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I love the look of PC98 games aka the Anime PC game machine

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Dragoon En Regalia

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Trojita said:
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Oh hey, I took that screenshot. Seriously. Pasokon Deacon's my social media handle. I gave a bunch of these screenshots of this game (GAGE, developed by M.N.M. Software in 1992 with Yuzo Koshiro music) to Szczepaniak when he was finishing up his second volume of Japanese game dev interviews.

Anyway, I still need to get working on that J-PC thread I promised you guys months back.
 
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Trojita

Trojita

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Dragoon En Regalia said:
Oh hey, I took that screenshot. Seriously. Pasokon Deacon's my social media handle,. I gave a bunch of these screenshots of this game (GAGE, developed by M.N.M. Software in 1992 with Yuzo Koshiro music) to Szczepaniak when he was finishing up his second volume of Japanese game dev interviews.
Click to expand...
Nice! lol
 
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ponpo

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This "aesthetic" is currently quite popular online for some reason. TUMBLRFADGRAFIX

That said, good time period for eroge.
 
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Dio

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I have a bunch of shots from that era. Not all necesssarily PC-98, but some are.

Dio said:
Power Slave:





Youjuu Senki - A.D. 2048:



SVC Chaos:



Knights of Xentar:



Samurai Shodown II:



鋼鐵騎士團:



Uchū no Kishi Tekkaman Blade: Orbital Ring Dakkai Sakusen:



Slayers PC-98:



KOF '94:



If you look closely at that one:



If you're reading this, you probably know Akira inspired a shitload of game backgrounds.

Virgin Angel:



Travel Junction:



Sei Shouju Sentai Lakers 3:



Reira:



Red (it's FM TOWNS)







Another shot of Possessioner, which was on the front page:



Nova:


Kaiketsu Nikki:


AmbivalenZ Niritsu Haihan


Angel Halo


Guernica (I adore the floor in this shot)


Liena Crystal


Merry Go Round


Possessioner yet again


Time Stripper Mako-chan


Toumei Ningen


Toushin Toshi 2
Click to expand...
 
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D

Dragoon En Regalia

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ponpo said:
This "aesthetic" is currently quite popular online for some reason. TUMBLRFADGRAFIX
Click to expand...
Data Erase does glitch art using PC-98 eroge as a base. Users like noirlac and fmtownsmarty don't interest me as much anymore because a lot of the stuff they post I've seen while trawling across Japanese Web pages filled with such images.
 
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Dragoon En Regalia

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Pinning the PC-98 as an eroge machine first and foremost isn't wrong, but it's often a means to deflect conversation and investigation surrounding non-erotic games which featured heavily on the platform (and could also have audiovisuals just as worthwhile). Developers that formerly thrived off of eroge actually transitioned into wargames later in the system's life-cycle (ex. Kogado with both Power DoLLS and the space opera Schwarzschild franchise). Long-time standbys like Telenet experimented more with games like The Grail Hunter, Hioden (the first of which got a port to the Super Famicom, and their point-and-click adventure Tokyo Twilight Busters. I can rattle off more of this knowledge anytime, not that it's done me much good yet.

SolVanderlyn said:
Is this the same as the PC Game Engine? Krejlooc wrote up a great post about a DBZ game on the PC Engine that I archived here. I agree that the old school anime look is extremely appealing.
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Definitely not the same platform. There was overlap between the PC Engine and PC-xx development/consumer communities, of course, and the PC-FX was a conscious effort by NEC to bridge the gap more.
 
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Dio

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SolVanderlyn said:
Is this the same as the PC Game Engine? Krejlooc wrote up a great post about a DBZ game on the PC Engine that I archived here. I agree that the old school anime look is extremely appealing.
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No. The PC-88/PC-98 were home computers, the PC Engine was also known as the Turbografx-16 over here and was a home console.

Back on track:

Falcom!
The venerated Xanadu (specifically Scenario II) was remade as Revival Xanadu 2 Remix for PC-98, shots courtesy of Mobygames:



Click to expand...
 
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Krejlooc

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SolVanderlyn said:
Is this the same as the PC Game Engine?
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No, the PC Engine is an NEC console, it's the japanese version of the Turbo Grafx 16.

The PC-98 is the successor to the PC-88, also by NEC. They were desktop computers. The PC-88 used an 8-bit z80 CPU, while the PC-98 used the 16/32 bit x86 cpu. They were the most popular PC in japan in their time, but their popularity never reached the levels that PCs reached in the US, or microcomputers reached in Europe.
 
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CHC

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Yes, an amazing aesthetic indeed. It's also one of those weird eras where so many of the artists seem to have vanished... there's a huge interest / revival of pixel art in the past 5-10 years, but nothing that looks even close to the old PC engine games. I genuinely wonder who did a lot of that work and what they are doing today, and (if adequately paid) they would ever bust out the old skills and do something like it again.
 
SolVanderlyn

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Krejlooc said:
No, the PC Engine is an NEC console, it's the japanese version of the Turbo Grafx 16.

The PC-98 is the successor to the PC-88, also by NEC. They were desktop computers. The PC-88 used an 8-bit z80 CPU, while the PC-98 used the 16/32 bit x86 cpu. They were the most popular PC in japan in their time, but their popularity never reached the levels that PCs reached in the US, or microcomputers reached in Europe.
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Oh, damn. I spent all this time thinking they were the same thing.

Regardless, PC-88 looks really good, and has a nostalgic value to it - judging from the pictures in this thread, anyway.
 
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Tain

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Reminds me that I still gotta try Night Slave.

I'm happy to see that the libraries of older Japanese computer platforms are starting to get a litttttle more recognition these days. If I had more time I'd love to really dig in. I think the last game that I tried and played through was Geograph Seal, but that doesn't really fall under this thread's static high res pixel art premise.

And yeah, these games are gorgeous.
 
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BocoDragon

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Great thread. I love that look. It's everything I think I know: 80s anime and computer games... but I never actually played most of this stuff.
 
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Dragoon En Regalia

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The art for these PC-98 games didn't require super-advanced draftsmanship and technical skills to make. I think the real cleverness most J-PC developers excelled at was scanning and dithering artwork to look more crisp and unique than before, after which point it's possible to also recycle assets in a way that doesn't feel lazy and rushed.

A few random J-PC game summary GIFs I've made in a year's time:



The Great Escape (Daidasso), Carry Lab, FM-7, 1985



Amnork, ASCII (programmed by the creator of Derby Stallion), FM77AV, late 1986



Girly Block, likely Compile (published by Telenet...not Nihon Telenet though!), MSX2, 1987
 
Trojita

Trojita

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Nice pictures so far guys! I'll try and find some more too.
 
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Krejlooc

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Dragoon En Regalia said:
The art for these PC-98 games didn't require super-advanced draftsmanship and technical skills to make. I think the real cleverness most J-PC developers excelled at was scanning and dithering artwork to look more crisp and unique than before, after which point it's possible to also recycle assets in a way that doesn't feel lazy and rushed.
Click to expand...
I think it's a by product of knowing your art is going to be displayed on an RGB monitor rather than an SDTV, and thus they use dithering slightly differently. You see more varied dither patterns instead of pure 50-50 blends like you do in console games.

You see much of the same thing in 16-bit European microcomputers of the time. Amiga art is uniquely blended, but doesn't depend on dithering nearly as much.
 
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Dragoon En Regalia

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Krejlooc said:
I think it's a by product of knowing your art is going to be displayed on an RGB monitor rather than an SDTV, and thus they use dithering slightly differently. You see more varied dither patterns instead of pure 50-50 blends like you do in console games.
Click to expand...
Indeed. Bayer ordered dithering patterns were increasingly popular for PC-98 developers to us, in addition to others. Lots of games have customized dithering of the sort rarely seen in console games from that period because TV machines were built to have better tech rather than the anemic video modes NEC used for the PC-x8 line.
 
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Krejlooc

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Dragoon En Regalia said:
Indeed. Bayer ordered dithering patterns were increasingly popular for PC-98 developers to us, in addition to others. Lots of games have customized dithering of the sort rarely seen in console games from that period because TV machines were built to have better tech rather than the anemic video modes NEC used for the PC-x8 line.
Click to expand...
You see a lot of the same style art in 16-bit european demoscene when the limits of the color pallets became an issue. I have a huge soft spot for this style of art, it takes a real technical expertise to create. Like a perfect meld of technical proficiency and artistic style.
 
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Dio

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To Far Away Times said:
When anime used to look cool.
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It still does, you just need to look a little harder for stuff to your taste since more anime than ever is being produced and people in the States were exposed to what was essentially the best of the best hand picked out of a churning sea of crap, even back in the 80s/90s.
 
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Jazz573

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Many of these games were ported to Windows. Also for the unlucky few in Japan who had an IBM PC, some, and I have to reiterate only SOME, got IBM PC ports (DOS/V, basically Japanese localized IBM PC DOS as opposed to PC-9801 DOS). And if you lived in China or South Korea many were also ported to IBM PC DOS in those languages, and of course some in English.

Mostly the non-vn / eroge had this. Like games from Koei. But a few prominent eroge devs did do this. Referring to the part on DOS/V for clarification.
 
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Dragoon En Regalia

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Krejlooc said:
This game is brilliant when you consider how modern the gameplay feels, and precisely how it was created.
Click to expand...
Worth noting: Furuhata qualifies as a demoscene programmer, routinely sending in his code to Oh! MZ (Oh! X later) Magazine for others to type into their machines and witness. He even made a couple of animated movies using these same graphical primitives, which are impressive to watch and also seem to tell full stories.

Jazz573 said:
I wanna say this is X-Girl from Fairytale Redzone. I've seen my fair share of eroge screens.
Click to expand...
You're correct.
 
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