1up.com: Saving the System - TurboGrafx-16

[Arkhan Asylum]

I'm not even going to bother to read your entire post because it seems you are too emotional about this.  Calm. the. hell. down.  They're only videogames.

Sometimes I wonder if you read entire posts anyways because you misread/interpret things in a hurry to hit the sarcasm button, and then go off on an incorrect tangent, much like your last post.

and they're not only video games.  Don't be stupid.

I think the western RPGs of the time were doing just fine on PC, which is where I preferred to play them. Not sure I would have wanted to tackle Might and Magic or Wizardry on the PC Engine.

I prefer Wizardry on NES to PC actually.  The Wizardry games translate well to a controller/menus.  Ultima, not as much.   3 and 4 did ok, but 5, 6 and 7 were a clusterfuck.

Might and Magic for NES turned out pretty good too.  Give em a whirl.  I never tried Wizardry for PCE until recently and was happy with how they turned out. Heart of the Maelstrom is way better there than on SNES.

[BigusSchmuck]

I never tried Wizardry for PCE until recently and was happy with how they turned out. Heart of the Maelstrom is way better there than on SNES.

I totally agree, but as I have stated before, these Wizardry games on the PCE there really isn't much text to translate from Japanese to English, it should really be a easy project to start up compared to having to translate an entire rpg ie Cosmic Fantasy or the like. While we are on ports, it amazes me that we saw Loom on the Turbo CD, but never saw Monkey Island or Space Quest. What gives? Or even Sim City and Civilization? I wonder at the time the Turbo was around how many people actually had a PC vs having consoles...

[Arkhan Asylum]

lots of people here had PC's.  Like every other house had at least a 386.

Consoles were better for games though, they still are.

Except for RPGs.  DOS RPGs are tits

[nat]

Not sure I would have wanted to tackle Might and Magic [...] on the PC Engine.

I did. It was a grand experience. I haven't tried III yet, but they did a great job with the first one.

[Arkhan Asylum]

Not sure I would have wanted to tackle Might and Magic [...] on the PC Engine.

I did. It was a grand experience. I haven't tried III yet, but they did a great job with the first one.

3 is a pretty much perfect port of the DOS game.  its good stuff

[BigusSchmuck]

3 is a pretty much perfect port of the DOS game.  its good stuff

Yeah I did enjoy that one immensely. So my next question is this, how difficult is to port a old dos/windows game onto the turbo/pce? Or even better yet, create a port of dosbox onto the machine?

[Arkhan Asylum]

DOSbox is not happening.   The system doesn't have the resources necessary, really.

Recreating many of these games though, totally feasible.  Look at M&M 3 as proof of that.  Any game could be ported quite easily.  Emulating is another story.

I joke about Ultima ][ for PCE alot. I may do it one day.

[Joe Redifer]

and they're not only video games.  Don't be stupid.

You need to get a life.  Seriously. If videogames engulf your entire life, that is just sad and I feel nothing but pity for you.  No need to get so emotional over something silly like videogames.  And you are VERY emotional over this.

[Arkhan Asylum]

You need to get a life.  Seriously. If videogames engulf your entire life, that is just sad and I feel nothing but pity for you.  No need to get so emotional over something silly like videogames.  And you are VERY emotional over this.

I make games, I play games, I collect games.

This includes tabletop games.

welcome to a very detailed/extensive hobby.  I can be emotional about it if I want, fuck you very much. 



They don't engulf my entire life.  You just choose to think they do. 

and who are you to tell people "get a life", really?

[BigusSchmuck]

Gentlemen, can we please get back to the topic at hand? Arkhan, what would be involved in porting over some old dos games? Would HUC (pardon my newbieness on the subject) be enough to start? Or do we have to learn some crazy 8/16-bit ASM language to even attempt this?

I joke about Ultima ][ for PCE alot. I may do it one day.

You probably already know this: http://xu4.sourceforge.net/
Not exactly Ultima 2, but something to think about..

[Arkhan Asylum]

I know all about XU4.

HuC could handle porting many old ass DOS games.

Adventure games of the early 80s could be done in HuC no problem.  The problem comes when you need fast-paced games.  Slow games will do fine in HuC.

Any of the Ultima games, Questron, Eternal Dagger, the GoldBox games.   Could be done with HuC.

stuff like Wing Commander, Commander Keen, shit like that..  probably needs asm to get far.

Ultima ][ is a game dying for a rebirth.  It had one of the better stories from the series.  Minax comes and fucks with Earth to get her revenge.  Totally hardcore.

[nat]

I'd kill to see Commander Keen 5, 6, or Keen Dreams (with music!) done up properly on the Turbo. I'm probably the only one, though.

[Mathius]

I'd kill to see Commander Keen 5, 6, or Keen Dreams (with music!) done up properly on the Turbo. I'm probably the only one, though.

Nope

[BigusSchmuck]

I second the Commander Keen games. Hmm, I guess I better get back to using HuC again, didn't have much luck last time I played with it. About the furthest I got was a lame scrolling demo and thats about it. Its too bad that there isn't a qbasic (or any other basic) compiler that compiles programs so you can use em on your turbo...

[Arkhan Asylum]

I second the Commander Keen games. Hmm, I guess I better get back to using HuC again, didn't have much luck last time I played with it. About the furthest I got was a lame scrolling demo and thats about it. Its too bad that there isn't a qbasic (or any other basic) compiler that compiles programs so you can use em on your turbo...

There is.  It's called DEVELO, and there was a BASIC version and a Assembly version.

The BASIC version has limited power, obviously.

You could probably make Commander Keen in HuC, dude!  Get to it!  We need more developers.  Don't be shy or afraid that you won't get far.  When I showed up I had no clue what the fuck I was doing!

and you can hit up Aetherbyte's forum for questions... or find us on IRC too.  We're mostly active in #pcedev on both efnet and rizon.

feel free to PM me for moar infos.


and, lol Keen Dreams.   EAT YOUR VEGETABLES!

[Joe Redifer]

and who are you to tell people "get a life", really?

You seem to want to argue.  I don't.  I also don't like Might and Magic.  I honestly do find them boring.  That doesn't mean that YOU have to change your opinion about it and nor do I.  Deal with it like a man.

[SignOfZeta]

I don't really think everything Arkhan says should be taken so seriously. I don't think he really intends it to be. He's both young and a programmer, so his life experiences are going to be pretty...scant. He'll get better.

[Arkhan Asylum]

You seem to want to argue.  I don't.  I also don't like Might and Magic.  I honestly do find them boring.  That doesn't mean that YOU have to change your opinion about it and nor do I.  Deal with it like a man.

"get a life" has nothing to do with M&M.  

I don't call this arguing.  This is really just me seeing how far you care to take your bold claims/sarcastic insults.  Apparently, you don't want to go too far with them.

Telling a game programmer/player/collector to "get a life" when you're the moderator on the forum is pretty goddamn stupid anyways for numerous reasons.

I don't really think everything Arkhan says should be taken so seriously. I don't think he really intends it to be. He's both young and a programmer, so his life experiences are going to be pretty...scant. He'll get better.

uhhhh...What does that have to do with realizing that most modern day gamers are complete dumbfucks?  It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure it out.  None of this has to do with life experiences.  It also doesn't take a life-hardened old fucker to figure it out either.  People are fixated on profiles/status more than game skills.  People are also fixated more on graphics and frilly shit.   Welcome to 2011 gaming.  The majority is stupid.  I think most people here would tend to agree.  Does that mean they're all clueless about life too?

[nat]

and, lol Keen Dreams.   EAT YOUR VEGETABLES!

Keen Dreams is a classic of legendary proportions. 

[Arkhan Asylum]

and, lol Keen Dreams.   EAT YOUR VEGETABLES!

Keen Dreams is a classic of legendary proportions. 

ever see the interview with Bobby Prince where he talks about making the intro music for the game?

[nat]

Yeah, I've seen that, it's pretty amusing.

They ended up using that track in Keen 4 in a few of the levels.

[Arkhan Asylum]

Yeah, I've seen that, it's pretty amusing.

They ended up using that track in Keen 4 in a few of the levels.

yeah in the underwater level.

Commander Keen needs to come back. 

[SNKNostalgia]

Funny, I just saw this thread today and read through it.

Anyways, I can give some perspective of really legitimate reasons to why the TG-16 didn't fair well overall. I remember this time in my childhood vividly, due to my borderline OCD and great long term memory.  This is just how I and many others roughly saw things back then.

1. Third party support: No games from Konami, Capcom, Tecmo, Technos, and other third parties at that level. This of course was due to Nintendo being a greedy bitch and not letting third party companies make games for other consoles without penalty. Sega did OK starting out due to a few top arcade titles, a real 16-bit feel to it and then Sonic giving them the great boost in sales.

2. Marketing: There were no major system sellers for what most people perceived to be awesome games on it. Don't get me wrong, there are some great games that we here enjoy the hell out of. This is not the case in the eyes of your average kid used to playing major NES titles like Super Mario Bros, Mega Man, Contra, Ninja Gaiden, and so on in the early years. Then later on games like Actraiser, Zelda 3, Sonic, Streets of Rage, major arcade ports, etc.... This really boils down to appealing image of games, solid fun gameplay, character design and other marketing methods.

In the US, there just wasn't all too many titles that struck even my interest when the TG-16 first came out and when I owned one in 1991. I didn't even know what games were the ones to really get due to me being the only one owning one in my area, no commercials and no store demos. I remember really wanting Bloody Wolf, Ys 1+2, and later on Lords of Thunder. I just saw some of these games on shelves at EB Games, in Gamepro mags and a few flyers really. Compared to SNES and Genesis games though... I will be honest, my interest in TG-16 games didn't measure up. Remember, this is all back when I was like 9-12 years old and had friends that owned and showed me the other 16-bit consoles.

3. It isn't 16-bit like, it is, it isn't, but it is...: When it first came out, it seemed like a more powerful NES than it did an arcade like 16-bit console. It wasn't until later that it really matched the quality of the SNES and Genesis roughly '91-92. It took the CD-rom and Super CD-rom to finally achieve the same level and a few HuCards (Cadash, Air Zonk, Magical Chase are great examples).

I swear, if the Turbo Duo just stuck it out for another two years... we would have seen some really good titles in the US. Other game companies finally got the green light to develop games for it. We might have gotten some great CD titles like Gradius 2, Dracula X, Double Dragon 2, and so on. It still wouldn't have matched up commercially to the SNES and Genesis, but at least we would have gotten a lot more out of it.

[Joe Redifer]

I don't really think everything Arkhan says should be taken so seriously.

He seems to disagree with that assessment.

Telling a game programmer/player/collector to "get a life" when you're the moderator on the forum is pretty goddamn stupid anyways for numerous reasons.

Please, enlighten me.  You're the one having the spaz attack, telling me to fuck off and the such.  There's no rule anywhere that says mods have to cater to everyone's precious feelings.  But if you have a problem with me, do what I tell everyone else to do.  Go to Aaron.  Complaining to me will do no good.  Only Keranu gives less of a shit about moderating these particular forums than I do.

Anyway, while you may not like the state of gaming these days, that does not mean the people who do are stupid.  There is nothing wrong with achievements, trophies, etc.  The thing that sucks are the idiots who are achievement/trophy whores and borrow/rent games just for the sake of getting some trophies or whatnot in a vein effort for e-respect.  Believe it or not, idiots like this also existed in the 8/16-bit era.  They're the ones who sent in their high scores to anyone who would accept them.  There were no shortages of idiots then and plenty of idiots still like that generation of systems now.  The bottom line is that people are idiots in general, modern/retro/whathaveyou gaming does not make them idiots.  It's perfectly fine not to like modern gaming, but expressing your opinion in such a whiny way really makes you sound a bit "get off my lawn"-ish, if you now what I mean.  But there's nothing wrong with wanting to achieve a trophy or a high score.  We have a high-score thread or two here, don't we?  High scores and achievements say the exact same thing; "Look how good I am at this game".  Big deal.  Life goes on.

[BigusSchmuck]

You know, I did find this while searching the web:
http://clonekeen.sourceforge.net/
If I'm going to do this, probably going to start out with the open sourced projects first. Eventually, I want to port over Dominus, but that may be too late into the Dos game era (1994) and finding the source or even cracking the source is going to be hard enough. First off, time to dust off my old C books and go from there. If I recall correctly, HuC is based off vanilla C, not C++ unless things have changed. Probably should start another topic on this too, this thread is getting all hi-jacked. Thanks Arkhan, going to attempt this seriously now.

[Arkhan Asylum]

Please, enlighten me.  You're the one having the spaz attack, telling me to fuck off and the such.  There's no rule anywhere that says mods have to cater to everyone's precious feelings. 

Spaz attack? lol. no not really.  It's not a spaz attack until I start photoshopping your face into compromising images.  This is just how I talk.  You should know this by now.

As for enlightenment, it's assumed if you're moderating a forum, you at least have some semblance of respect for the people involved and aren't going to be like hurrrrrr you like games too much, get a life hurhrrrrr.

Only Keranu gives less of a shit about moderating these particular forums than I do.

Well that's good to know.  So is Nat the only one who gives a shit?  Why are you a moderator if you don't care?  Don't want to get rid of your magical powers?

Anyway, while you may not like the state of gaming these days, that does not mean the people who do are stupid.  There is nothing wrong with achievements, trophies, etc. 

When trophies are used to artificially extend the playtime of a game, there is something wrong.  Did you know there were so many people complaining about a lack of trophies on the PS3 that Sony had to put the crap in?  People were buying Xbox 360 over PS3 when they owned both systems, just for achievements. 

The thing that sucks are the idiots who are achievement/trophy whores and borrow/rent games just for the sake of getting some trophies or whatnot in a vein effort for e-respect. 

They're all idiots.  9/10 gamers these days are this ^^^

Believe it or not, idiots like this also existed in the 8/16-bit era.  They're the ones who sent in their high scores to anyone who would accept them.  There were no shortages of idiots then and plenty of idiots still like that generation of systems now. 

The difference being, there was no dumbassed online-system-specific rating system used to categorize how people play a game.  You had to earn your rep the real way, not by dicking off in games doing piddly things a 10 year old can do.  Also, the high score fanatics of the 8/16 bit era actually had talent.  Achievement whores don't really have talent/skill.   

but expressing your opinion in such a whiny way really makes you sound a bit "get off my lawn"-ish, if you now what I mean. 

It only sounds whiny if you've never heard me go off about this crap in person.  It's more angry than whiney.  But, I am sure you'll continue to believe it's whiney since that makes you feel better.

But there's nothing wrong with wanting to achieve a trophy or a high score.  We have a high-score thread or two here, don't we?  High scores and achievements say the exact same thing; "Look how good I am at this game".  Big deal.  Life goes on.

-_-;;;;;;;;;;

You haven't made the connection yet, even though I explained it:

GAMER SCORE is not a high score in a game.  It's the collective point total of all your lame ass achievments.  Most people with high gamer scores can't even touch the high scores on this forum.  Games don't even have scores now really.  They just have stupid little objectives that shouldn't exist in a game because they're dumb.  Games today require little skill to beat.

Do you even play the 360 and know what I am talking about? 

Ever play Bioshock?  You know what the penalty for dying is?  You respawn, along with all of the weapons/ammo in the level.  The boss health doesn't reset.  So, why bother trying?  Just keep dying/respawning/beating at the boss. Who cares?  You get infinite retries.

no effort.  People turned into pansies and wan't lazy/easy success, followed by huge rewards in the forum of e-penis points

[spenoza]

OK, this is nice and all, but I think this thread is not the place for it.

Also, I liked Bioshock OK. Wouldn't have paid more than $10 for it, but for $10 it was fun.

[Arkhan Asylum]

OK, this is nice and all, but I think this thread is not the place for it.

Also, I liked Bioshock OK. Wouldn't have paid more than $10 for it, but for $10 it was fun.

and for 59.99$ , it was a total waste of time. 

Overhyped horsepee

[spenoza]

OK, this is nice and all, but I think this thread is not the place for it.

Also, I liked Bioshock OK. Wouldn't have paid more than $10 for it, but for $10 it was fun.

and for 59.99$ , it was a total waste of time. 

Overhyped horsepee

Well, I wouldn't pay $59.99 these days for any game, no matter the system. As I have somewhat less time in my life right now for games, my valuations of them have changed. Abstractly, though, I agree, $60 was probably too much for Bioshock. Still, I thought it was a fun game and worth some reasonable sum of money to play for those who like those kinds of games.

Anyone remember what the most expensive US TG game cost at the time? I know most new games came out at $49.99, but surely there were some pricier ones.

[geise]

I totally agree with arkhan about the whole trophies/gamer score crap.  I was playing Otomedius excellent for the first time.  When I played it for a second time and decided to choose a different character I got a trophy just for selecting a new character.    That's the stupid shit Arkhan is talking about.  Then it goes in and is added to your total gamer score.

[Arkhan Asylum]

I know chrono trigger cost me 74.95$, and it was worth every penny when I was 7.

I got that and Pirates of Dark Water for SNES.  Both games were well worth the money.

[jlued686]

Holy shit: who gives a fuck? This thread is officially dead...

[SignOfZeta]

Anyone remember what the most expensive US TG game cost at the time? I know most new games came out at $49.99, but surely there were some pricier ones.

I'm pretty sure $50 was the max, some were cheaper. US SNES games were all over the place. Many were $50 or $60 and they maxed at $82.99 (Chrono Trigger at EB), Genesis games were almost always $50 or less except for Phantasy Star IV which was an insane $99.99 (the only game I can think of that was more expensive in the US than it was in Japan).

PC Engine games were also quite cheap in Japan. The Mega Drive might as well not have even existed, releases were so few and crappy and rare I can hardly remember any. Compared to SFC though PCE was downright cheap. Most could be had for $60-70 whereas SFC games, especially the RPGs, were routinely over $110, sometimes $125.

BTW, you "stay on topic" people can go fuck yourselves. This is a conversation here, not a presidential debate. We've got the rest of our lives to blather about this shit and few topics are significantly more important than any other when it comes to games.

[jlued686]

I agree, Zeta, but the forum pissing matches get old after about six pages of internet dick wagging.

[Arkhan Asylum]

Some of my MSX games have prices on them that today are pushing 90$.  I'm not sure what the conversion rates were in 1987 though... so maybe it was different.

[Arkhan Asylum]

I agree, Zeta, but the forum pissing matches get old after about six pages of internet dick wagging.

calm down.  it wasn't 6 pages.

it was like 5 and a half.

[jlued686]

Ha! You win.

[Nazi NecroPhile]

Bah!  Get a life, Ark. 

[Arkhan Asylum]

Bah!  Get a life, Ark. 

the cereal, or the board game?

[jlued686]

Back to the topic at hand - and I swear I'm not trying to be a topic nazi - I think this post got lost in the shit storm, but made some good points...

Funny, I just saw this thread today and read through it.

Anyways, I can give some perspective of really legitimate reasons to why the TG-16 didn't fair well overall. I remember this time in my childhood vividly, due to my borderline OCD and great long term memory.  This is just how I and many others roughly saw things back then.

1. Third party support: No games from Konami, Capcom, Tecmo, Technos, and other third parties at that level. This of course was due to Nintendo being a greedy bitch and not letting third party companies make games for other consoles without penalty. Sega did OK starting out due to a few top arcade titles, a real 16-bit feel to it and then Sonic giving them the great boost in sales.

2. Marketing: There were no major system sellers for what most people perceived to be awesome games on it. Don't get me wrong, there are some great games that we here enjoy the hell out of. This is not the case in the eyes of your average kid used to playing major NES titles like Super Mario Bros, Mega Man, Contra, Ninja Gaiden, and so on in the early years. Then later on games like Actraiser, Zelda 3, Sonic, Streets of Rage, major arcade ports, etc.... This really boils down to appealing image of games, solid fun gameplay, character design and other marketing methods.

In the US, there just wasn't all too many titles that struck even my interest when the TG-16 first came out and when I owned one in 1991. I didn't even know what games were the ones to really get due to me being the only one owning one in my area, no commercials and no store demos. I remember really wanting Bloody Wolf, Ys 1+2, and later on Lords of Thunder. I just saw some of these games on shelves at EB Games, in Gamepro mags and a few flyers really. Compared to SNES and Genesis games though... I will be honest, my interest in TG-16 games didn't measure up. Remember, this is all back when I was like 9-12 years old and had friends that owned and showed me the other 16-bit consoles.

3. It isn't 16-bit like, it is, it isn't, but it is...: When it first came out, it seemed like a more powerful NES than it did an arcade like 16-bit console. It wasn't until later that it really matched the quality of the SNES and Genesis roughly '91-92. It took the CD-rom and Super CD-rom to finally achieve the same level and a few HuCards (Cadash, Air Zonk, Magical Chase are great examples).

I swear, if the Turbo Duo just stuck it out for another two years... we would have seen some really good titles in the US. Other game companies finally got the green light to develop games for it. We might have gotten some great CD titles like Gradius 2, Dracula X, Double Dragon 2, and so on. It still wouldn't have matched up commercially to the SNES and Genesis, but at least we would have gotten a lot more out of it.

To me, the third party stuff is what hurt the most. Having Capcom, Konami, etc., on board in the US would have been huge as their games were immensely popular in the late 80s/early 90s.

[spenoza]

To me, the third party stuff is what hurt the most. Having Capcom, Konami, etc., on board in the US would have been huge as their games were immensely popular in the late 80s/early 90s.

But those 3rd party problems existed in Japan, as well. Capcom didn't develop a single game for the PCE. All the Capcom games on PCE were converted by other companies, usually NEC Avenue, and several did make it to the US. Konami didn't hop on the bandwagon until the PCE had been out for several years. I think the first PCE release from Konami was almost the very end of 1991. Assume Konami was interested in seeing their titles released in the US at all, there would have been a 6 mo to a year delay before their games were released here, meaning we wouldn't have seen anything until summer of 1992. By that time the TG was already hurting, and I'm not sure a couple Konami shooters would have turned things around.

I think the 3rd party games the TG would have really needed in order to succeed in the US didn't exist in Japan. Basically, the TG needed solid 3rd party support within the first 2, 2.5 years of life, primarily in the form of TurboChip releases. The TG had some great games available in that span, but not enough, and certainly nothing that made the system a must-have for most of the populace.

One reason the Genesis was so popular in the US despite not having a successful history outside of the arcades was that Sega hit their software hard. Sega, like Nintendo, cut deals with publishers and provided dev tools and assistance and whatnot in an effort to get things moving. Nintendo's anti-competitive behavior didn't seem to hinder the Genesis much the way we accuse it of hurting the TG-16. I think that should illustrate to us that a Nintendo handicap didn't have to be fatal for the TG.

In fact, I think both of these points make it pretty clear that Hudson/NEC's biggest problem was a lack of creative developers with insight to a market beyond Japan. Nintendo and Sega both had very strong first party titles that really carried their systems. While many of the best games on the TG/PCE were first party, they didn't have the kind of broad appeal that Sega and Nintendo managed. Sega and Nintendo were simply much stronger first party developers than NEC/Hudson.

[Joe Redifer]

You haven't made the connection yet, even though I explained it:

GAMER SCORE is not a high score in a game.  It's the collective point total of all your lame ass achievments.  Most people with high gamer scores can't even touch the high scores on this forum.  Games don't even have scores now really.  They just have stupid little objectives that shouldn't exist in a game because they're dumb.  Games today require little skill to beat.

Do you even play the 360 and know what I am talking about?

Overall GAMER SCORE wasn't really what I was talking about.  I agree that it is nothing more than an inflated e-penis.  What I was talking about was attempting to meet each objective within the game itself.  Players seem to like it.  Even retro games released on modern consoles have trophies, etc al.  I don't think that games need them, but they can add some fun to games once you're done with them.  I see where you're coming from, though.  Most modern games are one-time playthroughs with little emphasis on replay.  Although I think there is a place for games like this, I would also be very happy if there were more "pick-up-and-play" games that weren't regulated to the download service.  But anyway, nobody is forcing anyone to get all of the achievements/trophies.  I rarely do unless I REALLY like a game (like Burnout Paradise, Uncharted 2, etc).  You can turn all notifications and evidence of achievements off on the Xbox 360.

And yes, I own and play Xbox 360 and PS3.  I even have a Wii, but fuck that.

[Arkhan Asylum]

overall GAMER SCORE wasn't really what I was talking about.

oh. that's what I was talking about when you followed up with your witty "Space invaders has a high score" crap.



TRY TO BE RELEVANT.

[Joe Redifer]

No.

[Arkhan Asylum]

No.

how dare you irrelevantofy the thread. I think you need to get a life.

[Sadler]

 

I guess I should attempt to actually contribute something to this thread. When I think back to the games I wanted to play in the 16 bit era, it really was platformers like Bubsy and Earthworm Jim, RPGs like Secret of Mana and Final Fantasy, run 'n guns like Contra, fighting games like SF2 and beat 'em ups like TMNT. I was never too excited about Loom and Beyond Shadowgate or even OotG and Might and Magic. I had games like those on the computer, I wanted "console" games.

[Sadler]

I need to say this too: regardless of whether the box art was better in Japan (and I think in many cases this is debatable), I really don't think that had any measurable impact on TG16 sales. Have you guys ever really not bought a game because of awful box art?

[Arkhan Asylum]

I need to say this too: regardless of whether the box art was better in Japan (and I think in many cases this is debatable), I really don't think that had any measurable impact on TG16 sales. Have you guys ever really not bought a game because of awful box art?

no but I have bought awful games due to awesome box art

Deadly Towers, anyone? lol

[SignOfZeta]

I need to say this too: regardless of whether the box art was better in Japan (and I think in many cases this is debatable), I really don't think that had any measurable impact on TG16 sales. Have you guys ever really not bought a game because of awful box art?

Of course not, but I have bought the JP version of a game just to get a better box. I've done this...countless times.

[CrackTiger]

I need to say this too: regardless of whether the box art was better in Japan (and I think in many cases this is debatable), I really don't think that had any measurable impact on TG16 sales. Have you guys ever really not bought a game because of awful box art?

Especially considering that all North American consoles had lots of games with crappy cover art.