What have you been playing on PC-FX?

[AggieTsubi]

Whether it's something you've played a little or a lot, something you're playing right now or a while ago, or whatever the case, feel free to post your impressions and thoughts here.

I recently dug out and turned on my PC-FX for the first time in years. What impressed me is that, unlike with just about any other 90s system I own with internal memory, my saves didn't disappear over this long period of being unused. Most of my files I wouldn't really care if they disappeared, but I want to keep my Pia Carrot file. I've cleared every route in that game, and if I ever feel like replaying, I'd want to get the uniform variant CGs I didn't unlock. So just to be extra safe, I copied my files over to my memory card. I'm not sure if I've ever used it before, so that needed formatting. Another reason to do this was because I didn't seem to have enough open space to start up Dragon Knight 4. It's crazy how much save data sizes can vary with the PC-FX. So yeah, rather than delete stuff, I just copied most of my files over and deleted the files from internal memory that I don't care enough about to have backed up on both.

As for Dragon Knight 4, talk about a crazy long intro. I didn't bother playing beyond wandering around the first town. The running speed cracked me up. Just normal walking is pretty fast, so when you run, you fly across the screen.

Then I popped in Tonari no Princess Rolfee (about time I bought the system mascot's game). I play a lot of visual novels, and many don't even have animated character art at all, so I was impressed that not only are there lip flaps here but they even change expression mid-line on a regular basis. But oof, that scrolling text in the background. Very distracting. I was turning on and off some elements of the GUI, so I wonder if I just missed a way to do anything about the background.

After that, I tried out Yuna FX. I've already had the demo for a while and have messed around with that, so I didn't stick with this for long. Mostly just to clear the first mini-game.

Lastly, I played a little Miraculum. This one seems promising for those who want a very traditional-style RPG on PC-FX. It doesn't seem like a huge step up from a 16-bit RPG, but there are some nice touches. There are way more sprite animations than I was expecting. When one character shushed another, they even had an animation for putting a finger to their lips. One kind of dumb thing is that as soon as you first get to the overworld, you can encounter enemies that inflict poison. You don't seem to automatically receive anything that can cure it, and since I was just playing carelessly as I was giving the game a try, I didn't bother to load up on any supplies. So I was wandering around poisoned for a while, and the screen flashes red incessantly all the while.

So those are my very early impressions of those four games. The first two I bought just recently, while the latter two I've probably had kicking around for years without testing them.

As for something to really sink my teeth into, my next goal is to either find or buy some blank CDs (depending on if we still have or not) and try to burn a patched copy of Zeroigar. It feels like a million years since I did so with Pia Carrot (and for that matter, I have no idea what I did with my burned copy; it's not with my legit one), so I hope I won't bungle it up. I've had a legit copy of Zeroigar for a long time, but I've never played all the way through, so I'd like to do so with the patch.

[exodus]

Actually I just loaded up the Yuna demo recently, after printing necro's custom backing for it (I think it was him anyway). Nothing much to speak of there, but for whatever reason I feel compelled to get demos just in case something's slightly different. It's a bit obsessive I guess!

[AggieTsubi]

I like collecting demos too. I have a pretty sizable collection of PS1 demos, both US and Japanese, and for PC-FX, on top of the Yuna demo, I also have a couple of the PC Engine Fan demos. And of course the Anime Freak releases are essentially demos. In some ways, they're even more interesting, in a historical sense, than the full games.

[elmer]

Jan 30, 2019 16:08:15 GMT AggieTsubi said:

And of course the Anime Freak releases are essentially demos. In some ways, they're even more interesting, in a historical sense, than the full games.

One day I'd love to be able to understand the Private Eyedol anime that's on Anime Freak Vols 1..3.

Is it supposed to be a continuation of the story/characters from the PC Engine's Private Eyedol game?

[dshadoff]

Jan 31, 2019 7:25:43 GMT elmer said:

Jan 30, 2019 16:08:15 GMT AggieTsubi said:

And of course the Anime Freak releases are essentially demos. In some ways, they're even more interesting, in a historical sense, than the full games.

One day I'd love to be able to understand the Private Eyedol anime that's on Anime Freak Vols 1..3.

Is it supposed to be a continuation of the story/characters from the PC Engine's Private Eyedol game?

I just watched the Anime Freak Vol. 1 episode here:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-yi9LUPyGM

I didn't have any problems understanding the bulk of what was going on, but missed some words here and there (still need to improve my Japanese - a hobby to last a lifetime).

From what I could see, this was a pilot for an anime series based on the same characters from the PC Engine game (I'm not sure whether the origin of the characters was the PC-E game, or a manga).

Back in 1995, this likely would have been OVA rather than TV, based on the content (too racy for prime time, but anime was not mainstream enough to market to adults either).
I suppose this was a little like test-marketing for feedback on the storyline and characters to see whether a series could be profitable.

Dave

[exodus]

This isn't something I'm playing yet, but I just picked up a game - I got a cheap ($23) copy of Miraculum which I'm looking forward to checking out!

[darknd]

I just finished one of the finals of Pia Carrot, I liked a lot the game, I have played by fours hours...amazing . Now im playing Sparkling Feather, the game have a lot of cinematic, is a turn based rpg (like Powerdolls).

[elmer]

Feb 20, 2019 9:59:37 GMT darknd said:

I just finished one of the finals of Pia Carrot, I liked a lot the game, I have played by fours hours...amazing . Now im playing Sparkling Feather, the game have a lot of cinematic, is a turn based rpg (like Powerdolls).

It's good to see someone new that's interested in the PC-FX!

[Arkhan]

Feb 20, 2019 9:59:37 GMT darknd said:

I just finished one of the finals of Pia Carrot, I liked a lot the game, I have played by fours hours...amazing . Now im playing Sparkling Feather, the game have a lot of cinematic, is a turn based rpg (like Powerdolls).

Sparkling Feather is underrated.



Team Innocent again but then I got sidetracked again.

[AggieTsubi]

I'm like four years late to the party, but I finally burned a patched copy of Zeroigar and started playing that on my PC-FX. I've had an official copy for many years, so I have played the game before but never to completion. The only bummer is my burned copy struggles to get through some of the FMV scenes, cutting out of them early, but that's probably my fault. I wasn't able to burn any slower than 16x, and the only blank CDs I still had kicking around have some fine scratches. It seems to play fine otherwise, though, so I guess I'll just rewatch the cutscenes on Youtube to see what I may miss. I haven't played much of the game yet, but I'm really impressed with the patch so far (and the game itself is impressive too of course). I mean, I've bought plenty of official releases of current gen games where the localization staff couldn't be bothered to subtitle any voiced scenes that weren't already subtitled in the Japanese version, and yet here we've got fan translators going the extra mile. Super pro work.

[elmer]

I'm glad that you're liking the translation, I thought that SamIAm did a wonderful job of making the story sound great in English.

I still have absolutely no why someone spent that much money on the high-quality anime for a game on the PC-FX!

[Mathius]

There's a pot that needs adjusted in your the system to boost the laser to read CD-Rs. It takes a special security bit though that's unlike what's typically used in other systems. I did mine a long time ago so I've forgotten which pot to adjust lol.

[AggieTsubi]

I might try burning a better disc before I look into adjusting the pots. I do have CD-Rs of Zenki (because I'm afraid of damaging my legit copy, haha) and of Pia Carrot patched, and those play perfect for me. Maybe those games are less demanding on the laser, though.

[elmer]

Mar 13, 2019 13:33:01 GMT AggieTsubi said:

Maybe those games are less demanding on the laser, though.

Adding the subtitles definitely pushed close to the limits of the CD drive's read speed, and so the translation is going to be less tolerant of read errors than the original CD, but we were careful to test on real-hardware and make sure that it all worked.

SamIAm did have to change the wording of his subtitles in a couple of places, in order to avoid creating data-spikes that the CD drive couldn't keep up with.

During testing, the biggest factor seemed to be the same as for the PC Engine's CDROM ... use high-quality (preferably Taiyo Yuden) 74-minute 650MB CD-R discs (and definitely *not* 80-minute 700MB discs), and then burn them as slow as you can.

[Mathius]

Are Taiyo Yudens colored differently on the data side of the disc?