I have neglected one of the platforms I claim to love so much, the unsung hero of the Fourth Generation, the PC Engine aka TurboGrafx 16. Granted, a lot of those games were ports (but really fucking good ports). But there were some solid games for it that never got ported to the NES or the PCE’s closest competitor, the Mega Drive. At least not here in North America.

Anyway, I’m rambling about “the war” again… let’s grab some games and put ’em on the stove.

Bravoman

Namco, 1988

Much like the system itself, Bravoman was a big hit in Japan but blended into the crowd when it hit Western shores. It was originally an arcade title developed by Namco for domestic-only distribution, but was licensed for North American release on the TG-16 in the flurry of games meant to compete with the Genesis and NES.

Bravoman is a superhero-type whose main talent is doing crazy shit with his fucked-up cartoon body. He battles across 22 stages to stop Dr. Bomb (creative naming was at its height during this period) from ending the world.

“Here I go, in the most exciting screenshot available, ever!”

Why are pop culture villains always trying to end the world or destroy it? Like, what’s the end game? What’s the reasoning? What do you have left to be proud of, and to whom will you brag? We have enough dangerously crazy people in the real world, but even they aim for rulership, not annihilation. On that note, how do you sell that to your rank and file? “Yeah, there’ll be nothing left, and everything you ever loved or cared about will be gone. Now get to work.”

Anyway, You go bopping around as Bravoman, punching and kicking the shit out of enemies. There are underwater levels, where you transform into a weird fish. These play a lot like Darius or any other side-scrolling shmup, and were the most fun part for me. Goofiness aside, Bravoman is a pretty decent platform game. It mixes things up a little bit and has a sense of novelty that’s aged really well considering it’s a slightly pared-down arcade port. It’s visually colorful, gently funny, and plenty of fun to play.

JJ and Jeff

Hudson Soft, 1987

You know how I like to try and pick at least one game for these articles that either is a piece of shit, or at least borders on being a piece of shit but is so ridiculous that is’ still fun to know it exists. This one blurs the line for me pretty hard. It’s equal parts travesty and tragedy.

Yes, it is absolutely this painfully retarded, all throughout.

The travesty is the game itself. It’s supposed to be some kind of detective-themed action platformer, but it just comes off as a lazily-skinned Mario clone where you go around jumping on people or kicking them to death in a big-head cartoon world. Apparently it’s based on the “detective” segments of some Japanese TV show, and that’s where the tragedy comes in.

The tragedy is that this game is funnier, and thus more tolerable to play, when you’re talking about the native Japanese version. Apparently there’s rather graphic and overt toilet humor rampant throughout, which really could have hung on in America, but it was edited out for the NA release. Not just edited out, but watered down so much that it comes off as some shit a “cool” youth pastor would make if he or she programmed games.

Don’t you miss cartoon butts? I miss cartoon butts. Wait, that came out wrong.

I would rather see someone peeing than see them doing most of what they do in JJ and Jeff. And that’s saying something. I got bored so fast that I couldn’t hope to offer you a full appraisal of the game, but I’d say overall it’s “average.” The boring kind, mind you.

Air Zonk

Red/Naxat Soft, 1992

Air Zonk is sort of a companion title to Bonk’s Adventure, etc, with the main character even bearing a close resemblance. That’s about where it ends. Whereas the Bonk series are some very good games, Air Zonk is the best game. I won’t say “ever” or “for the TG-16,” but I could. It’s just the best game, though. The best fucking game. Sure, it’s a shoot-em-up, but it’s also the most “dynamic” game I’ve seen so far for the game system; both visually and in terms of action, Air Zonk beckons you over and all but sells you itself.

I am just going to let this gameplay montage I found do the talking for Air Zonk. Sometimes I struggle for human words adequate to describe the things I find while writing these articles. In this case, it’s in a positive light. Hallelujah.

Bravoman – 6/10

JJ & Jeff – 4/10

Air Zonk – 8/10

As always, it has been real, and I’ll see you again later this month. Stay Retro!

This Grab Bag is devoted to that idea. I’ve snagged three titles that, well-known or not, embody the absurdity so often encountered in classic (and, let’s be fair, modern) gaming.

Jail Break

Konami, 1986

Arcade

The basic plot of this one is that a small army of criminals have escaped from the jail/prison/whatever, and it’s up to one cop to stop their wave of violence. They’ve taken a bunch of hostages and inexplicably not just scattered across the country, working cohesively for reasons only guessed at. It’s your job to bring them all back in, dead or alive.

My best guess is that this is meant as an existential question.

As if to stress that last part, gameplay consists primarily of running forward, wildly firing your gun. Once in a while, a hostage will appear and call out to you in fairly clear digitized speech. Don’t fucking kill them. Kill the 1,000 identical shirtless dudes in striped pants trying to kill you. They all have iron balls on chains attached to their legs, but somehow are about as mobile as you. This is it. This is Jail Break.

Why, hello there, citizen.

Ridiculous Shit:

• You can get a bazooka and other weapons, you know, like cops constantly have somehow.
• Sometimes when you shoot a barrel, Batman pops out of it, and he’s got no shirt on.
• The female hostage with a baby yells “help, I’m over here” when it’s pretty obvious where she is… running straight towards you through a hail of gunfire.
• If you kill a bad guy who’s firing at you from a window, he momentarily turns into a nude woman.
• On the last level, the gate of the prison says “WELLCOME” above it in blood.
• Just like Circus Charlie, this shit continues forever. The Replay Burners video of it is over 5 hours long.

Toilet Kids

Bits Laboratory, 1992

PC-Engine/TurboGrafx-16

A pale horse if there ever was one.

Although I’m not particularly religious, I am often heard to quote the Book of John, Chapter 11, Verse 35. This game is one of those entries in our hobby’s history that spills the verse from my mouth like a font of woe.

A positively nightmare-driven spread from the game’s manual. This came from the mind of someone who belongs in a special cage. A rubberized one.

I’m unclear on the story being told here, except that it is disgusting and probably illegal. Some kid goes and sits on the toilet, presumably in the middle of the night (guessing by the darkness) and gets… whisked to a magical world of shit and piss. The entire thing is presented as a vertical overhead shoot-em-up that borders on spiritual devastation, at least for me. If you earnestly like this game, that’s your business, but I also hate you in a raw and instinctive way I can’t overcome. I’m sorry.

Ridiculous Shit:

• You are riding a flying Japanese-style commode through a mystical land of scatological references.
• Human butts on creatures that are universally far from human
• disembodied, uncircumcised dicks that fly forward, rotate toward you, and spray in offensive formation
• hippos that barf literal shit at you
• Almost every enemy is a butt, has a butt it shouldn’t, uses its butt to hurt you, or just hurls these perfectly round bullets of excreta (either actual literal dookie balls or mysteriously round orbs of piss) toward you like a scat-obsessed Galaga bad guy
• who did this
• why
• WHY

MC Kids

Virgin Games, 1991

NES

I’m not ragging on this one because it’s a licensed McDonald’s game. That’s fine. I understand the desire of businesses to market themselves however they deem effective. My feelings on it, for the purpose of this article, are largely irrelevant.

I want to do all of these things. This makes total sense. I am motivated. Let’s go.

This game is also pretty clearly an attempt to clone Super Mario Bros. 3’s gameplay from the ground up, and it’s not terrible in that respect… it’s just not a great imitation.

1. Who is this 2. What does he hope to achieve here 3. Why am I playing this

I don’t know… there’s just something surreal about this one, and it’s hard to put my finger on. It’s a combination of the above two mentioned elements, and a few others: maybe it’s the sometimes out-of-place enemies, the weird leering presence of Ronald everywhere, or even the harrowing journey through what looks like a “blood world” later on to reach Hamburglar’s hideout. Why would they put a kid through this?

Blood World. Easily recognizable as part of canonical McDonalds imagery.

Ridiculous Shit:

• You’re sort of solving a problem out of your pay grade; if Ronald and the crew can’t get Hamburglar’s raging addiction under control or at least stage an intervention, what the fuck are you supposed to do
• Sometimes it’s kind of like the enemies/hazards were tossed in as an afterthought; in fact, despite them, the game still comes across as Mario 3 Lite
• Hamburglar lives separate from the other McDonalds characters by way of what closely resembles a hellish world of blood

I can’t denounce these games fully, for to do so would be to exclude them from the spectacle that draws each of us in and hooks us. Part of the video gamer lives for action, but another part suckles at the teat of the bizarre and somehow draws nourishment. We dine on this fare, and we are (despite all notions of rational thought or common sense) thankful for the bounty of providence. In closing, may the world of video games never stop offering us the occasional absurdity. It would perhaps detract from the creativity inherent in the market, and result in a loss of vitality for video games. That’s scarier to think about than an entire game about McDonald’s or poop.

When I was a kid in the late 80s and early 90s, I’d occasionally see a system advertised on TV and in magazines that wasn’t the SNES or the Genesis. It was a thin, matte-black affair that used archaic-looking cards instead of cartridges. Its graphics appeared to be right up there with its more popular rivals, and in fact it seemed to eclipse them in terms of capability. This incredible system was called the TurboGrafx 16, and I used to wonder why more people didn’t talk about it or have one. Eventually, it faded from the foreground of the gaming world, as the Sega CD, 32X, and eventually a whole new generation of consoles came to be. As I grew, and as time continued to pass, I’d always wonder… “what was the TurboGrafx 16 like?”

Two days ago, I got a chance to dive into not only its history, but its game library… a set of titles with surprising variety and amazing vibrancy. I have seen the 512 colors of the rainbow, and nothing looks the same now. I’ve seen wonderful, horrifying, and strange things.

♪ like a fool / I fell in love with you / you turned my whole world upside down ♪ seriously, I’ve gotten very little sleep since gaining access to this thing.

Needless to say, I’m a huge fan now. I want to tell you all I can. Let’s do this!

A Challenger Appears

In 1987, Hudson Soft partnered with NEC to spring a new system on the domestic market. They called it the PC Engine, and it was arguably the first of its kind: a 16 bit home console with graphics and sound rivaling the arcade. The beast’s CPU was still 8-bit, but that’s splitting hairs. The PC Engine boasted 16 bit processors for both its sound and its graphics. In its original Japanese form, the console was around 5 inches square and a little over an inch and a half thick… meaning, at the time, it held the record for the smallest home console ever. That’s a lot of power in such a tiny package. Keep in mind that this is in 1987. The NES had been released only two years prior, and the Mega Drive wouldn’t be around until October of ’88. Sunsoft and NEC had achieved alchemy. To add a final uppercut to the battle in the Japanese market, they released a CD ROM attachment two months after the Mega Drive was released… the first one ever on a home gaming console.

It’s so f**king cute.

Wait, guys… I lied. One last ball buster. Guess who also released the first fully portable console that used the same media as its plug-in-the-wall progenitor?

That’s right… five whole years before the Sega Nomad.

In the summer of 1989, the PC Engine was given a slight makeover and dropped on the US like a bomb… that bomb’s name was TurboGrafx 16. The system and its games were initially a huge hit, especially on the West coast, and among the hardcore gamers of the time; the true cultists and curators, the devoted.

Let’s talk about the games… There are so many worth mentioning, but I’ll touch on the brightest and best.

Lunatic Weird-Ass Pinball Games I Can’t Stop Playing

It gets worse. And better.

Alien Crush and Devil’s Crush are pretty legendary entries in the PC Engine game library. With minor changes, they made it to US Shores and fascinated players. They feature bizarre, phantasmagorical graphics as well as eerie music that seems absolutely appropriate.

A woman’s face gradually morphs into that of a hideous reptile. Bonus stages include space worms and a trio of bug-eyed undead faces. You get points for smashing little demons with the silver ball and firing it into the mouths of nightmarish beasts. The entire experience is enthralling, and I’ve already poured hours into both games.

About Twenty Million Shooters

Gradius was released for the PC Engine, and that version is considered one of the better ones. Its sequels saw release for the system as well, and were similarly beautiful games. In addition, about one metric ton of shoot em up games were produced for the console if you count both international and Japan-only titles. Hyper Dyne Side Arms is a pretty innovative one, and the infamous Zero Wing was also a hit in Japan. The genre is one of my favorites (and one of few types of game I’m actually decent at), so I was thrilled to see the huge library of shooters. I’m still picking through them, and will be for a while.

Gradius 2, Image Fight, R-Type, and Hyper Dyne Side Arms, four of roughly a billion shooters for the PC Engine/TurboGrafx 16.

The Only Easily Available Version of Splatterhouse We Had for a Long Time

I’ve written about Splatterhouse before. It’s amazing, gory, violent, scary, and it’s a masterpiece. It was ported to this system early after its arcade release, with very minor changes. The USA didn’t get a ton of Splatterhouse arcade cabinets, but we did get the TG-16 port and all the mayhem that came with it. Sure, his mask is red. Sure, some of the upside-down crosses and other stuff are removed. It’s still the same game, and it still came with a warning that excited you and scared your parents. It wasn’t until the “modern” era of gaming that a lot of us were exposed to the original article, well after we’d seen the entertaining but visually watered-down sequels on Genesis.

Lower left hand corner. It’s a cleverly phrased version of “I dare you, kid.”

I Am Not Kidding About the Game Called Toilet Kids

A Japanese title, Toilet Kids involves a magical journey through a land filled with (made of?) poop.

The Adventure Begins!!!

I’m going to let some pictures speak for themselves, and I’m going to let you plumb further (pun intended) if you’re curious. It’s a shoot em up, you fly on a toilet I think, and you dogfight with all kinds of crazy dook monsters. The graphics and sound are incredible… I’ve never witnessed cartoon turds so vividly, nor have I wanted to.

From the Japanese manual.

I’d hang out on a cloud too if I lived in an entire kingdom made of shit.

So Why Didn’t It Make the Grade?

Initially, it did! The original console sold well in Japan, as did the handful of peripherals and add-ons. The American market had a few complaints, though: Firstly, while the games were awesome, there weren’t many of them by well-known third parties like Konami, Capcom, etc. and a lot of popular titles got passed over for a TG-16 port. On a related note,the first-party games that made it across the Pacific to us often seemed… weird to the mainstream video gamer. They were ultimately better suited to the Japanese market. Another common gripe was the controller. It seemed outdated with its 2 buttons when compared to its contemporary rivals in the USA. All in all, while critics praised the game library in objective terms, the whole affair just seemed out of phase.

eh, okay. I see what you mean about the whole controller thing… but then, my thumbs get lost on an xbox pad. give me this any day.

Why You Should Still Have a Look if You Get a Chance

This system, this revolutionary little machine, broke the door down and hardly gets credit for it today. It fired the first round in what became one of the most amazing market battles in gaming history… the classic console wars we all remember from that era. The PC Engine deserves its place in retro gaming history, and any true student of the subject will take a good look.

To quote a certain bowler-wearing hoodlum, viddy well.

Dengeki PC Engine, August 1994 issue.

Oh… and stay retro. 😉

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