How Does the TurboGrafx-16 Compare to the Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo? - Retro Bird

when it comes to consoles that almost nobody had back in the day but are worth your consideration nowadays right at the top of the list is the turbo graphics 16 and probably right there with the likes of the Neo Geo however unlike the Neo Geo which was so crushingly expensive back in the day the turbo graphics 16 launched with a very reasonable price of roughly a hundred and eighty-nine u.s. dollars in 1989 so what was the problem then well a lot of people like to point to the fact that you needed to buy extra accessories just for the console to perform basic functions like two players in composite video with the turbo tap and turbo booster but ultimately I think it had more to do with the brand recognition just not being able to catch up to and compete with Sega and Nintendo the turbo graphics 16 was actually called the PC engine in Japan where it had great success so the idea was to rebrand it for the US which made the turbo graphics branding an entirely new thing and unfortunately it just never quite caught on in the way that was hoped for not even spelling the word graphics differently could save it believe it or not the console had some cool things going for it though like the fact that the games came on these near credit card sized little doohickeys that were called hue cards in Japan and turbo chips in the US by the way what I have right here is actually a Japanese hue card used for game saves but this is what they look like it also had a CD attachment you could get for it very similar to the Sega CD but it actually came out three years before the Sega CD did and I would argue as well as many other turbo fans would argue that having the CD games was a much more essential part of the experience than the Sega CD was for the Sega Genesis for example the turbo mini more on that later has a bunch of CD games on it almost as a given whereas the Sega Genesis Mini doesn't have a single Sega CD game on it and I've heard practically nobody complaining about that though I would have liked to see a few myself anyways while this was a cool technology to have and could enhance some of the game it also meant that you needed to buy the CD attachment and sure enough it was expensive also it really hurt that a lot of its games both regular games and CD games never came out in the US and instead stayed in Japan like oh I don't know Castlevania Rondo of blood arguably the best game in a series that saw tons of success in the u.s. to be fair the u.s. CD unit was actually region free so playing Japanese CD games is a possibility but back in the 90s yeah the scene for importing games just wasn't what it is now it is all this being said with the lack of popularity the console saw in the u.s. naturally this stuff is all really expensive nowadays since supply is limited and you have people like me talking about why it's worth playing whoops but fear not because there is at least one solution to the high prices and it comes in the form of a mini console of course there's plenty of other ways to play these games but if you want an officially licensed product that comes with a controller true to the original then here you go if nothing else this many console at least serve the purpose of shining more of a spotlight on the system alright but now it's time to compare this console to the Genesis and Super Nintendo as the title says sorry if it took me a while to get to this point but I had to explain what the hell this console is before I start comparing it right now my goal is not to get into the nitty-gritty of how technical specs compare but I do feel I should mention that despite having an 8-bit CPU the turbo graphics 16 often gets grouped in with the 16-bit generation because it did have some other 16-bit components it should be noted though that the original hardware the turbo graphics 16 is based off was released in 1987 in Japan very similar to how the Genesis was originally released in 1988 in Japan so it was designed to compete with the original Nintendo much like the Genesis was the Super Nintendo first came out in 1990 in Japan so it had some time to kind of just sit back and see what its competitors were up to and I'll tell you what I think the Super Nintendo is a well designed system but they certainly didn't design it around the ability to play fast-paced shoot-'em-ups sure it has some good ones I'd take our type three to my grave with me but the Genesis has always been praised for having better hardware to handle shoot-'em-ups with more good games in the genre as a result and guess what the turbo graphics 16 has even more than the Genesis and by the way just assume I'm including the Japanese exclusive games when I mentioned the turbos library because well you just kind of have to that's not to say the Genesis didn't have shoot-'em-ups that were just as good as the turbo graphics 16 at least in my opinion it's just that the turbo had more of them and really the best way to convince somebody to play the turbos library is if they like shoot-'em-ups plain and simple however the turbo did have good games and other genres as well there was of course the series featuring BOM who basically served the role of Sonic or Mario for the turbo as a mascot platformer although they did rebrand him eventually as Zonk by giving him some of that signature 90s attitude a pair of sunglasses and sticking him into a shooter did I mention this console has shooters I really like bonk and it never gets old being able to jump up into the air and then come crashing down with your giant head into enemies to take them out that being said despite Punk doing enough to stick out from other platformers of the time I still think that the Mario and Sonic games are better games with more potential to blow gamers away just my opinion of course if you're into pinball the turbo had some of the best pinball video games ever made an alien crush and devils crush although it should be mentioned that the genesis got a version of doubles crush called dragon's fury and the Super Nintendo got an exclusive game called Jackie crush in the same series I'd actually suggest checking out the music in those games if nothing else the turbo of course had some Bomberman games and this is because Hudson the company responsible for him were also responsible for the creation of the system along with the company and you see who is basically a giant electronics company in Japan anyways the Bomberman games on the turbo were great with some saying they're among the best ones ever made but both the Genesis and Super Nintendo had respectable iterations of Bomberman as well and how different are these games from each other really however you look at it the system had Bomberman games that were really good the system also had a ton of great ports of arcade games which obviously the Genesis and Super Nintendo did too but nonetheless the turbo saw some arcade ports that didn't come to either the Genesis or Super Nintendo and they weren't all just shooters either one such title would be ninja spirit capitalizing on the popularity of ninjas at the time Sega of course had the shinobi series Super Nintendo had Pagani and the turbo had ninja spirit which definitely has its own unique feel compared to those games one of the series with a game on all three of these consoles that I'd love to compare is Castlevania the Castlevania games on Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis are awesome games on cartridges but Rondo of blood for the turbo came on a CD and just had some distinct differences not only did it have CD quality audio though to be fair all Castlevania games have awesome soundtracks but the design of the game itself was slightly more open-ended not as open ended as Symphony of the Night which was a sequel to this game by the way but rather it was more like the traditional linear Castlevania structure except that each stage had one or two secrets that could lead to an alternate exit and therefore alternate stage let me tell you I love this game played through a hundred percent multiple times and it stands as a lot of people's favorite Castlevania ever for a reason alright so we've talked about a lot of the games that the turbo did have so what didn't it have that the Genesis and Super Nintendo did well because it was such a Japan centric console it was lacking a lot of the huge hyped up blockbuster type games that Western audiences would associate with the 16-bit generation stuff like earthworm jim NBA jam Donkey Kong Country Sonic the Hedgehog Megaman Ninja Turtles Aladdin and of course all the Nintendo IPs that's why it's such a bummer to me that Castlevania Rondo of blood didn't come out in the u.s. back then because that probably would have stood the best chance of benefiting from a huge US marketing push and resonating with us gamers probably would have been too little too late at the point that game came out in late 1993 anyway though there was also a really good version of Street Fighter 2 that never came out in the u.s. either all tragedies aside the turbo has earned a reputation nowadays as an alternative for people who love to T games but want to play something different so from that perspective the idea isn't necessarily to play something with brand recognition for a lot of gamers it's to play something you've never played before the system's library is chock full of games that are great for the same reason most retro games are great which is they're simple to just pick up and play get right into them and have a blast without wading through giant movie cutscenes tutorials and any of the other things that some gamers find annoying with more modern games if you're a fan of video games from the late 80s Early 90s which a lot of retro gamers are then consider this one more option I understand that for a lot of us the Genesis and Super Nintendo have more than enough games for us to get our fix and a lot of people will tell you that the turbo's library is just flat-out not as good overall but then again there's some people who will say the turbo graphics 16 is their favorite system ever so who knows where on the spectrum you might fall whatever the case may be I'm really curious to hear everybody's thoughts about this system either what you thought of the console already or perhaps what your reaction is to this video if you didn't know much about it beforehand finally I'm guessing some hardcore turbo graphics fans will inevitably find this video and I just like to say to keep in mind I'm aware there's much more that could have been said about the system not to mention games to be discussed so with that in mind please feel free to mention any fun facts about this system or favorite games down in the comments all right whatever your thoughts maybe take it to the comments section and I will see you in the next video [Music] [Music]

Channel: Retro Bird

Views: 146,345

Keywords: turbographics, turbographx, turbographics-16, turbographx-16, SNES, Sega Mega Drive, turbographics 16, turbografx 16, turbographx 16, Is Turbografx-16 better than the Super Nintendo?, Is Turbografx-16 better than the Sega Genesis?, How do Turbografx-16 games compare to Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo?, How does Turbografx-16 compare to 16-bit consoles, retro video games, video games, NEC, Hudson Soft, Is Turbografx-16 worth playing today?, Is Turbografx-16 worth owning now?

Id: WKrNsvi2tLc

Length: 11min 15sec (675 seconds)

Published: Sat May 02 2020