If you don't continue this series I will literally DIE. There is so little info in English about early Japanese computer games and even fewer fan translations, it is kinda mind boggling that more people haven't tapped into this.
Wow, happy to hear you love it that much, but that's a lot of pressure, and this channel takes a lot of work. I don't want your blood on my hands. Make sure you tell all the gamers you know about this channel to increase our subs!
Y'know, as someone who doesn't know much about old japanese computers and consoles, I really appreciate all the history lessons you give in these videos!
I absolutely love this insight into RPGs that would otherwise completely fly past most non-native speakers, and I'm absolutely going to attempt to play the PCE version of Burai II when I feel a little more confident in my ability to read it. I'm glad that small, experimental games like this are being remembered and presented to new audiences because it feels like a dying art as the medium "matures" and genre conventions get more and more entrenched with every passing decade.
I think it's somewhat appropriate that Hayate and Lillian can only unlock their ultimate abilities by "time traveling" back to the beginning of their journey. After all, we're told their journey is only beginning at the end of the game.
Well, well. Found myself a new classic games deep diver channel. Great video, and informative as all get-out! I look forward to your new videos and to going through all the archives.
Found the channel due to Falcom related content and the PC-88 Paradise and now the PC-98 Paradise series are things I actively look forward to everytime there is a new upload. Looking forward to the next one.
So cool, I love looking into these older systems and the hidden gems on them, thank you so much for sharing this with us. Excited for more in the future!
Great video sequel. I couldn't play these ones because if the language barrier, so it was great to know Burai by your videos. It would be great to see a remake of these games nowadays.
Great video as usual. I love the artwork in these old PC-88 and PC-98 games. Yes, the console ports run smoother but man, the detail is beautiful. Thanks again for putting the spotlight on these obscure games.
Ahh! A new NEC microcomputer vid. LOVE IT. While this game isn't the best.. I enjoy hearing you chat through its paces, walking through the story haha. The authentic, original packaging, and hardware.. I love seeing this as someone who didn't grow up with any of this like so many in the west. Awesome! Keep it coming!
These classic Japanese PC RPGs absolutely fascinate me. They are so much more interesting, and tried to do different things, compared to modern games with their tired stereotypes and tropes.
Yes you are correct. I grew up on jrpgs..the extreme difficulty levels and slow grinding. It's a shame modern rpgs don't use this formula anymore. I guess they think nowaday kids don't have the patience to engage into these type of games
A fan of the art cover box that retro style 80s anime always awesome to see. To bad not much Japanese anime have that kind of style anymore or barely do nowadays...
@@justman4891 This isn't correct. It's all about finding the enemy that's quick to kill and reward good to great exp. It has nothing to do with difficulty because once you gain a few levels that you need, whatever was curbstomping you is now being destroyed by you.
I love this channel. So much retro gaming content just retreads the same games over and over but here's something I had never heard of and likely won't ever play (I mean frankly it doesn't look that appealing). Much more interesting than the millionth Mario Brothers 3 retrospective.
Darn, too bad there aren't more English translations of PC-88 & 98 games. I really like the pc-88 & 98 gaming library and watching the Dead of Brain walkthrough was a kook...I mean a hoot.
Thanks so much for your effort and really love to this hidden gems. Through your videos i can learn about this amazing RPG stories that i could never play. I love your content, keep it up!! Greetings!!
Golvellius for MSX? I might review some MSX games in the future but it's not on my immediate list at the moment. The MSX and Master System versions are both good in their own right I would say.
If you don't mind a random interloper answering this question for you, I've played both the MSX1 and MSX2 Golvellius games, as well as Super Cooks (which you can think of kind of like the Parodius to Golvellius' Gradius) -- though I have NOT played the Master System game. I can tell you, though, that the MSX1 game is definitely the worst-looking of the bunch (unsurprisingly), and the controls are also a little slippery -- no diagonal movement, and you'll sometimes find yourself accidentally moving a direction you didn't intend to depending on the sensitivity of your controller. However, despite that, the MSX1 version is also my preferred version due to its completely open world. Unlike the MSX2 version and Super Cooks, the MSX1 version more or less has a full interconnected Zelda-style overworld to explore, with something hidden on literally every screen. The MSX2 version kind of tries to duplicate this, but because each area has to be loaded from disk separately, it kind of feels like it has "stages." You can go back to earlier areas if you want, but until the very end of the game (when you actually have access to the last 2 or 3 stages at the same time and are forced to backtrack a bit to solve some puzzles and advance forward), you pretty much never have to -- once you've completed an area, you can put it behind you for good and move on to the next. The MSX2 version does look and sound spectacular, though (and play spectacularly as well, as it introduces diagonal movement!), with graphics more akin to the Master System version (but slightly better), as well as FM music. And it's still an absolute blast to play -- it just doesn't have that same overwhelming sense of exploration as the MSX1 version, since you rarely ever feel like you have a whole world to search for whatever you're looking for. Super Cooks, then, is even more linear than MSX2 Golvellius, as it's strictly divided into 6 areas that you CANNOT backtrack from -- once you've completed one area, you permanently move on to the next. So all exploration and puzzle-solving occurs within the current area only, no exceptions. However, on a technical level, Super Cooks is the series' best entry by far. Not only do you get four different weapons (a frying pan, salt and pepper shakers, a burner, and... I actually forget what the fourth one is, as it's been a while!), but each one also has an item crash-esque special move you can unlock for it that you'll use both for combat and for exploration (the burner's special move, IIRC, allows it to melt ice blocks and access new areas, for example). And then on top of that, the side-scrolling stages actually allow you to (gasp!) FACE LEFT!! Imagine that! ;) They also function a bit differently from Golvellius' side-scrolling stages, as each one has a certain item you're trying to find, and the stage will simply loop endlessly until you find it. You're also asked to pick only one of your four weapons to take into the side-scrolling stage with you, so you can make the game easier or harder on yourself with a bit of trial and error or foreknowledge. All three MSX games are great, but ironically, the MSX2 Golvellius is probably my least favorite of the three, simply because it lacks the open-world exploration of the MSX1 game, but also lacks the extra polish, gameplay elements, and humor of Super Cooks. I'm curious where the Master System game fits in. AFAIK, it too is kind of split up into distinct areas, but perhaps not to as great an extent as the MSX2 game, since the Master System game didn't have disk loading to contend with. But yeah, if you get a chance, I do recommend all of the MSX entries -- and if you can only play one, probably make it Super Cooks, because Super Cooks is just a highly underrated and totally insane experience that no fan of Golvellius could possibly dislike. ;)
@@Wyrdwad Ah, excellent, thank you for that! You should totally consider turning your LP's into actual reviews with that level of passion! Sega had a thing for snapping up the rights to Japanese MSX titles Etc. possibly as they had slim pickings after Nintendo's rather Monopolistic demands of publishers, but it meant we got to play some games that would have never seen the light of day in the west otherwise! (Also just dropped you a sub :D)
@@Larry Hey, thanks! I don't actually record most of what I play, or at least hadn't been until recently. I do have some possible review video ideas for the future, though, which is why I've been recording so much lately -- I really want to introduce people to some of the MSX's hidden gems, possibly starting with a game that gets a really bad rap: the MSX version of Castlevania, which is IMHO a far superior take on the game than the NES original. I figure if I'm going to start reviewing MSX games, I should start off with a nice hot take to get people's attention -- but I also do genuinely consider it a better game than its NES counterpart, and I'm fully prepared to go into exhaustive detail as to why! ;) Heheh. So, I guess maybe look forward to that sometime, if I ever get off my lazy ass and actually finish recording everything for it.
@@Wyrdwad Very excited to see you doing videos for MSX soft. Those games get touched on in videos here and there, but never at the level of depth I've read from you before. Definitely keep me in touch!
Awesome to see you branching out to PC-98, and also really cool to learn more about Burai II. Good to know the MSX2 version of it I own is... pretty much unquestionably the worst, I guess? Heheh. I owned a PC-98 for a while, and bought a number of games for it, but didn't really play it much due to the fact that I could only really get it working on the tiny CRT monitor I had, but my 42-year-old eyes aren't really very adept at dealing with a display that small. ;) I've since returned the PC-98 to the friend who initially gave it to me, and shifted my retro PC focus back to the MSX exclusively. But! I did at least spend enough time with PC-98 to recommend a few games. I didn't really play MUCH of any of them, mind you -- and didn't beat a single one -- but a few of the games that interested me, and which I think may interest you as well, include: - Dragon Half Based on the manga and anime OAV, this is a really nice-looking and nice-sounding RPG from the almighty Microcabin! The little bit I played of it was super fun and extremely charming, and as expected of Microcabin, it looked, sounded, and played superbly across the board, with all the polish and attention to detail you'd expect from them. The best thing about this game, though, is that it's dirt cheap for some reason! I bought two copies of it -- one for me, and one for a friend -- and both were under 1,000 yen for a nearly mint condition complete-in-box copy. Definitely one that's worth checking out, I think! - Robo Crush 98 This is a bit of a selfish recommendation, as I really just want to know more about this game -- I did own it, but I owned it on 3.5" disk, while my PC-98 had 5.25" drives, and I didn't have any real means of writing 5.25" disks, so I only ever managed to very briefly check this out on my friend's machine. The reason it interests me, though, is because it's actually a sequel to one of my favorite MSX2 games, just called Robo Crush. I know it's a bit confusing for what sounds like a PC-98 port of the MSX2 game to actually be a sequel, but that's just how it is -- blame SystemSoft for that one, I guess! ;) As sequels go, this one seems super disappointing, as the MSX game actually had a full overworld map and a complex plot with a bunch of dungeons and side characters and plot twists, all of which were REALLY well-written and also quite funny at times... while Robo Crush 98 is just menu-driven robot-making and combat, as far as I can tell, with very little story and no more overworld or dungeon exploration at all. Bit of a letdown, but it does seem like the combat was improved, at least, and since the game is part of a series that seems like it may have a rather interesting history, I thought it might be right up your alley. The combat is basically automatic, if it's anything like the first game -- you design your robot, assign it various weapons and armor platings and abilities, set the percentage chances of using each ability and such, then just kind of let it loose against another robot and see which one can "crush" the other. In the original game, it was really hard to win even one battle at first, but once you got the hang of the customization, you could easily create an unstoppable robot crushing machine -- it was pretty broken. But broken or not, it was very satisfying, and the RPG elements really helped make it an overall very memorable experience that kept me hooked to the end. If even a portion of that charm made its way into the sequel, then I think this game would really be fun for you. - Illusion City Guessing you already know about this one, but this is basically Microcabin's magnum opus, seemingly inspired by Snatcher. I've never heard anyone say a single bad thing about this game, and really need to play through it some day -- though of course, the ideal way for me to do so at this point would be via the MSX Turbo R version, which is much more expensive these days than the slightly superior PC-98 version. And like a lot of other games from the era, this one had a Sega CD version that's generally considered the best take on it, so that's the one you'd want to play if you can. Still, from what I understand, there is no bad version of this one -- no matter what platform you play it on, you're in for a good time. - Tenchi Muyo! Just figured I'd mention this one real quick, because as a fan of the anime, I was SUPER impressed with how well this visual novel captured the feel of it. In particular, I was blown away by the fact that they basically recreated the first OAV opening in its entirety for the game's intro. I actually booted up my PC-98 several times just to watch it, because I could hardly believe how well they were able to match the anime! And I think that's all I've got (aside from reiterating my Rune Worth recommendation from last time, since the PC-98 actually got Rune Worth 2 and 3, which the MSX did not). If you actually read this long, rambly comment, I'm very sorry! But I hope I've given you some ideas for the future, and I thank you for always delivering such great content. Looking forward to whatever you've got next!
Thanks for the recommendations! I have Dragon Half and Tenchi Muyo. Still haven't played Illusion City, and Robo Crush wasn't on my radar at all. I'll have to give them a try. Rune worth is also on my to-buy list for PC-88. Thanks for watching as allways!
Love these video series that you do of stuff we would never know about here in the West otherwise! It just makes me wish that more of this stuff had fan translations so we could experience them! You are so lucky to know Japanese.
This probably goes without saying, but luck had nothing to do with it my friend! Importing games back in the 90's and struggling through them in Japanese without knowing a word is a large reason for why I later studied Japanese and ended up living in Japan for all my adult life. Living in a foreign country rather than your home country is a huge life decision, obviously, but being able to enjoy all Japanese/English media in its original language is a nice side benefit. Anyway, thanks for watching and I'm glad you were able to learn something about these games!
@@BasementBrothers And yeah I get it, moving to a foreign country where their native language is not your own is never a small or easy decision. I bet your story is an interesting one. You should make an episode talking about it sometime if you're willing to share!
5:26 "Hand draw, almost digitized look." It's likely digitized or scanned drawings from paper sources then color reduced in a paint program, you can tell by it's outer edges which contain a lot of aliasing garbage, the bane of FMV blue screens too heh. The hand drawn pixel technique typically rounds jaggies, avoids sparse high contrast isolated shading strokes, and doesn't use aliasing often because it sucks up limited color slots like a sponge. Sadly I think somebody actually did hand touch these converted images but it was a fool's errand since both techniques tend to oppose each other in productivity scales. In the present I've been surprised by the number of conversion algorithms that have actually gotten much closer to the pixel art target.
I think the raft would have made more sense if you had to press up instead of down. My instinct tells me to go back to have more reaction time since it's so close to the edge of the screen, so going down sounds dangerous.
about the plot: if you have seen one story, you have seen all of them - it reminds me Slayers anime series or Inuyasha, and it is absolutely spoilers free video because anyway i cant remember story of any of 50 characters
Nice, looking forward to more PC-98 Games! Although I think most of them are not really "suitable" for RU-vid. The Burai sequel doesn't look that bad honestly, actually the combat system seems cool, as you mentioned. Maybe I'm too jaded with some bad games
Yeah, I was waiting for this comment. 'It doesn't look that bad'. Yeah, you're right. It's playable, and the story is interesting enough. Though the game definitely has a lot of issues as I covered in the video. And the PCE version is way better. PC-98 is certainly known for its adult games, but there are plenty of great non-adult games too. Way more than I could ever cover in my lifetime. Plus there are also a few adult games that actually have plenty of great non-adult content in them.
Omg.... That is probably my BIGGEST pet peeve in old RPG's, aka not actually showing you the stats of the equipment you're buying or how your character stats will change when equipping it! Or even not having any description whatsoever. I absolutely HATE that! I don't know why it was so hard for devs to figure that one out...
Haha. Interesting idea! In that case I think it would feel even more like a rudder if it was diagonally up-right and up-left and used the opposite direction from where you want to steer!
It may be flawed, but I'm kinda digging this game. I love the art style particularly. A few tweaks here and there and i think this could've been a really fun title... at least for the time it came out in.
10:45 Now, I'm no sorcerer supreme, but I'm pretty sure _any_ offensive spell has the ability to "Send a person to the world of the dead" if you don't sweat the details. 😏 Love these videos btw, but also kinda hate them? Because you've got me wanting a PC-98... 😭 (I'll add it to the list of desired weeb ultranerd shit along with an MSX and an X68000...)
Man I hope the Mega CD & PC Engine CD versions of these games get fan translated one day! I really love your description of the story & it sounds quite good for the time. Would love to try both Burai games one day on the aforementioned systems!
Why not try to learn Japanese in the meantime so you can enjoy _all_ untranslated games instead of waiting years for fan translations that might never come? I mean I used to be like this too but after waiting 6 years for a translation that ended up being cancelled, I just said f*ck it and just decided to learn Japanese on my own, and in under a year I was able to start playing Japanese games in Japanese just by putting some dedication into kanji learning even just 30min everyday, it really is not that hard as long as you keep going at it, the hardest part is probably gathering the courage to begin the journey.
@@skins4thewinYou can definitely learn enough in one year to read most stuff if you focus on recognition only i.e just learning kanji meanings and readings, I of course completely ignored learning how to write and I never practice speaking either since I don't live in Japan, of course you don't need any of that to play games or read stuff. There's people out there that have done it in 6 months but that's super hardcore and takes a lot of dedication and free time, imo it's better to take your time and go at a pace that suits you even if it takes you 2-6 years and you only study 15-20min per day, as long as you don't quit you will be able to read at some point. I'm kinda ashamed that I waited this long to start learning when I could've done it 10-15 years ago, there were games that I waited 20yrs for them to get some sort of translation and they never got one even to this day, I bet you've been there too as a fellow retro-game enthusiast, that's why I just recommend people to try learning Japanese. Idk.. these Basement brothers are really inspiring, they're clearly fluent in Japanese, I think more of us should follow their example and try to achieve the same, it's never too late.
I love the story and the artwork but I’m a bit disappointed they tried to reinvent the wheel so heavily between volumes when it comes to the gameplay; at least their ideas are interesting but still it’s puzzling to say the least considering the Burai games are very much framed as a two part story
I can't find any information regarding "Seed of Dragon" on the internet. Looks like they were channeling H.R. Giger! I don't even know what kind of game it is.
It's a sidescroller for the MSX TurboR. I haven't actually played it, but one reviewer says it's kind of like Valis, but not very good. Videos look maybe OK I guess.
@@BasementBrothers I should have just searched the game up on RU-vid. 😅Thanks for the response though, and look forward to new reviews when they pop up.
Amazing video.The story and characters really appear to be charismatic, a shame the gameplay looks awful. I hope someday the Sega CD version of 1 and the PC Engine version of 2 get fantranslated.
"Who killed their parents" wait, they weren't father and daughter? Good thing they changed Gonza design a little, its hard to show characters with big hair bangs over their eyes emoting, shame that the gameplay is still a bit convoluted with no translation, I got curious about this game because of Araki designs, keep up the good work with your reviews.
To learn a secret power in the game you had to travel to the future-past to learn it and then to the past-present to use it properly... I see why people find time travel stories hard to follow. that being said, from what was set up with the ending, as a writer I get the feeling that the ending was a setup for the third game that never existed. think about it. the humans (your party) interfered with a contest of the gods and changed the future. for better or for ill, it happened and now you have to deal with it. because a conflict between gods does not end just because you sent them home.
Well, now that you're diving onto the PC-98 library I guess a look onto the original 46 Okunen Monogatari is in order. Other than that it would be cool some episodes on the shmups made for the system such as Rude Breaker.
Yeah. I should start doing some more shmups and action games. With these RPG's I always find myself wanting to tell so much of the story and the video gets way too long and too much work to edit. I keep promising myself to try and shorten these videos going forward. Covering more games in shorter videos I think would be preferable to spending weeks and weeks to make one video.
When I watch these videos I wish there was a more robust fan translation scene for old Japanese PC games. It's a lot of thankless work but it would be nice for these to be available in English in some fashion. My Japanese is dreadful so it's the only hope I've got.
I kind of hate sequels that erase the importance (or in some cases, existence) of its previous parts. Like it made it hard to care about the earlier Star Ocean games once it came out in the third(?) one that they were all part of an MMO, so by fixing their world's problems I hadn't actually accomplished anything because they weren't "real" problems, just some simulation. And the ending of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure part 6 was sooooo upsetting for me. Anyway this sequel also just looks like it plays like a confusing pile of ass except the PC Engine version which, **still** no one has translated. I get the feeling as I watch more of this series I'll just be getting depressed about how this is the case for 99.9% of these cool old games.
