What do you guys think of the PC Engine / PC Engine CD?

[Ganelon]

Not to mention it's got reliability issues and crappy composite video quality without modification.

Note that the only PCEs I'm aware of with reliability issues are the original black Duo (US TurboDuo)—where heat flow apparently leads right to the audio circuits—and both the GT (US TurboExpress) and LT handhelds—which have capacitor issues. There are plenty of other reliable options (Duo-R is the most popular and probably the most efficient pick) but yeah, if the games you want are already on Virtual Console, then it may not be worth your while. I will say though that despite the reputation, the vast majority of PCE shooters can be found at relatively affordable prices (i.e. less than they cost at retail)

[kennyrh]

I'd go as far as to say that the PC Engine Turbo Duo was one of my favourite consoles of all time - especially for shmups. I still regret selling mine when i needed some dosh and decided that emulation on the PC was good enough.

Well . . .it isn't and i want my Turbo Duo back.

Kept all my PCE-CD shmups, though

[louisg]

Not to mention it's got reliability issues and crappy composite video quality without modification.

Note that the only PCEs I'm aware of with reliability issues are the original black Duo (US TurboDuo)—where heat flow apparently leads right to the audio circuits—and both the GT (US TurboExpress) and LT handhelds—which have capacitor issues. There are plenty of other reliable options (Duo-R is the most popular and probably the most efficient pick) but yeah, if the games you want are already on Virtual Console, then it may not be worth your while. I will say though that despite the reputation, the vast majority of PCE shooters can be found at relatively affordable prices (i.e. less than they cost at retail)

I'm not sure how affordable it is anymore. I got much of my collection off of Wolfgames (Nexzr for 60 bucks!) and a local collector, but eBay prices have been just nuts. And Wolfgames is no longer around. I'm seeing Super Star Soldier for $60 and Soldier Blade for $70. Sometimes you can get a good deal on Amazon though; On the US Amazon, I found a Japanese seller for Devil Crush at $20. It took forever to arrive, but it was in fantastic condition. YMMV.

Oh yeah, and if you buy a system, I'd say get a Japanese one. The pins aren't compatible for Turbografx (US) and PC Engine releases, so if you want to play all the import games, that's the way to go. You can also pick up a CoreGrafx (which is tiny and awesome) for about $40 IIRC, which is probably cheaper than an adaptor.

I forgot who said it, but you *can* really see the 8bittedness shine through on the PC Engine Hu-Card games sometimes. Especially in a port like Mr. Heli. The audio chip being all tiny beepy waves doesn't help matters. Though I'd say that the SNES feels a good deal like that too, in terms of fluidity of objects moving around-- the overall *feel* of the game (not the graphics or sound). Just a certain stiffness.

[gray117]

Love it ... despite the mastery of the cd games I am most fond of hucard versions. It's got some shortcomings, and nostalgia wise it had limited visibility in europe land...

Perhaps the most rewarding thing about the pce is that I find it holds up much better than most 'retro' systems - hitting that sweet spot in terms of expectation and execution.

[Bloodreign]

It's the little system that could...... provide hours of fun. It had the best version of Gradius 1 and 2 on it (X68K is fine, but it's no console), the first game was a marvel to look at, blew the NES version clean out of the water, plus had an extra stage not found in arcades. Gradius II on CD had the arcade tunes intact, plus an extra stage again not found in arcades.

Super Darius 1 is pretty damned cool as well, sure it's not 3 screens, but for a home port they shrunk it down to 1 screen, and damn it it works.

PCE also had Parasol Stars on card and Rainbow Islands on CD, both absolutely awesome. The CD RI had all the arcade music intact, no remixes (Super Darius 1 did as well, Super Darius 2 went with all remixed tunes, blah).

Not to mention Super Raiden is awesome, and Liquid kids on card is pretty spiffy along with Pac-Land (which doesn't get all the love it deserves).

[Nico87]

Duo-R with an RGB mod is the best thing ever. Such a great library and by far the superior versions of the Hudson shmups plus the system is great for platformers and action games as well. I sold off all my retro stuff except my MD, PC Engine and Famicom, but the latter doesn't even come close in the shmups department.

1. PC Engine Duo-whatever
2. Mega Drive
3. Famicom

Just too bad that the PC-FX failed as hard as it did.

[LSU]

I think this thread proves there is still much love for the PCE, which is awesome.

[Edmond Dantes]

I think this thread proves there is still much love for the PCE, which is awesome.

Indeed.

Its making me want to finally beat Gate of Thunder.

[louisg]

I think this thread proves there is still much love for the PCE, which is awesome.

Indeed.

Its making me want to finally beat Gate of Thunder.

I finally beat it last year. It was very satisfying. I still need to beat Lords and Soldier Blade. On those, I get to the last stage or last boss and get totally destroyed.

What do you guys think of Super Star Soldier? I tend to think it's underrated, but the restarting-the-entire-level thing (if you fail to get enough continue-from-where-you-left-off powerups) nearly kills it for me.

EDIT: Re Bloodreign's post: Yeah, don't get me started on all the really cool non-shmup games. And Bloody Wolf, despite being full of slowdown and seeming a little stiff and old, has really excellent gameplay and levels. Splash Lake turned out to be surprisingly good too, if you haven't tried that yet.

[Fudoh]

I still need to beat Lords and Soldier Blade. On those, I get to the last stage or last boss and get totally destroyed.

Lords of Thunder's boss is dead easy with the Earth Armor Actually harder to die than to kill the boss.

[Ed Oscuro]

It had the best version of Gradius 1 and 2 on it (X68K is fine, but it's no console),

If you like the arcade original, Gradius has a direct port on X68000.

[scrilla4rella]

Bullet Heaven has done some cool episodes on some PCE STGs. Some of you guys might be down http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkpKDTVh ... e&index=11

It almost makes me want to give Dragon Saber a try

[Mortificator]

What do you guys think of Super Star Soldier? I tend to think it's underrated, but the restarting-the-entire-level thing (if you fail to get enough continue-from-where-you-left-off powerups) nearly kills it for me.

The respawn system can indeed be aggravating, the later backgrounds are lazy, and the boss rush just recycles ones you fought earlier. Despite those problems, I think Super Star Soldier has the best arcade mode of the PCE Caravan & Carnival verts - very high-energy, kind of proto-Recca with the swarms of small enemies.

[null1024]

What do you guys think of Super Star Soldier? I tend to think it's underrated, but the restarting-the-entire-level thing (if you fail to get enough continue-from-where-you-left-off powerups) nearly kills it for me.

The respawn system can indeed be aggravating

It made me never want to play the game again, aaaaa. I think I'd love the game except for that, bleh.

[louisg]

It made me never want to play the game again, aaaaa. I think I'd love the game except for that, bleh.

Yeah :/ Frustrating.

So what PCE shmups that are off the beaten path do people here like and why? And what's the opinion on Final Soldier or Blazing Lazers?

[Despatche]

I kinda like the PC Engine.

One problem involves the Toaplan ports: their purpose is to be the arcade version at a lower resolution and such. At least the Mega Drive ports all try to change the game in significant ways. But I prefer neither, because that lower resolution and such is nearly unmanageable, and not fun to try managing.

Another problem is Compile & Co.

So instead I end up liking games such as Aldynes, Psycho Chaser, Gate & Lord (this shall be my first logo, I think), Paranoia, Avenger, and the Konami ports.

Super Star Soldier putting you back at the beginning of the stage is kinda neat and funny. You'd think it wouldn't work because there's no real stage select system, but this is balanced by the fact that it's a Compile & Co. game.

Why aren't you playing Final Soldier, though?

[Mortificator]

A nice thing about Gunhed is that it lets you use your full arsenal in the timed modes, while the other PCE Caravans make you stick with just the regular shot. Super Aleste reuses much of Gunhed's system, however. I don't know if there's enough room in my heart for both games.

Final Soldier is mediocre.

[Ed Oscuro]

At least the Mega Drive ports all try to change the game in significant ways.

I had the impression, from blackoak's dev interviews, that they just tried to straightforwardly port the games, and make them playable, when they did it in-house.

[MintyTheCat]

A couple of Reasons:

1. Software Houses: some of the best Dev-Houses of the Day worked on the PC-Engine - and the standard of the Software shines through.
2. Shmup Catalogue: there wasn't anything that had this much support for Shmups before the PCE, many of the Shmups were exclusive to the PCE but it also hosted a number of Arcade Ports - that were well regarded in their Day.
3. Ingenuity: Whilst SEGA were constantly trying to get us all to buy another piece of Hardware, the PCE would release System-Cards that allowed you to play Games with additional Resources - this is still a pretty cool Idea to this Day.
4. Sex Appeal: few if any could reject the PCE on its looks - it's cute as hell!

The only real Issue is that the Manufacture of the first PCEs is not that good - I have had more Problems with my first PCE than any other Machine. If you compare the Electronics on the Megadrive or the SFC/SNES to the PCE you'll see a difference straight away. I think that the Duo was improved in its manufacturing and I haven't seen the Core I/II.

I doubt that the HuCards will fail any Time soon but I do worry about the CD dying on me.

One of my many Pipe-Dreams is to replicate the Action of the CD-Drive in a piece of Hardware - thereby when the Laser or the Motors in the CD-Drive eventually die and there are no replacements we can all continue to play the great Shmups on this Machine.

My fondest Memory of buying Shmups was finding a copy of GunHed in Cambridge for GBP 4 It is a great Machine and it's unfortunate that the Hardware costs a fair Amount these Days.

As for that 'Poll' - I feel that far too many Shmuppers have forgotten the Roots of Shmups - oh well, never mind.

[MintyTheCat]

It is not the best 16 bit shmup system; It is the best 8 bit shmup system

Still debatable!

Ok, ok - this is Engineering on the Topic

The Microprocessor is an 8-bit Device - and we nearly always refer to a System based on the size of its Bus (4,8,16,32,..). The NES also contained an 8-bit uC too. The Megadrive had a 68000 and that is a 16-bit Device.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hudson_Soft_HuC6280

Where the PCE gets more interesting is that its GPU is a 16-bit Device - and no it is not an effing '24-bit Machine' - you CANNOT add '16' to '8' to get '24' - that is not how it works.

So keep in mind the Capability of the Microprocessor, the GPU/VDP and the Audio-Controller - the Megadrive is controlled by a Zilog Z-80 (8-bit), where as the Saturn has a 68000 for its Audio-Controller.

I haven't done any research into the PCE's GPU as I've spent most of my Time on the Megadrive's VDP, but what I do notice is that the PCE displays often very bright Colours and a variety of them compared to the Megadrive. I am unsure what Resolutions the PCE's GPU is capable of but I doubt it is anything more than what the MD's VDP is capable of.

[trap15]

The PCE's VDP has a relatively large palette, and a relatively large amount of palettes. So it ends up being able to display lots of colors. It also has quite a significant amount of VRAM, so you can have lots of tiles.

I'd say it's about on-par with the MD's VDP, which is kind of a gross hack upon the SMS VDP, which is kind of a gross hack upon the TMS9918 [found in the MSX, Colecovision and a bunch of other 8-bit machines]

[neorichieb1971]

As a friend once said "When I saw what the PC engine could do, I stopped listening to tech specs and took notice of what was on the screen".

[MintyTheCat]

As a friend once said "When I saw what the PC engine could do, I stopped listening to tech specs and took notice of what was on the screen".

Sure - but the Question was "is the PCE 8-bit or 16-bit?".

Good Software is good Software. To make good Game Software takes a lot of tuning and effort which is why many of the NeoGeo Titles stand up today but the modern Days Efforts fail. Specs are not important to the extent that making good use of Resources are but it widens the Developers' Potential.

[MintyTheCat]

The PCE's VDP has a relatively large palette, and a relatively large amount of palettes. So it ends up being able to display lots of colors. It also has quite a significant amount of VRAM, so you can have lots of tiles.

I'd say it's about on-par with the MD's VDP, which is kind of a gross hack upon the SMS VDP, which is kind of a gross hack upon the TMS9918 [found in the MSX, Colecovision and a bunch of other 8-bit machines]

You have a Standard Palette of 512 Colours on the MD but you can use Shadow/Highlight Mode to generate 'Sum and Difference' Colours to take it up to 1536 Colours. Of course you are limited per Scanline to the limit of 60 Colour-Codes in CRAM at any Time - which isn't the end of the World as you simply respond to the Interrupt and swap out one set of Colours for another.

The MD has 64KB of VRAM but that is shared with all the Tiles, Maps and Sprite-Table. So the larger your Resolution the less space you have for other Graphics such as Sprites at any one Time. The 68000 can initiate DMA to copy Graphic Data into the VRAM.

I haven't looked at the PCE's GPU but it would be nice for comparison.

Why do you feel is it a 'gross hack up'? I haven't programmed the PCE's GPU but I can't fault the MD's VDP personally.

Like anything: you can have as much Hardware as you wish but it will fail badly is the Developers have little understanding/care/experience in using the Hardware.

[Jeneki]

Sure - but the Question was "is the PCE 8-bit or 16-bit?".

Here's the "customer reassurance" card that came with my Turbografx:



Gotta love the spin. Screw the Genesis and its "generic" 16-bit processor, "custom" 8-bit is clearly superior.

[trap15]

The PCE's isn't a hack-job (it's actually quite well designed and simple). The MD's isn't exactly gross, but it is strange and peculiar, mostly lending to the fact that it's built off of older technology rather than designed from scratch.

They're actually not too different though; the PCE VDP also stores everything in one memory area (so higher resolution means less space for other things), and it has DMA between the CPU and VDP to help speed it up significantly.

That spec-sheet is about right, but I don't know if I'd say MIPS is particularly relevant when comparing CPUs. Of course running a series of NOPs will be faster on the PCE, because it has less bytes to fetch, and less overhead. But when you have to deal with 16 bit and large amounts of numbers, the PCE CPU starts to show its age.

I'd probably put the PCE CPU's performance slightly under the MD's.

[Special World]

As for that 'Poll' - I feel that far too many Shmuppers have forgotten the Roots of Shmups - oh well, never mind.

I feel like it's more than developers have forgotten shooting game roots. We barely get any games in a classic scroller style anymore, and when we do they're shoddy approximations. I love bullet hell, but it would be cool to get a great classic scroller now and then.

[mulletgeezer]

This is all quite interesting but surely that resolution of 512 x 224 for the TG16 is wrong? I thought the PCE was a 256 x 192 machine (that slight lack of vertical resolution adding horrible vertical scrolling to games like R-type) though it also has that odd double rez interlace mode.

Actually I thought Skykid's reply was debating not the 8/16 bit thing but rather the bestness, or rather the fact that some might think the Famicom had the best shmups.

It's funny how the PCE had to be changed for the US market with the big box and the 16 bit nonsense. I remember SNK also proved that 8 plus 16 does equal 24 bit with the Neo Geo..... Shite.

[louisg]

I'd probably put the PCE CPU's performance slightly under the MD's.

It seems to depend hugely on what kind of game it is, which meshes with my experience doing low level programming: If you're doing a shmup, I imagine you can get away most of the time with 8-bit values (especially when the width of the screen is 256 pixels and not 320). But if you're doing a game with, let's say, jumping or inertia or otherwise lots of fractional values, you'll probably wind up with more 16-bit math or perhaps more lookup tables at the least.

That said, the characterization of a system as 8-bit or 16-bit is really misleading. I used to think it was simple, but it's not. Take the Genesis: It's got a 16-bit data bus, but is 32-bit internal. I think there's a penalty for 32-bit operations though. But I was speaking with an old videogame author, and he was saying the SNES CPU has a penalty for 16-bit math, and the site at cpu-world says it's an 8-bit data bus! So is the SNES 8-bit or 16-bit? If the SNES is 16-bit, does that make the Genesis 32-bit?

On some level, it really doesn't matter. It's all about improvements that come with a new generation of hardware, with the display processor being pretty damn important, and other improvements like DMA transfers (copying blocks of memory around without involving the CPU) or other coprocessing. Amount of memory (both game data and RAM) is also extremely important, as exhibited by the enormous jump in quality you see from earlier HuCard games to CD-ROMs.

[Ed Oscuro]

I thought the main purpose of the "main" SNES CPU was facilitating data transfer from the cartridge - the SNES video chip does a lot more of the heavy lifting in creating graphics there.