Japanese personal computer aesthetic is best aesthetic

[Nutmeg]

I was hoping for some tasteful rape somewhere along the way, though.

I think the last game in the series is all rape all the time.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

 

[Clockwork Knight]

ff7 image

Searched for the pic to get context. Rated interesting

In September 1997, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe was preparing to launch Final Fantasy VII in Europe. The following photos were in the European Computer Trade Show kit, an event for the press only. They show a little of Square's facilities during development, illustrations from the conceptual and outreach phase - probably from 1996.

In the first, there are the artist Tetsuya Nomura and Hashimoto, seated, in front of several types of monitor. In the second, designer Takanari Tajima edits a wireframe on his PC; on the table, an initial concept of the character Vincent Valentine, suggesting that perhaps it was what he worked on the screen. In the third, an employee works at one of the hundreds of SGI Indigo² Impact stations that Square acquired for the project (at a cost of US $ 70,000 each), with another simpler PC next to it. Hanging in his cubicle, a Kyorochan mascot.

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

Is this the same game as the others? Because it doesn't look like the same game as the others.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Is this the same game as the others? Because it doesn't look like the same game as the others.

Three different games: Dwelling, Alantia, and Argo.

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

Is this the same game as the others? Because it doesn't look like the same game as the others.

Three different games: Dwelling, Alantia, and Argo.

Good God, Dwelling is obscure, its basically not listed on any major sites, no wonder I had no idea what it was. Looks nice, shame I don't understand the Nip yet. I like the aesthetic the true Japanese adventure games had.

 

[Nutmeg]

It took the idea of an evolution based JRPG and completely subverted all my expectations of what I though it would be.

Gnostic themes seemed really popular in 80s JPC games e.g. XZR, Last Armageddon etc.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Is this the same game as the others? Because it doesn't look like the same game as the others.

Three different games: Dwelling, Alantia, and Argo.

Good God, Dwelling is obscure, its basically not listed on any major sites, no wonder I had no idea what it was. Looks nice, shame I don't understand the Nip yet. I like the aesthetic the true Japanese adventure games had.

Here's a nice little blog where you can find small reviews of a crapton of visual novels from that time. Yes, Dwelling is included as well.

XZR

XZR games deserve attention for the setting alone. Where else do you smoke marijuana to increase your defence, get to see Pythagoras enjoying himself among dancing naked chicks, kill Russian General Secretary and American President, and try to achieve enlightenment with a monk, whose character s based on a sex cult leader whose teachings resulted in mass orgies that were outlawed by Japanese authorities?

I dunno what these Telenet guys were smoking, but I want some of that stuff.

 

[Nutmeg]

Came across this today:

Apparently it was programmed by Compile (one of my favorite developers) for Telenet's The LINKS service. The LINKS was some kind of proprietary Japanese network (seems to be an early internet competitor)

The LINKS was a dial-up service that started in March 1986 and was discontinued in October 1994. It was exclusive to Japan and an initiative of Telenet Japan with investments from Matsushita Electric Industrial Co (currently Panasonic) and Murata Manufacturing Co.

Two models of modems were released. Both have a speed of 1200 bps and are based on the RS-232C protocol, but don't support the RS-232C BASIC instructions.

Was this the first networked fighting game?

 

[shywn]

If anyone else needs help with setup (I know I did) check this out:
https://gang-fight.com/projects/98faq/

Does anyone here know which game that is from? Or does someone here have Twitter and wants to ask the author of the FAQ (PC98_Bot)?

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

If anyone else needs help with setup (I know I did) check this out:
https://gang-fight.com/projects/98faq/

Does anyone here know which game that is from? Or does someone here have Twitter and wants to ask the author of the FAQ (PC98_Bot)?

I asked the guy.

It's Tonight (トゥナイト).

 

[shywn]

I... somehow managed to visit the game's vndb page literally yesterday and didn't make the connection. The art style in that image and the vndb screenshots seems quite different. That must be the reason.

 

[Nutmeg]

Alantia

Very sexy game (love long legged anime girls!). According to HG101, very jank (although you can't always trust HG101 on these things, and also I feel it's wrong to judge early PC games with the same mind set you'd judge e.g. 90s arcade ports), but apparently by the same guys who did Neural Gear (great X68k game) i.e. Fill in Cafe. Also by Fill in Cafe are Mad Stalker (X68k) and Asuka 120% Burning Fest (I don't get why this one seems to be such a cult classic tbh).

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Alantia

Very sexy game (love long legged anime girls!). According to HG101, very jank (although you can't always trust HG101 on these things, and also I feel it's wrong to judge early PC games with the same mind set you'd judge e.g. 90s arcade ports), but apparently by the same guys who did Neural Gear (great X68k game) i.e. Fill in Cafe. Also by Fill in Cafe are Mad Stalker (X68k) and Asuka 120% Burning Fest (I don't get why this one seems to be such a cult classic tbh).

I'm yet to play Alantia, but it's goddamn gorgeous. Mad Stalker... funny thing is, I never played it (despite planning to), but used the executable on floppies to load the ZMUSIC driver along with PCM8 into memory and listen to various things from g0org (these guys along with Kamishimo Records did some nice stuff with the sound on X68000 even if the music itself was mostly techno/gabber/other kinds of electronic stuff). IIRC I had to do this because I couldn't find a working version of PCM8...

 

[abnaxus]

 

[GhostCow]

Lina Inverse, fuck yeah. What game is that? I fucking love Slayers.

 

[flyingjohn]

Lina Inverse, fuck yeah. What game is that? I fucking love Slayers.

Slayers for pc-98.
https://www.mobygames.com/game/slayers_

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

FM-Towns allowed in the party? Btw, I enjoyed knowing the Phantasie series and Rogue Alliance were ported to these machines. And a shout out to Ultima 6 being here as well. The project that resulted later combining the best aspects of U6 was appreciated. Let me not forget the Ultima Trilogy on FM-TOWNS. Interesting content and I enjoyed U1 with large sized town gfx.

 

[Chk991]

Got to love some PC98.

 

[Sranchammer]

Fuck Japan.

 

[abnaxus]

 

[shywn]

Anyone know where to find midi's for these games? I wanna listen to how it sounds like on a mt-32 or roland sound canvas.

What sort of hardware do you have, and do you do recordings?

 

[deama]

Anyone know where to find midi's for these games? I wanna listen to how it sounds like on a mt-32 or roland sound canvas.

What sort of hardware do you have, and do you do recordings?

I use the midiplayer and use the munt extension for it, which allows you to play midi files using the mt-32. As far as I can tell, the munt emulator seems to be pretty accurate, if not the same.

So far I don't have that many, but super metroid's brinstar sounds pretty good, michael jacksons's beat it ain't too bad, the mission impossible intro soundtrack sounds good, rockwell sombody's watching me sounds good and is further emphasized by this ghostly sounding instrument. tears for fears' shout sounds good, and system shock's intro sounds very interesting. I can quickly link you the midi's if you want.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ca6M_MCmEOqNAqDbsu_oSC9EGMoLGFZ2/view?usp=sharing

I wish we went with midi's as the standard for normal music and just made a standardized emulation of a good system or something, that way it would pretty much future proof sound quality as midi's with a good emulator sound fantastic cause the quality isn't dependent on bit rate or anything like that, simply your hardware, which will improve overtime.

 

[Semiurge]

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

Anyone know where to find midi's for these games? I wanna listen to how it sounds like on a mt-32 or roland sound canvas.

The closest thing I can think of is this site. Its not Midi though, its some bizarre file format called VGZ that I couldn't figure out how to convert to midi on my machine. The problem with old games of this era (in the western world even) is that they didn't have a unified format, and there's little point in being the game to crack that small puzzle.