PC Engine / Turbo Grafx 16 Thread

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The TurboGrafx-16, known as the PC Engine outside North America, is a fourth-generation home video game console designed by Hudson Soft and sold by NEC Home Electronics. It was the first console marketed in the 16-bit era, although it used a modified 8-bit CPU. It was released in Japan in 1987 and in North America in 1989. The Japanese model was officially imported and distributed in France in 1989, unofficial imports had made their way to the UK by the same year, in 1990 Spain received a PAL version based on the American model known as simply TurboGrafx.

*reserved*

Hudson Soft Bee!

The PC Engine is the first games console from NEC, and was a collaboration with the software company Hudsonsoft. They provided the medium called Hu Cards, and were responsible for much of the systems software output. Well known characters such as PC Kid and Bomberman made several appearances on the machine.


NEC provided the hardware and it is known for it's tiny size, but powerful performance. It was an 8 bit machine, but with a 16 bit bus and graphics chips. This meant it was a very good platform for shoot em up games, as it was able to move around many sprites at once.

It was named PC Engine, as this first unit was supposed to be the core of a much expandable system. The only part of this to see the light of day was the CD-Rom, released in 1989, this was to lead to the system producing cinematic games long before the likes of the Mega CD.

The CD-Rom unit ran off special Hu cards called system cards, and several were produced. Version 1.0 and 2 added more memory, 2.1 removed several software glitches, but the real revelation was version 3.0, or the Super CD card, this not only added more memory, but also allowed more colours, and effects such as scaling and rotation.

The arcade card was the last produced in 1994, it increased the memory much further, but also allowed the use of much more impressive sprites, as can be seen in the game Sapphire, looking almost polygon formed.

(Sapphire)
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Initially the machine suffered from the crushing competition of Nintendo's Famicom, but it's fortunes changed when Irem converted it's arcade game R-Type to the tiny console with stunning results, it looked and played very close to it's arcade counterpart, this and other quality titles caused an explosion of sales, and the console was the biggest seller of 1988 in Japan.

With some excellent software from Hudsonsoft, and impressive third party support from the likes of Sega, Capcom, and Irem who were not developing exclusively for Nintendo, or not at all, the console would eventually find itself with a very commanding share of the Japanese games market, and gave Nintendo a real run for their money, especially when the CD add on was released.

Some amazing and very famous games were released for the PCe/TG, and these also carry a rather large and hefty price tag if your after originals.

Castlevania: Rondo of Blood




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The console was brought to America as the Turbografx, the machine could not compete against the might of Nintendo and Sega. The machine also suffered an unwanted transformation into a much larger unit, with an even bigger, more unwieldy looking CD unit.The CD system came in a gigantic box, that also contained a case to cover both systems, the US standalone CD unit is extremely rare today.

The hardware comprises roughly of this.

PC Engine - The original white unit, RF output - 1987

PC Engine Shuttle - 1989 This was intended as a cut cost model, but became a giant of a machine, it is the only console in the entire range that cannot connect to a CD-ROM drive, judging by the box it was aimed at the younger player.

Briefcase System - Coming in a smart case with a handle, the regular PC Engine plugged in next to a single speed CD ROM.

PC Engine Core Grafx - Dark blue in Colour, and with AV output - 1989

PC Engine Core Grafx II - Light Grey, with orange lettering to match the new Super CD ROM unit, otherwise identical to the Core Grafx - 1990

PC Engine Duo - An all in one unit, with Super CD capability built in, it was jet black in colour. - 1990, now suffers capacitor problems, has a headphone socket and the ability to lock the drive door shut.

PC Engine Duo-r Re-designed unit, cream in colour, and with the headphone socket, volume control and drive lock of the original removed, 1991

PC Engine Supergrafx - A knee jerk reaction to the Megadrive and the impending Super Nintendo it has the same architecture as the regular machine, but with new graphics chips, it is also much larger, and was supposed to have a driving controller, which went over the top, this peripheral never made it past the prototype stage. 1991

The Supergrafx cost far too much to produce, and the games were extremely expensive. It was soon abandoned in favour of expanding the CD System card technology. Only five games were ever released for it.

PC Engine Duo RX - Pale blue in colour, identical to the Duo-r, but with it's own six button controller for use with Streetfighter II. 1992

The American Machines

Turbografx - Twice the size of the original Japanese machines, the games were region locked on HU Card, or Turbo Chips as they were called in the US, the machine was jet black in colour 1990.

Turbo Duo - Identical in looks to the PC Engine Duo, it could play CD's from any region, but the cards were locked to the US. 1991

Europe

Turbo Grafx - Identical in looks to the US machine, but light grey in colour 1991 and also PAL 50hz, some software was optimised to run faster, which was rather unusual for the day.

(data, and details were from NEC PC Engine - Game Console - Computing History)

Emulation Options:



Edit : work in progress, please stand by...

 

Man I love pcengine. I really don't play my Hu cards as often as I should

 

any good youtube vids on this platform worth watching ?
someone decent please, my ability to deal with random fuckwits is greatly diminished today

 

PC Engine is one of the coolest consoles that never got the love it deserved. I kind of wish i owned one. But am happy to emulate.

I always used to love reading about it in C+VG and couldn't get my poor little brain around how an 8-bit console could look this good.

Witchcraft.

 

Doooo you like shmups? PCE is a cracking console for them.

Can't help you with the YouTubes (like you, I'm done with idiots). But there are some other great resources out there.

http://www.racketboy.com/retro/the-turbografx-16-pc-engine-shmup-library-pt-1-exclusives

 

i love them, but i'm not very good at them

 

The ones made by "Compile" are a great bunch to try. They're quite easy, and throw a lot of upgrades at you. The "trick" is actually avoiding the upgrades you don't want, and only trying to collect the ones you do want, as competing types of upgrades reset the process. So that becomes a big part of the gameplay.

"Blazing Lazers", aka "Gunhead" for PCE/TG16 is a great example. Often cited as being developed by Hudson, it's actually Compile that did the dev work (Hudson published it), and it's a classic example of their standard shmup engine (same one used in titles like Zanac, Alest and MUSHA). Really fun game, and much easier than most other arcade shmups out there.

 

good reading for the weekend

 

My latest PCe Duo just arrived. and I gotta say, it's the CLEANEST one I've ever seen.. mint!!

 

(Sadly no socks though)



This really does look absolutely mint! I'll refrain from turning it on untill my re-cap kit turns up from Hong Kong. Pretty stoked with said purchase I gotta say.

RGB kit also inbound. I think the reason i recieved it cheaper than normal price, is because the laser apperently has issues reading disks.. no dramas, new laser ordered.

 

Have they fixed the colour accuracy problems on the RGB kits yet?

 

clean as
grats in the pickup

 

They have, our own country mate Tim had something to do with it. Amazing bloke that.

 

found this wallpaper in a random folder on my network



now i'm going to have to play this

 

I would have sworn that was Montey Mole that comes out in Keith Courage..

 

no idea mate. I think it's a mister wallpaper. so it's fan art that's probably a montage of characters

 

Nah, i meant this guy.. looks exactly like Monty.. and that game plays a lot like WB in Monsterland.