{"id":20339,"date":"2020-07-31T00:01:32","date_gmt":"2020-07-31T00:01:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/?p=20339"},"modified":"2020-07-25T13:22:10","modified_gmt":"2020-07-25T13:22:10","slug":"the-games-of-the-turbo-grafx-16-mini-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/2020\/07\/31\/the-games-of-the-turbo-grafx-16-mini-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"The Games of the Turbo Grafx-16 Mini: Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Miniature versions of classic game consoles with pre-loaded games has become very popular in the past few years.\u00a0 First we got mini versions of the NES and SNES, and then SEGA came out with one for the Genesis.\u00a0 And now we have the Turbo Grafx-16 Mini!\u00a0 It was supposed to come out last year, but got delayed.\u00a0 Because of the Corona virus, I didn\u2019t think it would ever come out.\u00a0 But a couple of months ago, I got mine in the mail!\u00a0 I just now got a chance to play it, so we\u2019ll take a look at all the games on it.\u00a0 Because there are so many games (almost 60), I\u2019ll have to split this up into several parts over the next few weeks.<\/p>\n

The Turbo Grafx-16 was called the PC Engine in Japan, and was a joint venture from NEC and Hudson Soft.\u00a0 For a while it was even more popular than the Famicom in Japan!\u00a0 It was brought to the US under the name Turbo Grafx-16, but didn\u2019t see as much success here.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t have one, and I didn\u2019t know anyone who did.\u00a0 Back then, kids usually only had one game console.\u00a0 I think if I were as old as I am now as I was then, I probably would\u2019ve gotten one, though.\u00a0 It had a surprisingly good amount of decent games for it, I just didn\u2019t know about it at the time.\u00a0 Hudson Soft. was one of my favorite video game companies for a while when I was a kid, though.\u00a0 But now, Hudson Soft. is owned by Konami and they kind of squelched the company.\u00a0 But at least Konami released this mini console.\u00a0 For a while, Hudson Soft. really supported the Wii, and a lot of their TG-16 games made it to Virtual Console, where I first discovered them.\u00a0 I\u2019m mad at Konami for pretty much destroying Hudson, but I hear that Nintendo hired off a lot of Hudson\u2019s employees before Konami did that.\u00a0 Probably because Hudson made most of the Mario Party games!<\/p>\n

Anyway, let\u2019s take a quick look at the mini console itself.\u00a0 Here is a bigger picture of the front of the box.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And here\u2019s the back of the box with all the games!\u00a0 It\u2019s a lot!\u00a0 We\u2019ll go over them later.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the console in my hand.\u00a0 It\u2019s a bit bigger than the other mini consoles I have, but I don\u2019t know how much smaller it is than the real TG-16 since I never had one.\u00a0 What\u2019s weird is that you pop off nearly half of the console shell to plug in the cords!\u00a0 I think you can put the cords in slots and snap back in the shell, but I was too lazy to do that.\u00a0 You can\u2019t put any cards in the slot, either, it\u2019s just there for show.\u00a0 Also the console doesn\u2019t come with a plug for the AC adapter, so I just used the one I got for the Genesis Mini.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The game only comes with one controller, which is a bit disappointing.\u00a0 But it does have turbo switches on it, not sure if the original controllers did or not.\u00a0 It\u2019s a lot like a NES controller, which I\u2019m not a big fan of.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t fully embrace the D-pad until the SNES came along.\u00a0 As soon as I got my NES, one of the first things I got for it was the NES Advantage joystick.\u00a0 Anyway, here is a bigger picture of the controller.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The game menu is a lot like the other mini console menus, except you can switch between a TG-16 and a PC Engine game list.\u00a0 Yeah the console has a lot of Japanese games on it, too.\u00a0 When I do my lists, I\u2019ll try to let you know if a game is Japanese.\u00a0 Only other thing is that to reset back to the main menu, you have to press the select and \u2018run\u2019 buttons, which they don\u2019t tell you about.\u00a0 I just had to figure that out on my own.\u00a0 Anyway, let\u2019s take a look at a few of the games on this console.\u00a0 For the first part, I\u2019ll list the games starring familiar Hudson mascots.\u00a0 Let\u2019s begin!<\/p>\n

PC Genjin<\/strong><\/p>\n

Bonk the big-headed cave-boy was kind of the TG-16 mascot.\u00a0 In Japan, his first game was called PC Genjin because it was kind of a play on words of PC Engine and BC Kid.\u00a0 But it\u2019s a fun and simple platformer and you really don\u2019t need to know how to read Japanese to play it. I\u2019m surprised the mini console doesn\u2019t have Keith Courage in the Alpha Zones on it, as that was the first TG-16 launch game.\u00a0 But then, that game was based on an anime in Japan, so maybe they ran into licensing issues.\u00a0 I tried to watch that anime once on YouTube, it\u2019s really weird!<\/p>\n

Bonk\u2019s Revenge<\/strong><\/p>\n

So the Mini has the Japanese version of the first game, but the US release of the second game.\u00a0 Strange.\u00a0 Anyway, it\u2019s just more of the same, but still fun.\u00a0 I really wish this mini console included Bonk 3 as well.\u00a0 That game had candies that let you shrink really small or grow really big!\u00a0 It\u2019s also too bad that Hudson was never able to release the last Bonk game, Bonk: Brink of Extinction.\u00a0 I played a demo of that one year at E3, and even got a T-shirt!<\/p>\n

Air Zonk<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is kind of a spinoff to the Bonk series.\u00a0 You play as Zonk, a robotic version of Bonk from the future.\u00a0 You can tell this game was made in the 90s as Zonk sports cool sunglasses, a lightning bolt on his head, and a cocky sneer.\u00a0 Yeah, thanks Sonic for making every mascot in the 90s have to have an attitude.\u00a0 And instead of a 2-D platformer, it\u2019s a 2-D side scrolling shooter with silly weapons and enemies.\u00a0 You can also get crazy helpers like a dump truck or a gumball machine, and combine with them for even more crazy attacks!\u00a0 Graphics are colorful and the music is rockin\u2019 and gameplay is really fast, and it\u2019s one of the few TG-16 games that rivals the SNES, in my opinion.\u00a0 I remember seeing this game at a demo station in a game store back in the day and being really impressed with it, and I also had this game on the Wii Virtual Console. \u00a0Too bad this mini console doesn\u2019t have the Zonk sequel.<\/p>\n

New Adventure Island<\/strong><\/p>\n

Master Higgins is another one of Hudson\u2019s mascots.\u00a0 Did you know he\u2019s actually based on a real person?\u00a0 Also there was a Master Higgins anime at one point, but it mostly focused on the invincibility fairy named Honey.\u00a0 The Adventure Island games are 2-D platformers with a mostly tropical setting.\u00a0 I was really impressed with the graphics when New Adventure Island first came out, but after playing it now, I\u2019m not that impressed with it.\u00a0 It\u2019s really hard and I don\u2019t like games where it\u2019s one hit and you die.\u00a0 Also I liked Adventure Island 2 and 3 on the NES better.\u00a0 I also liked Super Adventure Island on the SNES more than this, because Yuzo Koshiro did the music for it and it\u2019s really good!<\/p>\n

Bomberman 93<\/strong><\/p>\n

Another one of Hudson\u2019s big mascot characters was Bomberman.\u00a0 Just as EA has yearly Madden games and Ubisoft has yearly Just Dance games, I guess for a while Hudson had yearly Bomberman games.\u00a0 What\u2019s strange is that I never really got into Bomberman.\u00a0 You think I would, since it\u2019s a single screen maze game where you run around avoiding things, and I like those.\u00a0 But yeah, just never drew me in.\u00a0 And I even had Super Bomberman for the SNES, but that was mainly because it came with the Multitap and I wanted it so I could play three player Secret of Mana.<\/p>\n

Bomberman 94<\/strong><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know which Bomberman games came to the US and which ones didn\u2019t on the TG-16, but this one is the Japanese version.\u00a0 I think this is the first game where you could ride those kangaroo things, at least they\u2019re on the box anyway.\u00a0 This one\u2019s also much harder, as enemies will chase you down right away!<\/p>\n

Bomberman Panic Bomber<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve always wanted to play this Bomberman themed Tetris style puzzler, but I THINK the only US release it got was on the Virtual Boy, and you know I won\u2019t play that!\u00a0 But I can\u2019t seem to figure out the rules to this one.\u00a0 You match up Bomberman heads like Columns (up, down, or diagonal), but bombs only destroy other bombs.\u00a0 But I must be missing something because I couldn\u2019t get past the first opponent on Easy.\u00a0 It\u2019s all in Japanese so hopefully I\u2019ll be able to figure out the \u201cHow to Play\u201d section when I try it next.<\/p>\n

Super Star Soldier<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hudson\u2019s Star Soldier series doesn\u2019t have a mascot character, but it is their signature 2-D vertically shooter game series, so we\u2019ll end with the ones on the Mini.\u00a0 Hudson even used Star Soldier in competitions they had in Japan.\u00a0 Nothing too remarkable about this one, but it is pretty good for what it is.<\/p>\n

Soldier Blade<\/strong><\/p>\n

This was a TG-16 Star Soldier sequel.\u00a0 Just more of the same, but still pretty decent.\u00a0 They had one other Star Soldier game on the TG-16, but it\u2019s not on the Mini.\u00a0 It was called Final Soldier and I had it on the Wii Virtual Console.\u00a0 I also imported a PSP Star Soldier game really cheap a long time ago.<\/p>\n

Star Parodier<\/strong><\/p>\n

This was definitely in response to Konami\u2019s Parodius series, which was gaining steam at the time in Japan.\u00a0 Too bad we didn\u2019t get any of these games in the US.\u00a0 Star Parodier has silly, colorful stages, but it\u2019s not near as wacky as Parodius.\u00a0 You can play as a cutesy Star Soldier spaceship, Bomberman, or a living PC Engine with eyes and arms and legs.\u00a0 I had this on the Wii Virtual Console, too.<\/p>\n

And I think we\u2019ll end there for now.\u00a0 During the rest of August, I\u2019ll post four more blogs with the rest of the games on the TG-16 Mini.\u00a0 Later!\u00a0 –Cary<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Miniature versions of classic game consoles with pre-loaded games has become very popular in the past few years.\u00a0 First we got mini versions of the NES and SNES, and then SEGA came out with one for the Genesis.\u00a0 And now we have the Turbo Grafx-16 Mini!\u00a0 It was supposed to come out last year, but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":20338,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-game-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20339"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20339\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20341,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20339\/revisions\/20341"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}