[PC98] Why so beautiful?

[lucasgvse]

I like to visit ReadOnlyMemo website. There's a bunch of good interviews with romhackers and news about this scene. At the end of each post, Fenlon usually posts some crispy screenshots of games covered at that issue, and the PC98 screenshots always amazes me!! I'm eager to play them, but the retroarch core on my RG35XX+ doesn't have a way to set up the controls, and many of them doesn't have a translation yet. I hope one day it becomes possible...

Have you played any PC98 game? How are they like?? Did you have a PC98??? Share your experience with us!

Oh, and let me share some of Fenlon's screenshots with you:

Unfortunately, the size of these pictures don't do justice to its pixel's glory, so make sure to visit PC98 Images website to explore this wonderful world!

 

[VampireLord1024]

I've played four PC-98 games so far:

Season of the Sakura

Alice's Cottage

Jewel BEM Hunter Lime

Wind's Seed

I didn't really play much of Alice's Cottage, Jewel BEM Hunter Lime or Wind's Seed.

 

[Gorse]

The only dating sim I've ever played in my life was the PC98 version of May Club, which I actually owned a physical copy of as a child! Anime Video (which, interestingly, used an icon of Lum from Urusei Yatsura as their company logo) officially translated the game and ported it to DOS in the late 90s. No idea how I got it – I seem to think my dad picked it up along with several other games at a flea market or something, not realizing that it was a very adult, 18+, NSFW title – but I played through the game many times and enjoyed it a lot.

It's a game where you're a young man playing a virtual reality MMO, and date several cuties doing the same. There are a few sex scenes – nothing is shown on-screen beyond bare breasts, and most explicit content is written out in text – but the real draw is the neat little sci-fi world you can walk around in, which includes a full-fledged day/night cycle and some very well-drawn background and character art.

Keiko, the lovely lady pictured above, had my favourite route in the game – she's a friendly, elegant woman who's just been dumped by her previous boyfriend and has a lot of self-esteem issues. I remember her storyline being extremely touching, and I consider her a very sympathetic and likeable character. I'm pretty sure that she's the reason I found classy lipstick-clad '90s blondes so gorgeous throughout my adolescence (and still do to this very day). Just one problem: I always thought of her as a stunning, distantly-hot older woman, but she's actually supposed to be 23, making her, as of writing, three years my junior.

 

[moonbits]

I've only played YU-NO, great game.

 

[eroguro]

PC-98 are my current emulation obsession. I'm looking for everything is possible, to know more all the best games in his library!

 

[Knighthart]

Given this thread and considering the time of year, I can't not talk about shizuku.

If you're a denpa enthusiast you're probably already familiar with it considering its role, but it's pretty much what I'd label as a genre defining horror in general. "Horror" to me, is less about upfront fear and more about the feeling of inner discomfort, making you inherently unsettled by reality. I greatly value horror as literature simply because the power of ambiguity spiraling your imagination, inspiring paranoia. Nobody can truly make you scared, but yourself. And that being the biggest strength of psychological horror, I feel as if there's no better medium than text-related ones that give such strong effects in this regard.

Though when talking about pc98 games, often the most valued aspect is the visuals, it's not hard to overlook the ones with a genuinely well written narrative such as yuno, eve, and shizuku. Even though visually it isn't the most notable, it does service well enough to immerse you, primarily carried by the writing and relatability of the protagonist's lines of thinking. What is notable however, is the ost. The Windows version of the main theme is the most well known, but the 98 version has its own charm that to me sounds more disconnected from reality (which is thematically fitting)
It's still iconic either way. Here's both

Additionally this is personally one of my favorite tracks

And as with anything else related to denpa works, it's best to go in blind so that you're left solely with your esoteric experience. If you can read nip, value denpa, and enjoy themes to do with social norms, then reading this is almost a requirement. There aren't too many like this to begin with, regardless of the timeperiod. Not to sound like one big shill, but to me it's one of the games that you can disregard nostalgia and aesthetic bias, and still see a genuinely worthwhile pc98 vn that holds up, and is close to my heart.

 

[lucasgvse]

Gorgeus!! This crayon art style i've only seen in Yoshi's Island before.

The only dating sim I've ever played in my life was the PC98 version of May Club, which I actually owned a physical copy of as a child!

So you DID have a PC-98? How was it like? And the physical games came as CDs or was it a floppy disc? hahah

I've only played YU-NO, great game.

I'm seeing CDRomance have the english patched Sega CD version of the two first games, and the PSX version of the third. Do you know if its too different? It will probably be my first "pc98" game.

If you're a denpa enthusiast you're probably already familiar with it considering its role, but it's pretty much what I'd label as a genre defining horror in general. "Horror" to me, is less about upfront fear and more about the feeling of inner discomfort, making you inherently unsettled by reality. I greatly value horror as literature simply because the power of ambiguity spiraling your imagination, inspiring paranoia. Nobody can truly make you scared, but yourself. And that being the biggest strength of psychological horror, I feel as if there's no better medium than text-related ones that give such strong effects in this regard.

I totally agree! Has it a translated to english version?


As far as i can see, PC98 games seem to be more of visual novels or adventure games. I wonder if they're so pretty and detailed only because most of the time they're only still images. Is it right? I love the UI on most of the screenshots i see, too.

 

[Gorse]

So you DID have a PC-98?

Yeah, I wish! The game I mentioned, May Club, was officially translated and ported to DOS, which was the version I had. It came on a single CD, and I was running it through an ancient PowerMac on what I believe was Classic Mac OS 9 (already about a half-decade out of date by the time I was using it).

I believe the port is exactly the same as the original, save for a (pretty good!) English translation. It also came with a cheap little manual and some flyers for other Anime Video products, like Slayers DVDs and early editions of the Maison Ikkoku manga (two of which I also had).

As far as i can see, PC98 games seem to be more of visual novels or adventure games. I wonder if they're so pretty and detailed only because most of the time they're only still images.

The PC98, like the PC88 (and even the MSX before it), struggled a lot with moving backgrounds due to the way the graphic system worked. It had a HUGE amount of colours, but that meant there was no memory to store complicated motion integers. I think you could only have a few elements moving simultaneously on the “top” layer of the GUI, so developers focused on mostly-static adventure games where characters look right at you and blink occasionally.

If you’ve ever seen any non-game animations from the system, you’ll find that they have to do a lot of workarounds for everything to look right — scenes transition often from one pose to the next, plenty of far-off distance shots of cars moving along static roads, etc. This is also why sprite dithering (like in the first and last screenshots you posted in the OP) was so common on the system — scattered fields of pixels could be added to the top layer and easily replicated on lower ones to fake more movement than was actually possible.

 

[moonbits]

Gorgeus!! This crayon art style i've only seen in Yoshi's Island before.


So you DID have a PC-98? How was it like? And the physical games came as CDs or was it a floppy disc? hahah


I'm seeing CDRomance have the english patched Sega CD version of the two first games, and the PSX version of the third. Do you know if its too different? It will probably be my first "pc98" game.


I totally agree! Has it a translated to english version?


As far as i can see, PC98 games seem to be more of visual novels or adventure games. I wonder if they're so pretty and detailed only because most of the time they're only still images. Is it right? I love the UI on most of the screenshots i see, too.

I only played the Windows version with a patch to emulate the FM soundtrack. Thats the best way to play it I think.

 

[Deadgar64]

PC-98 and, by extension, all the NEC gaming hardware, is great.
I'm kinda a sucker for the case/tower design actually, too.

I've not jumped into a lot of the PC-98 games yet but I plan to eventually. Say one isn't too much into VN's and that sort of game, where might one start their journey into the library instead?

 

[VampireLord1024]

Gorgeus!! This crayon art style i've only seen in Yoshi's Island before.

Oh I see.

 

[lucasgvse]

I've not jumped into a lot of the PC-98 games yet but I plan to eventually. Say one isn't too much into VN's and that sort of game, where might one start their journey into the library instead?

Maybe this Briganty game i put on my original post? It seems to have some neat action and platforming sections.

​

The game I mentioned, May Club, was officially translated and ported to DOS, which was the version I had. It came on a single CD, and I was running it through an ancient PowerMac on what I believe was Classic Mac OS 9 (already about a half-decade out of date by the time I was using it).

I know nothing about DOS. Maybe it's my chance of playing PC98 on my retro handheld, then.