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[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: So I just played Street Fighter II Champion Edition on the PCE for the 1st time]

I have a six-button pad on the way, but I was kind of enjoying playing it with the 2-button just for the challenge. The AI in all versions of the game is very similar, and there's kind of a pleasure in having to be much less aggressive and to bait the AI a lot more because it's much harder to act on reaction or pull off combos with the 2-button. Obviously the game is meant to be played with six buttons, but 2-button mode is a nice kind of challenge mode if you're a bit of a masochist or just want to see if you know the game's AI in and out (obviously I didn't since Bison stomped me).

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / So I just played Street Fighter II Champion Edition on the PCE for the 1st time]

And it's an awesome port (really enjoyed the vibrancy of the colors and hearing the PCE take on some of the tunes), but...

I was using a 2-button controller, which requires you to use the SELECT BUTTON to toggle between punches and kicks. On my first credit, I got all the way to Bison and was defeated by him ON THE FINAL ROUND.

Guhhhhhhhhh missed opportunity, I just don't even know how I can go on with my life right now after having failed with this. I mean yeah I've played tons of SF2 over the years and clearing the game on a single credit on normal difficulty is obviously no big deal, but this is an opportunity I can never get back.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: TG-16 / PCE vs. Neo Geo]

I can't say the NeoGeo has better shewties.  They're definitely good looking, but they're generally too damn hard (often cheap quarter munching hard) for my meager skills.

Yep, the only ones I still play are Strikers 1945+, Blazing Star and Aero Fighters II/III, and Viewpoint to some extent for the nostalgia/atmosphere factor alone. Pulstar is great but I'm not big on R-Type style games, and the rest are just relatively average in my opinion.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: TG-16 / PCE vs. Neo Geo]

Nowadays, with people who actually play a lot of 16-bit games, I'd say the PCE is more important since it made "home" games that captivate for hours instead of minutes.

I'm not sure this is entirely fair—as a generalization, sure, but I've certainly spent hours upon hours improving my skills at Metal Slug or Strikers 1945+, and back in the day certainly spent many hours competing against friends in SS2. Granted, I'm more of an arcade gamer and when it comes to RPGs I prefer the Western ones, but if we're talking about action-oriented titles I think the shooters, fighters, run 'n' guns, beat 'em ups, etc. on the Neo definitely have the ability to hold one's attention as much as those on the TG/PCE, and that's before you get to games like Neo Turf Masters, Baseball Stars 2 or even Magician Lord (flawed as it is). But yeah, when it comes to the more cerebral or story-oriented games the Neo doesn't hold a candle.

I think that when it comes to cultural impact, though, outside of a few key titles like Bomberman (which is almost a genre unto itself, in a way that other iconic games like Bonk could never be), most of the Turbo's relevance comes from the CD system, since it was an incubator for games that were truly cinematic and epic in scope, and nailed a lot of things that its early competitors (Sega CD) got wrong. Before the Turbo CD you had games that coupled strong narrative with good gameplay on computers, but on consoles it set a precedent that continued into the 32-bit era and beyond.

The flipside of this is that the Neo didn't really innovate in many key areas—the most culturally relevant fighter was (and is) Street Fighter II. Run and gun? Contra. Shooter? Probably Space Invaders or Galaga. Yes, Final Fantasy is more iconic than any TG/PCE RPG, but stylistically the PCE evolved that genre a lot, and also popularized Bomberman. You also had the Crash games, which, although niche and not iconic by any means, introduced many gamers to the whole fantasy pinball concept which is still popular.

Off topic—I was (and am) a huge Amiga fan, and have always admired Cinemaware's games excluding their sports titles. If anything that company was a trailblazer of this sort of cinematic, narrative gameplay, and so I feel they were a great match for the TG-CD, but sadly it seems like they felt the need to redo everything on CD with inferior art direction and gameplay... kind of the thing where vision eclipses taste and the final result suffers. If they had released a version of ICFTD that preserved the style of the Amiga original while adding Redbook, voice acting, and improved action segments, I think the game could have been much more impactful and fondly remembered than it is today.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / Re: TG-16 / PCE vs. Neo Geo]

So, my question is this: which company/system made a greater mark on American gaming culture, and in what way?

I like these type of versus threads but I can't comment on this one as I'm from the UK so wouldn't fully know about their impacts on "American gaming culture" back in the day.

Well, change that to 'Western gaming culture,' then—I'm definitely interested in hearing a UK perspective on this as well.

[PCE/TG-16|CD/SGX Discussion / TG-16 / PCE vs. Neo Geo]

Hi guys,

I've spent a bit of time tonight perusing various hypothetical threads on the forum about NEC's strategy in North America, how they could have opposed the Nintendo/Sega juggernaut, and so on. It got me to thinking: what about NEC vs. SNK?

Now, a bit of backstory: I've loved both of these consoles for a long time. I've had a consolized MVS for quite a while, and a TurboGrafx for quite a while, loved the games on both. Growing up, I was a Sega kid in terms of consoles, but more (most?) of my gaming time at home was spent on the Commodore 64 and Amiga. I played TG-16 games at friends' houses along with other systems I didn't own (like NES and SNES) and the Neo Geo in the arcades. I remember playing games like the Bonk trilogy, Keith Courage, and Silent Debuggers on the turbo and games like Super Baseball 2020, Fatal Fury, and Samurai Shodown II on the MVS. Since then I've played and enjoyed the libraries of each system extensively.

Now, in terms of technical capability, game library, year released, and overall philosophy the two systems are obviously quite different—we're comparing apples and oranges. However, the Turbo/PCE and the Neo Geo share a few things in common: they're both niche systems and underdogs, and their appeal persists to this day because each system has great games that people still enjoy playing.

So, my question is this: which company/system made a greater mark on American gaming culture, and in what way?

I'd note that I'm not speaking only about the US game library, but what a hardcore gamer had access to imports, magazines, and a decent game shop experienced back then. For example, where I lived it was pretty common to find imported games on sale at an average game store, and you could probably special order them and figure out how to play them if you talked to the guy behind the counter, but you didn't know about absolutely everything or probably have interest in games that required extensive Japanese to play.

As for myself, I'm probably partial to SNK—Metal Slug is one of my favorite games of all time and games like KOF'94 lived up to my dreams about fighting games combining characters from many different fighters, and in general I just remember and play the games more, but still the TG-16 just holds this special place in my heart as a system where a lot of creativity flourished, it introduced new things and was (and is) clearly something special unto itself regardless of its commercial success or failure, but if I look at the actual ideas and techniques that each system has produced, I think that I probably see Neo Geo games being emulated and referenced more often than TG-16/PCE ones.

Since I'd imagine that most of you consider both of these consoles to be pretty awesome, I'm curious to hear your opinions about this—which system has a more enduring legacy and why?