Remember That One REALLY Great Day with Your TG-16/Duo?

[pc_kwajalein]

Yesterday I was rummaging through my consoles and games to find a folded piece of paper tucked away in the corner of an old plastic bin I've had since time immemorial. The paper turned out to be a receipt; and even though it was yellowed and the ink was faded, I could make out what item was purchased and where I purchased it from. The receipt came from KB Toys. The item purchased? Jackie Chan's Action Kung Fu for the TG-16. 

The memories flooded my mind at that moment. I remembered buying JCAKF on a Sunday afternoon sometime in January of '94. The very next day, my city had 5.5 inches of snow dumped on it (in North Carolina, that's a lot). It was like a divine force was cutting me an awesome break!  School was cancelled, the ground outside was blanketed in snow, my parents trudged out to their cars and left for work, while I remained at home with my Turbo Grafx along with my new JCAKF, and titles I already had like Cadash, Bonk's Adventure/Revenge, Legendary Axe, and Alien Crush.

The gaming went uninterrupted throughout the day (save a brief 2 hour nap). Obscene amounts of Nestle strawberry Quik were consumed as were countless numbers of Totino's pizza rolls. 

What was your really great day with a Turbo-Grafx/Duo like?

[turboswimbz]

thanks for sharing this man. great story!
  I myself remember a day long ago in 91'  on the second floor of an old farm house, a tg-16 plugged into an old CRT TV with rabbit ears.  Watching my dad play bonk's revenge.  time stood still until bam Drool was knocked down.  OMG! I get to play after this, I'm now where good enough to make it to the end, but I have a blast.  It was the second time I got to play the Turbografx-16!

 

[vestcoat]

Snow days and TurboGrafx are two of the most awesome things in the world. Together, it's easy to imagine how awesome that day was.

I had a fairly unremarkable library during my first bout with the TG (KC, Pacland, Victory Run, Deep Blue, Parasol Stars, LAII) so my most memorable days were spent with the NES and SMS as a kid. Still, there were two pretty awesome days when I finally got a Duo in '97:

1) The arrival of my "Giant Mail Order from Game Dude." Mailman dropped it off on a snowy Saturday while I happened to have a friend over. I got the 4-in-1 disc, Riot Zone, Valis II, Prince of Persia, Super Air Zonk, Forgotten Worlds, Fighting Street, Exile, and Shadow of the Beast. Unfortunately, they sent me a Reverse Duo Tap instead of a Duo Tap, so we couldn't play two player. Still, it was one of the best weekends ever.

2) My brother's birthday in September '97. We dragged a second TV into the living room and had nine people playing five-player Bomberman '93 on the Duo and four-player Super Bomberman II on the SNES. Controllers were passed back and forth and we played for at least four hours.

[Bernie]

Mine is knowing that I had gotten a Turbo Duo for Christmas, but it was wrapped under the tree, along with the games.  I unwrapped the system, and stuck a pair of jeans in the box for weight, then wrapped it back up.  I unwrapped a game, cant remember how I chose.  It happened to be Dragon Slayer!    I hid the system under my bottom dresser drawer by taking the bottom out and then putting it back in.  I was able to play for almost a month or so before actually opening the empty box Christmas morning.  lol  My mom asked me to open it, and I told her I would open it later.    HA!  I actually revealed this secret to her last year, lol.

[Necromancer]

What was your really great day with a Turbo-Grafx/Duo like?

Every day with the Turbob is a really great day.  

Sorry, I've no specific stories to tell.

[henrycsc]

Great story pc_kwajalein.

Maybe not my greatest, but perhaps my proudest Turbo moment to date happened last week Sunday, December 30, 2012.

My mom, who will be 75 in March, asked me to set up a TurboGrafx in her house so that she can play BoxyBoy - her favorite "TV" game of all time. 

I'm not sure why her slack-bastard son waited so long, but she now has BoxyBoy and official OBEY in her home!

I also gave her Tricky Kick because she doesn't like feeling pressured by a clock or enemies.

[jelloslug]

It would have to be the first time me and my friends did a complete play through of Dungeon Explorer from start to finish.  That game is so much fun with four or five players.

[ProfessorProfessorson]

Most of my best gaming memories from from playing or beating TG titles. That first time I went up against the last boss in Splatterhouse, my mind was blown. At the time anyway, nothing really compared to that. For me Vigilante was a real arcade favorite too, so when I got it on TG-16 for the first time I played it for days on end. I just loved the game, and still do. Its arcade perfection. Nothing complicated, just fast action, and if you get fast enough and focused, you can go through the game rather fast and feel accomplished in how many lives you did not lose beating it.

Bloody Wolfs boss battles were rather exciting and memorable for me too, and the first time I played it, well, to me, nothing else could touch it. It even surpassed Rambo III on Genesis and even the arcade version of Bloody Wolf on many levels. There were other titles that I have fond memories of too. It doesn't just amount to one certain day or game though. I mean, basically every xmas break from 92 to 94 I was getting new Turbo games and all to enjoy on my hardware. For me it was the first time "real" arcade quality games came home, compared to the Nes or Genesis where more often then not arcade ports amounted to so so and average work at best.

[pc_kwajalein]

Wow, we got excellent stories here!

Snow days and TurboGrafx are two of the most awesome things in the world.

I want to be this sentence's BFF. 

[esteban]

My mom, who will be 75 in March, asked me to set up a TurboGrafx in her house so that she can play BoxyBoy - her favorite "TV" game of all time. 

I'm not sure why her slack-bastard son waited so long, but she now has BoxyBoy and official OBEY in her home!

I also gave her Tricky Kick because she doesn't like feeling pressured by a clock or enemies.

AWESOME. Simply awesome.

Xmas Break '90?

5-player Bomberman battles.

5-player MotoRoader (for real! we played this game way more than we thought we would)

5-player Dungeon Explorer...

[Jibbajaba]

That's like asking someone with kids to remember "that one really great day with them."  Every day that I spend with my Turbo is a great day!

In all seriousness, though, I think my favorite Turbo day was the day I hacked up an RGB amp on a breadboard, wired the R,G,B, and ground lines to it from the expansion port on the back, wired that into a 15-pin d-sub that went into my RGB monitor, and saw the Turbo for the first time in all of its RGB glory.  I had been playing The Legendary Axe on that same RGB monitor but using composite video, and suddenly seeing the same game in RGB was like BAM!

I even took a pic for posterity:



The sad thing is that I used that rats' nest of an RGB amp for a long time before I finally got a modded Duo-R.  I never got around to modding the TG-16 because I couldn't figure out a good place to put the amp inside the system.

Chris

Edit:

Xmas Break '90?

5-player Bomberman battles.

5-player MotoRoader (for real! we played this game way more than we thought we would)

5-player Dungeon Explorer...

That sounds awesome.  I'd love to do something like that, but I don't know 4 other people.

[TR0N]

Memory fuzzy when i owned a TG16 back in the 90's.Still i remember when i got the console again back in 2005.Mostly because,i never thought id own one again.

[NightWolve]

When my Turbo Duo had arrived with the 5 pack-in games and I sat down to play "Ys Book I&II." To say that it made a lasting impression would be an understatement having become a lifelong Ys fan ever since and spearheading projects to get Ys IV translated along with most of Falcom's PC line of Ys games, etc.! "Gate of Thunder" also was a great moment for shooters with its absolutely blindingly awesome soundtrack ("Ys Book I&II" as well)! Playing that game with my Sony Surround system blasted was a helluva good time! =)

[soop]

 

I've related the day I got my first console (a PC Engine GT) before...  SO ok.  Many years ago, probably around 2000/2001, I bought a boxed Core Grafx on eBay, all the way from Japan.  Plugged it in, being a complete noob at the time, with a pin converter.  240v fried the adaptor, and then basically my life got a bit chaotic and it went back in the box and was stowed away.

Then about... maybe 3-4 years ago, when I got a TV in my flat, I remembered it, picked it up from my parents house, and discovered you could play it using a megadrive adaptor.

Hah, I'm getting a little nostalgic actually.  They were good times, when I was building a home with someone I thought .. well, you know.

[Mishran]

Summer '94, finally convinced my best friend at the time to buy a TG16. His mom drove us to the local Toys'R'Us to pick up his system and two games of his choice. After a bit of further convincing, he picked up Splatterhouse and Final Lap Twin. Spent half that night passing the controller back and forth between levels until we finally beat Splatterhouse with Mountain Dew and popcorn acting as our gamer fuel. Month later, he moved 1400 miles away to Florida. Hadn't heard from him since. Still, it's a memory that floods back every time I slide my copy of Splatterhouse into my own turbo to this day.