Best and Worst Japanese Computers?

When it comes to stuff like MSX, FM Towns, PC-98, and other japanese home computers of that time, which are the best and worst? I noticed that PC-98 games, as pretty as they are, are almost always shitty hentai visual novels. And even the 'real' games on that system are awful compared to what other machines had at the same time. Sharp X68K had this problem to an extent but much less. It seems its mostly the NEC series that has a serious problem with eroge. Now on the other hand, MSX has a focus on actual games. The fact that 8-bit graphics didn't really do well for hentai kind of helped get it focused on legitimate stuff. Often simple, yes, but highly addictive games. It was a good choice in my opinion for Japan to have as an answer to the Commodore 64. I don't have enough experience with the Fujitsu computers to really say much though. Let me know if there are any others worth mentioning, for praise or scorn.

I like the MSX a lot. The MSX1 is like a Japanese Colecovision. It has a lot of great games and many are on carts, so you don't have to worry about buying a separate peripheral or dealing with old magnetic media. The MSX2 and 2+ are also great and have their share of gems, but there isn't as much software specific for those machines. Ignore the Turbo-R.

From the experience I've had with emulators and what I've read and watched, the X68k is pretty much the high point for Japanese computers. If you're a fan of the kinds of action games Japanese devs made on the MD, then you'll probably like the X68k. Good luck finding a working one for a decent price, though.

Avoid the NEC series. Way too much porn to dig through. I'm not familiar enough with the FM Towns to give you any useful advice.

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Originally Posted by zetastrike

Avoid the NEC series. Way too much porn to dig through. I'm not familiar enough with the FM Towns to give you any useful advice.

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From what I know, the Fujitsu computers mostly have ports. Good ones, but not alot of original material. X68K has this problem too but there seems to be more original software like Geograph Seal.

Best and worst is difficult to judge when to most people, these computers are very inaccessible. They all require a lot of homework and studying to even figure out what all the pitfalls are.

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Originally Posted by Guntz

They all require a lot of homework and studying to even figure out what all the pitfalls are.

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And money. None of that stuff comes cheap.

X68K is pretty awesome though you can soak a lot of money into a setup. Thankfully the community around it is still pretty strong so you can get new peripherals and such as well.

X68000 and MSX2 are the ones you want to focus on. The NEC PCs have the most games but they are all mostly horrid or hentai (there's like... 3 good shooters, and the RPGs are nice, but good luck reading japanese).

The X68000 had great support from Capcom and the MSX from Konami, not to mention both have proper gaming hardware, that really shows in the quality of a lot of the games. Both machines suffered a bit from other PC ports but those are easy to spot and ignore.

Is the Sharp X1 garbage? I've only seen a handful of videos, but I wasn't impressed.

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Originally Posted by zetastrike

Is the Sharp X1 garbage? I've only seen a handful of videos, but I wasn't impressed.

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Pretty much.

EDIT: Also worth pointing out that the MSX (and to a lesser extent, the MSX2) has an active homebrew scene with a few good games being regularly released. Not near ZX Spectrum level (that has an insane homebrew scene), but the games are better than what you get there.

The fm-towns boasts the best splatterhouse port, the only tatsujin 2 home version, it is arcade perfect and the best version of shadow of the beast.

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Originally Posted by MaxWar

The fm-towns boasts the best splatterhouse port, the only tatsujin 2 home version, it is arcade perfect and the best version of shadow of the beast.

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... The first rayxanber, and nothing else ;)

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Originally Posted by Kamahl

... The first rayxanber, and nothing else ;)

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The Doujin Alltynex is also a superb game but you need one of those beasty later FM-towns to play it otherwise it will slow to a crawl all the time.
The version of Genocide 1 and 2 is also supposed to be very good.
It has some other notable ports like a very good version of raiden.
It was a pretty capable machine, basically a 386 PC + hardware sprite and scrolling. It is just a bit lacking in the game library. It focused more on casual games than arcade stuff.

The Sharp X1 had the original Thunder Force.

Can't remember the name of it, but the PC-88 had a spiritual predecessor to Bangai-O.

PC-98 had a massive SRPG series(Farland Story) that was fan translated up to about 6 installments.

Up to you if you feel any of those are worth checking out.

Edit: There actually used to be a site(may still be up I don't know) that separated the hentai and non-hentai games listed for the PC-98. Also hosted translated roms when you clicked on a review of a game that had one.

The NEC PC98 is the best, at least it is the most powerful hardware wise.

I believe the MSX had a Metal Gear game that was exclusive to it. I want to say it was Metal Gear 2, but I'm not sure.