During that brief window where I owned a TurboGrafx 16 Mini I really dug that controller. Really ~put me in the zone.~ 2 buttons! That’s it! I don’t need any more than that!! Also the turbo switches are important, being able to adjust the rapid fire mattered a lot to me, I would rather nudge those things than map rapid fire to another button, that’s just how I am.
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Current Alien Crush high score 10,303,400.
Given I am me, I will also be playing various STGs for this, so I’m played Dragon Spirit, and then rdownloaded the arcade version for comparison. The PCE version is definitely easier, but still hard. It is not “arcade perfect” at all (given the power diff between arcade machines and the PCE, like, no shit), but I still really like PCE arcade ports. They have a certain charm to them.
The next year is gonna be busy AF for STG action.
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i find that 8bitdo controller to have the buttons and d-pad sitting too low, giving your hands very little purchase on the bottom of the pad. it the buttons were a bit higher up, i would like it a lot more. as is, i can’t really use it because it hurts my hands
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Okay so why did they call it the CD-ROM² anyway
I’ve always assumed it was because it was like, an add-on? So CD-ROM + the PC Engine itself?
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That’s an excellent question and I don’t know. Have failed to find any information about the name. Somehow in the back of my mind all along I was assuming there was some first version that didn’t have the “2,” but no, that WAS the first one.
Wild speculation: possibly they wanted to point out that it was dual function, being capable of operating as a regular CD-ROM player, as well as playing games. Like, maybe they just thought they needed to make sure people knew you weren’t just shelling out the bucks for your PCE to play music CDs.
But also in the Japanese language they seem to enjoy double words, like “moshi moshi” for “hello” and so forth, so maybe they just thought “rom rom” had a nice ring to it. And it has a nice look in katakana, which they took advantage of for graphic design purposes as in that TV ad: ロムロム.
So: looks good, sounds good, definitely not just a music player?
But I don’t really know. = oo
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I bet Brandon Sheffield knows
@exodus please come to this thread
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they just wanted it to sound cute and non-threatening, since it was a brand new technology
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This is the big reason why I wanted a leader board section for this thread.
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looking forward to some magical chase chat when we hit 1991
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Alien Crush is my favorite pinball video game. I like it better than Devil’s, even though there are things the sequel technically improved on. I also played Epic Pinball a lot but Alien Crush wins because of its atmosphere.
I mean, just listen to this music from one of the bonus rooms.
It’s probably common knowledge, but R-Type 2 on the Turbo Grafx-16 was just the second half of the original game. I own only the first of the two HuCards, either because the second was always prohibitively expensive or because I could never quite beat the first part; I don’t remember. I would say something here about R-Type Complete CD, but that was a few years later and can wait.
I wonder how proud the marketing person was who came up with the name Turbo Grafx-16. Did they run into the conference room down the hall and interrupt a meeting to tell everyone?
Does the “Hu” in HuCard stand for Hudson Soft? That’s my guess.
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Yes! They invented the format and used it first with MSX computers. I remember reading a story that they asked Nintendo if they wanted to use it, were turned down, and later asked NEC*. AND HERE WE ARE
*From PC Engine - NEC Retro : “Originally tested on the MSX range of computers as the “Bee Card”, Hudson tried to sell the technology to Nintendo but were turned down. They then went to NEC, struck a deal, and work began on a rival console around 1985/1986.”
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the arrange versions of the min tracks from alien crush that are one the ost are even better, and scarier. i could only find videos with the full album on youtube though, not the individual tracks.
here’s my score, though i unfortunately discovered an optimal strategy while getting it and the game kind of stopped being fun lol
spend all of your time on the bottom screen of the main table, the bonus in the alien queen’s mouth is the fastest way to get points. furthermore, if you claim the bonus while all 59 lights are lit (one lights every time you hit the white egg/pod things), you get an extra ball.
also, sometimes after claiming that bonus, you’re taken to a bonus screen that i call “space skull snooker”. this is the only one of the bonus screens worth your time as it can be completed in a couple of minutes and it’s worth 1.5 million if you do. you can also get another extra ball here! i’m not 100% on how it works, but i think you have to clear all the enemies except for one skull. then this demon-like alien appears. kill it and get an extra ball!
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Victory Run
This is a lot more interesting than I thought at first. It took me reading the manual and reaching the third leg to realize that this is based on rally driving, specifically the Dakar. It’s more than just OutRun on the PC Engine. Besides, the PC Engine gets OutRun in 1990 anyways. Before I start racing, I have to buy replacement parts that will last me the entirety of the race. Tires, gears, engine, suspension, and breaks all get worn down from certain conditions. There’s an optimal way of racing that will reduce the amount of wear and tear. Stay on the road, shift gracefully, take turns gently, slow down before the crest of a hill, switch into high gear to reduce the strain on the engine when you’re going fast. It all adds up to a very tactical sort of experience.
Even better, the different legs of the course have their own character. The first leg has a lot of hills that can launch me off track. The second leg has a lot of twists and turns so I have to mind my speed. The third leg introduces sand covered road which makes the fourth gear useless since my car won’t get enough traction. I got as far as the fifth leg. Here, I couldn’t accelerate past the first gear until I realized that the sand condition was even worse than before. Instead of changing gears near the max speed, I figured out that I needed to shift as soon as I hit about 15k/h or else my wheels would spin in the sand.
I wish the game had an easy mode. It’s just really hard. I’m adding a thread challenge to see if anyone can get past even the first leg under the time limit. You have a surplus amount of time you can spend, so even if you don’t go under, you can still keep playing. I have never gotten under time.
There’s an unused track that’s pretty great: Victory Run - The Cutting Room Floor
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Aw I liked the old thread title
All the early sporty games with rpg elements are really interesting and cute, to me, but I also never play the fucking things for long enough to actually make numbers go up
Every few years I find myself re-reading all of Kevin Gifford’s old PC Engine history posts, which had write ups about every game and piece of hardware for the first few years of the system’s life, but it looks like the site is no longer up. At least it’s still on archive. If anyone knows of any other English language PC Engine resources please share them I love reading about PC Engine I am so glad this thread exists thank you for giving me more PC Engine reading
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Thank you for sharing that blog. I’d never encountered it before. I’ll add this and any other good resources to the top of thread if people have them. I was really disappointed to find that NEC Retro isn’t nearly as full as SEGA Retro, especially because I love looking at boxart and illustrations in game manuals.
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I’m trying to remember which PCE arcade stick it was that had the iron bar in it for weight. Can’t seem to track it down online now, drat–and I threw mine away years ago after dissecting it, and apparently not taking photos or something wth.
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I played a few early games like The Kung Fu and monster world but really was not in the right headspace to appreciate them. The Bruce Lee sprite is really fuckin bad ass in the Kung Fu game though, he’s huge
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This site’s pretty good for game info and stuff:
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the pc-engine is God’s Favorite TV Games Console. i’ve done a handful of posts on various games for the system (i should do more of them). i imported a pc-engine mini from japan, and i’m still having fun with that little box. when the timeline gets further along, i’ll post the 1cc run i did of its gradius port.
some thoughts:
- keith courage can fuck right off. that game was never good, and i’m still mad about the american branch pushing that industry plant on us while they left a ton of actually good games in japan.
- kato and ken is a wonderful, low-brow platformer that is super fun until the last stage. its watered down western version is a disgrace.
- my dislike of the american side of the turbo-grafx is not completely based on me being a weeb, so much as them constantly fucking up and dropping the ball on bringing over good games or having a marketing campaign that was worth something other than some cheap laughs on the internet (hey johnny turbo, how are you doing?).
- lot of great shooters during this period. r-type rules. galaga and dragon spirit are must-plays (hard to find a bad namco game on the console). space harrier is pretty fun. fantasy zone is…well, space harrier is pretty fun.
- appare! gateball is torture.
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Tried this today, 
confirmed.
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