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