Unfortunate Turbo/PCE Beginners Guide

[Black Tiger]

What's a TurboGrafx? *NSF56K*


There have always been TurboGrafx-16/PC Engine guides that get some facts wrong, but it's usually when someone with only a tiny bit of knowledge on the subject got some bad info. I don't know how someone can compile such a volume of info while avoiding so much common knowledge that even wikipedia gets right. It reminds me of websites from the 90's.

Here are some highlights-

What is it?

The Turbo Grafx is the US version of the japanese PC Engine. The PC Engine was the first real challenger to the NES (or famicom in japan) to emerge. It was not a true 16 bit system like the later-released Genesis or SNES, but instead featured dual 8 bit processors and a 16 bit GPU. This meant that, while it wasn't as fast as the Genesis or the SNES, it could produce pictures either on par with them (SNES) or greatly above them (genesis).

So what about the CD attachment?

The CD attachment is the only addon in history to ever succeed. This is because, unlike the Sega CD, the jaguar CD, and so forth, NEC was staunch in their support for the add-on. In actuallity, the add-on was really treated more like a seperate system, sort of like the difference between the NES and SNES. The idea was to release the turbo CD in 2 parts - first as a stand alone-system (which would later become the turbo DUO) for people who wanted to get in on the new games, and then as a discounted add-on which would allow gamers with existing turbo grafx to experience the new system at a discounted price. In addition, to force acceptance of the CD attachment, hu-card releases would quickly dry up, and all developers would switch to the PC Engine CD. In japan, this tactic worked flawlessly. Gamers, happy with their PC Engines, flocked to the PC Engine CD or PC Engine Duo. In america, the CD attachment was slow to be released (1991 vs 1989) and as such, NEC saw their market slip away.

So what was so special about the CD attachment?

Quite a bit, actually. While basic hardware was the same, there were several key components that made having a CD attachment worth getting. For one, you could now save your game. Hucards were produced to be as tiny as possible, being the size and width of approximately a credit card. As such, it was impossible to add in a battery for saving games. A seperate add-on to the back of the PC Engine, called the Memory Bank, could allow you to save your games, but it was overpriced and since it wasn't standard, it was never really used. Since the CD attachment had memory built in, all games featured saves.

The CD attachment also allowed for some really large games, which developers took advantage of (unlike with the Sega CD). Rather than bogging down games with FMV (which were huge, mind you), developers opted to use real time anime cutscenes when dealing with video on the PC Engine. The end result is pretty gorgeous, and can't really be explained, only seen. This results in infinitely clearer cutscenes that are more awe inspiring, and ultimately, a lot less filling.

The CD attachment also had a ton of ram, which could be upgraded. It came packed with 16k of ram, which brought the total ram of the system up to 32k. However, NEC soon released the Duo Card 2, which brought the total memory up to 64k. A small hu-chip that had nothing but ram, that was inserted into the card slot of the PC Engine while playing a CD game. The Duo Card 2 was standard in the US, and quickly became the standard in japan. This was, however, followed up by the Duo card 3, also called the arcade card, which brought the total ram up to a whopping 128k. This meant faster load times, longer levels, bigger cutscenes, and generally more of everything. The ram is the single reason the PC Engine CD could produce a flawless port of fatal fury special.

Finally, the CD attachment allowed for more hardware tricks, like even better scaling and rotation.

The PC Engine was weird in that it only had one controller port, so all multiplayer games needed a multi-tap. This was a blessing in disguise, however, as the multitap allowed for 5 players at once. Thus, if a game is multi-player on the PC Engine, it'll allow normally up to 5 people at once.

There were also arcade sticks, and a small memory card released for the duo called the Tenoke Memory Bank, the world's first memory card.

ANCIENT BOOK OF YS I & II

Precursor to Zelda by about 3 years (1982-ish), it wasn't just ported to the Turbo Duo, it was completely revamped. The original Ys was a very short game (3 dungeons) weak on story, with pretty fun gameplay. Imagine Zelda, but instead of swinging your sword, you simply ran into enemies. Battle worked sorta like a Dungeons & Dragon's RPG, except everything was behind the scenes. All you had to do was be confident you were stronger, or at least on par, with the enemy, and run into them, and the computer would do the rest.

The Turbo Duo version took this game, and it's sequel (Book II) and released them as 1 game with expanded graphics. To add to it, they fleshed out the story with TONS gorgeous anime cutscenes and got the voice of f*cking OPTIMUS PRIME to do some VA.

GATE OF THUNDER

Sega and Tecnosoft created a new genre of horizantal shmup with thunderforce - while previous shmups had been either methodical shooters (darius) or memory based shmups (rtype), thunderforce was a straight up action shmup. It was fast, but relied not on paterns, but reflexes, to play. It was as if Contra was made into a shmup.

STREET FIGHTER II'

Faster than the SNES version. Prettier than the Genesis version. Released before either, Street Fighter II', unknown to many, was actually Turbo Duo exclusive for a while. While the SNES had the original Street Fighter II, NEC had exclusive rights to Street Fighter II' (called championship edition or Hyper Fighting edition in the states) for a while. And it was marvelous. Shows that the PC Engine could keep in step with both systems very easily. Amazingly... this is NOT the best fighting game on the system...

FATAL FURY SPECIAL

Think back to 1993. Fighting games were all the rage. The Genesis and SNES battled for superiority through fighting games. In the eyes of many, whichever had the closest-to-the-original port of a fighting game was best. Mortal Kombat II. Street Fighter II. Fatal Fury. Now imagine you walk into an arcade and you see Fatal Fury Special, the 128 meg monster on the neo geo MVS. Beautiful, absolutely destroys everything the SNES at it's max power can do.

Now imagine an arcade perfect port. Fatal Fury Special is, amazingly, unbelieveably, an arcade perfect port of a 128 meg game running off a 24-bit arcade system to what is essencially an 8 bit console. No, I'm not speaking in hyperbole. Through the magic of the Arcade Card Pro (which bumped the ram in the PC Engine to insane levels), and the near limitless space of the Duo, NEC and SNK managed to get a 100% arcade perfect port. No lie. It's actually MORE perfect than the Neo Geo CD version due to faster loading times and authentic music. Amazing.

SNATCHER

The ultimate port of Snatcher. Snatcher was a game for the PC-88 and MSX from way, way back in the day, circa 1983-1984. It was, for all intent and purposes, a CYOA ala Zork. However, when NEC and Konami decided to port it to the PC Engine CD, they decided to go all out, just like Falcom had did with Ys. and thus, Snatcher became what it is known as today. GORGEOUS Cutscenes, amazing color, and a f*cking fun story. Great game. I consider this better than the Sega CD port (the sega cd version was a port of this game with a 3rd act expanded on) because the PC Engine actually can display more colors than the Genesis, resulting in better visuals. This one is also fully unedited - several scenes are missing in the Sega CD version, and others are censored. For example, there is a part in the game where a dog is infested by a snatcher. You kill it, and you see the snatcher crawl out of the dog's intestines and run away, leavin the dog on the floor, twitching, as it's intestines bleed out of it's stomach. Needless to say, this scene was massively toned down in the Sega Genesis version.

DRACULA X: RONDO NO BLOOD

you've heard of it. It might be the only Turbo Duo game you've heard of. You might not even know about the Turbo Duo, but you have still heard of this game. And for good reason. Some will swear by SotN, or AoS, or Dawn of Sorrow. but pound for pound, enjoyment for enjoyment, this is the ULTIMATE CASTLEVANIA GAME. Period. It was designed to be so. The ultimate, very best castlevania game. Ever. And why not? just like Sonic CD was designed to be the ultimate sonic game because it was on a CD format, so was Dracula X. This wasnt' another castlevania... this was Castlevania CD. The next generation of Castlevania. And it shows. Jaw dropping anime cutscenes (how the f*ck did they do that, without using FMV, on a f*cking 8 bit system?!), HUGE levels with many different paths, 2 completely different games (depending on which route you took, you would wind up with 2 completely different games... only the first and last levels are the same). 2 playable characters, each with different play styles (maria and richter). Phenominal atmosphere (all in-game voice is spoken in german, not japanese, to complete the effect). Every single castlevania main song remixed, covered in hard-rock style, resulting in the BEST castlevania soundtrack ever. And difficulty. Oh man, the normal route in the game is pretty standard... but the 2nd game will make you pull your hair out in frustration. I could type a billion words and I couldn't express how amazing this game is. Fan-f*cking-tastic. GET IT.

NEUTOPIA I & II

There have been a lot of Zelda clones over the years, but none have really ever come close to being as good as Zelda, let alone being BETTER. Except, of course, for Neutopia. Neutopia is unashamidly a Zelda clone. The first was extremely straight forward, copy Zelda almost screen for screen. but it's sequel was a whole different story... released BEFORE Zelda III, it actually plays almost exactly like it, BEFORE Zelda III was released! No PCE collection is complete with Neutopia.

STAR PARODIER

Featuring the 3 biggest icons in the PC Engine's arsenal, this is a shmup that stars the ship from the Star Soldier Series, the PC Engine itself, and, get this... MOTHERf*ckING BOMBERMAN. No shit, Bomberman in a shmup. The game is brilliant.


BONK'S ADVENTURE ~ BONK'S REVENGE ~ BONK 3: BONK'S BIG ADVENTURE

The Turbo Grafx 16's lovable mascot. Playing less like mario and sonic, and more like the mickey mouse games, bonk is a fantastic romp. Light hearted, with absolutely fun levels, and great music. Had the PC Engine been more successful, bonk would still be around.

LORD OF THUNDER

The Sequel to Gate of thunder took a serious change in pace. Rather than being a fast-as-hell SHMUP in space, Lord of Thunder is a sci-fi fantasy SHUMP taking place in a mystical world that feel a lot like what Rocket Knight Adventure would be if it was a shmup. A little slower, far more beautiful, and fun as hell, with 3 playable characters, large levels, and of course more of the absolutely kick-ass music that made GoT so big, this is a great sequel.

WONDERBOY SERIES:
ADVENTURE ISLAND - BIKKURIMAN - MONSTER'S LAIR - DRAGON'S CURSE - THE DYNASTIC HERO

Amazingly enough, the PC Engine is the only system to have the COMPLETE wonderboy series... every game that had wonderboy was ported to the PC Engine, except with massive name changes (Wonderboy in monsterworld became The Dynastic Hero, for example). But they all play just the same. For those who don't know, wonderboy is basically sega's answer to both metroid and zelda. imagine Zelda II done right, with Metroid's exploration aspect inserted. f*cking great games, especially The Dynastic Hero.

There are of course, a shitload more of great PC Engine games, and hopefully you'll use this as a guide as you make your way through the fantastic world of NEC.

[geise]

Wow..........
















 

[Bardoly]

No PCE collection is complete with Neutopia.

 

[Necromancer]

So much fail.  Did wikipedia, google, and the internet not exist yet way back in 2007? 

[Arkhan]

It's posted by the sonic retard.

What did you expect.

[_joshuaTurbo]

No PCE collection is complete with Neutopia.

 

 

[esteban]

Some favorite bits-O-knowledge:

(1) three playable characters in Lords of Thunder
(2) TG-CD's scaling and rotation
(3) ...

[kazekirifx]

Ys is from 1982?! Hahahaha!
(correct year is 1987)

Also, the original Snatcher is apparently from 1983-1984 instead of 1988.

Dude must see some graphics that look old to his young eyes and immediately assume the game is old as f*ck.

Either that or all PC88 games must have been released in the early days of the platform.
(First models of PC88 came out in 1981.)

[Sparky]

What a douchebag "fail bud"

[Tatsujin]

hauly shiet

[Tatsujin]

Motherf*ck, Johnny Turbo!

I know a guy who got a tattoo of Johnny Turbo on his arm! He regrets it quite a bit nowadays.

Holy shit.

 

[DragonmasterDan]

This is why I so rarely watch youtube videos about retro games (yes there are exceptions) or listen to gaming podcasts. I often come across this level of fact checking and accuracy.

[KiddoCabbusses]

This is why I so rarely watch youtube videos about retro games (yes there are exceptions) or listen to gaming podcasts. I often come across this level of fact checking and accuracy.

I hope my own YouTube channel is a good counterbalance for all the poorly-fact-checked ones. XP
The thing is that merely avoiding these groups, the poor fact-checking only grows, and eventually false things are accepted as fact by the mainstream.

[esteban]

This is why I so rarely watch youtube videos about retro games (yes there are exceptions) or listen to gaming podcasts. I often come across this level of fact checking and accuracy.

This is so true. It's sad, but it applies to magazines (remember them?) as well...I actually liked that UK RetroGamer mag, especially because it frequently discussed topics that I am barely knowledgeable in (as in, direct, first-hand experience...for example, the entire UK micro computer scene of the 80's), but in other areas (NES/Famicom, 16-bit generation), the articles seemed more prone to errors/biases. 

The only positive thing I can say about poorly-informed content: it's entertaining and helps us improve our own explanations of events.

When I am totally ignorant on a topic, (almost) any shmuck will make me happy

[DragonmasterDan]

This is so true. It's sad, but it applies to magazines (remember them?) as well...I actually liked that UK RetroGamer mag, especially because it frequently discussed topics that I am barely knowledgeable in (as in, direct, first-hand experience...for example, the entire UK micro computer scene of the 80's), but in other areas (NES/Famicom, 16-bit generation), the articles seemed more prone to errors/biases.  

I used to work for a game magazine back in the day. When I would see other people write things like "Coming soon for Game Boy Advanced", I would cringe.  But that was typographical error more so than not knowing what they're talking about.

Everyone gets facts wrong, but when you have people who know very little about the content they're covering doing YouTube shows and Podcasts about it, it's a big issue. It's one thing when it's an occasional error, it's another thing when there's multiple issues in every episode.