Touhou 4: Lotus Land Story (PC-98; Real Hardware): New High Score (Reimu)

Specs: Epson PC-486GR, 75MHz 486DX4; PC-9801-86 sound card (YM2608 chip). Since people seem to be liking my Mystic Square Mima video, figured I'd share my new personal high score run in Touhou 4 (Lotus Land Story). I'm much better at this game than Mystic Square... I know people call it the easiest Touhou game, and I believe it - but it was still plenty hard for me at first, who hardly played shooters before! This was the first shooter I played that I really enjoyed. And the first time I played was on real hardware.
Also, just trying this: ko-fi.com/wyat... - I need to pay rent, and can't find work right now in my field. Any help is greatly appreciated. Don't feel obligated.
I also did a big video on the hardware I've got and how I chose it/got it working in the US: • All About the Japanese...
Please comment what you think! - I love to talk.

[@YuutaTogashi0707]

Finally a video woth the music on an actual 86 card! Now I can actually fine tune the SSG in emulators to have correct volume mixing

[@wyatt8740]

EXACTLY. I tried to emulate recently and was like, "WTF is this!?!?" because I knew what it was *supposed* to sound like. BTW this 86 card's been completely recapped, so this is very accurate. (I have another 86 card that all the capacitors have leaked on though).

[@wyatt8740]

My guess is that there weren't many captures already because it's hard to record the video from a PC-98. I'm using some custom wired adapters and a VGA distribution amplifier hooked to an OSSC (scaler) which goes into an HDMI capture card. Recording audio through my Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS.

[@FireyPaperMario]

Is it wrong for me to say I think Yuuka is kinda cute? ^-^;

[@YuutaTogashi0707]

I hope you find a job soon and are able to pay rent

[@spaghettiking7312]

Never seen it on real PC-98 before.

[@wyatt8740]

It's the best way to play it! No input lag, and I even think the music (especially in the drums/percussion) sounds better. No multitasking OS overhead, either! It's too bad it cost so much to get all the hardware together (shipping was a huge part of it). :(

[@spaghettiking7312]

@@wyatt8740 It is amazing to see.🙏

[@netdoll]

It still has 2 frames of lag, but true 2 frames (especially on a CRT) is nearly imperceptible. In general, I think that real hardware is probably the optimal way to play the game, but the big drawback is that if you're a keyboard player (like I am) most Japanese computers of the 80s and 90s insisted on an awful diamond layout for the arrow keys which makes games which demand true diagonals like shmups not pleasant to play at all. However, I'm pretty sure there are adapters to use normal AT-layout keyboards with inverted-T arrow key clusters so it isn't such a big deal in practice.

[@wyatt8740]

@@netdoll Yeah there are adapters for that now. I know someone on fediverse who uses one with their 98 Note. The arrow key layout messed with my brain a lot, but my Comrex Commander joystick is better than a keyboard IMO, even with inverse T. I play the windows touhou games with it via an adapter too. The one truly awful thing is that touhou 1 and 2 don't support joysticks, so I need to make an adapter that fakes a keyboard or something.