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[cacildo]

I'm glad I got back to using MZ-700 avatars.

.fdd and .hdi files? You sure you aren't trying to run PC-98 abandonware on a PC-88 emulator? All the PC-88 files/dumps I've seen are .d88 or something unlike what you've specified. I wonder if that music disk you mentioned is from the Firecracker doujin series...great stuff.

For stuff in English on any J-PCs, you're more in luck these days since a fan translation scene's finally gotten on track. Games like the original version of Enix's E.V.O. and Brandish 2 have either public or beta patches ready to go if you have the game ready to play on emulator (there's ways to patch the original floppies as well). Action-based games usually don't require Japanese knowledge to progress, which is why Night Slave's often mentioned as a PC-98 recommendation (you can turn off the eroge content in the options menu).

J-PC software developers, since at least 1984's Eiyuu Densetsu Saga on PC-88, used some kind of artwork scanning/digitization method followed by algorithms and pixel-by-pixel tuning to accurately replicate and dither their in-game materials. Some game graphics were best suited for pure pixel work, but these are way less in number vs. the horde of erotic games which relied on scanning first and tweaking later.

Yes, i think i got 5 PC88 games early this morning from abandonia and they were all .hdi or .fdd. I was just trying to run anything before starting to look for english or translated games...

Thanks for the other tips. I will check on Night Slave. Can you point me to a better site than abandonia to get the games in .d88? (once again, since abandonware i think we are ok with #antipirategaf)

 

[kubev]

I love the look of PC98 games, as well. Such excellent use of dithering.

 

[CharminUltra]

I don't even like anime, but I love looking through this thread whenever it pops up. Really good stuff.

 

[missile]

I love the look of PC98 games, as well. Such excellent use of dithering.

This.

 

[Knurek]

Yes, i think i got 5 PC88 games early this morning from abandonia and they were all .hdi or .fdd. I was just trying to run anything before starting to look for english or translated games...

Thanks for the other tips. I will check on Night Slave. Can you point me to a better site than abandonia to get the games in .d88? (once again, since abandonware i think we are ok with #antipirategaf)

HDI and FDI are PC98 formats, you can't run them in a PC88 emulator.
(Similar on how you can't run SNES games in a NES emulator)

 

[1upsuper]

Can't remember if I've posted in this thread before but it's good stuff. Many years ago I fell in love with the general aesthetic of the PC-98 (and 88) library. At this point I've played a fair number of titles but I've spent tons of time just learning about the games and enjoying the artwork and music. The fact that the library is only relatively recently getting much attention by western fans means it still has this mysterious, somewhat inaccessible and untapped vibe to it that makes it all the more alluring.

 

[FanDeNintendo]

They look(ed) great. Nocturnal Illusion was one of the first games I played in this platform.

 

[dadjumper]

Oh heck yeah. I got way into just playing random PC-88 and -98 roms a couple years back. Made a blog for it that is now inactive but has a lot of images on it here
[WARNING: VERY NSFW. EROGE INCLUDED]

Some (sfw) highlights:

 

[CitizenHal]

Found a few more great PC-98 screens. I've so many more to post, hundreds even.

 

[NahaNago]

Looks great and loving this style of anime.

 

[theclaw135]

I suppose, almost can't help think of Macross when I see this topic. Think I'd watched that part of Robotech anyhow.
No telling how much anime Lum fanaticism has blinded me to.

 

[CitizenHal]

Here's another dump. This era of pixel art really was the bees knees.

 

[caffeware]

Is this the same as pcfx?

 

[tib]

That's a nice dump, CitizenHal. It makes me want to play those games just for the graphics alone.

 

[Narishma]

Is this the same as pcfx?

No, that's a 32-bit console. The successor of the PC-Engine/Turbografx-16. It was only ever released in Japan.

 

[CitizenHal]

Few more showing various characters.

 

[CitizenHal]

 

[Sapiens]

Wonderful thread.

 

[Valonquar]

This thread definately takes meack to the days of 14.4 modems & DOSV. Hentai images were the cryptocurrency of 1991. You have to download JPGs off of BBSes in California, racking up insane long distance calls just to get 10 to 12 16 color images of Lum.

 

[GrayFoxRJ]

There is something to this kind of aesthetic that is hooking. Awesome thread

 

[badboyyy]

How I can play these games? Just love old school look and that asthetics

 

[frogx]

 

[Radical Dreamer]

The fuck? It looks awesome

 

[Futaleufu]

It's amazing what you can accomplish with 16 colors, dithering and a hi-res mode.

Some of these games had IBM PC ports running in hires EGA and looked very much the same.

 

[Ladioss]

Great throwback to the time when japanese pop-culture was at its peak. That kind of stuff is the reason why anime conquered the world during the 80/90s.

 

[kunonabi]

Hey citizenhal any chance of us getting the game titles, especially on this page?

 

[Belmonte]

I love this aesthetic. It has the charisma of anime but the less saturated color choices make it more serious, and the way they use the pixels bring a crudeness to the image, a texture. It feels extra crude with the medieval games.

It has a tech nostalgia too. It is hard to explain but, to me, it feels nostalgic because it is 80s/90s and, at the same time, it feels high tech since it was very advanced at the time.

 

[frogx]

I love this aesthetic. It has the charisma of anime but the less saturated color choices make it more serious, and the way they use the pixels bring a crudeness to the image, a texture. It feels extra crude with the medieval games.
.

Yea I feel the same about this

 

[Hudo]

I just wanted to pop in and say that this is one of the best threads around. And those PC88 and PC98 2D graphics are just timeless.

 

[Elfstar]

I love this aesthetic. It has the charisma of anime but the less saturated color choices make it more serious, and the way they use the pixels bring a crudeness to the image, a texture. It feels extra crude with the medieval games.

It has a tech nostalgia too. It is hard to explain but, to me, it feels nostalgic because it is 80s/90s and, at the same time, it feels high tech since it was very advanced at the time.

I think this can be extended to old school vs modern anime aestethics as well, with all the new stuff having that overly bright, saturated digital coloration, and lacking any kind of graininess and human imperfection element in their look.

 

[frogx]

I just wanted to pop in and say that this is one of the best threads around. And those PC88 and PC98 2D graphics are just timeless.

It's art !

 

[Vampire On Titus]

The PC-98 has so many cool adventure games I'll never get to play because they're not translated. ~Sigh... I'll continue to admire them from afar and eternally wonder what the "Go!!" command is for. Is it different than move? If so, how? These are the questions, folks.

 

[Redneckerz]

How I can play these games? Just love old school look and that asthetics

With a specialized emulator, Neko Project. There are some custom builds.

Thoughts:
I absolutely love the PC-98 range and especially what it does under the hood. Basically they are semi-custom PC's combining the best of the Amiga with the x86 architecture. Back in the day this was rather something, but so much stuff is in obscuriority hell because of lack of translations.

Does anyone fancy a little bit of history regarding this machine and its graphical magic?

 

[DGrayson]

I wish we could get new turn based RPGs or SRPGs with this art style.

 

[Sub_Level]

CitizenHal : Last seen Oct 30, 2018

 

[Redneckerz]

CitizenHal : Last seen Oct 30, 2018

Hey, you can actually ask me as a substitute for him! Wink!

 

[Belmonte]

I think this can be extended to old school vs modern anime aestethics as well, with all the new stuff having that overly bright, saturated digital coloration, and lacking any kind of graininess and human imperfection element in their look.

Very true. The cleaner, brighter look can work well with animes like My Hero Academia, since the super hero theme allows it, but I can't respect the new Berserk, with that clean look.

On a related note, I think this kind of pixel art makes the art even more crude than classic animes. The squares/pixels makes the image feels like a raw mosaic.



The only modern game I remenber which uses this kind of aestethics was a kickstarter project: Shrine of Orm, which, unfortunatelly, couldn't get the funds. It isn't as masterful like the ones here, it uses a kind of filter to emulate the pixel art, but I found it very cool nonetheless. And, as a huge plus, it was a turn based Dungeon Crawler, like Wizardry/ Etrian Odyssey:




By the way, anyone has a recommendation of a translated PC98 RPG? Never played any of them!

 

[Elfstar]

Very true. The cleaner, brighter look can work well with animes like My Hero Academia, since the super hero theme allows it, but I can't respect the new Berserk, with that clean look.

On a related note, I think this kind of pixel art makes the art even more crude than classic animes. The squares/pixels makes the image feels like a raw mosaic.



The only modern game I remenber which uses this kind of aestethics was a kickstarter project: Shrine of Orm, which, unfortunatelly, couldn't get the funds. It isn't as masterful like the ones here, it uses a kind of filter to emulate the pixel art, but I found it very cool nonetheless. And, as a huge plus, it was a turn based Dungeon Crawler, like Wizardry/ Etrian Odyssey:




By the way, anyone has a recommendation of a translated PC98 RPG? Never played any of them!

I'm sure you guys already know about this website, right? It has a good amount of old-style PC98 visual novel in english.

https://tss.asenheim.org/

I don't know how many of the games over there are SFW, though.

 

[Belmonte]

I'm sure you guys already know about this website, right? It has a good amount of old-style PC98 visual novel in english.

https://tss.asenheim.org/

I don't know how many of the games over there are SFW, though.

I'm searching for a RPG, since I'm not much into visual novels. But if I can't find any, I will try one of these, thanks!

 

[dirthead]

This is why contemporary indie games are such embarrassing dog shit. Most of them look like they were made by cave men compared to stuff like the OP cited.

 

[Chairman Tickles]

That dithered look comes from only being able to display 16 colors at once. It's kind of awesome. Always had a soft spot for the Genesis/Mega Drive, as it also had a color display limitation. On a CRT the dithered gradients/shades blend so old display tech is a must for displaying these kinds of graphics properly. Alternatively an emulator with the proper CRT filters applied.

 

[Redneckerz]

This is why contemporary indie games are such embarrassing dog shit. Most of them look like they were made by cave men compared to stuff like the OP cited.

Nah, its just the times. Back then developers worked with what they had, and worked with the limitations that they had.

These days everything is far more complex and open architectures like C64/Amiga are far more uncommon. Everything is abstracted and also infinitely more powerful. To use that in some meaningful way isn't easy.

That dithered look comes from only being able to display 16 colors at once. It's kind of awesome. Always had a soft spot for the Genesis/Mega Drive, as it also had a color display limitation. On a CRT the dithered gradients/shades blend so old display tech is a must for displaying these kinds of graphics properly. Alternatively an emulator with the proper CRT filters applied.

The EGC was and is just awesome. Its this bizarro version on VGA visuals that were coming up in the PC world. The PS/2 machines basically introduced those, but were still semi-custom in some way, sometimes even having a half-compatible version of VGA.

Back in the day custom shit was fun.

 

[CitizenHal]

Huge dump, apologies.

 

[DunDunDunpachi]

No apologies needed CitizenHal

Those are great.

 

[kingbean]

God i love anime pixel art.

 

[Sub_Level]

Dat everything.

 

[stranno]

Unfortunately it wasnt powerful enough for moving stuff like fast scroll or raster effects. The American Truck port was horrendous.



I like CRW: Metal Jacket tho, it was a fantastic turn-based strategy game.

 

[Fuz]

I love all the art posted, they make me want to go and play those games.

Luckily, I played some of them and I know their gameplay usually sucks bad.


Great art, toh.

 

[Redneckerz]

I am glad this thread still is here, because PC98 is just amazing. Just look at DAT DITHERING.

 

[CitizenHal]

A selection from Otome Senki on PC-98 Part 1.

Nothing amazing in terms of design, your typical fantasy stuff really, but I do like the style. I posted a few already a while back.