What Turbo game are you currently playing?

Phase · March 26, 2018, 11:43:06 PM

Quote from: guest on March 26, 2018, 08:51:52 PMIsn't Hard mode from Blazing Lazers the default normal in Gunhed?

Negative, they are the same.

Gypsy · March 27, 2018, 08:34:09 AM

PC Denjin. It's so rad. Everybody is so

.

GoldenWheels · March 30, 2018, 08:37:25 AM

Goddamn Raiden is hard. Once I have the first few levels down and know where to save bombs for, it's getting easier but...damn.

Freeway2 · April 01, 2018, 12:17:57 AM

Me and a bud have been playing a lot of Hit The Ice. Has anyone beat this before. We make it to what I think is the final team the Blacks and come up short. Other than that double dragon II, Shinobi and Bonks Aventure/3.

TheClash603 · April 01, 2018, 02:15:52 AM

Quote from: Freeway2 on April 01, 2018, 12:17:57 AMMe and a bud have been playing a lot of Hit The Ice. Has anyone beat this before. We make it to what I think is the final team the Blacks and come up short. Other than that double dragon II, Shinobi and Bonks Aventure/3.

I have played this game a ton, but never against the computer. Now I feel like I gotta give it a try

Gredler · April 01, 2018, 04:12:38 AM

hit the ice, classic, but no tv sports hockey

esteban · April 14, 2018, 01:26:23 PM

Quote from: nopepper on February 16, 2018, 05:38:38 PM
Quote from: Winniez on February 08, 2018, 07:22:55 PMOne PC-engine game that I never get tired of is The New Adventure Island. Been playing it almost daily again. It has that great pick up and play quality to it, like having an arcade game at home. Its not that common with platforming games. I like all the Wonder Boy/Adventure Island games (and have beaten pretty much all of them) but this one just might be my favorite.
Its so simple and fast that it just begs to be played again and again. I usually pop it in quickly and see how far I can make with a single life. Feels almost like playing a good shooter but within the platforming genre, it has the same flow in it.
Agreed!

In fact, just reading your post makes me want to play it. It's sooo good.

I also love the soundtrack and find myself humming its sugary tunes quite often.

So, it was perfect timing reading about NAI... I was going to hook up PCE, but since I only have NA New Adventure Island and Splatterhouse hueys, I decided to hook up the old TG-16 for my twins.

My twins were frustrated with NAI last time they played it (like 6+ months ago...) *but* I am hoping that they will actually be able to play it (instead of constantly dying).

My 14 year old is too invested in other games (like Super Smash Bros.) to care about NAI or Splatterhouse, but I'm hoping she gives NAI a chance.

Quote from: EmperorIng on March 25, 2018, 08:43:37 PM
Quote from: Phase on March 24, 2018, 08:56:25 PMThe game is pretty interesting in that it also has sub-difficulty levels (not sure what to call it)
In shootemup parlance we call this 'rank.' The game lowers the rank every time you die in order to make it easier to jump back in. Conversely, the longer you survive and more you are powered up, the more the game throws at you. It's been a feature since the 80s, notably in Gradius or other Konami games, which drastically scale back difficulty in order to get you back in the game. Some games are not as kind though: Darius Gaiden infamously does not decrease the dynamic difficulty no matter how much you die.

Compile's excellent Zanac is one more excellent example of rank/dynamic difficulty in games - no waves, but the enemy formations are entirely based off of your weapon loadout and power-level. It's something I wish they would have done more often.

Quote from: Phase on March 26, 2018, 07:28:05 PMInteresting stuff, do you have any idea exactly how Gunheds rank system works? I haven't looked into it specifically but I think it just works off of your power up level. An easy setting for low power, a normal setting for in the middle and a hard setting for high power. The high power area seems to only kick in with certain maxed out weapon combos afaik. I've only really noticed it on the second level boss, most of the time he only shoots 1 triangle tracking-missile but with certain maxed out weapons like a II and F combo he will shoot two triangle missiles. I assume other stuff gets ramped up too, but not sure.

I wonder if it works like this.. non selectable Easy, Normal Dog(default), Hard Human, Super Mania, God of Game, non selectable Hardest and it just switches 1 up or 1 down depending on your power up level. If this is the case, it could mean we could hack in the two extra modes. I could be entirely wrong..

I would love to hear further discussion on how the "rank" mechanic works in GunHed/BL.

GOD OF GAME or GO HOME, pussyfooters.

Winniez · April 14, 2018, 11:22:06 PM

Interesting to read about your kids playing the New Adventure Island Esteban. I think for younger gamers its not an ideal game. It starts out relatively difficult and fast without much time to get adjusted to the controls and gameplay, that leads to a quick frustration. It doesn't have that in-built tutorial like Mario games in their first levels.
I would try Bonk with them, or the later Adventure Island games on Famicom (but not the first one!)

esteban · April 16, 2018, 08:50:26 PM

Quote from: Winniez on April 14, 2018, 11:22:06 PMInteresting to read about your kids playing the New Adventure Island Esteban. I think for younger gamers its not an ideal game. It starts out relatively difficult and fast without much time to get adjusted to the controls and gameplay, that leads to a quick frustration. It doesn't have that in-built tutorial like Mario games in their first levels.
I would try Bonk with them, or the later Adventure Island games on Famicom (but not the first one!)

Yup, exactly, totally frustrating, but guess what? My daughter loves R-TYPE (she can't make it far) and my son loves Mr. Heli (he gets further than I thought possible, but that's not saying much).

Yes, they enjoy Bonk (1-3), Pac Land, Bomberman (all), Double Dragon II, Hanii on the Road, etc. (totally random stuff).

My first AI was, of course NES AI (they haven't seen that yet, but they do like a lot of NES games).

Freeway2 · April 18, 2018, 03:09:13 AM

While testing my CD systems I've been playing Gate Of Thunder. I've always been very poor at this one but I feel like I turned a corner today by showing more patience. I'm also trying to beat the last car on Chase H.Q. I get so close to blowing that black car up but I always get screwed at the end

The Last Barbarian · April 24, 2018, 12:58:00 AM

R-Type and Splatterhouse two of my favorite turbo games

esteban · April 24, 2018, 05:09:48 PM

Quote from: Freeway2 on April 18, 2018, 03:09:13 AMWhile testing my CD systems I've been playing Gate Of Thunder. I've always been very poor at this one but I feel like I turned a corner today by showing more patience. I'm also trying to beat the last car on Chase H.Q. I get so close to blowing that black car up but I always get screwed at the end

I have never beaten Chase HQ... I gotta do that.

Gypsy · May 06, 2018, 07:48:32 AM

Nice, corngrats.

seieienbu · May 06, 2018, 06:13:51 PM

I've only beaten Legendary Axe a couple of times. Normally when I get to the doors section I game over and get weak and then give up. Nice run through.

esteban · May 06, 2018, 08:26:52 PM

Quote from: guest on May 06, 2018, 03:33:33 AMLegendary Axe

It always feel like an accomplishment to beat this game.

Pfloydguy2 · May 08, 2018, 11:31:54 PM

I adore shmups, even though I'm terrible at them. One of my favorite games is the original arcade Raiden. The TurboGrafx port was the first game I bought for my Turbo - I actually bought it quite a while before I bought the console. My first impression wasn't good though. It starts off way harder than the arcade version, with about twice as many enemies attacking you in the first level.

But I gave it another shot a few weeks ago on a whim, and I was pleased to find it's actually MORE manageable than most other versions once you get decently powered up. The spread shot (red powerup) seems wider and stronger than in other versions after 3-4 powerups, and that makes the game much more playable.

So now I'm hooked on TurboGrafx Raiden.

esteban · May 10, 2018, 12:15:29 AM

Quote from: Pfloydguy2 on May 08, 2018, 11:31:54 PMI adore shmups, even though I'm terrible at them. One of my favorite games is the original arcade Raiden. The TurboGrafx port was the first game I bought for my Turbo - I actually bought it quite a while before I bought the console. My first impression wasn't good though. It starts off way harder than the arcade version, with about twice as many enemies attacking you in the first level.

But I gave it another shot a few weeks ago on a whim, and I was pleased to find it's actually MORE manageable than most other versions once you get decently powered up. The spread shot (red powerup) seems wider and stronger than in other versions after 3-4 powerups, and that makes the game much more playable.

So now I'm hooked on TurboGrafx Raiden.

It is such a great port.

seieienbu · May 10, 2018, 02:29:07 PM

Raiden's a game I haven't been able to get very far in. It's pretty rough.

isoto2476 · May 11, 2018, 03:43:44 PM

JJ and Jeff is always in my console to start off. Love that game and have yet to beat it. That music on the first level is great

...

TelcoSurveyor · May 14, 2018, 07:27:21 AM

Quote from: isoto2476 on May 11, 2018, 03:43:44 PMJJ and Jeff is always in my console to start off. Love that game and have yet to beat it. That music on the first level is great ...

JJ and Jeff is one I always go for. Such a fun and brutal platformer. The music is great as well.

GoldenWheels · May 17, 2018, 01:16:27 PM

Baby Jo...damn this game is the suck.

Purple1308 · May 19, 2018, 04:39:51 PM

Sidearms and alien crush

Warbucks · May 21, 2018, 08:57:28 AM

I'm playing some Bikini Girls.
Im about to beat it.

JoshTurboTrollX · May 21, 2018, 11:46:46 AM

Quote from: Purple1308 on May 19, 2018, 04:39:51 PMSidearms and alien crush

Have you tried Side Arms special!? It's so good!!!

Purple1308 · May 21, 2018, 12:00:06 PM

Quote from: JoshTurboTrollX-16 on May 21, 2018, 11:46:46 AM
Quote from: Purple1308 on May 19, 2018, 04:39:51 PMSidearms and alien crush
Have you tried Side Arms special!? It's so good!!!

Yeah that's what I bought I just called it a turbo game since I'm using it on my duo.

johnnykonami · May 21, 2018, 08:58:17 PM

Quote from: Warbucks on May 21, 2018, 08:57:28 AMI'm playing some Bikini Girls.
Im about to beat it.

I see what you did there!

Warbucks · May 23, 2018, 03:56:06 PM

Quote from: johnnykonami on May 21, 2018, 08:58:17 PM
Quote from: Warbucks on May 21, 2018, 08:57:28 AMI'm playing some Bikini Girls.
Im about to beat it.

I see what you did there!

Mwahahaha

Xanadu Gaiden · June 03, 2018, 04:03:38 PM

I got Final Blaster a week ago on Gothenburg's annual retro game fair and just played it for the first time.

I like it more than I expected, the weapons are fun, graphics cool and music excellent. There are some cute references to other Namco games like the rotating walls from Xevious and annoying dancing bugs from Galaga. I also like that you can force the scroll to go a little bit backwards if you miss something.

The only thing I dislike so far is that shots can be fired at you before the enemy has appeared at the top of the screen. Same goes for you, so you can destroy enemies before they appear too, so with memorization you can avoid getting shot at by those battleships on stage 3.

Yup, stage 3 is as far as I got but the first two levels had a pretty fair difficulty so even a novice like me can enjoy the game!

NightWolve · June 03, 2018, 07:59:42 PM

Quote from: Xanadu Gaiden on June 03, 2018, 04:03:38 PMI got Final Blaster a week ago on Gothenburg's annual retro game fair and just played it for the first time.

Hm, another PCE shooter I missed out on, doesn't seem familiar to me at all. But not a bad job by Namco looks like, I'd say it's worth checking out. I really enjoyed their Dragon Spirit port on my TurboExpress BITD, shooters were my favorite genre on the PCE for the most part (RPGs for SNES).

(Found those shots from a decent review site just now with a PCE selection.)

Xanadu Gaiden · June 04, 2018, 02:17:25 PM

You know, I'm really not a shooter guy but I'm always on the lookout for good games. Final Blaster certainly wasn't on my "buy this" list but the price was right and turned out to be a fine game! It does have enough flavor to stand out and solid gameplay. There are many features left for me to figure out, I've only scraped the surface (there is some way to turn into a burning Phoenix). Some positive reviews claim that it's a hard game, but l'm glad the difficulty curve isn't overly steep.

bigdawg8412 · August 06, 2018, 10:38:32 PM

Hey. I just recently played the game Coryoon. I just found out about this game for some reason. First thing I thought of when playing it was "Hey, this reminds me a lot of Air Zonk". Then I read that it was made by some of the same developers as Air Zonk. Great game.

GoldenWheels · August 09, 2018, 01:09:58 PM

Man for whatever reason I am really into Macross 2036. It isn't the best shooter by any means, and I know 0 about Macross. But it's just fun as hell and I love the (fairly simple) boss battles where you're in mech mode.

nopepper · August 15, 2018, 12:17:26 AM

Just 1CC Nexzr since got the itch to play it after the thread on lesser known great games. This is easily one of the top games for the PCE and deserves to be mentioned among the Rondos, Ys I & II, Ys IV, GoT and LoT. It's a bit of a bitch on the 3rd level, but once you get past that, it's very manageable, as it is oddly magnanimous (thanks Duomazovs) after the third level, so it's fairly easy to recover. I would say that the unbalance in difficulty is one of my knocks against it, along with some of the tunes sounding way too lounge-y, especially the title and opening level songs.

Then proceeded to 1CC Star Parodier, since I remember reading somewhere it utilized the same engine as Nexzr and wanted to check that out. Not sure I saw the similarities, although both games are beautifully drawn and are among the technical showcases of the hardware. I had beaten this one before, probably 15 years ago, and was unimpressed, and still am. It's a bit of a fun ride, but it just lacks any tension as it's just too damn easy. I like all the references and some of the levels are quite cleverly designed, but again, the lack of tension had me close to turning it off towards the end.

I think next up will be Darius Plus, as I just recently beat Darius Gaiden on Saturn (not 1CC mind you, had to use 7 lives...) and am hankering for more Darius. I've always shrugged off that series, especially since I found Gaiden to be unbearably difficult. But after giving it some time, have grown to appreciate it (especially the weird music!) and want to get to its roots.

Gypsy · August 18, 2018, 04:12:21 PM

Nexzr fucking rules.

The only issue with Star Parodier is that it is too easy. Still great fun though.

Goemon · August 29, 2018, 06:03:25 AM

Just finished Jigoku Meguri.
It's got some hellish inst-death setups and some super tricky platforming but still really enjoyed it.
Managed to 1CC it too as I nailed the early levels and built up a number of lives.

tbone3969 · November 13, 2018, 02:20:45 PM

Tiger Road

dshadoff · November 22, 2018, 10:55:52 AM

I've been testing out the UperGrafx digital video/CDROM replacement device for compatibility lately, so I've been playing a lot of games, after a long absence from playing anything...

For American games,
- Just finishing up a run through Cosmic Fantasy 2 again (this time, with the "Un-Worked Designs" patch)
- Next up will be Exile/Exile 2 - again with the unworked designs patches to return difficulty to the original - maybe this time I'll be able to complete Exile 2 !

Now that I have several years of Japanese study under my belt, I also tried to work through a bunch of Japanese games... I understood more of the digital comics than I expected (as in, close to 100% without looking up many words), but RPGs are still a mental challenge. Just finished these in the past 2-3 weeks:
- Pastel Lime (very short and kind of dumb)
- Gunbuster 1 & 2 (though I loved the anime, these games were not nearly as good as I expected)
- Fushigi no Umi no Nadia (overall I liked this)
- Urusei Yatsura (nicely done, but a little long)

Currently working on:
- Galaxy Fraulein Yuna (not so bad - great graphics and voicing, but slightly tedious because the story is a bit on the juvenile side)
- Sailor Moon (a little childish, but OK I guess - based on the very first season though)
- Tenchi Muyo (pretty true to the original, with great graphics and seems to be a fair bit of content)

Actually, for some reason, I had always imagined digital comics as being trivially short - only about 1 hour in length. But in fact, the majority of them are probably between 6 and 10 hours long. I'm surprised how much graphics and speech they were able to pack in.

NightWolve · November 27, 2018, 07:43:22 PM

Quote from: dshadoff on November 22, 2018, 10:55:52 AMFor American games,
- Just finishing up a run through Cosmic Fantasy 2 again (this time, with the "Un-Worked Designs" patch)
- Next up will be Exile/Exile 2 - again with the unworked designs patches to return difficulty to the original - maybe this time I'll be able to complete Exile 2 !

I heard about those "Un-Working Designs" patches at romhacking.net I recall...

I forgot about what the Cosmic Fantasy 2 one does, I don't recall ever having a problem with the game, and I don't think I care if it was some spiteful protest at WD anyway. The WD haters got way too fanatical over the years...

As for Exile 2, I know people complained about the difficulty. I beat both Exiles pretty much as soon as they arrived from Turbo Zone Direct in a couple of days. I didn't really have a strong reaction to the difficulty as some did because I saw it was very easy to grind/level up: I just took an adjustable wrench, tightened it down on the sword button with turbo active, positioned Sadler where enemies would just keep spawning from right-to-left in a straight-forward manner, turned off the TV, "let it ride" and some hours later, I was fully leveled-up, ready to beat the final boss with just a little bit of basic strategy... The End. ;)

Is that cheating ?? I dunno, in those days I cared more about the story and EXP grinding just hurts my fingers, wastes my time, so I wasn't above using a trick or two to skip past all of that if it was available. Guess Victor Ireland didn't really iron out all issues to stop renters from being able to beat his localized games over a weekend and avoid paying full price to buy/own the game (which is why he said he deliberately tried to increase the difficulty in his batch of products)...

dshadoff · November 27, 2018, 10:29:20 PM

For Cosmic Fantasy, they also undid the censorship on graphics. I think all it was, was Babette flipping the bird to the computer, but I wasn't sure whether the shower scene was also affected. They said difficulty and gold had been adjusted, but to be honest, I didn't notice. (Of course, I hadn't played it in like 15 or 20 years).

For Exile 1 and Exile 2, it was all about difficulty. I was able to beat Exile 1 back in the day, but I was frustrated by the final boss sequence in Exile 2 back then (something about a staircase... this was about 20 years ago).

Over the years, this difficulty level became famous (because it was effectively untested and a mistake), and I've been dying to try out a patch which corrects that.

Here's a link to the post where all of the changes are described:
romhacking.net/forum/index.php?topic=23436.0

Like you, I felt that they expressed their feelings a little more emotionally and more specifically at a person/entity (Working Designs) than would have been optimal.

Dave

gilbert · November 28, 2018, 12:47:31 AM

Quote from: dshadoff on November 27, 2018, 10:29:20 PMFor Cosmic Fantasy, they also undid the censorship on graphics. I think all it was, was Babette flipping the bird to the computer, but I wasn't sure whether the shower scene was also affected. They said difficulty and gold had been adjusted, but to be honest, I didn't notice. (Of course, I hadn't played it in like 15 or 20 years).

Don't know about the patch, but there is at least another subtly censored scene that I know of (but seems that no one talks about, or they just didn't notice) in the English version.
During the cutscene where Van/Ban fist met the captured and tied up Rim/Lim/Babette, Rim was actually not wearing any pants in the original Japanese version. She was given back her usual (hot) pants in the English release.

dshadoff · November 28, 2018, 01:38:22 AM

I wasn't sure what you were talking about, so I looked it up - there was a "walkthrough" insert in one of the magazines back in the day... the walkthrough wasn't so thorough, but it had a pic of that scene. It's perhaps an overstatement to say she wasn't wearing any pants... her white shirt covered the same area in the same way as if she had been wearing them. This is probably why nobody talks about it - it's really hard to notice.

I'm pretty sure that the patch left it as it was in the American release (red hotpants).

gilbert · November 28, 2018, 09:46:38 PM

Actually you see more than that, during the vertically panning full body scene just before the pic you mentioned.
However, after checking I found that she's not wearing her pants in the English version either:

(skip to around 14:30)

So it's possibly just my memory being bad, as the scene was not changed, though for some reasons I did remember seeing that scene with her pants on.
Not sure, but maybe it's the Mega CD version.

farankoshan · May 14, 2022, 11:24:07 AM

Booted up Cadash today and missed seeing those pigs in the 1st cave... 🐷

Ashevent · May 10, 2023, 01:51:49 AM

Picked up Legendary Axe II a little while ago and decided to give it a go lately, pretty darn fun and I dig the more sinister look of the game. Looks freaking great too IMO.

NightWolve · May 14, 2023, 06:19:29 PM

Quote from: Ashevent on May 10, 2023, 01:51:49 AMPicked up Legendary Axe II a little while ago and decided to give it a go lately, pretty darn fun and I dig the more sinister look of the game. Looks freaking great too IMO.

Glad you randomly brought up Legendary Axe II, I rediscovered what my favorite track was on the game so perfect opportunity to log some tweets forum-style that I made about it a while back!

The best chiptune of Legendary Axe II (1990) (TurboGrafx-16) I identified awhile back: Stage 3, wait about ~56 seconds for that sweet hook to kick in (though it's much too short)! ❤️

https://downloads.khinsider.com/game-soundtracks/album/legendary-axe-ii-ost-1990-nec-turbografx-16
Direct Download: 06 Stage 03.mp3 (Sometimes direct link breaks, but page link above should work)
Or better yet, I'll add it to the PC Engine Greatest Hits audio folder:

_{► Legendary-Axe-II-Stage-03.mp3}

I still remember actually getting to rent it as a kid via 1 of 2 video rental stores (Ken's World of Video & Bogarts) that actually stocked TurboGrafx-16 HuCards (never CDs though), was blown away! I owned an original TurboGrafx-16 model at that point which I had won with Bloody Wolf included, but I upgraded to a Turbo Duo after it broke...

Anyway, just wanted to preserve some of my history/share the soundtrack/add content in longer form given the context/your post.

Loading: twitter.com/NightWolve75/status/1146027444857724928

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What Turbo game are you currently playing?