NEC PC-98

For emulators, see PC-98 emulators and Emulators on PC-98.

The PC-9801 (or 21) (usually shortened to PC-98) is a business-oriented personal computer series made by NEC, and the successor to the PC-88.

Its hardware was quite similar to IBM's PC and Apricot's PC, and MS-DOS was the most popular OS for it. However, it was different enough for its programs to not be compatible. Its support for kana and kanji text, a strong marketing campaign, and a head start made it the dominant machine in the Japanese computer market for a whole decade, even against the technically superior X68000 and FM Towns. It started to face serious competition when IBM's DOS/V initiative finally added Japanese text support to other PCs, and was finally dethroned with the launch of Windows 95, which had equally good support on any machine.

Because of its huge popularity, it was flooded not only with doujin games, but tons of erotic games. There are many hidden gems there if you search carefully.

The list

Cover	Title	Genre	Description	Translation	Screenshot
	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.	Link
	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.
	Burning Dragon Plus	Shoot'em Up	Nice military-themed shmup with continuous stages.
	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 all but the last one have been fan-translated into English.	Link
	Flame Zapper Kotsujin	Shoot'em Up	Hella cool doujin shmup which plays like Raiden, though much faster.
	Galt-Rio	Shoot'em Up	A horizontal shmup for a change, this one is quite text heavy.
	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.
	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.
	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.
	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!
	Policenauts	Adventure	An astronaut turned private eye investigates the murder of his ex-wife, and the clues point to a conspiracy at the space colony. A point-and-click adventure / visual novel by Hideo Kojima, basically Lethal Weapon mixed with cyberpunk and pulp noir. Knowledge of moonrunes required (the PS1 and Saturn versions have fan translations).
	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.
	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 TurboGrafx-CD and smoother remake for Mega-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.
	Rude Breaker	Shoot 'em up	Be a bounty hunter, catch a notorious space pirate to get the reward. A sort of Aleste spin-off, it's an obscure title as it was only sold as a bundle with a magazine. Still, an excellent vertical shooter with the traditional Compile quality. More info here.
	Rusty	Platformer	Imagine Castlevania, but instead of playing with one of the badasses of the Belmont clan, you play as a babe in sexy leather outfit.	Link
	Totsugeki! Mix	Platformer	A brightly colorful platformer where you choose from three girls and go beat goblins. From the makers of Rusty and it plays very similarly.
	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".	Link
	Usagi na Panic/ Usagi na Panic 2	Platformer	You play with a bunnygirl with a sword, who goes beat up some evil penguins. It has some small RPG elements.	Link

Eroge (18+)

Cover	Title	Genre	Description	Translation	Screenshot
	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.	Link
	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.
	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.	Link

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External links

• PC-98 Images - catalogue of games with screenshots.
• PC-98 Game Library - hundreds of games & other stuff for download