Turbo facts

[CrackTiger]

I don't remember if this is one of the articles posted during the past year, but I know that the author is worshipped as a retro-gaming expert and an authority that too many people turn to for 16-bit facts.

http://www.usgamer.net/articles/turbografx-16-at-25-remembering-the-little-pc-engine-that-could

The mid-generational technology of the TurboGrafx made it ideally suited for shooting action ? the hardware had the power to push lots of sprites, but at the same time it didn't have the ability to render quite as much color and detail as the Genesis and Super NES, which made for a cleaner look ? a godsend for fast-paced shooters crammed with countless fast-moving objects. The system has become something of a legend to shooter fans, and rare or Japan-only releases like Sapphire and Magical Chase command impossibly high prices.

The lower-color and lower detail 8-bit graphics make PCE games better suited to shooters, since the extra color and detail is obviously what causes Super Gradius III to constantly chug.

If Magical Chase is already so expensive, imagine how much a Turbo version would go for today if it had actually  been released in North America!

"I really think the arcade-oriented library of the system really makes it unique for the time period," says Bunch. "The NES was definitely not focused on those burst, pick-up-and-play for 10-20 minutes type of games, nor are the Genesis or SNES libraries for the most part. TG16 has the shooters, arcade ports like Splatterhouse and Cadash, arcade-ish games like Parasol Stars and the Crush pinball titles... sure, if you're good, you can last a while, but the console never struck me as the home of the mascot platformer like its counterparts ended up being. Even things like Bonk or Keith Courage are definitely not the norm for the console library, to me.

The reason I as a Genesis fan at the time, who resented the TG-16 for being competition, fell in love with the console during my first real interaction with it, is because it was exactly what I had wanted all along from the Genesis: 16-bit console-style games and not what the Genesis was known for: arcade-style games.

The bundled game we got, Keith Courage in Alpha Zones, might be the worst pack-in game in history," says TG16 enthusiast Marshall Martin. "At least, it was the worst until that point. Much too 'Japanese' for a seven-year-old to appreciate.

Seven year olds were apparently more interested in games like Las Vega Poker Black Jack, Snail Maze, Gyromite and World Class Track Meet or the common pack-in of "nothing".

[NecroPhile]

Parish is bad enough (did you know Dracula X is a spinoff?), but these goobers he's quoted really take the cake.

[_Paul]

See the tit in the comments who is saying that 'Sapphire' is the least important word in the title 'Ginga Fukei Densetsu Sapphire'?

Also some guy used to play 'Sword of Sodan' on the TG16. *boggle*

[Arkhan Asylum]

Why don't these fuckups talk to people who aren't fuckups.

[CrackTiger]

On another break at work, read some more:

Technologically speaking, NEC's console didn't hold a candle to Sega's — but that didn't matter so much in its home territory, where its only competition for the first year of its life came from Nintendo's aging Famicom.

I'm sure he'd say the same about the Genesis not holding any candles compared the almighty SNES.


The problem with all of these revisionists is that the experts writing the guides and the "experts" they use quotes from are all the kind of people who actually need guides like this (done right) in order to learn even the basics of unpopular consoles. It's even more troubling how much they get wrong about famous systems like Genesis and SNES.

Imagine if you wrote an article about Nintendo in the same style, anout how substandard their products were and/or how quickly they cell behind? You get people following you around the internet downvoting anything they can and spamming negative comments on anything related to you.

[pulstar]

The problem is people who read this tripe will be quoting these 'facts' and not realise they were spewing tripe as well. I love videogame journalism like this - half-assed and not researched. More please.

[Gentlegamer]

I think I posted a thread about Parish's article when it when it was published last August.

Even though it offered a remarkably diverse lineup by the end of 1989, ranging from brawlers to shooters to strategy games, the TurboGrafx library simply didn't connect with American gamers the way Nintendo and Sega's games did. NEC leaned heavily on Japanese-developed games from Hudson and partners like Namco and Atlus; fewer than 20 of TurboGrafx-16's official U.S. releases came from Western studios.

I don't understand how this is a criticism for that time period. The success of the NES came on the shoulders of almost wholly Japanese third party games.

 Within a year of the Genesis launch, Sega had a line of top-flight American sports games locked down.

I'm pretty sure not one of those initial sports games were American aside from the celebrity endorsement tacked on. The were all Japanese developed.

The article keeps beating the drum that TG-16 being 'too Japanese' was the cause of its market difficulty; no mention is made of the importance of marketing and how NEC was unprepared to adjust its tactics of big city advertising to USA.

After reading over the article again, I'm convinced the community here could write a much better retrospective.

[EvilEvoIX]

He really dropped the ball on saying the system couldn't handle color, it's obviously one of it's strongest characteristics.  I have to agree with him on Keith Courage being a bad pack in game, I never did like that game, I don't hate it, but the pack in game should have been Blazing Lasers.  That game impresses me to this day and REALLY shows off what the Turbo can do over the Genesis (Color!) and the SNES (SPEED!).

That change alone I think would have helped the Turbo in the States Dramatically.  I really liked BONK as well but I beat it the first time I ever played it so it definitely needed more depth and difficulty.

[CrackTiger]

Although I agree that other games would have been better overall pack-ins (I think R-Type would have been best), there was no reason to have a pack-in counter a non-existent console from the future in a way that no one knew would be a shortcoming of that non-existent console.

[PCEngineHell]

What hurt the Turbo was not enough games, lame box art early on, and not enough advertising for the good games it did have. The early TV ads I would see in the morning were actually pretty cool, but they served more as an advertisement for the system itself and were too interested in attacking the Nes, as opposed to the Genesis which was the real threat. The individual games needed more ads too and NEC didn't seem to get that until Splatterhouse and Bonk's Adventure was released.

You can make the system look powerful all you want in a tv ad, which is even easier to do when you only compare it to the Nes, but unless the average gaming consumer started seeing lots of cutting edge, cool looking games being advertised they wont bite. Normal consumers were a lot less informed back then and relied on word of mouth, tv ads, rentals, and magazines for their game info.

Sega had a grasp of how it all worked here after the Master System fail. Nec of America though just didn't get it. They were too busy marketing the system like they would any of their other high end consumer electronics, focusing on the hardware mainly. They had a potentially superior product to the Genesis, but they simply forgot why. The games sell the system, the system doesn't sell the games. They didn't tap into that extensive Japanese library enough. The exact same library that crushed the Mega Drive.

Also, what could have helped a bit would have been Nec releasing all those Sega ports the PCE got over here in the NA market. Running advertisements in magazines or in a commercial of Sega arcade classics, Altered Beast CD, Shinobi, Outrun, Thunderblade, and Afterburner in addition to the Space Harrier and Fantasy Zone we already got, running on the Turbografx would have been a good way to blind side Sega marketing wise, in addition to looking good on a retail shelf.

Anyway, outside of the Johnny Turbo shit, the TTi crew did have a better grasp of things. They were just too little too late. You cant come along almost 3 years later and expect to drastically turn the tide, especially when you have no Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter 2 to offer up. It was unrealistic of them, but TTi did at least get some pretty cool games released here before things ended for the system in NA.

[seieienbu]

For the life of me, I will NEVER understand why people call Kieth Courage the worst pack-in game.  Even ignoring less commonly known pack-in games like Gyromite, are there people who think that Altered Beast is some fantastic work of gaming literature?  Honestly, that game is boring and bad.  I've never understood why people seem to think that it's better than Kieth Courage.

[technozombie]

For the life of me, I will NEVER understand why people call Kieth Courage the worst pack-in game.  Even ignoring less commonly known pack-in games like Gyromite, are there people who think that Altered Beast is some fantastic work of gaming literature?  Honestly, that game is boring and bad.  I've never understood why people seem to think that it's better than Kieth Courage.

Although, I agree with you about the quality of Altered Beast, as a game it was visually striking and at least had an arcade presence. I'm with Blacktiger that R-type would have been best, if not for name recognition alone. I think the biggest hurdle to the Tg's success was how long they took to get it out in the U.S. I think even 6 months before the Genesis would have gone a long way for building mind share among the gaming public.

[ToyMachine78]

What hurt the Turbo was not enough games, lame box art early on, and not enough advertising for the good games it did have. The early TV ads I would see in the morning were actually pretty cool, but they served more as an advertisement for the system itself and were too interested in attacking the Nes, as opposed to the Genesis which was the real threat. The individual games needed more ads too and NEC didn't seem to get that until Splatterhouse and Bonk's Adventure was released.

You can make the system look powerful all you want in a tv ad, which is even easier to do when you only compare it to the Nes, but unless the average gaming consumer started seeing lots of cutting edge, cool looking games being advertised they wont bite. Normal consumers were a lot less informed back then and relied on word of mouth, tv ads, rentals, and magazines for their game info.

Sega had a grasp of how it all worked here after the Master System fail. Nec of America though just didn't get it. They were too busy marketing the system like they would any of their other high end consumer electronics, focusing on the hardware mainly. They had a potentially superior product to the Genesis, but they simply forgot why. The games sell the system, the system doesn't sell the games. They didn't tap into that extensive Japanese library enough. The exact same library that crushed the Mega Drive.

Also, what could have helped a bit would have been Nec releasing all those Sega ports the PCE got over here in the NA market. Running advertisements in magazines or in a commercial of Sega arcade classics, Altered Beast CD, Shinobi, Outrun, Thunderblade, and Afterburner in addition to the Space Harrier and Fantasy Zone we already got, running on the Turbografx would have been a good way to blind side Sega marketing wise, in addition to looking good on a retail shelf.

Anyway, outside of the Johnny Turbo shit, the TTi crew did have a better grasp of things. They were just too little too late. You cant come along almost 3 years later and expect to drastically turn the tide, especially when you have no Mortal Kombat or Street Fighter 2 to offer up. It was unrealistic of them, but TTi did at least get some pretty cool games released here before things ended for the system in NA.

"Lame box art early on" <====== This... The games reeked of shittyness from the box art alone. Who would want to gamble on that.  Two, I think a lack of genre variety, which goes hand in hand with not enough games. There were very few good platformers, and hardly no RPGs or beat'em ups unless you had the CD/Super CD.

[ToyMachine78]

For the life of me, I will NEVER understand why people call Kieth Courage the worst pack-in game.  Even ignoring less commonly known pack-in games like Gyromite, are there people who think that Altered Beast is some fantastic work of gaming literature?  Honestly, that game is boring and bad.  I've never understood why people seem to think that it's better than Kieth Courage.

Altered Beast was no digital masterpiece, but at least it was familiar to the NA market due to the arcade.

KC gets my vote for worst pack in. I still remember how let down I was with it. I played through the first level, then saw the second level was more of the exact same.... Time to pop in Splatter house and Legendary Axe.

Pole Position for the 7800 was a better pack in lol

[CrackTiger]

For the life of me, I will NEVER understand why people call Kieth Courage the worst pack-in game.  Even ignoring less commonly known pack-in games like Gyromite, are there people who think that Altered Beast is some fantastic work of gaming literature?  Honestly, that game is boring and bad.  I've never understood why people seem to think that it's better than Kieth Courage.

Altered Beast was no digital masterpiece, but at least it was familiar to the NA market due to the arcade.

KC gets my vote for worst pack in. I still remember how let down I was with it. I played through the first level, then saw the second level was more of the exact same.... Time to pop in Splatter house and Legendary Axe.

Pole Position for the 7800 was a better pack in lol

You must have been really let down by Super Mario Bros then.

[ToyMachine78]

For the life of me, I will NEVER understand why people call Kieth Courage the worst pack-in game.  Even ignoring less commonly known pack-in games like Gyromite, are there people who think that Altered Beast is some fantastic work of gaming literature?  Honestly, that game is boring and bad.  I've never understood why people seem to think that it's better than Kieth Courage.

Altered Beast was no digital masterpiece, but at least it was familiar to the NA market due to the arcade.

KC gets my vote for worst pack in. I still remember how let down I was with it. I played through the first level, then saw the second level was more of the exact same.... Time to pop in Splatter house and Legendary Axe.

Pole Position for the 7800 was a better pack in lol

You must have been really let down by Super Mario Bros then.

No way. SMB was familiar from the arcade. Had catchier music and more engaging gameplay. It was just more fun.

[Gentlegamer]

For the life of me, I will NEVER understand why people call Kieth Courage the worst pack-in game.  Even ignoring less commonly known pack-in games like Gyromite, are there people who think that Altered Beast is some fantastic work of gaming literature?  Honestly, that game is boring and bad.  I've never understood why people seem to think that it's better than Kieth Courage.

Altered Beast was better in that it was a recognizable arcade game that looked and sounded impressive, even if the game itself is mediocre. And of course, the Genesis didn't really take off until Sonic the Hedgehog became the pack-in game.

Keith Courage looks and plays like a slightly prettier but mediocre NES game.

[Arkhan Asylum]

Keith Courage would have been much more recognizable if

AMERICA HAD THE FUCKING CARTOON ON TV.

HEY LETS LOCALIZE A CARTOON GAME THAT DOESN'T EXIST IN USA.

SEEMS

LEGIT.

[Bloufo]

Altered Beast was better in that it was a recognizable arcade game that looked and sounded impressive, even if the game itself is mediocre. And of course, the Genesis didn't really take off until Sonic the Hedgehog became the pack-in game.

Off-topic here but that took some balls to put Sonic in as the bundled game.
I mean nobody makes much (if any) money on the sale of hardware and then they go and put their best title in with that hardware. Must have seemed to many that they were now giving up a high profit margin in doing so.
Credit to Kalinske for having that foresight.

[esteban]

Trüth: I have never purchased a game based on cover art. Flip the box and look at the screenshots.

BASIC LIFE LESSON: One of the first things a person learns is that packaging art (books, films, music, video games, cereal, candy, vitamins, pillow cases, etc.) does not necessarily have any connection to with the contents.

TRUTH #2: pretty screenshots ***will*** garner attention, quarters, purchases.

LESSON: We are not total imbeciles (we learned lesson #1), but we still are suckers for pretty screenshots.

[CrackTiger]

Altered Beast was better in that it was a recognizable arcade game that looked and sounded impressive, even if the game itself is mediocre. And of course, the Genesis didn't really take off until Sonic the Hedgehog became the pack-in game.

Off-topic here but that took some balls to put Sonic in as the bundled game.
I mean nobody makes much (if any) money on the sale of hardware and then they go and put their best title in with that hardware. Must have seemed to many that they were now giving up a high profit margin in doing so.
Credit to Kalinske for having that foresight.

It would be more noteworthy if the NES and Collecovision hadn't done the same thing from launch onward and if Nintendo wasn't packing-in Super Mario World with SNES systems at the time.

The Sonic pack-in sets were also sold for more than a regular Genesis, so it's not like they were giving them away. It only became noteworthy long after the 16-bit generation, when it was attributed to the success of the Genesis and interviews revealed that his bosses didn't like the idea.

[wildfruit]

Trüth: I have never purchased a game based on cover art. Flip the box and look at the screenshots.

BASIC LIFE LESSON: One of the first things a person learns is that packaging art (books, films, music, video games, cereal, candy, vitamins, pillow cases, etc.) does not necessarily have any connection to with the contents.

TRUTH #2: pretty screenshots ***will*** garner attention, quarters, purchases.

LESSON: We are not total imbeciles (we learned lesson #1), but we still are suckers for pretty screenshots.

I can think of one occasion where lesson #1 backfired. Rubbish box, nice screens on back, terrible game.
TRANSBOT.
All I learned that day was transbot sucks.

[EvilEvoIX]

For the life of me, I will NEVER understand why people call Kieth Courage the worst pack-in game.  Even ignoring less commonly known pack-in games like Gyromite, are there people who think that Altered Beast is some fantastic work of gaming literature?  Honestly, that game is boring and bad.  I've never understood why people seem to think that it's better than Kieth Courage.

Gyromite was a necessary evil at the time to get the NES on the Shelves with Rob the Robot.  You must remember that at the time Video Game Systems were a complete failure and all systems crashed in 1983.  Nintendo had to Market the NES as an Entertainment System and had a Robot, see not really a Video Game system but an entertainment center.  Stores would not stock Video Game Systems at the time.

[esteban]

Trüth: I have never purchased a game based on cover art. Flip the box and look at the screenshots.

BASIC LIFE LESSON: One of the first things a person learns is that packaging art (books, films, music, video games, cereal, candy, vitamins, pillow cases, etc.) does not necessarily have any connection to with the contents.

TRUTH #2: pretty screenshots ***will*** garner attention, quarters, purchases.

LESSON: We are not total imbeciles (we learned lesson #1), but we still are suckers for pretty screenshots.

I can think of one occasion where lesson #1 backfired. Rubbish box, nice screens on back, terrible game.
TRANSBOT.
All I learned that day was transbot sucks.

I have TransBot, too. I feel your pain from decades ago.

I'm surprised a transgendered robot didn't ruffle a few feathers back when it was released.

[Tatsujin]

lol, read this before. absolute hilarious nonsense.

[pulstar]

Trüth: I have never purchased a game based on cover art. Flip the box and look at the screenshots.

BASIC LIFE LESSON: One of the first things a person learns is that packaging art (books, films, music, video games, cereal, candy, vitamins, pillow cases, etc.) does not necessarily have any connection to with the contents.

TRUTH #2: pretty screenshots ***will*** garner attention, quarters, purchases.

LESSON: We are not total imbeciles (we learned lesson #1), but we still are suckers for pretty screenshots.

I can think of one occasion where lesson #1 backfired. Rubbish box, nice screens on back, terrible game.
TRANSBOT.
All I learned that day was transbot sucks.

I was almost suckered in to buy Transbot. Now I'm glad that I never bought it with my birthday money when I was a kid and I got Psycho Fox instead.

[_Paul]

Transbot's actaully a pretty good conversion from the arcade.

It's certainly better than My Hero which is stupid hard.

[wildfruit]

Transbot's actaully a pretty good conversion from the arcade.

It's certainly better than My Hero which is stupid hard.

I enjoyed it at first. Colour is great and the music, all two tunes of it, I actually find quite pleasant.  Then felt completely misled when it only took about 5 minutes to play through. At least it was my brother's money not mine.

[esteban]

Transbot's actaully a pretty good conversion from the arcade.

It's certainly better than My Hero which is stupid hard.

I enjoyed it at first. Colour is great and the music, all two tunes of it, I actually find quite pleasant.  Then felt completely misled when it only took about 5 minutes to play through. At least it was my brother's money not mine.

Exactly. Playing the same three levels over and over and over...

...at the very least, there could have been a creative attempt to have a few more "stages" that seemed distinct, even if they were minimal/creatively recycled assets.

The same with enemy patterns and enemy designs.

I know Sega Card was limited ROM size, so I don't expect more assets (graphics)...but I do expect some level design (short but sweet experience) or (longer, with recycled assets).

But that's OK, I kept my SMS and I still play Spy vs Spy, too.

[Gentlegamer]

Keith Courage would have been much more recognizable if

AMERICA HAD THE FUCKING CARTOON ON TV.

HEY LETS LOCALIZE A CARTOON GAME THAT DOESN'T EXIST IN USA.

SEEMS

LEGIT.

What would have been killer is a HuCard Macross game. That would have been perfect for 1989.

[VenomMacbeth]

What would have been killer is a HuCard Macross game. That would have been perfect for 1989.

That would have been perfect now.

Of course they would have had to release it under the bloody Robotech monicker in the states.

[_Paul]

Convert Transbot. Rename. Job done.

[pulstar]

Convert Transbot. Rename. Job done.

As long as you could choose between male or female robot livery and called it Trannybot, I'd be down for this.

[CrackTiger]

What would have been killer is a HuCard Macross game. That would have been perfect for 1989.

That would have been perfect now.

Of course they would have had to release it under the bloody Robotech monicker in the states.

They'd have had an easier time licensing a Nintendo game.

[PukeSter]

Transbot's actaully a pretty good conversion from the arcade.

It's certainly better than My Hero which is stupid hard.

Transbot is also a sequel to Orguss on the SG-1000.

And Kung Fu Kid is a sequel to Dragon Wang on SG-1000 also. ;)

[esteban]

Transbot's actaully a pretty good conversion from the arcade.

It's certainly better than My Hero which is stupid hard.

Transbot is also a sequel to Orguss on the SG-1000.

And Kung Fu Kid is a sequel to Dragon Wang on SG-1000 also. ;)

I didn't know about the lineage of either game. Thanks.

[_Paul]

Transbot's actaully a pretty good conversion from the arcade.

It's certainly better than My Hero which is stupid hard.

Transbot is also a sequel to Orguss on the SG-1000.

And Kung Fu Kid is a sequel to Dragon Wang on SG-1000 also. ;)

And Dragon Wang is the sequel to this.

/2zqhamf.png

[technozombie]

The second listing on Google when searching dragon Wang
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Dragon+Wang

[esteban]

I accidentally looked up Dragon Todger and Monkey Wang...

[bob]

I accidentally looked up Dragon Todger and Monkey Wang...

"accidentally"

[esteban]

I accidentally looked up Dragon Todger and Monkey Wang...

"accidentally"

Did I say "accidentally"?

I meant "routinely"

[CrackTiger]

Today I came across some more insightful info about the PC Engine hardware:

The PC Engine / Turbografx-16 has many flaws (Only 1 controller port; no light gun support; it can't do tilting effect...) but the fact that it can only display one sprite layer, which means it can't do parallax, is certainly its worst! 90% of the PCE / TG-16 library lacks parallax which make most of these games really flat looking, especially horrible about Arcade ports where the removal of the parallax is especially noticeable. & here we have a good example with Pac Land where even the Lynx, a handheld system (Though a powerful one), puts the PCE / TG-16 to shame!
 
Some developers still managed to do some parallax on PCE but it didn't happen often & in some cases it looks even worse, lol, like with Ninja Gaiden or Ys III.

I always wondered why 90% of the library lacked parallax, but now I understand that it is because unlike the Genesis and SNES, the PC Engine only has a single sprite layer.

[VenomMacbeth]

Even so, they managed to pull off some fantastic parallax (I'm guessing with tile animation?)  Go look up Dead Moon & Terraforming if you doubt me.

[OldMan]

Wow. Here I thought you could have sprites in front of -and- behind the background. Shows how much I know....

[CrackTiger]

Even so, they managed to pull off some fantastic parallax (I'm guessing with tile animation?)  Go look up Dead Moon & Terraforming if you doubt me.

That's one of the classic myths about how "real" parallax works. Thr SNES and Genesis do that kind of parallax the exact same way as the PC Engine typically does and in forums, video comments, etc the fans of those other consoles tend to be most impressed by this kind.

[VenomMacbeth]

Even so, they managed to pull off some fantastic parallax (I'm guessing with tile animation?)  Go look up Dead Moon & Terraforming if you doubt me.

That's one of the classic myths about how "real" parallax works. Thr SNES and Genesis do that kind of parallax the exact same way as the PC Engine typically does and in forums, video comments, etc the fans of those other consoles tend to be most impressed by this kind.

Could you explain this more in-depth?  Are you saying the SNES & Genny use dynamic tiles more often than separate scrolling background layers?

That does make sense; with the exception of occasional clouds, usually the parallax effect is used on the ground.  It seems silly to use an entire background later for a graphic that only takes up about an 8th of the screen, if that.

[CrackTiger]

Sliding strips of a tile layer and usually done just by literally sliding strips of the tile layer along at different speeds. Raster(?) effects like the swirly lava/firey bg in TFIII and the floors in SFII are also just sliding strips back and forth, but in strips as narrow as a single pixel/line.

Dynamic tiles are usually used in single-tile-layer hardware for the kinds of parallax that would usually involve two overlapping tile layers. But even some Genesis and likely SNES games use dynamic tiles to get extra layering.

There are other tricks as well. Tom wrote a text with a ascii art diagram making it easy to understand how the "invisible" color from the PCE tile palettes is esentially a third layer and can be incorporated for different types of parallax/layering.

The PCE can also change the color of each line of that furthest background color as each line of each frame is drawn(?). So you can create what looks identical to an independent scrolling tile layer of a color gradiant (which SNES games soam too often as it is). The first stage of the Turbo Magical Chase is a good example of that.

Something else the PCE can do is vertically slide horizontal strips of the tile layer. Again, it is used for all kinds of parallax and can create the illusion of many overlapping tile layers.

[VenomMacbeth]

Ahh, that clarified it even more.  I knew about the line scrolling effects, but I guess I didn't make the connection that the same technique could be used on a line of tiles.

Regarding dynamic tiles, would Sagaia or Choplifter on the SMS happen to use this effect?  Both have excellent parallax, but Sagaia even has the raster effects you mentioned.  I think Recca on the FC does the same thing. 

I just assumed that since those consoles ran on an 8-bit processor, the PCE used the same techniques.  I guess the dual grafx processors make overlapping tile layers possible?

[CrackTiger]

Bitness is irrelevant, just as sprites and tiles are just sprites and tiles, not 8-bit or 16-bit things. Tile layers, like sprites, are rendered by the gpu, which is 16-bit in the PCE. The only real comparative weakness of the PCE vs MD/SFC (single vs multiple tile layers), that youtube commenters and the like often point out as a sign of the system only being "8-bit"... is actually the major 16-bit part of the hardware. Some of the slightly more enlightened PCE detractors sometimes argue that the weak "8-bit" cpu couldn't handle any more than a single tile layer (completely ignoring how powerful the cpu obviously is at running 2D games).

But we don't have to theorize about an alternate reality, we already got a PC Engibe with a second tile layer AND an extra layer of sprites. The cpu is still the same, it still doesn't have any helper chips to offload sound duties like the Genesis and SNES do, and yet SuperGrafx games still toss around a crapload of sprites against overlapping tile layers without slowdown.

Sagaia and Choplifter just do line scrolling/h-sync(?) type stuff. Basically, if there is no reason for dynamic tiles, they almost always aren't used as they take up memory. But lots of SMS and NES ganes do use them. The SMS/GG in particular has some unbelievable stuff. Off the top of my head, the Jungle Book, Lion King, Cyber Shinobi(?), Robocod... there might he a youtube video out there with a lot of parallax examples.

Some NES games with dynamic tile parallax (including transparency) are Bucky O'Hare, Battletoads and that popular Mecha game.

Sonic 2 is one of the Genesis games I remember using dynamic tiles for extra layering.

[EvilEvoIX]

Al lot of these older systems can do Parallax scrolling.  Hell even the Atari 2600 has some games that do it.  The NES does it well too.  It's all up to the programmers and their talents.