Five games the Turbografx-16 Mini needs

The Turbografx-16 Mini is getting closer and closer.

The official Twitter account of the PC-Engine Mini (the Japanese version of the system) recently sent out a tweet showing the box art for the device.

This tweet had the two-fold effect of:

  1. Making me once again super excited for a product that is still roughly four months away.
  2. Making me sad about the now seemingly near 0% chance that any more games will be added to it.

On that first point, here’s where I express thanks and appreciation for what we are getting. Yes, it could be better (and we’ll be getting to that point shortly), but it is not lost on me that I get to both experience the nostalgia of some of my favorite games from my youth, but also I get to play the games that I never could at the time (all for a price point I can afford). That last point is HUGE, because the Japanese games that did NOT port over to the United States were oftentimes much better than their American counterparts. Trying to acquire them was difficult/expensive, so it became a non-starter.

I recall being insanely jealous that I couldn’t play Castlevania: Rondo of Blood or Street Fighter II on my Turbografx-16. But having already sunk money into the expensive CD add-on, I was wary of trying to jump through the financial hoops necessary to try to play these amazing games.

But in four months, that’s not going to be a problem anymore, because on the American version of this mini, they’re including games localized to America AND Japan, and that Japan lineup is pretty much just a bunch of kick-ass all-stars (and a few weirdos, but whatever).

But anyway, on to Point 2, which is the point [sic] of this article.

I feel there are still some pretty important games that are missing. I’ve hoped some of them might be added, but alas, that doesn’t seem likely.

Still, I’m ever the optimist. In this article I propose the manufacturer of this exciting system, Konami, make five simple additions to take this system from great to phenomenal. Konami could make the call to replace five games, just five games on this thing and it would be basically amazing.

Why five? Well, there are always going to be complaints about this game or that game, but you can’t go down that rabbit hole forever. You’ve got to cut it off somewhere.

I figured, let’s limit it to five because that’s not a big ask, but also because you could replace five games on here really easily without losing anything.

Which five? Easy: the five games that show up on here twice.

You see, in Konami’s decision to include games localized to America AND Japan, they also made the interesting decision when announcing the lineup to include Japanese and American translations of … some of the same games. So for example, they include Dungeon Explorer in English, but they also include it in Japanese. So, instead of a system of 57 games as advertised (which is VERY generous), it’s actually only 52 (which let’s be fair is still generous) because there are these five repeats:

Ys Book I&II
Dungeon Explorer
Neutopia
Neutopia II
Military Madness

If you’re getting yourself a PC Engine, you probably don’t need two versions of the same game. Same for the Turbografx-16. So whether you’re part of the Japanese or American audience, it really doesn’t matter. They’re producing three different versions of this system – just get the one that makes sense for you re: translations and games lists.

So boom, eliminate those five repeats, and you’ve got five open slots.

But how do you fill those five slots?

Well, it’s not super easy to narrow that down.

For example, for my own personal enjoyment and nostalgia purposes, I would love to see games from my youth like Valis III, Vigilante, and Bonk 3: Bonk’s Big Adventure on here. Similarly, there are games like Silent Debuggers, Ys III, Shockman, and Super Air Zonk: Rockabilly Paradise that I have never played and would really like to play today. I wouldn’t complain about any of those.

But can I sit here and say that any of those games will scratch the same itch for other people? Not necessarily. The idea here is to come up with the best possible five games for the widest possible audience.

With that said, here are my near misses and why I didn’t include them:

Devil’s Crush — This stellar pinball series is already represented with Alien Crush. Would I rather have Devil’s? Sure. I would trade them straight up right now without hesitating. But I’m not going to freak out about Devil’s not being included either. It’s not as glaring an omission as some other games, and when you look at the lineup in total, do you need two games out of 57 to be pinball games? Probably not.

A long list of Japanese shooters that includes Image Fight, Nexzr, and Parodius (among others) — There was no winning when it came time for the developers to take their pick from an amazing roster of shooters. They were always going to leave stuff out. Period. The roster is too damn big. Now, I would love to be able to play any of these bad boys and would trade some of the current roster away to do so, but I also know that tastes differ and you’re never going to get 100 percent agreement on any of these. The ones I mentioned? Ask someone else and they’ll mention three others. So we can move along without too much worry.

Bloody Wolf — This was another tough one. I’ve never played it. People swear by it. It looks kind of goofy, and I’m not a huge run-and-gun guy to begin with, but I know it’s well loved. I guess what I come back to with this one is: Is this a game that the system is known for? For some people it probably is, but I mean for a mass audience, is this one of those iconic TG16 titles? I’ll go out on a limb here and say barely not.

Beyond Shadowgate and Loom — Here are two point-and-click adventure games that are exceedingly well regarded in the gaming community but have the same problem that Bloody Wolf does: they’re not associated with the Turbografx-16 in mainstream, non-gaming circles in quite the same way. Also, do point-and-click games move the dial with gamers nowadays? I’m not sure that they do, but either way, the public can probably live without them on the mini.

It Came from the Desert and the Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective games — Leaving these out hurt me deeply. The Turbo CD was on the cutting edge of full motion video being included in games in the early 1990’s, and while looking at those games today they are without a doubt clunky and kind of ugly, they are also equally important as historical titles. These kinds of games were also closely associated with that specific platform (the Turbo CD) at the time too. I guess I just don’t think they’re quite up to the standard of the top five in either association or quality, but they also kind of feel like an afterthought here and that’s a shame.

The Legendary Axe 2 — A fairly drastic departure from The Legendary Axe, this sequel nevertheless has a big following and many consider it to be the superior game. I’m not sure. I mean, I absolutely endorse the argument for including at least one of the games, and once you’ve gone down that road, it’s kind of a take your pick situation because asking for both might be a little much. I just don’t think Legendary Axe 2 was quite as iconic as the first game, so here it sits.

Like I said, we’re limiting this to five. If we could ask for 10, I would include Devil’s Crush, It Came from the Desert, Beyond Shadowgate, Bloody Wolf and probably Parodius or one of the other shooters. (This is where you start picking nits and people start disagreeing about this game or that.)

So here we go: Five games to make the Turbografx-16 Mini as close to perfection as possible. If Konami and M2 are listening, these are the five I think would make the most people happy (as well as a Snatcher translation).

5. The Legendary Axe — Again, take your pick between this and its sequel. Ultimately, what broke the tie for me was that this was a launch title for the system, giving it a little added historical importance. I recall at the time being roughly as aware of this game as I was of Altered Beast for the Genesis — which was basically HUGELY aware. They were both advertised everywhere, and they were games that people associated strongly with their respective systems. And this game is much better than Altered Beast. I don’t know how you leave it off, to be honest.

4. Street Fighter II: Champion Edition — Yeah, it opens up a whole big can of worms because of the lack of six buttons and how do you rectify that easily? You don’t. So I get why it isn’t on here. But this thing was a technical marvel, and it deserves a wider audience. Like, it melts my brain that they fit this game on a CHIP. Not even a CD, it was on a chip. How in the hell did they do that? I don’t know, and I never will. What I do know is that people deserve a chance to experience it — by all accounts, it’s truly a marvel.

3. Magical Chase — This game is notorious among collectors for being stupidly expensive to acquire due to its scarcity as a late-system release. It’s a cute-em-up shooter and it has a genuine polish to it (as you might expect for it being a late system-life game) and it’s a game that is simply too hard for most people to acquire. Yet it deserves to be played and is a curiosity for many people. Konami included some pretty darn expensive/rare games on the Japanese side already, so why not throw this one on there too for American audiences?

2. Keith Courage in Alpha Zones — It was the pack-in game for the Turbografx-16. This was THE game associated with the system. Remember those kiosks at toy stores that ran games you could play to “sample” the gaming systems? Those things always had Keith Courage running. It was the most important game and the most recognizable game to any average Joe on the street, and leaving it off is as nonsensical as leaving Super Mario Bros. off the Nintendo. No. Just no. It’s not my favorite game or anything, but you can’t leave it off. The only thing worse would be…

1. Gate of Thunder — Oh hell no. Similar to Keith Courage, Gate of Thunder was the launch/pack-in title for the TurboDuo, which was essentially the TurboGrafx-16 and CD-addition on steroids. It gave you access to a whole different set of games with improved graphics and sound, and I can’t even begin to express how cool this thing was. Like, it was seriously sitting on the faces of the Super NES and Genesis and farting. But it was more money, so younger Dave passed (as did many others). Thusly, I didn’t get to play Gate of Thunder, which upon release was widely heralded as one of the greatest shooters of all time. It is still thought of in those terms to this day, and it also remains closely associated with the TG-16 (it was never released elsewhere until it popped up on the Wii shop awhile back). It is the one, giant, glaring omission, a game people should be able to play, and it’s the one reason I remain hopeful we can get a few more games added to the Turbografx-16 Mini before release. If there’s one game I’d like to see added more than any other, it’s this one.

Got any other suggestions? Anything I missed? Want to tweet this at Konami? Let me know about it!