My uncle worked for Radio Shack back in the late 80s/early 90s. He was pretty passionate about electronics in general, so he would always talk about the TG-16 and even tried convincing our parents to buy us one as an upgrade to our Sega Master System. The Sega Master System was our baby, so we were insistent that if we COULD get a new console, it would most definitely be the Sega Genesis. In reality though, we really couldn't imagine jumping in to the 16-bit era so soon anyway, since the prices were so high and our parents didn't have the means to buy us all the latest tech.
As far as we knew, the debate between the TG-16 and Sega Genesis was more of a fantasy for us than anything. The commercials for the TG-16 were cool at the time and the graphics looked really impressive, but we didn't know a single person who had it.
To our surprise, our mom came home one day shortly afterwards with a brand new Sega Genesis that was bundled with Altered Beast. We were so pumped and never gave the TG-16 a second thought, we were just happy to have something new after many years with the Sega Master System and exactly 5 games (Black Belt, Rastan, Shinobi and Hang-On and Safari hunt which were built in). That was it. If we wanted to play anything else, we would borrow from our cousins or limited number of friends who actually owned a Sega Master System. During this time, arcades were still insanely popular, and we would often play games like Golden Axe, Street Fighter, Galaga, etc. Street Fighter was by far our favorite Arcade game at the time, even though in hindsight it was terrible due to the unresponsive controls.
Anyway, I'll get back to that later, as it will become very relevant soon. For now, enter the Sega Genesis. We had it for a grand total of 3 days before my dad found out how much my mom spent on this thing and immediately packed it up and took it back to Radio Shack. Think about that for a second. 3 young boys who just graduated to a Sega Genesis had it ripped out of their hands and were demoted once again before they could even break the controller in. We were shattered....in a first world problems sort of way. My mom was always a softie though and wound up buying us an NES the week after, thinking that would appease us. What she didn't realize was that the NES was already a dying console. We accepted the consolation prize nonetheless, but were still bummed about losing the Genesis.
Eventually, our uncle, who as I write this is a lot cooler than I ever gave him credit for, somehow convinced my dad to reconsider the Sega Genesis (He had given up on the TG-16) and we were once again the proud owners of Sega Genesis, this time with Mercs and Quackshot. Those wound up being the only 2 games our parents ever bought us, but that was pretty standard back in those days. Nobody had massive libraries of games. You rented and traded with friends.
I began working my first part time job at the age of 14, and started to become a bit more financially independent. I was making very little money, but I could at least begin purchasing things for myself. Games for the Genesis, SNES, Master System and NES could be found very very cheap now in almost any used electronics store, pawn shop, video store, etc. I started to take an interest in collecting video games that I never had growing up; games that I had always heard of, but could never afford.
This was a very fun period of time for me. The hunt was on. Oh man, did I ever love the hunt. Finding those gems like Ys, or Phantasy Star for the Sega Master System. I was hooked. At the same time, I had become quite the Street Fighter player. I started to become very nostalgic about the original Street Fighter that we had played at the old Wizard arcade many years prior. When reminiscing with my brother about it, he told me that one of his friends used to have a home version of the original street fighter. Thinking I knew everything there was to know about home consoles, I told him he was mistaken. It was never released on a home console, I was sure of it. My brother was adamant that he had played it at his friends house on a Turbo Grafx 16. Not just that, but it was on a CD. At this point I basically told him he was dreaming, end of discussion.
The seed had been planted though. I had to find out if what my brother had said was true, because if it was, the hunt was about to get more interesting. I had contacted this friend my brother mentioned and he confirmed that he did in fact have this set-up. A turbo grafx 16 that had a CD player attached to it with a game called Fighting Street that was actually the original Street Fighter. I wanted this thing, but he didn't have it anymore.
A couple of years later, I was picking through an electronics store that I had frequented for old video games, and I stumbled across this console I had never seen before. It was a Turbo Grafx 16. FINALLY. I hadn't seen one in person. It didn't have any hookups, or controller or anything, but did have a card inside the card slot that said (CD) on it. My heart skipped a beat and I thought there might be hope that the rest of this thing is laying around somewhere, but this place was a DISASTER. Anyone in the London, Ontario area will know the place. I asked the guy working there if had any idea where the rest of this console was and he was as useless as he ever was. I paid $18 for the loose console with the card in it and left. This was a bit of a milestone for me, because up until this point, the TG-16 was so nebulous.
I get to work that evening (this was a Saturday), and I was mentioning what had happened that day to one of my co-workers. I was working in a restaurant kitchen, and closed every Saturday with this guy. My co-worker was in his early 30s, and was a gamer too, so when I mentioned that I had bought a TG-16 he just casually says "Oh yeah, I still have mine. Actually, I have a Turbo Grafx 16 with CD Add-On and carrying case. I also have this really cool system called a Turbo Duo that is basically the Turbo Grafx 16 and CD player all in one". I didn't believe what I was hearing. I tried concealing the fact that I had pretty much just crapped my pants. I asked him as calmly as I could, "would you mind selling it to me? I really want one, and the one I purchased is basically useless to me without the connections". He said "Sure, I never play it. I've got a bunch of games too, come take a look after work". That must have been the longest shift EVER. We finished up at around 1 am, and head over to his parents' place to check out his stuff. He pulls out all of this Turbografx hardware and it was all I could do to keep my jaw from slamming against the floor. He shows me the turbografx 16 with CD add on in the hard carrying case. He starts pulling out games. Legendary Axe 1 and 2, Valis II and III, and Galaga. Everything was in pristine condition, all of the games still had their boxes. Then, the grand finale, he shows me the Turbo Duo. The box alone was impressive, it just looked so...advanced. He opens it up and shows me the duo along with the games that were packed in with it. I just could believe my eyes. When I asked him how much, he said "I don't know, how about $200 for everything?". I'll be honest with you guys, I didn't even know what this stuff was worth, but I didn't care. I didn't know the going rate of a Turbo Duo. Heck, before that night I didn't even know what the Turbo Duo was. I agreed. I didn't have the money on me, so he let me take the stuff home with me and pay him the next day. I was ecstatic.
I immediately hooked up the Duo when I got home and started playing Ys Book 1 and 2. I couldn't put it down. I wound up finishing that game first before moving on to anything else. The next weekend I am walking through that same Electronics Store from a week earlier, and in my search, what do I find? 2 Turbo Grafx CD games. Prince of Persia and.....FIGHTING STREET! I couldn't believe it. Oddly enough, that same day, I had also picked up Dracula X for the SNES for 7 bucks, which is hilarious since that set me down a trail to acquire the infamous Dracula X for the Duo.
Anyway, it's getting late, and most people won't actually read this wall of text. Not even sure if this will be coherent, but it's been fun just writing all of this down.
The days where stuff like this happen are long gone. Ebay has pretty much destroyed this past-time for me and most of you as well. I have countless stories like this one. Stories where putting in the effort to hit the pavement and hunt locally turned up some serious gaming treasures.
