Before Windows 95 was released, the PC-98 was the business computer of choice in Japan. Since it featured higher resolutions than typical computers of the era, it was better-equipped to handle Japanese text. The computers naturally became popular with game developers as well, and its architecture made it a perfect platform for adventure games, RPGs, dating sims, and other genres that relied heavily on text. Its large install base was able to support thousands of games, and a steady flow of fan-made titles kept the community engaged for decades. The PC-98 library is particularly noteworthy for its abundance of eroge content, and the machines were the most prominent smut delivery systems of their day. H-games were released by the hundreds on the PC-98! If naked anime babes aren’t your thing, then I suggest you tread lightly if you intend on researching the system further.
Chitty Chitty Train is difficult to describe because there aren’t really a lot of games like it. It’s basically a real-time train-routing puzzle game. Your objective is to watch over trains as they move along the map and prevent any derailments from taking place. Players aren’t given any control over the trains themselves, and instead direct them by operating switches placed at various intersections. It’s a simple concept, but the trains move very quickly so its almost impossible to plan ahead. You have to watch over multiple trains at the same time, and the courses have many paths for the trains to take. Even though the switches are controlled by a simple mouse click, it’s hard to keep up with the action. It’s possible to slow trains down momentarily by placing stop lights on the map, but this often causes other trains to crash into them. You’ll inadvertently cause thousands of derailments when playing the game, but the upbeat music helps lighten the mood. Chitty Chitty Train has the happiest music this side of Bubble Bobble.
- NEC PC-9801 - Games (TOSEC-v2009-10-25) Update I forgot about this one but some people are still asking for this update so here it is.
- I'll try and have some more tutorials up by tomorrow, and the Catalan version of Melpool Land/the site within the week. And as much of a bad idea as it is to put up deadlines, I'm hoping to have at least one more game finished before the month ends. Thanks for reading, and see you soon! All the best, ★Nana★.
Welcome to r/pc98, the center of the Western PC-98 fanbase! Here, you can discuss anything to do with NEC's timeless PC-9800 series of computers, including hardware, games, programming, history, music, and EPSON's PC-98 compatibles. For guides and information on the PC-98, please check the r/pc98 Wiki. Publication date 2009-06-05 Topics Japanese computers, NEC PC9801, NEC PC9821, video games Language Japanese. The PC-9801 was a 16-bit personal computer announced by NEC in October 1982, and was the first generation machine in the PC-9800 Series. This machine was dev.
Popful Mail is a bright and colorful 2D platformer with some RPG elements thrown in for good measure. The game follows the exploits of an enthusiastic elf, a naïve wizard, and an adorable bat dragon thing. Each character has their own unique abilities, and players are free to switch between them at any time. Although versions of the game were subsequently released on the Sega CD and Super Famicom, the PC-98 version is different by virtue of the fact that there is no attack button. Enemies in the game are defeated by jumping on them or by simply running into them. This is similar to how combat works in the Y’s franchise, and it’s a lot of fun to mow down enemies in the game. The action sequences are supported by traditional RPG conventions. You’ll visit shops, find new equipment, and spend a lot of time talking to people. This is time well spent, however, since the characters are charming, the dialogue is witty, and the game is genuinely hilarious at times. So many games on the PC-98 were aimed at adult audiences, so a whimsical adventure like Popful Mail was a breath of fresh air.
There’s no reason why Rude Breaker should be so obscure. It’s seldom mentioned on the Internet and even Wikipedia seems to be unaware of its existence. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, Compile pretty much dominated the world of vertically-scrolling shooters. Regardless of what system they were working on, they always seemed to push the hardware further than other developers could. Rude Breaker was no exception. The game moves fast, the scrolling is smooth, and there’s no slowdown even when the screen is filled with enemy ships. I’d be remiss not to mention that the game’s soundtrack is almost as intense as the action is. Like most Compile shooters, Rude Breaker gives players are a wide range of weapons to use and many opportunities to upgrade them. Rude Breaker is a lot more accessible than most shooters because getting shot by an enemy doesn’t result in instant death. Instead, it simply causes the player to lose their sub-weapons. Unfortunately, this makes the game a little too easy. The game only has five stages and can be completed in a half hour with relative ease, but it’s always fun to jump into.
Policenauts is a graphic adventure game and the spirtual successor to Snatcher. Some will debate whether graphic adventures and visual novels can even be considered games in the first place, but there is no question that they helped define the PC-98. Policenauts uses a menu-driven interface that allows the player to talk, examine, and investigate in order to gather information. The point-and-click gameplay is pretty limited, but the real draw of the game is the compelling storyline and intriguing characters. The game was written and directed by Hideo Kojima and adopts a hard science fiction storyline in lieu of the cyberpunk motif employed by Snatcher. Many allusions to past works are made, and the main characters bare strong resemblances to Riggs and Murtaugh from Lethal Weapon. The story itself is a lot more straightforward than most of Kojima’s games, but the characters are memorable and the world is interesting. Players spend most of the game investigating a murder, but the “buddy cops in space” dynamic keeps things lighthearted.
Flame Zapper Kotsujin is one of many fan-made (or “dōjin”) games that was released on the PC-98. You’d never guess by looking at it, but the game was made by a team consisting of only two developers. The game still manages to outperform the vast majority of games on the platform. The graphics are detailed, the music is intense, and the gameplay is way smoother than most shooters on the PC-98 were. Flame Zapper Kotsujin is pretty generic, but I mean that in the nicest way possible. Many other shoot ’em ups on the PC-98 had gimmicks to help them stand out. Galt-Rio was a story-driven shooter that bombarded players with walls of text while Steam-Heart’s featured naked catgirls. Flame Zapper Kotsujin sticks with the fundamentals. You fly a spaceship, collect power-ups, and take down massive bosses. The concept is pretty simple, but the game is extremely challenging. Pico sim date 3 full game download. The game could be classified as a “bullet hell” shooter and throws a ridiculous number of enemies and projectiles at the player. There are cool weapons to obtain (including extremely useful homing lasers and various types of bombs), but the focus is on avoiding bullets rather than destroying enemies.
YU-NO is a visual novel developed by ELF. This means that you can expect to see a plethora of panty shots and awkward sexual encounters throughout the game. (The taboo-breaking third act is downright depraved.) Beneath the erotic content, the game deals with complex issues like mathematics, philosophy, history, and religion. YU-NO Corruption of champions all text. takes a very creative approach to storytelling and is a lot more engaging than typical visual novels. Games with branching dialogue trees often leave players wondering how things would have turned out if their responses had been different, but the time traveling dynamic in YU-NO gives players the chance to explore the possibilities. Being able to jump back to previous events and discussions essentially lets players rewrite history. One of the most compelling aspects of the game is how the timeline is physically mapped out. Players are given a visual representation of how their choices in the game are leading to alternate realities. It would be easy to write the game off due to its porny exterior, but YU-NO was a revolutionary visual novel with intriguing characters, a compelling storyline, and one of the best soundtracks to come out of the PC-98.
Night Slave is a side-scrolling action game that borrows heavily from Cybernator on the SNES. The game puts players in control of large mechs and takes them through environments ranging from rainy jungles to alien bases. The variety of stages is impressive, and each area of the game looks completely different from the next. The attention to detail in the backgrounds and the quality of the sprite animations go beyond what you’d expect to see in a typical PC-98 action game. The most interesting aspect about the game is its Gradius-inspired upgrade system. By obtaining orbs throughout the game, players can improve their shields, increase their health, or level-up their weapons. These light RPG elements add a lot of depth to what would otherwise be a fairly straightforward action game. Upgrading the mechs actually changes their appearance in the game, and this ultimately makes your progress feel more significant. Another noteworthy aspect about Night Slave is the graphic depictions of lesbian bondage that are shown between each stage. These adult cutscenes don’t add a lot to the game and can be turned off entirely, but I’m not complaining either way. Giant mechs and hot lesbian action sounds like a winning combination to me.
If you were to take Castlevania and replace Simon Belmont with a leather-clad dominatrix, you’d end up with Rusty. This isn’t a bad thing. Who wouldn’t want to play a game with energetic music, impressive boss battles, and a badass whip-wielding protagonist? It would be easy to label the game as a knock-off and call it a day, but there are a number of things that help Rusty stand out from the game it was inspired by. The levels in Rusty are more complex than they are in Castlevania and provide more pathways to explore. Springboards and conveyor belts allow for some simple environmental puzzles, and there are a lot of secrets to find in each stage. The game is also noticeably faster than Castlevania, and the inclusion of a run button makes this even more apparent. Players will need this extra boost of speed to clear large jumps, avoid falling ceilings, and get across collapsing bridges. The game also included a cool eagle sidekick who would attack enemies on your behalf. (This was years before Symphony of the Night introduced familiars to the Castlevania franchise.) The animation is a little wooden at times and some of the areas feel a little empty, but Rusty is easily one of the best games released exclusively for the PC-98 and the type of game that western audiences would have gravitated to.
The most notable franchise to debut on the PC-98 was a series of five dōjin games collectively known as the Touhou Project. These games were made by a one-man team and helped define the concept of “bullet hell” shooters. The series has gained enough notoriety for Touhou Project to be inducted into the Guinness World Records as the “most prolific fan-made shooter series.” (What an oddly specific category.) Touhou games are famous for featuring for a cast of characters comprised entirely of little girls. Despite its harmless exterior, the games are also notoriously difficult. The first several games in series were a little rough around the edges, but the series found its identity in the fourth and fifth games. To date, over 20 Touhou games have been released. Mystic Square was the final Touhou game released on the PC-98 and featured gameplay similar to its Windows-based sequels. The music is upbeat and the graphics are adorable, but the game is agonizing. The game looks like an explosion of color due to the staggering amount of enemy projectiles and explosions on screen at any given time. If dodging the projectiles wasn’t difficult enough, the game also encourages players to take risks by offering more points for collecting items near the top of the playing area. With the exception of pornographic adventure games, no genre defined the PC-98 more than dōjin shooters. This list simply wouldn’t have been complete without Touhou. Singling out the best Touhou game on PC-98 is like opening a can of worms, but Mystic Square simply feels more refined than its predecessors.
Given their reputation for intense action games, it seemed like a pretty big departure when Compile entered the puzzle game arena. The gameplay in Puyo Puyo was a lot more action-oriented than typical Tetris clones from the era, so it wasn’t as big of a leap as you might think. The basic premise in the series is based around colored blobs that fall from the ceiling. By grouping these blobs by their color, players can eliminate them from the playing field. Similar to Dr. Mario, players can set up combination moves to clear several groups at once. By executing combos, players will cause garbage blobs to fall on their opponent’s screen. This creates an interesting risk/reward dynamic. Chaining together combos requires a certain amount of planning, but these plans could easily be ruined if your opponent drops garbage blocks on you before you can act on them. The original Puyo Puyo was a huge success, but the sequel really took the video game world by storm when it hit Japanese arcades in 1994. It became one of the most popular games of the era and was subsequently ported to nearly a dozen different gaming platforms. Puyo Puyo 2 on the PC-98 was basically a bare-bones port of the original arcade game, but the FM synth soundtrack made it stand out. Puyo Puyo 2 is the best puzzle game on the system by a comfortable margin and holds up better than almost every other PC-98 game.
Game ListsPersonal ComputersNEC Systems
If you’re new to the world of PC-98 emulation, here are some tips.
First up, a small explanation of the PC-9800 series of personal computers. What you’re emulating is a really old Japanese computer, basically. Intel pro 100 pro 1000 network adapter drivers for mac. It comes with floppy disk drives and hard drives, which are the main methods you use to actually load up games and other software.
For the purposes of emulating, you’ll generally need two things. The first is an emulator which we’ll get to later, and the second will be either a set of floppy disk images or a hard disk image. These will come in a variety of formats, though all should work in any of the emulators.
Floppy Disk Images: FDI, HDM, NFD, D88, etc.
Hard Disk Images: HDI, NHD, SLH, etc.
Hard Disk Images: HDI, NHD, SLH, etc.
So, now that you know what these extensions mean and what kind of files/disks you’re going to be using, the next step is getting your emulator running.
Option 1: Neko Project II
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Neko Project II is a great emulator for PC-98, but you’ll need some tips on optimizing it so that it runs much more smoothly.
First, download np2fmgen.7z. A recent version can be found here with no password. Or for the latest version, head over to this link. You’ll want both the np2fmgen.7z as well as the fmdllset.7z a little further down the page. The first one is the main emulator itself, and the second one is for better sound quality. It takes a little bit of setup but it’s worth it for proper ADPCM output in games like Rusty.
You’ll also want to download a font (trust me) so that NP2 can display Western characters more easily. This one works well. Drop that in the same folder you put NP2 in and then launch np21.exe.
(If you want to know why np21.exe specifically and not any of the other executables in the folder, there’s a good breakdown of what each version emulates here at the Heroes of Legend forum.)
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Once you’ve got NP2 open, click Emulate -> Font… and choose the font.rom file you got from here. Next, you’ll want to click Emulate -> Configure… which will take you to a nice new menu with a few options listed. The main one you’ll want to change here is in the CPU section. Try changing the number of cores in the dropdown list to something like 32 is a decent number. The faster the better, generally, but 32 works just fine for most things. The other options here aren’t as important, but I do suggest increasing your Sound‘s Rate to a higher number like 44k or 88k. Hit OK and get out of that menu.
Next up is just a quick click on Device -> Memory -> 13.6MB, because why not? Some games will require more memory so it’s easier to just get the largest available option here set so you don’t have to worry about it too much later.
Last is getting rid of the scanlines. If you want them feel free to ignore this part, but if you want to get rid of them click on Screen -> Screen Option… and put a check in the Use skipline revisions option, and change the Ratio to the max number (255).
If you want to enable the fmgen.dll that you downloaded above as well, this paragraph is for you. Otherwise, skip it and move on. It’s optional but recommended. If you’re still reading, close your emulator and navigate back to the folder where you put it. Inside you should find the files for the emulator as well as the grouping of FMGEN DLL files that you downloaded from the link above. If you didn’t do that, go get those now because this won’t work without them. After that, look for an INI file (probably np21.ini if you’re doing our suggestions.) Open that with Notepad or whatever text editor you like, and add a new line under the [NekoProject21] section that says – FMGenDll=fmgen.dll. Save the INI file and then close it. Restart np21.exe and you should now see be able to go to Devices -> Sound -> fmgen.dll to enable the external sound generator. Once you’ve done that, you’re all set!
Now you’re ready to actually start playing some games!
Generally this entails plugging the first disk (FDI) into FDD1 and the second disk (FDI) into FDD2, or plugging your hard drive (HDI) into Harddisk -> IDE #0 and then hitting Emulate -> Reset. Most games will launch automatically from there.
Common controls are the the numbers 2, 4, 6, and 8 on the numpad, arrow keys, enter, space, ctrl, z and x. Some games require you to use your mouse, so when that happens hit F12 and it’ll force NP2 to accept your mouse’s input properly. (Also, hit F12 again to get out of that mode.) If your keyboard doesn’t have a numpad you might want to look into getting either Joy2Key to get rebind other keys to numpad, or trying out Anex86 which allows you to rebind the keys in its configuration settings.
Option 2: Anex86
Anex86 is another acceptable PC98 emulator, but it’s older and less powerful. It might be a better option if you don’t have a numpad and want to rebind your keys without messing with Joy2Key. Download it here, and download the Japanese font on the same page, extract it and place that in the same directory. Now open up the emulator, hit Config -> Font, and select the anex86.bmp font you just downloaded. Now close it and you can start playing.
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Load floppy disks into the FDD1 and FDD2 fields, or hard disks into the HDD1 and HDD2 fields, and check the box HDD -> FDD if you’re using hard disks.
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Anex86 runs fine pretty much out of the box, but there are still some improvements to be made. (TODO: Configurations for emulator speed.)