ReC98 (Touhou PC-98 Restoration Project)

This site is not affiliated with ReC98, ZUN or Team Shanghai Alice. We do not host any files and only link the project’s official pages.

What it is

Before the Windows series that made Touhou famous, ZUN made five games for Japan’s NEC PC-9801: The Highly Responsive to Prayers, the Story of Eastern Wonderland, Phantasmagoria of Dim.Dream, Lotus Land Story and Mystic Square. The README notes they stopped being sold in 2002 and that ZUN has said he lost the data for these early games.

ReC98 “aims to perfectly reconstruct the source code of the first five Touhou Project games”. Perfect means the code compiles into binaries identical to ZUN’s. Beyond preservation, the README says the code “can then serve as the foundation for any type of mod, or any port to non-PC-98 platforms, developed by the community”. It explains why decompilation beats a black-box remake here: boss battles are hardcoded in the executables, and PC-98 emulation is complicated.

Current status

• TH01: decompilation “fully completed in August 2022”.
• TH02 to TH05: progressing steadily through crowdfunding; the homepage has detailed progress numbers per game.
• Releases: numbered by funded “push”; the latest, P0335 on 16 March 2026, fixed rare score and extend glitches in TH03 and added rendering fixes to the Anniversary Editions.

The builds

The repository maintains several branches, including:

• debloated: ZUN’s code re-architected to be easier to read and modify, producing smaller and faster PC-98 binaries, with all bugs and quirks kept. The README recommends it as the base for ports.
• anniversary: debloated plus bug fixes, for “a smoother and flicker-free gameplay experience on the PC-98 platform” while keeping quirks.
• Smaller fix branches, such as TH01 critical fixes and a TH03 clock check fix.

What you need

• The original PC-98 Touhou games.
• PC-98 hardware or a PC-98 emulator (the README mentions DOSBox-X’s PC-98 support) to run the rebuilt binaries.

We do not link any game files.

Why there is no PC port yet

The project’s own FAQ argues that a quick recompilation port would look little different from an emulator, and that the real value comes from first rebuilding readable, debloated code. With TH01 complete, a native port of that game is now possible for the community; the other four will follow as their decompilations finish.

Unofficial. This page is written by an independent directory. It is not made by, endorsed by or affiliated with ZUN Soft (now Team Shanghai Alice) or nmlgc and ReC98 contributors (ReC98 (Touhou PC-98 Restoration Project)'s author). We do not host any files, and we never link to game files, ROMs or ISOs.