| The title screen says this game was developed in 1991, meaning that
the anime series had already been airing for well over a year. In fact,
all of the music in the game is from the series. Yet look closely at the
art style: it's more manga-esque, as if Takahashi herself had done the
art. She didn't, of course, but it's a strange note that whoever did chose
to copy the manga style rather than the anime style.
Besides the regular gameplay mentioned above, there is an additional
section of the game that explains the backstory of most of the main characters,
each narrated by Shampoo, Ranma, or Akane. It's nothing too special, but
some of the artwork is ripped directly from the manga and colorized, which
is interesting.
This rare game was created for the PC98 Computer system, a x86 based
system that was very popular in Japan, and not released in other countries.
Many anime/manga and hentai games were created or this system and it's
predecessor, the PC88. Alot of the Windows hentai games that feature older,
16-color graphics and mouse-driven, in-game menus are actually simply
ports of PC98 titles. Most PC98's were 486's EGA graphics and built-in
sound cards. Hiryuu Densetsu takes advantage of both its graphical and
music power, creating some great visuals and audio... for it's time. The
PC88's were 286s and 386s, having the graphical power of about a CGA card.
This didn't work too well for games, but that didn't
stop people altogether...
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