PC-98 Prince of Persia (PC) NEC PC-98

[CSmith327]

Game Description:​

Prince of Persia (プリンスオブペルシャ) is an Action/Platformer 2D video game published by Brøderbund Japan Inc. and developed by Arsys Software released on July 20th, 1990 for the PC-98.

This is the Japanese localized PC-98 port of Prince of Persia. It has better graphics and sprites than the Apple II and MS-DOS originals and takes advantage of the PC-98's higher resolution. The only notable drawback is that people have found the movement and jumps to be a little wonky compared to the DOS version. If you've been paying attention to the PC-98 games that get added to the repo then you might have noticed that this was ported/developed by the developers of Star Cruiser (Arsys Software).

Translation Credits:​

Released by: David
Language: English
Status: Only menus are translated
Patch Version: Not numbered
Date: 27 Feb 2020

Source: Unknown (probably from a forum somewhere?)

This is a simple patch that translates the main menu and the in-game options menu but seemingly nothing else is translated. The patch is of a low effort, and the text doesn't fit in the boxes and glitches on the screen until transitioning to another screen. Still, it helps to know what the options do instead of mashing around blindly.

I highly recommend the emulator Neko Project 21/W for playing on Windows. It's the most feature complete emulator for the NEC PC-9801 and is in active development receiving frequent updates. Use this guide for help on how to obtain and configure the emulator.

It can also play fine using the Neko Project II Kai core in RetroArch. Just make sure you have all the PC-98 bios files in the System folder. (C:\RetroArch-Win64\system if using default install location on Windows) I shared them in this comment.

To play this game in RetroArch start the Neko Project II Kai core and use the L2 button to open the core's built in menu. Then in that menu insert each game floppy disk into the FDD drives then restart in order to be able to play and not have it ask for disk 2.

To use the gamepad in Neko Project 21/W go to Device -> Sound option... -> JoyPad and check Use JoyPad-1. You can use the d-pad in place of the analog by checking the POV -> X-Y Axis box (only one or the other will work at a time)

In order to enable save states in NP21/W since this game will definitely benefit from them: add the line STATSAVE=true under the [NekoProject21] line in the .ini file of the exe of the emulator you're using (i.e. np21x64w.ini) and a new tab for savestates will appear in the emulator with 9 slots available.

To bring up the game menu shown in the 3rd and 5th screenshots press the F1 key.

Download Links​

• Prince of Persia (PC) NEC PC-98

 

[CSmith327]

Wow, a quick reply. Thanks, man. If possible, I always go with standalone emus. Have nothing against RA. But still prefer separate software. I will check out NEKO Project II first.

Not the II version, get 21/W. The original Neko Project II hasn't been updated in a very very long time (several years) Neko Project 21/W is the continuation of the project with more features and better compatibility. It gets frequent updates like every other month or so with beta versions in between. The project page is in Japanese but every option in the emulator is in English. You should read the easy to follow guide on how to get and set it up here. That's the best guide for it I've found anywhere. It's similar to DOSBox in a way. Like you can use it to run the PC-98 version of Windows 95 to 2000 if you wanted. It also uses the Japanese localized version of MS-DOS. But just using it to run the various games you can find online is simple and doesn't require much configuration. Doing any advanced stuff really requires you to understand Japanese. I got an MS-DOS file manager app working in it so I could look through the files on the floppy disk images and hard disk backups (.hdi) but I couldn't use it well since everything was in Japanese in it.

 

[Juiceala]

Wow, a quick reply. Thanks, man. If possible, I always go with standalone emus. Have nothing against RA. But still prefer separate software. I will check out NEKO Project II first.

Good luck

 

[kvachu]

I found it fairly easy to emulate, not the most user friendly but not as complex as some other systems out there, if you are a PC user I suggest NEKO Project II as a standalone emulator, it's easy to use, you can also use RetroArch with NEKO Project II Kai core, it is available on most systems, installing bios seems optional as they are only required to properly load some text afaik.

But it mostly depends on the game, being a PC some games use a mouse, some use a keyboard, some use both, some use a controller, just be wary that (from my limited experience) games save on the actual Rom itself so it may be wise to keep a clean copy somewhere.

Of course, it goes without saying, expect a lot of +18 games, just because a game is +18 though does not mean it's a generic visual novel or a dating sim, you'd be surprised there are pretty good games on the system and many aren't even +18.

Wow, a quick reply. Thanks, man. If possible, I always go with standalone emus. Have nothing against RA. But still prefer separate software. I will check out NEKO Project II first.

 

[Juiceala]

Is NEC PC-98 hard to emulate? I mean, is there a lot of BIOS setup and such like in Amiga?
I'm very much interested in many titles from this platform, including this one.

I found it fairly easy to emulate, not the most user friendly but not as complex as some other systems out there, if you are a PC user I suggest NEKO Project II as a standalone emulator, it's easy to use, you can also use RetroArch with NEKO Project II Kai core, it is available on most systems, installing bios seems optional as they are only required to properly load some text afaik.

But it mostly depends on the game, being a PC some games use a mouse, some use a keyboard, some use both, some use a controller, just be wary that (from my limited experience) games save on the actual Rom itself so it may be wise to keep a clean copy somewhere.

Of course, it goes without saying, expect a lot of +18 games, just because a game is +18 though does not mean it's a generic visual novel or a dating sim, you'd be surprised there are pretty good games on the system and many aren't even +18.

 

[kvachu]

Is NEC PC-98 hard to emulate? I mean, is there a lot of BIOS setup and such like in Amiga?
I'm very much interested in many titles from this platform, including this one.

 

[Treychik]

probably the best version...but I'd argue that SNES is also out there :)

 

[Erik Óptero]

Good persians textures it looks, :).

 

[EcchiL0verMan]

Ah, this must be the version that the Sega CD one was based on!

funny i said the same thing too and thought "hey, this looks very familiar to the Sega CD or Super Famicom/SNES version" thankfully i wasn't the only one who thought so as well.

 

[Kmoshiro]

I'd been looking for it for a while—I'm so glad you uploaded it. Thank you so much

 

[Juiceala]

Ah, this must be the version that the Sega CD one was based on!

I was thinking the same, I'm familiar with the sega cd version.

 

[RageBurner]

Got it, already knew it was really hard (especially for complex or undocumented systems, worse if wanting all the text to enter), but still, my unique criteria is "does it translate something or not?"
Also, other incomplete translations of that level were labeled as that.

Correct, that's because we do not have the necessary tag variety to account for all levels of translation completion, but that will change.

 

[hana_rodriguez]

Got it, already knew it was really hard (especially for complex or undocumented systems, worse if wanting all the text to enter), but still, my unique criteria is "does it translate something or not?"
Also, other incomplete translations of that level were labeled as that.

 

[CSmith327]

Not all patches are created equal. There are varying amounts of completion rate and hacker skill, and they should not be bundled all in the same qualitative category. It is mostly a categorization limitation of the system, not a conscious choice.

In other words, a Ford Pinto and a Ford GT are both Ford cars, but they absolutely don't belong in the same category past a very superficial marker.

Nah the Ford Pinto are those patches that literally break the game from running. The Dodge Neon is the one for lazy menu patches that work fine but are lazy.

 

[The Regulus Blue]

Oh man, for a few seconds I thought we had it.

 

[RageBurner]

A patch is a patch.

Not all patches are created equal. There are varying amounts of completion rate and hacker skill, and they should not be bundled all in the same qualitative category. It is mostly a categorization limitation of the system, not a conscious choice.

In other words, a Ford Pinto and a Ford GT are both Ford cars, but they absolutely don't belong in the same category past a very superficial marker.

 

[hana_rodriguez]

A patch is a patch.

 

[CSmith327]

Wait, why isn't there the english patch label?

After some deliberation I've decided to let it have the translation label, but just note that it's really just a simple menu text edit and not a full on translation patch

 

[hana_rodriguez]

Wait, why isn't there the english patch label?

 

[CSmith327]

Ah, this must be the version that the Sega CD one was based on!

It looks like both the PC-Engine/TurboGrafx-16 CD and Sega CD versions were stylistically inspired by this one

 

[Scotty Scotty]

Ah, this must be the version that the Sega CD one was based on!