ZUN and Touhou status update

[Monkeypro257]

I'm just hoping ZUN will eventually get to the point in bringing PC-98 characters. (Still it might even end up being Kosuzu. . .)

[Lavalake]

What if it was like a remake of the pc-98 games.  :V
He just played Lotus Land Story and cleared it.

Or it can be a music game with the Prismriver Sisters, Mystia, Kyouko, Raiko, Benben, and Yatsuhashi.

But judging from how there is no demo and ZUN announcing it two months before the game's release, it might just be a simple game.

[rsy_type1]

Maybe a game like StB and DS,huh?
"Triple Spoiler"

[cuc]

Sorry, me (and people I verify my translations with) misunderstood ZUN's tweet. There's no new game. Shanghai Alice is also not listed on Comiket's web catalog, so ZUN is not attending this Comiket.

This error was again caused by a lack of subject in ZUN's sentence. What he said is, "If you finish your Winter Comiket game and bring it to the Nikenme Radio 3D 2 event, I will definitely promote it for you."

Thanks to Ko Kransom (ZUN's interpreter during the Atlanta trip) for pointing this out.

I'm hanging my head in shame. :colonveeplusalpha:

[Spectral Nexus]

T_T WHY?  :colonveeplusalpha:

lol Thinking about it now, 3 Touhou games in one year is a bit much.

[Zil]

sadness

[TheTeff007]

Uwaaa.... well... I agree with Nexus... 3 games in a year is really wishing a lot...

[Quukii]

Aww darn. I was already getting pretty excited for it too...

[Tengukami]

On the bright side:

a) ZUN is still alive,
b) ZUN has gone on record saying he will keep making games, and
c) see a) and b).

[Drake]

and nobody has lost anything

[Starxsword]

Except hope for next month.

[Drake]

net loss

[cuc]

For that matter, I was initially hoping for a new Sealing Club CD due to an earlier tweet about D.N.A.'s DigiExpo indie game event and the "Comiket deadline". Now I can see that was about other circles, too: "do you have the courage to move your Comiket deadline even earlier, getting your game ready for DigiExpo?"

>possibility of ZUN announcing a fighting game

Even if there is a fighting game, it would be considered Tasofro's work, announced, promoted and maintained by them, not ZUN.

[cuc]

Today (Nov 17) is the day for Digital Game Expo, the indie game event hosted by ZUN's good friend, D.N.A. As already announced, ZUN is attending the event, and...

ZUN: OK, the newest game is all set up!

That's something totally unexpected: ZUN was showing all of his games at this event, including the PC-98 games on a real PC-98, years after he told people to forget about them.

While foreigners like us might be used to the idea of downloading and playing the PC-98 games on an emulator, please keep in mind that to most Japanese, download filez is something unimaginable, that happens in some far away place. This means more people outside of Japan than inside have played the PC-98 Touhou games. For most attenders, this would be the first time they see these games running.

ZUN's booth looked like this:


The PC-98 is in very good condition. Some say he bought it specifically for this event, and some say he borrowed it from someone else.

On the right side, the demo versions of all ZUN-developed Windows games (i.e. without Tasofro games), plus Dusk Pub ~ Uwabami Breaker, are running on a Surface Pro 2, which he newly bought, with a PS2 controller plugged.

In the middle is a model of a mug of beer (no eating or drinking is allowed in the exhibition hall), stacks of games, and a flyer listing the history of Team Shanghai Alice games.


Things ZUN said during the event:
- Answering if he will sell the PC-98 games again: there are too many issues such as resolution, and the PC-98 hardware itself is difficult for people to obtain.

- When people played HRtP (jokingly): "HRtP? It's boring."
- On SoEW: "SoEW? It's is hard."
- On LLS: "LLS is easy."
- On LLS Extra: "LLS Extra is really really hard. The strongest in history."
- On Uwabami Breaker: "This is harder than Extra."

A pic of the hall:

[Invisible]

Man, what would I give to get original copies of those PC-98 games...I would love to collect them even if I don't have the equipment to play them.

[Hatateru]

ZUN: OK, the newest game is all set up!

Huh what.

Anyway I think this is pretty decent indicator that we "might" get some PC98 revival in the future imo. I mean he's suddenly interested in the old games again and with AWA showing such positivity(?) towards the old games, it probably struck one of his chords or two.

[ToyoRai]

Huh what.

Maybe the joke is that most people haven't seen the PC-98 Touhou games, or at the very least played them. So they are a new experience to them.

[teefa85]

Man, what would I give to get original copies of those PC-98 games...I would love to collect them even if I don't have the equipment to play them.

I'm with you there.  It would be cool to actually have physical copies; I'm as much a game collector as I am a player.  But I don't have the riches to splurge on rare games for old hardware (I yelled at my parents when they joked about selling my copy of Suikoden II on e-Bay since it was going for like $200 at the time).

[Kaze_Senshi]

On LLS Extra: "LLS Extra is really really hard. The strongest in history."

Mugetsu and Gengetsu Cirno :V

[Monkeypro257]

I wonder what they thought about SoEW Extra stage? Well at least ZUN got a taste of nostalgia again.

[98digger]

I think it's great that ZUN showed off the ol' PC-9801 games. In case you're wondering, ZUN owns the PC-9821 Xa7, while the one shown here is a PC-9821 V13.

When ZUN mentioned "resolution", he probably was talking about the varying resolutions for MS-DOS games on the Windows-based 9821 series. This is not a huge problem, but it does make it somewhat difficult to see everything happening on-screen with certain models of the computer.

I do think that ZUN should, rather than sell the old games (there is really little profit to be made off of them), release them as freeware downloads on his site, like Id Software did with many of their old MS-DOS games. That way, the people who actually own the PC-9801/PC-9821 can have the chance to (legally) play the games .

[cuc]

ZUN: At this event, PC-98 is not an object of nostalgia, but a focus of the crowd's interest. I will not forget this.

I wonder what they thought about SoEW Extra stage? Well at least ZUN got a taste of nostalgia again.

To unlock it, people would have to beat SoEW first, and no one did that.

In case you're wondering, ZUN owns the PC-9821 Xa7

That's interesting. Where's the source?

When ZUN mentioned "resolution", he probably was talking about the varying resolutions for MS-DOS games on the Windows-based 9821 series.

I think he might be talking about the issue of aspect ratio: the PC-98 games were originally displayed at 16:10 resolutions in 4:3, with pixels that are taller then wide, and would be horizontally stretched when emulated on a modern machine with square pixels. Link: a good reference article for this issue.

Compare the following: photo showing SoEW played at the event in 4:3, and emulator screenshot in 16:10:


You can see in the comparison that the circles and text symbols are all 1:1 in terms of pixel count, and displayed on a real PC-98 as taller than wide. This is the case with most gameplay graphics in these games, so an argument can be made that the gameplay parts actually look better when played using square pixels. However, he did take account of the aspect ratio for the character drawings, so the Reimu on title screen turns out stretched and extra-chubby in emulator, which may not be the intended effect.

[Monkeypro257]

That whole quote of ZUN saying that it wasn't all about Nostalgia, but the crowds interest made me wonder a bit and suddenly worried. . . .

[98digger]

That's interesting. Where's the source?

Mag-Net's interview with ZUN. The model number is only shown briefly, so you have to pause the video just at the right time to see it. I am still very curious to where he got the V13 from.

Oh, and here is something interesting I just discovered: the order form for the 9801 Touhou games via Wayback Machine!
(Note: You might have to jump to a capture in Wayback machine that was taken while they were still accepting orders of the games)

http://web.archive.org/web/20001030065142/http://www.kt.rim.or.jp/~aotaka/AM/order.htm

Also, I am very pleased with ZUN's newest Twitter post. Perhaps this means means a redistribution of the 9801 games ?

[Monkeypro257]

By the way, did they not show Phantasmagoria of Dim Dream during the event?

[cuc]

All games were shown. Only there were few people who chose to play PoDD.

Can anyone identify the LCD display in here? I think it's a somewhat old model, but still not as old as the PC-98.

Not mentioned in earlier posts (collection of related tweets here):
- Everyone else's thunder was stolen. Heppoko said: "Having Shanghai [Alice] as neighbor obstructs business."
- ZUN kept giving DDC players advice.
- Naturally, people had trouble with PC-98's directional keys (if you didn't notice, look more carefully at the photo).
- Kimura Yoshiro came to visit ZUN.
- When one player reached Yuuka in LLS, the game froze, and people on internet were like: "that's a real machine, indeed!"

To me, it's also important to see ZUN officially dividing the history of Touhou games using the years 1995, 2002, 2007 and 2013.

(He also pulled all the game titles from Wikipedia. That's why there are no misspellings.)

[Quukii]

Just the fact that ZUN is bringing any attention at all to the PC-98 games is pretty shocking to me, in a good way.

[Hatateru]

I think we can all expect something good from all this :3

[Drake]

Can anyone identify the LCD display in here? I think it's a somewhat old model, but still not as old as the PC-98.

It's an Eizo FlexScan. You can't tell what model at all since they all look the same, but more interestingly to note Eizo is the parent company of IREM, who developed the R-Type series, X-Multiply, and Image Fight. (Not that it has anything to do with anything)

[Malyszeq]

Wait, tell me this DOES mean we will have a spin-off game or at least a demo of some sort this year?