PC-98 Starfire (English Patched) NEC PC-98

[CSmith327]

Game Description:​

Starfire (スターファイア) is an Action RPG/Dungeon Crawler video game published by StarCraft Inc. and developed by StarCraft Inc. released on October 14th, 1994 for the PC-98.

You start the game as a member of a mercenary squad piloting Motor Shells, infantry mechs deployed from space. The squad is under contract by the government and stationed onboard the battleship Dragonet, tasked with various dirty jobs like subduing colonial uprisings and cleaning up orbital bio factories that have gone out of control. Inevitably events unfold that leave you as the only one who can prevent a mysterious invader from taking control of the galaxy.

StarCraft Inc. is mainly known for porting numerous popular western games from DOS to Japanese home computer systems like PC-98 and FM Towns. Starfire is one of their few original games, but uses an engine taken from the Might & Magic series of games they translated and ported to PC-98 in the early 90's. It retains the 3D first person dungeon crawler navigation and sprite based graphics, but the classic RPG encounters are replaced with a simple real time action-based combat where you shoot the enemies as they appear on screen. Instead of levels and experience points you increase your combat stats through upgrades from engineers and doctors. Killing enemies provide you with credits to spend at item shops and arms dealers.

Eventually you gain access to a space ship, which enables you to travel the galaxy. That also means running into hostile space ships that you will have to fend off in simple space battles. To unravel the plot you have to visit the various systems and their space stations and talk with the characters that live on them, eliminating space pirates and alien forces along the way.

Translation Credits:​

Released by: Team Ishtri
Language: English
Status: Fully Translated
Patch Version: v1.0
Date: 25 June 2021

Source and details: https://www.romhacking.net/translations/6138/

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 also does fine in 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.

Game Screenshots:​

Download Links​

• Starfire (English Patched) NEC PC-98

 

[loopy]

Sank you!

 

[BlueBottlecap]

I spent an hour this morning scouring obscure japanese forums looking for some high res cover art for this, no joy. I know this is a long shot but if anyone has an original copy can they scan and upload it

Upscalers do a poor job with all the grainy low quality art out there

I have very little knowledge regarding this, but I do watch someone on YouTube who does a bunch of PC88 and PC98 reviews, retrospectives, and whatnot. BasementBrothers. Maybe reach out to him and see if he can supply anything

 

[HowManyRobot]

A little human effort.

 

[Masterofthefalcon]

Looks super interesting. I'm really enjoying all the love the PC-98 has been getting on here.

 

[CSmith327]

So, a question regarding the Neko Project emulator advertised with all these PC-98 games. I set it up according to the linked guide but I found nothing about configuring the controller inputs. Can't find anything regarding that in the emulator itself either, just a toggle for JoyKey-1 and 2, which I assume have something to do with a joypad, but nothing more than that.

Also, that cover art upscale looks terrible when compared to the original.

Sorry about the cover art. I spent forever looking for a better cover, but the only ones I could find were from gamefaqs and launchbox and they were both horrible (I believe the 80 kb one you attached was from gamefaqs) and that was the best Waifu2x could upscale it. I don't like how it turned out, but it was the only way to increase it to a bigger size without looking absolutely unusable. For how to enable JoyPad in Neko Project 21/W the option is in the Sound option... settings. Go to Device -> Sound option... and in the JoyPad tab check Use JoyPad-1. You can change the mapping for the face buttons (ABXY) by changing around the checks in those trigger 1 and 2 boxes and you can switch from using the left analog or d-pad by checking the POV -> X-Y Axis on or off. Since this is based on the PC-98's actual JoyPad there's only 2 buttons and a joystick available. So even games that can use the JoyPad sometimes can't be fully controlled with it since there's only 2 buttons. You'll have to use a button mapper like AntiMicroX instead if you want to fully map everything to a gamepad.

Post automatically merged: Mar 15, 2026

This game and Star Cruiser II didn't appear in the list of all PC-98 games.

I notified Spike about it, hopefully he can see what's causing it. I didn't tell the games to not appear in search results. For some reason they don't appear in either the search results or the list of all posted PC-98 games. I hope it isn't messed up for all PC-98 games to start doing that

 

[jhs_reika]

This game and Star Cruiser II didn't appear in the list of all PC-98 games.

 

[Scotty Scotty]

I thought of her too when I saw the name. That series was one of Cartoon Network's absolute best. Along with Courage the Cowardly Dog, Dexter's Laboratory, Samurai Jack, Billy and Mandy, and Adventure Time

Never really gave "Adventure Time" a chance as a kid (Alongside "Steven Universe"). Maybe someday I'll revisit it.

 

[DAME NINGEN]

So, a question regarding the Neko Project emulator advertised with all these PC-98 games. I set it up according to the linked guide but I found nothing about configuring the controller inputs. Can't find anything regarding that in the emulator itself either, just a toggle for JoyKey-1 and 2, which I assume have something to do with a joypad, but nothing more than that.

Also, that cover art upscale looks terrible when compared to the original.

 

[LoriTax]

I spent an hour this morning scouring obscure japanese forums looking for some high res cover art for this, no joy. I know this is a long shot but if anyone has an original copy can they scan and upload it

Upscalers do a poor job with all the grainy low quality art out there

 

[CSmith327]

(I had to.)

I thought of her too when I saw the name. That series was one of Cartoon Network's absolute best. Along with Courage the Cowardly Dog, Dexter's Laboratory, Samurai Jack, Billy and Mandy, and Adventure Time

 

[AlmaElma123]

Looks super Phantasy Star 1!

 

[Scotty Scotty]

(I had to.)

 

[Darklink]

Just wanted to thank you for all the PC-98 fan translated games! It's an often forgotten system.