98 list amidst the usual suspects.
Something easier to translate would be T&E Soft's Daiva series of sci-fi wargames, each installment focusing on a three-pronged conflict between a weakened empire, a rebel faction, and an idolized defector planning to arrest the whole galaxy and destroy it. The menus themselves are in English but event text is Japanese and is probably important for playing the game properly. The MSX2 installment already has a translation; I wonder how close the other games' programming is by comparison (making for an easier time hacking them).
>>2661652
>>2661634
There aren't entries related to J-PC games listed in Help Wanted Ads, sadly.
>>2661074
Definitely.
>>2661761
There aren't many translation Help Wanted ads at all, actually. 12, and most of them are 2013 or earlier.
>>2661665
I know that junkerhq was talking about a translation of the PC Engine version, but nobody's talked about it in ages.
You guys wouldn't happen to know where I could get my hands on Libros de Chilam Balam would you? Few quick searches didn't turn anything up, not sure where to look.
>>2661803
It's titled ティラムバラム in this collection (under て): mega.co.nz/#F!F59WkSqQ!quGKSFIswBgv0rxAAaF8Pg
>>2661878
Awesome, thanks man. I've also been downloading these full collections for later perusal as well.
So glad I ran into this thread at random. Something I didn't even know I was looking for until I saw it.
And away we go.
Haven't heard from BlueMike yet on the PC98 46 Okunen Monogatari, but I was able to extract the files from the disks and found a few files with plaintext Shift-JIS. Didn't find any of the dialog, but there was the creature encyclopedia and some form of evolution story texts. I tried reinserting by just using DiskExplorer. Game stopped running when I did though.
Might just start translating some of this since I can and wait for a response.
>>2661761
What game is the one on the gif?
>>2663240
Outlaw, a PC-6001 game from ASCII's AX-10 compilation. It's a shooting gallery-type game, but I haven't figured out how to reload any of the bullet chambers, so I'm low on footage. You'll just have to say hi to Doctor Maxwell until then.
>>2662443
Why DiskExplorer? A hex editor like HxC allows for deletion and insertion of offsets/values, so I'd replace the original string with your translated one and see what happens. I'm assuming text's monospaced and that's currently placed a hard limit on what you can put in there.
>>2663603
Much better idea. Already have some of the text in English in the game. Finding the dialogue will end up being the hard part for me I think. I'll pop into the ROM hacking thread later and ask some more questions there when I get to that point.
So a few days ago NFG's user hyperneogeo shared some rare doujin games for x68k.
Be sure to check it out!
http://nfggames.com/forum2/index.php?topic=5914.0
Anyone know a good PC98 emulator for Android?
>>2666230
Stuff's great! I was just playing Buster the other day, too (pic related), and these doujin games are standouts. XX Files R and Chitei Senki (which later got a GBA release) feel like quality for sure.
>>2666790
There's at least three emulator options working on Android as of February this year: http://fullmotionvideo.free.fr/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?p=14774#p14774
>>2666808
Buster's so fun! I still want to try the remake though.
I've heard it has a few different stages that make it worth playing through.
>>2666790
Neko Project is fine, even if a bit slow sometimes
>>2646865
Reminds me of when I saw Thunder Force 1 on STG Weekly for PC-88. It doesn't look anywhere near as good or fun to play as the X1 version, wonder why...
>>2670935
So the game revolves simply around this or is there some other kind of stage?
Looks pretty fun anyway!
![IMGP1505[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/LIYm4f8.jpg "IMGP1505[1].jpg")
Anyone into Amaranth series by Fuuga system?
I've been postponing it for quite some time now but time or other I find myself willing to make my way through the series.
>>2674084
Anything by Fuga's awesome. I was thinking of playing Dead Force sometime later, but Amaranth's on the list. So far I've mostly dabbled in their early shooters Revolty-II and Beat Vice.
I'm really new to all of this and have been enjoying the MSX version of Xanadu a whole bunch. I want to know more of games that do what Xanadu does, since that's a big thing in Falcom too.
>>2674089
Nice to hear that. The intro of the first game just convinced me to play it haha Looks so fantastic. Plus it has some nice character design.
Just noticed Oerstedia's also included in the pic I've posted above. Guess that's another one to the list.
>>2674123
Have you tried Sorcerian? It's one of the Falcom classics although it plays quite different from Xanadu.
If you're looking for some exploration, you can pick up Maze of Galious by Konami. It's easy to get lost but it's really fun to play once you get the hang of it (or most of it though).
>>2674180
Thanks I'll check out Maze of Galious! Is Sorcerian in English? What's the best version of it?
>>2674123
Xanadu is uniquely timeless amidst games of its ilk from 1985, but Sein Soft's Triton is suitable if you want dungeon crawling mixed with platforming (minor stat progression too). I'll recommend Relics for PC-98 if you want pure dungeon crawling and action—the game's similar to Prince or Persia or Tir-nan-og on the ZX Spectrum in various ways, but unique in others. Relics and Xanadu (mainly the low-color non-MSX versions) share a similar kind of mystery and history to each dungeon or part of the complex.
>>2674203
Only fully English-translated version is the DOS localization by Sierra, which looks mostly identical too (I recommend substituting the port's soundtrack for looping versions of the PC-88/X1 originals, though). The Mega Drive release has a basic menu translation but also a lot of reworked content that makes the game plenty different from the original and its expansions.
>>2674210
Ah, thank you! Which version of Xanadu (if any) is that in your webm? It doesn't look like the MSX one.
>>2674248
X1; I'm using the fan-modified version with FM sound. The MSX conversion adds a lot of color in order to compensate for lower detail overall (smaller resolution + assets).
How far have you gotten in the MSX version? It's generally easier than most versions, haven't yet played Revival Xanadu (also has Easy Mode) or the Saturn redux to learn of any re/unbalancing there. Being able to use your gold for stat upgrades any time you return to the castle town is nifty, but all the enemies are harder than you'd expect, and more scarce.
>>2674264
I'm not very far at all, which I consider totally fine. I loved Dragon Slayer IV, which I played the NES port of, and I never even beat it. It just seems like one of those games where just playing it is enough. I'm so obsessed with Xanadu right now especially. It seems to do something that other CRPGs at the time didn't do, which was prioritize being accessible. It understands the environment needed for trial-and-error, and it is really good about things like conveyance. The sounds all feel good and everything looks real fine.
One thing I don't understand: sometimes I try to attack a Fire Element hiding in a dungeon and I take massive damage from it.
>>2674274
Re: Fire Elementals, I forget the proper way to fight them, but I remember being able to bump them after some point.
>>2674180
Oerstadia is really cool. I personally want to play Silent Nova and Ever Brume, Fuga's two Windows exclusives that are probably difficult to find.
>>2672236
XX Files R has four or more sport activities, and the main game mode's a tournament where you have a fairly strict limit to beat at each stage. It doesn't seem that big of a game but what's there is quality.
So one question and one comment-
I want to play SD Snatcher, I believe there are two English patches floating around (one old one, vintage 2004 I believe? One new(er) one that is behind a paywall. Can someone point me to the newer/better one?
Secondly the pastebin directs you to openmsx's sourceforge- this has been abandoned (like many sourceforge hosted projects) for github https://github.com/openMSX/ alternatively you may just want to link to the actual landing page which is http://openmsx.org/
>>2674709
just wanted to correct myself, the earlier SD Snatcher patch apparently dates back to the 90s, and was translated by some Dutch fans. Don't know where I pulled that 2004 number from...
>>2674715
>>2674709
Project Melancholia is the newly redone translation, but yeah, I don't like the paywall either. I wouldn't mind supporting Torringa and Max if they got a Patreon running for their group, but fan releases ought to be free. The Oasis patch is ancient, historically the first major Japanese-to-English translation patch. It does the job if you want to make it through the game, but not if you want the best experience w/o Japanese knowledge. Sounds like a quagmire if you ask me.
TY for the pastebin reminder. I need to fix that + make sure everything I've bookmarked (websites, videos, file-sets, &c.) is archived either at IA or via my own efforts. Gonna take a while to get that done. Meanwhile I just installed Revival Xanadu Easy Mode and had a fun time.
>>2674717
Is there a download link to the Project Melancholia patch anywhere?
>>2674720
Not that I know of. And I've honestly never heard of it being pirated anywhere, not publicly anyway.
I fixed the OpenMSX link + the link to Melancholy PC-GAMER's website, as that got taken down recently but is still up on Internet Archive (phew).
>>2674450
Man, you're really after some unknown stuff.
Is there any footage from Silent Nova (or Ever Brume) floating around?
I just got this MSX2 and was wondering what good MSX/2 games I should try to buy before settling on a MegaFlashrom SCC+ to play everything else and .dsks.
>>2676450
Quinpl
(Shin) Golvellius
Feedback
Theseus (probably rare, but not in demand)
Bouken Roman
Xanadu
Yuureiken (Mr. Ghost)
Payload
The Castle Excellent
Aramo (pic related)
>>2676450
Ashguine!
I believe the second one (Kokuu no Gajou) is the one most people talk about. It's a very addictive game!
A tracker that I'm on for retro games doesn't seem to have that many Japanese PC games. I suppose I should start uploading and bring the joy of translations never to others.
>>2677654
That rom site some Anon is working on (posted it the other day) currently lacks a lot of these files, too. I know about a Russian FM Towns torrent and am going to see if anyone's seeding atm, since there's juicy stuff within.
>>2677669
Got a magnet link? I'll help seed it if someone gets to 100%.
>>2677671
Should be on this page: http://7tor.org/viewtopic.php?p=1603635
>>2674123
>>2676450
Should also try Stone of Wisdom/Kenja no Ishi by Casio. It's like a simpler version of Zelda and you can buy some power-ups throughout the game.
Currently downloading the FM Towns torrent, neither of the two seeds are transferring much but it'll do. I'm only getting a third of the set to start, but am likely going to snag the freeware collections later.
>>2679764
Another great suggestion! I keep forgetting about this one, which means I should play it to fix that.
>>2679793
And it's nice that the game isn't that hard to finish. Considering you have to play through it twice to see the "true ending", the whole experience turns out to be very satisfactory.
And this FM Towns pack should later be hosted at Internet Archives. Just in case, you know.
Has anyone tried Last Armageddon and it's spin off for the Mega CD, After Armageddon Gaiden? What about them?
>>2682156
I haven't tried either yet, but I just got the FM Towns release featuring tons of voice acting and newly-arranged music, so maybe I can do an investigation of it + the other J-PC versions.
Also, some comparison footage of parallax scrolling from Algarna and Ys III on the X1 cuz I'm bored.
So I just received a Sharp 68k, where do I go from here?
>>2682694
The aforementioned NFG boards have lots of information that can be helpful. You can take a look at their HDD image containing tons of interesting stuff.
I'd start here:
http://gamesx.com/wiki/doku.php?id=x68000:x68000_faq
http://nfggames.com/forum2/index.php?PHPSESSID=ul1nq5o3hnqs1fndv98ri2knm2&board=14.0
>>2682723
Oh man this is gonna be fun!
>>2682156
Well, I've played through the PC-88 version. Iijima certainly was trying to do something that could stand apart from traditional RPGs while working at Brain Grey. At first it seems he just wants to make some kind of parody of Dragon Quest and the like changing the Humans vs. Monsters pattern for a Monsters vs. Aliens one. But as you advance the plot gets deeper/weirder and I really appreciated some of twists. It also compensates for the overall difficulty.
You basically have to distribute your characters in three parties. One for the Day, one for the Night and one for the Saruban/Salvan's Day of Destruction (サルバンの破砕日) which happens to be every first day of the month IIRC. No need to say you'll need to be cautious here cause they'll probably always be several levels behind your Day and Night parties even though you get plenty of time to grind considering time passes slowly in this day.
Random battles can screw you up even at high levels, specially if you make "wrong" choices while fusing your party members. Levelling up your party can also be stressful since each parameter increases separately. So in order to raise STR you need to attack, DEF you need to defend and so on. Magic also has it's own name (like Parujuna, Dogura, Nina etc) and it's very non-intuitive to figure what they do, unless you take a look somewhere. It may take a while to get used to it but if you have some patience (actually a lot), you'll find yourself having quite some fun.
And as for the music department, you get to listen to some fantastic stuff composed by none other than Mr. Hayama from Chou Aniki series. I'm not particularly fond of the remixes in others versions (i.e. FM Towns and PC-E) but at least in the FM Towns one you can recognize the original tunes. But again that's just my opinion. It's not like they are some kind of cheap stuff. Voice acting also varies from character to character although you may have some fun listening to some of the dialogues lol.
>>2683052
On a note, PC-E seems to be the only version that plays different from the others. Dungeons have been totally redesigned and you no longer have a first person view while exploring them, for instance. The plot remains practically the same though.
I've only played some of After Armageddon but some of the gameplay looks similar to the original game. Except that in this one humans are treated like cattle and aren't an extinct species like in LA.
Damn, sorry for the amount of text.
Pic related is from X68k version. The screen frame looks different here and that's pretty much it.
>>2683052
Wow it sounds really cool and original. I'm very fascinated by the apocalyptic/mythical undertones which seem to be quite strong...am I right?
In particular the day of destruction seems quite an oddity. What's it?
And one last question: how much japanese knowledge is required in order to follow the storyline? Unfortunately I don't think we'll see a translation anytime soon.
>>2683858
Yeah, definitely. This kind of undertone is present throughout the whole game. The title doesn't mislead you at this point lol
At the beginning all you know about the day of destruction is that it happens once a month and only certain creatures are able to go out in the wild during it. Hence the need of a specific party. More information is revealed later in the game, so I won't spoil the fun.
And regarding Japanese, I'd say that at least an intermediate level is definitely desirable (so you should know at least most of the elementaly kanji, which gives you something around 1000 characters to work with, maybe?).
If you've already played some other RPG in Japanese you'll most likely be fine playing Last Armageddon, even if some of the lines may still be hard to grasp. I'd recommend you to watch the opening and see if you can understand all the crap that's going on lol. If that doesn't scare you and think you can handle it then you're good to go!
>>2683858
Oh and just a word of advice: be sure to take a look at the creatures skills inside the monster bestiary in the main menu so you can create an all-purpose party. You'll want someone who can forge equipment, items and someone who can map the dungeons (I think it's a skill called 記憶力). Not all of your characters will be able to equip weapons and armors at first but you can get them to by fusing them with those who can at certain levels.
Any first-person-shooters / Doomclones?
>>2685012
No Doom clones, but there were a scant few FPSes, like Elm Knight on the PC-98, (closer to a first-person dungeon crawler than something action-centered) or The Alien Island 3D for PC-8001 (need to get a copy of this):
http://polsy.org.uk/play/nico/?vidid=sm12410873
http://polsy.org.uk/play/nico/?vidid=sm10889519
There's also hybrids like Amnork (Ballblazers-inspired FM77AV arena shooter: http://polsy.org.uk/play/nico/?vidid=sm2013018) and Star Cruiser on the X68k. I'm downloading an FM Towns genre hybrid called Rejection right now (http://www.mobygames.com/game/rejection-den-no-senshi). Usually first-person-perspective games for these platforms were dungeon crawlers of some sort.
Right now I'm playing the original Gekirin on FM Towns. AMAZING MUSIC, and it plays better than I expected once you factor in how little you start with (a finite number of knives, measly 100 gold, and both a cyclical Luck stat (affecting drops) and respawning enemies).
>>2685012
There's Doom (1&2) itself for PC-98 (actually is 9821) if you wanna try it out. I believe Wolfenstein also has a PC-98 version.
>>2685035
>Cyclical Luck stat
How does that work? Does it increases each time you explore a floor and go back to the inn/some place to rest?
>>2685264
Your Luck stat goes from min to max (0 to 100) and back again based on some hidden timer during stage exploration; bad luck and good luck have obvious effects on which drops you get from chests (and maybe enemies, not far in enough to know). What I've ended up doing in dungeons so far is excavating tunnels in order to redirect oncoming monsters while the luck stat rises, then going straight for the chest I've been waiting to open. Meanwhile weapons have durability I have to worry about (you need to fight enemies so you can gain experience with items and weapons like in Xanadu), and the Gauntlet-like respawning is a burden on exploring the level and returning home.
Anyway, enjoy this OC.
>>2684980
Also, mildly related...I've heard about a bizzarre horror visual novel for the SNES written by the guy behind Last Armageddon. It should be called Gakkou de Atta Kowai Hanashi or sonething like that. Has anyone tried it? I've heard only good things about it. What are your impressions?
>>2685650
Oh, now I get it.
Looks like Kiya's taken some elements from previous games one step further in this game. In Brandish I only had to worry about my weapon durability and now even your armor doesn't last forever. It certainly helps to increase the feeling of tension. Thid and the number of remaining floors at the bottom of the screen.
>>2685831
I think I know what game you're talking about. Unfortunately visual novels aren't really my cup of tea so I've been postponing playing it. Should be at least interesting considering the plot changes based on the order you hear the characters' stories, right?
Alright, I've seen the PC98 pixel art in some threads on /v/
What's the PC98 essentials? Is there anything good translated?
>>2687542
The platform isn't popular in the west much so there's not much translations going for it, the only ones I'm aware of are Farland Story, The Screamer and of Touhou games.
However there's a lot of translations for windows ports of PC-98 games, I personally recommend Rance series, Toushin Toshi 2 and Yu-no
>>2683059
This look cool as fuck.
Any PC98 recommended games list for people who don't speak japanese?
>>2687712
Night Slave
Metal Orange
Rusty
Comes to mind ASAP. I'm sure someone else will elaborate with more titles.
>>2657531
As someone who fucking loves cyberpunk, I think you just determined my weekend for me.
Is I possible to play that partial translation on a box running windows 7?
Sorry if this is a dumb question, I love these threads but I have 0 knowledge of the subject.
>>2687712
If you're into shooters, then:
Flame Zapper Kotsujin (or anything from CO2-PRO)
Galt Rio Maximum Position
Metal Force
Rude Breaker
And of course, there's Touhou.
Other than that:
Binyuu Hunter
Briganty
Edge
>Open both the PC-98 and 88 links
>Anything I try to download just gets stuck on "Starting..."
Life is hard.
>>2687948
>>2688582
Thanks a lot.
I think I'll try early Touhou and Night Slave.
Are there any good VNs or RPGs translated?
>>2688996
Quite a few VNs translated over at Asenheim, like Divi-Dead; YU-NO has a translation also.
As for more PC-98 stuff worth checking out, here's one of the lists I made recently:
Chitty Chitty Train (accessible puzzler)
Totsugeki Mix (companion platformer to Rusty)
Dante's Odyssey (platformer adventure based on the Divine Comedy)
Any of System Sacom's mid-1980s/non-Novelware games (Mark Flint series, Marchen Veil, Power Singer if you can find it)
CRW/2 + Power DoLLS series (mecha-based wargames)
A-Train III (localized for DOS/Amiga/Mac by Maxis)
Tokyo Twilight Busters (has a DS remake, no translations for either but this one's your Japanese point-and-click adventure)
Night Slave
Metal Force and Flame Zapper Kotsujin (STG action in space!)
Falcom in general (Revival Xanadu and Brandish are great choices, as would be Advanced Lord Monarch)
Compile Disc Station games (Project EGG has these)
Bio_100%/Onion Soft doujin stuff (former started during the PC-98 era, latter's from the PC-6001 age but made newer games)
Farland Story series
GAGE (Koshiro-scored isometric dungeon crawler, no translation but you don't need one to get far playing it)
Michiaki Tsubaki's JRPGs (Insiders duo, Sword of Kumdor, The Stellar Sign; these games are obscure, and hard to beat without the guidebooks they were packaged in, but very interesting)
Burning Dragon Plus
Some of the above require some trial-and-error since you don't know the language, but none absolutely require you to know it to get some enjoyment.
Also, I'm going to make that J-PC recommendations macro at some point. The format's an 8x8 rubric, with platforms on the left (PC-xx, FM, X, MSX plat, other) and genres on top (action, puzzle, shooter, adventure, xRPG, strategy, simulation, other). Y'all are free to make suggestions.
>>2688883
Are you talking about MEGA? Try downloading the sets off Internet Archive:
https://archive.org/details/pc98-maker-betsu-tsumeawase
https://archive.org/details/PC88-image-collection-1817
>>2688996
Not a lot of actual PC-98 translations in those department. People would rather translate ports of it.
I think the only existing ones are Farland Story series and The Screamer
http://www.romhacking.net/?platform=3&languageid=12&perpage=20&page=translations&order=Game
>>2689009
Thanks a ton for that list.
Also yeah, I was trying MEGA. I eventually got it to work after installing the firefox plugin.
Also, I've been wondering; Whats the best version of Xanadu to play?
>>2690152
Best version (according to Falcom) is Revival Xanadu (Easy Mode). You can find it under り in the MEGA link.
I learned that a bunch of new dumps have been archived by MESS contributors, meaning I can play games like The Alien Island 3D (>>2685035) now. No footage yet, but it's quite fun, and harder than I was expecting.
Is there a way to find out if any of these games are public domain?
>>2688019
Yeah, why not? For the msx one just download bluemsx and the patched disk images (which can be easily found online, they are in the TOSEC set too).
For the PC98 one,just grab neko project 2, bios (can be found on archive.org collections) and the patched disks. The link should be available on the Tokugawa's board: http://fullmotionvudeo.free.fr/phpBB3/index.php
>>2690869
I can't imagine anything but doujin games are in the public domain for any reason, seeing as it hasn't been long enough for ownership to lapse without renewal. IIRC it used to take ~50 years for something to enter public domain without intervention, but the laws for that in Japan recently changed. Some doujin devs are cool with others profiting from their work(s) even though none fall into the public domain, but that comes down to contact and negotiation ultimately.
Worth noting that the Internet Archive's always waiting for companies to take initiative and request that copyrighted games emulated via the site's DOSBox implementation be taken down.
>>2691468
>Illusion City partial translation patched to work on the PC-98 version
News to me, have you tried it or did someone post something? Either way there aren't huge differences between the PC versions.
>>2692716
I've tried it and have it somewhere on my old PC. IIRC only the first two disks have been translated
I now have finally compiled a script for Night Slave in txt files... manually. And I bet there was probably an easier way to do this.
Not sure what I'm going to do with it outside of uploading it somewhere though - I can't hack and I can't translate either.
>>2694245
How big is it? Post that shit up on pastebin or something. We've still got some interested translators around possibly. Not sure on the hacking side, but translators at least.
>>2696613
Roughly a bit more than ~100KB, but I need to do some editing on it.
One thing I wish I had the foresight to do was that for in-mission, I should probably have included some kind of textual description of things that are happening to provide some context since you aren't reading the text in-game, it might be a bit confusing as to why the script suddenly goes "AAAHHHH" unless you can actually see they're getting their robot blown up.
We're on the hunt for more undumped Windows 3.1/9x/Mac J-PC games. Here's Purevex, most likely a relative to another game by NEC called Revolte (both were showcases for their PowerVR chip tech). I heard that BLACK MAGIC (a spiritual successor to the CRW games) is going to be uploaded on Tokugawa soon!
Night Slave Script - Mission 1
http://pastebin.com/2vBn7kWA
I just realized Pastebin reads in Japanese "..." as something else instead of "…"
Also, with 26 text files since I split most of them into "Start"/"Mission"/"End" text, it might be annoying for me to try to get them all up into Pastebin so maybe I might upload them somewhere else.
I also think I've discovered a bug in the game - loading a save file from "Mission 03" sends you to Mission 5 instead, skipping a level in between. If you play through 3 and 4 together in one continuous run until you beat Mission 4, you won't trigger the bug AFAIK - loading from a save file that says "Mission 04" will correctly take you to Mission 5.
Kind of explains a little bit of why the only FAQ on GameFAQs states that sometimes weapons get unlocked earlier. It's a really short mission with only around a handful of power-up capsules but if you accidentally skip it, you get locked out of Flamethrower for a couple of missions and never receive the Grenade Sub-weapon.
>>2688883
Is that Dragon Master Silk II?
Is there an English version of this kicking around that is easy to run/emulate on pc? :O
I just started going onto /vr/ today and I'm wondering why I didn't get here sooner.
>>2699145
It is. There's no translation of it, but you might be able to figure out the menus.
Just watched Macaw's stream; I convinced him to go down the rabbit hole with obscure J-PC/Korean/Chinese/Taiwanese games...good shit. Still a shame he couldn't get Samurai Mech running though.
>>2699114
Interesting news about the bug!
>>2699114
Thanks for the script dump. If it were translated, what then? I don't know how easy it is to hack a translation back in with a hex editor.
Night Slave Script - Mission 2.
http://pastebin.com/Y4EQSiwn
Did a quick Search -> Replace to turn all Japanese "..." into regular ones but it does kind of look more ugly since it takes up more space. Also wow, the script for this game really abuses ellipses.
>>2699203
No idea. Not even sure if anyone's going to pick it up for translation or if those experimenting hackers are still around to test it out.
>>2699114
>>2699345
Here's the rest of the scripts
M03 - http://pastebin.com/agNqmJj0
M04 - http://pastebin.com/tzzpvP6Y
M05 - http://pastebin.com/ntrtz7Ep
M06 - http://pastebin.com/GFZBWqZR
M07 - http://pastebin.com/BbhgwkiD
M08 - http://pastebin.com/kgwycXVT
M09 - http://pastebin.com/LKr58kT4
M10 - http://pastebin.com/gAgxv7cA
And here's my mini Night Slave rant - I really like the final stage from a storytelling perspective (it drops a bunch of bombs on you and ends satisfyingly) but who the fuck designed the gameplay?
It's a series of bosses intercut with multiple 5 minutes long cutscenes which you can't skip since they're done in-gameplay and if you lose, you go ALL the way to the start of the stage and watch everything all over again. And the last boss is pretty damn hard too so unless you're an NS god, you're bound to repeat it a couple of times.
>>2691468
Jesus christ, I can't find the MSX version of this game anywhere, letalone prepatched.
Does anyone have a link to the TOSEC set? I downloaded their latest full package, but it was nothing but .dat files.
There's got to be something I'm doing wrong, but this is driving me insane.
>>2699870
Check romhacking.net for the IPS patch, then go to Internet Archive for TOSEC's 2012 MSX turbo-R pack. Find and extract the Illusion City disks (tagged (JP)), download Lunar IPS before opening the patch archive, and then use LIPS to append each disk patch onto their corresponding .dsk files (e.x. Illusion City Disk 1.ips goes with Game Disk 1).
Side-note here: I can't get the patched disks working properly via OpenMSX emulating the Panasonic FS-A1GT. Instead you should try the latest version of BlueMSX and see if patched Game Disk 2 loads from Game Disk 1's prompt; meanwhile I'm using v2.7 and everything works great.
>>2699527
Thanks man. How easy was it to dump (at least, I hope you didn't transcribe them)? If you plan on doing more, we should organize any orphaned scripts for easy access.
>>2700216
Thanks dude, you're the best.
I've done a lot of IPS patches before, but I guess I had no clue which one of the packages on TOSEC contained IC.
I tried to shotgun it, but that didn't work.
Finally got around to finishing YU-NO.
I can't knock the game because it does have a lot of polish and thought put into it...
But the end product was not satisfying to me.
The big jump at the "Epilogue" feels mostly disconnected from the meat of the game, so there's not a lot to get invested in.
Some questions are poorly answered or not answered at all.
And the actual "true end" pairing... eeeesh. No thanks.
>>2700216
Also, on your second point, BlueMSX doesn't seem to be working either. Attempting to load any of the .dsk images just results in MSX continually resetting itself.
I'll keep working on it though.
>>2702140
Yeah, I also didn't like epilogue much at all.
That music, though, god damn.
>>2701120
>How easy was it to dump (at least, I hope you didn't transcribe them)?
I attached a Text Hooker to it and then played through the game from start to end, manually editing the output in a text editor.
Probably won't do anything else - I don't think there's any other linear and short PC-98 games that would lend itself to capturing text that way?
>>2702140
That part had a troubled/rushed production. It was supposed to be as non-linear as the not-epilogue part of the game.
As for the pairing, meh. I get what they were going for, but it really sort of makes it clear that mythological concepts are actually kind of strange when you put them in modern storytelling
"Whoa, a story about a God who became a swan and raped a lady? Get your sick furry fetishes out of my sight man"
>>2702369
>I attached a Text Hooker to it
Tell me your secrets
>>2702582
No real secrets here - AGTH (which is really damn outdated by now) supports Text Hooking of Anex86 natively and I'm pretty sure newer programs probably support other emulators like NekoProject or whatever people use nowadays.
Night Slave plays really nice with AGTH on the VN scenes and a little less nice for gameplay text.
I think more games than not are supported with the program - I can really only think of 1 or 2 that completely failed to grab any text. Though whether or not the text is usable is a bit of a crap shoot - I tried using it on some KOEI games and never got anything more than mostly big chunks of unreadable smashed together text
>>2703157
>I'm pretty sure newer programs probably support other emulators like NekoProject or whatever people use nowadays
Newer text hookers focus solely on recent windows VNs and I'm not aware of any emulator compatibility in them, that's why I'm asking.
>Anex86
Damn, I hate this one, it always ran like shit on me. Hope I'll be able to texthook through 英雄伝説 games with it.
>>2703161
>Newer text hookers focus solely on recent windows VNs and I'm not aware of any emulator compatibility in them, that's why I'm asking.
PC-98 was one of the earliest emulators to get compatibility text hooks but several emulators are now supported in various programs. Still a relatively recent development though
In fact, PPSSPP has apparently gotten native Text Hooking support.
>X68000 Sharp full set torrent
yes!
>It's stuck at 15%
The X1 has some cool, lesser-known STGs from a time when Gradius was the best and newest things. Buuma plays a lot more like Xevious on the PC-88, so enjoy the original with its more Star Force-like looping.
>>2703330
just download the set from emuparadise or isozone mate
>>2704874
go to Akihabara and visit a maid cafe
>>2704896
Maid cafes don't appeal to me.
>>2704874
Bust some Twilight
>>2704905
How can you say that without going to one?
>>2705047
Looks promising!
I dig that small puff of hair the old man seems to cling to lol
>>2699870
Have you found it? If you can't find a full set for the MSX try searching for the gooset instead pf the TOSEC. They should be available on the pleasuredome tracker (open)
>>2703180
Well damn, that was way easier than I thought it would be, and I always assumed you can't texthook an emulated game.
>>2704874
Texthookers are not necessarily used for machine translations, they can be set up to display furigana and give dictionary definitions for words on mouse over instead of machine translate bullshit.
I'm learning Japanese and use them to not waste too much time on looking up unfamiliar words.
>>2708591
>they can be set up to display furigana and give dictionary definitions for words on mouse over instead of machine translate bullshit.
Damn, that's pretty cool, when I actually get off my ass and start learning Japanese I'll have to set that up. Also what game is that? I think I randomly played it at one point.
>>2708591
That's cool then, but be sure not to rely on them too much. Once you get used to them, you'll end up learning nothing, just always hovering over words.
English VN community is full of such "Japanese readers", who can't actually read Japanese.
>>2708676
Falcom's Legend of Heroes (or Eiyuu Densetsu or whatever)
anyone know how to get pc 88 or fm 7 emulators to work? i looked thru all those links
>>2710065
Here's the version of M88 I use, as it came out recently (translated by Anna_Wu into English) and not many know where to get it: https://mega.nz/#!c1ICDAYI!UbFEPZkw2s-EtI5dDDxv0opLpDEG9Tzs0qSWO3NwZok
XM7's tricker, as it likes to read filenames using the Japanese system locale on Windows. Not saying it can't read all files otherwise, but I was only able to get most games running after changing locale. To load tape games in Fujitsu's BASIC version you press F6 to load and F3 to run (F5 to list); disks should play automatically, interpreted by the emulator. M88 has a streamlined tape-game loading and running process.
>>2710246
how do you load the game do i have to type in the path?
>>2710276
No, just load the disk/tape file via the menu options. That paths the game to the emulator automatically. If you aren't getting a response, reset the emulator (don't restart the application) and wait for the game to load...unless it's an image M88 can't read for whatever reason.
>>2710289
what is the system disk for the first drive's name?
Trying to play Legend of Heroes, but the game freezes every time I try to use magic on both Neko Project and Next, does anyone know a way to deal with that?
>>2710642
That's due to a bad dump that's been around for a while.
Kobushi at Tokugawa shared a working version of it a few years ago:
http://fullmotionvideo.free.fr/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?p=9163#p9163
>>2711275
愛してるぞ、アノン先輩!
>>2711418
別に大したことないぞ
せいぜい存分に楽しんでやがれぇ~!
Turns out this game plays better with 2WAIT and MIDDLE auto-fire settings toggled, as on 8MHz the asteroids stage (vid related) throws a lot at you in terms of stray fire.
Buuma on the PC-88 is a lame Xevious clone (unlike its X1 brother), but at least the opening titles are cool.
>>2714229
Is "seizth" a verb for having a seizure?
>those prices
>I'm going to Japan soon
S-should I buy one?
I have no idea how the actual hardware works, will I be able to hook it up to a regular monitor or a TV?
>>2715060
No, not all monitors will work with all PC-98s. You can see written on those spec sheets in your picture that those require analog rgb monitors. Some later PC-98s did have VGA support, I believe, so it will depend on what one you get. Also there are modern monitors that can handle the old signal.
>>2715120
>those require analog rgb monitors
Well, damn, I though that was VGA.
So I'll need an old Japanese monitor for one of them?
Guess I'll have to hunt down a model with VGA out instead.
Some more of the new BEEP Shop that just opened in Akiba, would love to visit so I can demo some games. Their prices are hit-or-miss though.
Has anyone here ever played Genghis Khan IV by KOEI?
I want to know how to automate your units so I don't have to micromanage each and every single one of them to build farms and shit
Hideyuki Yanagishima did a lot of work on Elm Knight, as this was his last big project at Micro Cabin before moving on to freelance work. According to a source (mentioned here: http://sekigames.gg-blog.com/Entry/221/), Yanagishima did nearly all of the game's opening, which must have looked pretty cool even in 1993.
>>2718031
Wish I knew. Is that something Koei would have included in the Power-Up Kit or is automation expected for the Genghis Khan games?
>>2718031
dude, just seeing that game makes my dick ROCK HARD.
I wish i knew japanese so I could play this.
>>2717182
Cool, now I know where to go on Friday.
>>2719738
I don't know their policy about photos (other than censoring faces), but definitely try and get some.
The address: 東京都千代田区外神田3-9-8
Pretty sure they're right next to Jumper, the second-hand PC good store, at basement level.
>>2719743
They have directions on their website. I'll just ask if I can take photos.
>>2719619
>Wish I knew. Is that something Koei would have included in the Power-Up Kit or is automation expected for the Genghis Khan games?
A Delegate feature is kind of expected for a KOEI game of this era IIRC.
That being said, GK4 is weird because it plays sort of like a quasi-4X compared to the traditional KOEI strategy simulation of the time
where are fm 7 roms at pic related
Read only memories feel inspired by PC98 video games. Anyone in particular?
>>2722442
ROM is aiming specifically at Snatcher; there were at least a couple other games with a premise similar to Snatcher's (Imitation City by Data West (Kojima's acknowledged that as a big influence) and Imitation is Not Love by Great). Aside from those you can take a look at some of the more notable J-PC command-selection adventures here: http://pixelmenu.22web.org/
>>2722357
I have a large set to share, just keep in mind that filenames are in Japanese and that you need to set your system locale to Japanese for XM7 to read the files properly: https://mega.nz/#!BkhGELRa!gnzs9DW2dSSZ-lJ_fdkMLRrLfg7a9sm5JTDkdu7-HjQ
Here, some FM Towns military madness from AZURE. This wasn't too popular in the previous thread sadly.
Saw this was posted recently in the QuickBMS scripts RSS and figure it'd be relevant enough to be posted here
http://aluigi.altervista.org/bms/project_egg.bms
Can extract stuff from Project EGG executables using this with QuickBMS. Dunno what data is hidden inside their executables though.
>>2724996
do you have the iso
>>2715120
Will an X68000 or a PC-8801 work with VGA monitors? I'm also going to Japan soon an I want to grab one of these.
hey, so here's the disk images and save state needed to play the rare x68000 game the last tempest: https://www.sendspace.com/file/tfura6
it's been ages since i used these files, but as far as i remember, you've got to insert both images into xm6g then load the save state
>>2726761
Thank you! Glad you've helped out, as the folder extract I got from NFGgames doesn't want to boot on even their latest HDI.
>>2725240
Should at this link: https://mega.co.nz/#!I4pB1S5A!lJcZq8mPe5aSQuIW99BFhaNxzP24-gwaMkW3hQofWuo
>>2726214
You could get a VGA signal via upscanner, but in general you want to use RGB connectors. Here's some pin-outs: http://gamesx.com/wiki/doku.php?id=av:japanese_rgb-15
I'll get some info on PC-88 monitor usage later.
>>2725207
Best thing it could do is extract game data from EGG, meaning someone's found a way to maybe pirate EGG releases.
I'm on a private tracker for old videogames, I can check if there's some rare ROM that you can't find or whatever.
>>2728750
Can you find No. 1 Golf (X1, Enix, tape/cassette) anywhere? It's not Golf Kyo, 3D Golf Simulation, or Golf Island (Special), and definitely not Nintendo Golf. This 1984 game was the precursor to Enix's World Golf series, which is the basis for Minna no/Hot Shots Golf.
>>2719746
Did you go?
>>2729340
Sorry, yesterday I was too tired. Today I had to attend an university festival. I'll go tomorrow or on Monday.
>>2729340
>>2729798
So I did go today.
The store has a very underground feeling, mainly because it's in a regular basement of a regular building. Asked the clerk if one can take photos and it's okay as long as you don't photograph other customers, which goes without saying.
>>2731707
And now I'll just dump photos I took.
>>2731718
Lot of Falcom stuff there.
(Also in nearby Softmap where you can find PC version of newer Falcom games.)
>>2731735
And there's a reason why the shop is 18+.
>>2731741
Randomly found this too.
>>2731743
Also something worth noting is this Fate/Hollow Ataraxia for 980 yen. It has 未チェック checked, so who knows that state it's in, but it's still interesting. For comparison, you can find a tested one in Softmap for ~5000 yen.
>>2731746
Wizardry shelf.
>>2731751
And lastly some hardware. There were also arcade cabinets and other PCs you could try games on, but they were occupied and I didn't want to bother the people on them.
>>2731757
And that's it.
Of course there were many more PCs and games, in the back there were also old console games and consoles themselves, but I didn't want to loiter around too long, so I just took photos of some things that piqued my interest.
Great dump mang
>>2731749
Never mind that, I'm drooling at that 1000-yen Tokio 2 right there. Good deal for sure. I'm shit out of luck on bidding for No. 1 Golf on Yahoo! Auctions Japan, but seeing that makes me feel better.
>>2731743
Etch-A-Sketch featured BEEP Shop in that DVD (I think he visited their Saitama location), so that's probably left-overs from the DVDs he gave them.
>>2731727
I know at least one Falcom fan who's visiting Akiba in three weeks and will get some of their selection.
>>2731759
That's fine.
>>2731759
I wish I could go there, would love to pick up a few things. Looks like they have an online shop too so I'll have to look into that at some point when I have more money.
Gotta see if the MZ version of another YMCAT game, Dark Storm, is around somewhere.
You guys already know about the old Japanese TV-Program "Pasocon Sunday"?
Just copy&paste this in YouTube or NicoNico: パソコンサンデー
You sure will love it.
>>2646743
the download links on the forum page to the kobe mega pack isn't working anymore. any other source for it?
>>2731759
They also sell computer like PC88 or just the games for them? And when they did, what were the prices?
Will sure go there next time when i'm in Japan.
>>2736253
Yeah, they sell the hardware itself. Prices vary, and rarer models can approach half of what their MSRP (which makes them expensive compared to Western PCs and localized consoles). Their site gives some indication of the prices for in-store items: http://www.beep-shop.com/
>>2735885
Here's a modified pack I made last month, which has XM6 typeG (pre-configured for the NFGGames V4 HDI) and a recent version of M88 w/cursor key toggling: https://mega.nz/#!x5ImlTJD!1KaoOQFKrjJVizY6p7PoYi-N96HKKoWE_uLMB3lhkxM
>>2734826
PC Sunday is the best. I gotta make a YouTube Poop of it sometime. Their guest star, "Dr. PC" (aka Komichi/Yoshimichi Miyanaga), worked on Toshiba's PC line and was a semi-famous proponent of BASIC/PC literacy during the '80s; he released a memoir-cum-history of Japanese PCs two years before he passed away.
Re: >>2735793, we've been "a little dead" for a while now and it's not going to speed up in the state /vr/'s fallen into (unless we get more and better janitors). I respond to most posts with something I hope interests, but sometimes it takes a while for me to check /jpc/, and there's been plenty of times where I post something I think is cool only to get no response. I'm just pointing this out in case things seem fallow around here...hopefully maintaining this thread has been a mutual benefit to me and the board.
>>2736673
>I respond to most posts with something I hope interests, but sometimes it takes a while for me to check /jpc/, and there's been plenty of times where I post something I think is cool only to get no response.
Honestly, there's so much stuff here that I wish I knew more about, but I have all but 0 practical experience. I have nothing constructive to say, but definitely not for want of desire or interest.
It's a huge world, one largely untapped in English, and the myriad mix of knowledges, abilities, and interests when it comes to these things is I think so spread out that overlap between individuals seems to occur sporadically at best when you start getting down to any usefully specific topic.
Anyone ever use SDL Passolo? It allows you to edit .exes directly for translation purposes. Not sure how in-depth it can go, but it seems like it can do menus, etc.
>>2736673
Cool thanks.
And yes good work for contributing.
>>2646743
I have a "problem" and hope someone can help me here:
I made an harddisk with Neko Project 21 0.83k8/fmgen as an T98 .thd with 128MB space.
Loaded it in Harddisk->IDE #0 and put MSDOS6.20 Floppy 1 in FDD1 and let it install, now when everything was finished and rebooted without floppy DOS started fine, but as A: and not C:. Why does this happen, or is this normal for PC-98, if not, how can i change this. I also canceled installation once and made a manual partition with format, with the same result. also when i let boot from FDD the FDD is also a: and the harddisk C:. Only when i boot completly without FDD, the harddisk is always A: which is quite confusing. Or something in the System Setup (END on boot) i have to change? Hope someone can help, also i don't want to use a finished harddisk since i want to understand everything on the architecture.
>>2737971
Booting hard-disks as A: is normal for the PC-98 MS-DOS architecture. All this does really is make installing games that only boot via floppy a pain, since games that don't let you access their install process from in-game need to be installed via some .exe included on the disc you can reach via command-line. So what you end up doing is booting from an MS-DOS system disk, then swapping that floppy out for the game floppy w/installer, and then you can correctly transfer files from A: to C: (your hard-disk in this case) via installer (or manually if you know what files need to run to start the game via batch).
>>2738236
Ok i see. Thank you very much!
Interesting concept.
got a feeling so complicated
>>2739773
Context of this is Elf finally shutting down?
I guess to be honest, they were already a bit of a zombie for quite some time, though I can't quite put my finger of when Elf went from "Yu-No Elf" to "Nothing but NTR Nukige Elf"
>>2740770
Very prolific J-PC developer behind games like the Dragon Knight series, Words Worth, EVE and their most famous game to English speaking audiences (relatively speaking) - YU-NO
>>2740791
Ah now i got it. Sure i know them. Was still too sleepy to make any sense of these few info's.
>>2646743
So i have a few more questions, and hope someone might help again.
1.
I'm coding a bit in Turbo C 1.0 right now but that's quite limited.. Anyone got a newer Turbo C version maybe? I only found this one:
http://pc98.shiz.me/software/borland-4.0j/
But not sure if it's working correctly.
So question 1 is: Anyone has other Turbo C version, that will work with MS-DOS 6.2? Like 2, 3 and 4? Also any TASM version would be nice.
2.
Now directly question 2, since when i installed the Turbo C 4 version from mentioned before, i get a message that i need DPMI/VCPI.
So i changed in config.sys the EMM386 line like this:
DEVICE=A:\DOS\EMM386.EXE /P=128 /UMB /DPMI /T=A:\DOS\EXTDSWAP.SYS
Is that enough or did i forgot something else? Already a long time ago since i used DOS and tweeked with it's funny memory allocation..
Because when i reboot and then start "TC"] of Turbo C 4 i sadly get this error in console:
Unhandled exception 680E at 2420 7461 ErrCode 2074
Anyone knows why? Maybe there's really something i forgot in config.sys, or is that TC4 version really just broken?
3.
Third question, or well, funny thing:
I coded some graphic stuff, and i triggered a bug or more like unimplemented OP-Code or stuff in Neko Project 21(0.83k8/fmgen).
Since i get attached Exception, after that NP just closes.
This is very likely somehow triggered by a bug in my code which i wanted to debug, but every time i try to debug or just run my program NP21 crashes with this. ;(
>>2740791
YU-NO was my favorite visual novel but I didn't really enjoy anything else from ELF.
>>2740573
there is literally only one game that fits the bill on that whole list. will this meme ever die?
Long shot, but I'm hoping someone can help me with a glitch in Burning Point for the PC88. I'm at the start of act 2, talking to Rudolf, and when my guy says ”考えられます。” it'll glitch out, 10 periods will appear in the dialog box, then the dialog box goes black and nothing happens until like a minute later when the entire screen just freaks out in a mess of colors and distorted images. This video: http://nicotter.net/watch/sm2496106 at 22:00 is exactly where I'm at and as you can see the dialog is just supposed to process like normal. I've tried it with PC88WIN and M88, same thing for both of them. Any idea what's wrong?
>>2742040
Sorry, but that sounds pretty funny.
>>2742040
Just a guess out of the blue: ... maybe copyprotection?
Another possibility would also be, that maybe some files of the game you have are corrupt.
>>2743325
Yeah, I'm thinking maybe the files are corrupt, the Nico video guy was using an emulator so I assume it's not copy protection. There's some other copies of the game with [a][a2] and such in the filename, see if that works. Thanks.
Excuse the potato pic, I got my MegaFlashROM SCC+ SD and installed SymbOS. It's the little things like custom MSX wallpapers that make this hobby fun.
>>2744386
Question about the MSX, since i'm really hyped to buy a Japanese one quite soon:
Is it somehow region locked?
is it better to get an MSX2+ or turbo one, and will it also run everything MSX the older ones like MSX(1) and 2..?
That flashcard will also work on MSX2+ / turbo, or MSX2 or just on MSX(1)?
>>2740807
For anyone with the same problem or interested on point 2.:
you also need to run DPMI in autoexec.bat so add just this line:
DPMI
I also found an complete Borland Turbo C 4.0 Disk image pack "[PC98 DOSアプリ] TurboC++4.0J(ディスク6枚組)". If someone is interested i can upload it somewhere..
But point 3. still happens ;)
>>2740807
According to Wikipedia, LOADALL is
>the common name for two different, undocumented machine instructions of Intel 80286 and Intel 80386 processors, which allow access to areas normally outside of the IA-32 API scope
It appears your emulator doesn't support it. To debug, you could try removing parts of your code until NP doesn't crash anymore, then re-add code until you've identified the culprit (by NP crashing again).
>>2744715
Ah ok thanks.
Will also try running in another emulator since i think that NP also has some other oddities, but not sure if it's NP or general problem with programs or even PC-98 itself. (still exploring PC-98 so don't know what's normal or not..)
>>2744625
MSX is a standard like IBM or even Windows nowadays, if it'll run on one, it'll run on another. They can even switch between 50/60Hz on the fly, but they'll retain the color encoding so (assuming you're European) make sure your TV can handle PAL-60. Other than that, this flash cart will run on any MSX and pretty much all MSX software.
>>2745110
I see, thanks. I knew about the standard, but wondered about the cartridges if they locked them somehow. But nice to know that we are free there.
>>2745168
Some MSX games, like Vampire Killer and the Nemesis series, will switch languages depending on whether you're playing it on a Japanese or European machine.
>>2744386
Mate, that's fucking beautiful.
>>2674450
>>2675254
http://copin.sakura.ne.jp/fuga/
Second link in left menu.
Also they have cool how-to-code tutorials "Öffentliches Kunst ..." really worth a read. Hope i pushed every subpage to archive.org. Theier page is still very functional and a goldmine of information of theier games. Like prints, photos etc. really well done homepage.
The project neko runs well on wii?
A remake of Sokoban Perfect came out recently; you can get the demo here: http://sokoban.jp/products/perfectplus/download.html
>>2748691
Not sure if anyone's tried, actually. Someone just did a port of NPIIfmgen to OG XBOX: http://fullmotionvideo.free.fr/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1564
A former Tokugawa Corp. contributor got Quasi88 working on his Wii too: http://fullmotionvideo.free.fr/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?p=13611#p13611
>>2747068
Sadly the Silent Nova demo isn't up on the site anymore, or I would have been playing that a while ago. Please let me know if you've found that or the full game so I can get some footage.
