As far as PC-98 action games go, this is definitely one of the better ones. It's got some irritating input lag and some balancing goofs, but Rami (Lammy?) has a versatile moveset and ranged/AOE attacks to compensate. The worst part by far, though, is that dreadfully shallow, repetitive soundtrack. Softec's had better BGM in their other games, which makes the 7800 yen pricetag for Usagi na Panic just that much more frustrating.
Whoa, this is giving some real popful mail vibes over here. that sword swing delay looks brutal though, as do those trap puzzles while you've got floaty jumps. yikes.
They might have done an Easter holiday wallpaper or something before, but yeah, it's a great op-pun-tunity waiting to happen.
@exodus#1018 Not so yikes when you get used to it. It's definitely a game to try after the usual PC-98 action recommendations, like Rusty or Night Slave or anything Brandish.
I've been dipping back into Windows9x games, this time of the Compile variety:
Started Usagi na Panic the other day because of your twitter post @PasokonDeacon. It‘s been fun following your twitter and this thread for things to look out for on PC88/98. I was beginning to wonder if it was my raspberry pi 3b+ or if Usagi was just outright sluggish with input controls. Still haven’t tested it on a more powerful machine yet, as it seems like the 3b+ kinda struggles with a lot of PC98 games in general (especially Night Slave).
One game I've really been enjoying a lot of on the 98 is Briganty: The Roots of Darkness. The fighting in it is really satisfying for how simple it is. Seems to have copy protection at the beginning, asking (in a random order) what page in the manual certain things are on, but the version I grabbed goes to the title screen if you just hit enter a lot without worrying about the answers. Wondering if that's a hack, or just poor implementation (sometimes it will just kick me back into the home screen/command line).
@JJSignal#1060 Some games definitely have more input lag than one would think, or just don‘t play ball with emulators like they would on real machines. I’ll definitely have to try Usagi na Panic on a 9821Ce2 when I get the chance.
Re: Briganty, that's likely some kind of copy protection crack. The game dump, among many others, likely came from Perfect Dark, a highly-encrypted Japanese P2P network that's proven to evade surveillance by national cyber-sec authorities. (It's very slow and limited in functionality, but it gets the job done!) Anyone trading pirated PC games over PD would likely have cracked it beforehand, hence the bugs when moving in and out of the manual prompts. Commercial/preserved floppy copies would prove or disprove this, or maybe just a simple look into a hex editor to spot any suspicious strings.
Briganty looks real good! I think it‘s the intentionality of the combat that makes it work for me. you have to commit to your attacks and time them, but it looks responsive enough for you to feel like any miss is your fault. I want to try it!! I guess this is where I’m gonna have to start emulating.
Also through the PC-98 bot I just found out about the RPG Kuro no Ken. I particularly like the battle scenes, so I'll link one here. Big sprites! Plenty of animation! Wish this was on the FMT tooooooo
Emulation really is quite easy and accurate these days, even for tasks that use to take altogether too much effort (ex. PC-98 CD games).
Speaking of FM Towns, I'm not sure if you have a copy of Azure (which is likely on the rare side compared to other FM Towns games), but it's one of the more interesting action exclusives from this period.
I‘ll admit I didn’t know about Azure until you mentioned it earlier in the thread, but I‘m a sucker for any kind of superscaler so I really want to have it now… but if it’s pricey I might settle for an ISO.
I'm not anti-emulation at all, I just don't like playing games on my dang computer! Which is probably another reason I wound up with an fm towns marty instead of an x68000 or similar.
I realize MSX2 games are a bit old-hat for a big chunk of my audience, but I find it important to revisit the lesser known but contextually important ones, like this 1991 mini-game from Compile Disc Station #25.
Wonderland of Carbuncle, simple as it is, represents the start of the company gradually replacing their classic mascot, Randar, with an up-and-comer who would represent the company and its style up to today.
@exodus#1110 Those sprites really are amazing. Just so gorgeous.
@PasokonDeacon#1112 I really like the look of Azure, but I can't tell - are you controlling the movement, and it's really that fast, or is it on rails? Either way, that seems like such a speedy pace it would be incredibly hard to keep up with anything.
@James-#1151 The only section where you can control your movement is during the dungeon-crawler sections, one of which you see in the showcase. Other segments are all on rails, meaning you‘re forced to react that quick. Couple that with a lack of alternate controls (cursor key-only, so no lightgun/trackball for me!) and you have a rather…difficult game. My next showcase will highlight a game I can recommend without caveats, that’s for sure.
And yeah, real life carbuncles are nasty. I wouldn't wish one of those on my worst enemy.
I've long been fascinated with Artdink's sim-game work from the late '80s and early '90s, with Tokio reaching the top of my list for translating to English. It's such a consummate, innovative, and forward-thinking city builder, with amazing audiovisuals for the platform and a lot of replayability. Shame, then, that it's faded into the past and never been revisited by basically anyone. Is making city builders set on orbital O'Neill cylinders that much of a turn-off?
I know Gundam is the main cultural influence in Japan for this cool setting, but it would be interesting to track down which video games, in addition to TOKIO and the many many many adaptations of Gundam, have used this as a background. I remember Policenauts, Lagrange Point, R-Type Tactics and Star Fox Zero off the top of my head. I am sure a lot of shmups have used it as well. I guess the Halo from Halo counts as one? (I am not very familiar with Halo.)
Halo mainly features ringworlds, though it may have O'Neill cylinders lying around somewhere–just not as a focal point.
The other main Japanese game featuring Island Three colonies would be Platinum's Vanquish, where you're basically shooting up the innards of one. And, of course, Tokio has a sequel for PC-98 and Windows which I'll eventually cover.
Wow, the perspective on that Tokio game is wild!! It almost looks like a thing where the perspective looked messed up when it was proper, so they flipped it and decided to put it in space, ha ha.
I'm sure lots of shooters use this sort of space as a background but I can't pinpoint any - maybe psychic storm? I also have a recollection of some prerendered thing where a full city was rotating around you. hmm.