Look familiar?

[Harrison]

Anyone else here see a passing resemblance between the system shown in this image below and something Amiga related?


http://www.classicamiga.me.uk/off_site_images/fmmarty.jpg

[Submeg]

Whoa creepy, what is that?

[Yanni Oblivion]

If it were a darker shade of grey,and the control pad had a few extra buttons then...... :S

[Stephen Coates]

What is it?

Looks like a CD32.

[Harrison]

It's called the FM-Marty, the console version of the Japanese home gaming system the FM-Towns. This was released long before the CD32 was even announced and it's specifications were far in advance of anything available at the time. It was the first ever CD based home gaming system on the market featuring a 32bit 16MHz 386 CPU.

So sadly, in reality the CD32 was far from being the first 32bit CD based home console, whatever Commodore tried to make us believe.

[Submeg]

Wow, thats quite impressive. Of course, had to be in Japan ;)

[AlexJ]

Didn't Commodore later clarify that by "The world's first 32-bit CD-based console" they meant the first 32-bit CD-based console that was available throughout the world, as opposed to the first one in any part of the world.

[Demon Cleaner]

I wanted to d/l the FM-Towns set at Pleasuredome, but I guess all the games are in japanese.

[J T]

I've heard the names FM-towns and Marty before but never knew what it was and could never really care enough to find out.

But both it and the CD32 are ugly, ugly, ugly :thumbsdown2:

[Harrison]

I wanted to d/l the FM-Towns set at Pleasuredome, but I guess all the games are in japanese.

No, they are not all in Japanese, especially as a lot of the games are versions of classic PC titles and remain in English. For some reason the Japanese love to play games in English (which is great for us). Many FM-Towns games are the best versions of famous titles, such as Adventures like Loom, Maniac Mansion, indiana jones etc, and the FM-Towns versions tend to be far superior releases over any other version with full speech and 256 colour graphics. Just look at the SCUMM full set as it supports all of the great FM-Towns versions of many of the adventures.

It is definitely worth getting the FM-Towns set.

[Demon Cleaner]

It is definitely worth getting the FM-Towns set.Will be EXECUTED!!!

[AlexJ]

For some reason the Japanese love to play games in English (which is great for us).

Well if that's the case, they should do all the RPG's in English and then we'd be able to play the obscure ones that at present don't get translated over here as well!

[Harrison]

Very true and I also wish they would do that too. But most of the Japanese only RPGs tend to be heavily anim based and so Japanese voice acting tends to dictate the language used.

[Demon Cleaner]

I have the Farland Story (1-7) games for PC98, which were translated into english (the ROM files of course). You should d/l them, they look VERY japanime.

[Harrison]

It is great that many groups dedicate their free time to translating old games into English. I've got many translated SNES RPGs like that which is great.

[Agram]

So Eye of the Beholder 2 on FM-Towns will be a superior version? Been trying to obtain it for weeks now, so just hope it has something extra over the other systems.

I know the SegaCD version of the first game had plenty of cut scenes.

[Harrison]

Not sure about EofB on the FM-Towns. I've not tried it yet but if it is based on the console port that appeared than it won't be that great.

The best version of the EotB games is the PC version as it had better sound and 256 colour graphics. Maybe the FM-Towns version used the same graphics as the PC version? They both used the same CPU (Intel 386) at the time after all.

[TiredOfLife]

There has recently been a release of EOB and EOBII for AGA Amigas.
Haven't had a look yet to see how much the graphics have been improved.

[Submeg]

Really? By who??

[Harrison]

I didn't know that either. As the PC original had 256 colour graphics it would be an obvious and easy way to upgrade the Amiga version for AGA. I also would like to know more about this.

Was the AGA version a new commercial release? Or a back room coding freeware release?

[AlexJ]

http://eob.wikispaces.com/EOB2+AGA+GAME

[Harrison]

Thank you. I will definitely be trying this one out. I think we should add these as an additional entry in the site database, plus link the file downloads in case they ever vanish from the official sites.

[Demon Cleaner]

I think we should add these as an additional entry in the site database, plus link the file downloads in case they ever vanish from the official sites.Definitely. I think a lot of people don't know that it exists.

[Submeg]

awesome! Got those now! ;)

[Harrison]

Someone even mentioned the prospect of porting the third game from the PC original over to the Amiga using the EoB2 engine. If they can pull that off it would be great.