It's quite unique, at least. Needs some corrections once I get the time to check the Japanese interweb. For instance, I've learned that the 640 x 400 mode of these is not 31 kHz, but 24 kHz. That technically is not 'high resolution', but 'extended resolution', as some put it. But pretty much it's all like I pictured.
The partial scanlines thing is something I have always wondered about in PC98 games. Do you know if it provided any extra performance on games? Its insane that stuff such as Vain Dream 2 and Digan would have the character sprites designed properly in high res, then apply the scanline technique to the backgrounds. It would have been frustrating trying to design the backgrounds to properly fit the scale of the sprites, and the background tiles really aren't that complex so why not just design those properly for high res too.
I disagree. The more the resolution, the more the details needed. Simple tiles would get complex unless you go with 'empty-style' backgrounds and 'flat' colors. Scanline effects just helped to avoid this style, which generally has little to do with the 8-bit style they were trying to evolve. And let's not forget about RAM and even CPU limitations -- in this sense, it indeed did provide 'extra performance' on games.
Anyway, in the case of most PC88 stuff and some of the 98 stuff, Its incredibly bizarre that they had to design stuff in 640x200, knowing that the height will be doubled.
Lets just look at that 640x200 Dios shot you have there, so those are what the original graphic elements look like once designed. So in the case of Dios for example they wanted a realistic proportions look on the characters, yet had to originally design them to be quite wide. It would have been hard to know what a game would end up looking like if your designing stuff originally in a different scale. Companies designing these games at the time would have had to do constant double width mock ups to see what stuff is looking like, or perhaps even design stuff in the double length initially and then cut it back down to half.
I hardly believe that they used square pixels-based video hardware in the early years to design game graphics. They most likely used hardware capable of the same video modes as the target platforms -- remember that work stations and PCs weren't always like they are today and that there was a era where the pixels' aspect ratio was indeed a quite changeable thing thanks to CRT technology.
![>]](http://raster.effect.free.fr/31khz/KOF_sprites_360p/KOF_XII_360p_01d_(1366x1080).jpg){kind=link}