If you had worked at NEC/Hudson or T.T.I. back in the day...

[Shrapnoid]

What 10 PC-Engine ports would you have suggested be brought over to the U.S. and Europe?

I think these would have been a good start...

1. Double Dragon II
2. Heavy Unit
3. Operation Wolf
4. Outrun
5. Dracula X: Chi No Rondo
6. SF II: Dash
7. Final Soldier
8. Kazi Kuri: Ninja Action
9: Die Hard
10: Altered Beast

I know that some of these came later but, remember, we're just fantasizing here so, there's no need to be 100% accurate about release dates unless of course you have a time machine and are planning on taking a trip to the past to warn NEC and Hudson Soft about what all is going to happen.

[roflmao]

Spriggan
Star Parodier
Final Soldier
Dracula X
Ys 4
Kyukuhaspoaslkhjsd Tiger
After Burner II
River City Ransom
Double Dragon II
Street Fighter II

[Shrapnoid]

Spriggan
Star Parodier
Final Soldier
Dracula X
Ys 4
Kyukuhaspoaslkhjsd Tiger
After Burner II
River City Ransom
Double Dragon II
Street Fighter II

I came awfully close to putting After Burner II in my list as well and then, changed it to Outrun at the last minute.

EDIT: A double quote? How did I manage to do that? Well, it's fixed now.

[Sadler]

If we're talking pure fantasy, ignoring things like format and difficulty translating:

Castlevania
Ys IV
Legend of Xanadu I & II
Anearth Fantasy Story
SF2'
Schibibin Man 3
Star Parodier
Bomberman '94
Daimakaimura

[CrackTiger]

I wrote one or two letters a year to NEC/TTi with lists like this and told them everything I had, including PC Engine games and what my tastes were.

Dracula X
Fantasy Star Soldier
Tengai Makyou II
Tengai Makyou Fuun Kabuki Den
Ys IV
Neo Nectaris
World Heroes 2
Fatal Fury Special
Kabuki Itouryoden
Gullver Boy

[jayamine]

Mortal Kombat

[Arkhan Asylum]

Legend of Valkyrie
Dracula X
Spriggan
the rest of the Cosmic Fantasy games
Ys IV
Sorcerian
Kaze Kiri

[2X4]

Mortal Kombat

Hudson was offered an exclusive on Mortal Kombat, but they declined because "americans are tired of fighting games"...

[jayamine]

I know.

[esteban]

TerraCresta II
Volfied
Rock On
Spin Pair
Hatris
VolfieV
Rock On Special (SCD)
Spin Pair Detana!
Hatris 1990
etc.

[NecroPhile]

You're my hero, esteban!

[roflmao]

How could I have left etc. off my list!?  That one's my favorite.

[TheClash603]

Mortal Kombat

+1, just because it would've been the most interesting scenario.

[BigT]

From a commercial standpoint, Dracula X and Street Fighter II CE would be the best choices.

Snatcher might also have worked with reasonable marketing (not like the SegaCD release)

I would personally also like the rest of the Cosmic Fantasy Series.

Also, more good sports game could have helped the duo compete with the Genesis and SNES... a deal with EA would have been nice... John Madden Duo Football was actually a pretty good port, but too little too late... getting an NHL game would be a good thing...

[BigusSchmuck]

Releasing a duo that had the arcade card built in along with super grafx compatibility. Would have been awesome! Then again when the Turbo was relevant here in the U.S I was only a wee lad of 10 years old.

[Retrocool]

1: Macross 2036
2: Sapphire
3: Spriggan
4: Spriggan 2
5: Double Dragon 2
6: Ys IV
7: Dragon Slayer 2
8: Gotzeindiener
9: Snatcher
10: War of the Dead

Working Design
Cosmic Fantasty 3,4, 4-2
and
Any of the Neo Geo ports they promised....

[2X4]

I know.

Oopsy doo

[Shrapnoid]

Nice. Interesting choices. I should have chose some of those for my list.

Good idea, BigusSchmuck. They could've maybe called it something like "SuperGrafx Twin" or "Ultra Grafx" or something.

I feel for you, CrackTiger. It must've been painful to be ignored like that.

Let this be a lesson to console developers. LISTEN to your fans. We KNOW what we want.

[SignOfZeta]

Mortal Kombat

Hudson was offered an exclusive on Mortal Kombat, but they declined because "americans are tired of fighting games"...

This situation was heavily discussed in another thread. After looking at the dates of things and considering the financial realities of the time (exclusives aren't free) I think we basically decided it would have been money down the drain. A lot of money. If they had dumped money into this idea...those last few TG games, Godzilla, etc? They never would have come out because TTI would have gone under by then.

Anyway, if I were running TTI back when they existed I would have lobbied heavily for the following games.

Street Fighter II' - This one really is a no brainer, more so than anything.

Dracula X - The number 2 no brainer, by a hair.

Macross 2036 - Hell, %90 of all American Duo owners already knew about this game and wanted it pretty bad. The same people tended to be Robotech nerds as well.

Bomberman '94 - I fucking love this game.

Nexzer - we never got another "high end" shooter (i.e.: with cinema and such) after GoT/LoT, did we?

Cosmic Fantasy 3 - All my friends wanted this.

Ys IV - The sequel to everyone's favorite TG-16 game* never came out here. Bummer.

Kaze Kiri - This late in the game anything that wasn't a RPG or digital comic deserved attention, but even that aside, this thing is a lot of fun.

Rabio Lepus Special

Snatcher


BTW, these are not "ports" since the TG and PCE are the exact same system. They are merely localizations/translations/reprints. TTI didn't have the money to go making/porting things. That's crazy.

*Ys III never happened.

[TheClash603]

Mortal Kombat

Hudson was offered an exclusive on Mortal Kombat, but they declined because "americans are tired of fighting games"...

This situation was heavily discussed in another thread. After looking at the dates of things and considering the financial realities of the time (exclusives aren't free) I think we basically decided it would have been money down the drain. A lot of money. If they had dumped money into this idea...those last few TG games, Godzilla, etc? They never would have come out because TTI would have gone under by then.

I think that this is still the coolest "what if" scenario.  By the time MK was coming home, the system was already on the way out, as it was obviously not going to win the "console war."  Instead of going out with a whimper that not many people notice, why not at least make a splash?

Best case scenario, MK sells a ton of systems, prompting other publishers such as EA to get some games out on the system.  Worst case scenario the game doesn't recoup its investment, and the TG16 dies anyway.

The hype of MK can't be denied back in the day.  This is when I begged my parents for a Genesis and got one, and I had ZERO interest in a SNES.  I needed my MK with the blood code, and I wasn't the only one.  Mortal Monday is considered by many to be the tipping point, which put Sega firmly on the same ground as Nintendo.

Perhaps the TG16 had zero chance of catching up to those guys, even with MK.  However, maybe they could become relevant, perhaps to the point of being the only company to release MK2 on their stateside Super Grafx?  I know it is far fetched, but there really was a ton of hype and purchasing mania around MK, I honestly think anything would've been possible if they got the sole rights.

[SignOfZeta]

What if they lost money on every copy sold? They only had about $125.67 in the bank at that time. Would it be worth it then? For Mortal Fucking Kombat 1? This isn't Street Fighter II we are talking about, a game so fucking great people still play it all over the world in huge tournaments. It's Mortal Kombat 1.

Not worth it. Maybe from a perspective of "coolness" I could see it being worth tanking the entire company if it were some other game (Tengai Makyo II) but MK really really sucks. I wouldn't trade it for the last year of TTI games, that's for sure.

Regarding the Super Duo. A neat idea, but it makes zero sense for anyone with access to a calendar. The SGX was dead within the same year it came out, well before the Super CD format. Duos were invented to make playing Super CDs cheaper and easier. They came out later still. All the "Super" stuff in the Super Duo would have been added just to play 5 three year old games in a dead format? Makes no sense...

[jayamine]

Yeah, but considering the commercial success of Mortal Kombat, it might have been just what they needed. I don't care for the series either though ...

Funny, I remember calling TTI's customer service in (failing memory) March of 94 maybe and asking them if they were bringing Ys 4. I'll never forget what the lady said.

"Well, they gave us 1-3. Maybe we'll get that one too." Even as a kid I could tell she didn't know what she was talking about.

Post Script: What's hilarious is that now Mortal Kombat banners are popping up on the advertising at the bottom of this page  (at least for me). Stupid "smart" ad engines ...

[CrackTiger]

Mortal Kombat would have had less animation than the Game Gear version. I don't know if that would have sold systems.

Regarding the Super Duo. A neat idea, but it makes zero sense for anyone with access to a calendar. The SGX was dead within the same year it came out, well before the Super CD format. Duos were invented to make playing Super CDs cheaper and easier. They came out later still. All the "Super" stuff in the Super Duo would have been added just to play 5 three year old games in a dead format? Makes no sense...

The success of the PC Engine without SuperGrafx capabilities proves that it didn't need it. But the idea behind them having included SGX hardware in the Duo was that more games using SGX hardware would have been made (and on CD) and any given Super CD game could have had hardware layered bg scrolling and zero flicker. Even if only some games were bi-compatible and even if they only did what Darius Plus does, it would still eliminate flicker in games like Forgotten Worlds.

It's an idea that would be neat for us in hindsight if it could have been pulled off without losing any of the library that we actually got, if it means we could have new games or new features in games that exist. In reality, it would have increased hardware costs on hardware which already cost more than the competition and was unnecessary for the PCE to compete.

[soop]

If I had a time machine, the FIRST thing I would have done is find the guy that decided to change the classic look of the PC Engine to the monstrosity of the TG-16 and slapped him fired him before he made the decision.

After that... Porting Street Fighter II is a no brainer.  Then I would be releasing subsequent consoles with a 6 button pad bundled.  And Bomberman '94, I'd release that.  Then I'd make a few other hindsight-assisted choices so that the TG-16 would actually be pretty level with Sega and Nintendo about the time of Mortal Kombat, and we'd have that exclusive, even though, as usual I concur with Zeta that the game is a turd compared with SFII.

Now I'm gonna start a thread about multitaps.

[arromdee]

For questions like this I always wonder if the answer should be "what would we want as fans", "what would make the most money for the company", or "what could they realistically do?"  It's easy to say "port Street Fighter II", but the property is owned by Capcom and TTI would have to license it or convince Capcom to make it themselves.  Macross is even worse with respect to licensing; there's no chance they could untangle the Macross rights situation that is a problem to this day (We *still* don't have the DYRL movie on DVD because of this).  Dracula X is also a license; Castlevania is not owned by TTI.

Furthermore, they're competing with Nintendo, who likes to force companies into exclusivity contracts.

They might have been able to put out Ys IV or Cosmic Fantasy 3, but RPGs weren't as big then as they were after Final Fantasy 7.

Also, they would have had to drastically reduce the price of the system.  It was far too expensive.

[DesmondThe3rd]

If I were NEC back then I would have hired better artists to do their box covers, I wouldn't censor games like Splatterhouse and JJ & Jeff too much so that certain scenes don't any sense, I wouldn't call that game we got the real Legendary Axe 2, and most importantly I would added a second controller port on the Turbo especially if you're going to increase the size of the original PC Engine for no reason.
Also I wish we got Castlevania X, Neo Nectaris, Shinibunman3, Out Run, Ninja Gaiden, Gradius too.

[SignOfZeta]

Oh yeah. The art. For sure. That was hardly a problem unique to NEC back then, but WHAT THE FUCK was with some of that stuff? It's not like "good art" hadn't been invented by 1990 or something.

[guyjin]

What if they lost money on every copy sold? They only had about $125.67 in the bank at that time. Would it be worth it then? For Mortal Fucking Kombat 1? This isn't Street Fighter II we are talking about, a game so fucking great people still play it all over the world in huge tournaments. It's Mortal Kombat 1.

I think you're being a little unfair to MK. To my group of friends back then, at least, MK was a pretty big deal. Big enough that we were jealous of our few friends who had a Genesis because they got blood and accurate fatalities in their version. Turbo having MK as an exclusive would have moved quite a few systems. Maybe even enough to turn the Turbo into a break-even, rather than a loss.

More interestingly, what would a turbo-exclusive MK have done with the games rating systems? As it was, Nintendo used the opportunity to slander Sega - I'm sure NEC/Hudson, being even smaller fry, would have been positively stomped on. Would NEC/Hudson/TTi have had to come up with their own ratings system, or submit to the ESRB (or GRC?) Then again, there's no such thing as bad publicity.

Mortal Kombat would have had less animation than the Game Gear version. I don't know if that would have sold systems.

What makes you say that? It's not that different from SFII, and we know the PCE could pull that off.

Incidentally, are we assuming this would have been a hucard/turbochip, or a CD/SCD?

[CrackTiger]

What if they lost money on every copy sold? They only had about $125.67 in the bank at that time. Would it be worth it then? For Mortal Fucking Kombat 1? This isn't Street Fighter II we are talking about, a game so fucking great people still play it all over the world in huge tournaments. It's Mortal Kombat 1.

I think you're being a little unfair to MK. To my group of friends back then, at least, MK was a pretty big deal. Big enough that we were jealous of our few friends who had a Genesis because they got blood and accurate fatalities in their version. Turbo having MK as an exclusive would have moved quite a few systems. Maybe even enough to turn the Turbo into a break-even, rather than a loss.

More interestingly, what would a turbo-exclusive MK have done with the games rating systems? As it was, Nintendo used the opportunity to slander Sega - I'm sure NEC/Hudson, being even smaller fry, would have been positively stomped on. Would NEC/Hudson/TTi have had to come up with their own ratings system, or submit to the ESRB (or GRC?) Then again, there's no such thing as bad publicity.

Mortal Kombat would have had less animation than the Game Gear version. I don't know if that would have sold systems.

What makes you say that? It's not that different from SFII, and we know the PCE could pull that off.

Incidentally, are we assuming this would have been a hucard/turbochip, or a CD/SCD?

Part of the rumor/story that goes along with the offer was that it was to be a CD2 game.

NEC in Japan pulled off an adequate port of a console-optimized port of SFII and the high profile of of the game justified the development of the expensiive size-limit-surpassing hardware, which was never used again for any other game. I don't think that pride would have allowed any decent Japanese deveopers touch the game. Which leaves Probe or whoever to do the Sega-CD version with 1/12 the space and less audio hardware and zero knowledge of the TG-16 hardware.

[SignOfZeta]

Yeah, the Sega CD version was bad enough...it loads whenever Shang Tsun morphs.

[soop]

It's incredible that SFII was never regionalised considering how little work it would take.  Just the endings and the winning quotes AFAIK.  Not like you even have to translate it, it's already done, you just need to type it out.  Oh and the Bison/Vega/Balrog thing.

[SignOfZeta]

I think there were a lot of complicated politics surrounding SFII back then. Take for example the odd naming of the first Genesis version, presumably to appease the Capcom/Nintendo relationship after Capcom went multi platform with the series.

[CrackTiger]

It's incredible that SFII was never regionalised considering how little work it would take.  Just the endings and the winning quotes AFAIK.  Not like you even have to translate it, it's already done, you just need to type it out.  Oh and the Bison/Vega/Balrog thing.

The same can be said of hundreds of PC Engine games. The difficulty in localizing them wasn't the reason they weren't brought over.

[guyjin]

I think there were a lot of complicated politics surrounding SFII back then. Take for example the odd naming of the first Genesis version, presumably to appease the Capcom/Nintendo relationship after Capcom went multi platform with the series.

It wasn't "odd naming", it was, technically, a new version. Nintendo got SFII exclusively. Capcom went ahead and made a few minor changes, called it a new game, and released it multiplatform the next year.

[SignOfZeta]

I think there were a lot of complicated politics surrounding SFII back then. Take for example the odd naming of the first Genesis version, presumably to appease the Capcom/Nintendo relationship after Capcom went multi platform with the series.

It wasn't "odd naming", it was, technically, a new version. Nintendo got SFII exclusively. Capcom went ahead and made a few minor changes, called it a new game, and released it multiplatform the next year.

No. The first Genesis version was based on the third arcade version, SFII' Turbo. Turbo came out for Genesis and SNES at the same time (introducing the 6 button Genesis pad) but only the SNES version had the standard name. The Genesis one is called "Special Championship Edition" or some such thing, but it's Turbo, plain as day.

Contemporary SFII ports:

SFII - SNES
SFII' - PCE
SFII' Turbo - SNES, Genesis
Super SFII - SNES, Genesis
Super SFII Turbo (aka SFIIX) - 3DO

[esteban]

Contemporary SFII ports:

SFII - SNES
SFII' - PCE
SFII' Turbo - SNES, Genesis
Super SFII - SNES, Genesis
Super SFII Turbo (aka SFIIX) - 3DO
Strip Fighter II Turbo' - PCE

You missed one.

[DesmondThe3rd]

I wanted Mortal Kombat for the TG-16 so bad I did this:
/pic0024a.jpg

[Bernie]

I wanted Mortal Kombat for the TG-16 so bad I did this:
/pic0024a.jpg

lol.  Thats some funny shit right there.  I bet one of the guys here can actually fix it to where Mortal Kombat could be on the Turbo tho.  Hell, they did it with Mega Man. 

[DesmondThe3rd]

Is the Mega Man Turbo game ready yet?

[Colossus1574]

I wanted Mortal Kombat for the TG-16 so bad I did this:

YOUR video inspired me so bad I did THIS:  enjoy!


For all the MK haters out there, you got admit the sequel was a pretty decent game which improved over the 1st one in EVERY aspect.  Babalites and Friendship!!!

Anywayssss on a more serious note, this topic pains me to no end cause we all know how great the system was and it's "back then" potential here in N.America...it was just bad leadership from the top of the company on the US side.

Does anybody even know why NEC America was unable to release great 3rd party properties like NEC Japan? A few Capcom, Sega, Konami titles would of done wonders in Turbo's early days!

Save for the original system box, the graphic design was just brutal on all it's 1st few waves of games (Blazing Lazers? shit...what a travesty for such a graphically beautiful game). But they didn't even learn later anyways...Bravoman...yah...

The CD unit, the fact that it had soooo many great games (Japan side) that I think most of us here just couldn't/wouldn't even get our hands on them because the unit was so damn expensive. Maybe introducing a price drop earlier on it might've helped increase the user base therefore leading to my next point...

I also think it would've helped if they introduced the SuperCD or Duo here much earlier, by the time that tech came here, the TG name was already too far behind for consumers to give it a chance. I mean, i don't even remember retail stores selling the SuperCD system cards here, people had to special order them through ads in game magazines...

Anyways, easier said then done but if i was head of NEC/TTI back then, these would've been my concerns 

[DesmondThe3rd]

Damn, that's awesome!

[BigT]

Alright, now that the cover art is set, someone needs to remake Mortal Kombat I or II for the TG16... 

[FraGMarE]

Mortal Kombat would have had less animation than the Game Gear version. I don't know if that would have sold systems.

I'm sure they would have done it on 16Mbit+ HuCard.  It's the only logical choice outside of the Arcade Card for fighting games like SF2 and Mortal Kombat.

[Obfuscate]

Mortal Combat
Street Fighter 2

Ys 4
Dracula X

Spriggan
Fantasy Star Soldier
Nexzr
Rayxanber 2

Bomberman 94
Power Leauge 3 (Americans need more baseball games right?)

[CrackTiger]

Mortal Kombat would have had less animation than the Game Gear version. I don't know if that would have sold systems.

I'm sure they would have done it on 16Mbit+ HuCard.  It's the only logical choice outside of the Arcade Card for fighting games like SF2 and Mortal Kombat.

That's my point, what is logical is one of many fantasy scenarios. What is rumored to have been proposed (a CD2 game) would have turned out badly.

[Colossus1574]

Damn, that's awesome!

HAHAH, I hope you guys got a good laugh out of the bloody "Splatterhouse" warning on the bottom left 

Yah, it would have to be the 20bit SF2 hucard, or Arcade card for sure! My choice would be Arcade card to get the CD quality music, and it never would hurt to get more use out of that good ol' Arcade card!
CD2 wouldn't have cut it...remember the crappy fighting games like Martial Champion and Alcunos?....

[NecroPhile]

The amount of animation frames jammed into Dracula X and the goodness of Flash Hiders, Godzilla, and Asuka 120% lead me to believe that a quality SuperCD version of Mortal Kombat would've been doable.

[NightWolve]

I wanted Mortal Kombat for the TG-16 so bad I did this:

LOL! Were you high when you made this or are you just a naturally, excessively happy type of guy for no particular reason?? ;) I dunno, you seem to be having an awfully good time in that video and it can't be related to or explained by the subject matter that you're discussing if you ask me...

Well, I guess my list would go somethin' like this:

1. Dracula X  (no brainer)
2. Ys IV: DOY
3. Street Fighter II: CE
4. Mortal Kombat
5. Kaze Kiri
6. Summer Carnival '93: Nexzr Special  (loved shooters, so)
7. Sapphire
8. Macross 2036
9. Snatcher

Eh, kind of a rip off having looked at others' lists, but definitely the first four were no-brainers if my mindset was one of saving the system and being well-informed on gamers' tastes at the time. But then again, I noticed I'm being too lazy to really think this list out: Dracula X (1993) and Ys IV (1994) weren't localized because it was too late at that point, not because of ignorance or anything else... If I was doing my job and paying attention to the popularity of fighting game trends, as per DesmondThe3rd's video, and assuming MK/SFII helped the system survive a little longer, perhaps we could've got the other ones. Of course, there's still the issue of price already being discussed in the "What went wrong?" thread. Would the MK deal really have made a difference given the $299 price tag? It couldn't have hurt, but still doubtful...

[kazekirifx]

CD2 wouldn't have cut it...remember the crappy fighting games like Martial Champion and Alcunos?....

There are some decent fighters for Super CD too. I love Flash Hiders, and I actually quite enjoyed Asuka 120% Maxima Burning Fest.

[nat]

Oh yeah, there are at least a few damn good SuperCD fighters. I haven't played Martial Champion or Algunos, but Flash Hiders is excellent. Asuka and Advanced VG are also pretty good. And what about Godzilla?