Happy 35th Anniversary To Gradius – I Play The 25 Year Old Tribute Game Garudius On NEC PC-98 *EMU*

#Gradius #Konami #Anniversary

Gradius by Konami has turned 35 years old in 2020, an anniversary! This is a cause for celebration. This video is in honor of this amazing game series that originated with Scramble (!!!) and it may not have had its last incarnation yet.

In celebration I play one of many fan tributes that were created over the years. Today I play the 25 year old Guradius 95.

At first glance, one would think that Garudius ’95 is undoubtedly a part of Konami’s venerated Gradius series. Indeed, it is based off of the arcade version of Gradius III, and uses much of the graphics and music from that title. All of the signature weapons, like the laser, ripple, twin shot, and even the options, are present. Iconic Gradius enemies like the Big Core even show up.

However, this game was not produced or authorized by Konami; it is the work of an independent doujin fan-game circle known as CO2-PRO. It is also different from the other entries in the series: though much of the artwork and music is lifted from Konami’s game, the stages themselves are not. Each of the ten stages in Garudius ’95 is unique, and has never appeared in any of the official Gradius titles. Designed for the Gradius veteran, the game presents a challenge even on the lowest difficulty setting. The player is allowed to choose from any of the first four stages to start at, and there are five difficulty levels.

Planner: CO2-A, CO2-B
Main program: CO2-B
Sub program: CO2-A Dash
Character Design: CO2‑A
Graphic: CO2‑A, Ray
Map Design: CO2‑A
Enemy Algorithm: CO2‑A, CO2‑B Dash
Sound: Yum, Amieza
Sound Effect: Yum
Test Play: Ouch‑Roh, Boss, Ore!, Kisama?
Special Thanks to: Ray, Mr. Monjalye, Yum, Ouch‑Roh
Presented by: CO2‑PRO

Platform: NEC PC-98
The PC-9800 series (Japanese: PC-9800シリーズ, Hepburn: Pī Shī Kyūsen Happyaku Shirīzu), commonly shortened to PC-98 or 98 (キューハチ, Kyū-hachi), is a lineup of Japanese 16-bit and 32-bit personal computers manufactured by NEC from 1982 to 2000. It rivaled with the Sharp X68000 among others. The platform established NEC’s dominance in the Japanese personal computer market and by 1999, more than 18 million units were sold.

NEC managed to adopt industrial standards and reduce costs. From 1993 to 1995, the PC-98 adopted 72-pin SIMMs, 3.5-inch 1.44 MB floppy format, IDE storage drives, 640×480 pixels DOS screen mode, 2D GUI acceleration GPUs, Windows Sound System, PCI, and PCMCIA card slots. NEC had outsourced manufacturing of motherboards to Taiwanese companies such as ECS and GVC (acquired by Lite-On).

PC-98 Hardware:
The PC-98 is different from the IBM PC in many ways; for instance, it uses its own 16-bit C-bus (Cバス) instead of the ISA bus; BIOS, I/O port addressing, memory management, and graphics output are also different. However, localized MS-DOS, Unix, OS/2, or Windows will still run on PC-9801s.

Epson clones
Seiko Epson manufactured PC-9801 clones between 1987 and 1995, as well as compatible peripherals.
AST Research Japan released the DualStation 386 SX/16 in 1990 which had both PC-9801 and IBM PC compatibilities, but it failed because of poor marketing.

Models (first … last):
PC-9801 (1982), 8086 5Mhz, 128Kb RAM, 6 Slot C-bus, Large DIN connector for keyboard
…
PC-9821Ra43 (2000), Celeron 433Mhz, 2Mb RAM, 8Gb Harddisk, 24x CD/DVD-ROM drive, VideoLogic Apocalpse 3D accelerator, DVD and MPEG-2 decoder, built-in TV tuner, USB ports

PC-98 software generally ran from program and data disks (Disk 0 & 1 or A & B). For example, Ichitaro’s system disk contained a runtime version of MS-DOS, main programs, an input method editor (ATOK), and its dictionary file. It used the entire space of a 1.2 MB floppy disk. In 1980s, most machines only had two floppy drives because HDDs were an expensive additional feature for PCs back then.

(Sources: Mobygames, Wikipedia. Gradius infographic by Retrovania-vgjunk, licensed track Power Up – Phoenix Tail by Epidemic sound)

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