/vr/ - Retro Games

Where can I find an image of Net Guardian?

>>2164859
>Where can I find an image of Net Guardian?
For which computer?

>>2165256
I wasn't even aware that it was on anything other than the PC-98. Any platform'll do, really.

>>2164859

>OP
>/vr/ Anon's PC-98 dump:
>https://mega.co.nz/#F!F59WkSqQ!quGKSFIswBgv0rxAAaF8Pg

Go to ね folder
Find ネットガーディアン

So will a Japanese Windows PC run Japanese Windows games without trouble? Do any major Japanese Windows games even exist? All I can think of is Princess Maker, A-Train, and ports of Wizardry. Is there other stuff too?

Moreover, can a JP Windows machine run English-language stuff?

>>2165927
So long as it fits spec, yes. Japanese-built games are configured for Japanese-region Windows, trivial to set up.

Plenty of great domestic games for Windows, though without the variety from Japan's PC golden age (which had already ended by the PC-98's later years). Off the top of muh head:

•GruppoOne did a series of Rogue-likes called Wind Seekers, as well as a TRPG called Ding Mono; these have some production values, but Wind Seekers is most famous because of its difficulty and open-ended play inspired by tabletop gaming
•Plenty of Koei games came out, like the bilingual adventure Emit/Dark Hunter and Uncharted Waters III
•Kogado went through a spur of activity with Power DoLLS (RTS and turn-based), as well as the Mars Project strategy city-builders and Rasetsu real-time tactics games.

I don't know if a Japanese-configured Windows can run foreign applications well or not. Many games from the Americas and Europe got non-localized retail ports in Japan around the turn of the millennium, so those might work better if you can find them for your set-up.

whut

japan found steam I guess

Also available

japanese baseball, A-train 8 and japanese sid meiers pirates

http://store.steampowered.com/search/?developer=Artdink&snr=1_5_9__408

>>2169692
Artdink ≠ Japanese PC gaming as a whole, but it's encouraging to see Degica given the go for bringing the company's digital releases onto Steam. This adds incentive for domestic gamers to use the community features and it might render Artdink's back-catalog a bit noticeable to Westerners. Next sale they do (probably in conjunction with Artdink's e-shop campaign(s)) I'm going for The Atlas and Passage of the Book; hopefully a Tokio or How Many Robot Legends Pack will happen sometime.

>>2169682
>everything is Windows
I can only imagine how cool people thought windowing was when 95 happened, years after the first Mac. At least this isn't a Visual Basic game no one's able to play anymore

>>2169682
>>2169686
Are these like, PC-98 versions wrapped up in an emulator or actual native Japanese Windows versions of the games?

Not that I'm going to buy it anyway at that price lol.

Though someone should try to see if Kogado will get PowerDoLLs on Steam.

>>2172381
Passage of the Book is native to Windows, unsure about Legends Pack for I and II (III is native). I don't know if the 15th Anniversary re-releases for their PC-98 games are Windows ports or emulated copies.

>try sending old 2ch thread into Archive
>won't process for some reason
Unrelated, but downloading page sources is new to me but someone's going to want to read these someday. Image hosting is the real pain in the neck though, 2ch must not allow image uploads natively.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/338070
http://store.steampowered.com/app/335420
tell me how much you were excited when you saw this ?

>>2174880
Tell me when Alicesoft puts Sengoku Rance on Steam

Anyone know where I can find these games?
The usual sites dont bring up anything
X-Girl: Cyberpunk Adventure
VOTOMS: The Real Battle
Mobile Suit Gundam: Return Of Zion
Dragon Knight 4
Diver
Valkyries: The Power Beauties
Virgin Angel
Ace of Spades
Herceqaury

>>2174948
why would you want this?

Why would Alicesoft want it?

>>2174948
>rance without the raping
What's even the point, then?

>>2174992
For the lulz

For money

>>2174970
I know Dragon Knight 4, Valkyries, Virgin Angel
and Herceqaury were in that giant torrent over at nyaa.

Don't know if it still has seeds though.

>>2174970
>OP
>/vr/ Anon's PC-98 dump:
>https://mega.co.nz/#F!F59WkSqQ!quGKSFIswBgv0rxAAaF8Pg

Hi guys, I'm new with this. Could someone explain to me how to install the font so I don't get those squares?

Also another dumb question, is there any way of ripping the pixel art of the games besides ye olde screencap?

>>2176506
Fixed it, downloaded the font here: http://www.zophar.net/pc98/anex86.html

And named the bmp to font.bmp in the folder of the emulator

>>2176506
>Also another dumb question, is there any way of ripping the pixel art of the games besides ye olde screencap?
Unless you know how to open the files the game uses, the only choice you have is likely just screencapping.

>steam

n..no thank you!!

>>2175478
I've only managed to find 2 things, nothing else seems to be on the list searching by the japanese of em.

Well, I played some Passage of the Book and... honestly, not particularly finding it that hot.

Probably due to the combat system feeling rather simplistic (plus your allies are AI-controlled in a turn-based system which is not a good sign) and the controls being kind of bad for precision movement during dungeons (which has a bunch of floor traps like Castlevania style moving spears and shit which is weird)

Seems like I need to grind a whole bunch of tavern quests before I can even afford shit like good equipment or housing so I wonder if there's some kind of secret get-rich trick I'm missing.

Honestly for open-world stuff I rather play Taiko Risshiden.

>>2176617
FOLDER -> NAME OF FILE

え -> Xガール
そ -> 装甲騎兵ボトムズ リアルバトル
き -> 機動戦士ガンダム Return of Zion
と -> Dragon Knight 4
た -> ダイバーズ
う -> ヴァルキリー
う -> Virgin Angel
え -> Ace of Spades
は -> ハースキュアリー

>>2177306
Thanks man, sorry if i came off dumb with this.

Macaw's been streaming his practice run(s) of Kure Soft's Dark Seraphim.

From when I left, he'd managed to forget how to put his entire party at a standstill in order to move only the leader to complete a block puzzle in the Baphomet boss fight. And he's played more KSK than I have, lol. Game's full of Biblical references used lightly for action/strategy fun, great music too. It'd be great if Japanese PC games could gain attention from speedrunners; early titles like Plazma Line have room to be showcased if not exploited for shits and giggles.

>>2176876
At least we'll see more discussion about Lunadon in the coming years; Steam people are working on translating Passage of the Book, just out of curiosity.

>>2176564
Falcom would agree with you, as they believe 2,000 sales of a Japanese-language release of Ys Origins for Steam would be optimistic.

>>2178051
Speed demos rules requires people to play on real hardware. That's probably the biggest hurdle right there.

>>2178060
No doubt MSX runs are more common simply because of distribution in Europe trickling down into the western hemisphere.

>>2178051
>Macaw's been streaming his practice run(s) of Kure Soft's Dark Seraphim.
Link?

Hahahaha, it's real.

I was checking out various games on MercenaryForce and saw a screenshot of this game's title screen in there.

And it's actually real.

>>2179323
Also it seems like my fonts are fucked up compared to how it should look like. Probably need to look into configuring the emulator properly.

>>2179349

I think the fonts are ok, you are just playing with everything upscaled 1.5x

>>2179357
I had it upscaled, yeah. But even with no upscale and no filters, the kanji aren't as nicely readable as in the other pic I found on the internet.

>>2179364
Is it the PC88 or PC98 version that you have.

>>2179423
Shit, that might be it.

Yeah, I have the PC88 one. The nice one might be PC98. I should have realized.

Although that raises the question how anyone played PC88 games with that awful font rendering back then.

Anyway, my mistake.

>>2179427
>Although that raises the question how anyone played PC88 games with that awful font rendering back then.
I take it you've never seen Japanese people's handwriting?

>>2179427
PC98 has higher res font. So yes, that would be it.

Anyone have a rom for Dragon Knight 4? Anon's dump doesnt have anything for it. PC98 version preferably

>>2179974
NEVERMIND

I grabbed Dragon Knight 4 refuses to load in neko project 2? Any ideas on how to fix this?

>>2180031
What stage are you at? Did you load the files and then reset? Make you sure you have kanji ROM on hand for the emulator to use, too.

>>2179209
Banned URL; you can Google Macaw45 for his stream and social network.

>>2179323
It's fascinating how Champion Soft moved from making games where you play as professionals (anesthesiologists to astronauts) to lolita games not unlike what PSK was popular for in the '80s.

Enjoy a cheesy ad now.

>>2180038
This is as far as it gets.

>>2180042
I believe it's asking for system date, try hitting enter and post a screenshot if it still doesn't load.
I'll load it up on my end and take a look at it as well.

>>2180042
>>2180258
Huh, this is odd, looks like the HDI file needs to be updated, as after hitting enter (twice) I just get to a prompt and had to manually start the game after that. If you give me a few moments an auto-booting one should be up shortly.

>>2180042
火付けを入力してください(年-月-日)
>please enter the date (year-month-day)

>>2180031
>>2180042
>>2180258
>>2180262
Auto-booting HDI file created and uploaded to the folder.
Here's a direct link too
#!IkkA1bSJ!N3MQWJ9PCBkZHrBpHfcTXS8T0PM10-BJECtKFF6Kv3o

>>2180281
>>2180278
thanks guys, ya saved me.

>>2180038
>It's fascinating how Champion Soft moved from making games where you play as professionals (anesthesiologists to astronauts) to lolita games

Misa-chan is 17 years old (appearently). And a semi-professional somewhat famous detective.

>>2180278
>火付け

Oops, noticed a mistake. Just for posterity, it's not 火付け (lighting a fire, arson), but 日付 (date).

In honor of 3D After Burner II's release overseas today, here's a comparison of Space Harrier ports across different systems, with some interesting differences between the Sharp X1, FM-7, PC-88, and X68000 versions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NY6nZ9DIOxs

Note that each of these ports belong to separate programmers, and that, for once, the PC-88 and X1 programmers couldn't beat the FM-7 programmer (Z80 vs. 6809!).

>>2181097
Video doesn't have mz7000 port: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GObao5a7Fis

All done in text mode with primitives...idk, just awesome how talented programmers were in the '80s.

Started playing Night Slave for the first time. Goddamn this is a sexy game. I can't believe how much detail is in this game, from the mech's recoil when landing and the fact bullet shells fly out of the gun when firing.

>>2180618
Why was arson first in your IME?
What have you been typing recently?

>>2185165
Try "hitsuke" and it'll likely be your first too. For 日付 you have to go "hiduke".

>>2185162
There's this new game similar to it - Gigantic Army. Not really /vr/-related, but I guess worth pointing out.

>>2185162
It's really good and I find it strange that it's actually really unknown in the Japanese community (it's actually very slightly more popular in English, really)

Big news recently!

•First up, Shmuplations has disclosed a list of interviews/texts to be translated: http://shmuplations.com/patreonlist/

Guy's started a Patreon to help fund more translations. $5 patronage lets you vote for any interview you think deserves priority out of four or five he can do a month ($15 tier gives out vouchers for a guaranteed translation every three months). A few /jpc/-related interviews are waiting in the wings, as well as tons of console/arcade entries. Worth considering for those interested in more primary materials covering the Japanese game development industry.

•SCROLL's final issue is now out, covering a wide variety of MSX games + listing some of the platform's historical qualities: http://scroll.vg/issues/12

This mag's from the guy who did the Artdink retrospective, and I'm really impressed once again. You can catch a glimpse of one game I'll be discussing later on this year (hint: it has lotsa ports), plus some blurbs for some of the most overlooked titles he's looked at. Great art direction and writing as usual...this will be the final issue of SCROLL (at least for the first run, who knows what Barnholt's doing later), good thing it lives up to expectations. All I had to do was correct him on Mark Flint's nationality for the Sacom side-box.

Finally, some music updates because y'all never comment on them:

Chilam Balam (PC-98): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Td2fZD03ghk
WerDragon (PC-88): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGRNjUlR-rs
Super Laydock Mission Striker (Sharp X1): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fg6tW8pnX7s
Final Fantasy (MSX2): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USfEmMXFD1k

>>2185265
Maybe VN players aren't big on the lesbians and arcade players stick with their X68000s.

I read 5pb's hinting at Steam releases. Maybe they'll do YU-NO after Phantom Breaker, feels like it's relevant to the thread.

What are the must-play VNs other than YU-NO?

>>2193060

Old stuff by Elf (Doukyuusei, Isaku, Nonomura Byouin no Hitobito, etc).

Can Can Bunny Extra (I know there are others, but this one is the only one I actually liked and most fans think it's the best game in the series), Pia Carrot series.

Fairytale nightmare series with Dead of the Brain 1&2 (they are not really eroge, they have like one attempt of rape and that's it), Dracula, Necronomicon (this one is really text heavy and kinda boring) and Marine Philt.

Since it's a new year, it's about time I do another batch of wishlist posts for GOG. They're bite-sized musings on which games are likely to do well if they were on the site, mentioning potential difficulties in emulation and licensing. Until I have enough content for my own website, these shall be gud 'nuff.

As usual, one from each of the major computer platforms. I might even recommend a Pasopia game for once! If y'all have suggestions (I say this every time but no one responds), I'll consider those. My line-up for the moment:

Mac: Samurai Mech
PC-6001: Beluga (impressive doujin side-scroller STG from programmer of Tiny Xevious)
PC-8001: Space Travel of Geiyume Madman
PC-88: Mugen no Shinzou II
PC-98: Sword of Kumdor
MZ series: Demon Crystal series
X1: Lagrange L-2
X68000: Group X
FM-7: Recapture
FM-77AV: Kugyokuden
FM Towns: AZURE
MSX: Borfes and Five Evil Witches
MSX2: Dinner in the Morgue
Pasopia: House of Witch

>>2195663
Mac but no Windows? Wynaut some Kogado games, like Power Dolls.

>>2196452
I have no idea what the rights issues are like, but Power DoLLs 1 (localized DOS one) might be a nice addition - it'll probably get a bit more appreciation today unlike the past where its combination of Anime art + niche gameplay meant it went mostly unnoticed.

The Screamer english patch, I'm sure some people will be interested in trying this.

http://www.romhacking.net/translations/2296/

Who collectorfags here?

I've only got two games

>>2200314

>>2200314


I think so far I got about 60 FM Towns eroge.

and some non-eroge crap like Splatter House and Loom.

>>2200346

...and yes right now the only way to play them is using a Marty.......

still looking for a refurbished UX or complete Fm Towns II

>>2164790
>Guide to making bootable HDI files for PC-98:
Oh god I haven't used DOS in fucking ages. I can't believe I did this and it worked. Dragon Master Silk, here I come!

>>2201420
I looked up a Russian guide that's useful in other ways, but it's going in the Pastebin because 4chan won't accept it as a URL.

>>2200171
Going to play The Screamer at some point. It's a one-off game that stood out for its time, why the fuck not.

>>2199227
Using the Megatech translation wouldn't be too bad, actually. GOG would have to figure out who's got the rights on that.

Any one know what the deal is with the password at the end of kakyuusei?!

>>2201982

Almost every Elf game from those days had the password thing, you had to mail them that password and they sent you the SP disk for that game.

>>2200314
I've been thinking of jumping in and buying some X68000 and PC98 games. I don't mind just collecting games, but how viable is it to find hardware to play it on? Should I expect to spend a small fortune on an old computer?

>>2202223
You can find stuff easy-peasy in Japan. Outside expect to jump through a lot more hoops.

>>2201517
Man that would be so boss if they could get that, great game.

I own/have bought a number of CD-based games but I'd like to get into floppy-based games. Considering the "reliability" of the floppy media, what's peoples' experience with them? Have you had many failures?

I guess another ignorant question is, how difficult is it to make backups or "repros" to use on the actual hardware? I'd love to get an X68k or a PC98 someday but I'm paranoid about having a bunch of coasters, and no way short of buying additional copies to replace them.

>>2202257
You can format and write floppies for a PC-98 on a regular PC.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:kYXJMi_LSBYJ:www.assemblergames.com/forums/showthread.php%3F42533-Writing-and-reading-PC9801-disk-images-for-real-machines+&cd=10&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&lr=lang_en|lang_ja

>>2202223
Mail order from outside Japan is costly, involving air shipping costs and fees requested by middlemen like FromJapan. No easy task to get a Fujitsu or Sharp computer, let alone some more obscure machines with peripherals like floppy readers, hard drives, functional keyboard, &c.

I'll most likely pick a computer + hardware and some games once I make a trip over there. Hopefully one of the monitors we have for the home Apple ][ collection will suffice, assuming they even have a 15 kHz refresh rate.

>>2202601
>x68k bosconian

Hell yeah mother fucker
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCnaRFMoFLA

>>2195663
Hey, I forgot to ask - what's that image from? It's cool!

>>2202718
Boxed inside a Woody Poco release IIRC. Can't remember the link, but I probably have it bookmarked. You'd have to buy a CIB Woody Poco game to get it!

>>2202618
I've been playing a lot of Namco Museum on console lately, and Bosconian is one of my favorite games on it. After listening to this I had to download a rom just now and play the X68k version.

Holy shit I don't think I can go back to the arcade one

Natsume once made PC games, like Necropolis: Burial City (PC-88), a Relics-like adventure game set in Egypt where you play a young lady doing some quest at Isis' behest. This means solving puzzles inside an Egyptian pyramid complex, of course. Some impressions here: http://ameblo.jp/koorogiyousyoku/entry-11929803304.html

It's decent-looking for a PC88 game in 1989, but opinions for the game part range far and wide. The review above even compares this to the Labyrinth computer game, though I suspect he's referring to how you play as a girl in a miniskirt involved with some fantasy realm coming back to life. Definitely one I overlooked while doing research. You can find names for their other PC games at the bottom here: http://www.geocities.jp/natsume_game/

Finished the Samurai Mech wish: http://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/samurai_mech

I never know exactly what to put for suggestions on how GOG might plan to distribute games like these, lol.

FFFFFFFF....

I had a couple of pretty big orders from Suruga-ya that they dragged their feet on; now, two weeks after the fact they let me know that they're cancelling them because they're not accepting the credit card payment. Cocksuckers. I'm baffled, I've bought stuff there using that credit card before...

Man I hate Paypal for not letting you buy adult stuff, it's so much easier to buy from them with Paypal.

Hello,

I'm trying to run a game, エーゲ海の雫. I downloaded it from https://archive.org/details/pc98-maker-betsu-tsumeawase

I've tried a couple emulators, including some from the Neo Kobe pack linked on the OP. None work. I keep getting pic related as an error message. Do I need to do something special?

>>2210370
You need to mount it the image.

>>2210374
How do I do that? The download only had floppy images. I have the first FDI file under FDD1.

>>2210370

Maybe the game needs to be installed, in that case look for a hard disk image and just mount the disk after booting.

>>2210381
I'll have to take a look at the game and see what has to be done.

>>2210390
https://www.sendspace.com/file/gbb1na this is what I've got.

>>2210370
>>2210381
>>2210402
I found the game can be booted from the floppies if you had a system bootable image (either HDD or FDD). So what I did was I took all the files from the floppies and stuffed inside a bootable HDI file complete with AUTOEXEC.BAT configured for it.

Assuming the game doesn't have any specific checks for floppy images the game should work just fine, I did notice some DISK_*.DAT files which I'm guessing might tell the game it's running from floppies in which case you could try deleting said files.

http://a.pomf.se/ncrshw.7z

>>2210408
It worked, thank you!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZ8eCd7Giz4

I thought this was a neat little PC-88 game. Anti Intruder Rangers. Gonna go look for a rom to give it a try.
Seems like it's in english too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onr2bdk2i2I

>>2179364
>this game wa
why is that making me laugh so much

I love seeing things like that in old JP games.

http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/dragonknight/dragonknight.htm

Now that Hardcore Gaming has an article on the Dragon Knight series, when will the massive Rance and Alicesoft retrospective article arrive?

>>2210645
It's more interesting how it jumps around. First "this game wa", then immediately "kono game wa". Also how boastful - "taihen omoshiroi no desu" - and relavitely impolite it is towards the player - "saa hayaku tanoshinde kure".

Maybe they didn't have enough space to fit in the typical polite speech you see in readmes of new Japanese games. I guess they should have just thrown away the stuff about WAO getting erai.

>>2211150
>But Dragon Knight was the first title to bring Elf into the spotlight, and might just be his most important contribution to the industry...

Might as well stop reading there. How mentally retarded do you have to be to believe that a simple Wizardry-clone, as he himself calls it, to be a greater impact in computer game history than the invention of a fucking genre that took place with Doukyuusei?

Not to mention that he doesn't seem to understand that Hiruta was/is first and foremost a scenario writer, not a game designer.

>>2213723

They probably just used machine translation with this site http://repadars.org/501.html

I wonder if we'll ever learn who the Clint Basinger of Japanese PC boxed games is. Keigo Matsubara of game-book collecting fame doesn't count, but I'm speaking of that kind of dedicated collector and thinking of who/where that person could be.

>>2215779
Jeez Louise.

GOG wish for Sword of Kumdor: http://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/sword_of_kumdor_master_of_blind_touch_pc98

Here's the map for that game btw.

>>2218679
Not sure I'd be up for the controls, but the combat system sounds cool... looks kinda surreal, I like it...

>>2213752
Wouldnt put it past HG101 to look up sites and fail to ref.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsTNPr9PiJ8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_LVxwktWHQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sa80oM-QxRI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCxTEPngehQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3Acx9zLSRg

What does /vr/ think of Japanese Computer strategy games?

>>2220218
Not sucking at Nobunaga's Ambition is my life's goal

>>2201517
Got into this thread by accident.
Just wanted to say... Know Russian, can try to translate if needed.
Not sure whether you youself know Russian, just decided to randomly offer help, if you don't mind.

>>2222107
Offer's appreciated. It's mostly tech jargon, so I'd probably ask for help once machine translation misinterprets instructions.

>>2220337
I need to get started on these games...

>>2220218
That video of Alpha Link's new to me, looks as though I can watch some Mobius Link 3D also. As ever, I'm keen to get folks interested, but fleet strategy games aren't the most attractive if you can't read Japanese.

>>2181097
>that awful X1 version
>that blocky PC-88 version
>that ear-raping DOS version
>It took over 10 years for an actual arcade-perfect port

Playing through the PC88 version of Popful Mail. Have to say it's probably one of my favorite versions. The bump combat actually lends itself really well to a platformer. My only complaint is it doesn't have hitstun.

>>2226098
Is it better than the sega cd version?

>>2226549
Personally I'm not too big of a fan of the Sega CD version. Fast falling physics and limited amount of attacks, but it at least had some hitstun. I would say it's better than the Sega CD version but you really owe it to yourself to play through all versions of Popful Mail, they're all pretty different from each other.

>>2226098
dammmmm i need to learn moon so hard

>>2226631
What's stopping you?

>>2223468
Well... I will come to these threads for the next two weeks, I guess. If you want my help, just write here.

>>2226549
>Is it better than the sega cd version?

It's different, the only similar version to the PC88 and PC98 versions is the one on PC Engine CD

>>2226098
Also I played through the PC98 version to see if there were any differences between versions like enemy placements in the PCE version. They seem exactly identical right down to the dialogue, only difference being graphics. Anyway, here is a screenshot of the exact same scene in the PC98 version.

>>2207661
>SheepShaver, licensed out by GOG for usage as an emulator standalone
I don't know if emulated Mac games are commercially feasible, since all significant emulators rely on proprietary Apple ROM images (that users are expected to dump from machines they personally own, wink wink.)

>one of a rarefied few Mac games made in Japan
What others were there? Are any downloadable today?

>>2229553
They're mainly pinball games, to be honest. I don;t know any site that has images to download.

I was not aware the necessary Mac files are proprietary...better research that and comment appropriately.

>>2210569
Played a bit back in '13, could be interesting to complete

>>2205447
Woah thas choppy. Cool for a Natsume game I guess

>>2211150
Is it possible to play Dragon Knight only knowing the kanas?

>>2186465
>•SCROLL's final issue is now out, covering a wide variety of MSX games + listing some of the platform's historical qualities: http://scroll.vg/issues/12
>This mag's from the guy who did the Artdink retrospective, and I'm really impressed once again. You can catch a glimpse of one game I'll be discussing later on this year (hint: it has lotsa ports), plus some blurbs for some of the most overlooked titles he's looked at. Great art direction and writing as usual...this will be the final issue of SCROLL (at least for the first run, who knows what Barnholt's doing later), good thing it lives up to expectations. All I had to do was correct him on Mark Flint's nationality for the Sacom side-box.

Is this worth the price of admission? How many pages is it?

>>2229559
Executor is a lawyer-friendly alternative to emulating the hardware, but its compatibility is minimal. KanjiTalk is out of the question, because it doesn't even boot an OS.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executor_(software)

http://wayback.archive.org/web/20050905074219/http://www.ardi.com/compat_search.php?name=ALL&category=ALL&status=ALL

>>2231338
It's not possible to really enjoy it fully without knowing Japanese, no.

The gameplay systems themselves aren't all that difficult.

I just finished the SFC version of Mujintou Monogatari, tried the first PC-98 version but it's a buggy mess (Memorial and FM Towns versions are fine apparently).

Some parts of the crafting system are kinda complex because they are not well explained in the manual, but overall it was a really nice and unique game. SFC version it's a little more simple in the exploration aspect (for some reason in the original version you use triangle shapes to explore, in the SFC version it uses squares, so it's a lot easier to find everything).

>>2231090
Hey, Natsume games are pretty great!

>>2231343
104 pages of what amounts to an MSX player's guide, with lots of small blurbs for games, several longer write-ups (not convinced he played The Man I Love at all...), developer profiles, and the history of the platform. It's excellent stuff, full of content that hasn't been discussed as much before. I paid ~$5 for my PDF.

>>2231517
Rough. I'm sure we could get a solution working for Samurai Mech sans the worry about legalities.

>>2232204
Is the crafting section of the manual difficult to interpret for non-Japanese speakers?

>>2232204
youtube video or didn't happen

>>2235825
>Is the crafting section of the manual difficult to interpret for non-Japanese speakers?

The problem is that you need to learn a lot of stuff by trial and error. The crafting system works like this, there are six different things that you can level up by building machines (wood, minerals, fabric, fuel, heating and electricity), as you level them up you can build more complex stuff. Leveling this up isnt much of a problem because Rika always tell you what do you need to get to level up each element.

The thing is that it's hard to know when you can build something, because the item will only appear in the crafting list once you have both all the raw materials and your characters meet the stat requirement to build that item (crafting uses two stats, skill and knowledge), so... yeah you'll need a guide or start writing when you can build something.

The manual doesnt explain much about the crafting system, it has some pictures with the vehicles you can build and little explanations that wont help you through the game.

>>2207661
Man, this game looks sweet. I love the idea of working different stances into the battle system.

Do you have any of the guides? There's one on Ebay but it's prohibitively expensive...

>>2235925
Nada, but I'd love to get one for either of the games.

>>2235915
Doesn't sound horrific at least, just requires building a table or finding one somewhere online (need to go search the Mujintou Monogatari fan-rooms now).

>>2235928

There is a wiki with all that information.

>>2232204
Funny how that series went into hardcore Surprise Sex porn too, but unlike Valis no one cared that much about it to complain, I guess.

>>2236013

Well, unlike Valis it wasnt a revival after many years without a new game. Actually, both the regular series and the hardcore one coexisted during the 90's.

Does anyone know where can I find old Gainax-related software? Other than Princess maker.

I know they've made a Silent Mobius game.
And also there's an Aoki Uru microsoft flight simulator made by Gainax for Windows. Could never find it, and the only times I saw it on auction sites it was expensive and couldn't afford it.

Then there's the whole desktop theme CD-ROMs. I own one that I bought through their online shopping service back in 2001, Mahoromatic digital maiden, but I'd love to see all these Evangelion Collector's Discs, or the Gunbuster or Nadia desktop themes.
Most of these desktop theme CD-ROMs included mini-games as well. At least the Mahoro one has 3 mini-games.

I keep forgetting to ask - I know y'all were the driving force behind the GARAGE acquisition and documentation; has there been any talk of organizing similar archival projects? I know it's sort of "Less-Than-Legal" but at the same time it would be nice if /vr/ and people like the gentlemen on Steam working on the Lunatic Dawn translation could work towards things like getting in contact with the developers/license holders to help get lesser-known (in the west) games some exposure. I'm not much help, but I know there's folks at (NAME OF SITE REDACTED) that'd be willing to help as well.

>>2236946
>Does anyone know where can I find old Gainax-related software?

Japanese P2P networks or maybe Emule (I've found some pretty obscure shit on Kad). Silent Moëbius game is easy to find, it was released for many plattforms (PC-98, X68k, FM-Towns and PS), but the other ones... well.... it won't be easy even in japanese p2p networks, because even if you can find them they wont be complete files.

>>2237143
>>Silent Moëbius game
Video footage plz!

>>2237143

I remember looking for them on WinMX or Utatane some time ago but had no luck, maybe I should try again but I feel I won't be having any different luck.

For some reason these old desktop theme CD-ROMs seem have either been forgotten, or kept hidden in otaku caves.
Maybe they're easy to find on 2nd hand shops around akihabara, but I doubt it. The few times I've seen them on auction sites they were all expensive, and scarce.

>>2239000
>The few times I've seen them on auction sites they were all expensive, and scarce.

They were expensive back when they were released, considering that they were only a few high quality (for it's time) images, screen savers and that kind of stuff. I've read that they were sold originally for 70 bucks each.

>>2237224

http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm4314371

>>2239730
>nico

Not him but thanks a lot for the link

funny how the opening scroll is in rather good English, considering it's a JP only game

>>2239730

Yes, they were expensive, but then again everything is expensive in Japan, they sell 2 episodes on DVD for 50, 60 dollars.

It's kind of weird that a series as popular as Evangelion doesn't have every bit of merchandising available online, especially when it comes to digital stuff like desktop themes.
They had a lot of cute pixel art like pic related (I think it was a screensaver).

Has anyone seen files for The Magic Candle (or any of Starcraft's other WRPG ports, for that matter) in the archives/links in the OP post?

They're categorized under Japanese characters which makes things a bit hard. I assume under "Sa/Za" (for The) if we read the name as Japanese but no luck.

>>2240352
"The" was omitted from the Japanese title so it's just Magic Candle or rather マジックキャンドル which appears to be in the PC98 collection under ま of course.

Found that out about the title via mobygames.

>They're categorized under Japanese characters which makes things a bit hard.
Sorry about that, I should really get around to re-organizing the collection

>>2240374
Ah, I should have realized that, anyway got it, thanks!

>>2237015
Trick is to emphasize the weirdness of some nearly-lost late-/vr/ era PC game that can be labeled as exotic. I know a few that could get attention for these qualities, like Jungle Park by the creator of Cubivore, a progenitor to Animal Crossing with music from a Shibuya-kei group. But the Sato games and Garage got media dump threads also, so maybe we could try for a crowd that way.

>>2235984
Si, been in my bookmarks for a while.

>>2242771
I know you've got the wishlists for GOG; have you been compiling any other game choices for this sort of thing? Also, Jungle Park looks really interesting...

>>2174880
>http://store.steampowered.com/app/335420
>>2169682
>>2169686
>>2169692
Are there any translation patches for any of these games on Steam?

>>2190420
Unrelated, but yes I hope for Phantom Breaker. Really love poverty fighters for some reason.

>>2243448
>Phantom breaker
such garbage.
If only we could have Ragnarok Battle Offline or Dual Savior on Steam instead.

>>2243724
That's like, your opinion, man.

>>2243448
Helly's translating Lunatic Dawn: Passage of the Book, which Elegnaim's hacking. I'd expect the Legends Pack to be translated by some point soon as well, Steam can do that for a CRPG series this appealing.

>>2243414
Most of the stuff I'm writing about on GOG wouldn't fit my criteria for games that would appeal in the way Chu-Teng and Garage can. We're talking about Windows-era multimedia games for the most part. Names I can list off the top of my head:

•Jungle Park
•Clone Ranger (we investigated the old website for it back in /jpc/ #2)
•The Saboten Man
•four•sight
•Pink Gear 1 & 2
•AL—Artificial Life
•Tonkin House adventures for PC-98 and Windows (Zeta I & II, Night on the Galactic Railroad, Paradise Rescue)
•Dan
•Lima the Truth

These each have interesting concepts and wouldn't be impossible to find, either in the wild or bought from Suruga-ya.

So... Do you need my help? I can't be here forever.
I'm not even particularly against waiting for a long time, I just should know for how long I should check the thread.

>>2245402
Well you can find the site I was interested at retropc98 dot narod dot ru. Upon entering start.htm you'll need to consult the page source to figure out which URLs to input for each page, assuming that nothing shows up like in my browser (Firefox 35.0.1.). Author boasts about what he believes is the intended demographic (older and knowledgeable in Russian), but I can read most articles fine through Google, just wondering if there's anything I might not be able to understand.

What is the lewdest PC-98 game?

>>2244034
>thinking GOG gives a fuck about anything outside DOS and Windows games

>>2248019
After a long session of reading source, I came to conclusion I'm too retarded to get anything out of it. I should really work on my html and java some time soon.
As a result, I gave up and just asked Google what can it find about this site. This way was more productive and I found tons of articles.
In fact, there's a bit too much of them. Do you want me to translate everything in order? That would be pretty hard and would take a lot of time. Or do you have some specific ones which you would deem more valuable/less coherent?

>>2248773
Lemon Angel is pretty lewd

>>2248773
Monzetsu Fighter is the lewdest game I tried. A simple card battle game where you must make your opponent come. You can find it in the MEGA dump.
Another one would be Seraphita if you're into /d/ material.

I really need to make a list of PC-98 fantasy games where the art/hanky panky looks half-decent.

I miss huge ears and shoulderplates design.

>>2251701
Every time i see a brown skin elf with big ears
i want to suck those ears so much
will fucking that elf and stroking the elf futanari dick

>>2200346
Nice Desire you got there. No Eve, though?

>>2213723
>first title to bring Elf into the spotlight
I don't see anything wrong with this part.

>>2251701
Me too, anon. Modern fantasy eroge lack the cool shoulder pads and robes.

I so badly want a Popful Mail remake so XSEED can reunite the Working Designs VAs and work their magic. Sorcerian feels like it could receive a detailed slice-of-lice redesign to appeal today (combining the aging-over-years party development with activities in Pentawa and new battle systems). Lotsa potential, once Falcom's not as focused on Kiseki/Tokyo Xanadu, for reviving their classic IPs again.

>>2249129
What does Grafolikom stand for? Seems like an idiom as it doesn't parse into English via machine translation.

Also, these are the most important articles, one for FDI creation and one for HDIs:
stat/fdd.htm
stat/hdd.htm

>>2252727
By the way, I actually found a table of contents there. Here it is: retropc98 dot narod dot ru slash html slash side dot htm.
I too have no idea what "grafolikom" means. My best guess would be that it probably means something like "graphics editor", "-olikom" usually works as an unceremonious slangy suffix that you can add to some words to pretty much just make them slangier. However, I have no idea why is it written with the capital "G"; we're not Germans, we usually don't capitalise our nouns. Another guess would be that it's actually name of some program, but if it is so, neither Google nor torrents know anything about it.
About articles, I'm on the case. They seem pretty simple, should be no problem. I will give you a link to pastebin when I'm done with them.

Have any games been translated recently?

>>2252727
>slice-of-lice
I assume you mean "quality of life"

A good Sorcerian remake would be great.

>>2253003
About this "grafolikom" thing, is it related to "Grapholic" ?
It's an image viewing software like ACDSee or Susie, that you can extand with plug-ins. A lot of these plug-ins are dedicated to PC and PC-98 game pictures.

>>2254087
Yes, it is. "-om" is a flexia (basically stuff you put on the word to signify cases) and f-ph is just an issue of transcription. I guess I should have explained that but it somehow slipped my mind.
So, I guess he meant Grapholic, then.

>>2254128
>>2254087
Also, I shouldn't have searched for this word in Russian, it seems. Once I actually figured out to search for it in English, Google immediately gave results.
Huh. That was pretty stupid of me, I guess.
Sorry, anons. I should have figured it out.

>>2254131
No problem. Good luck on your translation.
I remember going to that site when it was still active. By the way, the webmaster al32gabby, still posts on the Tokugawa Corp's boards.

>>2253019
The Screamer

>>2254443
>tfw good games will never be translated

Does anyone know a good way of extracting CGs from PC-98 games? I have a tool that can rip them but I have no idea how to turn the files into a viewable format.

>>2255580
There are a few PC-98 and X68k games I'd like to translate, but I know nothing about hacking/modifying them and don't really know where to start with resources to learn.

>>2255590
You can use Grapholic or Susie and find the plug-in for the game you're interested in. Just extract the files where you think the pictures are and open them with the soft you chose.

>>2255745
Somehow I don't really think hacking PC-98 games is as well documented as say, hacking SNES ones.

>>2255906
PC-98, no, however it does run on DOS which is (at least) a bit documentated. Or well it runs on a variation of DOS but I'm sure there's still similarities.

>>2255826
>Grapholic

Is there a more uptodate list than the one here?
http://www.densetsu.com/download.php?show=grapholic

I need the plug-in for Abogado Powers games.

>>2255745
Go to Tokugawa Corp's forum and they'll help.

>>2256509
Welp, tried running Susie and it doesn't seem like it runs properly on Windows 7.

Can't seem to find a plugin for Abopa games either...

Grapholic seems like an important app, better get it working some time.

>>2253109
It was a pretty comfortable game to play in its time, not sure about Original. A re-imagining with QoL and more opportunities for role-playing would be awesome, especially if that means exploring bigger areas and Pentawa itself.

>>2257330
>Grapholic seems like an important app, better get it working some time.

What do you mean?

>>2257330
>It was a pretty comfortable game to play in its time, not sure about Original
I think Original is pretty good, in the sense that it's aged the least out of all the Sorcerian games... although I never tried the phone ones.

It does have some quality of life improvements from the earlier versions, like a skill that lets you "see" the effects of enchanting before you commit to them, item storage and probably the most important of all - the movement and scrolling feels "smooth" rather than super janky.

So guys, you can play Desire now with the PC-98 music and art.

http://tss.asenheim.org/desire.html

>>2257345
I'd like to rip bitmaps and graphics stored in other formats, which Grapholic or Susie can help with (though custom data formats will need specific methods of hacking).

>>2257750
Eh, I'm getting used to how janky these games look, though something like Natsume's Necropolis just scrolls too messy because it has to update a lot of moving parts for the protagonist. Sorcerian to me looks like it was built with tile-swap scrolling in mind, same going for how combat works.

>>2258862
Ahsum.

>Finally find plugin supporting the file type I need for Susie
>Susie crashes when I load the file

I think it's a compatibility problem rather than the actual game files..

>>2260931
Would you be willing to try to rip these images if I gave you the plugin and file(s)?

>>2261151
I still need to get an XP key and Boot Camp my laptop so I can have a workstation for emulation and playing Windows games (other HDD with XP installed crapped out recently, alongside the motherboard for that PC). You're free to dump a download link for the folder here, but I've got some work to do over spring break.

>>2263205
Alright. A quick bit of information, though:

The file types are PFT and DSK. I can't find a working link for the plugin that has them both called "PFT/DSK/KG for Susie32 Plug-in" as the original site is dead... There's another one that supports PFT but doesn't list DSK available here:

http://www3.airnet.ne.jp/~vzr04461/nf/download/isthisuseful.html

>BISHOP PK/PFT/KG files plug-in version 0.02

And for the PFT and DSK files from the game:
https://mega.co.nz/#!YBREwBpL!Oq4ygxnXBGTZCeKkB_7yABHbOty0ArfvEgk88ghw7GI

Thanks, mate.

>>2213723
>invention of a fucking genre that took place with Doukyuusei
Pretty sure Tenshi no Gogo was the pioneer of bishoujo games, and no one gave a shit about Elf before Dragon Knight.
>to be a greater impact in computer game history
The contribution was important because together with Rance, it started opening the eroge industry to more alternative games that weren't just all about fucking a girl.

>>2263986
I guess it'd be better to say that Doukyuusei indeed was much more important than Dragon Knight since it was one of the first dating sims so in a way I agree with you, but DK has its importance too.

>>2263986
>>2264005
Man, when did eroge artist forget how to draw cool fantasy shit?

>>2264796

When they started hiring minor artists, Takei Masaki for example worked as animator for many important studios before starting doing eroge.

>>2265276
You know what sucks? Some veteran artists are still in the industry but all they get is shitty work.

>>2264796
Probably died around the same time non-eroge artists lost the ability to draw cool fantasy stuff as well.

Oh well, at least Rance artists are still half-decent.

>>2265428
I don't know, the main artist for Rance is getting more and more generic for me. His stuff for KR was cool, though. I think Min-naraken could do a good job but he only ever gets to work on nukige now.

>>2265506
Well, that's why I said half-decent... emphasis on half

Though it is kind of funny how KR's character design is like a giant jump ahead and different compared to the rest of the series.

That feeling when you're reading the credits to the game looking for who composed/wrote/did art for a game.

That feeling when no documented information on them.

>>2265537
I think Min-naraken's unique style helped with that. Purin's soldier designs are also pretty cool. What's your favorite classic AliceSoft game?

>>2263304
I had a look at the files you provided and it seems you got the right plugin.
About PFT/DSK they are part of the same archive : PFT is a the table of content, and DSK contains all the data.
What I did in Grapholic was opening the PFT file and it showed me lots of files without an extension. I checked in an Hex Editor, and the names matched.
The trick was then to extract those files, append a ".KG" to their name and voilà, they were readable in Grapholic !

Pic related (converted from BMP to PNG)

>>2195663
I listened to Kugyokuden on a Technosoft album, didn't think about the game for a long time.

>>2265840
>What's your favorite classic AliceSoft game?
KR, TT2 and Atlach-Nacha, though I guess those are very "safe" choices.

I'm also really fond of the first Pastel Chime game (which I think has zero "awareness" in the English community) and Persiom.

Someone should tackle translating them both rather than constantly chasing the newer Rance games, although that's fine too as long as AS games are getting translated.

>>2266504
>Atlach-Nacha
>Going On is now playing in your mind while you imagine Hatsune fighting against Shirogane

>>2265840
>What's your favorite classic AliceSoft game?

>>2266037
Hex editor stuff is a bit too advanced for me, heh.
If you have time to do a full graphics rip I'd really appreciate it, though.

Actually, I didn't know grapholic supported Susie plugins since I don't see anywhere for them to go.

>>2266504
I really enjoyed TT2 a lot too. The 3 or so demons towards the end gave me a lot of trouble since I didn't grind much. Had to rely on someone else's save data to et past them

>>2267270
>yfw the artist for that did the designs for Samurai Pizza Cats

>>2267272
You don't say...

>>2267271
Sure, here you go :
https://mega.co.nz/#!KtFUjJDQ!GJCuh7KxbgXTnRevaPib7q00l0_RYpBz-D3SHA3dN-c

It's the pictures from GRPFILE; EFCFILE seems to be an archive of sound effects so I couldn't rip it. By the way, what are you planing to do with these files ?

>>2266504
About AliceSoft games, I only played games that do not require knowing japanese. Of those I really enjoyed Kaeru no Panyon, Zero Type and Persiom.
They're really fun games with interesting gameplay ideas.

>>2267546
>What are you planning to do with these

Appreciate the glorious artwork like a peasant.
Thanks, mate.

>>2267561
You're welcome! I had a look at the artwork and it's pretty good. I admit I had never heard of it before your request.

But as someone who liked Divi Dead and Eve Burst Horror, and mystery in general it piqued my interest.
A good translation of Kuro no Danshou (and the PC-98 Necronomicon) would be so sweet

>>2267580
An interesting thing about the Saturn version of KnD is that most of the dialogue in the second half is spoken in English. The American/foreigners are also voiced by native speakers and they even had a translator who translated the Japanese dialogue into English for the VAs to read. There's also a decent (even if very rushed) OVA. Seems to skip over a lot, though.

Also, I'm kind of surprised at the lack of ero since VNDB lists this release as being 18+... Fortunately I have the PC-98 version too.

Necronomicon also looks very cool and the BGM is damn sweet. The art style really nailed the kind of atmosphere and vibe you feel in Lovecraft's work.

Would also love to read things like Ballade for Maria, Dead of the Brain 1 & 2, and Dracula Hakushaku.

>>2267638
>Also, I'm kind of surprised at the lack of ero since VNDB lists this release as being 18+

The Saturn version is recommended for 18+, but it has a yellow label, so that means mild sexual content, unlike red label that was straight nudity and explicit sex.

Dead of the Brain games are super short, they are like 3 hours each, but really enjoyable, specially the first one... the sequel feels super rushed though...

>>2267748
Well, even the site lists the Windows version as 18+ with the SS one being 16+. Maybe I missed a file, I don't know....

Have the PC-98 version here along with the files containing graphics and the pretty cool BGM: https://mega.co.nz/#!MVgnTBTC!9HyLRDUgKpQUukjTWjT6iwheBAnPuV7QmssDmw0T3hY

>>2264796
>>2265294

I wish there were more artbooks for certain eroge companies. And non-eroge companies as well, I've always liked the aesthetic for 90's Japanese PC games.

>>2268180
There's just something about the whole Japanese 2D culture in the 90's...

>>2268193
My nigga.

>>2268193
Yeah they started the whole pedophile pandering shit that is ruining the industry.
We really should drop them another bomb.

>>2268204
Get a load of this nigger. Probably likes 3d pigs.

>>2268212
Degenerate fuck.

Report and ignore.

>>2268219
Hey, I'm not the one mocking a tragic loss of life.

I asked a bit about this topic before in a previous thread, but I've forgotten some of the details and I didn't catch all the replies. And why not bring it up again anyway.

For pixel art like this, how much of the work was done on pen and paper, and how much was done on the computer? What kind of techniques were used? It seems to me like the pixelation and severe color limit would necessitate mostly manual work.

>>2268180
The good ones put a lot of detail when drawing their stuff which slowly eroded away over time due to rising costs and dying talent until we ended up in the results we have today.

I wonder if it's possible to get people to study the 90s artstyle and replicate it again.

>>2268387
>I wonder if it's possible to get people to study the 90s artstyle and replicate it again.
There is one promising artist I know of that pretty much nails that old artstyle pretty well. In fact I think one of his works I at first mistook as one of Urushihara's works.

http://hinomars19.deviantart.com/

>>2268458
Here's the Dragonzord one he did.

>>2268387
>>2268458
Awesome!

There's a fellow on pixiv that's pretty good that's pretty good at capturing the 90's action anime style, although he only really does character portraits. He does a good emulation of Obari's style if you're into that. http://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?id=2478439

>>2268387
just look at the difference between Kichikuou Rance (1996) and Rance VI (2004)

Kamilla was also in both games. But she was improved

>>2268180
Where would I find those artbooks that are out there?

>>2268387
Have you seen modern eroge mecha? Fucking awful.

>>2268613
The funny thing is that some of those characters Orion did for KR too. He got fucking worse how is that possible?

>>2268926

If you want them the easy way here http://g.e-hentai.org/

If you can't find what you are lookin for there, then you should try eMule or japanese p2p.

>>2268926
The ones that I have specific to companies I ended up finding searching on amazon.co.jp and suruga-ya. And as >>2269256 said there's quite a bit on e-hentai. I need to see if this early Alicesoft sketchbook I got has been put up there, if not I'm going to scan it.

>>2269282
Got a pic of the cover?

>>2269296
I couldn't find it online, I'll take a photo later today for you.

>>2269254
>Have you seen modern eroge mecha? Fucking awful.
I haven't kept track of most modern eroge nowadays.

Care to name some so I can laugh or alternatively cry?

>>2268613
>The funny thing is that some of those characters Orion did for KR too. He got fucking worse how is that possible?
Kind of reminds me of Sei Shoujo of Bible Black fame.

I used to like his art up until Cleavage and then I can't stand the changes he made to it any more.

(Guess this is kind of nukige but eh)

I do kind of wonder if it's a change with secondary artists though - like maybe it's because the secondary artists at the company responsible for turning the main artist sketches into in-game CG art aren't as good as the older ones

>>2269256
I wish I didn't have ISP issues so that I can hop onto JP P2P and see if they have a bunch of Wizardry games (especially with the recent translation efforts) or old Kogado games that I don't have.

>>2269282
I kind of feel lucky that I managed to get my hands on the Kichikuou Rance Guidebook in a clearance sale somewhere online pre-Sengoku/Kichikuou english translations so it wasn't as in demand.

Though I guess it's not like demand rose that much with the translations either...

>>2269320
>>2269282
Which one are you talking about?

>>2269324
>Kogado games

I've found some Kogado games in Share and Perfect Dark, Winny has something too but it's mostly dead and it's kinda hard to find stuff there.

>>2269326
One on the left, I'd forgotten the name. Sadly I haven't been able to find a copy of the Alicesoft Illustrations - nice find, sir!

A couple other artbooks I have that I really like and would recommend (but I can't think of the names) are retrospectives on ELF and Kogado.

>>2269324
That's a good set, I always love seeing the hand-drawn art for the CGs and that one was very nice.

>>2269329
What do they got there?

I'm mostly interested in the Sequence Palladium series and the handful of PowerDoLLs games I don't have yet.

>>2269356

I don't remember about Sequence Palladium, but for PowerDoLLs there was a 3 or 4gb file with all the games.

Does anyone have 電撃ナース? I can't find it on the mega thing.

>>2269360
Don't suppose I could trouble you to grab it and upload it somewhere if you got the bandwidth to spare?

>>2269378

I deleted all my Share files a while ago, getting anything to show up without enough cache is a pain in the ass. I think I have PowerDoLLs 5 somewhere though, but I already uploaded that one some time ago.

>>2269382
Ah, OK, got that one too.

I wonder if the Tokugawa forums will mind if I register just to ask if anyone has it like a giant leech

>>2269364

https://www.sendspace.com/file/wp2te7

>>2269394
Thank you very much, anon. Sorry for asking again but do you happen to have Blue Breaker with you there too? I feel like I can't miss on this one.

>>2269324
Baldr Sky and Muv Luv.

>>2269392
They won't.

>>2269398
>Blue Breaker

Are you sure that's the title? I cant find anything on japanese PC's (except PC-FX :wink:) with that title.

>>2269404
Oh, oops that's true, my bad. What about Dengeki Girl... 2?

>>2269401
>Baldr Sky and Muv Luv
Huh, I always thought those were well-regarded.

Never got around to playing the former though. I though the original Muv-Luv trilogy was fine despite having some serious pacing issues but man did they run that series into the ground with poor management right after.

>>2269414
Oh, they are. I mean the mechanical designs.

>>2269412

You mean Dengeki Nurse 2?

https://www.sendspace.com/file/hzdt16

>>2269414
MLA is the highest ranked EGS game and Baldr Sky is right at the top too, and the former to me had forgetttable designs except for maybe the takemikazuchi, and the latter's are a joke. Good thing they look cool as sprites.

>>2269436
Man, this is what happens when you have only four hours of sleep. Thanks. There's also Cry Sweeper but I'll stop here.

http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm12103428
Here's a great OST for everyone to listen to. The ED themes are some great shit.

What do you guys think of Nocturnal Illusion? It's not perfect or anything but I think it has a certain charm. Most of the character arcs are kind of rushed

Does anyone happen to own the PC-98 version? Would love a a decent scan of the cover.

>>2270308
I think it's probably one of the only commercially localized eroge that actually has some lasting merits and yes, basically due to the atmosphere and OST.

Also Mistress best girl.

BEEP Shop's experimenting with hooking up a XRGB mintor with a Frame Meister to play FM77AV games on: http://www.beep-shop.com/blog/3345/

Looked in the NND YouTube mirrors and found a trippy sound card demo featuring a kid dancing to the Battletoads pause tune in LSD color, my favorite prod in terms of pushing the system: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-lskltQ4s0

More PC Sunday's been archived than I knew of, including this episode featuring a trip to Falcom/interview with Yoshio Kiya in the middle of 1987: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYbGOIbZQJU

>>2270009
I wonder how many of us own NND accounts by now, mainly because I put videos from there into Polsy assuming not everyone's going to bother registering to watch a video.

>>2268387
Simply a matter of copying master works from that period and, with influences in tow, developing a personal style that feels relevant compared to 'em.

>>2268370
We debated over whether or not artists would finish works on print media and then scan onto their workstations so the art director and programmers could dither and compress these images. The difference between eroge with curvy/fine lineart and games where art is built pixel-by-pixel (I contend this was what Artdink did in the PC-98 era) remains a topic of discussion.

Legend of Heroes (FM Towns, JDK): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCz1TEKEliw
Blaster Burn (MSX2, Tsukamoto): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGkAG1V2baU
Mesuneko Hishoshitsu (PC-98, PANDA): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hh6YmCed37A
Battle Gorilla (PC-88, Fujioka): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hx8_UBH_u2Y
Xanadu Scenario II (X1, Koshiro/Abe): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDvrArHGNXI
Lightning Bacchus (X68k, GOBLIN SOUND): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1qea9Takzk

More great OST:

Necronomicon:
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm3116486

Dead of the Brain:
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm6761382

Nocturnal Illusion:
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm6399451

>>2269392
Tokugawa does per-file hosting, no torrents. It's an outdated method, but the members are consistent about checking back throughout the year, and I don't see why they'd lose hope in anyone wanting to play the more obscure downloads.

Here's Dalk's long-lost ancestor btw, though I don't know if J. Yamada's done games after this: http://mio.servequake.com/~takky/emuz2000/ohmz/cod.html

>>2272356
Is it actually related to Alice Soft's Dalk or is the name just a coincidence?

Also, is CG rip Anon still here? Will suck your dick in return for another request.

>>2272368
Pronunciation joke, methinks (Dark rendered as Dalk instead). But I was bored looking through a litany of Sharp MZ type-out listing games and programs, this stood out as one interesting title.

>>2272368
Not that anon, but you wanting a rip of Dalk?

>>2272383
Ah, I see.

So what are your favorite story-focused retro eroge?

http://retropc.net/alice/

Good link for old Alicesoft games.

>>2272389
Mostly the Fairytale and late-PC-98 Elf catalog, but I haven't played these in detail yet. My focus is on the earlier kind of Japanese command-selection adventure that prospered during the PC-88 years, though games like Karuizawa Kidnapping Guide and Falcom's Asteka bridge the gap by including some nudity/sex in parts. Graphical text adventures of the early-1980s will be really interesting to play, and I'm expecting to get deeper into them once I've got a grasp on katakana and hiragana that most of them used due to VDP/8-bit memory addressing limitations against kanji usage.

>>2266504
Precisely zero of the new Rance games have been translated since the the 02 remake some four years ago, and for that one the translators used the original 1990 script of Rance II instead of the remake's revised one.

Also considering how the recent translation of Mamatoto was met with utter indifference in the community, I doubt many people will find the motivation to translate any of the more obscure titles. I imagine that it's no fun to spend six months or so translating a game only to have barely anyone actually notice your work.

>>2269437
The highest ranked eroge on egs should still be White Album 2, followed by Yuno and MLA, then come about a dozen titles with the same score among which are bothe parts of Baldr Sky.

Has anyone been filling in staff positions on PC-88/98 games on VNDB? EGS credits are almost non-existent so help from people who have played the games would be cool.

I've done a few:
https://vndb.org/s2018
https://vndb.org/s956
https://vndb.org/s964
https://vndb.org/s2058
https://vndb.org/s2026
https://vndb.org/s2012

Speaking of VNDb, does Samson come here occasionally? I like his review of Psy-O-Blade: https://vndb.org/t5358#2

>>2272721
>2014-04-21 9 AmbivalenZ -Niritsu Haihan-

This game looked so cool to me that it got me interested in Tori's other games like Toushin Toushi 2. the OST also kicks ass.

>>2272665
>I imagine that it's no fun to spend six months or so translating a game only to have barely anyone actually notice your work.
Well they should do it for the kewl points anyway.

>>2272665
I hadn't heard anything, is it just because there wasn't much buzz about it?

There's plenty of people that would be able to do something like this, but I guess that's bottle-necked by people being prudes.

>>2272789
Based on what I've seen from Arunaru I don't think he cares about that (responses to comments telling people to go fuck themselves, etc.).

>>2272789
>>2272835
At the same time I think he or anyone else would be well within their rights to say "fuck it" if the response was mediocre. It's great to do something like translate hentai games without the promise of a reward, but it doesn't make it any less disheartening when nobody seems to give a shit. I could imagine it's easy to get jaded.

>>2272850
Yeah. I can get that.

I do rather prefer "I'm going to do old obscure game even if the response is lacking" compared to the usual "oh man, I love this newly aired popular Anime! Oh, it was adapted from a VN? How hard could it be to translate it?!" and then followed by a silent drop in a few months.

So check out Melroon: http://mio.servequake.com/~takky/games/melroon/index.html

This game was pretty cool in 1989. You have a word-/phrase-bank in handy for when you start a conversation and want to use terms you've previously encountered. The game has both Zelda/Hydlide-influenced overworld exploration and some dungeon puzzling based on dB-SOFT's own Flappy and Laptick games. On top of all this, Melroon's got a huge world, tons of characters with detailed backstories and some pervy-ness here and there. It's Woody Poco on steroids, only just encountered this capture site with graphics of the characters.

>>2272954
Yeah, that always infuriated me to see things started but never finished (like Rent a Hero, although that was recently remedied).

As for translations, there's obviously anons here that have ripped graphics or music - has anyone messed around with doing text dumps?

This game looks amazing.
http://exhentai.org/g/646354/139eb02cbd/

>>2273784
"WE ARE THE Kinniku BROTHERS!!"

Their names "Marao" and "Ijiru" said together mean "Touch/fondle dong". Neat.

>>2273641
>has anyone messed around with doing text dumps?

I found some tools to rip text on elf games, but I dont have a clue about how to reinsert that text

>>2273798

>from elf games

>>2272665
Using median + minimum of 200 votes, MLA's all-ages version shows up in first with a 97, after E17's PS2 ver, and then WA2 CC, but the original version of MLA is below CC, YU-NO, And S;G, so you're right.
>>2272668
I think I'll buy some old PC-98 magazines when I have the time so maybe that could show some good info about them.

>>2273784
The description (over at VNDB) for it sounds pretty good too
https://vndb.org/v8110
>Did you read "Alice in Wonderland" written by Lewis Carroll?
>If not, then this alternative version of events for you.
>The game tells about two girls named Angie and Ruby, who fell down the rabbit hole and ended up in Wonderland (The Decadence-land) populated by peculiar, anthropomorphic creatures.

>>2273810
There's like 2 old Bug Bug magazines from 1995 and 1996 on the Wayback Machine.
https://archive.org/search.php?query=bugbug

Wonder if this inspired Utawarerumono:
https://vndb.org/v8697

OP:
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm13839509

>>2273810
Be sure to get some '80s Comptiq issues, as those are the ones most in need of scanning (lots of developer interviews and features).

Also just learned some Vinesauce-affiliated streamer toyed around with PC-88 games in January. Terrible stream, but hey, the guy seems to have enjoyed what little he played of How Many Robot. Otherwise it's very irritating to see people blatantly not know the difference between the PC Engine and the PC-88.

Anyone know where I can get the (PC Windows) Disc Station games?

>>2274437
I keep it straight by whether it has fuck scenes.

>>2274449
Wait, that was you?

>>2274443
Some downloads might be up here still: http://fullmotionvideo.free.fr/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=241

>>2274449
Nah, but I pissed Kimimi off by saying that once.

>>2274464
lol

I just noticed Wyrdwad's looking to buy an MSX2. He must be desperate for some Konami dungeon-crawlin' after waxing poetic on La-Mulana. Still waiting for Project EGG to announce they're making a Xak collection.

>>2274473
I'm glad you noticed that post, I was gwine send him this way but I got distracted and forgot :).

>>2274437
I'm particularly interested in technopolis magazines but I'll look into those too.

Not entirely related, but I doubt anyone cares elsewhere.

Apricot (people who made Nocturnal Illusion) were working on another game with the writer of NI that was supposed to be released in 1998. I managed to find the old site for the game and it looked pretty cool. Shame the writer seems to have vanished after 2002...

>>2274660
...and I forgot the link.
http://web.archive.org/web/19980219054815/http://www.excellents.co.jp/sanc.html

Wish I knew who the artist was.

>>2274660
>>2274668
If that's an RPG, then /jrpg/ might find it interesting.

>>2274629
If you find Comptiq issues, make sure they aren't the January 1987 one, as Etch-A-Sketch's dumped the interesting portion of that already: http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/COMPTIQ/comptiq.htm

>>2274485
Yeah, be sure to shephard him on up here.

If I have a 90s PC with an English version of Windows 95 on it, is there any way to run Japanese games without installing a whole separate copy of Windows? Specifically, I mean versions patched to be playable in English.

>>2274673
Nah, it's an eroge.

Some other interesting things like seeing what eroge web pages were like back when PC-98 games were still being produced.

http://web.archive.org/web/19980219052804/http://www.excellents.co.jp/top_old.html

>>2274681
No clue, since AppLocale only applies to XP and higher. Is your HDD adequate enough for a dual-boot set-up to work?

>>2274717
Probably not.

>>2274717
I'm curious, would installing the necessary Japanese fonts help at all?

>>2274826
Yeah, that would be the most likely option if you're seeing garbled characters without the fonts.

>>2274826
I think it would. Also if you want to play PC-98 games I can't see having the need to install japanese fonts, since it'll be emulated. Wanting to play Windows and beyond is a whole other thing, though.

Tecno Soft circa 1985/6, just after K. Yoshimura and Osamu Nagano had left to form Arsys. I'm sure I could spot Naosuke Arai in here with some attention.

>>2274681
>If I have a 90s PC with an English version of Windows 95

Well, your best bet for that is setting DOS Box with a japanese copy of Windows 95.

man, fuck auctions. I thought I would get this PC-FX with a bunch of games but there's this faggot who randomly showed up and put a bid of more than 4000 yen more than the last one. Not even sure if this is worthy now, since it's fucking 16.500

Anyone here have a physical collection? Would love to see what you guys have.

Also, does anyone have a link to that Korean blog where the guy would show off the contents of PC-98 game packages?

>>2276004
>Not even sure if this is worthy now

It will depend on which games he is offering, but Im pretty sure they must be common games...

>>2276115
I was trying to, but suruga-ya took too long to fulfill the order, my credit card authorization was cancelled, and subsequently so was the order because their dumbshit workers wouldn't run my credit card again.

Also fuck Paypal for not letting me buy ancient nukige.

>>2276146
/whitepeopleproblems

>>2276134
I just got it, I wanna play Blue Breaker that bad. The final price reached 18000 yen, bad aftertaste but welp

>>2276275
I feel bad for the Japanese guy.

Anyone know any non ero PC98 adventure games

>>2276285
I feel bad for my wallet, can only hope it'll be actually entertaining.

>>2276329

Tokyo Twilight Busters
Dead of the Brain (it has more gore than sex), I guess the same goes for Marine Philt.
Makyouden
Isaku has mild erotic content
Enix adventure games of course
Riverhill Soft games
Data West games

>>2276329
I recommend giving YU-NO a try even if it has h-content, it's the most famous PC-98 ADV, and still one of the best VNs ever

>>2276458
As far as sales go, apparently this is Elf's best selling game:
https://vndb.org/v2346

Also going to post some package designs I found.

>>2276503

Just learned that Samson = TheSammies on GameFAQs, lol.

>>2276329
Psychic Detective series
Hummingbird Soft graphical text adventures (The Palms, The Knight of Wonderland, ABYSS 1/2) + Stone of Agni
Yuji Horii games (Portopia, Hokkaido Serial Murders, Karuizawa Kidnapping Guide)
Todo Ryunosuke series (Testament of Amber, The Golden Compass)
Everything from Soft Studio Wing, particularly Destruction AL/MZ and Onryo Senki
Lagrange L-2 and its sequel D-SIDE
Reviver (here's your point-and-click adventure game)
J.B. Harold series
Thinking Rabbit graphical text adventures (Keyhole Murder, Death of a Clown, Casablanca no Ai, Jack / Las Vegas Serial Murders, &c.)
Princess of the Tomato Kingdom
Imitation City and Snatcher (Blade Runner-inspired double bill)
The 4th Unit games
Gaudi + Ryu
Micro Cabin adventures (Harry Fox duo, Dreamland, Mystery House localizations, Seilane, What's Michael/Maison Ikoku, Arrowsoft games)
Omotesando Adventure (first Japanese text adventure)
Dinner in the Morgue

This comes just off the top of my head.

>>2276769
Portopia is reaaaaaaaaaally bad.

>>2276836
Which version did you play? Hokkaido Serial Murders is held in higher regard among Japanese fans for that matter.

The panel of that guy working on the board CG is helping the argument for artwork being drawn and then scanned (along with showing how they composite scenes with different physical layers).

>>2276850
I played the NES version.

As for how CGs are done, it probably differs for each company. I usually see basic marker coloring in art books.

>>2276769
Some of those aren't for PC98 but thanks for the suggestions anyway

>>2276895
More specific picks:

Adrenalin Connection
Horror of Cridewelle
Restricted Area
Welcome to the Cinema House (borderline)

>>2276875
Broad trend seems to favor physical work before digitization, but yeah, how CGs are drawn and colored would differ.

>>2276913
Here's what something would look like scanned in with colors without any digital work.

>>2276836
I tried playing the PC 88 Portopia version a few days ago, I just can't get into it at all. All that katakana makes me take longer than usual to read and the graphics are just lol. It's a shame since it looks pretty interesting and it's probably much better than tenshigo, lolita or that kind of shit. I don't think I'll be touching PC88 snatcher either. Maybe the PS1 version. And you know, I'm not a graphics fag, but just look at pic related. Is it really worth the ride?

>>2277013
Not exactly sure what you were expecting from a 1983 pc game

>>2277013
The story is pretty simple, honestly.

Filled out staff members:
Takei Masaki: https://vndb.org/s2242
Minami Piruo: https://vndb.org/s2293
Sakurameeru: https://vndb.org/s2294
Mitsumine Nao: https://vndb.org/s2012
Hirosaki Yuui: https://vndb.org/s2026
Takei Masaki: https://vndb.org/s2242
Ootsuki Suzuki: https://vndb.org/s956
Yoshizawa Tomoaki: https://vndb.org/s964
Garage Land: https://vndb.org/s2058

Also added website links to Apricot (old) and 999.9 games.

>>2278054
ご苦労様, good to see a few people care about that era

What would you guys recommend playing here?
I've already played Divi-Dead, Desire, Eve, and NI.
http://tss.asenheim.org/

>>2277076
Wow that's great art. Killer dialogue too.

>>2270757
>We debated over whether or not artists would finish works on print media and then scan onto their workstations so the art director and programmers could dither and compress these images. The difference between eroge with curvy/fine lineart and games where art is built pixel-by-pixel (I contend this was what Artdink did in the PC-98 era) remains a topic of discussion.
Well it's certainly a testament to their skills that people can't tell the difference. It's too bad there isn't more information available.

I find old pixel art interesting because it's a form of art more or less unique to video games and subject to severe technical limitations that artists had to overcome, pixel by pixel if necessary. Even if you scan something in, you have to make it look like it wasn't digitized and you have to contend with a limit of 8-16 colors.

>>2279121
It's depressing that even with those limitations the artwork is more detailed the most modern eroge art. Not to mention use of space with the CGs not being used as super closeups of the girls eating or some shit.

>>2279014
Think you got all the good ones.

True Love is kind of just a lamer version of Tokimeki Memorial but seeing as how that one never got translated it got some popularity. Might be worth playing.

Seasons of the Sakura is the only notable one left IMO but it's kind of like the 90s version of Katawa Shoujo - if you played it as your first gateway VN you'll probably cry and talk about how much feels it gave you or whatever but coming from anything else it's just kind of lame

Well, except for marveling at how brazen their outright theft of established characters was.

>>2279256
Why does that guy even bother with kusoge? Even a few random Japanese only kusoge are up there.

>>2279272
Some sort of strange historical purpose "this is what actually excited people back in the past" reason? I dunno

>>2279121
I counted 8

>>2279121
Sauce?

>>2279358
There are plenty of untranslated good VNs for the PC-98 though. He could work on those.

>>2279808
I'm interested too. The style reminds me of Branmarker 2, I wonder if it's by the same artist.

>>2279464
Irfanview reports 16 colors, and if you reduce it to 8 it gets really degraded.

>>2279808
Don't know. Part of a collection I downloaded, no name given.

>>2279808
>>2279935

It seems I was right, and it's from Branmarker 2, indeed.

>>2279812
Here are the scores for the untranslated games on his site along with the number of votes:

Majokko Paradise - 1 vote, 65 median
Paradise Heights 3 - 8 votes, 58 median
Tasogare no Kyoukai - 4 votes, 40 median
Tenshi-tachi no Gogo - 3 votes, 55 median

Baffles the mind.

Pretty quiet today

>>2282018
I love Rance's expressions in the earlier games. He kind of looks like a Satanic Rumiko Takahashi character.

Does anyone here have experience with Hoot?

I've installed everything listed in this section:
http://snesmusic.org/hoot/v2/faq.php#hoot

But when I run the program no music shows up. I've put the rar for what I want to listen to in one of the sub folders and nothing.

If anyone else wants to give it a try I'm trying to listen to the BGM from GaoGao! 4th Canaan which can be found here: http://snesmusic.org/hoot/v2/?system=PC-98&order=com

>>2282552
Works for me.

I placed the zip file in the pc98 subfolder.

Then in hoot, make sure you go to System (S) and hit the "Title Rescan" (R) button so hoot scans all your zips to load it in the program.

>>2277013
>Yasu's smile

Katakana does sound tedious, but most of the dialogue and descriptive text is clear and brief. I think its visuals have a kind of appeal even now—notice how 2D/geometric everything around your assistant looks? The game isn't always so theatrical, but it has cool set-pieces like the Wizardry dungeon cameo and beating the snot out of suspects. For 1983, you couldn't do much better (Infocom for writing), and pre-King's Quest Sierra is a-ways behind this in quality.

>>2279121
I love how adventure game developers, even going back as far as Eiyuu Densetsu Saga by Arrow Soft, spearheaded workarounds for limited color visuals. Using dithering and modified aspect ratios to make fit a variety of scanned art isn't a thing of the past, as the lessons developers learned back then inform development conditions today. You can see usage of block shading in the Branmarker 2 CG that helps save floppy data by merely suggesting the movement of light across their cape flaps...dealing with restrictions like that doesn't happen as often anymore.

CocoaMSX looks neat, worth a try if anyone reading's stuck with OSX: https://github.com/pokebyte/CocoaMSX

Do you guys know if PC98 ROMs can be played in the hardware itself? I recently discoveres Night Slave has support for joysticks and I would love to have the experience of playing it with one but it seems that unless I go to Japan and search for copies in old stores, I'll never find it.

>>2283469
I believe it should work, just need a way to transfer it over.

>>2283469
PC98 ROMs are only disk images. You can extract the files using anexdiet and copy them to floppies or your HDD.

>>2282685
Thanks, man. Is there a way to rip them into MP3s?

In other news, I want to grab a copy of Nocturnal Illusion for PC-98 on Suruguya and they're out of stock..so I checked for the GaoGao series and only the second game is in stock.

And here's another pre-digital "CG"

>>2283937
You can export playback as .WAV files and then convert 'em to MP3s without loss.

>>2283469
If you know the original floppy storage format a game's ROM came from, you can just copy the ROM to a floppy and test it on hardware. There are subtle issues worth looking into, though, as some ROM dumps are modified intentionally or unintentionally.

Although I don't play much retro japanese pc stuff I really dig the music.

pic related - some soundtracks that I got recently.

>>2283976
>You can export playback as .WAV files and then convert 'em to MP3s without loss.

Teach me, senpai

>>2284027
Looks like there's a WAV recorder under System, it'll just start recording what's playing in Hoot from what I can tell.

>>2284067
I see. Is there a way for it not to just loop the same track over and over?

Oh boy this is just the thread to find a lot of weird, interesting, obscure stuff.

>>2283983
Just gonna say, Princess Maker's only the most popular soundtrack Masahiro Kajihara's done:

Fushigi no Umi no Nadia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BUh_AFYkdc
Hole Chaser OPN: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HBp2xD-tKk
Hole Chaser OPNA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhDaBrIxYnA
Possessioner: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVMwJFbkYE8
PMD88 demo track: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U46jJaFZ4ko
Valis II X68k: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1UO9mkzV7o
Wonpara Wars: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJA0MjX2odk
Meikyuu Gakuensai: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZw_1g4B8Jg
Grounseed OPN: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uv8KrX5-i1I

Guy did amazing work even while being overlooked in favor of his colleagues (ex. doing Grounseed OPN while people would rather talk about Umemoto and Takami's OPNA soundtrack).

>>2284143
Hole Chaser is such a great name.

How's the preservation scene looking for the software of these old computers?

I know there's literally hundreds (or thousands?) of doujinsoft games that are so rare they'll never be recovered and preserved, but other than that how does it look as far as being "complete"?

The only group I know of working on it is Neo-Kobe.

>>2284363
You pretty much have to rely on others and request they upload what you want or download a massive torrent. Shame there's nothing like an abandonware site for old Japanese games. I heard there was one in the past, though.

>>2284363
Slowed down since 2010/2011, but lots of materials get uploaded and kept in circulation at Tokugawa. Guy who operates Retroprograms has done this for a lot of application/doujin/special package stuff, and I hear Macaw has tons of stuff ready to dump if only he'd get the necessary tools.

>>2284191
I don't know if that's eroge, but yes, what a name.

>>2284627
>I heard there was one in the past, though.
And it was apparently discontinued because a Western participant acquired some games only to sell them for profit, betraying the trust of the Japanese correspondents. But I still want more than an HG101 source on that.

>>2284798
Kind of a shame there hasn't been much of an effort to preserve box art and manuals, though.
I've scanned a few of mine but I only still have a few of those on my computer ;_;.

Here's a fansite of the fantasy series released by Excellents (May Club, NI): http://gaogao.s58.xrea.com/index.html
For 8 years the owner waited for updates on the remakes that never came out (excluding the first one).

Also, something I want to bring up is the crazy release schedule for PC-98 eroge. To give a few examples, Yu-no was made in about half a year. Love Potion, Desire, and Xenon were all released in the same year by C's Ware. And a final example:

1994-01-07 18+ Gao Gao! 1st
1994-04-16 18+ Gao Gao! 2nd
1994-10-29 18+ Gao Gao! 3rd

These release dates are even crazier when looking at the track record of the writer.

Sanctuary announced in 1998 to be released by Apricot --> Apricot closes --> To be released by Candle in 2002 --> No updates

Yami no Douwa announced in 1999 --> Release in late 2002

>>2284865
Whats been wrong with the manual and box preservation? Did they just never scan them?

I'm guessing at this point it'd be near impossible to start those efforts now... Shame because Japanese manuals are always the most fun to read through.

>>2285000
>Did they just never scan them

Pretty much. Not too late to scan manuals or boxes with places like Surugaya around, though.

>>2284865
Funny how the length thing became the opposite these days. An extreme example, but just look at oretsuba.

>>2285054
The average release cycle these days is about a year per title.

>>2284865
The Game Preservation Society's preserving that stuff, actually, though no single organization's going to be comprehensive quick enough to save materials in the worst condition (I'm thinking early tape game packaging).

Late PC-98 releases are oddities in general, almost like Dead of the Brain being the last PC Engine game.