iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Chris Gliddon 🐯 @tigerwolf.bsky.social · 07/03/2026

Believe it or not, this actually isn't as far fetched as it seems! Koei had a sub-brand called COMIX for like 2yrs in the mid-80s. They released "Jailus The Last Battle" (ジャイラス) in 1984. Shares a remarkably similar Japanese name. The creator even made a sequel last year! hijk0909.itch.io/jailus2

Cover art for "Jailus The Last Battle" (ジャイラス)

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Chris Gliddon 🐯 @tigerwolf.bsky.social · 08/12/2025

Oh believe me, I know! His art is a key reason that I started collecting and documenting Koei's history for the last 10 years. There are many Japanese exclusive Koei games with his art that many haven't seen yet, and I think that's a bit sad and something I hope to help change in some small way

The Land of the Gods: Kojiki Gaiden: 神々の大地古事記外伝 / 神々の大地・古事記外伝

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Chris Gliddon 🐯 @tigerwolf.bsky.social · 12/09/2025

Koei Tecmo was the developer for both Dragon Quest Builders 2 and this new Pokemon Pokopia. DQB2 has a Metacritic score of 86: www.metacritic.com/game/dragon-... We are in good hands. Pokopia will be a banger (regardless of how human Ditto makes us feel)

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Chris Gliddon 🐯 @tigerwolf.bsky.social · 29/07/2025

I found Jesus! (The game, that is.) The Journey of Love (クリス愛の旅立ち) is one of the games Koei published under its short-lived Comix imprint in the 80s. I suspect Comix was their label for games submitted by homebrew devs, much like how Enix published games they didn't make? Not sure yet, though 🤔

Christ: The Journey of Love (クリス愛の旅立ち) cover

Christ: The Journey of Love (クリス愛の旅立ち) tape and manual

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Chris Gliddon 🐯 @tigerwolf.bsky.social · 30/04/2025

Many Koei PC RPGs pre-date these! - Underground Exploration (1982) - Dragon & Princess (1983) - Dungeon (1984) - Sword & Sorcery (1984) - Corridor (1985) - Time Empire (1985) All Japanese exclusive and fairly obscure: www.gamingalexandria.com/wp/2022/12/d...

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Chris Gliddon 🐯 @tigerwolf.bsky.social · 30/04/2025

They hired a world-class famous Japanese artist for them, Noriyoshi Ohrai! The same artist who painted the JP Star Wars film posters www.iamag.co/the-art-of-n...

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Chris Gliddon 🐯 @tigerwolf.bsky.social · 30/03/2025

Yep, Koei had a software division called Ergosoft that made word processors like Egword. More pics of the Saturn set are online than the PlayStation set, but they sold a bundle that came with the Koei printer dongle and a Canon printer

Machine translation of Japanese ad for the Egword Printer set

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Chris Gliddon 🐯 @tigerwolf.bsky.social · 06/03/2025

To be fair, the first Suikoden game was by Koei. It was released as Bandit Kings of Ancient China in the West, and the cover is equally awesome koei.fandom.com/wiki/Bandit_...

Suikoden (aka Bandit Kings of Ancient China) cover art

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Chris Gliddon 🐯 @tigerwolf.bsky.social · 20/02/2025

Yeah I've been trying to learn more about both her and her husband! Especially about how her early fashion industry experience influenced her pricing strategies for Koei. You can see her interest in fashion in most pictures of her

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Chris Gliddon 🐯 @tigerwolf.bsky.social · 02/01/2025

Spending the holidays reorganizing my Koei collection. It's amazing how much space these big box PC games take up!

Stacks of Koei big box PC games and Famicom games from my collection

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Chris Gliddon 🐯 @tigerwolf.bsky.social · 29/12/2024

Koei's played the long game with Fire Emblem! Here's a FE manga they published in the mid-90s. I have faith they'll do more FE stuff in the future 😊

Fire Emblem book published by Koei in the mid-90s

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Chris Gliddon 🐯 @tigerwolf.bsky.social · 25/12/2024

Merry Christmas and happy holidays! To keep with the Koei theme here on this feed, here's a ridiculous festive Atelier image to celebrate 🏍️👙🤶

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Chris Gliddon 🐯 @tigerwolf.bsky.social · 07/12/2024

Who's the best James Bond villain? I'll let you decide

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Chris Gliddon 🐯 @tigerwolf.bsky.social · 17/11/2024

Finally upgraded our Steam Deck to a 2TB internal drive. Can't believe I waited so long to make such a helpful update! Isn't it amazing that drives are so small now??

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Chris Gliddon 🐯 @tigerwolf.bsky.social · 16/08/2024

One of the first ads run by Koei (December 1981) advertising the "1st Northern Kanto Microcomputer Show" the weekend of Dec 12-13, 1981. And apparently they even had a free fortune-telling service at the event?

Koey Microcomputer Systems ad from Micom Magazine, December 1981, a little over a month after the release of their first two video games.

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Chris Gliddon 🐯 @tigerwolf.bsky.social · 25/05/2024

Today I realized that I started this Koei project almost 6 years ago! Time to get this stuff posted. Going to relaunch our blog as a place to publish stuff

A peek behind the scenes at the Koei ludography database I've been compiling for the past 5 years!

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Chris Gliddon 🐯 @tigerwolf.bsky.social · 23/05/2024

It's been a long road of doom scrolling Japanese auctions... as evidenced by these piles of music CDs, games, word processors, and even Koei board games

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Chris Gliddon 🐯 @tigerwolf.bsky.social · 06/05/2024

Quote with a game for which you're nostalgic. Inindo is a heavily-flawed game. It's a grindfest, the dungeons are irritatingly windy, the SFX can be shrill. And yet I've beat it 6 times. The NPC relationship system and metagame are captivating and unique. Nothing on the SNES is like it

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Chris Gliddon 🐯 @tigerwolf.bsky.social · 04/05/2024

In 1996, Koei released a handheld B&W console dedicated entirely to the game of Go. The PasoGo (パソ碁) was expensive, had poor battery life, and the only game cartridges released for it were variants of Go. These are the first two I imported from Japan to learn more

Two games from Koei's short-lived PasoGo (パソ碁) handheld console. It was expensive but also as low-quality as the Game Boy, so it presumably did not perform well in the market

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Chris Gliddon 🐯 @tigerwolf.bsky.social · 02/04/2024

Spent a few hours yesterday scanning old Koei games to make sure they're preserved somewhere. It's interesting what you can learn when you pay attention to tiny details

The first generation of Koei games used a generic label hand-glued into cassettes. Most of the time this sticker was only on one side of the tape, but some of their cassette releases had a label on both sides.

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Chris Gliddon 🐯 @tigerwolf.bsky.social · 29/02/2024

Super Famicom guidebooks for Shin Megami Tensei (Atlus) and Witches' Sleep (Pack-in). Interestingly, both of these books were published by Koei

Shin Megami Tensei 真・女神転生
Guidebook published by Koei

Witches' Sleep 魔女たちの眠り
Book published by Koei

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Chris Gliddon 🐯 @tigerwolf.bsky.social · 25/02/2024

Can we all just appreciate the beauty of physical video game guidebooks? A clean, well-designed table of game stats for reference. Buy once, no video ads, no endless scrolling, easy navigation 💚

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Chris Gliddon 🐯 @tigerwolf.bsky.social · 19/02/2024

Without downloading any new pics, where are you mentally?

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Chris Gliddon 🐯 @tigerwolf.bsky.social · 11/02/2024

Discovering the zettelkasten method has been a subtle nudge in the right direction for my ongoing Koei research. It's helpful for pulling very random things together, like old promo VHS tapes and other ephemera

A SangokushI Musou promotional VHS from November 1996 that I imported recently

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Chris Gliddon 🐯 @tigerwolf.bsky.social · 29/12/2023

Without downloading anything new what's your energy going into 2024

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Chris Gliddon 🐯 @tigerwolf.bsky.social · 21/12/2023

Classic animation cels bring a smile to my heart. It's this tiny moment of history, like a Kodak moment for fictional characters. It's the most real these characters can get!

Samurai Pizza Cats animation cel featuring Princess Vi holding a blank notebook

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Chris Gliddon 🐯 @tigerwolf.bsky.social · 26/11/2023

You know you're entering the second half of your life when you start getting ads like this! 😑

Old people cereal ads for old people like me

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Chris Gliddon 🐯 @tigerwolf.bsky.social · 20/11/2023

Recently picked up a copy of Galaxy Strategy, one of the first Koei sci-fi titles (after Sunset in Radick or the minigames on Silver Pack in 1982) The JRPG Book claims that this is a Nobunaga sci-fi spinoff. It's on my to do list to fact check to see if that's accurate or not

Galaxy Strategy in its outer cardboard sleeve

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Chris Gliddon 🐯 @tigerwolf.bsky.social · 14/11/2023

My Samurai Pizza Cats acquisitions continue. Had to pick up the original CDs. It's fascinating how tonally different the music is between the JP and US versions of this anime

The two Kyatto Ninden Teyandee CDs from the early 90d

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Chris Gliddon 🐯 @tigerwolf.bsky.social · 08/11/2023

If the original Kyatto Ninden Teyandee scripts were lost when Saban was localizing the show to become Samurai Pizza Cats, it's my fault. Sorry 😂

A script book for Kyatto Ninden Teyandee episode 44 (aka Samurai Pizza Cats). It's probably a reproduction but I still enjoy having it

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Chris Gliddon 🐯 @tigerwolf.bsky.social · 27/10/2023

Season 6 of The Simpsons is the best season of The Simpsons. Proof!

A chart posted on Reddit of the IMDB scores of every episode of The Simpsons

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Chris Gliddon 🐯 @tigerwolf.bsky.social · 22/10/2023

You've gotta hand it to Koei - they sure do charge what they believe their games are worth! These are 1992 prices, too! The standard edition of Romance of the Three Kingdoms II would have been around ~$99 US 💸

Prices for Romance of the Three Kingdoms II on Super Famicom in Japan circa 1992. The higher priced edition is the Deluxe version that includes the arranged CD soundtrack. The cheaper ¥14,800 Standard edition is basically $99, and that's in 1992 money! 😲

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Chris Gliddon 🐯 @tigerwolf.bsky.social · 10/10/2023

Steam recommending me some game called LOLOLIVEOLOLOLOLOLOLIVELIVE - is it any good? 😂

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Chris Gliddon 🐯 @tigerwolf.bsky.social · 07/10/2023

Dragon Quest Builders 2 is now probably my most played game (since I also play it on PS4). It's no wonder considering it's the brainchild of Square Enix and Koei Tecmo that I'd be drawn to this game

Guess I've spent too long playing this game

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Chris Gliddon 🐯 @tigerwolf.bsky.social · 26/09/2023

My top 25 games shows that I: a) am old b) enjoy broken games with interesting ideas c) like slow games d) apparently really like Square Enix and Koei Tecmo quite a lot

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Chris Gliddon 🐯 @tigerwolf.bsky.social · 25/09/2023

The journey to learn more about a single company's history is fascinating. You tend to find more offbeat items as you narrow your view. Koei history is Interesting!

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Chris Gliddon 🐯 @tigerwolf.bsky.social · 23/09/2023

Slowly chipping away at the Koei redbox collection. It's taken me years to build this modest little set of tapes

Koei's first games used a generic red insert template, allegedly designed by Keiko Erikawa, the co-founder of Koei.

Each game was 'sealed' with a simple sticker that kept the case closed. You can tell when a game is in its original case or not by inspecting the seal. I have two copies of Combat, and I assumed that the black case would be a replacement. And yet it has the sticker seal on it, so it's more than likely the original case.

The artwork was identical on these games - the only change was the title of the game

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Chris Gliddon 🐯 @tigerwolf.bsky.social · 19/09/2023

So pleased to see the Godot Foundation doubling their monthly support. Investing in an open source engine like Godot will help more kids around the world to learn to make games. I see this Unity debacle and Godot movement as a major moment in video game history

Godot Foundation funding numbers as of September 19, 2023

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Chris Gliddon 🐯 @tigerwolf.bsky.social · 13/09/2023

Nice to see Godot getting a boost! Yay open source!

Google Trends for last 7 days worldwide comparing popular game engines

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Chris Gliddon 🐯 @tigerwolf.bsky.social · 13/09/2023

In case you're wondering why Unity is changing the pricing model. Here's a leaked internal Unity post. 70% of mobile apps (~750,000 apps) would be effected by Unity's change. This is bad news for video game preservation, too. Unity will need to reconsider their Runtime Fees based on the backlash

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Chris Gliddon 🐯 @tigerwolf.bsky.social · 13/09/2023

Hopefully today's Unity nonsense results in deeper support for Godot! I've got my Godot pin sitting on my laptop for the good vibes 🤖

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Chris Gliddon 🐯 @tigerwolf.bsky.social · 12/09/2023

Slowly chipping away at #Koei history research -- this time with a surprisingly insightful 2002 interview with co-founder Keiko Erikawa

12 People Plan Tomorrow - Sakaiya Taichi (2002)

Erikawa Keiko
Born in 1949 in Kanagawa Prefecture. Graduated from Tama Art University in 1971.
Founded Koei (now Koei Tecmo) in 1978.
Became president of Koei Tecmo in 1999.
From 2001 to present, Vice President of the Japan Personal Computer Software Association, and President of the Digital Media Association.

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Chris Gliddon 🐯 @tigerwolf.bsky.social · 09/09/2023

Doesn't this kind of make you want a room full of slimes?

Can you imagine being surrounded by this much Dragon Quest? Slime mania!

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Chris Gliddon 🐯 @tigerwolf.bsky.social · 07/09/2023

Don't forget to stop those roaches!

Stop That Roach cartridge for Game Boy (US version)

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Chris Gliddon 🐯 @tigerwolf.bsky.social · 04/09/2023

Getting closer to having the complete Koei red box collection. It's unfortunate that someone scrawled 1000 in permanent marker on an original case. It's nicer to have copies with the original Koei sticker seal on them 🤷‍♂️

Front cover of Das Boot in its original case with the complete sticker seal. Unfortunately a seller wrote 1000 in permanent marker on the front of the case.

Back side and cassette for this PC88 copy of Das Boot by Koei

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Chris Gliddon 🐯 @tigerwolf.bsky.social · 04/09/2023

Repost a picture of the very first game you remember playing

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Chris Gliddon 🐯 @tigerwolf.bsky.social · 04/09/2023

Years before Koei published their first video game, they made "office automation" software, including a word processor called いろは (Iroha). A decade later they published a new word processor called Egword, which they also published on Saturn and PlayStation

PlayStation case, manual, and disc for the Koei word processor Egword

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Chris Gliddon 🐯 @tigerwolf.bsky.social · 03/09/2023

There's so much beautiful artwork in the history of Koei. It does make you wonder just how much awesome Japanese art is hidden from the west!

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