/vr/ - Retro Games

This one came out in 1999
I used it find it more fun to post back when it was on the borderline for old /vr/ rules

>>8914523
Good find, I see it's translated too. Guess the first game's some platformer on x68, right? Seems English playable too.

>>8914590
looks like there's a Windows port of the first game, too, with some additions
https://www.dlsite.com/home/circle/profile/=/maker_id/RG12283.html

>>8914523
is this like star tropics? looks super fun. ill play it.

>>8914480
good how I loved akuji, i found out about cave story and akuji at around the same time. where they released at the same time? i was an indie dev myself lurking with other devs so i found out about cave story pretty early on.
just typing this and I hear the cave story music playing in my head.
that game was just magical and wow that shit was really immersive. i have never played anything like it again.

>>8914590
where do you see that it is translated? where can I dl it in English?

>>8915009
https://www.romhacking.net/translations/780/
OP didn't mention that this is actually the 2nd Silkroad game.

>>8914663
>https://www.dlsite.com/home/circle/profile/=/maker_id/RG12283.html

REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
I just saw
>price 330 yen
I thought it was shareware and I could download it for free????

>>8916689
Oh no you have to pay 3 dollars

Oh cool, when I googled Syobon Action to get a screenshot I see someone made a browser port.
https://www.gatobros.com/syobon.html

>>8914480
>I find myself intrigued lately by Win9x/XP PC games by small teams or single devs, and I'd like to try more of them.
neat topic idea,
>Preferably translated or EOP playable enough.
well shit
I guess pic is playable, RIP understanding the story though

>>8916692
but it's shareware I would love to try this out first
I also wouldn't have a problem on steam but I don't get this ching Chong site

>>8916689
or just emulate the 68k version

>>8917361
language setting's in the upper right of the page
I don't know of a reason to call these games "shareware" though

>>8914963
Oh yeah just rub it in everyones face, you were an indie dev and you play amazing games as they came out. Are you trying to inspire suicide

>>8914480
Queen of Heart '98 was pretty great. Our school computers still had Win98 installed in 2003, so it was a favorite among my friends and myself. It doesn't run on 2000/XP or anything later if I remember correctly.

ChoRenSha 68k, not really a hidden gem since it's so revered by shmup players and YM2151 enthusiasts.

>>8914480
Used to play this all the time as a freshman in high school. It was good shit.

>>8914480
Just the other day I was looking for stuff like this (took me years to realize I don't dislike indie games, I just don't care for western games that much lol)
It's kinda shocking how hard it is to find comprehensive info on the japanese indie scene, anyone have a list of the best/most interesting titles?

>>8918568
why are western games so boring ?

>>8914480
It's not actually Japanese, but the Momodora series totally captures that JapaneseXP indie dev feel.

>>8916139
That patch broke at the 1st boss when I played it, and the translation is shit, but you can generally get through it without it as I did. Also, there's a few versions of the second one, and I think that image was a remake with a changed name or something.
>>8916689
Everything on DLsite is payware with some having demos. These are the shareware originals:
http://www.vector.co.jp/soft/win95/game/se077672.html - シルクロード - Silk Road - SKL0717
http://www.vector.co.jp/soft/win95/game/se077656.html - シルクロード2 - Silk Road 2 - SILK28117
http://www.vector.co.jp/soft/win95/game/se096911.html - ヴァンパイア - (none)
http://www.vector.co.jp/soft/win95/game/se077653.html - ムーンライトパニック - Moon Light Panic - MIMI8114
http://www.vector.co.jp/soft/win95/game/se077665.html - 地底戦記 - Titei Senki - TTI3721
http://www.vector.co.jp/soft/win95/game/se077669.html - XADLAK-PLUS - X68000
http://www.vector.co.jp/soft/win95/game/se076738.html - ZugyA(ズギャー) - ZUZ76591
http://www.vector.co.jp/soft/win95/game/se077661.html - B-SYSTEM - GURIUS1997
http://www.vector.co.jp/soft/win95/game/se077662.html - 飛翔組 - HYA3266
These are unlock passwords. I found the passwords by looking through the .exes in Notepad years ago, lol. I think it was the bottom option in the menu where you have to put them in. If the game immediately starts, you picked the wrong option.
There's a section in Silk Road 2 with a sign telling you some hint. Just stand in the middle of the room on the symbol until the item appears.

Does anyone know where to find the full version of Buster? There's a trial version floating around.
It's by the same guy who made Akuji the Demon, Guardian of Paradise and Hydra Castle Labyrinth.

>tfw your favorite doujinsoft game is not retro
>may as well be since it's early 2000s as fuck
>the author hasn't updated their pixiv for almost a decade now

>>8919196
I think a few are still active like Platine Dispositif, but yeah it's overwhelmingly in the past.

>>8919372
>Hack9
if you love Cave Story and MGS, you're going to love the "9" series

sadly the first two games are the only translated games, we need someone to help translate the other games

The Last Tempest is fucking nuts
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_luXMC8Hcw

>>8918568
The Japanese attitude toward these things seems to be that they're a lot more disposable. You make a game in your free time, and you sell it at conventions, and then you just kind of move on.

>>8919372
Is hack9 a cave story clone?

>>8920126
They've released a couple doujin games on steam already under Rockin Android. Nobody gave a fuck and it just died.

>>8920285
Here they are:
https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Company:Rockin%27_Android
https://delistedgames.com/companies/rockin-android/
Remember in 2011 when Touhou doujinshit came to PS3 and fans threw a gay fit?

>>8920269
graphics wise? yes
gameplay? Fuck no, to begin with it's a series of action/stealth platformers so most of the time it's better to avoid fights, and also unlike Cave Story it drinks in your suffering

>>8919165
giga based

>>8919372
>Legend of Darkwitch 3 stuck in 3DS hell
>Citra doesn't emulate the music unless you use LLE at 2fps, and is abandonware

>>8919372
Also based. I suppose doujinsoft would more succinctly sum up what I meant.

>>8919183
https://archive.org/details/buster_game
Compared it with the trial and the bmp/graphics data file is larger. Might be it? Haven't played to prove it one way or the other.

>>8919183
Nicalis brought the rights to all of his work and he scrubbed his website clean of everything. Buying it from his was convoluted as hell, and then at some point became impossible outright.

I still have some of his stuff on my computer.
This one is a (very average quality) english translation mod of Buster I did myself. It incorporates some info from the (now permanently offline) website. I hope you'll get some enjoyment out of it.
I actually modded the executable so that pirates using this version won't ever access the official leaderboard (everyone was so uncharacteristically civil, no cheaters, and I couldn't ruin that), so it will immediately give a connection error. However, I never got around publishing this translated version, and the servers went offline since then, so that actually turned out to be an improvement.

I had plans to rework some of the level design, make the orbs not reset to zero upon death, and lower the cap to a 1-Up from 500 orbs (which you only get if you play absolutely flawlessly through an entire world, at which point you probably don't need lives) to something lower, but no reason to keep you waiting longer than I should.

Important note: To see the actual final level, you need to 1CC the entire game (without ever seeing the game over screen) and that gets quickly out of hand.
There are some patches, but I never applied them.

anonfiles com/1eC3L6h3y1/buster_-_eng_7z

This one is the Sharp X68000 version of the game. It plays very differently, more like a Castlevania game, or rather TMNT1 since it has some unfair jumps. The Windows version is more or less a remake, but the X68k version is far easier.
anonfiles com/1dKbLdheyd/buster_XDF

He did other small freeware games, but best ones by far are Guardian of Paradise, Hydra Castle Adventure, Akuji, and Buster. I still have some of them. (I still need to add the unmodified JP Buster)

>>8919165
Thank you so much. It would be good to have them mirrored out.

>>8922083
>>8922087
Can confirm this is the full version.

I was heavily into doujin games in the 2000s, for me that was the golden age of independent japanese games, it as a gold mine of poverty gaming with new released every month. I guess the second half of 2000 is not "retro" enough so I recommend these pre-2006 games that haven't been mentioned

- Alice Senki II: very humble yet fun and at times complex fighting game with Alicesoft characters, also the online mode still works nicely
- Basically everything made by EasyGameStation, from Azubeach (a cute and fun volleyball game with Azumanga Daioh characters) to Duo Princess (an unofficial sequel to Square's Threads of Fate, inspired in Ragnarok Online but more on the action side)
- Axel City: a really cool FM2nd fighting game, more into the oldschool style and less anime
- Blue Wish Resurrection Plus: a freeware shmup that is pretty close in quality to a Cave game
- Crescent Pale Mist: an action/platformer that was very ambitious for its time
- Doki Doki Panic Library (no, not -that- visual novel): a cute and beautiful puzzle game with ToHeart characters
- Doll's Ingram: cute freeware action/platformer
- Drill Milky Punch: made by the Melty Blood devs, basically their answer to Gauntlet/Smash TV
- Every Extend: one of the most clever and original puzzle games ever made, freeware and got a commercial sequel on PSP
- Eternal Fighter Zero Memorial: fantastic fighting game, a pioneer of rollback netcode that still has a moderately big community
- Full Metal Sister Malibu: fun action/platformer
- GalPaniX: excellent freeware Gals Panic clone but with a danmaku style, based on ToHeart
- Hinokakera Chaotic Eclipse: pretty cool 3D fighting game, a mix of Rival Schools and Guilty Gear with a still playable online code
- Kamui: one of the first doujin games on Windows that made an impact in Japan, an excellent Rayforce clone
- Maribato Plus: decent 2vs2 fighting game with Maria-sama characters
- Nanopa: surprisingly competent Tetris Attack/Panel de Pon clone with Nanoha characters

- NOIZ2SA: another great game by the same dev of Every Extend, really cool shmup
- The Queen of Heart 2001: not as good as QOH99 yet still worth your time
- RaidersSphere3rd: doujin Ace Combat, and a really good one. Got a sequel years later on Steam
- Tobitsukihime: horizontal shmup with a fucking awesome soundtrack
- Tsukihime Typing Online: have you played Typing of the Dead? well, basically that but with Tsukihime characters and with a 2 player versus mode. There is an english version.
- Warning Forever: fun vertical boss rush shmup

By the way, not retro but as someone mentioned here: DO NOT BUY VANGUARD PRINCESS ON STEAM, just find the original freeware version. The Steam version is a scam.

>>8922083
>>8922087
Oh shit, thank you! I wasn't actually expecting an answer.
At one point I tried to download all of his games, but I think I skipped most of his X68000 games because I didn't know how to play them. I thought I could always download it later.
If you have any that I'm missing and are willing to upload them that would be cool.

>>8922369
* also while we're on the subject, he made an android game called Sora Neko. It's pretty basic, the cat moves left and right and you tap to speed up, but it is cute.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=buster.eh.soraneko&hl=en_US&gl=US

>>8922258
>>8922281
Nice!

This is an excellent thread. As a contribution, I shall recommend Obake:

http://www.g4g.it/2012/05/07/obake/

Previously I forgot to mention ikiki. He's a prolific dev active since decades and made a ton of games with somewhat crude graphics but good gameplay. Especially notable are Nikuman and Hakaiman, the latter inspired the developers of Hotline Miami years later.
http://ikiki.la.coocan.jp/himoji/game.htm

>>8920304
>Remember in 2011 when Touhou doujinshit came to PS3
Aren't there 2hujin games on the switch?

>>8919165
>Sprite games can't run in perfect integer scale windowed or fullscreen
I'm triggered.

Holy shit. Elona just barely makes it.
That game is crazy as fuck. But it's so fun.

>>8924437
Not a nip game

>>8924635
looks nihongo to me, desu -ka

>>8924635
looks nihongo to me, desu -ka
;)

>>8923461
I was going to post this. Great Avenging Spirit and Kirby style game.

pharaoh rebirth is good shit
>>8919183
>>8922083
holy fucking shit thank you for bringing this up and linking the full one. wanted to play this for eons

>>8923461
Doesn't work on Windows 10.

>>8924656
It was my mistake. Saw some remake that made by some westerner.

>>8926353
I can't get it to work *period*. 10 with dgvoodoo, VMware XP, or PCem 98. I think the nip filenames and how the game to refers to them really fucks things up if you don't have the language pack or maybe even a straight up Japanese version of the OS. I'll have to fuck with it or find the game somewhere else, maybe.

>>8926353
>>8926528
http://www.caiman.us/pageN.php?nr=2485&f=obake.zip
This + dgvoodoo works in 10. The other link had missing shit, nothing to do with compatibility or language packs.

>>8926813
or, on second glance, looks like this was patched for non-J Windows, lawl. Werx either way.

Goddamn 640x480 2D games are so soulful.

>>8918573
christianity and judaism, asians are just intellectually superior anyhow so even without those things holding back the west they'd still surpass it

erst kerf is pretty cool, it's a top down free movement bullet hell kinda game with some nice 3d graphics
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4ls3OAzs_I

>>8925945
Pharaoh Rebirth devs also made an old freeware game called Return of Egypt.

>>8917296
the fuck do you download this? Giving me a little trouble, fammy

>>8917296
https://mega.nz/file/mRgEDLqA#D3J3wn8iert-L6Siav4fOSc-a2cxbEha62Qm6Fk0kzk

>>8927642
sheeit, doesn't run for me. Get a garbled no-moon-font error message. Maybe it needs a J-OS or otherwise some language shit too. idk.

>>8927642
Anyone smart enough to get this working or have a link to one that that does? Maybe Protosphere too?

>trial works but the pirated copy doesn't
Of course some smelly neet fucked it up.

>>8927642
rename the exe and all the katakana files to "âèü[âTâïâNâëâCâVâX" like âèü[âTâïâNâëâCâVâX.exe etc etc and it works. still need protosphere though because the fuckups at doujinstyle link to the original for both games

>>8918061
Works in Win10 with WineD3D

>>8927769
they did? Wow

https://mega.nz/file/2MYw0DjA#1-FcIq7f7LaM5R1uv54tpp1sygXneI7Vd4OB-kCaiqg

>>8929198
>>8927642
I found that both of these run so long as you rename all the main katakana files the same way with English characters. The specific gibberish cited earlier is not necessary.

>>8929129
Amazing, it really does! Thanks dude. I have a toaster PC and was trying to emulate it with DOSBox-X/PCem. This is much better.

>>8929203
just set your locale to Japanese, no need for that shit you propose and it has virtually no impact on your system except being able to play games.

>>8929269
Language, region, formatting all changed to Japanese with Japanese language packs installed and everything on my 10 machine. They still errored out til I changed them.

>>8929198
I bet you used the same gitgud shit I found, haha.

>>8929312
>Language, region, formatting
those are irrelevant mostly
when people say change locale, they mean this

>>8929324
?

>>8929325
Of course, the one thing I didn't try. Thanks.

>>8929326
Only way I could find Protosphere was in this massive gitgud.io link database where they semi-obfuscated mega.nz links. Yours is the same link.

>>8929336
never heard about the database. I uploaded the game though, not sure if I was the first to do so

>>8929343
Well, good on you. Game's pretty neat from dabbling with it. Guess saves are earned somehow?

>>8929346
it's been a while, I remember saves in PS being very limited. They definitely want players to replay the game, with or without the help of the base factors. Sora is pretty brutal without something like nova

>>8927769
As a note, .zip (specifically) files do not have native UTF-8 support, meaning characters will be fucky when extracting. You'd need to change the System Locale (to Japanese, Chinese, or Spanish, etc. when applicable) and open them in the newest 7-zip for them to extract the contents with the proper filenames. If they've been extracted and re-archived with the busted, "mojibake" or other bad characters, there's no way of fixing that without manually rewriting them.

>>8930169
Yeah, got all that sorted now. Guess this is something I've never actually been affected by til now.

>look into Platine Dispositif's works
>emulate Super Zangyura for Switch using Ryujinx
it's p good

>>8918914
>not Japanese
Huh. Coulda sworn. Good on'em for pulling it off, anyway.

>wakarimasen down and who knows if it's to return
>no other /vr/ archives with search functionality afaik
better scoop up this shit up while it's fresh in mind

>>8931535
>>no other /vr/ archives with search functionality afaik
nope
https://desuarchive.org/vr/search/text/sneed/

Apparently, some "underground" Japanese computing magazines would mix some freeware stuff (including freeware games) and lewd stuff like JAV previews on one disc/edition. Buy why?
Figured out I ask this because of the related subject matter.
>sauce: https://archive.org/details/ip_09_disc1 (the lewds are on separate disc, but it's still one edition of the magazine)

>>8932537
Probably because early PC gaming in Japan was primarily associated with porn games.

>>8929336
mind sharing?

>>8932714
Coincidentally most of the games featured on those things aren't likely to be porn games. Then again, weekly gossip rags in Japan tend to have gravure idols (or even nude spreads of AV idols) on them so it's something like that.

>>8931346
The creator is Brazilian, and is also a pretty cool dude. I talked to him after Minoria came out because I was so impressed with it (and also the fact that it somehow gave me big Vagrant Story vibes at times). That was the first of his games I tried, and we shot a few emails back and forth about game development and creativity since I'm always doing similar things with music. I had mentioned how I was frustrated that Minoria didn't get the best reviews because I personally loved it a ton more than a lot of the critical darlings in the same genre like Hollow Knight. He said that no matter what, he's his primary audience for his own games - he makes the kind of things he would like to play. He's working on the last Momodora game now and said he's going to take a break from them after that. I bought the Momodora games after that conversation.

So in a sense, he really captures not only the look of a doujin game from the 2000s, but also really embodies that same spirit that went into a lot of those games. His stuff is definitely a labor of love.

>>8932734
Sauce on gif?

Iwanaga
It's kinda Treasure-esque
http://www.vector.co.jp/soft/win95/game/se445263.html

>>8933405
Locomalito seems similarly based and has also captured the doujin spirit, if I may make another small detour from the topic.

Banana Nababa feels like one of these, but isn't.

>>8932537
It's just overall "aimed at men" I think
iP and Windows 100% and such from that publisher ran lots of ads for things like impotence medicine, phimosis surgery, hair loss prevention, and dating sites

>>8933430
Was hoping someone would bring this game up. Always wanted to try it myself.

>>8935305
What's stopping/what stopped you? Wrap or emulate.

>>8932734
I hate to say it but just use Google better. I don't want them or someone else to delete it. Maybe someone else will spill it, though. I promise you it isn't that to find if you look at my posts regarding it.

So many sweet, sweet nip games I'll never have the time or attention span to play. Thank you for making this thread great, everyone.

>>8933425
The Legend of Koizumi

>>8922258
>GalPaniX
I remember playing this on my old Pentium : it was very slow so grazing bullets was super easy.

>>8914523
As for this one, it looked great and played fine. I just remember getting stuck at a wall with numbers.

>>8933430
>>8923461
>>8919183
What i wanna know is, what engines were used?

>>8936195
Iwanaga should be Shooter Maker 95 - https://archive.org/details/shooter-maker-95
Besides RPG Maker, Wolf RPG & Game Maker, most of the PC doujin use:
Hot Soup Processor - http://hsp.tv/
Light Game Programming - http://www.jppass.com/lgp/
Tonyu System - https://www.tonyu.jp/
Action Editor 4 - http://omoshiro-game.com/menu_gametool/

>>8936783
HSP is not really an engine but a coding language.

>>8937141
Yep. HSP is still popular : Konbuni's mahjong game from 2014 featuring girls with big titties and big peepees uses it.

>>8934374
Sometimes weekly gossip rags (called shukanshi) even have ads for devices that can purportedly "remove" mosaics from JAVs too; I wonder if iP/Windows100% had that ads. And of course seinen manga magazines have gravure spreads on them too.

Glass Keeper Glabis (ガラビスの硝子番)
This is a realy good freeware puzzle game (kind of similar to Fire n ice on nes)
http://mojazou.garyoutensei.com/game_files/glabis_shot.html

>>8914480
https://archive.org/details/vampirehurts
https://archive.org/details/TenerezzaPC
Not translated but you can play it with a text hooker if you want to read some butchered dialogue.

Bump

>>8914480
Archive is full of this kind of games.

>>8924437
I bought a cursed 400 games in 1 disc once to play on PC, was around 2007 or so, and this game was included. This shit is comedy gold
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gn-YAQ09hmY&ab_channel=Matth33w
0 18

>>8933430
Iwanaga Kitan doesn't always play nice on modern computers, often crashing if played fullscreen. However, I did some digging online and found a modded version of the game (and Vacant Ark) that seems to resolve the issue.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hqQqHyFUVIL4vH470eZnOsG8TucorEwL/view

>>8940454
dgvoodoo/wined3d solves many issues on these games, however, some of these Sprite/cracked vector.jp games have weird long pauses between levels and screens that I've only been able to resolve with PCem/98. VMing all the way down to XP didn't help.

>>8923461
Came here to post this. Actually got a re-imagining/sequel a few years back called Obake 10th Anniversary and it's fucking awesome.

/v/ used to lose it's shit over this demo of a furry trap side scrolling game that had actually a pretty fucking good movement and was fun to play. SorcerLand was the name.

Creator died in an earthquake or something I don't remember. Apparently people in Japan die more to earthquakes than school shootings.

>>8941347
Damn, that's rough shit. Could be a little less yiffy, but looks cool.

>>8919372
I'm glad irisu was my first experience with that horror pc file meta genre that took off in the mid 2010's