Is it worth buying a PC Engine just to play Shmups?

DazTM · Post by **DazTM** » Sat Apr 09, 2005 11:01 am

There's a massive amount of PC Engine Shooters, but most of them are ridiculously expensive. Is it worth picking a machine up, or is it better to stick with emulation?

gundamalpha · Post by **gundamalpha** » Sat Apr 09, 2005 11:42 am

i love my pc engine. not only it has great shooters but other genre as well. my favourites "low cost" shmup for this system are kyuukyoku tiger and dragon spirit. if you have super cd try lords and gate of thunder, at $30-$50 each there's enough reason to get a pc engine.

fraggore · Post by **fraggore** » Sat Apr 09, 2005 11:54 am

iam a big fan of the engine and it have a lot of realy good shumps on it.
butt emulation is good and magic engine does a realy good job of it. the xbox emu is realy nice too but doesent support all cds games.
butt there is nothing like have the console and the games to have the games running like the should do.

if you look on ebay uk there are a lott of engine games going for betwen £5 to £15 pounds each.
i picked you my engine core graphics 2 all boxed in perfect condition and 5 games for £30 and £30 postage from japan if think i was abit lucky tho. and i bought a 10 other games for off my mate for £40.

and if you wont to convert you pc engine to rgb is very easy and it all on
www.gamesx.com

hope that helped

recomended games are
guhed
super star soldier
final soldier
soldier blade
r-type 1 and 2
graduis
aero blasters
mr heli
kyuukyoko tiger
parodius
side arms
tetsujin
override

TWITCHDOCTOR · Post by **TWITCHDOCTOR** » Sat Apr 09, 2005 12:11 pm

A PC-Engine or a Turbo Grafx-16 with a converter is a must for every shmup fan period. I mean, its all part of a balanced meal...or something.
Yep, even with all your carts,CD's, and PCB's...one still needs his chips. (as in Turbo Chip)

barmskii · Post by **barmskii** » Sat Apr 09, 2005 12:19 pm

pretty much what everyone else has said. The engine is a fantastic machine for shooters and still one of the best looking consoles in existence (provided you get an original CD briefcase setup).

Its also one of the cheapest consoles to buy for. Most shooters can be got for mint condition for under £20.

Go look at my site for a run down of the good ones, or look in the xenodie files

DazTM · Post by **DazTM** » Sat Apr 09, 2005 12:33 pm

barmskii wrote:
Its also one of the cheapest consoles to buy for. Most shooters can be got for mint condition for under £20.

I find that hard to believe with the likes of Spriggan, Sapphire and a few other CD Rom games

Neon · Post by **Neon** » Sat Apr 09, 2005 12:36 pm

PC Engine is a decent shooters system...you just have to keep in mind that the stuff widely recommended (Blazing Lazers, Super Star Soldier, etc.) sucks.

1943 Kai, Daisenpu, and Gradius are all better than arcade perfect on it. River city ransom, technos soccer, and technos dodgeball are all better than the NES versions (shame it didn't get nekketsu hockey). Bomberman '93 is the best bomberman game on any platform (and really the only one you'll ever need

.

Other good shit:

Street Fighter 2 (duh)
Space Harrier
Don Doko Don (but 2 on the NES is better)
Final Blaster
Devil's Crush
Boxy Boy
Be Ball
Raiden
Afterburner 2
Outrun (but you have to disable 'engine note' and 'sound effects' in the options menu in order to not have it sound like shit)

Another thing of note: Although I don't own a PCE yet, you can tell Magic Engine is far from perfect. At times the sound can be glitchy...and I'm sure the real deal has a different balance (try two different emus for turbografx, nes, genesis, any old console (or GBA)...they will all sound different). Raiden has such severe graphics glitches that it's basically unplayable (though that might just be the rom I've got), also some games like 1943 Kai [yes, there is a distinction from 1943] won't run unless you reinstall the emulator. Of course that's a simple process of unzipping it to the same directory and overwriting everything, but it's a disc-swap-esque pain.

SheSaidDutch · Post by **SheSaidDutch** » Sat Apr 09, 2005 12:40 pm

DazTM wrote:
barmskii wrote:
Its also one of the cheapest consoles to buy for. Most shooters can be got for mint condition for under £20.
I find that hard to believe with the likes of Spriggan, Sapphire and a few other CD Rom games

Hee Hee I've seen Sapphire go for £350 on e-bay

If you love late 80's and early 90's games I think it's worth it.
The PCE can stand proudly against the MD and SNES IMHO esp for shooters.
Sure you haven't got as many platformers etc but what the PCE has got is quailty.

BrianC · Post by **BrianC** » Mon Apr 11, 2005 3:04 am

SheSaidDutch wrote:
DazTM wrote:
barmskii wrote:
Its also one of the cheapest consoles to buy for. Most shooters can be got for mint condition for under £20.
I find that hard to believe with the likes of Spriggan, Sapphire and a few other CD Rom games
Hee Hee I've seen Sapphire go for £350 on e-bay

If you love late 80's and early 90's games I think it's worth it.
The PCE can stand proudly against the MD and SNES IMHO esp for shooters.
Sure you haven't got as many platformers etc but what the PCE has got is quailty.

I've seen mid range prices for Spriggan. It's not cheap, but it's not overly expensive either. Raiden hu card, Super Star Soldier, R-Type (avoid the Japanese 2 part version), Blazing Lazers, and even some import hu card games like Xevious, Detana Twinbee, or Gradius can be found for fairly cheap.

Ganelon · Post by **Ganelon** » Mon Apr 11, 2005 4:02 am

Well, hu cards are definitely pretty cheap overall, esp. US ones.

The PCE CD has quite a few mid-priced games (similar to the PS) like Rayxanber II & III, which are problems in making it expensive, and Sapphire by itself knocks up the overall shooter price by a hell of a lot. There's not many really expensive shooters on the PCE (Sapphire, Sylphia, Steam Hearts, normal Nexzr) but the mid-priced games from $20-50 dominate.

MD has quite a few fairly to really expensive shooters (Eliminate Down, Slap Fight, both Battle Manias, Gleylancer, and Divine Sealing) but so many games are under $10 that it drags the average down a lot.

Saturn has lots of upper mid shooters that make it the most expensive system overall for shooters.

DC and PS2 don't have enough shooters to be worth comparing averages. At an extreme, the PC-FX, which only has Zeroigar, would have the highest overall shooter value.

Frogacuda · Post by **Frogacuda** » Mon Apr 11, 2005 5:11 am

It depends on if you're into that kind of shmup or not. If you are, it's one of the best shmup systems ever. But you're more into the modern manic twitchy stuff, you might get left cold.

TWITCHDOCTOR · Post by **TWITCHDOCTOR** » Wed Apr 13, 2005 6:37 am

Neon wrote:PC Engine is a decent shooters system...you just have to keep in mind that the stuff widely recommended (Blazing Lazers, Super Star Soldier, etc.) sucks.

1943 Kai, Daisenpu, and Gradius are all better than arcade perfect on it. River city ransom, technos soccer, and technos dodgeball are all better than the NES versions (shame it didn't get nekketsu hockey). Bomberman '93 is the best bomberman game on any platform (and really the only one you'll ever need .

Other good shit:

Street Fighter 2 (duh)
Space Harrier
Don Doko Don (but 2 on the NES is better)
Final Blaster
Devil's Crush
Boxy Boy
Be Ball
Raiden
Afterburner 2
Outrun (but you have to disable 'engine note' and 'sound effects' in the options menu in order to not have it sound like shit)

Another thing of note: Although I don't own a PCE yet, you can tell Magic Engine is far from perfect. At times the sound can be glitchy...and I'm sure the real deal has a different balance (try two different emus for turbografx, nes, genesis, any old console (or GBA)...they will all sound different). Raiden has such severe graphics glitches that it's basically unplayable (though that might just be the rom I've got), also some games like 1943 Kai [yes, there is a distinction from 1943] won't run unless you reinstall the emulator. Of course that's a simple process of unzipping it to the same directory and overwriting everything, but it's a disc-swap-esque pain.

This has to be the first time I've ever read where someone describes Blazing Lazers, and Super Star Soldier as "sucks".
I believe your pretty much on your own here with that opinion.
Those two games are amoung the best, in most people's minds anyway.

tehkao · Post by **tehkao** » Wed Apr 13, 2005 6:43 am

My god that has to be the worst "advice" post I've ever seen.

Either that or the guy's got zero taste in gaming. Or maybe it's an April Fool's joke....

My advice...listen to people who've actually owned the real system, not someone like Neon who've only played the emulated games....

neorichieb1971 · Post by **neorichieb1971** » Wed Apr 13, 2005 6:54 am

I had a Jap duo for a while. I enjoyed the games I had on it immensily.

I did sell it though, as the video quality goes as far as composite and I was running it through a 36" HDTV. It was to say the least, a big downer!

I know some people mod the units for Svideo and such, I would recommend you get a modded unit that has Svideo and Japanese capability before worrying about the shooters if picture quality is a concern.

I will probably get another one day, when I can play the games with a decent picture.

At least the hucards are more robust than CD's, a big plus.

Post by **Ghegs** » Wed Apr 13, 2005 7:10 am

Or maybe Neon's got *gasp* opinions that are different from yours! Run for the hills!

I can totally understand him, even if I don't quite share those opinions. Gunhed is good, but good lord the levels are long. Add the fact that nothing much happens for the first few stages it's a 10 minute snooze-fest until you have to start really dodging stuff. SSS has the same problem to a lesser degree, but few of the background graphics in it make my eyes bleed. And Soldier Blade is much, much better, anyway.

I'd recommend Side Arms, W-Ring, Soldier Blade, Nexzr, the Toaplan ports, Gate/Lords Of Thunder, both Spriggans...plenty of good stuff available.

Oh, and I have the systems and the games, therefore validating my opinion.

BrianC · Post by **BrianC** » Wed Apr 13, 2005 7:21 am

Ghegs wrote: I can totally understand him, even if I don't quite share those opinions. Gunhed is good, but good lord the levels are long. Add the fact that nothing much happens for the first few stages it's a 10 minute snooze-fest until you have to start really dodging stuff.

I'm curious what your idea of "nothing much" is. Yes, the levels are long, but there is a ton of stuff happening in the levels, especially on higher difficulties. I understand why someone wouldn't like the game since the game is a bit on the easy side in the default difficulty and the weapons can get a bit too powerful. However, what I don't understand is how someone can talk about Blazing Lazers as if it's slower paced than R-Type or Silpheed (nothing against these games, but I think these are good examples because they are slower paced games).

BTW, I have a TG-16 and Blazing Lazers and I love the game.

Marc · Post by **Marc** » Wed Apr 13, 2005 12:17 pm

I'm curious what your idea of "nothing much" is. Yes, the levels are long, but there is a ton of stuff happening in the levels, especially on higher difficulties. I understand why someone wouldn't like the game since the game is a bit on the easy side in the default difficulty and the weapons can get a bit too powerful. However, what I don't understand is how someone can talk about Blazing Lazers as if it's slower paced than R-Type or Silpheed (nothing against these games, but I think these are good examples because they are slower paced games).

Not that it's slow, it's just kinda boring. No real 'punch' to it, not for the first three stages at least. Not played SSS, but I got to admit that both GunHed and Final Soldier I find utterly tedious. As I did with Super Aleste on SFC. And I have the machine and both HuCards as if that makes any difference to someone's opinion!?

Although the PCE version of Kyukyoku Tiger is one of my favorite ever shmups, so there's no accounting for taste I suppose.

BrianC · Post by **BrianC** » Wed Apr 13, 2005 7:55 pm

I didn't find the first couple of stages in Blazing Lazers boring, but the third stage is one of my favorites in the game and where the action really starts to pick up IMO. However, I highly recommend holding I, II, and select in full turbo for awhile before the title screen appears, pressing select a few times on a certain screen, and then holding start and pressing select to exit the screen on Blazing Lazers if you find the default difficulty boring. The game gets rather maniac on higher difficulties. Even "hard human" is more intense than the default. The bosses even have more attacks on higher difficulties.

I love the TG-16 version of Galaga '88/Galaga '90. It's an excellent arcade port. I love the music in the game too. "That is galactic dancing!".

OmegaFlareX · Post by **OmegaFlareX** » Wed Apr 13, 2005 8:32 pm

neorichieb1971 wrote:I did sell it though, as the video quality goes as far as composite and I was running it through a 36" HDTV. It was to say the least, a big downer!

Shame! Matt only charged me $50 to get both region and RGB mods done. You could've done that, and bought one of those RGB -> component converters. Or an XRGB unit (if your HD set has VGA input). Either way, you'd have what you want - a kick ass system with a kick ass picture.

Oh, I guess I should let it be known that the PCE/Turbo RGB mod creates faint vertical lines in the picture. They're not really noticable unless you're looking for them, since the colors and the clarity of RGB overshadow everything else.

Neon · Post by **Neon** » Wed Apr 13, 2005 10:47 pm

Those two games are amoung the best, in most people's minds anyway.

And honestly, I couldn't give a shit less. They take way too long to get hard and the fact that they're generally acknowledged as classics doesn't make them more fun for me.

Soldier Blade is way too drawn out as well...the good part of that game is the 2 and 5 minutes score attack modes.

My advice...listen to people who've actually owned the real system, not someone like Neon who've only played the emulated games....

If we're gonna go that route, I don't really care about the opinions of collectors either. I buy (and emulate) games to play them and to have fun with them, not to own them. I have much more respect for the opinions of people like raiden, Rob, Randorama, Ex_mosquito etc. who play for score.

And I mean that in an un-inflammatory way, let's not derail this thread with pointless bickering.

tehkao · Post by **tehkao** » Wed Apr 13, 2005 10:50 pm

It's just that you blasted 2 classic shmups as "shit" and then turn around to recommend Boxy Boy and horrible ports of Space Harrier and Outrun. I think you would understand why it seemed like an April's Fool joke to me.

Neon · Post by **Neon** » Wed Apr 13, 2005 10:55 pm

Boxy Boy has damned good music

other than that it's not that highly recommended...

The space harrier and outrun ports aren't that bad though...I have the mame/saturn versions respectively and there's not huge differences. Outrun sorta sucks because splash wave got ruined, but i think that's just emulation problems. and there's still passing breeze...