What game led you to buy a Turbo Grafx 16?

[Gentlegamer]

For me it wasn't a game. I first heard about the system back in late 2013 on a collecting forum.  I've always been a fan of collecting for the NES and the inferior SMS, but learned that there was a third 8-bit system with capabilities that fell somewhere between the NES and SMS that was popular in Japan and had actually been released in the US in the late 80's at the tail end of the 8-bit era.  I was intrigued to say the least!  I immediately tapped into my trust fund and got a great deal on the fullset over the course of a week by buying the lowest BINs I could find on Ebay.

While the box art was incredible, the games were underwhelming.  Graphically and sonically, they were almost equal to the NES (but the sound was scratchy and there weren't many colors).  Where they really fell short was gameplay.  And this was at the END of the 8-bit era... what were they thinking?!  Had the Turbo Garphx been released to compete with the Atari 2600 or Intellivision, it may have stood a chance.  But being released as an 8-bit console at the dawn of the 16-bit console era, this thing was doomed from the start in North America where gamers had more sophisticated taste and higher standards.  When Nintendo of America released the SNES in Japan as the "Super Famicom (the JP word for Nintendo)", it was game over.

I'm 12 years old and what is this.

[slinkyturd]

When I was a kid, a friend of my dad lent me a TG16 system for 2 weeks. Of the 6 or so games it came with I was absolutely in love with Bonk 1 and 2, Bloody Wolf, Splatterhouse, and Legendary Axe 2. I wasn't able to actually get a system until about 20 years later and I got it by chance. I was working at Blockbuster and talking about the awesomeness of TG16 with a co-worker, and a customer overheard me. He had one and just happened to want to clear out some garage space. I bought it and about 8 games (bonk's adventure, parasol stars, jackie chan's action kung fu, legendary axe 1 and 2, bomberman, bloody wolf, and ninja spirit). He quoted me $40 for the lot about 3 years ago. I had no idea I had gotten such a good deal for about a year. Been collecting off ebay or amazon almost exclusively since with a few on here, a few on craigslist, and shamefully a few in a second hand store as well.

[elderbroom]

I was a young teenager .. walked into a Radio Shack (I'm in Canada) with my dad. Saw this fancy new system.  The orange and black with lots of neon colours in the ads certainly caught out attention. We walked in as my Dad new the store manager.  He put in Blazing Lazers for me .. and I was hooked. Trying to convince my Dad, and asking if he'd pay half (that was the agreement I had with my parents through most of my teen years). So the manager popped in Alien Crush to let my Dad take it for a spin. 20 minutes later we left with a Turbo Grafx 16 console, extra controller, turbo tap, and the 2 additional games. Later I would add a Turbo Booster Plus and about another dozen or so games. This has to just be the most nostalgic console for me. Some of it was just the age I was, the time it was .. and gaming eventually with 2 others friends that I convinced to get TG-16's also. 

I regrettably sold my whole setup years later when I was building my own PC.  I still envy the guy who walked into my garage sale to find all the above mentioned mint and CIB.  But now that I am older, married, a Dad and financially stable .. I am recollecting what I use to have, and more. Exposing my 7 year old daughter to what videogames were like when I was younger. She loves Bonk's Adventure, JJ & Jeff, and parts of Bravoman.

[NightWolve]

I didn't buy it, I won it (when I was 15), and if not for that, it probably would've passed me by!

Reposted from here: http://www.pcenginefx.com/forums/index.php?topic=4625.msg218974#msg218974

I seem to recall Nightwolve having a similar story, but I think he just got his from some dude selling it in a newspaper ad.

Yep, quite an interesting story I have which I did share here over 2 years ago.

It was a contest I found in a Sunday Chicago Sun Times newspaper. NEC was "looking" for 750 "Turbo Titans..." Heh-heh. It basically asked you 5 questions about the endings of NES games. I rented NES games every weekend so I had pretty much played all the games they were asking about except for one if I recall correctly. I remember Castlevania II was asked about, like what happens at the ending or about how you crouch at a certain point in the game... Something like that... One of the games I had to play again to refresh myself in order to answer that particular question.

So yeah, I answered all the contest questions and mailed the form in, then forgot all about it... Christmas comes along and my mom curiously enough had a big box of a present for me that year. We were kinda poor and a big present like that from her was unusual so it seemed a little suspicious. Anyway, I open it up and lo and behold, it's a TurboGrafx-16 system with Keith Courage and Bloody Wolf!!! So I'm like WHAT THE F--K?!?! Apparently it had arrived in November via UPS and she intercepted it! For some reason, her brain came up with "the plan" to hide and wrap it up to offer as a Christmas gift down the road (like I'd be fooled into thinking it came from her), so I got to enjoy the damn thing like a month and a half later after having successfully won it! Man, I yelled at her for a long time about that!!! WTF?? Who does that? Well, my mom did!!! Unbelievable! Child abuse, I say!

Anyway, luckily, I saved the top portion of the contest. The bottom part was the form with the questions, but that was obviously cut out and mailed... Too bad, I'm kinda curious about what the questions were. I tried googling for information about this contest once, but you can't find anything about it. Well, here it is:

http://www.ysutopia.net/special/BloodyWolf.jpg



This is of course the source of the "Turbo Titan" tag on my account profile. If anybody knows how to get into newspaper archives like at the library, maybe the whole form can be found someday. I tried once, but no luck.

[HailingTheThings]

I didn't buy it, I won it (when I was 15), and if not for that, it probably would've passed me by!

Pretty sure that's how Pat The NES Punk got his too.

[tg16manaic]

Saw the tv commercial... became very interested... then i saw Splatterhouse... and i had to have it!!!
(circa 1990)

Something about going around with a 2x4 and bashing the opponents with it was very appealing. Video games at the time were very G rated, so Splatterhouse was very cool.

Fast forward to 1993...Saw Lords of Thunder, and was absolutely blown away by it. I was literally like "holy sh*t look at those graphics" Never in my life had i seen graphics like that, it was the most awesome thing ever, and it led me to buy a Turbo Duo.

[sosoyo180]

Gate of Thunder drew me in like a god damn magnet, I knew I had to have it. And when I saw Lords it was like the money in my wallet was already out... My god I love those games 

[johnnymad]

Always wanted a TG-16 as a kid but only recently picked one up in the past two years. Game I really wanted to play was Bonk's Adventure and it did not disappoint. Great game.

[viper0hr]

Mine would be Splatterhouse.
As I Nintendo guy mainly it's not available to play and the Tg16 just looks so damn good that it is the best way to play it IMO.
Since then I have fallen in love with many of the games, but SH would be the main one.

[smbulletz]

Sadly I just got a Duo-R.  I always considered getting into collecting for the tg-16 but just never gave in.  I had friends with a tg-16 when I was younger but I stuck with the SNES and Gensis.  Now I regret not buying in earlier as some of the games I want are pricey. Convincing the wife is another issue.  Seeing that I spend money on my arcade machines, SNES, Gensis, PS1- PS3 and X-box 360 import shooters, it's hard to explain the spending for the Duo-R and games.  But she's cool I will just send her shopping and all is well.  Now I was attrached to The Tg-16/PC Engine due to all the shooters, Dracula X and of course Bonk.  I feel my wallet getting lighter thinking about the 74 games on my must buy list

[Greg2600]

In junior high school, a couple of my friends had a TG-16, that was about it.  They didn't have many games beyond the standard fare.  Bonk, TV Sports, Splatterhouse, etc.  No one had the Turbo Duo.  So I just kind of forgot about it.  I love shmups, so I wound up getting a TG-16 several years ago.  It collected dust until the Everdrive became available though!

[Medic_wheat]

For me it was Bonk...


I love the colors.  The emotive sprit work.  The pin point controls and Arcady feel to geta higher and higher score....l

If I bought only that one game the owning of the whole system felt justified.  Mind you I didn't own one when it was initially released it was something a rich older family member owned who I only visited a handful of times.

Now for my justification of the Turboduo that would be gates of thunder...


Yes I know each time I picked a pack in game but they really knew how to show case the system IMO.

[geise]

Blazing Lazers was my main reason I got one near the tg-16's launch.  Ys was my reason for geting the CD add on.  Gate of Thunder was my reason to trade both of those in and buy a Duo unit at launch. 

[ctophil]

Hi everybody,

My first exposure to the Turbografx-16 was at Toys R' Us.  The rolling demos of Bonk's Adventure, Vigilante, Super Star Soldier, Legendary Axe, Splatterhouse, and Devil's Crush were all really cool.  I already owned an NES and SNES at that time.  So my mom wouldn't buy anything else for a very long time.  lol.  I didn't get a TG-16 until much later, I guess around 2004.  My first game was Keith Courage because it came with the system.  The game that really got me pumping was Fighting Street.  I was a Street Fighter II fan.  So seeing the First Street Fighter (Fighting Street on TG-CD) on a home console was sweet heaven!  hehe. 

I just bought a Turbografx-CD add-on this month.  So you know I will be adding Fighting Street to my collection asap! 

[Ayce]

Originally my brother bought the TG16... I don't know if there was any specific game that made him buy it, but I'm just glad he did. Since then many years later I bought my own and the one game that I just could not live without was Dragon's Curse. (Oh and Neutopia)

Of course I had if for the Master System already, but the TG16 version is so much better.