@“Pasokon Deacon”#p104313 Thanks! Gotta check that during the next holidays.
The news escaped most people’s attention due to the world events at the time – namely people arguing over the Internet about the ethics of time travel cheating in Animal Crossing New Horizons and laying down the proper social conventions for Zoom meetings – but [a remake of First Queen came out on Steam](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1277320/FirstQueen1_NEXT/) in June 2020. That remake was titled **FirstQueen1 NEXT** and featured a (slightly awkward) English translation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUVg5YvMMG8
First Queen is a [seminal strategy game originally released on the PC-98](https://www.amusement-center.com/project/egg/cgi/ecatalog-detail.cgi?contcode=7&product_id=729) in 1988; that’s the same year as Famicom Wars, Master of Monsters and Hanjuku Hero, to give a frame of reference. A shorthand description would be "RTS meets Pikmin in a Heroic Fantasy setting", I guess?
There has been a bunch of First Queen sequels (disappointingly _not_ titled Second Queen, Third Queen, etc.) and even [an earlier Super Famicom remake](https://youtu.be/LRuAvFEIu5c) of the original game which some might argue looks better than this new one.
Anyway! The first queen gets a second chance today as [it releases on Nintendo Switch with a pretty friendly price.](https://store-jp.nintendo.com/list/software/70010000060487.html) Apparently, this directly follows a port to smartphones released just a few days ago.
I am not entirely sure whether FirstQueen1 NEXT will also come out on the Western eShops (which typically update a few hours later in the week) but a good, nay, very good omen is that the Japanese version already includes the English translation and an IARC rating.
[[size=16]Please enjoy the light operability of the game machine![/size]](http://www.kuresoft.net/eng/index.html)
With how much the media frenzies around every last little thing, it‘s pretty sad seeing how little is being said about the X68000Z. I guess it’s because the Hacker‘s Edition and Early Access kit are so extremely exclusive to select Japanese residents only, it just hasn’t been possible for any english-speakers to get their hands on one. Which is super weird, because I think a single youtube video would boost demand a significant amount, lol.
The demand for these products is primarily driven by a desire for a curated selection of popular games, which the X68000 Z explicitly does not offer right now—the intended mass-released version will lean more in that direction, but Zuiki seems more interested in selling single-game SD cards for ¥6000 a pop than trying to showcase the X68000 software library in a broad and accessible way. Even in Japanese game dork circles, the buzz is exclusively coming from diehards who never stopped tinkering with X68000, basically, and even a lot of them don't actually own the thing or see the point in owning one.
The other thing to remember is that the audience for these things is super console-centric, and even the far-more-familiar "mini" takes on Amiga, C64, ZX, etc haven't gained nearly as much mainstream buzz as they perhaps ought've.
I just started skimming the surface of what PC98 is all about as a result of digging down into as many Japanese psx simulation games’ roots as I can and often finding the real origins are of course on there. I’m absolutely thrilled to find that there are so many buried tubers down here that never germinated to sprout on the console-world surface. This will be a long road and I’m gonna enjoy exploring.
A very impressive Spanish port of Makaimura / Ghost ‘n’ Goblins for the MSX using the GFX9000 graphics card expansion. (Here it is more specifically using a V9990 Powergraph from 2016.)
https://youtu.be/G4U_oBQ05bA
The port was released in 2020 by ASM. Here is a longer playthrough.
I‘ve always had a fascination with the PC-98 after being stunned by its beautiful sprites. What are the must-play games on the system? I’m okay with anything text heavy. I need to challenge myself to read a game in Japanese as someone studying.
The December 1995 issue of Soft Bank’s Oh!X Magazine, which targeted X68k enthusiasts, came with a set of four 5" floppy disks named Merry Xmas PRO-68. One of the disks included Sion IV, this impressive 3D shooter developed almost entirely by Yamada Junji, one of their staff writers.
https://youtu.be/8gUKh4_Tywc
All Sion games used a 3D Graphics library called MAGIC, originally created by Arsys Software, ex-Tecnosoft developers who would gain fame for the development of Star Cruiser before becoming one of the pioneer developers in 3D console development. They notably helped on the first Ace Combat for the PlayStation, as well as the original Gran Turismo.
The version of MAGIC used by the Oh!X writing/developing staff was ported to the X68000 through their own efforts, and largely the work of Kageyama Hiroaki, who is currently providing support on the X68000 Z project.
Interestingly, there are only three Sion games. The project meant to be Sion III was eventually canceled mid-development.
@“HeavenlyHalberd”#p115030 I’ve always had a fascination with the PC-98 after being stunned by its beautiful sprites. What are the must-play games on the system?
tl;dr they just launched "EGG Console", a series of single-purchase ￥880 releases for Switch, starting with eternal EGG launch title Relics; they're sticking with PC-8801 reissues in the short term, with plans to work towards MSX and PC-98, and they already have several of their regular license partners on board and hope to attract more. There's a list of confirmed PC-88 games in the above post, and it seems Thexder and Silpheed are imminent.
The emulation suite and frontend's basically the same as the one seen in the recent Valis/Cosmic Fantasy/Telenet Shooting Collections, for those who've played those: you get save states, button mapping, slow-mo/fast-forward settings, scanned manuals, etc plus a scene gallery... no keyboard support of any kind, as far as I can tell.
I'm mostly glad this exists because PC EGG is kinda ass, both technically and in terms of convenience and value for money, so being able to point people to no-bullshit one-offs is going to be so much more convenient than half-heartedly pretending the subscription service is worth entertaining.
https://tcrf.net/images/thumb/0/0c/Sex_2_%28PC-98%29-title.png/320px-Sex_2_%28PC-98%29-title.png