An Intro to Classic Japanese Computer Games
While Japan's biggest wings in the gaming industry are, without a doubt, game centers and home consoles, the home computer scene has a dedicated following of its own, with plenty of cult-classic titles and a lot more creative freedom without publishers or hardware manufacturers controlling their content (for better or for worse).
For English-speaking ludophiles, Japan's classic computer gaming scene is something of a final frontier of obscurity, a wild west that's difficult to parse due to aging hardware never being exported over here, and many titles obviously remaining exclusive to the East, complete with the expected language barrier. This list aims to provide resources to better explore these uncharted waters, along with a sampling menu of quality and historically significant titles. As always, suggestions are welcome.
Project EGG - Japan's equivalent of GOG, with a massive library of classic titles, many of which are available for free -- the pricing model's a bit strange, but you can keep any games you added to your library, even after unsubscribing. Now available on Switch, even in North America!
HG101 - Retro Japanese Computers - An in-depth article explaining the history and hardware of the various systems.
Mindware on Steam - The rad folks at Mindware, led by Micky Albert, have been rereleasing many classic JP computer titles on Steam, often with updated modes that borrow heavily from Namco's masterpiece Pac-Man CE. Give them a look and grab one of their titles if they interest you, they put a lot of love into them and deserve more support for preserving history!
Sharp X68000 Mini by ZUIKI, coming soon - For those that would like to get as close to the original hardware as possible, manufacturer ZUIKI is currently in the process of making a dedicated mini version of Sharp's classic powerhouse, the X68k. It's possible they'll drop more mini systems after, so stay tuned!
Kou Shibusawa Archives: All-in-One - Koei have let the floodgates loose, going all the way back to their original, independent titles that Kou Shibusawa built his empire on. Don't let that price tag intimidate you, you can obviously buy the games separately and there are smaller bundles as well. No English support sadly!
For English-speaking ludophiles, Japan's classic computer gaming scene is something of a final frontier of obscurity, a wild west that's difficult to parse due to aging hardware never being exported over here, and many titles obviously remaining exclusive to the East, complete with the expected language barrier. This list aims to provide resources to better explore these uncharted waters, along with a sampling menu of quality and historically significant titles. As always, suggestions are welcome.
Project EGG - Japan's equivalent of GOG, with a massive library of classic titles, many of which are available for free -- the pricing model's a bit strange, but you can keep any games you added to your library, even after unsubscribing. Now available on Switch, even in North America!
HG101 - Retro Japanese Computers - An in-depth article explaining the history and hardware of the various systems.
Mindware on Steam - The rad folks at Mindware, led by Micky Albert, have been rereleasing many classic JP computer titles on Steam, often with updated modes that borrow heavily from Namco's masterpiece Pac-Man CE. Give them a look and grab one of their titles if they interest you, they put a lot of love into them and deserve more support for preserving history!
Sharp X68000 Mini by ZUIKI, coming soon - For those that would like to get as close to the original hardware as possible, manufacturer ZUIKI is currently in the process of making a dedicated mini version of Sharp's classic powerhouse, the X68k. It's possible they'll drop more mini systems after, so stay tuned!
Kou Shibusawa Archives: All-in-One - Koei have let the floodgates loose, going all the way back to their original, independent titles that Kou Shibusawa built his empire on. Don't let that price tag intimidate you, you can obviously buy the games separately and there are smaller bundles as well. No English support sadly!
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This list got me looking into how many J-PC games are even cataloged on IGDB. Definitely not enough! So I'll be adding as many relevant ones as I can find media for, stuff like Bouken Roman (Dota) and Sword of Kumdor. I also hadn't really tried Uootoy until now, so thank you for highlighting it. The Mindware release looks very exciting!
Couple corrections for the list:
-Square only published Thexder on MSX and Famicom, the platforms they made ports for. Game Arts developer and self-published the other J-PC versions, so I feel leading that blurb with them, then Square & Sierra (DOS), would work best.
-"Bose Tech" doesn't fit the company's own logo, even if that's the kana. I'd change that to Bothtec so it matches the company profile.
Couple corrections for the list:
-Square only published Thexder on MSX and Famicom, the platforms they made ports for. Game Arts developer and self-published the other J-PC versions, so I feel leading that blurb with them, then Square & Sierra (DOS), would work best.
-"Bose Tech" doesn't fit the company's own logo, even if that's the kana. I'd change that to Bothtec so it matches the company profile.
Thank you for the corrections! Revised the blurbs for Thexder and Relics
PasokonDeacon
1 year ago