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PostPosted: October 2nd, 2011, 3:54 pm 
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Joined: July 22nd, 2011, 9:19 am
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Hi Folks,

Here it is: A complete list of all the games for the Fujitsu FM Towns/Marty !

In the last few months I have been working in my spare time on building a complete list of all FM Towns/Marty games ever released.
As you all know, information on this topic is rather scarce and also quite scattered. I have been gathering bits and pieces from various places and with the help of translating software I have taken the time to go through Nifty's huge Towns Software DataBase.

[EDIT]
After editing spelling errors and filling in almost all the missing information regarding genre and company name I have closed the list for further editing.
If you know anything that is not reflected in the list yet, please use this forum thread to post your comments.
Any info on FM Towns/Marty identification is greatly appreciated!!



Some Background
This list started as part of a little project of mine that consists of building an offline database of all console games ever released. Now, as you all know, sometimes even the publishers of FM Towns games were not very clear on whether a game was made only for the FM Towns computer or for the FM Towns Marty console as well. That is why my list covers all games made for the FM Towns/Marty from 1989 to 1997.

Games
Q: So Nifty's database has 1444 entries and your list only 711? How come?
A: Nifty's list covers all FM Towns software, mine focuses only on the games. But what's a game? Good question, sometimes it seems that it is just easier to list all titles without having to decide whether to include some educational multimedia CD or not. Still, my focus has always be on games so I decided to edit Nifty's full list.
Q: What did you leave out?
A: I only discarded those titles that clearly are no games, like operating software, English language courses (loads of them) or multimedia slide shows (like "Butterflies of Japan").
Educational titles like "Grimm's Fairy Tales" I left in, because there usually is some kind of interactive game element included, even if it is just for the kids.

Cover
This is just for my reference, to know if I have been able to locate a scan of the front box cover. If you have any more scans, please upload.
If there is interest I will upload my packs as well ...

and last but not least ...

Platform
Very interesting, but also quite complicated ...
Fujitsu introduced the FM Towns computer in 1989. In late February of 1993 it introduced the FM Towns Marty console, which was basically a stripped-down version of the computer. The Marty was touted as being backward-compatible with "most" pre-1993 FM Towns titles. Hmmm. But in the months following the launch of the Marty things got worse: There were Marty re-releases of original FM Towns games, there were games marketed as "FM Towns/Marty" while others did not mention the Marty at all. Older games should work, but you could not be sure. Newer games were sold as "FM Towns/Marty" but refused to work on the console. Other game from post-1993 were sold as FM Towns-only but ran perfectly fine on the console. What a mess!!!
To sort through this mess you will find 3 categories in my list: 1)FM Towns, 2)FM Towns Marty and 3)FM Towns (Marty?).
ALL games on the list are playable on the FM Towns computer. There are NO games that only work on the Marty console, they do not exist.
Please remember: This is NOT a compatibility list (as this would mean play-testing all games on a real Marty machine). My goal is different: I want to know what system the games were made for.
This means:
1. All games pre-02/1993 are marked as "FM Towns". They probably will play on a Marty as well, but IN THEIR DAY they were made for the FM Towns computer.
2. All games post-02/1993 can be either "FM Towns Marty" meaning they work on both computer and console or just "FM Towns". The latter is because the game would not run on a Marty because it needed a) more than 2MB RAM, b) required a HD installation, c) required the newer FM Towns IPL (initial program loader) or d) required a 486 CPU. Or e) the publishing company did not care about the Marty and sold the game as a FM Towns game.
3. There is only one way to find out if a post-02/1993 game was sold as "FM Towns" or "FM Towns Marty": by looking at the box! All 116 games marked as "FM Towns Marty" have been confirmed to have some kind of reference to the Marty either on the front or the back cover of the original game box. There are 274 game entries marked as "FM Towns (Marty?). They could be "FM Towns Marty" or just "FM Towns". If you have box cover scans, please upload them to Tokugawa !!
Oh btw, to make things worse: it is not sufficient to look at the front cover. I have seen quite a few games where the front cover just says: "FM Towns" and there is only a small mention of the Marty on the back of the box. Kind of sums up the whole Marty debacle ...



I hope you find this list useful.

Respect the CLASSICS !!


pahleto

:wink:


Last edited by pahleto on October 23rd, 2011, 9:25 pm, edited 4 times in total.

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PostPosted: October 2nd, 2011, 6:24 pm 
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Thanks for your AWESOME work. I'll give it a read and i'll contribute, if i will be able to do so.
Thanks again :)

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PostPosted: October 2nd, 2011, 6:57 pm 
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I have two issues to mention. I'm not 100% sure about them, so I didn't edit the list.

1) Lupin the 3rd Hong Kong no Mashu. I have bought it and it's a CD game. I don't know if there is a floppy disk version (90% of CD space is filled with audio tracks, so it could be), but definitively there is a CD version.
You can find the rip in the FM-Towns uploads thread.

2) Illusion City. As far as I know, the Towns version should be a floppy disk version, not a CD version. Again, I'm not 100% sure, so any information is welcome.

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PostPosted: October 2nd, 2011, 8:41 pm 
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Very nice data compilation. Tip of the hat, sir ! :wink:


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PostPosted: October 2nd, 2011, 9:44 pm 
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@ Snake
Thanks for pointing out the inconsistencies.
There was actually a small problem when I converted my list to the spreadsheet format which caused the "Format" column to be in disarray.

I have corrected the error and double-checked: everything should be OK now.

:)


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PostPosted: October 2nd, 2011, 11:08 pm 
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Nice work!

I haven't looked through the list thoroughly yet, but I made the following title corrections.

Goku 2 = Kiwame 2
Goku Jouseki Shu = Kiwame Jouseki Shuu
Goku Kiwame = Kiwame


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PostPosted: October 3rd, 2011, 8:14 am 
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Joined: July 22nd, 2011, 9:19 am
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Thanks for the input so far.

I have added 2 categories to the master list:

- Extras
This column contains extra information of a given game. Currently it identifies all games that require a HD installation. According to Nifty there are also 2 games that require a 486 CPU. Don't know if there are more?

- Alternative Title
This column is not intended to be complete, but rather to help identify games and tell one from another.
Normally I only keep track of alternative title names for games like "Kyukyoku Tiger" which is known outside of Japan as "Twin Cobra". This time around though I sometimes included the translation of the title as well. Nifty lists all games with their native Japanese game title, he only uses English when the game had an English title on the box. Which of course is as it should be.
But in other places you might find the game with a translated title, so I included some translations where I could find/identify them. - Hope this helps ...

:)


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PostPosted: October 3rd, 2011, 12:42 pm 
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Vielen Dank :D

Concerning the alternative titles, I noticed this when looking at the Koei titles, is it okay to edit them to English names, for example "Royal Blood" is commonly known as "Gemfire". "Kou Ryuuki" got an English release (as "Rise of the Phoenix)" also, but only on the SNES etc.


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PostPosted: October 4th, 2011, 9:08 am 
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Joined: July 22nd, 2011, 9:19 am
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I made some small changes to the page:

I added a new column called "User Comments". Please put everything you feel that needs to be edited into this column:
- if the name of the game is not correctly spelled
- if the entry is a dupe
- if the entry is a multimedia only title and not a game
- if you can identify if the game was released for the Marty
etc.

If you feel that an entry should not be in the list, please do not simply delete it, rather leave a short comment on why it should not be on the list.
I think this way it will be easier to keep track of changes made to the list.

If someone wants to fill in the blanks in the [Genre] category you obviously do not have to leave a commentary.

pahleto


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PostPosted: October 4th, 2011, 2:18 pm 
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Thank you very much for all your hard work. Now I can finally remove some hoax titles like R-Type from my "wanted games" list.

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PostPosted: October 4th, 2011, 4:11 pm 
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Actually, I'm surprised there's no column for the original Japanese spelling. That would be useful to have.


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PostPosted: October 12th, 2011, 8:57 am 
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That's awesome work indeed. I started something similar a while back with another member (ex?) here but never really had the time for it. Awesome indeed. Will have a good read through when I get home. I may be able to help on some of the box scans for FMT / Marty references etc.


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PostPosted: October 19th, 2011, 3:06 pm 
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Joined: July 22nd, 2011, 9:19 am
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I have been doing some more work on my FM Towns list:

1.) I have gone through suruga-ya.jp's listing of FM Towns games. Found a lot of nice covers and was able to verify a lot of info on title names and companies.

2.) I have now cross-checked my list against Tokugawa's own huge PC98 list. This has helped me to fill in almost all of the blanks and iron out some issues regarding title spelling.
Genre information is also complete now! :D

The final list consists of 711 games. There are only 25 entries left where I could not find any more info beyond it being mentioned in Nifty's database. These I have marked with a "?" before the title.

I feel that this is as far as I can take this listing at present. Therefore I have closed the list to editing. If you know anything that is not reflected in the list yet - please use this forum thread to post your comments.


Now it is time for me to hunt down some FM Towns games and start playing ...
8)


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PostPosted: October 22nd, 2011, 10:55 pm 
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Seems like it's not available for public viewing. Do i need to put in a request?


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PostPosted: October 23rd, 2011, 9:26 pm 
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sorry, public viewing should be enabled now ...


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