Ever played a PC-98 series game?

NEC launched this series in 1982, just one year after the PC-88, and supported both concurrently for a long time.

Unlike the PC-88, the PC-98 was very PC-like, though not initially compatible with PC software, with an Intel processor, 128KB of RAM, floppy drives, and similar system architecture. A custom video card allowed 640x400 resolution (up from the PC-88's 640x200), which was enormous in 1982, albeit at only 8 colors. For comparison, the best equipped IBM PCs at the time could do 320x200 at 16 colors, or 720x350 in monochrome, and needed different hardware adapters and different displays for that. The PC-98's high resolution was important for rendering legible Japanese text, and having some color support was a big benefit to games, which often used dithering to simulate better color depth.

Like IBM, NEC offered new and improved models each year. By 1986, the PC-98 had a 286 processor, 3.5" floppies, 1MB of RAM, and 16 color support, which still surpassed IBM's EGA, due to a 4096 color palette, and also because 640x400 resolution was standard and widely supported, while most PC games remained at 320x200 even though EGA and VGA were capable of going higher.

By 1990, VGA was common in PC compatibles, which could easily match the PC-98's 640x400 16-color mode, or do 320x200 at 256 colors, and could switch modes on the fly. Also around this time, IBM released DOS/V, a DOS variant that could render Japanese text on these machines and run international software. The PC-98 was losing its advantage over PCs, and cost more to boot.

The 1992 model had 640x480 at 256 colors, which was equivalent to the most basic SVGA resolution. Other specs included a 386SX processor, 40MB hard drive, 1X CD-ROM, and 4MB of RAM, all of which was a bit to a lot out of date compared to the competition, which included the FM Towns, Sharp X68000, and numerous IBM PC compatibles. The system still had a dominant market share, but it was waning. NEC would partner with Microsoft to make a PC-98 compatible version of Windows 95, but this further eroded the system's relevance, as customers did not need a PC-98 to use Windows software. At this point, the PC-98 series just begins to look like another PC compatible, and it's not interesting to follow its specs until its final model in 2000, essentially a budget Celeron.

Thanks to its early market share, the system (like the PC-88) got a very large library of Japanese games, most of which are obscure outside of Japan, but some notable titles became better known through ports to other systems. KOEI is probably the most prolific developer of widely ported PC-98 games.

Select PC-98 titles:
A-Train
Dragon Knight 4
Genghis Khan
Knights of Xentar
Liberty or Death
Policenauts
Power Dolls
Princess Maker 1&2
Romance of the Three Kingdoms III: Dragon of Destiny
Romance of the Three Kingdoms IV: Wall of Fire
Uncharted Waters: New Horizons

Not listed are the numerous PC-88 games that were ported to PC-98.

(it's also the platform of origin of the Touhou Project series, but the early PC-98 entries are not well known and were never ported)

The standard high resolution mode also made it the system of choice for visual novels, including several notorious hentai games that got ported and localized over the years. Among them are:
Amy's Fantasies
Desire
EVE Burst Error
Fatal Relations
Gloria
Immoral Study 1&2
Nocturnal Illusion
Paradise Heights 1&2
Runaway City
Season of the Sakura
Three Sisters' Story
True Love

Juts ports like Princess Maker and Policenauts.

I do own Ys III, but have no official way of playing it. It did come with a bunch of goodies:

https://i.imgur.com/4kBrCo8.jpg

The cranky hermit posted...

(it's also the platform of origin of the Touhou Project series, but the early PC-98 entries are not well known and were never ported)

That's how i heard of it in the first place. I ended up emulating these and a bunch of other games at one point.

I've played Uncharted Waters: New Horizons, Power Dolls, and Princess Maker 2 before.

A few more things worth mentioning:

The PC-98 was the most popular PC platform in Japan during the 20th century, selling more than 18 million units in the country by 1999. Its peak years were in the late '80s (when it was replacing the PC-88 as a gaming platform) and early '90s (up until the arrival of Windows '95), coinciding with the 16-bit era of consoles.

The PC-98 was one of the trinity of 16/32-bit Japanese computers of the late '80s to early '90s, along with the Sharp X68000 and FM Towns. The PC-98's hardware was the weakest of the three, but it had the largest game library of the three.

The full extent of the PC-98's software library isn't entirely known (at least in the English-speaking world), but the following English database lists around 4000-5000 games, the vast majority of which were exclusive to Japan:

http://fullmotionvideo.free.fr/screen/!index.html

The only pc-98 games I'd ever be interested in are some of the space shooters. The rest are platformers/action games that run at 15 fps or porn games.

Blaqthourne posted...

Without a full list of games originating on it, I'm voting Never.

Not sure if it's a complete list, but the following database lists around 4000-5000 games for the PC-98:

http://fullmotionvideo.free.fr/screen/entitle.html

Skyway_Corsair posted...

The only pc-98 games I'd ever be interested in are some of the space shooters. The rest are platformers/action games that run at 15 fps or porn games.

The PC-98 library covers most genres up until the mid-90s. A genre breakdown from the same site:

http://fullmotionvideo.free.fr/screen/genre.html

Blaqthourne posted...

I started looking at that on your first post, but it's simply a database of titles released on it. I didn't see any designation of whether the games originated on the system or not.

Oh, I must've missed the "originated" part.