/vr/ - Retro Games

As a lurker of these threads I just want to say that /jpc/ are heroes of /vr/ and thank you guys for bringing up content that probably wouldn't be seen otherwise.

>>2399330
np

So First Queen: The New World performs really well on Windows 7, probably because Kure Eiji coded it mostly in software. The install shield has a cheesy FMV inset, lol. AppLocale's easy to set up on Win7, too, but I'm still having issues getting Wander Wonder to play right.

What happened to one of the most prominent PC-98 composers?
https://vndb.org/s1263

So I'm trying to play CD games on the PC98 (I want to try Brandish VT)
I tried using this guide: http://fullmotionvideo.free.fr/pc98/articles/cd/cd.html
But the links to some critical files are dead (ANECDXNT.E86, CDX.SYS , MSCDEX.EXE), and I can't seem to find them anywhere else. Hate to be a beggar, but if anyone knows where the files would be, a better guide to boot CDs, or even the CD boot fdi, I would be grateful.

>>2400108

> City landscapes rendered in pixel art
> mfw

When YU-NO was finally translated and posted on /vr/, I eagerly downloaded it and started playing. The feeling I got experiencing that game for the first time was orgasmic; couldn't even begin to describe to you how nice everything was visually with the pixel detail, and the chiptune was beautiful -- felt unique in a sense.

The story tying with the game was absolutely crazy with that fucking theory of how time progresses and all that, completely nuts.

>>2400129
They should be in the emulator pack, bundled with the emus.

>tfw you and your sparring partner are down to 0 energy, can't shoot anymore, but one kick and either of us would explode
Warroid is really fun at the base X1 clock speed. Faux-sprites move around smoothly, it feels great to jump and shoot, and there's small touches here and there which should make PvP fun to try.

Also tried Plazma Line...it's not as immediately accessible like Warroid, but there's more strategy involved with viewing the radars and keeping the ship in one piece. It's a tape game, but I got it working just fine.

>>2400270
>>2400129
Just checked the Neo Kobe pack (better add this to the OP for next time!): the first two files are in the Anex86 folder, but not MSCDEX.EXE. Thankfully you can download the latter easily, and you don't need the MS-DOS version either (Win9x versions will do).

>>2400262
The music alone transports me—shame we lost Umemoto a while ago.

Some tracks for Es no Houteishiki were posted in one thread header, the one before the last I think, and I liked it so I looked up the composer behind it but the only thing I could find was Garage Land. Any info on this?
I think I read it was an Australian group which was odd. I think it is note worthy that the style sounds similar to Remember11's, composed by Takeshi Abo.

>>2400339

Different Garage Land, mate.
Garage Land was a composer and mentor to this guy: https://vndb.org/s1047

There's virtually no information on the guy and I only know what I know from asking Yano Masashi.

Check out these tracks composed by MUSE/Akira:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8aEbOqInio

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MeWz2V-chU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSC5Aq9srUM

>>2400262

>>2400485
Also, X68K soundtrack here:
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm3244496

>>2400282
Kanno too. Both in the same year, in fact.

Hopefully the remake turns out well.

>>2400485
Thanks. The quality of Es' tracks was disparate, so perhaps Yano was behind two of them because the others sound like atmospheric pieces with no standalone value.

>>2400129
Brandish 4 is aviable on Windows though.

Thanks OP. I don't contribute to these threads nor do I play J-PC games very much but these are consistently some of the most interesting threads on the board.

I've been wondering, the translations of which PC-98 titles would boost the popularity of the system or the games of the era in general the most, according to you guys? In other words, which titles are most requested here?

>>2401319
I could probably get a friend to translate an hour or two long game for me. The biggest problem with that is hacking/text insertion.

Must listen soundtracks:

Ballade for Maria composed by MUSE:
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm12632244

Necronomicon composed by MUSE:
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm3116486

Kurutta Kaijitsu composed by MUSE:
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm3244496

Ryouki no Ori:
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm12313719

Ryouki no Ori 2:
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm12381002

Xenon composed by Ryu Umemoto:
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm10059289
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm10059289

AmbivalenZ composed by Dragon Attack:
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm13852104

Shoujo Senki composed by Shade:
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm12280108

Dead of the Brain 1&2 also have amazing soundtracks.

WIP list of PC-98 writers who worked on more than one title:

Ishikawa Youichi
https://vndb.org/s3198

Hiruta Masato
https://vndb.org/s505

Sano Kazuma:
https://vndb.org/s1802
http://members.jcom.home.ne.jp/kazuma-sano/profile.htm

Aki Masaki
https://vndb.org/s2037

Hirono Ken'ichi
https://vndb.org/s2018

Hirosaki Yuui
https://vndb.org/s2026

Mitsumine Nao
https://vndb.org/s2012

Kanno Hiroyuki
https://vndb.org/s812

TADA
https://vndb.org/s689

Rokka Rika/Tori
https://vndb.org/s695

Imam
https://vndb.org/s691

Fumya
https://vndb.org/s696

Ootsuki Suzuki
https://vndb.org/s956

Abe Saburou
https://vndb.org/s2342

Suga Munemitsu
https://vndb.org/s1128

Takahashi Tatsuya
https://vndb.org/s825

Minami Piruo
https://vndb.org/s2293

>>2401617
It's absolutely criminal that not one of Hiruta's titles has been translated so far (no, those butcherings of Dragon Knight 3 and Word's Worth don't count).

Hey guys, I need help finding a game I've played before. I'm almost certain it was a PC-98 or FM-Towns game, let me describe it to the best of my abilities.

It had an isometric art style, similar to games like Lunatic Dawn II (pic related) and Mercury: The Prime Master. The thing I remember most distinctly is that when the map ends, in that space would be an open book. Like the game took place "on" a book. The art style was dithered, with window styled menus. As far as I remember the game was never translated into English.

Hey folks, saw in one of the threads some people were talking about The Screamer for PC-98. Been playing it recently. I just ranked up, does anyone know what HC does? I'm also assuming AC is armor class which would give you automatic defends.

>>2402703
Oh dammit, I still haven't patched my disk file yet. Here's the RPGCodex thread for reference: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/the-screamer-the-story-of-a-boy-and-his-torch-worm-translation-project-thread.80444/

>>2402678
Will have to dig through my reference files and find what you're looking for. Maybe late Telenet (Span of Dream, Hioden series)? It's definitely not gonna be The Atlas or something; KOEI and Hokusho did a number of isometric games worth looking at.

>>2401319
Brandish translations should be coming soon

>>2403127

Which ones? I'd say the second one is the most important because the first one is already officially translated on the PSP which is the best version in my opinion.

>>2402678
Something from Kaze no Tansakusha series, maybe?
Except that instead of a book the game takes place over a table.

>>2401617

You know any decently written PC-98 titles?

>>2402467
I dream of them someday being released in English. The remakes of his games are some of the few remakes that actually look as good as the originals.

>>2403426
As someone who can read only very basic Japanese sentences, I can only recommend titles that have been translated, so...

Rance 3 - Awesome story and music but suffers from very basic gameplay. Luckily it's not a very hard game.

Rance 4 - Amazing setting and great art. Story is tons of fun and cutscenes have cool sprite animation. Gameplay suffers the same as the previous game.

Toushin Toshi - Recommended mostly for historical value. Gameplay suffers from insane random encounter rate.

Toushin Toshi 2 - Fixes all the problems of the first game with a great story and fun gameplay. Graphics are top-notch and the main heroine is awesome.

The next two weren't originally released in English using the PC-98 art and music but you can play them with those intact at http://tss.asenheim.org/ The day this site goes down will be a great loss.

Eve Burst Error - A masterpiece that has some of Umemoto's best music. The start of the game can be a little slow and tends to have to switch perspectives at annoying moments but the investment is worth it.

Desire - Another great game from Kanno and shares some similarities with YU-NO. Great music and story. Biggest problem is the useless side route for Makoto.

YU-NO - My favorite game ever. Everything is amazing about this game. Some may find the final part of the game is rushed, though.

Amy's Fantasies - Mostly recommended for the great art as the story is nothing special.

Nocturnal Illusion - A very cool game with lovely music and story. The traditional system can get a bit annoying at times.

>>2403127
That's exciting!

>>2401617
A few more:

Haruna Nanako:
https://vndb.org/s4502

Asanagi Kei
https://vndb.org/s3018

Also, there's a guy called Shinya Nakai who wrote Dead of the Brain 2 that I want to add, but I can't find any credits that list his name in kanji. If anyone can find it I'd appreciate it.

Also, special mention to this guy who produced a bunch of horror games for Fairytale:
Kanasugi Hajime https://vndb.org/s3290

>>2403392
Thanks, but it wasn't a Kaze no Tansakusha game. That looks great though, I'll have to give it a go sometime.

>>2402787
>Will have to dig through my reference files and find what you're looking for.
Thanks also mate, I'll check out some Telenet, KOEI and Hokusho games to see if I come up with it. Don't stress about it if you can't find it.

The game definitely took place on a book though, and the art was heavily dithered, unlike Kaze no Tansa. It also definitely was not a Falcom game.

>>2403838
Be sure to use the Tokugawa Corps/Mercenary Force databases for looking up your game, if you aren't already.

>>2403392
Re: Wind Seekers, I asked for opinions last thread on whether /jpc/ can discuss post-1999 Windows games. I limit myself to anything that was built and marketed with Windows9x in mind, which applies to many games up through the mid-2000s and a bit beyond.

>>2401319
More Falcom stuff will do the trick, followed by games from Glodia, Riverhill Soft, the more well-known eroge titles (like Isaku), and maybe some ASCII stuff too. There's plenty to be done for other systems, too, especially the MSX and X68k which have plenty of documentation.

>>2403479
Whoa! Thanks man been lurking this thread looking for some good Japanese games thanks for the recommendations,Rance 3 & 4 look interesting going to check out the rest. Also awesome thread OP didn't even know about Japanese Pc games.

>>2403479
>Desire - ...Biggest problem is the useless side route for Makoto.
That was like NTR way before I learned what NTR was.

Christ, after all the cool shit that happens in Albert's route, I raged so hard at having to play through a really pointless NTR chapter back in the days just to unlock the final ending

Thank god they did the "dual protagonist" thing much better in Eve

stupid question, does a text hooker for pc98 exists? I still rely on machine translations to read.

>>2404378
Anex98 is the only emulator that AGTH (and only AGTH I believe) has support for.

>>2404378
> I still rely on machine translations to read.

That doesn't count as reading. Please respect the titles enough to experience them only after you learn enough Japanese.

I'm sorry, it can't be helped.

>>2404378
>>2404484
NekoProject
http://fullmotionvideo.free.fr/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1498

>>2404378
Tyr summarized this neatly: http://fullmotionvideo.free.fr/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?p=15091&sid=3ee7c12b86a7118dd44d5d15743bd6da#p15091

>>2404378
That reminds me of those idiots in the PC-98 thread on VNDB.

Updated list of writers:
http://pastebin.com/WDR7xW38

Not sure what to think of this cover. Probably wasn't a good choice if they wanted to attract customers.

Here's a blog with a bunch of PC-98 box scans:
http://days5244.blog.fc2.com/

Here's a newer list of PC-98 writers:
http://pastebin.com/va7NV5Cw

Also, I'd be willing to upload my collection of box scans I've gathered from various sites if anyone is interested.

>>2406280
Ah, had this post just sitting there so long I forgot about what I originally meant to post.

So here's the image I meant to post before I forgot.

>>2406280
>Also, I'd be willing to upload my collection of box scans I've gathered from various sites if anyone is interested.
Of course we'll be interested!

This ain't close to perfect (notable color loss, not sure if I should use FRAPS, not OBS), but I figured it's worth a shot. Relics is quite fun so far.

>>2406320
http://exhentai.org/g/815510/f1698a44d6/

>>2407961
>exhentai
i-i don't want to click

>>2407976
Jesus Christ.

http://g.e-hentai.org/g/815510/f1698a44d6/

How is x68000 emulation these days? Specifically, are the different sound modules emulated accurately?

>>2406280
thanks anon. Nice quality scans like these are golden for people like me who use frontends and stuff. I hope someday most JP classic computer boxes are scanned (and manuels... prolly never).

>>2408353
There's a bunch of manuals you can find here if you aren't already aware: https://mega.co.nz/#F!qAwlnBYZ!0Ftk-zeEC-0afDaPSTrDTQ

I have a bunch of other PC-98 manuals uploaded on E-hentai as well.

Does anyone have any retro eroge magazines from the PC-98 era other than the 2 on Wayback Machine?

>>2408345
I've never heard an actual x68k to compare it to, but I've never noticed any serious problems with XM6 Pro 68k, and I know that x68k sound emulation in general (outside of emulating the actual computer itself) is rather mature, since there has been interest in writing and playing back x68k music for a while (it has a damn pretty and versatile sound chip setup). I'm not sure about the Mercury Unit channel upgrade though.

>>2408438
Thanks. I'm sort of new to this scene, so I was wondering how complete the documentation is on manuals/cover scans. I hope that the next time I'm in Japan, I can come back with some fresh, unscanned stuff to share.

>>2408438

Bishoujo Game History? You probably have that though, it was shared all over.

>>2408994
Yep. That book has some massively retarded ratings.

Looking for Alien inspired stuff. Already know about Marine Philt. Anyone know some?

>>2409328
JESUS, the Enix adventure game, is partially influenced/inspired by that movie. There's a Famicom translation patch if you're interested.

>>2409401
Cool.

How about games with the MC going into a deep sleep and waking up years later? Something like Lily Cat would be cool.

>>2409414
Don't know any where the MC, specifically, awakes from cryo. In Lagrange L-2 (X1 tape adventure), you have to awaken the damsel from deep sleep aboard the titular colony, and Relics from 1986 has you doing a similar act.

>>2409328
Try Hamlet for PC-98 developed by Panther Software. It got a PSX remake called Space Griffon, in case you know it.
It's a dungeon-crawler/rogue-like rpg in first person view with a sort of a real-time battle system.

I found the atmosphere pretty similar to Alien, since you have to explore a lunar facility the same way the crew in Alien had to walk around Nostromo and the like. Plus you get to ride a mecha and see some neat pixel art.
8 floppy disks (which can be installed into a hdd) of pure awesomeness.

In case you are still not convinced, you can watch the opening at niconico if you happen to have an account:
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm11579684

>>2408438
Assuming you're the anon from the earlier thread, you and bravomanxxx are princes among swine. I love looking at the PC stuff there.

Guys, I haven't played any of these games. My retro experience is emulating Nintendo stuff. But it just blows me away that this real retro pixel art completely blows modern indie games the fuck out of the water.

>>2411210
Just to clarify, the scans in the megaupload link aren't mine as well as uploading them all to one nifty folder.

I have personally scanned some stuff that I don't believe had been scanned before and isn't in the mega folder. I'll post a list in a bit.

>>2411332
Okay, here's a list:

[C's Ware] Xenon Manual
[C's Ware] Eve Burst Error Manual
[AliceSoft] アリスのでんちばくだん Vol.19
[AliceSoft]アリスのでんちばくだん Vol.17
[AliceSoft]アリスのでんちばくだん Vol.18
[AliceSoft] アリスの部屋 Vol.25
[AliceSoft] アリスの部屋 Vol.26
[AliceSoft] アリスの部屋 Vol.24
[AliceSoft]アリスのでんちばくだん Vol.6
[AliceSoft] アリスの部屋 27
[AliceSoft] アリスの部屋 28
[Alicesoft] Rance 3 Manual


[AliceSoft] Rance 4 Option Disc

I bought a few things from DL and uploaded them like:

[Psy Walken]ESCAPE [Kuro no Danshou SS][Es no Houteishik] Comic & Rough-draft Collection

I also scanned Yu-no's manual but haven't uploaded it due to there being nothing really interesting in it and the quality of the scan is lower than normal (more shit)

>>2411332
I was just gonna say, uploading something worthwhile like those docs is better than 90 percent of the uploaders on that site (i.e., scorpionpp spam-updating a gallery of someone else's webcomic one page at a time).

Progress on RELICS is going smoothly. Tried getting Die Bahnwelt running last night, original disks and patched ones...no luck with neither XM6 Pro-68K nor WinX68K (BW_OPEN works correctly, but BW_SYS won't boot). Thunder Force is a bastard, gonna need a compress like the ones Arino uses.

>>2399341
Any vids of this in action? Maybe a webm would be cool.

>>2412368

http://nviewer.mobi/player?video_id=sm19401807

Unfortunately webm will have to wait but I hope it helps :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNy7TuJwVww

Pretty weird. Does anyone know anything about this release?

http://retrogamegoods.com/
Another neat site for good scans.

>>2412642
Seems like it has a download edition with updated compatibility for modern systems.
https://vndb.org/v9062

Here's a review.
http://advgamer.blog.fc2.com/blog-entry-1684.html

As for the story, DMM description says you get asked by your classmate from high school to investigate a serial rape case, so you put on your detective cap and go for it.
http://www.dmm.co.jp/dc/pcgame/-/detail/=/cid=hobc_0059/

>>2412954
Does that include the English version because that's what I was curious about.

http://d.hatena.ne.jp/ikasuke/20120703/p1
More scans.

Hi i'm looking for good obscure horror adventure games with cool art like these

>>2400492
>>2403669

platform doesn't matter, ideally a translation would be needed...

>>2413654
None are translated.

>>2413654
Anything from Studio Wing, but none of that's been translated yet. There's also Dwelling (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amuxQaheWlg)), ReBirth, and Laplace no Ma if you want a CRPG.

>>2413312
Nothing on the store page indicates that would be the case.

Anyone have the full credits to 尋問遊戯/Jinmon Yuugi or know who the scenario writer? Only thing I've managed to find is that Rinshin (Words Worth, X-Girl) did the art.

Apparently OBS recording bitrates are more dependent on pixel change/delta than in other suites? It would explain why this WebM, originally 48 seconds, got cut off at ~28 with a 3MB file size. Oh well. I also need to know if all X68k emulators have issues recognizing more than a few inputs simultaneously, or if that's inherent to the original hardware.

Also, since I keep forgetting to alert—

>From 2007 to 2008, he began working for D4 Enterprise, establishing the ARTDINK sound department with former employees of ThinkRidge.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryu_Umemoto

This was included from the very first draft, done by good 'ol JaggedEdge (who did the Wiki stuff on Arsys games like Star Cruiser). It just seems totally wrong. Artdink has a Rolodex of musicians they like to collaborate with, Ryuji Nishida and Osamu Yoshida (http://www2.ocn.ne.jp/~bonco/osamu.htm)) most recently. Umemoto establishing their in-house sound team, which I presume isn't doing the music, isn't off-limits, but the possibility's unfounded IMO.

>>2417120
>It would explain why this WebM, originally 48 seconds, got cut off at ~28 with a 3MB file size.
You could try halving the frames and framerate to get more space to work with. I usually do that using Avisynth's SelectEven() and then just encode to webm with ffmpeg.

>>2417198
I like 60 FPS though, and the emulator's already using auto-frameskip.

One flaw I'm seeing with OBS recordings is color loss. It's not inherent to the WebM conversion, either, as I'm seeing dulling in .flvs taken via the application.

>>2417170
The music in the latest PC A-Train is pretty uncool.

Just so I know for in the future, is there a good proxy service that doesn't mind shipping adult items? There's a few PC98 games I wouldn't mind having someday.

Just found out that From Japan doesn't ship adult items, and they're normally who I use. Found a copy of Win95 Briganty that I wanted.

>>2417697
It's been years, but I used to buy doujin and games all the time through Rinkya.

>>2417697
I like Buyee, I've been using them pretty consistently and their fees are pretty reasonable for buying/handling and also for package consolidation and protective packaging. They've got automated sniper bids too, which is what got me to start using them in the first place (I'd been burned multiple times because of delays using Rinkya and trying to manually snipe).

>>2417708
I used to use Rinkya, but their fees are really high (not sure if they've changed any).

>>2417716
>>2417708
Thanks, I'll look into both of them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxqOjgr9LjI
Why is Akira so goddamn fucking good?

I'm in need of a gorgeous looking PC-98 screenshot. Please, post the best you've got!

>>2418485

>>2418757

>>2418761

>>2418769
Generally speaking, Elf and games from Fairytale seem to have the most consistently impressive dithering.

english patch when?

>>2419407
I'll wager ten dollars on never.

>>2419420
Somebody translate it! You can get a wage of 10 dollars!
Heck, I'll double it, $20!

>>2419420
>>2419425
why not? ;_;

>>2419407
speaking of posessioner, does anyone have the gif of this scene where she repeatedly opens and closes her visor? the filename i found it under was the same as this
i lost all of my /vr/ stuff in a fatal hard drive accident

>>2419430
Here you go.

>>2419464
yup that's it
thanks!

is there a bigger version?

>>2419420
i have a friend who is porting some pc98 games to windows
i asked him to check possessioner out and he said that a translation would easily be possible and it would be as easy as editing a txt file
unfortunately i have no knowledge on editing pc98 games

>>2418429

> Cyberpunk Adventure

Damn straight.

>EEVblog #746 - Sharp X68000 Retro Computer Teardown

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W40qGkp-mEU

>>2419508
>i have a friend who is porting some pc98 games to windows
Your friend have any site where we could go and check on the progress of this?

Or maybe some kind of documentation for Possessioner and/or other PC-98 games in terms of hacking/modifying them?

>>2419648
there is no site, it's a skype group
the only ones they're porting for now are the touhou games, and progress is slow

>>2419659
Curious, by "port" do you mean they're reverse engineering them and making a source port based of that or are they just recreating the game (either in their own engine or something pre-existing like Game Maker)?

>>2419678
i think they're reverse engineering them, i'm not entirely sure
they also want to add new features like replays and leaderboards

>>2419503
what ever happened to queensoft anyway?

More scenario writers filled out: http://pastebin.com/WYc4mGuA

>>2419508
>it would be as easy as editing a txt file
And yet nobody's bothered doing that for the last 20 years, so clearly nobody gives a fuck.

>>2420217
It's really odd how no translators/readers give a fuck. Toushin Toshi II only has like 60 votes on VNDB.

>>2420339
Your average VN fan is like "old graphics? Screw this, I'm not playing this shit" when it comes to retro VNs, sadly.

Though I suppose that applies to 99% of gamers... still, you would think VN fans would be more appreciative of the classics

I know it's neither the time nor the place, but...

The amount of vaporwave contained in this thread (not to mention, 4chan is really vaporwavy itself)
is making my inner kid rock hard, I would love for you guys to just keep posting shit like that, the pictures and artworks, and vaporwave in general, thanks so much for everything and please don't hate me

>>2420382
I assume you mean vaporWARE. Which isn't applicable here:
>In the computer industry, vaporware is a product, typically computer hardware or software, that is announced to the general public but is never actually manufactured nor officially cancelled.
Stuff like Dukem Nukem Forever was also called vaporware because it seemed like it was never going to come out.

>>2420386
No, he means vaporwave, a terrible hipster art and music meme genre.

>>2420217

I tried to edited / translate some pc98 games a while ago, and it really varies from game to game, some literally just use .txt files that you don't even have to uncomplied, while others are like NES hacking with messing with pointers and having to butcher the text to make it fit in.

I haven't looked at the Possessor personally but it could be a very simple edit, all you need is someone willing to translate 50-100 pages of dense text into English.

>>2420386
Nope, I actually mean vaporwave, as in

https://www.google.com.ar/search?q=vaporwave&es_sm=93&biw=1024&bih=653&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=b1lfVfyjNYXooASk24LQAw&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAQ

and

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaporwave

Which now that I think about it, it's just like an art form of what you mentioned, pick related

>>2420389
>terrible
Yes, I agree
>Hipster
Couldn't agree more

but still, the windows 98 crappy edits cause something on my inside, for some fucking reason

>>2420394
I know what vaporwave is (and I listen to it), but I thought you meant vaporware because... well, what does vaporwave have to do with this thread?

>>2420395
>>2420389
>Hipster
>meme genre

it's cute how /mu/tants try to pass themselves off as human beings

>>2420403
Two of vaporwave's biggest influences are early digital technology and the unapologetic and effortless postmodernism of Japanese pop culture. Those two things are pretty much what this entire thread is about.

>>2420392
i look forward to the day it may be translated

there's a christmas edition hack of the game but it crashes before it gets to the title screen

>>2420370
With how bad the art is in the average eroge now along with the surge of indie pixel garbage you'd think there'd be more interest, imo.

I'm not seeing any mention of the MESS emulator in here, it emulates a shit-ton of Japanese computers.

>>2420370
>Your average VN fan is like "old graphics? Screw this, I'm not playing this shit" when it comes to retro VNs, sadly.

The "average VN fan" isn't going to be translating, disassembling resource files and developing the patches. It's only a small, dedicated and knowledgeable minority that's willing to do that sort of unpaid work. At the very least you'll need a team consisting of one programmer and one or more translators/editors fluent in Japanese.

>>2420603
Talk of emulators only really comes up when someone is having some troubles getting a game to run or the off chance one of them gets updated.

>>2420667
There's a bunch of new Java-based emulators in the works, but I'm so far indifferent.

>>2420659
I wonder if Tyr and his crew from VNDb are going to do any technical work beyond text hookers for PC-98 emulators.

>>2420603
MESS is nifty. It packages cores like XMillennium. XM6, and Toshiya Takeda's builds. Haven't found a need for it other than maybe optimizing my play sessions in the near-future; I'm learning the above emulators standalone first.

>>2420563
Speaking of post-modernism, I'd like to investigate these games for Shibuya-kei influences. I already know Buffalo Daughter composed two-thirds of the soundtrack to Jungle Park, for example.

>>2420339
Maybe there's more interest in that game's remake at the moment; the amount of translations for old Alice Soft games is embarrassingly low.

>>2420670
>crew from VNDb
None of them know Japanese yet try to discuss the story merits of games they can't read. Ultimate cringe.

>>2420704
Specifically talking about the PC-98 Technical Thread or whatever they call it. But yeah, I try not to read Samson's reviews, seems he gets things wrong more than once per game.

>>2420670
>>2420704
Also, AliceSoft are probably the only company that have gotten proper translations of some of their PC-98 titles. Compared to everyone else they have tons translated.

Rance 3, Rance 4, Rance 4.1, Rance 4.2, Toushin Toshi, and Toshin Toshi 2.

>>2419407
>>2419508
I was curious about this and decided to open up the main executable, found the test for the starting menu and decided to replace it with single-width characters.

Haven't looked at in-game text yet but so far looks like it'll be a bit more difficult than just editing the text into English. Tried it out with Next, NP2, and Anex86.

Suppose that odd width given to the single-width characters makes sense as the QUEEN SOFT above is single-width.

>>2420870
what if they're replaced with half width characters?

>>2420870
>found the test for the starting menu
Meant "text" there

And here's a test of some in-game text, same issue, and looks like it causes an extra issue there too.

>>2420878
Ah sorry that's what I meant. Single-byte / half-width characters is what I'm inserting.

>>2420894
One final test, this time with double-byte / full-width characters. Looks like whatever they made to display/handle text makes that look like standard single-byte / half-width characters.

>>2420914
>>2420894
wow
how are you editing this?

>>2420945
Also curious how this is done

>>2420945
Hex editor, specifically MadEdit-mod, the text resides within POS.EXE and POSM.EXE...which would make things a challenge since you'll be limited by the length of the original string unless you can re-organize the text elsewhere.

For me the game seems to load POSM.EXE so I'm just focusing on that, don't know what the difference is aside from POSM.EXE loads if it can play music.

>>2420969
Ah, I'm too dumb for that.

>>2420969
>>2420975
i too am too dumb for this
it looks somewhat easy though, if maybe you gimped the english text to fit
what about editdisk? i have that but i only used it to patch the 2hu games

>>2420983
Yeah I use editdisk to extract and replace the files on the HD image and use MadEdit for editing the the files. As for gimping the text...I wouldn't personally be too fond of that as the resulting translation may look a bit too wonky.

>>2420969
Do you know where the pointers are stored in the executables? Is $2A the terminating byte for strings or is the length determined by the pointer?

>>2420986
I wonder if it would just be easier to port these things.

>>2420996
No clue on the pointers yet but looks like the strings are terminated with the standard 00 hex byte though 2A might have something to do with it as well. Like maybe for each new chunk of text 2A specifies where it starts and just keeps grabbing until it hits the next one and 00 works like a line break.


>>2421002
Just might be, but it all depends, like if someone or a group could figure out how the game works, all the branching paths, extract the game's images, music, sounds, and of course text they could then just put that into a brand new game. Bonuses for that is no need for a PC-98 emulator, it could be ported to other systems, and would make it easy for any further translations.

>>2421006
Would you mind taking a look at a game from Fairytale like X-Girl, Count Dracula, Dead of the Brain, Ballade for Maria, Necronomicon or Kurutta Kajitsu?

I know the latter is like 2-3 hours long so I might eventually be able to get a friend to work on it since he owes me.

>>2421006
Here's a quick text dump from POSM.EXE if anyone is interested.
http://pastebin.com/Pb1rs2BA

Looks like that executable just handles the opening sequence for the game as there wasn't a whole lot of text in it.

>>2421079
I can give'em a look sometime, I know for Dead of the Brain I whipped up a table file, says "in-progress" but I think it's mostly complete now, can't remember.
http://pastebin.com/kkfR0XV9

>>2421080
neat

>>2421080

So I got around to looking though the game files, as you said the .EXE holds the menus and some sequences like the opening.

The games actual dialog is held in the .MSD files, and luckily for us, this makes things extremely simple, these are literally just .txt files. There is no character limit, so importing the translation into the game would be very quick. The only thing that might take some time is figuring out code for things like text color, tabs, changing character names, etc.

So yeah, find someone who is willing to translate over 100+ pages of text into English and its easy street from there.

>>2421501
Not that guy, but this is really interesting because it looks like the game can take half width characters where as the intro and menu does not. That means plenty of space for a well done translation if it ever happens. Still, finding a group willing to translate is always the hardest part.

>>2421501
Ah neat, thanks for the find, and to add onto that looks like there's some more text inside the P_BILL.MLL and P_GYOTEI.MSG files too.

>>2421501
>>2421518
Adding onto this, looks like POS.EXE holds the strings for the interactive menu. It too and handle half-width characters thankfully. Still trying to find where character names are being stored, ran a "find in files" with MadEdit for アリサ and that's how I found the stuff for the interactive menu.

Could probably write up a decent txt document with the information gathered, that or make a new entry on Romhacking's wiki.

>>2421501
Any special tools you're using to get a better view of the files?
It takes me a dozen dictionary look-ups in order to translate a simple sentence, but maybe diving head-first into a translation is just what I need to take my Jap skills to the next level.

>>2421518

Just looked into those, they are nearly identical to their .MSD counterparts with some formatting differences.

I honestly cant say for sure, but i would guess they are leftovers from and earlier build of the game due to their lack of formatting characters.

So probably ignorable.

>>2421501
>>2421517
i just asked a bunch of people about it and i'm waiting for them to respond

>>2421545
Not that anon but I used Notepad++ to view those files, as it has the ability to change the text encoding from default to Shift-JIS

>>2421547
>but i would guess they are leftovers from and earlier build of the game due to their lack of formatting characters.
I could believe that

>>2421545

Just using MadEdit

>>2421549

Cool, I have my doubts just due to the huge size of the project, but who know what could happen.

>>2421570
if i knew any japanese i would pitch in, but i unfortunately do not
i can help manage a group though

Personally I know Japanese, but I barely have enough time to just play all the games I want, not to mention translating something.

If any translation effort starts, just be sure to get someone actually good. Not some Fuwatard with Google Translate.

>>2421539
Update on this, found the names stored in POS.EXE, looks like it won't accept half-width characters as it still tries to read the values as if it were full-width. Thankfully however it looks like there's some flexibility as the names are separated by just full-width spaces. Looks like they start at 0xA122 if anyone else wants to play around with'em.

>>2421616
what does honhoa's name translate to?
sounds weird

>>2421640
They might be from elsewhere in Asia as looking up "Honhoa" brings up people with that name with a space like "Hon Hoa" so that might be the actual name. Curious if the book that comes with the game has the names in romaji format like some games do.

>>2421640
>>2421658

It's probably Honoha.

>>2421616

Nice!

I was just messing with the scripting code and found that before every line of character dialog it uses special Hex character to determine what name (from POS.exe), the portrait, text color, and tabs and returns.

is there any possessioner fanart or music remixes at all?

>>2421679
Neat, I was about to try and figure out the color coding and whatnot myself, thanks for saving me the time anon! Thought the characters before each string had to do with that stuff too.

>>2421695
There might be some doujin albums containing a few remixes from the game. Dunno though.

>>2421703
i extracted one of the battle themes and converted it into a midi some time ago but it's long gone

>>2421695

no probably not, to be brutally honest here its just a mediocre hentai game on a system full of them, the only reason its stands out is that it has some nice animation and music.

Are there any interesting PC-98 VNs that aren't eroge?

>>2421747
Policenauts, Corpse Party

i dunno, most were eroge

>>2421747
Anything Falcom; Popful Mail, Brandish, Ys, Xanadu
A few dungeon crawlers as well such as Screamer or SMT.

>>2421812
Thanks, but I meant visual novels specifically.

>>2421747
>>2421878
Far as I know, Tonkin House-published VNs (Zeta and Night on the Galactic Railroad) are PC-98 exclusives. Others like Okhotsk no Kiyu 98, Signatory, Novelware-brand games (38 Man No Kilou for example), and Todo Ryunosuke adventures are multi-platform/ports.

Excellent work on Possessioner so far doodz. I'd better open up MadEd and fiddle around myself.

>>2421747

Heart Heat Girls is pretty good, although its more of the snatcher/policenauts style of adventure game than a true VN

Also had really good music
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SqjuRVO_uU

has giten megami tensei been translated on pc98 or pc? i'd like to play both versions but i don't know a lick of japanese

>>2421895
>>2421910
Thanks, I'll look into those.

>>2421958
No

>>2421976
sheeeeeit

>>2421747
Anything Enix

>>2421545
No one wants your shit translation.

>>2421730
As far as cyber-punk goes, X-Girl looks a lot better and actually has a writer that worked on some semi-popular games.

>>2421545
>It takes me a dozen dictionary look-ups in order to translate a simple sentence, but maybe diving head-first into a translation is just what I need to take my Jap skills to the next level.

いいえ、いいえ、そんな訳し方は全然勉強にならないよ。お前はゲームを犯すだけだ。諦めろ。

うまくなってから翻訳しなさい。

>>2420382
>4chan is really vaporwavy itself

da fuck

I only played old DOS dating sims/hentai visual novels.

What (translated) games woul you guys recommend me? (no mednafen please, I can't get the fucker to work with the pc-fx)

>>2421679
If you could document your findings I could try making an easy script editor in C#.

>>2422795
>(no mednafen please, I can't get the fucker to work with the pc-fx)

Why not? Pretty much only fuck-up I can imagine is that you don't have the necessary BIOS file.

Whatever happened to this?
http://www.romhacking.net/translations/1156/

>>2422809

I don't know man, and that's why it's frustrating. I tried with at least two bios files, but all I get is a black screen.

Any games suggestion with breasts inside, please?

>>2422824

>>2422725
some nerve you've got to preach at someone with such a weird japanese.

if the dude wants to translate it let him alone. it's not like you guys are compeled to play it anyway.

Some great music:

AmbivalenZ OP
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzulu3sqXCg

Marine Philt
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbrdpZE9ifI

Gakuen Sodom
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2yNPzFGxbxc

PILcaSEX
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWcJBXsh-Ig

Ballade for Maria
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpT5SBDTDHs

X-Girl
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3DGBO6-Ib0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIJMxQhKBEk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9_AdTlwv6k

Dracula Hakushaku
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhjoeA-7Hss
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrK4qkrA4RE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTaF5htc_zY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6m_aNolZexw

>>2420713
Alpha's music is pretty neat, being early Uematsu and all. The vinyl versions sound especially cool.

>>2423385
Pretty sweet
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebNyyh-S86U

>>2423385
>>2423398
Here's the vinyl rip I was referring to.

https://mega.co.nz/#F!U89lFYrJ!FeHSMMHC9n19KKrKjvDN9w

>>2423460
If I had money I would so be collecting vinyl anime and game OSTs.

>>2423460
That's fucking awesome.

>>2423398
Just noticed that that sound effect says bacon.

This game from Fairytale Hardcover was mentioned on VNDB: http://fandc.co.jp/catalog/pc/264

I literally can't find any information on it besides what's provided there. Not PC-98 but it was released in 1996 and people here are the only ones who'd be interested in it.

>>2423560
Can't find anything either, but check these MSX doujins: http://home.a02.itscom.net/msx_lab/dojin/dojin-01.html

Only found this because there's a pack called Blue Eyes.

>tfw no PC-6001 dumps on Tokugawa I know of

>>2417120
Seriously, how the fuck does the x68k do it?

How was it so ahead of the curve in every regard? It took another 8 years before they were able to get graphics like this on home consoles.

>>2423312
どこが変?

https://archive.org/details/bugbug-magazine-1997-09

Does this PDF not load for anyone else?

>>2423560

It even came out at a hard time most Cocktail games from those days only work in Win95/Win3.1 it's a pain in the ass getting them to work.

I found a small review on this site

http://milkygreen.sakura.ne.jp/review/oldreview.htm

It has the title in katakana ブルーアイズ

>>2424670
Yeah, I tried katakana while searching too along with Fairytale Hardcover in katakana. Couldn't even find a copy on suruguya or an image of the game.

>>2423798
>tfw no PC-6001 dumps on Tokugawa I know of

Doesn't hurt to ask?

Was Rusty really made by Konami employees?

It's a long, long road to Tipperary. At least I've gotten down the pattern for the squadron interceptors, and the only hard part of scene 3 is the start.

>>2425029
No idea. Seems it was developed by News (?) and published by C-lab: http://fullmotionvideo.free.fr/screen/G2997.html

>>2425016
I have asked. Seems one of the regulars uploaded a set a couple of years ago, so I'll PM him.

http://freett.com/naknak/game/tirasi/tirasi.html
Scans

I have a question. What killed computer gaming in Japan? I'm aware that before the Famicom launched, computers were the go-to platform for games, and console gaming was almost nonexistent at that point. Even with the Famicom and Super Famicom taking over the Japanese market place, computer gaming still seemed to be a viable market, as several console games were computer ports. Then the Playstation came along, and it seemed like it killed computer gaming in one fell swoop. Is this correct? Or would Japanese computers still being largely proprietary (unlike a standard like say Windows) have been their death knell?

By contrast, computer gaming has still been relevant in the west, as during the PlayStation days, computers got several big name titles like Quake or Duke 3D. In fact, it still remains popular today in the west, so I'd like to know the ecology. Was Windows responsible for the longevity of computer gaming in the west, while proprietary computers like the FM Towns or NEC 88 are what alienated the market? Or would assuming that the Playstation killed it be the easiest, and most accurate, answer?

>>2425832
http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/JPNcomputers/Japanesecomputers2.htm

The "Resistance if futile" paragraph will give you a quick rundown on how the jPC fell apart.

>>2399271
Jesus second time to this thread and my mind is still blown about what those pc's could do. I want one.

Hi /jpc/
Not sure if this is the appropriate thread to ask, but do you guys know the current status of the Chu Teng translation? Is there a webpage for it?

>>2425832
It wasn't killed, and I'm not sure if it was even weakened. They still make lots of games, which have been popular enough to spawn successful, high-end anime adaptations like Clannad, Steins;Gate and Fate/stay night. And then there's Touhou.

The PC-88 launched in 1981, and the Famicom in 1983. In 1981, computer games were just getting started as an industry and were very niche compared to console games, even in America. As per the HG101 article, PCs in general were less popular in Japan than they were here, and I think Japanese PC games never got very big the way they did here.

Japanese PCs were replaced by Wintel systems, but non-Wintel systems in the West, such as the Amiga, were also replaced around the same time.

>>2426891
Oh, actually Steins;Gate was first released on the Xbox 360. But nevermind.

>>2426891
The adult/VN market is a whole nother thing. Falcom was one of the last RPG developers to make their games on the PC.

Anyway do you guys have any eroge box scans that aren't already in the gallery on E-hentai?

>>2425929
So ironically, the thing that killed PC gaming in Japan was the thing that strengthened it in the west; Windows. I do wonder, though, how things would have been different if the Japanese made their games to be sold outside Japan as well. It worked well for console games, and it could be assumed that Japanese Windows gaming would've been sustainable if they released them stateside as well, where the biggest market for PC games was.

I like to think Japanese PC culture and continued development/publishing happened because of the 1970/1980s economic boom and need to play games at home. The second golden age (first concluded around the turn of the 1990s) ended due to the bubble popping, Wintel invasions supported by IBM's DOS/V format allowing Windows 3.1 machines to display Japanese, and finally Windows 95 and the baggage that brought in. Things scrambled the situation up like new paradigms for developers to adapt to (Visual Basic, polygon-supporting GPUs, DirectX, &c.), evolving P2P networks, and competition from import PC games (which no longer were hampered by different architectures, such that diehards could order from overseas and play Diablo). Maybe J-PC developers preferred working for and supporting platforms built with fixed specs, explaining why they switched to Sony, SEGA, and Nintendo (having official developer libraries/tools ready to go would also have attracted). Ultimately the perks that devs and pubs would have been receiving from NEC, Sharp, and Fujitsu were now ending, meaning that anyone dependent on them would either have found a new semi-patron, called it quits, or perhaps found some way to survive (Falcom) and even thrive (Bothtec).

Not all of the non-eroge Japanese PC studios disbanded or jumped ship (let alone went bankrupt), but those who stuck with PC focused on genres that you couldn't easily play on consoles, wargames in particular (even Falcom did one called Vantage Master). Trends from the late J-PC era, like sci-fi fleet strategy and visual novels, remained in vogue, while a short-lived multimedia fad was happening mainly on Windows 3.1 and Mac. Online gaming manifested primarily via browser/Java apps like Life Storm; older games were remade by devs/pubs as respites from inactivity or market ambivalence, knowing that some of the old fans had upgraded and would gladly double-dip. J-PC gaming hasn't fully died, but you could say it entered a coma.

>>2427727
Microsoft made a pretty big commitment trying to make sure DOS games ran on Windows, they put a small team to make sure every Maxis game ran on 95 (if you have time, you should read some of the hacks that team had to use) and Gabe Newell and Mike Harrington borrowed the source code from id Software to get Doom over to Windows. So the transition from DOS to Windows went pretty smoothly.
The Japanese didn't have the same outreach from Microsoft, so when Windows killed NEC and Fujitsu computers, you were forced to start from square one whether you went with consoles or Windows. I don't want to say game developers switched to consoles due to Xenophobia, but I think most developers wanted to make sure they were working with a native company who could provide quick support, and weren't forced to contact people across the Pacific ocean for support. Heck, most western developers stuck to the PC for similar reasons, Nintendo and Sega just couldn't provide the same support a native company like Microsoft could.

>>2427768
That's pretty interesting, actually. The west had a unified system like DOS before Windows took off, and the DOS to Windows transition went smoothly. The Japanese, on the other hand, may as well have been using commodore 64s or ZX Spectrums or Tandy 1000s or Coleco Adams, all wildly different machines that provided no standard. If Japan adopted DOS as early as the westerners did, maybe things would've been different?

At least nowadays, it looks like the Japanese are finally warming up to Windows, at least due to the overseas market having a third for exciting console games. Indeed, Dark Souls sold exceptionally well on PC, and I always did imagine DaS as a computer game of old, a spiritual successor to those old computer RPGs. Now the fact that their ports barely work is worrying, but that's beside the point.

>>2427768
Just for clarification: you can get a PC-9821 for the best of both worlds, since it can play PC-98 games using the 86 sound board and load both Windows and MS-DOS. Thing is, some games first made for earlier PC-98 models don't work or have issues no matter what, not sure how bad it can get with older Western DOS games. MS-DOS was commonly used even on Japanese PCs, so it's more an issue of how Microsoft and NEC respectively handled backwards compatibility for Wintel and PC-9821 machines.

Meanwhile, 68k-based personal computing basically ended around Windows 95's debut, and Fujitsu never updated the FM Towns like NEC did for their platform (though I think you can at least run Windows 3.1 on an FM Towns).

Also, I've become addicted to Trails in the Sky FC over the past couple of days. Gotta juggle this, Relics, and Thunder Force it seems. I'll be over with at least two of them soon!

>>2427786
I've heard that part of the reason Japan got into computers so much later than the west is because the Japanese language is much harder to use on computers, not just in terms of keyboards and stuff, but also memory and cross-compatibility with western software

>>2429648
Their PC culture started developing right around the same time-frame; I think mainframe usage was different and had to catch up big time after the occupation ended. But yes, the Japanese language itself proved to be a hurdle, both for hardware and for programming itself (easier to understand opcodes as mnemonics rather than English-based commands used in upper-level languages such as C).

I wasn't aware E.V.O. was actually a sequel to a PC98 game. Apparently it even had a more involved evolution system. Don't know why they changed from a turn-based RPG to a mediocre platformer...

After I'm done with Xanadu I'll try this out.

anyone know how to fix an old win95 game with these inverted colors?

>>2430553
windowed mode.

>>2430553
Can do what >>2430585 said though for games that don't have windowed mode built-in, there's also having the "screen resolution" setting open in the background, killing explorer.exe when starting the game, add some bits to the registry, or (my personal favorite) W7DDPatcher. The W7DDPatcher basically automates that registry option.

http://www.sevenforums.com/gaming/2981-starcraft-fix-holy-cow-22.html#post866878

What game is that by the way? Looks interesting.

>>2429712
Not only can you evolve into demons, elves, and lizardmen, but you fight THE DEVIL as the final boss instead of an amoeba.

>>2429712
Did anyone ever produce an English patch for this?

Emulation general? Having trouble with the x68k emulator XM6. Mad Stalker Full Metal disk starts fine but is locking up at the start of stage 1?
Any options I should change? I already got the keyboard input changing fixed...?

>>2404692
Fuck off
I use texthookes like rikai to study with

Nothing wrong with it

>>2430695
OK... never mind I fixed the problem temporarily. I changed the emulator Im using. I have a new problem though. Is there an english version of XM6 typeG ?

>>2430739
That's a very bad way to study. Especially considering you're showing a considerable butthurt, meaning you're probably a beginner.

Yeah, you'll kinda read the games like this, but you won't get better.

You get better by studying, not playing a game and maybe remembering some words from it.

Sorry, but it's true. Get good, then read games. It'll be a much better experience overall.

>>2430695
>>2430769
Get XM6 Pro-68k.

Speaking of XM6 issues, any way to fix the transparency issue on Akumajou Dracula? The peeping eye is supposed to be outside the window.

>>2430786
May not work for you, buddy. But that doesn't make it a bad method by any means. You're wrong when you think playing a game can't be part of studying. Think about it.

>>2430585
>>2430590

Thanks, the W7DD didn't work, but using dxwnd i was able to force it to run in a window and the colors are fine, although it crashes a bit.

The game is JumpHero4, one of the little games Compile released on their Disk Station series. Its a nice little platformer with some neat mechanics

>>2431025
So far XM6 Pro-68K has been giving me issues with transparency, ex. stage 2 of Aquales not displaying properly because the translucent water visuals go blank. I'll have to look into what the NFGGames and Tokugawa people have written about the subject.

>>2430590
Ooh, I could use W7DDPatcher for getting Wander Wonder to display properly. Don't know what's getting the way as the config I'm using is supposed to work for W7 specifically (D3DWindower for Project EGG's version).

>>2427739
>J-PC gaming hasn't fully died, but you could say it entered a coma.
Not enough games coming out, or certain kinds of games not coming out? Saying that it's in a coma seems like a big exaggeration to me. Even Steam gets a lot of releases.

>>2431218
I didn't say it can't be a part of studying. But it shouldn't be the studying.

When you rely on machine translation (as per >>2404378), you're hardly learning anything.

Learn Japanese to a good level, then play games with text hooker in the background for easier looking up of the odd word you don't know. And you should look up in J-J explanation disctionary, not just have something machine TL it to English for you.

>>2431413
I was thinking of Japanese commercial non-eroge made specifically in mind for PC. We still get new A-Train from Artdink and new Daisenryaku from System Soft, even PC versions of Koei's non-Dynasty Warriors output, but Falcom's only done one PC port themselves recently (DRM removal and bug-fixing of Zero no Kiseki), and Kogado's relegated Power DoLLS to a web app. Mighty No. 9 is the outlier so far. English localization ports have been coming quickly and successfully, though, so the coma might end in the near-future. Any new Falcom game releasing on PC first would mean they've returned, though who knows, maybe the upcoming Ys and/or Sen no Kiseki might be multi-platform.

>>2431447
Falcom is releasing an online installment of the Kiseki series to PCs.

>>2431458
Taiwanese co-production for a Taiwanese audience, seems like a canon spinoff to me.

>>2431025
>>2431392
Tried out "Pro-68k" and I cant figure out how to get the joystick mode to work. But... I did try Akumajou Dracula on the TypeG mame version of XM6 found here.
http://emulation-general.wikia.com/wiki/XM6_TypeG
Eyeball shows up in that version. So far typeG seems to have the most features and least glitches but its not in english like the other versions. Also TypeG defaults to bilinear filtering which I dislike.

>>2431550
TypeG gives me "This application has failed to start because it's side-by-side configuration is incorrect" errors when I try to run it for some reason (I have Visual C++ Redistributable Package 2008 installed).

>>2431605
huh? thats odd. Maybe try compatibility mode ?

>>2431550
btw just found that the G mame version is in english but you have to enable it under (H) help.

>>2431685
Turns out I needed to install the 2005 update as well, cheers to /vg/uy from 2 years ago for the tips.

Less options than Pro-68k but at least the transparency issues are gone. There's an english version available below.

https://archive.moe/vg/thread/29062242/#q29357834

i'm not entirely sure if this is the best place to ask this but my motive is to play old japanese vidya

how do i set up a virtual windows 2000 in vbox? i'm not very experienced with this kind of thing. i've looked at some tutorials for doing this but they either didn't work or were too confusing
sorry for troubling you

>>2432097
You get win2k install media, you start up vbox, you follow the wizard. That's literally it. If you make a mistake then remove the win2k box and start again. You shouldn't need to follow tutorials, the documentation that comes with virtualbox is really well done.

>>2431776
Oh cool thx. Forgot about checking moe.

>>2432160
what do you mean by win2k install media? is that the .iso i need?

>>2432160
i finally got around to it and it just kept restarting near the end of installation
is something wrong with the iso? i downloaded it from here https://winworldpc.com/download/413C9736-18DA-11E4-99E5-7054D21A8599

>>2431442
How else am I supposed to practice grammar and everything? I look at what the results are, it's much quicker than inputting in a dictionary and is the exact same fucking thing.

Quit being an elitist. Do you know Japanese?
Go to/djt/ on /a/ with your opinions.

Sweet, I have every version of the original Relics available now, save the PC-6001 and Anthology ones. The MZ-2500 port seems very close to the PC-88, which maybe is why the Wikipedia page doesn't bother to say much about it.

>>2432782

I am absolutely amazed by these games and look forward to lurking this thread

Are there any jpc games with an approximate atmosphere/theme similarity to megaten? Non-eroge.

>>2432972
Well, there's at least Giten Megami Tensei on PC-98. There could be more, though.

>>2432972
Yougekitai, a first-person dungeon crawler CRPG by Telenet. I don't know which team within Telenet made it (could be the guys behind Death Brings for all we know), but it's promising, seems to involve espers and cosmic horrors in modern Japan. The game's one of more than a few J-PC CRPGs with horror themes, Laplace no Ma preeminent among them.

Also, VGMrips has a pack up for MSX2 Xak now: http://vgmrips.net/packs/pack/xak-the-art-of-visual-stage-msx2

The Xanadu Bible, a compendium of knowledge about the 1985 Falcom game, has just released coinciding with Xanadu's 30th anniversary. I'm nt sure how to buy it atm, seems DS Labo's going to cons first before maybe doing an e-book or something. Physical copies from Japan are gonna need middleman shipping if any of us are to get it.

Also, more info on Yougekitai:
http://pc98lib.egloos.com/2165823
http://www005.upp.so-net.ne.jp/kareha/gomi/ace.htm
http://www.rootleaf.net/hp/?p=94

>>2432975
Since you mentioned Laplace no Ma, I guess I would also add Paracelsus no Maken as well, given they are both part of the Ghost Hunter Series.
Never went to far in any of them though. But they look promising.

Wikipedia also lists Kuroki Shi no Kamen as a part of the series but not only I have never played it, it was also released on 3do which doesn't concern us (at least not here in this thread).

>>2432973

Doesn't that have some nudity and such? Don't know if it's sexual though cause I haven't actually played it. I loaded up both versions of it just to see what it was like but I can't read Japanese outside of a handful of words and katakana so I didn't go far past the first room.

>>2434720
Yeah, with Giten they took the series to a whole new level. And when there isn't nudity there is gore. Well, maybe not so much.
It's worth mentioning that there's this infamous scene right at the beginning that's pretty shocking too.

Nevertheless, the main story is pretty interesting despite some dubious content.
It's pretty much what you'd expect from a megaten title.

>>2434587
Most adaptations of Group SNE-related stuff are worth looking into. Sword World PC and the Record of Lodoss War games by Hummingbird Soft were quite successful commercially and critically (they also led to or signaled the ends of Xtalsoft and Hummingbird Soft as we know it). There's also a PC-98 game for Christania, another product by Ryo Mizuno.

Kimimi's been playing some Kurokishi no Kamen recently, and I bet she's going to something on Paracelsus no Maken too.

>>2434820

How about the gameplay? Also, which version is considered better? I know the graphics in the Windows version looked cheap as hell from what I've seen.

>>2435043
Gameplay has its fun moments.
The battle system is a mix of real-time and a little something of tactical-rpg where your damage is based on your distance to your target. This actually looks better in theory than in practice, given that you (at least I) spend most of the time being face to face with the enemy without thinking too much about positioning.
As for attacking, as long as you keep your distance you are free to select any target you want. And compared to SMT2 where magic was pretty much useless, here there are some really nice skills.

One fun point and one Nocturne seems to have its roots on is that you can raise your demons and they will also learn new skills. So you can keep your Pixie until the end if you want it :P

Maybe navigating throughout Tokyo can be a little tiresome specially when the map is huge and the streets some 2, 3 pixels large. Since you have to click on it (and the AI seems to follow only the shortest route available even if it means crossing through a block), it can get a little annoying. Other than that, I really enjoyed it.

As for the Windows version, I haven't played it yet, so I really can't tell you. That may be just me guessing but I think some of the bugs from the PC-98's were corrected and if I'm not mistaken an item you get much latter in the game actually has its importance explained somehow.
Anyhow, if you choose to play the Windows version, be sure to pick up the patch for it. It'll save you from trying to break your computer against one of the first boss battles.

You can download it from here (patch002.lzh):
http://u4.getuploader.com/gdds

The other file available is a Devil Compendium, in case you want to try it.

>>2435293

Thanks for all the info. I might try stumbling my way through it without being able to read but I'll probably only seriously play it years from now when I know a good amount of Japanese.

>>2420217
Yeah, there are more or like nes games and such, hence why people stay away from translating. However, how many games use text files instead? I'm very curious, as I could translate one for my next project? I actually thought that all old games like these worked like nes, so I put Dead of the Brain on hold until I get a few other things done this year, but if there is a game with just text files to edit and translate, then I wouldn't mind doing that instead.

>>2437493

It really depends on the game, its pretty simple to check if there's a game in particular you are interested.

>>2437931
There not much I am interested in, but if any one of you guys know some games that are in text files, then go ahead and mention a few.

>>2399271
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nx0RsQMURFo
Where can I get this beautiful music, I can't even find it on SLSK

>>2438440
Setting up the Hoot player aside, I actually don't know where ApolloJoe got that Chilam Balam set, so let me message him.

>>2434441
Damn, too bad it's already sold out pretty much everywhere :(
Well, it's no surprise when some awesome material like this costs only 600 yen or so.
Plus it's really nice to see these guys together again.

>>2434997
Never heard of this Christania game though. Gonna give it a look here because I really like Mizuno's art style!

Getting back into PowerDolls. I kind of feel like writing some sort of FAQ for one of the games because information on them in the English world is so sparse but

1) I'm pretty shit at the game and I don't really want to "spread false information" so to speak being the only FAQ writer for it.

2) Not sure how detailed I should get into or where to even begin. I'm thinking of just starting with some basic mech building tips and some missions tips and maybe continue if there's some demand.

>>2439163
Mizuno's the scenario writer, though, not the artist. I have no idea who did the art for this Christania game.

>>2440061
Have you beaten it yet? One thing worth trying is looking up Japanese guides for the game, at least they might have maps you can use for the benefit of readers and yourself.

I'm knee-deep in Trails in the Sky right now, but I'll get back on track with Relics, the website (might even put up a review of Thexder since I played that some time back), and maybe an easy one like Aquales.

http://www.mobygames.com/game/nova__
looks pretty sweet

Got Relics: The Recur of Origin and Wander Wonder functioning properly...I was using something other than DxWnd to properly display the game. But now AppLocale's fucking up, maybe I should restart and see if that fixes it.

Recur of Origin's been re-uploaded on Tokugawa btw: http://fullmotionvideo.free.fr/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1566

You'll need to join the 7z files and mount the image, then install onto your HDD. I can't get the music working yet, but it's fun to body-snatch the MARX Sniper and shoot everything up outside the temple.

>>2441226
Where did you get Wander Wonder from?

Is there anything I can do to help get undumped PC-88, X68000 or other classic PC-system games? Or is it pretty much 'done'?

>>2441075
Yeah, seems pretty good. Seems you have three different scenarios in the same settings. Well the third one is just an omake with H scenes.

http://advgamer.blog.fc2.com/blog-entry-277.html

>>2441841
Most of the big stuff's been dumped, but there's more to go. And guys like Macaw and Shou have been gathering the resources and games as best as they can, since Japanese dumping and P2P seems to have cooled. I don't expect to ever find anything like the PC-88 CD-ROM version of DIOS by Sein Soft, but it's a possibility.

BEEP Shop posted a blog about Warp, a short-lived J-PC magazine I've never seen mentioned on Tokugawa. One of their issues has a showcase and comparison of each version of Thexder released at the time...shit's cool.

More writers:
https://vndb.org/s4955
https://vndb.org/s4954

which is better for older vidya, windows 95 98 or 2000?
3d is a must

>>2445950
Use win98 since it's not based on NT, which might cause some compatibility issues with some games.

Hi, how does one reduce lag for 9801 emulation? I've tweaked settings, but Flame Zapper still has slowdown at 60fps.

Another question, is there any STG I should know about other than Cho Ren Sha and the aforementioned that I should know about? I mean, something that's really pleasant to look at, nice music, well-designed, etc.

>>2446652
I remember having some issues running Flame Zapper on NP2. Have you tried using either the As or Xs setup inclued in the Neo Kobe Pack?
You could also try Anex86. I know it runs pretty smoothly with it.

>>2440525
>Have you beaten it yet?
Not yet, I'm doing each mission as I beat them so I don't forget anything.

As for maps, the games kind of provide them itself. The only site I know, PowerDolls.info don't go into any more details (it would be useful to know where all the enemy locations are for instance) so shrug.

Here's what I have done right now for 5.
http://pastebin.com/85MaqmLC

Incidentally, I went back to PD2 and wow is it a strange jump in difficulty. I can't even beat the first mission which is supposed to be a simple extraction mission, mostly because I have no idea how the "feint" they're asking me to execute is supposed to work at all (one weakness of the games is that it has very poor feedback for special objectives)

>>2447042
Anex worked, thank you.

>>2447696
...but I've noticed that the sound is really weak. I've read about this before. I think I may go back and settle for 30fps.

>>2447727
Decided to give it a try again with NP2 but unfortunately the most passable results I've got was with the aforementioned As setup. The music plays fine but the game still runs slowly.

BTW since you asked for sugestions before, try taking a look at other games developed by CO2-PRO-, like Outer/Last Breaker or Kaien.

Some other titles (also developed by them):
http://www.geocities.jp/dcs1222/kogyou/co2pro/co2.htm

does anyone have a working hdi of 2 shot diary 2?

>>2429712
The music is amazing in the PC98 version

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0m0YA184WG4

Does anyone have a link to any PC version of the Black Onyx? All the links I've found are dead or maybe my google-fu is just weak.

Figure this could be posted here as it's apparently inspired by PC-88 games.
http://www.siliconera.com/2015/06/05/hell-diary-is-a-mystery-adventure-meant-to-emulate-playing-on-japans-microcomputers/

>>2448407
The one on the Mega folder does work, just need load the first HDI and run N2.BAT after booting up.

>>2451938
Priestman doing an okay job describing some qualities of Japanese PC games? That's the real surprise. Hell Diary sounds cool, actually befitting the description Retro Games which doesn't at all fit this board.

>>2449906
Just requested a re-up on Tokugawa.

>>2446652
For PC-98, Burning Dragon and Metal Force (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xq_ZGcFytxA)) are worth looking into.

I'm thinking DXTory will be useful for short recordings in the future, as it has better colors upon recording vs. OBS. Now to get me an activated copy...

Meanwhile I'm playing Relics as usual + some Thunder Force II, which is pretty hard in ways similar to its predecessor. Bombs have different timing, enemies seem to spawn in regions (spawning indefinitely too!), and power-ups cycle from shield to Hunter. I'll get used to it at some point. The voice acting is awesome in context.

>>2454276
Have you given FFSplit a try at all?

uhm, what would you reckomend type of game that´s babbys first one?

i dig all the cyber punk genre. i tried to play policenauts but could not managed to get far due bad isos/ discs and what not.

Saw some interesting horror ones. but since the only second language that i can understand is english one.

Im sorry if i have might skipped the FAQ´s if there was one

I love those pixelated details!

>>2455759
Night Slave is basically everyone's number 1 rec if you don't understand JP because it's an action game where the story's secondary.

Not cyberpunk, I suppose, but Mecha's a pretty tech-focused genre

Beat Ys I & II Chronicles+ just last night. Great stuff—I wonder if the Keith/Marle sub-plot's as well developed in the originals as it is here. Interesting to hear that the Black Pearl brings out the worst in any living thing. Switching between human and Roo form really drives home the point that neither human nor demon are too far apart, just unable to communicate and prone to beastly outbreak.

>>2449906
Here's the pack I requested for you, can re-up if necessary: http://www.blackdiamond.co.za/temp/4Don2.7z

>>2454365
It's a little better than OBS, but only DXTory's satisfying me. What I should do is learn how to use the ffmpeg command prompt, use the best codec for this kind of capture, and do tests.

And because I had it lying around, a bit of the stage 5 boss from Aquales. Game's pretty easy, but it's certainly less buggy and has more variety than Genocide 2 (still need to play Squared before weighing an opinion).

I know there's a lot of folks that have been working on the hacks for translations and/or have worked on them in the past - would anyone be up for talking about it for our podcast? Sorry, not trying to shill, but we're doing romhacks as our theme of the month and jpc hacking/translation is something that really isn't talked about much and it'd be good to hear from you.

>>2462192
post your request on Romhacking.net.

>>2462192
>jpc hacking/translation is something that really isn't talked about much
Probably because it never fucking happens. Even when old VNs like Rance and Yu-no are getting translations it's done to their Windows versions.

>>2462197
I can see this going well.

>>2462372
What are you talking about? They're one of the friendliest, most welcoming online communities around. :^)

>>2462192
I could talk up a summary of J-PC romhacking so far, but I'd get sidetracked about these games in general. So many who might be interested in old PC games from Japan don't know they exist outside the usual suspects. Romhackers and translators aren't gatekeepers; they can play (have played) a big role in making something like Digan no Maseki or Schwarzschild III more accessible to EOPs.

>>2462374
Nah, I'm just saying that I never got around to joining and it's probably not a good idea to just jump in and basically shill - I felt/feel awful asking here even for that reason.

>>2462376
Eh we'll just edit the hell out of it :). Seriously though you're totally welcome any time; if anything, the non-hack-related stuff would be a good chance to do a "special report" episode.

>>2462440
What's your contact info and scheduled date/time for recording? I appreciate the offer.

Also, Final Breaker is the System Soft-produced post-apocalyptic wargame (maybe would be called an SRPG?) I've always wanted:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENDTPdLbcTs
http://pc98.org/fbreaker.html
Capture guide: http://mukou.sakura.ne.jp/fb/

>>2462456
I see the only hope for real catgirls is triggering a post-apoc future.

>>2462531
You can't become a catgirl yourself in this game, it seems, but you can become the Mad Max version of Cho Aniki if you evolve your MC a certain way: http://mukou.sakura.ne.jp/fb/playercg/index.html

Game's been compared to Master of Monsters Final, which came out a year before FB. Seems you have a camp mode from which you select which maps to fight in next, all divided into four distinct regions.

It seems Rogue was quite popular internationally, and there was even a video games as art exhibit with the game on display. Influences can be seen in Shiren the Wanderer series, which is in a different branch of the roguelike family.

I'm wondering, were there any roguelikes released on Japanese computers? There's Elona right now, but I'm wondering if anything older exists.

I feel like I've asked this before but it doesn't hurt.
What are the PC-98 eroge classics? I can only think of Toushin Toshi 2, YU-NO, Rance series, and Eve.

>>2463868
There were several for sms and snes . I cant remember any names now.

They had pretty poor gameplay and no story. Just bam, dungeon.

>>2464298
Untranslated titles are fine, by the way.

I just downloaded 憂楼 from the mega pc-98 pack, and this is what came in the folder, unlike every other eroge which came with just a single file. Not really sure what to do.

>>2464524
There's a guide in the copypasta OP that starts every single thread on how to make bootable images.

>>2464302
Japanese PCs, not consoles.

>>2463868
Linking an old discussion here: https://archive.moe/vr/thread/1944456/#2114802

There were more notable Rogue-likes for early Windows OSes than for proprietary J-PC platforms, to my surprise, but there's still Gekirin and Die Gekirin (development led by Yoshio Kiya of Dragon Slayer fame) for the FM Towns.

>>2464524
Is it Windows-only or is the game known to run in MS-DOS? The latter would mean you'd need to find an autoexec .bat or the main executable that you can enter via command-line after booting MS-DOS (either off a floppy image or HDI). Windows makes it trickier to do via emulator.

Right now I'm getting Fuga System's Beat Vice to play. So far so good, now I just have to figure out the menus.

>>2464531
https://vndb.org/r10518
All I know about is that it only had a PC-98 release.
>>2464528
http://fullmotionvideo.free.fr/pc98/neko.html
This one?

>>2464524
Yeah that happens sometimes as I got the games from a giant pack (had to download from various file hosting sites in parts) so there may be a good handful of games that are in "loose" condition. Which whenever someone comes across it and makes a post, I'll try and see if I can make a bootable HD file to add to the Mega folder.

I was about to do that with this when I noticed "【PC98】憂楼 ユーロウ Transient Sands.rar" in the よ folder as opposed to the ゆ one and it's already in an bootable format. So I moved it to the correct folder and added "(HDI)" to its name along with "(LOOSE)" for the other one.
Here's a direct link, tested with T98-Next:
#!p9F2DR5I!aQhNxB82EDkbN79vEOZe-bFuvIxBGa1rL-vvZqlyh2g

>>2464612
Thanks, anon. The following games are still in "loose condition", I believe:
天使たちの微笑み 転校生
七英雄物語2

>>2422324

Has X-Girl been translated? I really want to experience these games -- they look so beautifully rendered.

Also, where the fuck do you guys find soundtracks for games like YU-NO and stuff? These tracks are just too good, they hit all the right notes that send you zoning off with this weird sense of serenity.

>>2465303
I use Hoot, due to the fact I love the OPNA version the most.
http://snesmusic.org/hoot/v2/
Download Hoot and settings on that site
Find Yu-No's files on that site
Place them in the PC98 directory in the Hoot folder
Open Hoot and hit Ctrl+R

>>2465303
http://vgmrips.net/packs/pack/kono-yo-no-hate-de-koi-wo-utau-shoujo-yu-no-nec-pc-9801

Also, here's part of my first run of Dan's third mission in Beat Vice. I forgot that his starter craft doesn't have auxillary power for operating secondary weapons, so I had to use the Vulcan like usual. Something tells me this game's bigger than it looks, since he's only the first of eight characters you can play as, each having a different set of missions and thus story events. I'm gonna have to get a bigger boat when I start over.

This game's all over the place in concept. I'm not surprised Amaranth kept Fuga System alive and better than ever, since that's straightforward fantasy wargaming.

>>2464531
Great, that's the response I was dreaming for! Looking for a new translation project, and this is just obscure enough.

>>2464302
That's the idea for roguelikes. It's all about hard decisions you gotta make, procedural content, and fun deaths. But yeah Shiren the Wanderer, Torneko, Crystal Dragon, Fatal Labyrinth might be some of the ones you were thinking of.

>>2465449
Which game are you thinking of translating? I'd love to play Wind Seekers: Grand Slam more easily (also by ex-Falcom devs) and can supply you the game image. A Gekirin patch would be nifty too.

>>2465458
I'm gonna have to look at each game closer. I was originally looking at Milandra for the Super Famicom, until I thought I should check out Japanese PC roguelikes. Technically those might be easier to patch. I was hoping there would be something ASCII based and possibly something open-source.

>>2465490
I don't know if (Die) Gekirin stores text in ASCII format, but it's worth a look. Wind Seekers would demand something like OllyDbg for digging into the Windows files. Do whatever makes sense for your skill level and experience, be it console or PC.

I can't find 鬼頭島女子刑務所 in the mega pack. Am I not looking properly? I found an old Tokugawa Corps thread but they used megaupload and rapidshare links and I obviously can't access those.

>>2465523
It's there in the き folder.

>>2465560
Thanks, I went by VNDB's romanization, should stop doing that considering a lot of people who don't know japanese browse that place.

>>2464695
I'll try making those into a bootable format, thanks for letting me know.

>>2465339
Hoot is cool and all, but it just loops a single track until you manually switch it, which is kind of a bummer.

>>2465570
猟奇の檻 is also in loose condition. I'd be grateful if you told me when you reupload all the games, by the way.

Holy shit this is a find. Source: http://furoku-archive.sblo.jp/article/102843599.html

It even has an insert of the original Black Rainbow's cover, which is also by Akihiro Yamada.

>>2464695
>>2466334
Here you go anon, added to the folder and here's direct links:
天使たちの微笑み 転校生
#!51MGQQLC!LYf7rO80YMfepTz4JT3PuM_Zh5XtYEQS0m_syWiAMkQ

七英雄物語2
#!9gNHTDyS!EnhytJfhIKyIbjAfbkYyjYFs13ZScORvZXh_WHOsDdI

猟奇の檻
#!9p1TVZZZ!IeyyBnxDCVeNlia6DFwESsRtLEuwVl3Etw_-TxlzNUU

>>2467206
Thanks, anon. By the way, I believe it's 天使たちの午後, not 微笑み. I can't find any relevant results for 天使たちの微笑み 転校生, and there's a game called 天使たちの午後 転校生.

>>2467313
Thanks for pointing it out, I went about checking the title screen again (just to be sure) and it did indeed have 午後 at the end.

1/2 of a rare Misty Blue ad.

2/2

The similarities between this game and the OVA Nineteen 19 are numerous, and that's scaring me. Onda's the character designer on both, and they focus on relationships between young couples in some form or another (MB's got a murder mystery involved of course).

Finally got four of the idols needed to unlock the door in HELL. I died at one of the random monsters that I thought was guarding an idol but was just being annoying, plus there were rocks falling everywhere from the ceiling hurting my body. Judging by the map I have, I'm two-thirds of the way through Relics.

>>2400282
ASCII but using graphics for characters? :^)

nice thread guys

I've been finding some cool tricks for optimizing my run. For example, you can stab at the altar upon which the Idol of Beast sits and that will rocket you off the altar back onto the ground, which saves a few seconds otherwise used for jumping. Using that Idol also lets you do pic related, meaning you don't have to kill the door guard and possess it to kill the blue-armored soldier. Things like this add character to the game.

Also, is there something abut the thread needing a fix or did yesterday's carnival of stupid drive y'all away?

>>2465303
>>2465704

http://s98.joshw.info/
http://www.vesta.dti.ne.jp/~tsato/soft_s98v3.html#in_s98

>>2410060
Not sure if you're still frequenting, but can you (or anyone) get in-game footage of HAMLET? I wanna saw how the scrolling looks, guessing it's a blobber and so movement's fixed.

>>2423846
Apparently someone was making a web browser for Ko-Window on the X68k, but the project never resurfaced after he shelved it. I wonder how long ago that was if we're talking the early-'90s.

>>2472267
Sure!
I've tried to show a little something of the whole 360 degrees view-mode the game presents and also decided to include an (not so) early battle footage.

BTW Good job finding those Misty Blue ads.
This game intro just blows my mind!

>>2473232
I forgot to mention there is also a walkthrough available here:

http://retroblues.sakura.ne.jp/kouryaku/hamlet/hamlet_main.html

The game is pretty linear but the author included some nifty information in his page.

>>2473232
Not what I was expecting...it's more impressive than I could have dreamed of, though monochrome 360-degree movement/viewing isn't killer by 1994's standards. Battles remind me of BPS's/Kure Eiji's Epsilon-3, definitely got developed upon in the remakes. Thank you for the footage!

>>2430607
KingMike says he's wanted to do it for a long time, but no interest apparently.

Right in the nick of time, Shmuplations has just uploaded two interviews with Artdink staff re: their PC games: http://shmuplations.com/artdink/

I've also sent blackoak four more interviews he should consider putting on the request list.

Amateur spelunking.

I'm nearing the end it seems. Turns out getting the item necessary for rescuing the girl (hinted at in one of the sealed documents you can find on the HEAVEN level) is more finicky than it should be. And now I wish this version has the irregularly-pulsating HELL backgrounds from the PC-88 conversion.

>>2465498
I meant an game with ASCII graphics, since extracting strings would be easier. Anyways, really appreciate your help. Kinda baffled that so few roguelikes existed before Windows. Given the influence of Rogue in later roguelike games, you'd think there'd be some sort of delineation of Japanese roguelike ancestry.

>>2465498
A bit of a follow up, I found another list.

http://matome.naver.jp/odai/2136375271980087001

Underworld looks interesting. Seeing if I can find more info on it. Don't know if you're familiar with it or if it isn't technically a roguelike. Anyways, I apologize if this isn't technically fitting in /jpc/, but don't know where else to discuss it.

>>2399271
Asking here instead of making a new thread since it's pretty much related to this topic.

I wanna buy a Jap Turbografix. Bad idea or worst idea?

>>2477830
It's more that pure Rogue-likes weren't common among Japanese platforms because developers preferred to use elements they liked from Rogue/Shiren piecemeal, rather than in a complete genre form.

Also, I'm making a generic "/jpc/ Recommends..." macro anyone can fill in. What's a good aspect ratio/image resolution to go with for these? Something big enough for ~64 games or so (all categorized into groups via legend), but not all these machines have 640x400 resolutions across each game (ex. the MSX platform uses 512x212 and 256x212 display resolutions). Here's my base for now.

>>2477854
No, it fits with /jpc/.

>>2477892
>pretty much related to this topic
Nope, but here's a PC Engine thread if you wanna ask there: >>2476981

>>2477903
That's interesting. Do you recommend any reading on early japanese computing?

I got UnderWorld running in WINE. Seems like a really obscure project that mixes roguelikes and the Wizardy series (six party members). Now to start hacking.

>>2477921
Closest recommendation I can make is The Untold History of Japanese Game Developers, which has interviews with old J-PC people; it's got an eBook version and has been pirated before on /vr/. I'm guessing you'd like to know more about early Japanese CRPGs, so here's a blog series talking about the earliest known + some playthrough comments (which I would take with a grain of salt as always): http://blog.hardcoregaming101.net/2014/06/dark-age-of-jrpgs-11-mugen-no-shinzou.html

Good luck hacking UnderWorld!

Does anyone here know how to rip graphics from these type of games, Dead of the Brain in particular?

>>2478160
We talked in a previous thread about using Susie and/or Grapholic + plug-ins for specific games to extract CGs: https://archive.moe/vr/thread/2164790/#q2255826

DotB 1 and 2 have been ripped: http://exhentai.org/g/647784/177ee57ba2/

>>2477854
Oh hey, someone asked whether there was a Wizardry Roguelike over at the Wiz thread and I mentioned Underworld but said that I forgot the link to it.

What a concidence, maybe I should go cross-post it now.

>>2478570
Obscurity loves company... wait idk if that works. But about Underworld, there really aren't any websites about it--even in Japanese. Best bet is to just download it from that link in the list. There's also Trogue written in Tonyu, which seems to be popular among some indie Japanese devs. Made to look like an early CRPG.

>>2478246
Thanks. I appreciate it.

>>2479550
np

If anyone wants to take a whack at translating pic related, be my guest. Right now I'm going to find an OCR app good enough to recognize all the characters and their combinations, and then put it all into Google Translate. That could mean using KanjiTomo + something else. There's a simplified version of the ending used in the MSX version too.

>>2480203
I'm interested. What is the game like?

>>2480203

>1/2

Decided to give it a try. Not my best work by a long shot so please be gentle.
Stuff that may have sounded strange in english I decided to use something I judged more appropriate on its place. But I may be wrong.
Apologies for verb tenses that may look weird and everything else.

The universe is born, matter is created and life dwells. Spending an enormous amount of time the universe reached its present form.
And then two consciousness keep struggling dwelling in matter at one point and in life at another.
Both consciousness struggled changing their form respectively into five warriors and one sovereign.
The Five Warriors lead by Heaven and the almighty Hell known for his superhuman powers.
These two forces wandered across planets spreading the conflict among them until they arrived at Earth, which would become their final battlefield.
The Five Warriors built a castle and fought with all their might. And yet in face of the almighty Hell, their power was meaningless. And in the end of this harsh battle they were defeated.
However this defeat was not decisive. And the reason behind it was that the strife between both great consciousness would last for all eternity. In the flow of the everlasting time, this defeat equals nothing. And what's more, the five warriors left a mechanism behind.
They left a so called Time Device on Earth in order to face the challenge once more. And it was a quite clever device. By recombining the genes of humankind the Five Warriors would be born again after a long period of time.
At first, it will awake the one who shall become the leader. And as if in response to this, the castle that was once erected was programmed to rise from the seas and show its form.
Then a long period of time passed.

>>2480203

>2/2

Nowaways their will has been reborn.
What made it happen was a simple fact.
Everything began when a young man acquired a computer game called Relics.
When this young man started playing Relics the castle that belonged to the five warriors began to move. And slowly it rose.
The battle began anew.
Then the young man's consciousness left his body and entered the castle as if being drawn by something.
And now, your consciousness awakes and it can finally obtain the body that was prepared for the leader of the five warriors. She is also one of the warriors. You both must travel in search of the other three companions scattered across the universe.
So you can defeat your longtime enemy, Hell.

>>2482648
>>2482669
Very interesting; I've got someone else doing another translation of this so I can make a comparison of the interpretations. Tenses don't matter as much for RELICS as for other games' endings, I think, since the story leading to the true ending is possibly cyclical across time. Bothtec was being cheeky by ending the game like this, even if technically anyone could activate the castle by entering the world as a third consciousness perceptible to HEAVEN and HELL.

I'm mostly curious about this:
>At first, it will awake the one who shall become the leader.

The above could refer to either the HERO or the spirit form you take at the start. There's five leaders of HEAVEN but this passage acts like they have a de facto leader.

Transformations in WerDragon are pretty cool—they happen 4/5 of the way through each stage, regardless of whether or not you missed power-ups and the like.

>>2485779
Love the graphics for the border they made.

>>2484747
So after doing a small research concerning the story things started to make some sense.

My guess is that the sentence you mentioned points directly to you, the player, given it's describing how the device left behind by the Warriors (or Soldiers, as it seems to appear in-game) works. If you take into account what is written a few lines below about what triggered the events we see in the game and the castle rising at the intro, I think it makes sense.

As for this de facto leader as you put I think he actually exists. When you finally obtained your true body, it says in the ending that it was "prepared for the one who would become the leader of the Five Soldiers". It may not be clear whether it's you/your spirit or one of the original Soldiers, though. And as a leader, you now have the task to find the rest of your companions, together with the girl (who is also one of the Soldiers).
But maybe this is something that may appear in the sequel.

You seem to be way better informed about the series than I am, so I may be missing something.

BTW this site has some nice information:
https://web.archive.org/web/20070608150206/http://www3.airnet.ne.jp/ashen/oldgame/Relics.htm