Which of the Japanese PC cores is best to start with?

[cathrynmataga]

I am interested in Japanese language games because I study the language. Looking for basically the best graphics/sound, with as little 'install hassle' as possible. I don't need massive game collection (I find these 1000+ game libraries overwhelming, really), but anything with a few decent classics is fine.

[Jlz]

Maybe the X68000?

I'm pretty sure that's the most powerful Japanese PC that's running on the MiSTer. Nice high res graphics which I imagine is good for making out Japanese characters clearly.

I think the core is a beta one, but seems to work very well to me.

[akeley]

You might want to consider MSX as well. There are many quality Japanese-language games there and the core is pretty mature.

[darksakul]

If you ask me, the MSX

[NLeseul]

My experience with the MSX core hasn't been great... I don't think it directly supports floppy images or cartridge ROMs, so you basically need to set up a hard drive image with SofaRun similar. But, I don't think it requires finding BIOS ROMs or anything like that, at least. And it's possible I just haven't messed with it enough to make the experience smooth. (My FS-A1WX is a far better device for MSX gaming. )

MSX hardware was generally roughly on par with the Famicom. So, like the Famicom, the text in MSX games tends to be kana-only, since it doesn't have the resolution or the memory to comfortably store or display kanji text. If your goal is to read lots of Japanese text, that will affect your experience.

The PC-98 series was mostly used for office work, so the hardware was quite good at displaying lots of text and high-resolution images, but not so good at fast animation. That means that there were a lot of text-heavy, slow-paced games like visual novels developed for the PC-98. So it's probably a good choice for reading practice. But, I haven't tried the PC-98 core for the MiSTer, so I'm really not sure what the state of that is offhand.

[grizzly]

the text in MSX games tends to be kana-only, since it doesn't have the resolution or the memory to comfortably store or display kanji text. If your goal is to read lots of Japanese text, that will affect your experience.

Very good comment/tip
At least i think so because can´t read any japanese/chinese/or the other (no clue how many!) .
But it sounds like a good tip for learning japanese.

[dshadoff]

For the same reason, PC-98 is going to have perhaps too much kanji...

[akeley]

My experience with the MSX core hasn't been great... I don't think it directly supports floppy images or cartridge ROMs, so you basically need to set up a hard drive image with SofaRun similar. But, I don't think it requires finding BIOS ROMs or anything like that, at least. And it's possible I just haven't messed with it enough to make the experience smooth. (My FS-A1WX is a far better device for MSX gaming. )

Yes, the lack of direct floppy/cartridge functionality is a bummer, but that's the deal at the moment. Hopefully it will change in the future. And SofaRun images work pretty well - you can make your own or find the ready-made MiSTer packs. I'm not excatly loving this experience, but it's the same as on my MSX1 with a Mapper cart.

In any case, I think MSX is more accessible & stable than the J-computer cores from the OP, which are still pretty much WIP.

[cathrynmataga]

For the same reason, PC-98 is going to have perhaps too much kanji...

Actually for me, the more kanji the better. That's what I'm really looking for. I think Kana-only games might be fun for a bit, but I won't put more than an hour into any one, probably.

[dshadoff]

To be honest, in response to the original post, I think - for language exposure and playing games with the minimum of setup hassle - you might want to take a look at a console such as the PC Engine. With CDROM, you are exposed to vocals as well as text, the Japanese library was quite good (in contrast to the USA-based TG-16), and there are games targeting various age groups (read: literacy levels). For a person at an intermediate level, you may benefit from playing visual novels.

[cathrynmataga]

I did get the X68000 core working, btw. It was a little fussy because the one bundled with Mister doesn't work, but I found the one in the thread here. Who is the guy with the python scripts in his signature? That worked and managed to convert some .dim files to .d88 (though needed python2, bleah, stupid Python.)

[pgimeno]

(though needed python2, bleah, stupid Python.)

I usually write my programs to work with Python 2 and 3 simultaneously. dim2d88.py works for me in Python 3.9.6; what version did you try?

[cathrynmataga]

What I'm seeing when I try to run this on the Mister. Maybe not Python3 then. I just blame this for everything by instinct, I'm afraid. This does work for me with Python 3.8.10 and Python 2.7.18 on Cygwin, which is how I actually converted the files.

/root/games/X68000# ./dim2d88.py "Ys 1 (demo) (19xx)(Hashinami Project Team).dim" ysdem.d88
./dim2d88.py: line 2: import: command not found
./dim2d88.py: line 4: syntax error near unexpected token `('
./dim2d88.py: line 4: `def main():'
/root/games/X68000# python --version
Python 3.9.6

[cathrynmataga]

Oh I see, never mind. if I run as this it's fine.

/root/games/X68000# python dim2d88.py "Ys 1 (demo) (19xx)(Hashinami Project Team).dim" ysdem.d88
DIM format: 0
Successfully converted!

[cathrynmataga]

And I got the PC98xx version running also.What I see so far just seems to work. Only weird is that the keyboard mapping is quite a bit different, and that the menu doesn't show which drives are currently mountied, but so far that's not stopping me.

The stereotype is that these systems are 99% porn, but so far I'm seeing enough stuff that looks interesting and there's enough 'nihongo' in these to make it worth it. There's enough vintage 90's Japanese gaming/tinkering in these to keep me occupied for a while.Will try to stick with these two for a bit. Thanks to everyone who replied.

[cathrynmataga]

Btw, having played around with this a bit now, I'd say that TG16 has advantages, that the audio and graphics are better, and the setup is way easier, but the X68000 text is more clear. In English this isn't such an issue, but in Japanese the NTSC kanji are a a little exhausting for me. That native speakers have better tolerance for this, I suspect.

I have Ys 1 working well on both on Mister and the text and colors are nicer on TG16, and for some reason the game is way easier on TG16. I've been going back and forth between both.

PC98, I've generally had more difficulty getting stuff running, and I keep going back to X68000.