Space Harrier

[Michael Helgeson]

Yea the USA artwork is laughably ugly as hell before the TTI days.

[esteban]

once, one thing has to be said. there is absolutely no other system existing, where the gameboxes and manuals were foozled that much as for the TG-16. poorly as possible indeed.

Seriously. Well, the North American SMS booklets were nearly as threadbare as the early TG-16 booklets... but it wasn't until Working Designs (and later, TTi) that we got a handful of nicely done manuals.

[Keranu]

I disagree. I enjoy reading my TG16 manuals much more than my PCE, but that's probably because I don't know Japanese. But still, I love the cheesy text and artwork in the TG16 manuals that it becomes a fun ritual for me to read them as soon as I get them. Also another fun thing about the TG16 manuals is on the back of them when it says "Have you played these other Turbo Chip games?". I like to see which games I own from the games it lists!

[Tatsujin]

to be honest, the only predestination of TG-16 box/m is making someone laughing at it.

[nat]

I agree with Keranu. TurboGrafx-16 manuals are my lifeblood. For me, instead of reading the "Have you tried..." lists I always liked the "Playing tips" section.

[Keranu]

Oh yes, I love the playing tips section as well, even though there were a lot of unusefull tips. A funny tip I read recently was in the Psychosis manual where it said "In Area 2, try pausing the game constantly so you can see where enemies and bullets are going to go." I thought it was funny for the instruction manual to give out such a cheap trick.

[Joe Redifer]

Those "Playing Tips" are great.  I know I couldn't have gotten far without the wise tips offered by the game master who wrote them.  With tips equivalent to "If there is a ledge you can't reach, try pressing the jump button", it really helps me out in my game.

[nat]

That's why I enjoyed reading them so much. That's the point. Ocassionally there was a worthwhile nugget of goodness to be had, but most of the time they were almost as entertaining as the game itself.

[esteban]

That's why I enjoyed reading them so much. That's the point. Ocassionally there was a worthwhile nugget of goodness to be had, but most of the time they were almost as entertaining as the game itself.

Seriously, if someone tallied the useful vs. inane tips, I think you'd find possibly four genuinely helpful tips in all of the manuals, combined.

[GUTS]

I remember a couple of them giving level select codes I think?  Or maybe I'm thinking of the old Sega Master system manuals that also had a "tips" section.

Back before the internet the "have you tried..." list was one of the few ways I had of finding out about other Turbo games, so I always made mental notes of the names that sounded cool.

[Black Tiger]

I remember a couple of them giving level select codes I think?  Or maybe I'm thinking of the old Sega Master system manuals that also had a "tips" section.

Back before the internet the "have you tried..." list was one of the few ways I had of finding out about other Turbo games, so I always made mental notes of the names that sounded cool.

I like the old Turbografx-16 manuals.

I remember that the manual of SMS Wonderboy III had a screenshot with a password that turned out to be a Hu-Man code.

[Keranu]

I remember a couple of them giving level select codes I think?  Or maybe I'm thinking of the old Sega Master system manuals that also had a "tips" section.

I'm not sure if I can remember any level select codes, but I know for the J.J. and Jeff manual, the tip section told you how to continue when you get a game over and this was really useful to me since I had no idea you could even do that since how obscure it was by pressing SELECT + II + I + RUN (I think). They did this for another game too I believe, just can't remember which.

[nat]

Space Harrier had a continue code in it, too. That's the single useful tip I remember gleaning from the TG manuals back in the day.

[nat]

Speaking of Space Harrier, did anybody ever call the TG game hint line? I did and they gave me the debug screen code for Space Harrier and Keith Courage. Then they sent me a Bonk's Adventure t-shirt. The shirt was so f*cking small I threw it out when I got older. Now, I sooooo wish I had kept it even though there is no way in hell it would fit anyone over 10 years old.

[Keranu]

I've tried calling various TG16 hotlines throughout the past few years, but they aren't available . I believe one of them is 1-(708)-FUN-TG16.