I've made 70+ game page stubs on NEC Retro in the last few days because I'm sick and derranged, and now I'd like to amend this statement. "One choice. Most of the time". Granted, I cut myself off at mid-1993 (when specific PC-98 platforms started becoming less clear), so there might have been a resurgence, but the number of MIDI-compatible games is small. Though I was favouring games I had a chance of actually translating. For example, I figured there'd be strong support for Roland's MT-32, as was the case with IBM, but only a small fraction of titles highlight it, and several of those originate from the West. All of those beige boxes posted above get a look in here and there, but it doesn't look like any specific model caught on. Though granted, I haven't bothered to emulate those 70+ games so I'm only going off what the back of boxes say. Until CD-ROMs became a thing, most PC-9800 games are seemingly content with the FM sounds of the PC-9801-26K, almost certainly because it's the same technology foound in the PC-8801 mkII SR. That's quite a departure from IBM, as while Adlib and SoundBlaster support was fairly widespread, as Duke 3D above shows, you often had other options, if not just "better SoundBlasters" (there are "better FM sound boards" but again, adoption is rare... and as they're backwards compatible with the 26K, no guarantee they're actually being used). Yes this does mean there's hundreds of NEC Retro pages that amount to little more than "this game exists", but it's still better than most English language documentation for this thing. Fix it.
My understanding of the audio stuff is mostly based on the work over on radioc.web.fc2.com (a lot of my understanding is derived from reading their stuff then comparing it with the technical data books) So if, and honestly its a pretty big if, my understanding of the sound board shenanigans is correct then yeah, the -26K was easily the most important of all the FM sound boards (only it and the -86 out of the official NEC sound boards got support pages over on the website i linked), the most widely supported too. The only one that was also popular was the backwards compatible -86, especially on the PC-9821 side when the A-mate models had the components of the -86 expansion board built in As for the MIDI? I think it was the SC-55 that caught on? Cant say anything with certainty
We probably need a music expert (alongside all the other experts) - the SC-55 is occasionally mentioned, but so are things such as the SC-33, which I didn't even know existed. By the way, for those interested: This might sound like a lot (and tbh it probably is) but having done some cleaning I can report... that there's at least 3300 PC-9800 that still need pages. We have coverage of about 10-15% of all known titles. Having been exposed to a load more games in the last few days, I am relatively confident that they can be split into "generations" (although there are still tons of outliers due to the upgradable nature of the platform): - "Early games" (1982-1986): Designed for the original PC-9801 and the immediate revisions: E/F/M and U. These typically just use 8 colours and the beeper, and are very similar to what the PC-8800 series was doing at the time (remembering the PC-98 wasn't a games machine, with the money going into high resolution word processing). - "VM and UV games" (1986-1992): 16 colour graphics, FM sound, more in-line with the PC-8801 mkII SR. This is the "mainstream" class of PC-98 machines where most of the magic happened. - "VX and UX games" (early 90s): 286 processor, 256 colour graphics. - "Late games" (mid-90s): 386 or above, and I might as well group the PC-9821 in there because there's a few CD-based games that shipped for both. Basically the period before Windows 95/98 games became a thing. There's still werid stuff like the 98 Note, but it's better than this Princess Maker 2 works on all the letters.
"let's go looking for PC-9801 N (98 Note) games" ... I found two. There's a few of those multi-format Koei games, and some others that claim PC-9801 N support on top of other models (I guess they must have an "N" setting somewhere), but dedicated disks are hard to come by... just like everything else. (most of the remaining red links on the NEC Retro TODO pages are a mixture of "can't find the game", "translation sucks" or "porn")
a discussion about the 98 Note series is a chance for me to finally mention the pink case versions that i've obsessed over for a while Here's an NV and the OG. ANYWAYS, decided to take a look also but not exclude the eroges cuz i already dabbled in there and no one else would. and multi-formats is all i'm finding... except this! here's a third game to add to the list
Did Adlib and Sound Blaster cards make it to the PC-9801? If you answer was "uhh" then you're correct. As said, on the IBM side we had Adlib in 1987 and Sound Blaster 1.0 in 1989. The PC-9800 series did its own thing with its FM sound boards and adoption of MIDI modules. There was no Adlib, but there was eventually a Sound Blaster: The Sound Blaster 16, which a third-generation Sound Blaster(?) which would have arrived in 1992/1993. My gut instinct is this arrived too late to make much of a difference in PC-98 gaming, but your favourites use it: It looks like they released the next one, the AWE32, for the series as well, but god knows if any native software actually makes use of it. With a 1994/1995 release, seems more tailored towards Windows 95 gaming than anything we're likely to care about on NEC Retro, but of course nothing is currently written down so who knows.
And now, my gift to @Pirate Dragon This is Revival Xanadu (リバイバル ザナドゥ), basically a re-release of Xanadu, the second in the Dragon Slayer series. It came with a bonus Photo CD. Now, I'm not sure at this time that the PC-9800 series was ever given the ability to view Photo CDs, and given this package has the game on floppy disks, it certainly wasn't expected. So what does it recommend?? Not just a Sega Saturn, it recommends Hitachi's Hi-Saturn! (...which is odd because we don't think the Hi-Saturn had Photo CD support as standard, just Video CD). But whatever, buy this PC-98 game, play the extra in your Saturn game console. Or indeed other types of computer that were competing directly with the PC-98 line. There's a copy on ebay right now if you're allergic to money: https://picclick.com/Dragon-Slayer-II-Xanadu-Revival-Japanese-204113306502.html
I think that some versions of the MPEG card play Photo CDs without the operating disc, I guess the Hi-Saturn included one of those.
This is the research project related to NEC i had the most fun with so im making a post about it: NEC's stuff wasnt JUST for the Japanese market, but also, and in VERY limited quantities, for overseas ones (forget the APC series, im not talking about it. If you know some stuff abt NEC you prob already know it). It all started with me finding out there's a Chinese version of the PC-9801 F creatively called the PC-9801 FC. This PC-9801 FC (oh hey i finally learned how to do this) model introduced me to a whole lot of history related to Chinese PCs and NEC's somewhat noteworthy part in it (the Wubi method was designed for the ZD-2000 which, if my understanding is correct, is the chinese localization of the PC-8001. The FC also uses it I think) I have a little corner on my user page trying to understand this stuff from piecing together statement from chinese users online and this is what i have for now The obvious question, is there ANY relation to gaming in all of this, and the answer is... fuck if i know! I'm still reading about this stuff and the earlier models seem to have been more like cutting edge tech for universities rather than for the general public. But the only one that im suspecting there could be something is the FC! Its the only one i know for certain was commercially available, it even had ads and a functioning demo! (Shout out to Ethy1ene and Flyingharuka, lovely chinese PC-98 omega nerds whose twitter pages helped sm with this rabbit hole) So for now, my focus would be on the FC :p. I'd like to finish with an American addendum which was even more suprising, for me at least; PC-98 series had American releases???? This was a tangent from a twitter post from Flyingharuka. But apparently America got PC-98 models with an "2E" added at the end. Source. Edit:Nearly forgot to mention, the PC-88 series models ALSO were apparently released in america and these are the only proof i have of it so woooooooooo. Here's a scan of the latter :p
Oh right yeah, yeah there was. PC-8801 PC-9801 (and no I'm not reformatting the lists for the sake of this post) Perhaps not surprising, but most of them are non-essential add-on or demo disks for commercial games, rather than fully fledged video games in their own right. I'm sure we can come up with a nice method to handle Takeru releases, but what's less clear is how to handle scans. For example, Gilgamesh Sorcerian seems to have been relatively popular, but there are variations on what the disks look like: There's copies with proper labels, which presumably came from the vending machines too... ... but there's also copies with no-frills labels. I don't know if that's because it was an optional extra, or a limitation with certain machines, or what. Maybe smaller releases didn't bother with fancy packaging. I'm also assuming there was some assembly required - did the machine cover the write-protect hole automatically? Note also that this is 50-60 "exclusive" titles - you could get older, full-price games from these machines too. I'm not desperately worried about being able to create a timeline - even if those issues of Takeru Press fail us, magazines like Mycom BASIC seemed to care about this service, as opposed to say, Sega Channel where you were magically expected to know what was on offer at the time. By the way, if you were thinking Gilgamesh Sorcerian was some super obscure entity that hasn't been seen in 30 years... well There isn't really an escape. ...and Sega Retro is never far away. ... and the fact it makes reference to Visual C++ runtime libraries means my real life job isn't far away either. Hmm.
THIS REMINDED ME... I COMPLETELY FORGOT there were physical releases under the Project EGG brand, seems i'll have to put on my Disc Station hat again cuz There's still more stuff for me to look into. I remember hearing (and i have to insist that its compelete hearsay) that TAKERU/Brother Industries also did proper publishing of games outside of the vending machines, perhaps those boxs with box art are that? Edit:Looking at it more, I do think that specific box is a vending machine one, but there are other TAKERU published games like AIZA new Generation so my memory is not wrong :p.
A new contender for the weirdest named video game: Magic++ - "Magic Plus Plus"? No silly, "Magicrement" (マジクリメント)... because you're incrementing on magic..?
Mistakes have been made. Again. Doom was one of the first pages added to NEC Retro... because it's Doom. I didn't really have any grasp on how PC-9800 systems worked at the time, so I let it go through as a "98 Fellow" game. That might not have been correct - it's not incorrect but... well. The problem is, around 1992/1993 Windows becomes a big deal... for everyone, and the PC-98 line had no hope in hell of running it. This is because while NEC were happy to run the race in terms of processing, graphics was never much of a priority - they had the 640x400 resolution in 1982, it was better than everyone else for most of the 1980s, and they just never bothered to change. Their 386-class machines were still only doing 16 colours (from a palette of 4096). That's not really enough for Windows. I still can't claim to understand the PC-9821 brand, but I do know it could handle 256 colours. The very first PC-9821 machines were branded under the name "98 Mate" and were NEC's top-of-the-line business computers, capable of running Windows. The "98 Fellow" range were PC-9801 machines, which when upgraded, could match the 9821 specs. To that end, there are no stock PC-9801 machines with 256 colour graphics, thus no stock PC-9801 machines that can run Doom. To get to that stage, you needed to purchase a "Windows accelerator board", which would unlock the higher resolutions and colour depths needed to run Windows. Because if you have a motorbike and add some more wheels and a chassis and some upright seats and a steering wheel, then yeah, it might be "car". So this car wash is clearly "motorbike compatible". So what about all these games that say 9801/9821 - do they all lie? Not entirely Ultima Underworld II works on PC-9801 machines... but you'll only get 16 colours. The full 256 colour experience needs a PC-9821 - it's like one of those "black cartridge" Game Boy Color games. Also note the big list of Windows accelerator boards - there were tons, including those from third-parties. It's a mess. Doom does at least illustrate the choice: (I stole this image) Options 1 and 2 being PC-9821 machines, while 3-through-7 are all the Windows accelerator boards and isn't this painful
This might be a running theme: Ultima VIII: Pagan is currently listed as a PC-9801 BX4 title. I skimmed over the PC-9821 library this afternoon, and about half(?) of the games mention PC-9800 series support (because again, with upgrades a PC-9801 could become a PC-9821). Ultima VIII only lists one viable upgrade path for the PC-9801 BX4, but I mean, minimum specs here: - 486SX @ 33MHz - there are a bunch of PC-9800 machines that have this - 5.6MB of RAM(?) - ...but only a couple have this, but not the BX4 - 256 colours - ...and none have this - 1.44MB formatted 3.5-inch disks - ...and none have this either So you'd need to buy two cards and an external disk drive just to get the game running (and if you want sound, more stuff). And you might need a hard drive, though I'm less sure about that one. Basically half the publishers take into account hardware upgrades, while the other half target stock machines. Reminder: this is only an issue because for the first x years, NEC only ever talked in letters - developers would target a "PC-9801 F" or a "PC-9801 VM", not x CPU and y RAM like you saw with IBM games. So for the first ten years of the platform, minimum specs were never listed (outside of disk drives maybe) - it's only after the race began with IBM PC compatibles that things got confusing. My instinct is to have NEC Retro class games against stock machines, which means Ultima VIII would be a PC-9821 game. But it would also mean some that at first glance, some games will appear misclassified because their boxes distort the facts.
If any hard line can be drawn between PC-9801 games and PC-9821 games, its the 256 color support/PEGC graphics chip (otherwise we're just going off of the backs of the box and what that says). Everything else is shared ground between both PC-98x1 series models I think; Even the 1.44 MB floppies were supported by some PC-9801 models according to the documentation. What i wonder is, should games released after 1995 but who's requirements meet the stock 9801 machines count as 9801 games or 9821 games. The last 9801 machine was released in 95 (saying this off the dome i might be wrong). An example of this would be the Touhou games, the one we have on NEC Retro right now is Touhou Project 5: Mystic Square. We have PC-9801 machines that can theoratically play it, but according to the (old) publisher's website, the game was tested on PC-9821 hardware and the patches were also for 9821 models; the games and patches were made for 9821 machines in mind. (google translated page for easier reading) ((still have 0 clue how to tackle the Epson clones))
Okay this won't work either, because the original "stock" PC-9801 didn't come with disk drives (i.e. an entire years' worth of software would be left uncategorised). Though I suppose there were no alternatives until late 1983/1984 so maybe we can get away with it. I think the best we can hope for until someone really dives into this, is having a wiki that's 75% correct. I may have come to this conclusion the last time I gave up - that it's all just "best guess" after 1992 or so. Speaking of which, I've pretty much run out of low-hanging fruit. I don't know how much I trust the translations of the remaining red links - it needs more sets of eyes.
There are console games that are designed specifically for a select peripherals. Without it, they won't work. Yet we still consider those games designed for that console. In other words, I don't think it's a problem to categorise those games as PC-9801 games.
I honestly forgot this thread was a thing, and had been using the other one in Announcements to talk about NEC things. But anyway, Tanjou: Debut for PC-9801 computers seems to not only have a version on floppy disks, but also a version on CD-ROM. Apparently Data West published this one and was released one year after NEC Avenue's floppy disk version, even replacing NEC Avenue on the title screen. EDIT: Yup, it was a PC-9821/FM Towns multi-format release.
Well aint that fun! I know there are other cases of floppy-then-CD and multi-format releases when it comes to the eroge/bishoujo scene (some already covered on the wiki), dont think there's any other one with a changed title screen but i have to double check now :p. Time to talk about the APC series i suppose. (most of the following is building off of cuba200611's posts) So I still am not that well informed about what the APC series was other than it was one of NEC's forays into the western markets. But from what i read and heard, it seems the APC III and its many versions were basically a PC-9801 machine (it does look like one); it even had expansion slots which were functionally similar to the PC-9801-26K with its Joystick port. Though the most interesting thing is this Source from a very cursory search, Moon Ball was a PC-9801 only release. Is this just a one off thing in this ad or was NEC's PC-9801 library available for users of the APC III. Dunno, but I think its worth a post.
An old Sega Retro favourite coming back to haunt us on NEC Retro: ロードス島戦記 Google translate continues to claim this is "Rōdosu shimasenki", and then turns it into "Record of Lodoss War", and yeah when released in English, the latter is what the franchise usually goes with. But there is no "shima" when you get have it read out loud, and again this is a Japanese release, so in the end we settled with "Lodoss-tou Senki" for this franchise. Maybe it should be "Lodoss Tou Senki" - I don't freaking know and nobody had challenged it in the 49873250823 years we've had coverage. I don't speak this language, I just deal with it. Right now I've got this 1988 release written down as "Lodoss-tou Senki Haiiro no Majo" (ロードス島戦記 灰色の魔女). The sequel I've got as "Lodoss-tou Senki II: Goshiki no Ma Ryuu" (ロードス島戦記II -五色の魔竜-). This time they made an effort to denote which bit is a subtitle. Thanks buds. A few years later they decided to re-release the two games on CD-ROM. The first became "Lodoss-tou Senki CD Haiiro no Majo" (ロードス島戦記 CD 灰色の魔女). The second... did not do that. It has exactly the same name as the floppy disk version, just with a note that says "CD-ROM version" in the bottom right. Because who needs consistency anyway (although given it's from a company that calls itself "Humming Bird" instead of Hummingbird), perhaps we should expect that. There's also two PC Engine games which have no subtitles at all. Are they the same games as these ones? No idea. And they dodn't get any better at this - there's a Record of Lodoss War on the Dreamcast and it too fumbles about with its name in Japanese. Try not to think that this franchise started life as a scenario for tabletop RPGs. So in a very loose, roundabout way, this could be considered a spin-off of Dungeons and Dragons.
