Sometimes, nostalgia comes lovingly wrapped up in cardboard and plastic, and, in a move that will delight RPG historians, box sniffers, and Windows-loving retro gamers, D4 Enterprise has announced a physical compilation of four classic Ys games for Windows 10 and 11 set for release in Japan in 2026. That's right: the Ys Collection will bundle together the first, second, third, and (skipping right past the sometimes-controversial fourth) fifth entries in Nihon Falcom's beloved action RPG series, in a package designed to send a wave of 80s-to-90s euphoria straight to your dusty game shelf.
D4 Enterprise—already well-known among preservationists and collectors for its dedication to porting legacy RPGs—seems to have targeted the intersection of PC gaming nostalgia and the modern OS landscape with almost laser precision. For ¥28,160, Japanese fans will be able to pre-order a collection that doesn't just include the games themselves, but comes decked out in packaging and a manual that's been lovingly crafted with the same materials that defined classic releases in Japan’s golden age of PC gaming.
What’s on the (literal) disc? Here’s the lineup:
On some level, you have to admire the audacity. A Windows 11 gaming PC in 2026, but plugged in via a USB DVD drive, whirring a disc containing games that originally ran best when RAM was measured in kilobytes. And let’s be honest—if you’re reading this, you’ve probably spent more on dinner than on a piece of cardboard nostalgia.
For modern IT professionals, this is like discovering that a vintage car museum is now letting guests take the DeLorean for a spin… but only if they promise to drive it on cobblestone streets and never, ever use the Wi-Fi. The long-standing headache of emulation nightmares—double-checked sound drivers, cryptic boot command sequences, and the ever-present peril of save file corruption—gets replaced here by one disc, one installer, and layouts designed to Just Work on Windows 10 and 11. It’s hard to overstate how much time this saves compared to scouring sketchy forums for hex patches.
But the biggest tech flex? Packaging all those one-of-a-kind game versions onto a single disc that works like a time machine for your hard drive. If you’ve ever wanted to recreate a 1988 Nihon Falcom LAN party—without the need for a Japanese power transformer—2026 might be your year.
Even more telling is their 2007 digital-only Ys Complete Works release, which gathered the first five Ys entries—including the oft-missing Ys IV—onto one handy PC download. But this physical release? That’s a different beast, and cynics might say it’s designed for the “shut up and take my yen” crowd as much as for the true historians.
And perhaps that’s fair. Think of D4 not just as a porting outfit, but as the custodians for a medium at risk of being forgotten. Japanese microcomputer gaming, lost in a sea of global retrogaming trends, gets precious little love in the West. D4’s careful preservation of everything from software to manuals reminds us that “file not found” is just one thunderstorm away from permanent oblivion.
Of course, while the inclusion of manuals and classic packaging may be pure joy for collectors, let’s pour one out for the global audience. Without a region-free release, or at least English-language inserts and box art, we’re left lurking on eBay, entering bidding wars with salarymen who actually rode the railway lines in Ys’s intro cutscenes.
Let’s give some context: Ys IV is a famously tangled mess of licensing, multiple competing versions, and legal snafus. Two completely different versions (Mask of the Sun and The Dawn of Ys) were initially produced by different developers for different platforms, while the “canonical” Falcom version took years longer to see the light of day.
It’s hard not to speculate that music rights, code assets, or a plain old-fashioned dust-up with legal or ownership headwinds have kept it off the disc this time. Or maybe D4 just didn’t want to pick a side in the legendary “Which Ys IV is the REAL Ys IV?” debate that has set RPG message boards ablaze for a quarter century.
On the upside, fans who have played through these games enough times can finally put all their Ys IV grievances into reddit threads, presumably while clutching their new 2026 packaging like a security blanket. For the rest of us, there’s at least some comfort in knowing that for once, “not included” is a feature, not a bug.
It might seem odd in an era when every major retro compilation races to the Switch, and Steam becomes the de facto digital living room. But for the retro PC purist (and, not incidentally, for Japanese collectors), the physical CD-ROM for Windows remains the gold standard of “authentic” modern retro.
Of course, the real head-scratcher isn’t why it’s Windows 10/11 only—it’s that in 2026, many of us may be on Windows 12, or maybe running our lesson in ancient gaming history inside a VMware box on a Surface Ultra. But if there’s a crowd adept at dodging Microsoft’s planned obsolescence, it’s surely the same folks who’ve been patching PC-98 games to run on NT Everdrive adapters for fun.
To the IT crowd: this is a colossal win against the kind of creeping OS lockout that makes productivity pros weep. Software preserved for the platform of the moment, but with an eye to legacy support—now that’s a dynamic even enterprise admins would envy.
What you’re really buying isn’t a value proposition; it’s a curated experience. The sensory rush of cracking open a newly minted manual, the tactile feel of shrink-wrapped plastic, the click-whir of an optical drive—the stuff digital-only generations may never fully appreciate.
Is it a luxury product? Absolutely. Could that cash get you more hours of entertainment with a single Xbox Game Pass subscription? Probably. But Game Pass won’t teach you what Tokyo FM-7 startup chimes sounded like over a mono speaker, nor will it let you brag online about owning something that, in a hundred years, might find its way to an actual museum.
It’s also a reminder that “ownership” increasingly means “temperamental software license with a disclaimer about future availability.” When you put this CD on your shelf, you don’t just have rights; you have an artifact. One that, barring catastrophic hard drive failure or a particularly hungry Shiba Inu, remains yours as long as you can source a functional optical drive and an install code.
For pros who’ve spent twenty years warning clients about the dangers of SaaS lock-in and digital drift, this is proof that there’s still a quirky, cardboard-lined path to perpetual access.
First, this kind of re-release is a masterclass in backward compatibility—something enterprise IT dreams of but rarely achieves. D4 has shown that, with care and smart emulation, software can be plucked like a time capsule and made to run (reliably!) on modern hardware. The lessons here could—and arguably should—be studied by all SaaS vendors who treat backward compatibility as a four-letter word.
Second, this collection subtly highlights the role of package design, physical media, and documentation in user experience. There’s an education in how context, identity, and culture imbue even a simple DVD with meaning. For anyone forced to design training manuals or onboarding packages, D4’s commitment to 80s-90s authenticity is a love letter to UX done right.
And finally, this compilation is a quiet call to arms for organizations everywhere: Digital history is precious, fleeting, and worthy of stewardship. Whether you’re running a three-decades-old RPG or a legacy SQL server, sometimes a bit of cardboard and printed guidance is still the best backup plan in a world of cloud gone mad.
Will everyone outside Japan get to experience this? Maybe not directly. But D4 Enterprise’s new Ys compilation is more than just a games bundle; it’s a testament to the passion and persistence that keeps history alive in an age obsessed with disposability.
For long-time fans, it’s a Proustian madeleine, endlessly replayable and richer with every revisit. For IT professionals, it’s a case study in how to respect your own history—and maybe, just maybe, in how to make your future worth preserving in actual, holdable, coffee-spill-resistant form.
So if you find yourself in 2026, standing in front of a big-box PC store in Akihabara, agonizing between a modern productivity app and a classic RPG boxed set, remember: the spreadsheets will always be there. Ys won’t. Buy the box. Install the game. Share the story. And if you’re lucky, maybe your Windows 11 machine will even let you save your progress.
Source: RPG Site D4 Enterprise will release physical compilation of 4 classic Ys entries for Windows 10 and 11 in Japan in 2026 | RPG Site
The Ys Collection: A Retro Renaissance
D4 Enterprise—already well-known among preservationists and collectors for its dedication to porting legacy RPGs—seems to have targeted the intersection of PC gaming nostalgia and the modern OS landscape with almost laser precision. For ¥28,160, Japanese fans will be able to pre-order a collection that doesn't just include the games themselves, but comes decked out in packaging and a manual that's been lovingly crafted with the same materials that defined classic releases in Japan’s golden age of PC gaming.What’s on the (literal) disc? Here’s the lineup:
- Ys I
- Ys II
- Ys III: Wanderers from Ys
- Ys V: Lost Kefin, Kingdom of Sand
On some level, you have to admire the audacity. A Windows 11 gaming PC in 2026, but plugged in via a USB DVD drive, whirring a disc containing games that originally ran best when RAM was measured in kilobytes. And let’s be honest—if you’re reading this, you’ve probably spent more on dinner than on a piece of cardboard nostalgia.
The Games and Their Many Faces
For anyone who wasn’t arranging floppy disks alphabetically in the late 80s, the first three Ys entries are special, not only due to their iconic gameplay and soundtrack, but because each was released (and sometimes overhauled) for a bewildering array of Japanese computer systems. The forthcoming collection honors this diversity by including multiple versions per title:- Ys I & II: Playable (in various mixes) on PC-8801SR, PC-9801, X1, FM-7, FM77AV, and MSX2
- Ys III: PC-8801SR, PC-9801, X68000, MSX2
- Ys V: Super Famicom (SNES)
For modern IT professionals, this is like discovering that a vintage car museum is now letting guests take the DeLorean for a spin… but only if they promise to drive it on cobblestone streets and never, ever use the Wi-Fi. The long-standing headache of emulation nightmares—double-checked sound drivers, cryptic boot command sequences, and the ever-present peril of save file corruption—gets replaced here by one disc, one installer, and layouts designed to Just Work on Windows 10 and 11. It’s hard to overstate how much time this saves compared to scouring sketchy forums for hex patches.
But the biggest tech flex? Packaging all those one-of-a-kind game versions onto a single disc that works like a time machine for your hard drive. If you’ve ever wanted to recreate a 1988 Nihon Falcom LAN party—without the need for a Japanese power transformer—2026 might be your year.
D4 Enterprise: Retro Wizards in the Modern Age
This isn’t D4 Enterprise’s first dance at the “heritage gaming” prom. The company has built credibility by porting a vast catalog of old-school PC games—especially RPGs by Nihon Falcom—onto the EGG Console emulation platform and modern systems like Windows or even the Nintendo Switch. Ys fans might already be acquainted with the ports of Ys I: Ancient Ys Vanished, Ys II: Ancient Ys Vanished - The Final Chapter, and Ys III: Wanderers from Ys, all of which have appeared on the Switch in recent years.Even more telling is their 2007 digital-only Ys Complete Works release, which gathered the first five Ys entries—including the oft-missing Ys IV—onto one handy PC download. But this physical release? That’s a different beast, and cynics might say it’s designed for the “shut up and take my yen” crowd as much as for the true historians.
And perhaps that’s fair. Think of D4 not just as a porting outfit, but as the custodians for a medium at risk of being forgotten. Japanese microcomputer gaming, lost in a sea of global retrogaming trends, gets precious little love in the West. D4’s careful preservation of everything from software to manuals reminds us that “file not found” is just one thunderstorm away from permanent oblivion.
Of course, while the inclusion of manuals and classic packaging may be pure joy for collectors, let’s pour one out for the global audience. Without a region-free release, or at least English-language inserts and box art, we’re left lurking on eBay, entering bidding wars with salarymen who actually rode the railway lines in Ys’s intro cutscenes.
Ys IV: The Missing Link
Now, the “why isn’t Ys IV included?” question looms large—especially considering it featured in D4’s previous digital compilation.Let’s give some context: Ys IV is a famously tangled mess of licensing, multiple competing versions, and legal snafus. Two completely different versions (Mask of the Sun and The Dawn of Ys) were initially produced by different developers for different platforms, while the “canonical” Falcom version took years longer to see the light of day.
It’s hard not to speculate that music rights, code assets, or a plain old-fashioned dust-up with legal or ownership headwinds have kept it off the disc this time. Or maybe D4 just didn’t want to pick a side in the legendary “Which Ys IV is the REAL Ys IV?” debate that has set RPG message boards ablaze for a quarter century.
On the upside, fans who have played through these games enough times can finally put all their Ys IV grievances into reddit threads, presumably while clutching their new 2026 packaging like a security blanket. For the rest of us, there’s at least some comfort in knowing that for once, “not included” is a feature, not a bug.
Windows 10 and 11: The Chosen Ones
Let’s not gloss over perhaps the most prosaic but essential part: This release is targeted specifically at Windows 10 and 11—no Linux native installer, no Steam Deck-optimized official port, and most definitely no Mac.It might seem odd in an era when every major retro compilation races to the Switch, and Steam becomes the de facto digital living room. But for the retro PC purist (and, not incidentally, for Japanese collectors), the physical CD-ROM for Windows remains the gold standard of “authentic” modern retro.
Of course, the real head-scratcher isn’t why it’s Windows 10/11 only—it’s that in 2026, many of us may be on Windows 12, or maybe running our lesson in ancient gaming history inside a VMware box on a Surface Ultra. But if there’s a crowd adept at dodging Microsoft’s planned obsolescence, it’s surely the same folks who’ve been patching PC-98 games to run on NT Everdrive adapters for fun.
To the IT crowd: this is a colossal win against the kind of creeping OS lockout that makes productivity pros weep. Software preserved for the platform of the moment, but with an eye to legacy support—now that’s a dynamic even enterprise admins would envy.
The Price of Nostalgia
Let’s address the elephant lounge singer in the room: ¥28,160 is no small chunk of change—well north of $180 at recent rates. That’s many, many gacha pulls, a decent beginner mechanical keyboard, or one and a half tankfuls of Tokyo gas.What you’re really buying isn’t a value proposition; it’s a curated experience. The sensory rush of cracking open a newly minted manual, the tactile feel of shrink-wrapped plastic, the click-whir of an optical drive—the stuff digital-only generations may never fully appreciate.
Is it a luxury product? Absolutely. Could that cash get you more hours of entertainment with a single Xbox Game Pass subscription? Probably. But Game Pass won’t teach you what Tokyo FM-7 startup chimes sounded like over a mono speaker, nor will it let you brag online about owning something that, in a hundred years, might find its way to an actual museum.
Preservation or Prestige?
Here’s where the conversation pivots for IT-minded readers: This is about stewardship as much as sales. In a world that’s grown too cavalier about preserving nothing except the latest patch, what D4 Enterprise offers is a bulwark—however niche—against digital impermanence.It’s also a reminder that “ownership” increasingly means “temperamental software license with a disclaimer about future availability.” When you put this CD on your shelf, you don’t just have rights; you have an artifact. One that, barring catastrophic hard drive failure or a particularly hungry Shiba Inu, remains yours as long as you can source a functional optical drive and an install code.
For pros who’ve spent twenty years warning clients about the dangers of SaaS lock-in and digital drift, this is proof that there’s still a quirky, cardboard-lined path to perpetual access.
The Real-World Implications for IT Professionals
While it’s easy to mock the collector impulse, or the spectacle of running a 1988 RPG on a 2026 hyper-threaded workstation, there are deep, practical implications here.First, this kind of re-release is a masterclass in backward compatibility—something enterprise IT dreams of but rarely achieves. D4 has shown that, with care and smart emulation, software can be plucked like a time capsule and made to run (reliably!) on modern hardware. The lessons here could—and arguably should—be studied by all SaaS vendors who treat backward compatibility as a four-letter word.
Second, this collection subtly highlights the role of package design, physical media, and documentation in user experience. There’s an education in how context, identity, and culture imbue even a simple DVD with meaning. For anyone forced to design training manuals or onboarding packages, D4’s commitment to 80s-90s authenticity is a love letter to UX done right.
And finally, this compilation is a quiet call to arms for organizations everywhere: Digital history is precious, fleeting, and worthy of stewardship. Whether you’re running a three-decades-old RPG or a legacy SQL server, sometimes a bit of cardboard and printed guidance is still the best backup plan in a world of cloud gone mad.
Final Thoughts: "Take My Yen"—And Maybe My Entire Weekend
Let’s break the fourth wall: There’s something magical about the convergence here—legacy software engineering, physical media, and just enough eccentricity to keep things interesting.Will everyone outside Japan get to experience this? Maybe not directly. But D4 Enterprise’s new Ys compilation is more than just a games bundle; it’s a testament to the passion and persistence that keeps history alive in an age obsessed with disposability.
For long-time fans, it’s a Proustian madeleine, endlessly replayable and richer with every revisit. For IT professionals, it’s a case study in how to respect your own history—and maybe, just maybe, in how to make your future worth preserving in actual, holdable, coffee-spill-resistant form.
So if you find yourself in 2026, standing in front of a big-box PC store in Akihabara, agonizing between a modern productivity app and a classic RPG boxed set, remember: the spreadsheets will always be there. Ys won’t. Buy the box. Install the game. Share the story. And if you’re lucky, maybe your Windows 11 machine will even let you save your progress.
Source: RPG Site D4 Enterprise will release physical compilation of 4 classic Ys entries for Windows 10 and 11 in Japan in 2026 | RPG Site
