Steam is about to start getting some of the best Japanese pixel art in gaming history

Japan's NEC PC-98 series of personal computers, popular during the 1980s and 1990s, produced numerous adventure games and visual novels with exceptional pixel art. The style varied from cute aesthetics to highly detailed visuals using a limited color palette, often resulting in adult content. Despite the adult nature of many titles, few were officially released in English, the adult content likely being the primary reason.

However, a fan translation group known as WINE has translated five games for PC-98 in the past three years, including two horror adventures titled Dead of the Brain and Dead of the Brain 2. The former game is now getting an official release on Steam ahead of Halloween, complete with features like autosaves and optional quality-of-life enhancements such as hover hints and hit boxes.

While the games are considered basic and somewhat tedious, the unique pixel art is highly praised. There are some intense death scenes in the trailers, but specific details are not disclosed. The release of Dead of the Brain is part of an agreement between the 1990s PC-98 studio FairyTale and US-based manga publisher Fakku, who acquired publishing rights to FairyTale's entire catalog.

This deal could potentially bring dozens of PC-98 games to Steam in the future, with all translations reportedly handled by humans rather than AI. Fakku's partnership with WINE for Dead of the Brain is seen as a positive step towards making these classic games more accessible to a wider audience.