Are The PC-98 Games Really That Bad

[QCK90]

So I have been getting into the series quite a bit and played through all 5 of the original PC-98 Gen games and have tried up to the 8th with IN but are the original 5 all that bad it feels wrong to say so just because of the hardware limitations there were so let me know your thoughts. Also Myon is awsome!

[BazaristOP]

I wouldn't say that they are bad, but outdates. you can't really compare some 30 year old games with the games that came out last year.

[QCK90]

That makes sense considering the nature of development and advancements made being just that substantial but I guess that I should have phrased the question better and more as a why do the games receive a bad reputation in the first place.

[williewillus]

They are jank and worse than the Windows games, but they aren't really that bad, per se.

Even more so if you consider the era in which they were developed and that they were basically student projects, LLS and MS are actually pretty amazing games.

[QCK90]

They are jank and worse than the Windows games, but they aren't really that bad, per se.

Even more so if you consider the era in which they were developed and that they were basically student projects, LLS and MS are actually pretty amazing games.

Yeah that seems to align with my experiences with them and when comparing it to the problems that they have they are still just a stepping stone that needed to take place to get to where we are now.

[degradingwindow]

The PC-98 games are fine. If you're looking to get into Touhou then they're probably not the best choice because they don't properly reflect the vibe of the franchise which is why most people don't start with them in the first place. And as mentioned before, they're kinda janky and theres also accessibility. You have to either get a pc-98 with a legal copy or find it online and emulate it which is much more inconvenient for people than just going on steam.

But theres still a lot of people that like the games and sometimes even consider them better than the newer ones. There's some charm in them especially if you're into pc-98 games. I've had some fun myself with LLS and PoDD.

[nintendonut888]

I've been a PC-98 apologist for about as long as I've been in the fandom, but objectively speaking I think what you get out of the games depends on what you expect from them. HRtP is definitely the most opaque and inaccessible game in the series, but I legitimately do think it's fun to play now and again once you learn all its systems. And while I only ever 1cc'd PoDD on lunatic once, I personally think it's a superior game to PoFV. LLS has a very pleasing vibe that I still love to this day despite its occasional nightmare design with rank, and Mystic Square is more or less equal with the Windows games in my opinion. It's only SoEW that I would call a mediocre game, but even then it's a worthwhile experience to see where the series evolved from.

They certainly are not a recommended starting point for the series, but I think a playthrough of the series would be missing something without them. Plus, the music is still some of the series' best, at least in my opinion. Every era of music has lots to offer, but there's a uniqueness to PC-98's vibe that could only exist in the series' earliest years.

[NovaDelta]

I actually started with the PC-98 games.

Lotus Land Story and Mystic Square are probably the most accessible of the bunch being the most similar to the Windows era games. The hitboxes are bigger and I think the player in general moves faster, but other than that, they're the most accessible. They've still got a bit of unfair jank here and there. Shinki's cheeto bullets being able to kill you if the cheeto bullets in Yuki/Mai's fight were still on screen when you defeated one is the only one I can name of the top of my head though.

The Story of Eastern Wonderland has a lot of jank and... oddities... There's your hitbox being gigantic in general but also it being able to be offset if you get hit, some really unfair bullet patterns, NO focus mode at all, etc. (plus no joystick support in NP2 which was rather annoying for me...)

Phantasmagoria of Dimensional Dream and Highly Responsive to Prayers are both non-standard Touhou games

PoDD was sorta the "lets copy things from other things and see what we can make in it" game. There's traced art, stolen and non-credited graphics code, copied entire gameplay mechanics, etc. However I actually find it pretty fun while I was playing it and it had my entrypoint into the series in it (Strawberry Crisis).

HRtP is an odd game that I can not for the life of me play correctly. Maybe with a bit of polish it could be a really fun game, but in the state it's in now, not really.

The music for all the games (even HRtP) is still great though, if you like chiptune ^^

One day, im hoping that I can learn how to create a sorta N64/GC style version of the games and polish over a few oddities along the way, but that requires a monumental amount of effort and skill that i dont have lol