The Early Days of the Turbografx 16

[Music] 1990 had been a killer year for me as a kid my mother got a new job we moved into a new home i got my very first job and finally i would get a turbografx 16 of my very own the turbo had been released in august of 1989 with a handful of games but by the time i got mine in 1990 that number had increased quite a bit and included some really nice titles thanks to a few side hustles and a new job i was able to buy a couple of those and rent the rest making the turbo a great addition to my sega genesis in this episode we are going to take a look at the turbografx 16 games that were released in 1989 talk a bit about their quality and try and find out just what the hell went so wrong and why it failed so miserably in north america i hope you guys enjoy the early days of the turbografx 16. [Music] the first game that many people played for the turbo was the pack in keith courage and alpha zones at first you probably thought what the heck is this cutesy mess but once you get past the super weak sections it turned into a fast cool looking robot action game where you cut down your enemies to some pretty epic music i liked it and didn't mind it as a pack-in at all [Music] i know many of you don't care for digital pinball games but alien crush here was a good one it had unique graphics and a pretty decent soundtrack back when most pinball games were simple looking this gave off a heck of an impression with the aliens vibe not super exciting but still a fun one to play for a few minutes here and there [Music] the legendary axe was an early favorite of mine it was an action platformer that was really difficult but once you got some time in it was well worth the effort i loved pretty much everything about it the color was unreal the music memorable and i invested some serious time into it to get good it had a cool power up system where you needed to wait for your gauge to fill up for the most powerful hits it made the gameplay more tactical than your normal hack and slash i love this one even now and play it every so often just to remember how great this console could be [Music] victory run wasn't a bad racing game at all but next to the likes of outrun it definitely wasn't as exciting it did have a system where you needed to replace parts on your car as they wore out which was unheard of at the time and i really like the colorful graphics gameplay is a bit on the choppy side but i still think it holds up well overall blazing lasers was a straight up winner it was a vertically scrolling shoot em up with a wicked weapon system it also showed off the console's graphics sound and processing power i mean this is one good looking sounding and playing shooter and it was easily a match for the better games in the genre the only real bad thing i can say about it is that it lacked a two-player mode but it was so good otherwise who the hell cared [Music] [Applause] i really enjoyed my time with china warrior lots of people hated it but i felt right at home with its large characters it felt like an arcade game you just didn't see that much on the screen back then very often it's a simple game though so i can see why many didn't stick with it for what it was i didn't mind it and it really showed off that the turbo was far more than a simple 8-bit console dungeon explorer was developed by atlas and was sort of their take on gauntlet you had multiplayer based dungeon exploration rpg elements and bad guys to slaughter there are better games in the genre today but this still has some charm to its simple premise and presentation [Music] [Music] if you saw r-type running back then you just had to appreciate how close it was to the arcade i remember when my best bud tyreek got it he went crazy telling me how it was the best looking game he had ever seen this one was split across two releases in japan but luckily the us version came on one card and the complete game it still holds up today though that sprite flicker can get a bit crazy in some areas [Music] there are two kinds of people in this world those that like vigilante and those that don't it's very similar to iran's other brawler kung fu master though the stories aren't connected your girl madonna has been taken and you must get her back graphics here aren't bad nor is the gameplay but man can it be frustrating the enemies take crazy amounts of life and the hitboxes can be really unfair it leads to some irritating deaths and a ton of do-overs it's fun if you can stomach that if not you'll quickly relegate this one to your most hated list [Music] dragon spirit can be a fun vertically scrolling shoot em up but man is it tough really tough i have had all kinds of problems getting anywhere in this nowadays i never feel like the weapons are powerful enough to deal with everything on the screen a bit of practice alleviates some of that but it's still a tough one to do well in the turbo did capture the feel of the arcade version quite well [Music] it was so odd to see a sega game on a system that genesis was in direct competition with it was kind of like seeing those tengen games on the nes back then i have to hand it to the developer though they did a really good job here with fantasy zone graphics and sound are slightly different but faithful and the game plays as well as it always had if you enjoyed the arcade this was a winner and a real showpiece for the color this system was capable of displaying [Music] galaga 90 is special i couldn't get my father to play much but he really enjoyed this one it was everything that was great about galaga but with added scrolling stages new enemies fun music and a hook that really made you want to play it again and again good times with this one give it a go if you like shooters but you'll likely enjoy it either way [Applause] [Music] moto rotor is an overhead racing game with a terrible catch-up mechanic that destroys the gameplay and cripples the fun factor slow boring and just plain weak i was shocked at how bad this game was when so many other turbo games were so well made i wanted my three bucks back after i rented it what an incredible waste of time [Music] i'm a sucker for golf games and power golf is a solid entry it was one of the first games available for the turbo and while it has nothing on the likes of neo turf masters i can still play this one every so often the graphics and sound won't impress you but you'll come back for the decent [Music] gameplay [Music] capcom developed a horizontal shoot em up called hyperdyne sidearms which was ported to the turbo mostly intact it looks nice and has some rather challenging gameplay of the two main action buttons on the controller one shoots left and one shoots right you need to stop the game to switch weapons though which really stinks but you do get used to it there's much better versions of this one out there today but this one still ain't half bad [Music] when it came to mainstream sports sega had the market virtually locked up world class baseball came along and while not a broken game it doesn't really do much to get your attention the visuals are kind of plain and uninspired and the ai can actually be quite bad i have seen the computer try and throw out a base runner literally 10 times in a row before throwing a pitch not a great way to keep you coming back i do like the detail on the ball when it's hit high but this one is not going to have you coming back again and again [Music] world court tennis has to be one of my most hated games on the turbo yet i find myself coming back again and again trying to get better it's a super simple tennis game at its heart featuring up to four players at once it also has an rpg mini game built in where you must defeat the evil tennis king playing against the ai gets you money and you need to upgrade your equipment it's an odd addition that the developer namco would use in final lap twin as well i suck at this game though i lose way more than i win this tennis game just isn't for me the turbografx 16 also became the first home console to use cd-rom technology for games at the very end of 1989 nec dropped the turbo cd in north america for a whopping 400 just two games launched with it and man did i want one the price was just too much at the time and i'd need to wait a while before i could afford to try out cd gaming of the two games that came out with the attachment they both were actually pretty good fighting street was a port of capcom's original street fighter the two button controller hampered the gameplay a bit but it was still really cool to see this game at home street fighter 2 quickly relegated it to the forgotten pal but i still play it sometimes for a good laugh monster layer was the second game in a port of the arcade game wonder boy 3. you sega fans should be well aware of this one the turbo cd did a killer port here and it looks and sounds spectacular giving the arcade version a run for its money frankly it's the best version of this game in my view its only weakness is the lack of multi-layered backgrounds [Music] so there is 1989 in a nutshell for the turbografx 16. while it had some good games the genesis quickly began outselling it and by the time 1991 rolled around the fight was over but just what the heck went wrong how could a system that was as capable as the turbo graphics and with such a solid library early on failed so spectacularly adding even more to the question was the fact that the pc engine the japanese version of the system had sold so much better against sega's mega drive why did it all fall apart in north america so fast considering what had happened my only reasonable conclusion is is that the turbografx 16 was a victim of sega's vicious advertising campaign as well as the public's perception that it was just an 8-bit console sega's massive advertising campaign was everywhere tv magazine stores it was hard to miss the catchy genesis does what ninten don't slogan and sega wasn't afraid to push the fact that their product featured a true 16-bit cpu by comparison nec's turbo graphics ads were ineffective and not nearly as prominently displayed among my friends the turbo had gotten a reputation of being underpowered and lacking the abilities of a true 16-bit machine most of them hadn't spent any real time with the device so their impressions had been molded by the subject being constantly brought up in gaming magazines i also believe that keith courage in alpha zones was just about the worst pack-in title nec could have chosen if you recall i actually enjoyed the game but most people saw the screenshots and immediately thought the system was underpowered that really was the third strike for the turbo platform and why i feel it tanked so hard in the us advertising was a huge problem the misconception about its technology dogged it the entire time it was on the market and finally it just had the wrong game selling it despite its fortunes and ultimately its failure i still really enjoyed the turbografx 16. that first batch of software had loads of potential and as you know many more great games were yet to come if you have never played these try them out on an emulator and see what they offer i think many of you will enjoy them quite a bit i'm segalordx thank you guys for watching and i will catch you next time [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: Sega Lord X

Views: 73,745

Keywords: pc engine, turbografx-16, retro gaming, segalordx, sega lord x, sega saturn, sega genesis, sega dreamcast, mega drive, megadrive, game gear, 32x, mega cd, genesis, saturn, master system, sega, sega cd, gameplay, review, movies, retro games, video games, ps4, xbox, wii, nintendo, gamecube, n64, ps1, ps2, ps3, psp, vita, switch, atari

Id: I4x9RjsBMAM

Length: 17min 51sec (1071 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 27 2021