Sometimes I wish I was fluent enough in Japanese to play these games that never got translated to English. Opens up a whole treasure trove of old games.
I feel like half the time I discover an interesting Japanese retro game, it turns out it was translated back in the day, and the other half of the time an English translation is announced before I play it. I still like playing Japanese games in Japanese, but honestly I feel like Japanese reading comprehension is more useful for accessing guides than games lol Anyway, best way to get better at gaming in Japanese is to do it.
@@SwiftJustice If your first language is a non-Korean East Asian language, then sure. If it's English, this couldn't be any less true. Japanese is one of the hardest non-tonal languages to learn for native English speakers; it has _three_ completely different writing systems and next to no shared vocabulary, which is what really makes the biggest difference. For English speakers, the easiest languages will be Dutch and Frisian, as those are closest to English (well, Esperanto too, but y'know). The farther you go in terms of shared vocabulary, the harder it will be. Grammar only takes so long to pick up, and honestly, so do tones. Vocabulary is the deciding factor of how many hours it takes to achieve fluency.
Blue's Sister from Pokemon: "Oh, you're going adventuring like my brother? Here's a map! :)" Suspender's Sister: "I don't care if you have money; I ain't selling you jack shit >:/"
The gold mine puzzles are certainly derived from dB-SOFT's once notable Flappy series, an early variation on Sokoban (predating Eggerland/Adventures of Lolo for example). A lot of the other influences here come from the usual suspects: Ys for the general style, Hydlide for the emphasis on obscure puzzles & items/memories, and maybe some classic text adventures if we're considering the memory softlocks. Druaga's shadow looms over this pretty hard, too, given the emphasis on replays to figure out every secret and optimize the day count. It's not without its problems, but Melroon was one of the most ambitious games dB-SOFT made, right towards their pivot away from games too. A day/night cycle, multi-genre adventuring, quick game loop, excellent audiovisuals, and a radically new second half-all cool stuff. Melroon's the quirkier, less polished counterpart to Micro Cabin's Xak from that year, both iterating on the J-PC ARPGs preceding them but with unique characteristics. A few ex-dB-SOFT developers interviewed in The Untold History of Japanese Game Developers had much to say about Melroon. It's clear this was a passion project for them, more than just a cash-in like the company's Macadamia Soft brand at the time (ex. 177). 1989 saw a lot of similar games for PC-88, pushing the old system to its limits right on the cusp of moving on to PC-98 & consoles.
Cute.. I believe that glove hat / beanie thing.. s'gotta be a reference to the troubled live action Dr. Suess film from the 50's, called "The 5,000 fingers of Dr. T" ... hundreds of children are enslaved in an outlandish nightmare land, forced into eternal piano lessons or something crazy.. but anyway all the kids wear hats just like that.
Holy fuck I thought you were pulling my leg with the "Jim Suspender" name, but then I saw the katakana for his sister's name is "Melamy Suspender" ROFL
I love these videos. I've never owned any of these Japanese computers or even heard of them until recently but watching these videos make me feel very nostalgic for some reason. Anyway, thanks for making them.
I appreciate the work you put into these videos. I've messed around with PC-88/98 emulation but I don't know enough Japanese to really play and enjoy a story-heavy game like this. It's cool to get a sort of guided tour through the games I missed out on.
Those rock-pushing puzzles have got to be based on Flappy, which was dB-Soft's flagship series and their biggest cash cow. Apart from that, the general art style seems very similar to Woody Poco. I have to admit, with the exception of Produce I haven't played any dB-Soft games too much, but this one looks interesting, I might have to give it a shot some day!
@@Andrew_Erickson Hardly a bad fate. Flappy was the first major variation on Sokoban in its era, so it's been fondly remembered. Other dB-SOFT classics like Volguard, Woody Poco, & Produce are well established in the Japanese PC game canon.
Yeah, the rock pushing mechanic is very similar to Flappy. Very good point. The Melroon puzzles still feel very different from Flappy since you can only move left and right (unless there is a ladder) and the goal is to collect the gold and get out rather than move a rock to a certain spot. Thanks.
The real tragedy here is that the relative obscurity of the game prevented Jim Suspender from taking his rightful place in the pantheon of all-time great video game antagonists.
All these PC-88 games use a lot of checker patterns and vertical stripes, hallmarks of pixel art tricks to utilize the horizontal blurring to create new colors on old CRTs especially those using composite cables. Do you know if it would have been common at the time for PC-88 users to be using composite TVs or monitors? The HD captures are great for RU-vid, but I would love to see what some of these games would look like on an old TV/Monitor.
These games were built with RGB monitors in mind. To be fair, you'd still see some blending, enough to create color gradations without ruining font legibility. Developers had to keep the latter in mind at all times even while working with these J-PCs' higher resolution modes.
@@DragoonEnRegalia You're right, they don't need composite to take advantage of color blending, even a RGB CRT will blend a bit. But PC-88 games use so much vertical dithering (and 80s Japanese PCs are so unknown to me), I figured maybe they were also composite monitors. Thanks for the info.
All these types of games really need is some quest/hint cohesion tweeking, and some other basic quality of life features, and a modern release would be great!
what a wild and weird sounding game! shame about a lot of those older PC titles having the thing where you could get softlocked and have to start all over. but otherwise some neat ideas in this one!
I really love watching these videos. I'm probably never going to play any of these games and have no nostalgia for this era but it's cool to see how older games from somewhere else in the world were
Its interesting that this game is both easy and easy to screw yourself over in. Would've liked to play this on a system I had (console). Personality is so great in this, I could've seen it on master system as well. Looks like a fun play thru (with guide)!
I want a Working Designs translation of this game immediately. Just imagine all the crazy things that the dude would say after having that 16-ton weight dropped on his head!!!!
I have zero nostalgia for these games because i never had the system but i do miss that era and all it had to offer... such simpler time. Anyways ive been following for a few months now and these games you present would have been gems for me had i played them.
Was the PC-88 more popular than the MSX line? Wild that we only ever seem to hear about the MSX series here in the west; then again, it has the backing of Konami.
It's kind of hard to compare. The two occupied very different segments of the market, with the MSX being the budget line of computers for home use that could be connected to a TV, and the PC-88 being purchased instead by businesses as well as the serious home computer user. If comparing to the US, the MSX would be the equivalent of something like commodore and PC-88 would be the IBM compatible.
I can see why this game has fans, sure the obstacle solutions are cryptic but it definitely has a charm to it's story and graphics. I might compare this to Clash at Demonhead or Popful Mail in some respects. I don't mind environmental to physical simulations if the balance is good Eg. Minecraft, mainly with old examples the bars empty too fast and they tend to not distribute resources in a logical manner, or as you found "walking dead" situations. Really nice pixel art, often with 640x240 1:2X pixels so many struggle with not making everything look overly gritty and noisy. Some great techniques that make everything look as sharp & clean as possible.
@@BasementBrothers I tried to get through the SCD PM many times but it has a weird difficulty curve, there's this one spot that's tough to get past in the first third where if you get past it then things get much easier apparently. I enjoyed my time with it but never finished it.😞 Oh sure I didn't mean exactly alike, like at times Melroon had me thinking of StarTropics but not as a carbon copy.😏
Actually, come to think of it. The way the character can face upward and shoot in the sideview parts is kind of like Popful Mail. :) Thanks for watching.
@@BasementBrothers even more reason. I like reviewers who have the same skills as I do (none), or at least a bit more, fumble thru games, and not savants.
I've thought a lot about attempting Xanadu. I'm just concerned that I won't be able to do the game justice if I can't get very far into the game. I should make another attempt someday.
The whole memory thing is just absurd -- couldn't they have thought of a way not to include game blocks in this? There's no way on earth I'd attempt to play this musty relic. There *are* good retro games, but this is just not worth the pain.
0:40 eh? Those Japanese gamers aren't wearing rose tinted nostalgia goggles, they just happened to be alive and in Japan at the time the game was published, and enjoyed playing it. What right do you have to denigrate them?
The question I was asking is central to the video, concerning the quality of the game. As an old time gamer myself I truly meant no disrespect. We all have games that we enjoyed at the time they were published that maybe weren't all that great in hindsight. I think there is no need to read so far into my wording of "rose-tinted nostalgia goggles".
Those designs for the big animals/monsters are sooo cute! I always feel its a shame when games like this have super cute character designs for things that basically are just enemies you kill and can never join your party or anything.
That pic you're referring to was actually a pic I took in order to sell that lot of games on Yahoo auctions. I'm pretty sure I sold all those that were in that box and no longer have them. Just wasn't much of a fan of Rance... from what I played back then anyway. Kind of a shame I guess since that was 20 years ago and it probably goes for a lot more now.
