Advanced Power Dolls 2 [PC-98]

Advanced Power Dolls 2 [PC-98]

Summary

Genre: Strategy
Date: 1996
Company: Kogado
Neo Kobe archive location: ./Kogado/Advanced Power Dolls 2/

Online Information

PC98 DB Link: http://fullmotionvideo.free.fr/screen/G0073.html
PC9801 Database Link: https://refuge.tokyo/pc9801/pc98/00300.html
Mobygames: https://www.mobygames.com/game/pc98/advanced-power-dolls-2

Disk Summary

Disks: 9x 1.2MB (as archive Advanced Power Dolls 2 [FD].zip)
HD Image: 20MB (in archive Advanced Power Dolls 2 [HD].zip)

  Length      Date    Time    Name
---------  ---------- -----   ----
  1261568  1996-12-24 23:32   Advanced Power Dolls 2 (Disk 1).hdm
  1261568  1996-12-24 23:32   Advanced Power Dolls 2 (Disk 2).hdm
  1261568  1996-12-24 23:32   Advanced Power Dolls 2 (Disk 3).hdm
  1261568  1996-12-24 23:32   Advanced Power Dolls 2 (Disk 4).hdm
  1261568  1996-12-24 23:32   Advanced Power Dolls 2 (Disk 5).hdm
  1261568  1996-12-24 23:32   Advanced Power Dolls 2 (Disk 6).hdm
  1261568  1996-12-24 23:32   Advanced Power Dolls 2 (Disk 7).hdm
  1261568  1996-12-24 23:32   Advanced Power Dolls 2 (Disk 8).hdm
  1261568  1996-12-24 23:32   Advanced Power Dolls 2 (Disk 9).hdm
---------                     -------
 11354112                     9 files

Floppy Disk Contents

Disk 1

Disk 2

Disk 3

Disk 4

The contents of disks 5 through disk 9 match that of disk 4, that is, a single archive file named PD2DT.000 through PD2DT.005.

HDD Install Process

Since the Neo Kobe archive has an installed version, it appears that the installer copies all of the individual files off the first 3 floppies, then concatenates the PD2DT.* archive file to a combined PD2DT.BND and PD2DT.IDX file set.

As a first test, running INST.EXE from disk 1 results in the following warning:

Google translate approximately converts this to “Boot device is not a 1MB Floppy disk”, so I guess this means we have to boot from the Power Doll disks in order to do the install.

I then tried copying the contents of all disks to a folder on the HDD and running the installer again, same message.

If you try to boot from any of the floppies you see an error like this:

That seems to be saying “This is Power Dolls 2 install disk 1”, the same happens for disk 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9. So none of the disks appear to be bootable.

What you actually need to do is boot from a DOS boot floppy, remove the boot disk, then swap in the Power Dolls disk 1. If you have 2x floppy drives then you need to remember that your hard drive is now C: at this point. Run INST.EXE from disk 1 (which should be located at drive A:), and you'll be presented with the following install screen:

All that screen is saying is that it's the Advanced Power Dolls 2 install utility, and the currently selected install mode is HDD. You don't have any choice other than to click on the bottom option, a second or two later and the installer will detect the available hard drives:

Unless you have multiple drives/partitions, just choose what it offers you…

This is giving you an option to confirm (top) or cancel (bottom) the installation to C: before we continue. Choose the top option and then the installer begins copying files from disk 1, it will then stop, and show the following:

Swap to disk 2, select the top option (continue) and keep going, the disk numbers it wants are clearly visible in the middle of the prompt.

After the install has copied the contents of disk 9, it will ask you to replace the DOS boot floppy again, swap it back in and click the top option again (continue), it will show this message:

This appears to be recommending that you enable XMS for best performance; since we only temporarily booted from a DOS floppy, we can probably ignore this if we're already enabling HIMEM or equivalent. Still, we need to click on the message and we are asked if we want the installer to make the changes for us (top option), or proceed without it (bottom):

We have a final message which thanks us for the install and to then reboot in order to play the game:

Installed Files

When installed to KOGADO/PD2_3/, the contents are:

 180304 Mar 25  1996 BRIEF2.EXE
 171536 Mar 25  1996 BRIEF3.EXE
 177344 Mar 25  1996 BRIEFING.EXE
   2379 Jan 22  1996 CDP.COM
  12372 Mar 25  1996 COMMENT.TXT
  13440 Mar 25  1996 CONTROL.EXE
  82432 Mar 25  1996 CONVERT.EXE
  93131 Mar 25  1996 DFACE2.PCK
   9264 May 23  1995 EMI.COM
   2048 Aug 16  1995 FONT_ANK.DAT
   5766 Mar 25  1996 GO.EXE
  18333 Feb 29  1996 KABE3.GCP
  92976 Mar 25  1996 MAKEINIT.EXE
   5698 Oct 22  1994 NARU.COM
  72224 Mar 22  1996 OPENING.EXE
      0 Mar 27  1996 PD2DT_2.ID
      0 Mar 27  1996 PD2DT_3.ID
7228225 Mar 25  1996 PD2DT.BND
   4056 Mar 25  1996 PD2DT.IDX
  63184 Mar 25  1996 PD2SHELL.EXE
    390 Jul 11  1995 REG_UNIT.DAT
 118832 Mar 25  1996 REPORT2.EXE
 118576 Mar 25  1996 REPORT3.EXE
 119248 Mar 25  1996 REPORT.EXE
   5585 Oct 31  1994 SARI.COM
  51696 Mar 25  1996 STARTUP.EXE
 388576 Mar 28  1996 TACTICS1.EXE
 378096 Mar 27  1996 TACTICS2.EXE
 337568 Mar 27  1996 TACTICS3.EXE
  13808 Jan 11  1996 UNINST.EXE
      6 Apr 15  2017 USERDISK.ID

Start the game via the file GO.EXE, the (minimal) config screen will load allowing you to choose either FM sound or MIDI output.

At present I am unaware if the MIDI option is limited to a certain hardware interface, or if it will work with any of the standard Roland MPU MIDI interface cards available for the PC-98 (the PC-98 MPU-II and the Super MPU).