Sharp X68000

For emulators, see X68000 emulators.

"Personal workstation."

The X68000 is a line of computers made by Sharp and released only in Japan. It was the successor to the X1.

This was a very powerful gaming system, a sprite-pusher on par with the best arcade boards of its day (in fact Capcom used it to develop CPS1 games). But such power came with a price tag: ¥369,000 at launch (equivalent to $6,600 today). For some perspective, that's fifteen times the price of the PC Engine console, launched that same year. Consequently it remained a niche system. And yet, its unique power enticed developers - professionals and indies alike - to produce the most accurate arcade ports and the most advanced original titles possible at the time.

Even though the X68000 was so advanced at launch, later updates were too modest, and the system started to lose its edge. By the early '90s, the more popular rival PC-98 was catching up, and that in turn was feeling the heat of a price war against Western-style PC clones. Sharp saw the market was getting too competitive for them, and discontinued the platform.

Emulation tips:

• X68000 games typically run at 55 frames per second, while common modern displays are locked at 60, so the result can be an annoying choppiness. But if your monitor supports Freesync or G-Sync, RetroArch has the option to use that to run at the correct speed smoothly.
• Usually you'll find the games in .dim or .xdf format, which are floppy disk images. But they can often be found in .hdf format, hard disk images. This is much more convenient, as it eliminates the need for disk swapping.

The list

Cover	Title	Genre	Description	Screenshot
	Akumajō Dracula (Castlevania)	Platformer	Another iteration of the original Castlevania with all new levels and secrets. Ridiculously hard with relentless enemies and plenty of traps. One rare oddity is the "herb" subweapon, found nowhere else in the series, that can be used as a healing item. One of the rarest and most sought after title in the Castlevania series. The Chronicles re-release on the Playstation contains this game was supposed to be unaltered, but fucks up with numerous ways (the screen is cropped at the top, enemies load later than they should during vertical scrolls, the AI of some enemies and bosses is worse, and time depletes much quicker making it almost impossible to complete the level with Death without dying).
	Atomic Robo-Kid	Shoot 'em up / Platformer	Accurate port of a brutally difficult arcade.
	Bosconian	Shoot 'em up	Fly around in space and blast the enemy space stations. Upgraded port of Namco's classic multidirectional shooter arcade, with better graphics and sound than the original.
	Cotton: Fantastic Night Dreams	Shoot 'em up	Be a hot-headed little witch, beat up some monsters, and get yourself some candy! Port of the arcade, with much improved graphics.
	Dai Makaimura (Ghouls 'n Ghosts)	Platformer	Save your beloved Prin-Prin from the clutches of the Demon World in this prohibitively difficult classic. Arcade perfect in every sense of the term. The X68K had the advantage of powerful hardware near identical to Capcom CPS boards, so it's no wonder this was the most faithful to the arcade at the time (until Capcom Generation 2 on PS1/Sat). It even has difficulty dip switches which go up to eleven.
	Detana!! TwinBee (Bells & Whistles)	Shoot 'em Up	Great port of Konami's cute 'em up arcade hit, and a huge improvement over the original TwinBee.
	Dragon Spirit	Shoot 'em Up	A Xevious clone, but it's better than Xevious! Morph into a dragon and rain destruction from the goddamn sky with two shot buttons to attack aerial and ground enemies. Eggs are strewn about levels and gifted after eliminating certain enemy formations which give you extra heads, stronger weapons and temporary superpower - bringing you up to parity with motherfucking King Ghidorah. The music in this game is also extremely catchy and pleasing for some reason, even the short intro.
	Étoile Princesse	Top-down Shooter	A super moe overhead cute-em-up (think Legend of Valkyrie or Twinkle Tale), whith lots of secrets and extra characters unlocked by defeating bosses.
	Fantasy Zone	Shoot 'em Up	Arcade perfect port, and it even has an exclusive Space Harrier level!
	Final Fight	Beat 'em Up	A near arcade-perfect port, complete and uncensored.
	Garō Densetsu 2: Aratanaru Tatakai (Fatal Fury 2)	Fighting	Pretty much arcade-perfect port of a cool fightan. Only trouble is that it suffered from extreme floppy swapping, but you can install it to the hard drive (which most X68k owners did not have).
	Geograph Seal	First person shooter	Control a mecha and drop down on planet WS090 to blast some enemy robots. This is the predecessor to PS1 hidden gem Jumping Flash!, and one of the earliest FPS with fully 3D graphics.
	Gradius	Shoot 'em Up	Same great Gradius action, now with a slightly altered soundtrack and none of the shitty slowdown seen in the PC-Engine version. Bundled with the original X68000 to demonstrate what awesome conversions the system was capable of.
	Gradius II: Gofer no Yabou	Shoot 'em Up	aka Vulcan Venture. Another near-exact arcade port, with lovely MIDI sound, but a bit of slowdowns. For the other Gradius sequel, see Nemesis '90 Kai below.
	Granada	Shoot 'em Up	Top down tank shooter with amazing music composed by Motoi Sakuraba (of tri-Ace/Tales fame). If these don't get you interested, you're fucking deaf. Prowl through levels hunting key targets culminating with a showdown against really challenging bosses. This was ported to the Mega Drive but it suffers from a lot of slowdown and drowned out sound.
	Mahou Daisakusen (Sorcer Striker)	Shoot 'em Up	Choose one of four fantasy heroes (a knight, a witch, a necromancer, and a friggin' dragon samurai) and defeat the evil Gobligan Empire! Port of Raizing's badass arcade, with the advantage (if you don't have a rotating monitor at least) that it is adapted for horizontal screens. This port is said to be better than the FM Towns one in performance. HG101 article
	Nemesis '90 Kai	Shoot 'em Up	An excellent revamp of Gradius 2 (which was an MSX original, and is mostly different from the arcade-based Gradius II above). It runs way smoother than the original version, and appends a few new levels. The graphics are nothing short of gorgeous, and again the MIDI tunes are lovely. This game is strangely harder than its MSX version, probably due to less slowdown, with very unforgiving enemies hellbent on shunting you into the landscape and enemy fire. Sadly this version was never ported to any other system.
	Parodius Da!	Shoot 'em Up	A cute, nonsensical parody of Gradius. It's the same great Parodius from the arcades, screw your home console ports this thing's damn perfect in every way! Of course there's nothing wrong with the consoles ones since they have exclusive levels and get the job done!
	Sol-Feace	Shooter	An artificial intelligence has taken over humanity's space colonies, a scientist creates a spaceship to fight it. A very good and seriously challenging shmup. You might know it from the Sega ports, which are perfectly acceptable, but this version has better graphics and music.
	Space Harrier	Rail Shooter	As usual, the most accurate port at the time, perhaps the only decent port prior to the 32X one. The graphics did take a hit (striped floors instead of the original's checkerboard), but the sprite scaling is fine and the gameplay is solid.
	Star Cruiser	FPS/RPG	In the future, humans and aliens have reached peace, but a militaristic faction wants to take over and expel the aliens. A hugely innovative and ambitious game for the time, mixing shooting, roleplaying, and spaceflight simulation. Fan translation here. Also on the Mega Drive / Genesis. Slightly inferior. Has a fan translation as well. HG101 article
	Strider Hiryu	Action / Platformer	One of best action titles ever. The year is 2048, and the Soviet Union never collapsed; instead it was taken over by a tyrant from another world. Hiryu, a prodigious ninja-ish warrior, is tasked to crush the alien-communist regime with his deadly plasma tonfa and crazy acrobatic skillz. This port was developed internally by Capcom, so it's the closest to the original (the Mega Drive port by Sega is very fine too, the NES version is a completely different game, but all other versions at the time were absolutely dreadful).
	Super Street Fighter II	Fighting	Another basically perfect arcade port. The X68000 also got a good port of SF2 Champion Edition, but of course this version makes that obsolete.
	The New Zealand Story	Platformer	Yep, this is the highest quality version of the game you're gonna get.
	Video Game Anthology Vol. 1: Moon Cresta / Terra Cresta	Shoot 'em Up	A compilation of Nihon Bussan's first hit arcade Moon Cresta and its sequel Terra Cresta. Now let's talk about the second game because it's the better one by far. You start off in a meager ship that could pass for a batarang and, at first, the game doesn't look too special. Your ship is slow as molasses, hordes of enemies crowd the horizon and there isn't much hope... that's until you start acquiring ship parts to make an even bigger Death Batarang! Your parts can be detached into high powered formations and at the highest level you turn into a fiery phoenix for a set duration. Tip: as there's no selection screen, which game is loaded depends on which drive you insert the floppy.
	Video Game Anthology Vol. 9: Argos no Senshi (Rygar)	Action / Platformer	"LET'S FIGHT" A very accurate port of arcade hit Rygar (you probably know the NES version, which is vastly different from the original). Good old Rygar, swinging his Diskarmor yo-yo around like nobody's business. The game is standard side-scrolling action with a whopping 27 levels, with the end of each level being awkwardly punctuated by Cho Aniki-style musclemen in tight swimsuits grading your performance. Treasures, yo-yo upgrades and 1-Ups are scattered throughout each stage for you to find.

The doujin list

Cover	Title	Genre	Description	Screenshot
	Cho Ren Sha 68K	Shoot 'em Up	Without the X68000 we would have missed out on the best shooting game of all time, and that would've been a damn shame. A throwback to simpler times, the gameplay is simplistic, fast and fierce with very intricate patterns of enemies. Bosses in particular also have specific weaknesses: the first pair of which are stupid enough to fire an energy orb at one another if you bait them to fire. Move inside of power-ups and follow them down screen to collect all three at once, a necessary skill to master! Free download and PC version here.
	Blue Wings 2: Blue Knights	Shoot 'em Up	Homebrew that fleshed out into a surprisingly enjoyable game. Three ships to choose from each with their own parameters and arsenal. You can mix and match temporary power-ups for some potent combinations. The paltry Shotgun spread not doing it for you? Compound it with the Multi charge and cover the screen with your Contra-style spread shot! Pretty unexciting graphics but the gameplay more than makes up for it.
	Otoko Dama	Shoot 'em Up	More homebrew that I honestly have no idea how to play. Total Cave/Toaplan rip-off, still fun though. Holding shot down focuses your spread shot into a stream, and rapid shot transition seems to give you a momentary burst of speed (?). Pressing the bomb button gives you a temporary bullet cancel to allow some time to cycle between options: Bomber (screen damage), Back-Burner (obliterates enemies behind) and Laser (high powered frontal beam). To get past the green screen on start-up go into Mouse Mode (F12) and click the 4th button (10 MHz) on the left.
	STDS00751 R+R	Shoot 'em Up	A quality doujin game that can best be described as a "horizontal Cho Ren Sha". The rapid vulcan shot can be point blanked for incredible damage while the stream laser is good for distant, heavy duty use - both of which hit max power quickly as your weapons charge on destroyed enemies/objects. In addition to the vulcan/stream laser you have a neon burst that erupts once upon leveling up. This can also be fired by moving your ship back and forth quickly.
	Zugya	Shoot 'em Up	This plays a lot like Bosconian on the arcade with its 8-directional free roaming, but with far more detailed graphics, and faster gameplay with a bullet hell feel and bigass explosions. The gameplay is focused around destroying space stations in a set time limit. Each space station gets progressively more modules with special features like ship spawning bays, gravity wells (which repel your ship) and homing lasers. Your ship has a unique "plasma bubble" which protects you from one shot at full power while holding shot down, and when released you turn into an invincible wrecking machine. There is an English patch and a PC version.

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External links

• X68000 FAQ
• X68000 Games - Video/Audio modes and extra functionality