Like you say, only one of those is acceptable to the hive. In fact one must be loudly cheered, and one must be at least quietly, obligatorily shunned.
I'm really into retro computing having collected over a hundred 80s 'home' computers (all non-PC/Mac), including at least a dozen Japanese models, but have never heard the term "PC-98" to describe a particular style of pixel art, probably because I don't speak Japanese and haven't lived there. However, I do see some traits in how the examples shown were constructed which strike me as unique beyond just the obvious Japanese aesthetic of the content.
While the article highlights that Japanese computers had greater memory and graphics capabilities earlier due to the need to represent more complex fonts, there's another factor I suspect is behind the differences I'm seeing in those images. Japanese business computers tended to have analog RGB output and displays earlier and more commonly than those in the U.S. Of course, analog RGB was available in the U.S. around the same time but it wasn't usually considered worth the increased cost for mainstream desktop use in the early 80s. Monochrome or 4 colors were generally considered sufficient for 80-column capable text displays (~640 pixels wide).
Some of the dot patterns I'm seeing in those examples work well on RGB displays but wouldn't work as well on composite video displays or TVs. In the US, early home computer pixel art targeted resolutions like 256 x 192 and 320 x 200 in 4 or 16 colors but generally assumed the pixels would be displayed on a TV or composite monitor and so leveraged the pixel blending and additional artifact colors composite video can uniquely create to enhance their artwork. These composite-exploiting blends and colors are lost when those images are displayed in RGB, leaving only the original pixel patterns which aren't what the original pixel artist saw or intended when they created the image (which is why original composite-targeted pixel art is best viewed on a composite CRT or CRT emulation). I think these Japanese artists being able to target analog RGB output is behind some of the subtle (but cool) uniqueness I'm seeing in the "PC-98" pixel patterns.
There was paint software. You didn't have to draw a pixel at a time.
Back in the day I was fortunate to work with some of the best pixel artists in the industry like Jim Sachs (https://spillhistorie.no/2024/09/13/legends-of-the-games-ind...) and they definitely did draw the vast majority of their pixels one at a time in the best paint programs available like Electronic Arts Deluxe Paint. In the linked article Sach's is quoted "I put dots on the screen. One at a time at first. Green dots for grass, blue dots for sky, gray dots for castle blocks. Hour after hour. I was happy if I got one square inch of the screen done in a day."
To create top notch pixel art in those limited resolutions and palettes forces the artist into creating the illusion of colors and detail which aren't actually there in any one pixel. They do this by modifying the colors of individual adjacent pixels to imply shading and highlights. Jim would modify one pixel, zoom out to assess the overall effect on that area of the image, then zoom back in and modify the next pixel. I encourage you to zoom in and pixel peep some of Jim's images. Most of those pixel patterns aren't uniform enough to be from an 80s paint program and not randomly Bayer-ish enough to be a digitized image.
Jim has discussed his workflow in detail in interviews. The value of Deluxe Paint to an artist like Jim wasn't laying down swathes of pixels, it was mostly fast zooming and panning as well as detailed palette control. Of course, those artists would use whatever capabilities their tools enabled when they could but it wasn't nearly as much or as often as you're assuming.
I spent many hours in "fat bits" mode in MacPaint creating B&W game artwork for early shareware games I wrote. Click a pixel to invert it.
This is a total different genre. So hard level ….
TheHideout•2h ago
Taikonerd•1h ago