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The PC-9801 (also simply called PC-98) is a personal computer made by NEC, and the successor to the PC-88. It single-handedly allowed NEC to utterly dominate the Japanese computer market for almost 20 years (until the advent of IBM PC's), such that even the vastly superior in every way X68000 and FM Towns could not dethrone it. Reasons for it include a good head-start compared to its rivals and a strong marketing campaign.

Much like its predecessor, the PC-98 was a business-oriented machine, featuring high-resolution kanji support. Because of its huge popularity, the PC-98 was flooded not only with doujin games, but mainly with eroge games (read: Hentai). Even so, there are many hidden gems if you search carefully.

There is this nice site dedicated to document the PC-98 games catalog. Go check it out.

The list[]

Boxart Title Genre Description Screenshot
46OkunenMonogatariCover 46 Okunen Monogatari: THE Shinka Ron
(4.6 Billion Years Story: The Theory of Evolution)
RPG An awesome RPG where you control a creature which you can evolve, beginning as a fish then taking it over various eras (amphibians, dinosaurs) up to humanity and beyond. Sounds familiar? That's because E.V.O: Search For Eden on the SNES is actually a sequel to this game.
FAN-TRANSLATION IS NOW AVAILABLE!!!
Shinkaron-29
BurningDragonPlusCover Burning Dragon Plus Shoot'em Up Nice military-themed shmup with continuous stages. BurningDragonPlus
FarlandStoryCover Farland Story (series) RPG/Turn-based Strategy A long-running series of turn-based strategy RPGs by TGL. There are seven games released for the PC-98, and with the exception of the last one they have all been fan-translated into english. Farlan34
KotsujinLogo Flame Zapper Kotsujin Shoot'em Up Hella cool doujin shmup which plays like Raiden, though much faster. FlameZapperKotsujin
Galtrio1 Galt-Rio Shoot'em Up A horizontal shmup for a change, this one is quite text heavy. GaltRio
GitenMegamiTenseiBoxart Giten Megami Tensei: Tokyo Revelation RPG A strange entry in the Shin Megami Tensei series as it was developed by ASCII and not Atlus. Unlike the turn-based battle RPGs you might be accustomed to, combat here is more quasi-real time. GitenMegatenScreenshot
JumpHeroCover Jump Hero Platformer A time-trial platformer made by Compile, you choose from two characters and must climb to the top before time runs out. JumpHero
LastBreakersCover Last Breakers Shoot'em Up Another cool shmup, this one has six selectable characters each with his own ship. Obviously one of them is a ninja. LastBreakers
Metajo-cover
Metajo: Furitsu Metatopology Daigaku Fuzoku Joshi Kōkō SP


Zai Metajo

Tactical RPG A nice tactical RPG where you lead a squad of psychically-enhanced female warriors from an alternate feudal Japan. Epic battles with loads of npc allies and ennemies, very complex and immaginative tech tree, lots of variety in battles. Became freeware after the publisher (sadly) went broke. Some cool guy offered a partial translation patch on /vr/ some time ago, get it if you can. Has a sequel allowing you to play the opposite faction, with even more diversity in techs and objectives, plus some story branching. Clearly a nice little gem that deserves playing.
6929743a-2640-4055-a1e0-aaf3e57decc0
NetGuardianBoxart Net Guardian Shoot'em Up You are a fairy-shaped antivirus program, who enters a infected computer to get rid of viruses, trojans and other malware. How you do this? By blowing up them all, obviously! NetGuardian
Pbang 1 Pool Bang Shoot'em Up What? A billiards themed shmup? It is as weird as it sounds, with you shooting balls which bounce around on the field. PoolBang
PopfulMailPC98Cover Popful Mail Platformer Nice platformer with RPG elements made by Falcom. You (eventually) get 3 different characters with their own specialties, and the game revolves around using them effectively. Stages have several secrets, obstacles, and baddies to find and conquer. Bosses provide a nice challenge and are why you'll want to buy items and upgrades. Doesn't take itself seriously, but it's not exactly "easy" to beat. Easy enough to beat with an FAQ and without japanese knowledge.
Got an improved port for the PC Engine CD and smoother remake for Sega CD, both which are vastly improved. This one is still purdy gud, but the PC-88 version is a downgrade. The SNES/SFC version is kinda different in general.
Only the Sega CD is in English, but is harder compared to the Jap Sega CD version, so keep that in mind.
PopfulMailPC98
RustyBoxart Rusty Platformer Imagine Castlevania, but instead of playing with one of the badasses of the Belmont clan, you play with a chick in sexy leather outfit.
Now has a delicious fan translation!
Rusty
TotsugekiMixCover Totsugeki! Mix Platformer A brightly colorful platformer where you choose from three girls and go beat goblins. It plays just like Rusty. TotsugekiMix
Toohoo03cover Touhou 1~5 Shoot'em Up Yes, THAT Touhou. These are the original games from this doujin series during ZUN's college days with his buds, "Amusement Makers". A lot simpler and more straight forward than later games, as the bullet patterns are a bit less complex, but quite a bit faster. These are also from before the series' overproliferation on the internet, which gave birth to one of the most retarded fan-bases in existence.
The first game is a character-based Breakout clone with some added gimmicks (opinions are mixed). The third game is a versus shmup, much like Twinkle Star Sprites.
Later Touhou games can be found on Windows. The other Amusement Makers went on to make their own games, some of which are called "Seihou".
TohoMysticSquare
UsaginaPanicCover Usagina Panic/
Usagina Panic 2
Platformer You play with a bunnygirl with a sword, who goes beat up some evil penguins. It has some small RPG elements. UsaginaPanic

Eroge games (18+)[]

Boxart Title Genre Description Screenshot
BrigantyCover Briganty: The Roots of Darkness Action-RPG Excellent side-scrolling action-RPG. Beating up enemies gives you experience, which allows you to learn new combos. Some hentai scenes occur between levels. Brigantyscreenshot
NightSlaveBoxart Night Slave Platformer Cool mecha platformer similar to the Assault Suits series, but with a Gradius-style powerbar. In between missions you are treated to some hentai lesbian action for whatever reason. NightSlave
NingyouTsukai2Cover Ningyou Tsukai 2
(Metal & Lace 2)
Fighting Surprisingly solid fighting game, despite the PC-98's limitations. You play with robots piloted by girls, and of course the loser gets to strip. Also known as Metal & Lace 2. Ningyo-tsukai-2-pc-98-screenshot
Lakers-3
Sei Shoujou Sentai Lakers

(series)

Tactical RPG/Date sim An isometrical tactical RPG with a nice (almost) all-female cast. Very fun atmosphere that parodies both super sentai flicks and magical girls anime. There are a lot of techniques and equipment at your disposal, and a lot of well-drawn hentai CG between levels, too. Third game is mixed with strong date sim elements à la Sakura Wars. Fairly accessible challenge, except the second game which has some difficulty spikes even bigger than a certain squad member's chest size.
Lakers3-gameplay
SteamHeartsPC98Cover Steam Hearts Shoot 'em Up A bunch of sexy catgirl bosses are infected by a virus, it's up to you to subdue them and inject them with the only known cure: your man juice! So you blow stuff up on the stages, and after defeating the boss you get a cutscene where you have your way with the boss. Has a PCE-CD remake which is very dull, and a enhanced Saturn port which is much improved. Steamheartspc98
Third Generation
Consoles Action Max - Atari 7800 - Amstrad GX4000 - RDI Halcyon - View-Master Interactive Vision - Sega Master System - Nintendo Entertainment System - Casio PV-1000 - VTech Socrates - Epoch Super Cassete Vision
Computers Mattel Aquarius - Acorn Archimedes - Commodore 64 - Amstrad CPC - Fujitsu FM-7 - Apple Lisa - Apple Macintosh - Microsoft MS-DOS - ASCII MSX - ASCII MSX2 - IBM OS-2 - NEC PC-88 - NEC PC-98 - Amstrad PCW - Sinclair QL - Commodore VIC-20 - Sharp X1 - Sinclair ZX Spectrum