Turbo facts

[Black Tiger]

I don't remember if this is one of the articles posted during the past year, but I know that the author is worshipped as a retro-gaming expert and an authority that too many people turn to for 16-bit facts.

http://www.usgamer.net/articles/turbografx-16-at-25-remembering-the-little-pc-engine-that-could

The mid-generational technology of the TurboGrafx made it ideally suited for shooting action — the hardware had the power to push lots of sprites, but at the same time it didn't have the ability to render quite as much color and detail as the Genesis and Super NES, which made for a cleaner look — a godsend for fast-paced shooters crammed with countless fast-moving objects. The system has become something of a legend to shooter fans, and rare or Japan-only releases like Sapphire and Magical Chase command impossibly high prices.

The lower-color and lower detail 8-bit graphics make PCE games better suited to shooters, since the extra color and detail is obviously what causes Super Gradius III to constantly chug.

If Magical Chase is already so expensive, imagine how much a Turbo version would go for today if it had actually  been released in North America!

"I really think the arcade-oriented library of the system really makes it unique for the time period," says Bunch. "The NES was definitely not focused on those burst, pick-up-and-play for 10-20 minutes type of games, nor are the Genesis or SNES libraries for the most part. TG16 has the shooters, arcade ports like Splatterhouse and Cadash, arcade-ish games like Parasol Stars and the Crush pinball titles... sure, if you're good, you can last a while, but the console never struck me as the home of the mascot platformer like its counterparts ended up being. Even things like Bonk or Keith Courage are definitely not the norm for the console library, to me.

The reason I as a Genesis fan at the time, who resented the TG-16 for being competition, fell in love with the console during my first real interaction with it, is because it was exactly what I had wanted all along from the Genesis: 16-bit console-style games and not what the Genesis was known for: arcade-style games.

The bundled game we got, Keith Courage in Alpha Zones, might be the worst pack-in game in history," says TG16 enthusiast Marshall Martin. "At least, it was the worst until that point. Much too 'Japanese' for a seven-year-old to appreciate.

Seven year olds were apparently more interested in games like Las Vega Poker Black Jack, Snail Maze, Gyromite and World Class Track Meet or the common pack-in of "nothing".

[Necromancer]

Parish is bad enough (did you know Dracula X is a spinoff?), but these goobers he's quoted really take the cake.

[sunteam_paul]

See the tit in the comments who is saying that 'Sapphire' is the least important word in the title 'Ginga Fukei Densetsu Sapphire'?

Also some guy used to play 'Sword of Sodan' on the TG16. *boggle*

[Arkhan]

Why don't these f*ckups talk to people who aren't f*ckups.

[Black Tiger]

On another break at work, read some more:

Technologically speaking, NEC's console didn't hold a candle to Sega's — but that didn't matter so much in its home territory, where its only competition for the first year of its life came from Nintendo's aging Famicom.

I'm sure he'd say the same about the Genesis not holding any candles compared the almighty SNES.


The problem with all of these revisionists is that the experts writing the guides and the "experts" they use quotes from are all the kind of people who actually need guides like this (done right) in order to learn even the basics of unpopular consoles. It's even more troubling how much they get wrong about famous systems like Genesis and SNES.

Imagine if you wrote an article about Nintendo in the same style, anout how substandard their products were and/or how quickly they cell behind? You get people following you around the internet downvoting anything they can and spamming negative comments on anything related to you.

[pulstar]

The problem is people who read this tripe will be quoting these 'facts' and not realise they were spewing tripe as well. I love videogame journalism like this - half-assed and not researched. More please.

[Gentlegamer]

I think I posted a thread about Parish's article when it when it was published last August.

Even though it offered a remarkably diverse lineup by the end of 1989, ranging from brawlers to shooters to strategy games, the TurboGrafx library simply didn't connect with American gamers the way Nintendo and Sega's games did. NEC leaned heavily on Japanese-developed games from Hudson and partners like Namco and Atlus; fewer than 20 of TurboGrafx-16's official U.S. releases came from Western studios.

I don't understand how this is a criticism for that time period. The success of the NES came on the shoulders of almost wholly Japanese third party games.

 Within a year of the Genesis launch, Sega had a line of top-flight American sports games locked down.

I'm pretty sure not one of those initial sports games were American aside from the celebrity endorsement tacked on. The were all Japanese developed.

The article keeps beating the drum that TG-16 being 'too Japanese' was the cause of its market difficulty; no mention is made of the importance of marketing and how NEC was unprepared to adjust its tactics of big city advertising to USA.

After reading over the article again, I'm convinced the community here could write a much better retrospective.

[EvilEvoIX]

He really dropped the ball on saying the system couldn't handle color, it's obviously one of it's strongest characteristics.  I have to agree with him on Keith Courage being a bad pack in game, I never did like that game, I don't hate it, but the pack in game should have been Blazing Lasers.  That game impresses me to this day and REALLY shows off what the Turbo can do over the Genesis (Color!) and the SNES (SPEED!).

That change alone I think would have helped the Turbo in the States Dramatically.  I really liked BONK as well but I beat it the first time I ever played it so it definitely needed more depth and difficulty. 

[Black Tiger]

Although I agree that other games would have been better overall pack-ins (I think R-Type would have been best), there was no reason to have a pack-in counter a non-existent console from the future in a way that no one knew would be a shortcoming of that non-existent console.

[ProfessorProfessorson]

What hurt the Turbo was not enough games, lame box art early on, and not enough advertising for the good games it did have. The early TV ads I would see in the morning were actually pretty cool, but they served more as an advertisement for the system itself and were too interested in attacking the Nes, as opposed to the Genesis which was the real threat. The individual games needed more ads too and NEC didn't seem to get that until Splatterhouse and Bonk's Adventure was released.

You can make the system look powerful all you want in a tv ad, which is even easier to do when you only compare it to the Nes, but unless the average gaming consumer started seeing lots of cutting edge, cool looking games being advertised they wont bite. Normal consumers were a lot less informed back then and relied on word of mouth, tv ads, rentals, and magazines for their game info.

Sega had a grasp of how it all worked here after the Master System fail. Nec of America though just didn't get it. They were too busy marketing the system like they would any of their other high end consumer electronics, focusing on the hardware mainly. They had a potentially superior product to the Genesis, but they simply forgot why. The games sell the system, the system doesn't sell the games. They didn't tap into that extensive Japanese library enough. The exact same library that crushed the Mega Drive.

Also, what could have helped a bit would have been Nec releasing all those Sega ports the PCE got over here in the NA market. Running advertisements in magazines or in a commercial of Sega arcade classics, Altered Beast CD, Shinobi, Outrun, Thunderblade, and Afterburner in addition to the Space Harrier and Fantasy Zone we already got, running on the Turbografx would have been a good way to blind side Sega marketing wise, in addition to looking good on a retail shelf.

Anyway, outside of the Johnny Turbo shit, the TTi crew did have a better grasp of things. They were just too little too late. You cant come along almost 3 years later and expect to drastically turn the tide, especially when you have no Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter 2 to offer up. It was unrealistic of them, but TTi did at least get some pretty cool games released here before things ended for the system in NA.

[seieienbu]

For the life of me, I will NEVER understand why people call Kieth Courage the worst pack-in game.  Even ignoring less commonly known pack-in games like Gyromite, are there people who think that Altered Beast is some fantastic work of gaming literature?  Honestly, that game is boring and bad.  I've never understood why people seem to think that it's better than Kieth Courage.

[technozombie]

For the life of me, I will NEVER understand why people call Kieth Courage the worst pack-in game.  Even ignoring less commonly known pack-in games like Gyromite, are there people who think that Altered Beast is some fantastic work of gaming literature?  Honestly, that game is boring and bad.  I've never understood why people seem to think that it's better than Kieth Courage.

Although, I agree with you about the quality of Altered Beast, as a game it was visually striking and at least had an arcade presence. I'm with Blacktiger that R-type would have been best, if not for name recognition alone. I think the biggest hurdle to the Tg's success was how long they took to get it out in the U.S. I think even 6 months before the Genesis would have gone a long way for building mind share among the gaming public.

[toymachine78]

What hurt the Turbo was not enough games, lame box art early on, and not enough advertising for the good games it did have. The early TV ads I would see in the morning were actually pretty cool, but they served more as an advertisement for the system itself and were too interested in attacking the Nes, as opposed to the Genesis which was the real threat. The individual games needed more ads too and NEC didn't seem to get that until Splatterhouse and Bonk's Adventure was released.

You can make the system look powerful all you want in a tv ad, which is even easier to do when you only compare it to the Nes, but unless the average gaming consumer started seeing lots of cutting edge, cool looking games being advertised they wont bite. Normal consumers were a lot less informed back then and relied on word of mouth, tv ads, rentals, and magazines for their game info.

Sega had a grasp of how it all worked here after the Master System fail. Nec of America though just didn't get it. They were too busy marketing the system like they would any of their other high end consumer electronics, focusing on the hardware mainly. They had a potentially superior product to the Genesis, but they simply forgot why. The games sell the system, the system doesn't sell the games. They didn't tap into that extensive Japanese library enough. The exact same library that crushed the Mega Drive.

Also, what could have helped a bit would have been Nec releasing all those Sega ports the PCE got over here in the NA market. Running advertisements in magazines or in a commercial of Sega arcade classics, Altered Beast CD, Shinobi, Outrun, Thunderblade, and Afterburner in addition to the Space Harrier and Fantasy Zone we already got, running on the Turbografx would have been a good way to blind side Sega marketing wise, in addition to looking good on a retail shelf.

Anyway, outside of the Johnny Turbo shit, the TTi crew did have a better grasp of things. They were just too little too late. You cant come along almost 3 years later and expect to drastically turn the tide, especially when you have no Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter 2 to offer up. It was unrealistic of them, but TTi did at least get some pretty cool games released here before things ended for the system in NA.

   "Lame box art early on" <====== This... The games reeked of shittyness from the box art alone. Who would want to gamble on that.  Two, I think a lack of genre variety, which goes hand in hand with not enough games. There were very few good platformers, and hardly no RPGs or beat'em ups unless you had the CD/Super CD.

[toymachine78]

For the life of me, I will NEVER understand why people call Kieth Courage the worst pack-in game.  Even ignoring less commonly known pack-in games like Gyromite, are there people who think that Altered Beast is some fantastic work of gaming literature?  Honestly, that game is boring and bad.  I've never understood why people seem to think that it's better than Kieth Courage.

Altered Beast was no digital masterpiece, but at least it was familiar to the NA market due to the arcade.

KC gets my vote for worst pack in. I still remember how let down I was with it. I played through the first level, then saw the second level was more of the exact same.... Time to pop in Splatter house and Legendary Axe.

Pole Position for the 7800 was a better pack in lol

[Black Tiger]

For the life of me, I will NEVER understand why people call Kieth Courage the worst pack-in game.  Even ignoring less commonly known pack-in games like Gyromite, are there people who think that Altered Beast is some fantastic work of gaming literature?  Honestly, that game is boring and bad.  I've never understood why people seem to think that it's better than Kieth Courage.

Altered Beast was no digital masterpiece, but at least it was familiar to the NA market due to the arcade.

KC gets my vote for worst pack in. I still remember how let down I was with it. I played through the first level, then saw the second level was more of the exact same.... Time to pop in Splatter house and Legendary Axe.

Pole Position for the 7800 was a better pack in lol

You must have been really let down by Super Mario Bros then.