What games do you love that you think others give short shrift?

[Mathius]

Blood Gear. I am sure I will get more into it once I cross the marginally difficult language barrier. It has fantastic side-scrolling action sequences like Zelda II which I am a big fan of. The typical Turbo fan doesn't gripe about this game, they just don't know about it.

[nat]

I think Keith Courage is underrated.. I played through and beat that game the first night I got my Turbo Grafx 16 and loved every minute of it. I'm still sore they never released the sequel they promised in the end credits.

Was it gonna be "Keith Courage in Beta Zones"?

What about Keith Courage for Playstation? Or Granzort on SuperGrafx?

Keith Courage was based off an anime.

Granzort is based off an anime that was a spinoff/sequel to the anime Keith Courage was based off.

They are both Sunrise games. Whether Granzort as a game was actually meant to be a sequel to Keith Courage/Wataru is anybody's guess but it's been rumored.

[nodtveidt]

Camp California is probably at the top of my list for this. People give it crap because you start out with Byron, who has some of the worst collision detection since Impossamole. Of course, once you get more characters, that problem disappears and the game is mad fun.

Another one that gets a bad rap is Turrican. By itself, it's a fun little game. Next to the original, it kind of blows, and even the Genesis version is better in most ways.

I will always hate Shape Shifter. I don't care how many people swoon over the impressive graphics, special effects, and ADPCM streaming... the gameplay is fundamentally broken and that is where they should have put the most effort. It's a GAME, make it work like one! If they spent half as much effort in making sure the gameplay was as good as the rest of the game, it'd be the champ of all platformers. And it's not a case like Camp California where only one character is broken... ALL playable forms are similarly broken and have too many control quirks to make it enjoyable. That's what happens when you don't do enough gameplay testing and focus all your efforts on pizazz.

[esteban]

I'd include Final Zone II on this list. It's not an incredible game, by any stretch, but it's a fun game to sit back and walk through. It's not terribly difficult, so it's a nice relaxing ride. The cheesy dialogue on the TG port is good for a laugh. All in all, it's not a bad way to spend a rainy Saturday afternoon.

I love you ceti, but Final Zone II is such a crappy, bare-bones piece of lame. On the other hand, I see where you are coming from: accept FZII for what it is and it can be fun. BUT FOR SOME REASON I can't let go of the AWESOME potential this game had. It should have AT LEAST been as good as Red Alert/Last Alert. Anyway, I view Keith Courage the same way: such awesome potential, but totally wasted. Actually, Keith Courage had far more potential than FZII. Anyway...

Another one that gets a bad rap is Turrican. By itself, it's a fun little game. Next to the original, it kind of blows, and even the Genesis version is better in most ways.

You are the only reason I keep giving Turrican on TG-16 another chance. But each time I play that goddamned game, I ask myself, "Why? Dear Lord, why?"

The good news is that I haven't completely given up on the game. I am just waiting for that fateful day when I will be locked in a room with nothing but one HuCard and TG-16.

[ceti alpha]

I'd include Final Zone II on this list. It's not an incredible game, by any stretch, but it's a fun game to sit back and walk through. It's not terribly difficult, so it's a nice relaxing ride. The cheesy dialogue on the TG port is good for a laugh. All in all, it's not a bad way to spend a rainy Saturday afternoon.

I love you ceti, but Final Zone II is such a crappy, bare-bones piece of lame. On the other hand, I see where you are coming from: accept FZII for what it is and it can be fun. BUT FOR SOME REASON I can't let go of the AWESOME potential this game had. It should have AT LEAST been as good as Red Alert/Last Alert. Anyway, I view Keith Courage the same way: such awesome potential, but totally wasted. Actually, Keith Courage had far more potential than FZII. Anyway...

haha este. I know what you mean. FZII had the potential to be a top tier game, but just didn't deliver. And yeah, Last Alert is a far better sit back and relax type of game.

[Arkhan]

Turrican will always suck. No matter what system it's on.


Game is retarded.

[Tatsujin]

Turrican = on amiga and c64. no sucks there!

[esteban]

Turrican = on amiga and c64. no sucks there!

TRUTH.

[Arkhan]

Turrican = on amiga and c64. no sucks there!

You're right.  on Amiga and C64 , they f*ckin suck.  As opposed to just suck. 

great music though!

[Otaking]

Mr Kato and Mr Kenneth, I love this game, yes it's partly fogged in nostalgia for me but underneath that I still think it's a decent game. 

[Otaking]

Oh and I thought PCE Die Hard was pretty decent too, it often gets slated in reviews.

[termis]

KC&KC - I've said it multiple times here, but I like the platform action of this one -- goofiness being cherry on top.
China Warrior - Gladiator back in the days (which also get a lot of flack) was good fun for me, and this game plays similar enough to it.
Vigilante - Again, I was a big fan of Kung Fu Master in the arcades, and this is the spiritual successor to it.  Oddly enough KFM doesn't get flack, but Vigilante does.
Ditto for Xevious - It was pretty ground breaking back in the days, not only as one of the very first scrolling shooters, but also the little details -- I still remember thinking as a kid how cool it was to see differing metallic colors of various objects spinning around changing shades appropriately.

Keith Courage, on the other hand... Ugh.  What a crappy choice for a pack-in.

[Arkhan]

Keith Courage, on the other hand... Ugh.  What a crappy choice for a pack-in.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH KEITH COURAGE.

SERIOUSLY.

The pack in for NES was Super Mario Bros, and that games not that great when you get right the hell down to it.

8 repetitive worlds of dicking off, followed by castles w/ lame boss battle.  Oh boy.

Keith Courage on the other hand......

Kicked the f*cking shit out of SMB.  Boss battles that require skill, colorful overworlds, stuff to buy!  A kickass intro tune.  POWER ARMOR.   SWORDS. 

rainbows, action, giant gunhead things,

wtf did mario have?

Jack shit.  A bunch of basically the same levels. Over and over.  I do not see any upside down worlds in Mario.  I see no shops! I see no power armor, or epic boss battles in blue pulsing arenas.

Screw Mario.   Keith Courage would've saved the princess in half the time, and plowed her with his Alpha Sword when he was done, and she would have liked it.  He'd do it while staring Mario and Luigi down, like a boss.  High fiving Toad and friends.

Who cares if he's sposed to be like, 9.  In Future Japan years, thats like, 25.

What other pack ins were there to compete with? Clunkered Beast's basically the same handful of levels and herky jerky action? KC is way smoother.  All Clunkered Beast has on KC is the realllllly eerie theme/atmosphere. 

[vestcoat]

I'd like to point out that the topic of this thread applies to half the games on the TurboGrafx (as for your PCE name droppers: go back to your own forum! )

TurboGrafx games are so low-profile and rarely acknowledged, even among fans like us, that just about EVERY game gets "short shift" unless it falls into one of three categories:
*Games that were sequels or spawned sequels (Bonk/Zonk, GoT/LoT, Bomberman, Splatterhouse, Dungeon Explorer, Neutopia, Ys, the Wonderboy titles, etc)
*The Working Designs catalog (which, again, were mostly games in a series {CF2, Exile1-2, Vasteel 1, Bouble Bobble 3})
*Ports of arcade and PC blockbusters (R-Type, Raiden, Might and Magic...meanwhile, even blockbuster status on other platforms didn't save Chase HQ, Sim Earth, and Loom from TurboGrafx obscurity).

Those are the famous games everyone identifies with the TurboGrafx and runs out and buys right away.

The cool thing about the TurboGrafx is not that it didn't have shitty games - it did - but that it didn't have too many of any particular kind.  The SNES and Genesis were inundated with endless EA sports games, hasty movie licenses, terrible tournament fighters, shitty shooters, and bad beat-em-ups, while the Turbo only got one or two of each.  Furthermore, these shitty Turbo titles are mostly unique and rarely found on the mainstream systems all of our friends were playing, making them easy to adopt as lovable little diamonds-in-the-rough, different than the bargain-bin SNES/Genesis carts we've seen over and over again for twenty years.

The TurboGrafx did get too many shooters, but the hardware is well designed for such games and they tend to be a above par.

So yeah, I might not play a lot of Magical Dinosaur Tour, but I'd be hard pressed to eliminate any one game in the U.S. library.

[Arkhan]

Dude, Magical Dinosaur Tour is str8 hood gangsta.   


And, even the shittiest Turbob games are great really.