Getting a TG16 - Suggest a Few Games

[KindGrind]

Long story short, I'm getting a US TG16. (I'll probably be picking up a PCE too... But need info on US games only at this point.)

What platformers are absolutely worth getting? What are, in your opinion, hte top 5 or top 10 games for a US Turbo?

I'm definitely getting Blazing Lazers.

The person selling it has a copy of Neutopia 2. Is it worth the 100$ for the hucard only?

Thanks!

[Obiwanshinobi]

Dungeon Explorer (if you can gather up to five people together complete with necessary gear to play local co-op). At least one Bomberman game is 5 player too.
No idea about Neutopia series, but (the cheap & cheerful) Bomberman Tournament for GBA is hailed as patterned upon it partially. At price like 100$, though, I'd sooner sampled it pirated on PC or Wii.

[Acid King]

New Adventure Island is pretty good.

[BrianC]

Bonk's Adventure and Bonk's Revenge are good stuff. Final Lap Twin is a very nice racing game with a RPG style mode. Legendary Axe is a solid action game that plays very similar to Astyanax for NES. Klax is a very nice port of the arcade game with a ton of options.

[Jon]

Off the top of my head:

Ninja Spirit
Devils Crush
Air Zonk
Sommer Assault
Splatter House
Soldier Blade
Magical Chase

[louisg]

These are the ones I liked:

Parasol Stars
Galaga '90
Ninja Spirit
Bloody Wolf
Alien Crush and Devil's Crush
Dragon's Trap
Soldier Blade and Super Star Soldier
Bonk's Revenge
Bomberman '93 (if you get a multi tap)
R-Type
New Adventure Island
Sidearms
Air Zonk

[BrianC]

I can't believe I forgot to recommend Alien Crush and Devil's Crush. Both awesome multi-tiered pinball games with great music.

[PainAmplifier]

Neutopia is a great series, I have both 1 and 2, beaten both. Worth 100$? If you don't mind paying that much for a great game it's worth it. (Neutopia 2 was a big improvement over the first, and the first was a good game to start with.)

As for other games, most of the shooters for the system are good. I had great fun with Sinistron. (I think that was the exact name) And Psychosis was pretty good as well.

Devil's Crush and Alien Crush were awesome pinball games and both worth playing. Splatterhouse was a nicely done game.

If you like racing/RPG, Final Lap Twin is a great game that mashes up those two genres. Other games I enjoyed were:

Cadash - Action/RPG Arcade port.
Double Dungeons - Very minimal but fun RPG. (VERY, VERY basic graphics and enemie
Dragon's Curse (Wonderboy 3 port) - Action/adventure. Very well done.
Moto Roader - Pretty decent overhead driving game, up to 5 players!
Order of the Griffin - SSI Gold Box game, decent port of this classic.
Dungeon Explorer - Gauntlet style action with rpg elements.

Question then is do you have the TG-16, +CD or TurboDuo/SystemCard 2.0? If so, there are a few more CD based games worth playing. Including the Y's Series, Cosmis Fantasy and Exile.

[KindGrind]

Question then is do you have the TG-16, +CD or TurboDuo/SystemCard 2.0? If so, there are a few more CD based games worth playing. Including the Y's Series, Cosmis Fantasy and Exile.

I own only a vanilla TG16 since lunch today. I did trade in a few pieces of crap that were collecting dust and left the store with Wonderboy in Monster Land for SMS, the Turbo and all hookups, Keith Courage (throw in) and Neutopia 2. They also had Military Madness and Fantasy Zone for 25$ each. Unsure if I'll go back for these.

Thanks for the suggestions so far, much appreciated.

[TWITCHDOCTOR]

All the previous mentions are worth mentioning, Military Madness? Its cool if you enjoy Nintendo's "Advance Wars".
Its pretty much the same exact thing, just that Advance Wars a little bit more refined.

[PainAmplifier]

I own only a vanilla TG16 since lunch today. I did trade in a few pieces of crap that were collecting dust and left the store with Wonderboy in Monster Land for SMS, the Turbo and all hookups, Keith Courage (throw in) and Neutopia 2. They also had Military Madness and Fantasy Zone for 25$ each. Unsure if I'll go back for these.

Thanks for the suggestions so far, much appreciated.

Since you just have the base system, here's a couple more lesser known games that are still very good.


Tricky Kick - A fun little block shifting puzzle game, where the 'blocks' you kick around are themed enemies.
Silent Debuggers - A FPS style survival Sci-Fi Horror game.
King of Casino - Vegas gambling in a RPG-ish setting. (Think you just have to win X amount of money to beat...it's been awhile since I played this.)
JJ and Jeff - A crude humor platform game. (Watch out for the falling turds!) Not that great, but moderately fun and difficult.

[ZellSF]

All the previous mentions are worth mentioning, Military Madness? Its cool if you enjoy Nintendo's "Advance Wars".
Its pretty much the same exact thing, just that Advance Wars a little bit more refined.

I disagree a lot with this, I think they're very different games and I think Military Madness is the more refined of them. It's one of my favorite games (which I can't say for any of the Wars games), but I recommend you wait with it until you have a PCE-CD. Neo Nectaris, the Japan only PCE-CD sequel included the original game.

Also a huge fan of Fantasy Zone, but can't recommend the TG16 port when there's so many better options (3DS eventually, MAME, PS2, Saturn)

[shmuppyLove]

Moto Roader - Pretty decent overhead driving game, up to 5 players!

I have been trying to remember this game for the longest time, and I couldn't remember if it was TG16 or Genesis. Mystery solved!

[bchan009]

Kaze Kiri
Magical Chase
Soldier Blade

Lots of people skip out on Kaze Kiri. It's the shit. =)

[Edmond Dantes]

Devil's Crush can not be recommended enough.

Also, some people like Keith Courage in Alpha Zones, some don't. I'm in the "does" category, and its usually the cheapest game for the TG16, so you might wanna give it a spin just to see.

Of couse, the Bonk games are musts, tho they're also available on the American release of Gate of Thunder, which is something to keep in mind if you plan to get the CD add-on soon.

There was this really good Dungeons & Dragons game, I think it was called Order of the Griffon. Unfortunately I think its pricey.

[cicada88]

I'd recommend a Turbo Everdrive

[KindGrind]

Also, some people like Keith Courage in Alpha Zones, some don't. I'm in the "does" category, and its usually the cheapest game for the TG16, so you might wanna give it a spin just to see.

I got it with my console, couldn't get around to play it yet. I played this morning and found it horrible, to be honest. Uninspiring, repetitive, unresponsive and extremely bland. The SFX were very cheapo as well. No wonder why the console didn't fare well in the west, with such a poor flagship game. I may sound harsh, but when I compare it to the only other game I have so far (Neutopia 2), it pales quite a lot in comparison.

I'd recommend a Turbo Everdrive

I looked for one yesterday because I had the same suggestion elsewhere. I had it in my cart and I pulled back at the last minute. I'll pick one up eventually I guess, but for the time being I pick a few cheap hucards left and right. I come from collecting JP Megadrive carts, and all in all the TG16 is quite cheap to collect for. Thing is, I'm not really in the collecting mood these days, which is why the TED is a bit tempting.

I'm scared that having too much choice will kind of take the fun out of the process. I have never really liked emulation on a PC, even played on a TV through MAME. It may sound strange, but there's something genuinely priceless in the action of gently sliding the one cart in the machine, only to take it out and repeat the process with another one. It feels almost erotic.

[PainAmplifier]

I got it with my console, couldn't get around to play it yet. I played this morning and found it horrible, to be honest. Uninspiring, repetitive, unresponsive and extremely bland. The SFX were very cheapo as well. No wonder why the console didn't fare well in the west, with such a poor flagship game. I may sound harsh, but when I compare it to the only other game I have so far (Neutopia 2), it pales quite a lot in comparison.

Keith Courage is a pretty weak pack-in. But it's not all pathetic....mostly it's the overworld parts that drag the game way down. The underworld parts where you transform raise the game up to at least a mediocre level if not a 'fair' status. I found it better than Altered Beast as a pack-in, but too short and hobbled by the overworld when you compare it to even Super Mario.

The real crime I thought, was the absolutely abominable cover art pretty much ALL the TG-16 games were given. It's like the fruit-cake that green lighted the NES Mega-Man cover art was in charge of all the TG-16 box art. (Even if he was a genious compared to whoever was in charge of the Sega Master Sytem box art...)

As for other games, "The Legendary Axe" is a pretty good games, expecially if you like games like Rastan. I never got to play the sequel though. And I missed Moto Roader 2 as well. Although that's nothing to my regret of trading in Blazing Lazers and Moto Roader 1 for some other game at one point.

I have "World Class Baseball", but I never was much of a sports game player. And while functional, I found the game pretty bland even for baseball.

Space Harrier is a pretty good arcade port, considering the limitations of the hardware and I got a fair amount of fun out of that.

"Victory Run" could have been a good game, but I never could get the hang of it without breaking all my spare parts and being unable to get very far at all. It's worth checking out if you can get it cheap though, as you might be better at it than I ever was.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Yep, by picking up one of those hallowed Turbo Everdrive flash carts, it's worth it's weight in gold by allowing to try out many PCE & TG-16 games to your heart's desire. Heck, you can even play both the original JPN version of Magical Chase and compare it to the latter TTI release of the same name (that sells in the four figure range nowadays). Back in early 1994, the American Toys-R-Us stores were selling brand new copies of Magical Chase for a mere $19.99 USD (despite it being one of the last official TG-16 Turbo Chip-based games to released).

Be sure to give Compile's Gunhed/Blazing Lazers a spin on the TG-16...it's a cool shmup title in it's own right.

By all means, get all four Bomberman games: Bomberman, Bomberman '93, Bomberman '93 Special & Bomberman '94 + five Turbo Pads + a Turbo Tap and you're good to go for some crazy multi-player madness. TTI did release both Bomberman & Bomberman '93 for the TG-16 while both Bomberman '93 Special & Bomberman '94 remain as JPN PCE exclusives. It's possible to d/l the Bomberman '93 Special rom and play on a TG-16 console via an Turbo Everdrive setup -- no need to scour for a TG-CD interface unit. How cool is that?

Air Zonk is one slick and comical shmup to play on the ol' TG-16 -- Irem got the inspiration to make the Irem M-92 powered Ninja Baseball Bat Man PCB by taking some cues from the overall visual aestethics that Air Zonk has in spades. TTI did release the sequel of Super Air Zonk as a Super CD-Rom2 shmup title but that requires the need/use of a TG-CD unit or Turbo Duo setup.

Note: Make sure that the TG-16 console remains as a "plain-vanilla" stock and unmodded console in order to use the Turbo Everdrive properly -- it can play both PCE and TG-16 game roms without the need to resort to using an expensive boxy Hu-Card convertor or a Kisado convertor as well. (Back in the early 1990s, it was necessary to have such an Hu-Card convertor or Kisado convertor just to play 'em JPN PCE Hu-Cards on a stock/unmodded TG-16, Turbo Express or Turbo Duo.)

There have been a few other 3rd-party PCE flash carts released in the past under various names but the Turbo Everdrive is the one to get/own bar none. I use one and it works like a charm on the TG-16, Turbo Express handheld and the Turbo Duo gaming platforms. A 4GB micro SDHC memory card is more than ample enough to store all the PCE & TG-16 game roms and then some. The TeD flash cart has a functional mini USB port for developing homebrew PCE games if so desired (but needs to be removed if inserted into an NEC SuperGrafx console setup).

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Specineff]

Can the everdrive work as an Arcade Card by loading the right image?

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Since the Turbo Everdrive flash cart doesn't have any on-board RAM, it can't be used as an Arcade Card Duo (with it's dedicated on-board 16 megabits of RAM) nor as an Arcade Card Pro setup (sadly, it can't even be used as a Tennokoe Bank Rom-Ram Hu-Card either). My suggestion is to pick one up and you're good to go with playing the slick PCE Arcade CD-Rom2 shmup title of Ginga Fukei Densetsu Sapphire -- they go for about $40.00 USD these days.

However, the Turbo Everdrive can be used as the following listed System Cards for greater versatility:

System Card 1.0 - to boot up/play the PCE CD-Rom2 title of Altered Beast (will not boot up with the higher firmware System Cards)

System Card 2.0

System Card 2.1

Super System Card 2.0

Super System Card 3.0 - for the PC Engine Duo/Duo-R/Duo-RX/SuperGrafx CD-Rom2 Interface Unit/PC Engine Briefcase CD-Rom2 Interface Unit setups

Super System Card 3.0 - for the TurboGrafx CD Interface Unit to play various TTI released Super CD-Rom2 titles

Game Express Card - needed to boot up/play the various Game Express Super CD-Rom2 titles released on the PCE Duo/Turbo Duo consoles (without it, it's no dice)

------------------------------------

On a related note, NEC did release an optional TurboGrafx Turbo Booster Plus add-on component with RCA composite video output + Left & Right RCA phono outputs + built-in memory game save functionality for some TG-16 games that do use game saves. The only stipulation was to charge the TBP's built-in capacitor by powering up the TG-16 console once a month to prevent your valuable TG-16 game saves from vanishing. The plain-vanilla TurboGrafx Turbo Booster add-on that NEC sold in North America back in the early 1990s, doesn't have game saving functionality whatsoever.

I think such a PCE memory card with NVRAM and without the need to use a back-up battery would be cool to have/use.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[KindGrind]

Thanks PCEngineFanX for the usual in-depth info. Much appreciated.

Thanks to everybody else who commented so far!

I picked up a copy of Bonk and Ninja Spirits last week. I'll try to get 2 more games then play them quite a bit before I decide what's my next move.

I will get an Everdrive somewhere down the line I guess. After all, I did buy the console to play stuff, and this will help me do that nicely.

I found myself booting up the console right next to my newly-acquired TG16 in my gaming cabinet these days, my trusty and bulky Power Base. I never had a chance to play Wonderboy 3, and I played the second installment tonight and remembered what a fine game it was. It felt very Hudson Softy to me... I'm too lazy to google it but I'm pretty sure they were behind it, even if the opening credits say otherwise. May be picking this one up too in the next few days, if someone can hook me up with a copy.

[Edmond Dantes]

Since the Turbo Everdrive flash cart doesn't have any on-board RAM, it can't be used as an Arcade Card Duo (with it's dedicated on-board 16 megabits of RAM) nor as an Arcade Card Pro setup

... Isn't it the Pro that has the dedicated onboard RAM to compensate for the fact that Duos had extra memory built in and core units with add-ons didn't, or am I thinking of something else?

(Incidentally, know where I can get an Arcade Card Pro without paying $100+? My Duo refuses to spin CDs anymore so I have to resort to a briefcase unit, which always played them better anyhow...)

[Despatche]

I never had a chance to play Wonderboy 3, and I played the second installment tonight and remembered what a fine game it was. It felt very Hudson Softy to me... I'm too lazy to google it but I'm pretty sure they were behind it, even if the opening credits say otherwise.

I'm pretty sure the only Wonder Boy-related games Hudson ever had a hand in are the various Adventure Island games after the original. Everything else they did was a port only published by them, though there might be some changes here and there.

[yojo!]

has anyone mentioned Mr Heli ? Amazing arcade port for the pc engine.

[KindGrind]

In light of what I saw here, I picked up the following so far:

Keith Courage
Neutopia 2
Ninja Spirit
Bonk's Adventure
Cadash
Blazing Lazers

Question then...

Would you rather pick up a complete copy of Dragon's Curse (Wonderboy 3 port, I do not own the SMS version) or complete copy of Parasol Stars, for the same price? Is Dungeon Explorer worth picking up, even if I think I won't be buying a multitap for a little while?

[Specineff]

Dungeon Explorer II is 10x better, but I wouldn't discount the first one because of that.

[PainAmplifier]

Would you rather pick up a complete copy of Dragon's Curse (Wonderboy 3 port, I do not own the SMS version) or complete copy of Parasol Stars, for the same price? Is Dungeon Explorer worth picking up, even if I think I won't be buying a multitap for a little while?

Personally I would prefer Dragon's Curse. But both games are well done and I have played both. (Can't recall if I kept or traded Parasol Stars back in years ago...)

And Dungeon Explorer is worth picking up even if you don't have the turbo tap. It plays fine as a single player game. I've completed the game completely solo myself, so I know it's fine playing that way...it's just a great game to play with others as well.