How did you get into TurboGrafx-16 collecting?

[ifkz]

Here's my story:
When I was growing up a family down the block bought a Turbo around the system's lauch. I remembered playing a couple of good games for it, the one that stuck out was Alien Crush. I also remember Keith Courage. Anyway, I liked it but they didn't have it for long as they traded it for a Genesis around the time Sonic came out. Good move on their part. Anyhow, it left an impression on me.

Flash forward to when I started collecting in 1997. I noticed a couple of loose TG16 units in the thrifts I frequented, but I never felt the urge to buy one. Most of the time they were incomplete or loose and needed power cords, RF's, etc. I also remember seeing a couple of common games in small quantities once (maybe 5 or so, one of them was Vigilante). The best deal I walked away from was either $100 or $200 for a TG16 with the ugly CD unit in the back and 20 or so games. I still wonder if I should have bought that....

Flash forward again to a couple of months ago when I finally saw a local Turbo Express at a used game store I happened to walk into for $130 (loose). Something clicked and I had to get my collection going. I walked away from the TE, which I always wanted but could never afford as a kid. I instead went online and bought one for the same price with a couple of games and a busted power jack (no biggie for me, I just use batteries). A couple of months later I wanted to play the games on a TV so I found a TurboDuo (a grail for me for a long time) online, and I bought that happily. I spent the next month or two getting what I think are the best domestic releases for the system and I couldn't be happier aside from the premium prices that the equipment seemed to go for. I've posted what I ended up with over in the 'What's it Worth section' so have a look and comment if you'd like.

I'd like to hear other stories for those that would like to share...

[ssjlance]

I used to try collecting for it, but I was younger and never had the money for it. Ended up selling it to my brother, as he was dying to play Neutopia, one of the few good games I had.

But I got into it because my dad used to have one growing up and talked about an "awesome Zelda clone" he could never remember the name of (Neutopia). I ended up buying it just for that game. Always really wanted Splatterhouse, although when I owned the console I never had the cash for it. I'd kill for a Turbo Duo now, though. I'd even trade my Vectrex for one.

[ifkz]

Never trade the Vectrex!
;-)

[runinruder]

I read up on the TurboGrafx in VG&CE and EGM back in 1989. A number of its games (especially The Legendary Axe) looked awesome in screen shots, and considering the PC Engine's success in Japan, the Turbo seemed like a safe bet. I bought one along with a whole bunch of HuCards in December of that year.

It wasn't until 1992 that I finally bought the CD unit. It was so expensive at first, and there wasn't much really impressive stuff available for it the first couple years. But I'd always wanted to play Ys, and with games like Cosmic Fantasy 2 and Gate of Thunder on the way (and the unit's price finally coming way down), I finally took the plunge.

A few years later, I got into import gaming and finally got a chance to play all those PCE titles I'd prayed would make it over to the States while the system was still alive.

I still play lots and lots of Turbo and run a site dedicated to the system with two friends of mine. I still have my original TG+CD setup, along with a Duo-R and a SuperGrafx, and about five hundred games. Amazingly enough, there are still some quality titles out there that I haven't gotten around to purchasing yet.

[ifkz]

Nice site, I've been looking for reviews beyond the Video Game Critic and Down 'n Dirty Turbo Reviews. Time for an extended visit.

[Mobius]

I didn't think much of the Turbo until the late 90s when I discovered the TurboDuo. I thought it was the coolest looking console, ever. Then when I looked into the games, I had to have one. I never had the money for one until a few years ago, though. Now it's one of my favorite systems!

[mobiusclimber]

The Turbo and the NES were the systems that got me into console gaming even tho I didn't own either back then. I remember playing the Atari at friends' houses and while I liked some of the games, they seemed pretty poor in comparison to arcade games.

Then I played Splatterhouse on the TG and was completely blown away by it. I finally got one about four years ago, and then got a PC Engine & CD set-up a year after that.

[Richter Belmount]

I heard about how great the castlevania series was when I was younger and I became addicted to castlevania sotn on the psone. I was trying to figure out what was the prequel to sotn , and found out about the turbo grafx and sought out to get Dracula X. And I went from there got myself a turbo duo waited a while till I could afford a Dracula X pcengine disc and loved the game and the system.

[Tekforce]

Here's my somewhat "unusual" story.

I never really had any desire to collect TG16, thinking it was too "Japanese". One day while scouring the newsgroup RGVC, I saw someone saying they had found an Atari 2600 cart with no title that seemed to have some weird characters in it, including Miss Piggy. Well, I knew he was describing the rare proto "Miss Piggy's Wedding", so I quickly bartered a deal with him, telling him to "name what he wanted" in trade for it. Well, he said he would trade the cart for a Turbografx-16 system and a few games.

I thought "Woopee!", and then I immediately headed off to eBay and bought a nice, boxed TG16 system with about 10 games, then immediately told the newsgroup guy that "I had his system, let's exchange addresses and get our items mailed!"

Well, he said he would have to wait a few days to mail, but that I could go ahead and mail mine out. Starting to get suspicious, I told him I could wait a couple days so that we could each give confirmation numbers to each other at about the same time.

Long story short, the guy never came up with a confirmation number, but fortunately I was "onto" his scam in time to withhold mailing the TG16 set out as well! So, I was "stuck" with about a $90+ dollar set of TG16 hardware and software -- which turned out to be not so bad a thing after all, as I soon found out!

(PS: the guy later admitted his Miss Piggy cart was all just invented to scam a TG16 set for himself; lucky for me he was dumb enough to get caught in a few lies before he got away with it!)

[buzz_n64]

I played it once at a friend's house around 1995 during middle school. I didn't even know what the hell it was. I found it interesting as hell. I didn't play it again until I finally got my system to work a few weeks ago. It's fun, and deserved a longer shelf life and advertising than it got.

[Platinum]

Well...





I bought one back in July with R-Type and Galaga '90. That's all I've got so far, but I'm busy getting my Atari and Sega collections up there first. Turbografx just seems expensive at the moment.

[ssjlance]

Never trade the Vectrex!
;-)

There is almost nothing I could imagine giving my Vectrex up for. But a Turbo Duo? Yeah. I mean, come on, the system has Rondo of Blood.

[Natty Bumppo]

I bought a laseractive awhile back and acquired the four gaming pacs over time. Which led me to start getting games for it.

[Fuyukaze]

Blazing Lasers and Side Arms. Two reasons enough for me. Is any other needed?

[Steve W]

I used to go over to a friend's house to borrow Amiga software from him, and one day he had the TurboGrafx-16 with the CD add-on. He had sold off his Sega CD for it, I think. After fooling around with it for a while, I ended up buying a TurboGrafx-16 of my own. Eventually picked up the CD attachment also. But I never got too much into collecting for it back then. I'd only picked up fourteen games for it while it was on the market. Luckily they were decent games, like Bonk 3 (marked down in an Electronics Boutique to $19.99!). I have since slowly started collecting more, but I'm not putting out a lot of effort doing so. I don't buy anything off of eBay, I get my finds from the wild. And there's not too many Turbo games out there, although I have gotten lucky on occasion. I find way more Philips CD-i stuff in thrift stores than Turbo games, for example.

[Tron 2.0]

Early 90's afther hearing about it in a issue of egm.I remember...selling my nes+games just to get one and having a part time summer job just to get a turbo-cd.Though afther nec dropped it's suport in the u.s years later i was foolish enough to sell it all.That's,untile a few years ago afther i discover all these titles that had jpn only release.Afther that i went on ebay and started all over again with a,Duo-R plus TG16&Turbo-CD.

[Arkhan]

-I grew up playing my aunt/uncles turbo grafx....

one day (I was in 5th grade), they gave it and all the games to me....

then I went out and started buying games at the local shop that carried them used (and sometimes new).......

and then I got a job and went on the internet and quickly ran out of money...

:-D

I'm one of the lucky ones who got to grow up playing the thing rather than missing the boat and getting into it way after the face

[segagamer]

I got into TG-16 while I was working at Babbage's in the early 90's. At that time, every store received a free Genesis and TG-16 as a free promo. Since I already have the Genesis by that time, the store manager took the Genesis, while I took the TG-16. My best friend at the time was really into TG-16, so I bought a number of US releases that I liked for my new system. A few years later, when TRU got rid of their TG-16 collection, I bought almost every title released towards the end of the TG-16 life cycle for a great deal. Then over the years, I completed my collection with the help of eBay.

Once I got back into TG-16 gaming via MagicEngine, I went back and bought a bunch of PCE CD and Super CD releases from Japan, mostly via eBay (also bought a bunch of Mega CD games). Even though I prefer the Genesis/Mega Drive, I do enjoy TG-16/PCE gaming (more so than the SNES).

[Purkeynator]

I was always sort of curious about the TG-16 but never owned one. Last year I started researching how much it would cost me to put together a nice collection of the best games on the system. Needless to say I would need a Turbo Duo with a couple controllers and around 20 or so games that were universally considered about the best games on the system across all generes. After seeing what this would cost me on ebay I decided to invest in about $100 worth of Nintendo Wii points and started downloading the games on my Wii via virtual console. Here is what I picked up so far:

Air Zonk
Alien Crush
Blazing Lasers
Bomberman 94
Bonk 1,2, and 3
Detana Twin Bee
Gate of Thunder
Lords of Thunder
Military Madness
Ninja Spirit
Soldier Blade
Splatter House
Super Air Zonk
Super Star Soldier
Y's Books 1 & 2

I decided this was the most cost effective way for me to build a nice collection. Plus I get these benefits:
I already had two classic controllers for wireless play and can add more without multitap
My Wii is hooked up via Component which the Turbo can't do
I have all my games able to launch from one place
I don't have to buy a Duo console, I can spend all the money on games
Older Duos can have reliability problems while the Wii is pretty solid

I once saw an internet article that compared the prices of TG-16 Virtual Console games to their actual cart prices and some of carts cost a lot more. I always prefer the real games when I can but for someone who doesn't have the cash, this was a decent way to go.

[stargate]

I got a TG-16 when it first launched back in 1989/1990. I bought it mainly due to seeing Splatterhouse and Blazing Lasers and being blown away. The system turned out to be a disappointment due to the utter lack of any games available locally and this was pre internet so no way to hunt them down. In any event, I think I sold my system and like 20 great games for $75 to a friend a few years later and he was pissed at me because there were no new games for the system. NEC really blew it with the TG-16 and those of us who bought new got royally screwed.

Anyway, I now own 2 TG-16's, a Turbo Duo, a PC Engine Duo, and a few Coregrafx systems and tons of games and it is my favorite system to play with thr SNES coming a close second.

[Tron 2.0]

I was always sort of curious about the TG-16 but never owned one. Last year I started researching how much it would cost me to put together a nice collection of the best games on the system. Needless to say I would need a Turbo Duo with a couple controllers and around 20 or so games that were universally considered about the best games on the system across all generes. After seeing what this would cost me on ebay I decided to invest in about $100 worth of Nintendo Wii points and started downloading the games on my Wii via virtual console. Here is what I picked up so far:

Air Zonk
Alien Crush
Blazing Lasers
Bomberman 94
Bonk 1,2, and 3
Detana Twin Bee
Gate of Thunder
Lords of Thunder
Military Madness
Ninja Spirit
Soldier Blade
Splatter House
Super Air Zonk
Super Star Soldier
Y's Books 1 & 2

I decided this was the most cost effective way for me to build a nice collection. Plus I get these benefits:
I already had two classic controllers for wireless play and can add more without multitap
My Wii is hooked up via Component which the Turbo can't do
I have all my games able to launch from one place
I don't have to buy a Duo console, I can spend all the money on games
Older Duos can have reliability problems while the Wii is pretty solid

I once saw an internet article that compared the prices of TG-16 Virtual Console games to their actual cart prices and some of carts cost a lot more. I always prefer the real games when I can but for someone who doesn't have the cash, this was a decent way to go.
Reilability problems wtf !? Sure a turbo duo is know to have sounds problems but that's it a duo-r or rx do not have those problems.Also keep in the mind the wii won't get..every tg16&pce title out there due to alot of games are by third partys.As for pitcure yes a wii via component can looks good,but a tg16/pce that's been modded for s-video or tapped for rbg and run through a (rbg to component box) gives you a great picture.

[retro junkie]

I'm a gamer, not a collector. At least I don't think I am. Read about this new system in a game magazine called the Turbo Grafx 16 tons of years ago. I decided, "that is what I wanted." Had to drive to a neighboring state to find one at a Toy-R-Us. Purcased one with a Keith Courage pack in, plus got Bonk's Adventure. Started leaning heavy into the shooter library and I was hooked for life. My TG16 is setting here beside me ready to fire up at a moments notice. Still purchasing games, haven't gotten every game for it, yet. I have a converter for PCE games, plus some PCE games. This is still my favorite console, always will be. I sometimes go on an all day TG16 marathon on the weekends, from very early morning to late evening.
:rocker:

[calistarwind]

I originally got started on TG16 when I asked my parents for a SNES for Christmas and got the TG16 instead. At the time I was disappointed but now I'm quite happy about that.

Several years later when I started working for a mom and pop game store, one of my customers (who thought I was cute) sold me his Turbo Duo and fifty games for $150. He also let me take the system home with me to test it out first. I sold off ten of the games and made back the full amount. It was pretty awesome.

[bacteria]

I played Galaga'88 on emulation a while back, years later, bought two consoles and a stack of original games! All titles I liked on emulation I have original game carts for now (and don't play emulation)!

[digitpress Jim]

I remember when I was like 5 years old, a neighorhood friend had bought a Turbografx-16 and I would always go to his house to play it with my brother. I would eat eat broccoli n Cheese and play Bonks Adventure, Ninja Spirit, Splatterhouse and Airzonk to name a few. After that I have been a Turbografx-16 junkie ever since =D

Digitpress Jim

Sincerely,
Jim Combs- Video Game Saga
Creator, writer, director, producer
www.videogamesaga.com