U.S release dates of the Turbo Duo and Sega CD

[Necromancer]

I might have told this story before, sorry for the repeat if so!  I saved up for the Duo the year it came out, but since I had to go to school during the day back then, my sister went to pick it up for me so I could have it waiting for me when I got home.  The guy at Babbages (I think, or Electronics Boutique, one of the two) sent her home with a Sega CD.  I don't know if he was an undercover FEKA agent or not, but I am betting.  I didn't even have a genesis  at the time, but even if I did, I still would have sent it back I wanted the Duo so bad!  We exchanged it a day or two later and to this day I have fond memories of every single pack-in game.  I lusted after Ys in the promotional Duo World for months before, so that was the main thing.  But Gate of Thunder, Ninja Spirit and Bomberman were all amazing.  I already had played and owned on Hu both Bonk games, but with those included it's easily the best pack-in set of all time in my eyes.

Man, screw that FEKA bastard for steering your sister wrong.

[GoldenWheels]

SMS - Hang On / Safari Hunt (nope)

Was Hang On/Astro Warrior ever the pack in? Maybe that was UK. I think that's actually a pretty good pack in if so. SMS Hang On is pretty fun, as is Astro Warrior (for what it is).

But yeah ain't nobody missing Safari Hunt.

[Lost Monkey]

I was going for launch only - otherwise I would have had to list every special bundle that has come out for every system since the Atari..

[SignOfZeta]

Yeah Virtua Fighter, I remember that now.

Gamecube had a bunch too. A shit ton. My first Cube was the MP one that was $100 at retail but I for sure remember a bunch of Mario and Zelda ones. Plus Pokemon XD Gale of Darkness.

I think the main definition of a "pack-in" is really "pack-in at launch". The Cube was launched with nothing, like most systems now. The Saturn only gained pack-ins when they saw they were struggling.

The Genesis was packed in with Sonic, Sonic 2, Streets of Rage 2, Ecco, Lion King and whatever else but the "Genesis pack-in" is (sadly) Altered Beast.

[Gypsy]

Most systems have f*ck all at launch. But yeah if we are talking launch pack-ins that is completely different and by far the Duo had the best.

[Black Tiger]

In

Yeah Virtua Fighter, I remember that now.

Gamecube had a bunch too. A shit ton. My first Cube was the MP one that was $100 at retail but I for sure remember a bunch of Mario and Zelda ones. Plus Pokemon XD Gale of Darkness.

I think the main definition of a "pack-in" is really "pack-in at launch". The Cube was launched with nothing, like most systems now. The Saturn only gained pack-ins when they saw they were struggling.

The Genesis was packed in with Sonic, Sonic 2, Streets of Rage 2, Ecco, Lion King and whatever else but the "Genesis pack-in" is (sadly) Altered Beast.

The Saturn launched in North America with Virtua Fighter as a pack-in and the game was never sold at retail. It was covered heavily in the media, as the Playstation couldn't save games or play anything out of the box.

[SignOfZeta]

Ah, I forgot about that...that's how good the SS version of VF was.

Now that I warm up the ol memory banks I remember the quest to make a decent port of an arcade game that was barely playable on 16 and 32 bit systems from Sega as well as the slightly better but still pretty much naff Virtua Fighter Remix and the "worst of all" JP Saturn VF.

Now VF is actually decent and nobody cares. Things are weird.

[Michirin9801]

TurboDuo - Ys I&II, Gate of Thunder, Bonk's Adventure, Bonk's Revenge, Bomberman and random game!

DAAAMN!!
Super Mario World is my favourite game of all time, but with this many games of such high quality it's really hard to compete... I'm so conflicted...
My favourite game alone? Or 6-7 games (depending on whether you count Ys 1+2 as 1 game or 2 games) which are all brilliant on their own?
(Also depends on the random title, if you got Ghost Manor or Addams Family for example it would really suck)

You'd certainly get more bang for your buck with the TurboDuo, at least back then...

[TheClash603]

Virtua Fighter 2 was already out in arcades when the Saturn released and it trumped the first game in almost every way.  Virtua Fighter 2 on Saturn is a solid release that is still playable to this day.

It is odd they even decided to put out the original Virtua Fighter, seems like it would detract from sales of the sequel if anything.  Even more odd is they acknowledged it was crap when they did Remix.  They should've just packed in part 2 at this time and forgot about the original game.  Remix wasn't a cash grab either, because even though retail copies exist, it's so hard to find the retail version that Sega must have made near zero of them.

NES, SNES, Game Boy, and Duo all had great pack-ins.

[DragonmasterDan]

Virtua Fighter 2 was already out in arcades when the Saturn released and it trumped the first game in almost every way.  Virtua Fighter 2 on Saturn is a solid release that is still playable to this day.

It is odd they even decided to put out the original Virtua Fighter, seems like it would detract from sales of the sequel if anything.  Even more odd is they acknowledged it was crap when they did Remix.  They should've just packed in part 2 at this time and forgot about the original game.  Remix wasn't a cash grab either, because even though retail copies exist, it's so hard to find the retail version that Sega must have made near zero of them.
 

Yeah, the 32X port of VF 1 was better than the non-Remix Saturn version.

[Lost Monkey]

Sega made some breakthroughs in programming the 2nd batch of games (Sega Rally, VF2), so they went back and redid VF-Remix.  I wish they had redone Daytona USA with the improved VDP routines, rather than the awful Daytona CCE that got released later...

[SignOfZeta]

Making a 3D game back then was really really hard. VF1 has some interesting history behind it and it kinda leads into Virtua On, which is a great game. While 3D graphically they are pretty much 1D as fighters. Elevation only has meaning within a move so even though there are three levels to hit (like SF2) you are always chained to a line. All your moves advance or retreat along that axis. This is because they couldn't figure out how to do anything more. The game is based around how long the line is between you and the opponent. Obviously any jump in VF1 is a mistake.

VF1, like a lot of high end arcade games, was based on the hardware. We were essentially beta testers as they tried to get this almost-a-game up and running on variously massively weaker pieces of hardware that weren't much the Model 1 that VF1 was based around. Somebody must have cared but it wasn't me.

VF2 and Megamix both rule though. In general 3D fighters can suck it but I like these.

[xelement5x]

The model 1 Sega-CD came with Shermatlock, Sol Feace and CD versions of Streets of Rage, Golden Axe, Revenge of Shinobi and Columns.

Tbe CDX came with Sonic CD, Ecco CD and a 5-in-1 game collection disc that has the mentioned titles plus Super Monaco GP.

Good call on that!  I can't believe I blanked on the Sherlock/4-in1 set as well, it even came with a cool newspaper for the game.



Also, I thought one of the main reasons they committed to giving out Remix in the US is because the original launch version is just SOOO bad.  But Remix probably wasn't very well promoted at all since VF2 was around the corner.

[Black Tiger]

In Japan they did the Remix version just because of how quickly they figured out how to effectively use the hardware after publishing the initial port. Since VF was massively popular there, they just straight up sold it. Even without the textures and resolution, the animation set it apart from Tekken, which looked ridiculous even when it was new.

[exodus]

The Saturn launched in North America with Virtua Fighter as a pack-in and the game was never sold at retail. It was covered heavily in the media, as the Playstation couldn't save games or play anything out of the box.

But that version of VF was the one that was so hastily put together they had to re-release it as Virtua Fighter Remix, right? They sent it out for free to everyone with new jim lee art on the cover. I interviewed him once, and never asked about that. whoops.