K.N.O. Industries

The Xanadu situation is an absolute cluster, btw. After completing the original dub & ghosting everyone back in 2017, they brought in professional VAs to redo everything, never finished syncing the lip flap to the new voices anyway, and as of 2 months ago decided to switch to subtitles instead.

Same guy also announced translations for Emerald Dragon back in 2007 and Anearth Fantasy Stories in 2013. You'll never guess what the status is on both of them.

lol

new Izuna merch is going on sale from Feb.13, ETA June... I suppose that new game Success announced a while back is imminent? https://prtimes.jp/main/html/rd/p/000000016.000165125.html

for what feels like the trillionth time: a skilled player could theoretically beat an arcade game on a single credit on their first attempt.
modern microtransaction-funded games are designed to keep the player hooked with deliberately impossible situations with victory just slightly out of reach

Unmatched atmosphere. The Guncon would be a must-own even if this was the only light gun game on the system, imo

Even with some questionable design choices, it's not without it's charms, so I can still recommend it to the PCE faithful. Shout outs to Supper & company for the patch (as well as the QoL improvements to the battle/walk speed, I'd never have seen it through to the end otherwise, lol)

Finished up Emerald Dragon for the PC Engine. Boasts strong production values and a "unique" battle system, but the tedium sets in quickly after reaching Kasha Island. Didn't even bother doing the side quests during the epilogue, I just wanted it to end by that point

Update:

Yoshihito Tagami (Main Planner)

Akio shedding some insight into Geo Storm's development. (Was the rest of the dev team not privy to Tagami's involvement? I've never seen this mentioned anywhere else)

Probably wasn't satisfied with Allumer's sound tools limiting him to 3 second loops, would be my guess? He's listed as a composer in the end credits, anyway.

Update:

SAKOTAN = Morihiro Sakota (Graphics)

See here: bsky.app/profile/kino...

All games where Sakota was credited under his real name

And all games "Sakotan" worked on. Note how there's no conflict with Morihiro Sakota's resume; they were both at the same companies at the same time, but never credited on the same titles

... well as Tashiro probably having worked on some later period Nanao arcade games)

Conveniently, Sakotan forgot to use his alias a couple times, both at Taito and at Irem 2.0

Given all the above evidence, plus his pseudonyms clearly riffing on his surname, I'd say we've made our case.

... well documented, but there appears to also have been some sort of Nanao pipeline. Fellow Gekirindan designer Miyabi Tashiro left Taito the same year as 'Sakotan', with both of them joining the new Irem, leading one to believe both Taito's 'Sakotan' and Nanao's are one & the same (as...

Update:

SAKOTAROU = Morihiro Sakota (Graphics)

Finally uncovered the identity of Nanao graphic designer Sakotarou/Sakotan. Shortly after Irem's closure, a pixel artist named Sakotan appeared in the credits of Taito's 1995 shmup, Gekirindan. Coincidence?

The Toaplan connections on that game are...

Akio: "[...] Come to think of it, I was developing another game at the time, but my senpai in charge of the enemy characters in Image Fight told me, “I'll treat you to lunch if you draw some enemies for me,” so I did some rough sketches for him. Perhaps that's why Abiko put my name in there? I don't even remember which particular characters I drew..."

Update #2:

Akio was *not* a dotter on Image Fight, as he was busy working on Ninja Spirit at the time. According to him, he merely sketched a couple enemy designs, in exchange for one of the graphic artists buying him lunch.

"Akio: [...] Incidentally, the team for R-TYPE II consisted of the following: a timid planner myself, an overworked dot artist my senpai, an underworked dot artist the programmer from the original R-TYPE an older gentleman who was just learning how to program and a genius but absent-minded sound man."

Update #2:

N/A = Takeo Sumita (Programmer)

Confirmed by Akio himself, in the tweet below that lays out the entire 6-person team of R-Type II

Amazing news to wake up to! Supper & his team are such a gift to the PCE community.

Emerald Dragon

Galaxy Fraulein Yuna

Tengao Makyou

Private Eye Dol

Seeing all these PC-Engine CD games get fan translated recently is really cool to see. It's kind of crazy to think that a large majority of all the English patches available for the system have only been released in the past few years.

Welcome back artists!🖌🎨✨️
Quote Post with an old piece that you still like!

i love using multiple styles and wanted a cute dichotomy between cotton and wool but they covered up some of the parts i meticulously painted so heres just wool by herself....
!Everyone get a good look!

CAPCOM Race Queens Series.

You all knew this one was coming sooner or later lol

#CAPCOM #Morrigan #Darkstalkers

がんばれゴエモンのヤエちゃん〜
この服装めっちゃ可愛くて好き

"Guile's prob next"

Not if he has anything to say about it

ぽよぽよ! (x68000)

ぽよぽよ! (x68000)

ぽよぽよ! (x68000)

ぽよぽよ! (x68000)

all your favorite "Mad Dough Mono Gattary (?)" characters are here

巨乳暴れん坊巫女
#富樫こより
#戦国ブレード

"3 BUT STILLs in a span of 5 minutes"

Life Gamble starring Fu Sheng, calling it now

"[...] the person who designed Kaoru Yamazaki for Pulstar is apparently none other than Naomi Yamazaki (lol) By the way, she has a younger sister named Kaoru in real life, so I've heard[...] I heard about this back when (Takashi) Amasaka had his website up, corresponding via emails and message boards[...]" from https://gfan.jpn.org/diary/view/698?continue=1 (shout outs to VGdensetsu for the link)

and Naomi's cameo, for good measure

Receipts as always

Today's esoteric Pulstar trivia: Kaoru Yamazaki was named after the younger sister of her character designer, Naomi Yamazaki

(Keen-eyed fans might recognize the latter name as being the Dino-135's pilot in Blazing Star)

Open the "ED64" folder, open the file "save_db.txt", pop JK=1 at the bottom (as pictured), works like a charm