Way back in 1989 the PC Engine finally came to North America with a new look and a new name. See how crazy I am for this awesome machine:
Happy 27th Birthday Turbografx-16!
Way back in 1989 the PC Engine finally came to North America with a new look and a new name. See how crazy I am for this awesome machine:
I love the Turbografx 16. I've told my personal story of the first time I played one in the SNES anniversary thread, but I didn't own one until 2000, and how I got it is one of my favorite stories for a console.
I worked at FuncoLand at the time, and we didn't carry Turbo stuff. It was getting close to Christmas, and my buddy Tim, who also worked for Funco, was helping out at the Northwest Plaza store for a day with this super cool guy named Ryan. Somebody abandoned their TG16 when the store wouldn't buy it, so Ryan claimed it and was boxing it up to take home. Tim saw it and asked if he could buy it off of him, as for years he had heard me talk about loving the system, and wanted to get it for me. Ryan said no, as he wanted it. Tim said something to the effect of, "Aw, man, I was hoping to get it for Mike for Christmas." Ryan said, "It's for Mike? Take it." Gave it to him for free so he could give it to me. The story makes me even happier than having the system.
My earliest purchases were a pile of loose HuCards I paid 5 bucks a piece for and a boxed Turbo Stick for $5. Stuff like Bravoman, Order of the Griffon, Yo Bro, Ninja Spirit, Tiger Road... it was a fun mix. I have around 115 Turbo and PCE games now, 55 of which are US releases. No, I don't have Magical Chase, but I do have a big chunk of good stuff like the Star Soldier games and BlazingLazers, Cadash, Air Zonk, Exile, Cosmic Fantasy 2, Splatterhouse, Sinistron, the Neutopias, and loads more. Super fun arcade flavored stuff.
I love the shooters, but my favorites are Gate of Thunder and Gradius II... but the dirty truth is that my favorite game on the system is Keith Courage in Alpha Zones. It was the first Turbo game I played, the first I owned, and I still play it to this day. Other favorites are The Legendary Axe games, Samurai Ghost, Ninja Spirit, World Court Tennis, R-Type Complete... I could go on. It's a very good quality to crap ratio in the US library, though I do own a few duds like Timeball and Drop Off... and I have barely even acknowledged the PCE side of things, which is great.
It's become a bitch to collect for, but I'm grateful to have gotten in cheap, and it's a console that has aged very well. My second favorite of the 16-bit consoles... but they were all great. Love it.
Yeah, that's the good thing about finding games sometimes at a few years ago. Many sellers just didn't know or care about the Turbografx and I was able to get some titles cheap too...... not so much today though.
Wow, nice Turbo collection.. WHY DID U SELL YOUR NES GAMES?!?!
Originally Posted by celerystalker
I diddnt own one until like around 2003; I remember finding a system at a flea market. It was funny because I was leaving the flea market for the day, and it was on the very last table near the parking lot.. it was like 15$ for the system and motoroader loose. TurboGrafx games have always been very rare finds for me, only one other time have I ever bought Turbo stuff locally. All my other Turbo purchases have been online. Anyway I quickly became obsessed, and after collecting Turbo games I became obsessed with PCEngine games. My credit cards were constantly maxed-out from buying Japanese games from Hit-Japan and SupurbArticlesfromJapan.
Yeah, anything Turbo or PCengine related has become really hard to collect for. Im glad I collected so much back in the day because its a really cool system.
Last edited by bb_hood; 08-30-2016 at 06:21 PM.
Happy Birthday indeed for anyone owning one at this point, or love their emulators.I miss my Duo very much and the lovely CDs I had, US HuCards too.
Waves wand -- bottomusmarketusdropouticus!
I remember loving certain games so much, and some the soundtracks were so insanely good I'd find rips of the audio (Ys Book) or I'd due to format make my own (Dracula X.) The gameplay with the right game (talking outside of the shooter fan base) was very very good. Even if it was more or less a faux 16bit system you wouldn't know from some of the crazy quality that thing put out as it really felt on par with the Genesis but could outdo it as well in the visuals and on screen craziness department.
For HuCard games, you can get a flash card for like 80$, and it plays both US and Japanese games.
The disc games are another story, they can be burned but the cd systems are prone to problems.
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