The PC-98 was Japan’s most prominent personal computer in the 1980s and ’90s, where many prominent video game franchises like Touhou got their start. However, it is nigh impossible to operate outside of Japan because of proprietary language-specific hardware like its floppy disks and operating system, essentially serving as a region lock. Since it was created when Japan was still an outsider to the PC world, Nippon Electric didn’t see much reason to include measures to allow for foreign hardware. This in turn meant most games solely released for the PC-98 can’t be played today and have simply fallen into the annals of history as preserving them involves going through too many hurdles.

That doesn’t mean there aren’t some willing to make it happen. At its Anime Expo industry panel on Saturday, American hentai publisher Fakku announced a partnership with FairyTale to translate and bring its titles to modern PC gaming like Steam.

Founded in 1987, FairyTale was one of the top adult game developers for the PC-98. It was such a prominent face in the Japanese gaming industry that one of its titles, Saori: The House of Beautiful Girls, led to the studio being raided by police after a middle schooler was caught shoplifting it; this was one of the factors that led to the creation of CERO, the main video game rating system in Japan. It also consists of various sister brands that publish games too.

By 2026, however, it only consisted of two employees. Fakku founder Jacob Grady got in contact about potentially working to preserve FairyTale’s games, and the staff was more than happy to get involved. So eager, in fact, that they took to their Twitter account to post about their history.

“They’ve been tweeting it from their account. It’s like this whole game company that no one follows anymore. It’s just like a staff account. It’s the last remaining one,” Grady recalled. “They’re just tweeting things that they’re finding in their warehouse as they look around for Fakku to find, like, some digital games or whatever for us to publish. They’re posting on their Twitter account cool pictures like their office from 30 years ago. It’s like, ‘Hey, I found the whole VHS tape of the opening for Pia Carrot.

“They’re putting all this stuff on Twitter and no one knows that they’re doing it for us to publish the English versions of these games.”

Grady got to work on porting them during a two-month lull due to a freeze by payment processors. Of course, the process isn’t exactly as simple as just getting a copy of the game and translating it into English. Extracting the file from a 30-year-old Japanese-exclusive floppy disk was one thing, but he also had to reverse engineer the original game engine without much support since FairyTale doesn’t have the source code and those who worked on it are no longer involved with the company.

Fakku basically had to build the system from the ground up, creating several tools to get PC-98 games running. Since they are point-and-click adventure titles, Grady found the click maps needed to be adjusted accordingly to be compatible on modern computers.

“None of these games have been played before outside Japan. I’m literally the first to play them outside of Japan,” Grady quipped. “So much history involved with this license.”

While all of FairyTale’s catalog is available for Fakku, ten were revealed on Saturday: Shinjuku Monogatari, Ballade for Maria, Jinmon Yuugi, Count Dracula, Necronomicon, Marine Philt, Dead of the Brain and its sequel, Pia Carrot e Youkoso!, and Dengeki Nurse.

Ironically, fan translation group WINE launched its own translated version of Dengeki Nurse on Saturday. To avoid a conflict, Fakku invited WINE to be part of the official translation team while permitting them to release their own version.

Featured image credit: Justin Nguyen