TurboGrafx-16

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The higher energy videogame system

The TurboGrafx 16, known as PC Engine in Japan, was a console developed by Hudson Soft and sold by NEC that was released first in Japan in 1987 and in North America in 1989. Far more successful in Japan than it ever was elsewhere. Its mascot character was Bonk, or PC Genjin in Japan where the name was a clear pun on the system's name.

The most unique characteristic of the system was that the games did not come on bulky plastic cartridges but rather on thin Turbo Chips (Hu Cards in Japan), plastic game cards with connectors clearly visible on the end.

Discontinued? Yes indeed, the system did not sell very well in North America, competing as it did with massively successful Nintendo and Sega contemporaries. However its game library's inclusion on the Wii Virtual Console has lit the fires of nostalgia in the hearts of the few gamers who played and loved the thing. The system was, however, extremely popular in Japan, outselling the original Famicom. It was particularly favored for its Shoot Em Ups, which could offer nearly arcade-perfect graphics.

Like all the venerable systems, this one had a few add-ons of its own. One, the Turbo Tap, allowed up to five controllers to be connected where only one could ordinarily fit. Multi-player not exactly being a key feature of most of the games, this accessory understandably flopped. Another was the TurboGrafx-CD (PC Engine CD-ROM2) expansion, which opened more possibilities for the game library, especially with the Super System Card. The CD attachment was very successful in Japan, where it helped prolonged the lifespan of the system, but not so much elsewhere, to the point that only a handful of games were ever exported. NEC later released the Turbo Duo, which was a TurboGrafx with a little extra RAM and the CD drive and Super System Card built-in. The American release is infamous for its advertising campaign, Johnny Turbo. You can read the comics in their entirety here, as well as more info here.

One of the extensions of the PC Engine that was only released in Japan was the SuperGrafx, which was simply a TurboGrafx with a extra video chip and more RAM. The hardware revision was a complete failure, only having five games specifically made for it. Slightly more successful was the Arcade Card, released in 1994 in a late attempt to upgrade the capacities of the system; it was mostly noted for ports of Neo Geo games.

Finally, in the portable market, TurboGrafx had a clear advantage thanks to its slim game cards. The TurboExpress handheld console was able to use exactly the same cards as the main console, so that it was essentially a small, portable TG16 with a screen attached. Yes it was heavy, and yes it was a battery-guzzler, but it still was nice to have a lot of those games on the go.

Specs:

Processors

 * CPU runs at 7.16mhz, although for some reason programs could switch it down to 3.58mhz or 1.79mhz as most Hu Card games were running at 3.58mhz to avoid over heating the system (As the Japanese PC Engine was quite small) runs at the full speed for CD games. It's also an 8-bit processor, which led some to doubt it was really a 16-bit system.
 * But like some other systems, the actual graphics are generated by a GPU, which is 16-bit. It actually has two of them, but they are practically identical, and just split color and display between them.

Memory

 * 8 KB of main RAM, 64 KB of Video RAM, additional 192 KB of RAM (Turbo Duo only)
 * The CD-Rom2 1.0 Hu-Card (and 2.0 and the bug fixed 2.1) adds another 64KB.
 * The Super CD-Rom2 3.0 Hu-Card beefs up the 64KB to 256KB.
 * The Arcade Hu-Card (still at 3.0 oddly) beefs it up more to 2 MB (for the Arcade Card Duo, 2.2MB for the Arcade Card Pro; the Arcade Card Duo is for the Duo models only, while the Arcade Card Pro was for the pre-Duo models)
 * Supergrafx has 32 KB of main, and 128 KB of Video.
 * Games on Hu-Cards could be up to 2.5 MB.

Sprites

 * 64 sprites on screen (128 for the Supergrafx).
 * Sprite size is a minimum of 16x16 and a maximum of 32x64.
 * The system just has the sprite layer and one background layer (the Supergrafx has two).

Display

 * Resolution is variable, but most games ran at 256x240.
 * 512 total colors, but the sprite layer and the background layer each could have up to 241 at once (the two on the Supergrafx shared those).
 * the Super Grafx was able run 2 screens, however, it was never used in any retail software due to the system's bombing.

Notable games/series:


 * Alien Crush and Devil's Crush
 * Beyond Shadowgate
 * Bomberman (It's a Hudson Soft console, what else do you expect?)
 * Bonk
 * Air Zonk
 * Blazing Lazers
 * Bloody Wolf
 * Boxyboy
 * Bravoman
 * Buster Bros.
 * Cadash
 * Castlevania Rondo of Blood (Super CD, Japan only; rereleased elsewhere in 2010 on Virtual Console and ported to PSP as The Dracula X Chronicles.)
 * Cho Aniki (The gayest game to ever exist.)
 * Cosmic Fantasy (Japan-only save for the second game)
 * Daimakaimura (SuperGrafx only)
 * Detana!! Twinbee (Japan-only until its release on Virtual Console)
 * Double Dragon II: The Revenge (Japan only, a remake of the NES version)
 * Dragon Slayer: The Legend of Heroes
 * Dragon Spirit
 * Dungeon Explorer
 * Dungeon Master: Theron's Quest
 * Exile
 * Fantastic Night Dreams Cotton
 * Fantasy Zone
 * Fighting Street
 * Street Fighter II Dash: Champion Edition (Japan-only until its release on Virtual Console)
 * Fire Pro Wrestling Combination Tag (First game in the entire series)
 * Fire Pro Wrestling 2nd Bout
 * Fire Pro Wrestling 3 Legend Bout
 * Wrestling Universe: Fire Pro Women: Dome Super Female Big Battle: All Japan Women VS J.W.P. (Arcade Card + CD game)
 * Forgotten Worlds
 * Galaga '88 (Galaga '90 outside of Japan)
 * Gates of Thunder
 * Jackie Chans Action Kung Fu
 * J.B. Harold Murder Club
 * Keith Courage in Alpha Zones
 * Klax
 * Last Alert
 * The Legendary Axe
 * Loom
 * Lords of Thunder
 * Magical Chase
 * Might and Magic III: Isles of Terra
 * Military Madness (a.k.a. Nectaris)
 * Neutopia
 * New Adventure Island
 * Ninja Ryukenden
 * Ninja Spirit
 * The Ninja Warriors (Japan-only)
 * Parasol Stars
 * Prince of Persia
 * Raiden
 * R-Type
 * Shadow of the Beast
 * Sim Earth
 * Snatcher CD-RO Mantic (Japan only, released for the Sega CD in North America and Europe)
 * Space Harrier
 * Splatterhouse
 * Super Star Soldier
 * Final Soldier
 * Soldier Blade
 * Star Parodier
 * Strider Hiryu (Arcade CD)
 * Tengai Makyou (Far East of Eden)
 * Tokimeki Memorial (Japan only, the first game was released here, and the franchise would later move on and thrive on Play Station).
 * The Tower of Druaga (Japan-only remake)
 * Turrican
 * Valis I-IV
 * Vasteel
 * Vigilante
 * Wonder Boy Divorced Installments
 * Bikkuriman World
 * Monster Lair
 * Dragon's Curse
 * The Dynastic Hero
 * Ys Book I & II
 * Ys III: Wanderers from Ys
 * Ys IV: The Dawn of Ys (Japan only)
 * Zero Wing