Got a question about these two golden oldies from the "JAST USA Memorial Collection"... For a computer running Windows 7, even with compatibility mode, are these two now officially impossible to play?
Let me preface this by saying that I recognize that these games are ancient, and I also recognize that you have much more pressing duties than troubleshooting compatibility problems for 20-year-old games. I won't be upset in the least if the answer is "beats me, dude; good luck!" Still, I thought it couldn't hurt to post it here on the off chance you already knew of a workaround or if someone else on the forum might read this and know of a solution.
If I run May Club in comparability mode with the "Windows 95" setting, it does at least get past the "incompatible with this version of windows" error message and starts to launch. However, a new error that says "Error Type06: Please Set Game CD" pops up and aborts the launch. (See attached May Club Error picture.) I'm guessing it's looking for a CD-ROM? Since all of the necessary files moved over with the installer, shouldn't that be unnecessary?
For Nocturnal Illusions, using "Windows 95 compatibility mode" makes the "incompatible with this version of windows" no longer appear, but when I click on the application file (MUGE.exe), nothing happens. My mouse arrow spins for a split-second like something wants to load, but then nothing ever pops up or tries to launch.
Again, don't feel obligated to spend much time on this if it isn't a pretty easy fix. It's an unfortunate fact that eventually you get to a "point of no return" when it comes to older games' compatibility with newer operating systems, but I've always heard that Nocturnal Illusions was honestly really cool, so I hate to give up on it if it's doable. Anyway, any suggestions would be appreciated!
May-Club isn’t really worth screwing around with, it ultimately is nothing special. Nocturnal Illusion is something special, but is held back by the really old game design choices that were just The Way Things Are Done at the time. Neither has a very good translation, but NI at least has great music.
You could use the built-in XP virtualization technology, or VMware, if you have either, they run on XP.
Other than that, I retranslated NI from scratch awhile back, and if the guys doing this new engine ever actually follow through, a patch will be released with the updated gfx and va (and as far as I can tell, some redid text; there’s a new ending and some of the other endings seem to have been lengthened).
Sadly no official release using that material will be possible (I checked, rights aren’t available, original maker long bankrupt) and honestly, these games are so old now it’s unlikely to be worth Jast’s money to re-re-re-release the old version and sell maybe two hundred units.
Thanks for the response, Nandemonai. I really don’t mind the old-school game mechanics for a lot of these old VNs provided they aren’t too baffling in terms of “what to do next.” It’s kind of like watching an old sci-fi movie; you have to make certain allowances for the special effects, but if the original was high-quality, that tends to shine through pretty well despite the passage of time. Of course, as you say, a re-(…)-release wouldn’t make much economic sense for JAST unless some some company took the original premise or storyline and made a literal brand-new game from it, which would be one of those one-off “what are the chances?” kind of things.
More to the point of my original question, I never got anywhere with my attempts to play the “Memorial Collection” version of the game on Windows 7. Looking around online, the newest version I have found anyone claiming success with was Windows XP, and apparently even that took some tinkering. I haven’t heard of the two programs you mention, but that’s actually okay, because I found another way to play the game just last night.
There’s a web-based emulator out there that has a lot of visual novels from the 1990s available free to play, and among them is Nocturnal Illusion and the “renewal” version with slightly updated graphics. It works really well! 
I’m currently getting drunk on disinfectant alcohol and orange juice with some sleazy computer programmer in the mansion and having a lot of fun with it, haha! I would love to post a link to this website here to refer others to it, but I’m not sure how copyright-kosher that would be. All of the games featured are really old, and all of them are out of print in any format as far as I’m aware except for “Eve: Burst Error” (which MangaGamer sells as a download) and the games from the “JAST Memorial Collection”. Still, since they may not be truly public-domain yet, I won’t post the URL location here unless Peter, Nicholas, or some other JAST staff puts their blessing on it. Suffice to say “this old visual novel emulator thingy exists,” if anyone wants to go looking for it.
Last thought: color me impressed on re-translating the game! I’ve only ever worked on one large-scale translation project myself (in college – ancient Greek book rather than an ancient game), and it was quite a chore, so I’m sure that must have been a labor of love. If you or the group you mentions ever release some kind of re-do of Nocturnal Illusion, please advertise it, because I’d be quite interested.
Also, a note to any JAST staff, since this post is located in the "Support/Troubleshooting" section:
Please consider this help/support request resolved. I'm able to play the game now, which is all I was really concerned with. Thanks!