The Official Turbografx 16 Thread!

[cybercylon]

6 hours ago, Razzie.P said:

I've been considering an experiment -  playing a Japanese rpg and using my phone's translation tools to see if A) it works and B) if I might learn a slight bit of Japanese while playing 

There are fan translations of a handful of games:

 

https://www.romhacking.net/?page=translations&genre=&platform=5&status=&languageid=12&perpage=20&order=&dir=&title=&author=&transsearch=Go

 

There might be a few more scattered here and there not on that site, but as jpkspsx said, many of the RPGs are completely unplayable (one of the Ys IV hack from that page covers everything though... even the limited voice acting was dubbed).

[Austin]

I have found phone translation apps also struggle with a lot of the pixel text from these old games. I have been able to work my way through some menus, but it’s iffy overall.

[+jgkspsx]

I had terrible luck on Game Gear, but that’s super chunky.

[SlidellMan]

21 hours ago, jgkspsx said:

They are both prerendered but that is a very surprising analogy, haha.

 

I am not sure what game plays most like DKC. Sonson 2? Bonk 2? Nothing really does.

The pre-rendered sprites made me compare the two. Aside from that, they have nothing in common.

[SlidellMan]

A little something from Jake Kaufman of Press Start and Shantae fame.

Adding PC-E/TG-16 support to Deflemask and Furnace was a wise decision.

[newtmonkey]

I dragged my PCE out of storage with the intention of completing a couple of in-progress games (Tengai Makyo ZIRIA, Ys IV), but instead ended up addicted to...

 

Tongueman's Logic

Tongueman's Logic is a freeware nonogram game by Chris Covell (download and info: official site).  Perhaps the most famous nonogram game is Mario's Picross (1995 [Game Boy]).  You're given a blank grid with numbers along the top and left sides.  You use these numbers to figure out which blocks should and should not be filled in; when you're done, you get a little picture.

 

Tongueman's Logic has tons of boards to solve, separated into categories of increasing difficulty and size, from tiny 5x5 puzzles that take seconds to solve, to massive 30x30 puzzles that may take 20+ minutes to complete.  There's a lot of content here for your money ($0), and your progress (solved boards) is saved to backup RAM.

 

There are also some nice quality of life features offered here, such as the ability to scroll or even scale the screen.  Somewhat suprisingly, the game has some pretty impressive graphics, with some nice "demoscene" type effects, tons of colors on-screen, and even an optional "high res" interlaced mode.

Edited June 26, 2023 by newtmonkey

[DragonGrafx-16]

14 minutes ago, newtmonkey said:

I dragged my PCE out of storage with the intention of completing a couple of in-progress games (Tengai Makyo ZIRIA, Ys IV), but instead ended up addicted to...

 

Tongueman's Logic

Tongueman's Logic is a freeware nonogram game by Chris Covell (download and info: official site).  Perhaps the most famous nonogram game is Mario's Picross (1995 [Game Boy]).  You're given a blank grid with numbers along the top and left sides.  You use these numbers to figure out which blocks should and should not be filled in; when you're done, you get a little picture.

 

Tongueman's Logic has tons of boards to solve, separated into categories of increasing difficulty and size, from tiny 5x5 puzzles that take seconds to solve, to massive 30x30 puzzles that may take 20+ minutes to complete.  There's a lot of content here for your money ($0), and your progress (solved boards) is saved to backup RAM.

 

There are also some nice quality of life features offered here, such as the ability to scroll or even scale the screen.  Somewhat suprisingly, the game has some pretty impressive graphics, with some nice "demoscene" type effects, tons of colors on-screen, and even an optional "high res" interlaced mode.

Cool... I wish it was on CD so I could play it on my console as I don't have an Everdrive.

[newtmonkey]

Tongueman's Logic

Due to the heat, I haven't been much in the mood to do anything other than play this while listening to music in the living room with the A/C blasting.  I'm still impressed with this homebrew title; it's so polished and good looking, that it could have easily been a commercial release back int the day.  Having said that, there seem to be a LOT of puzzles that you cannot solve simply through logic, and where you are forced to just guess based on what you think the picture might be.

 

I ran into one infuriating puzzle in the "Fun" (15x15) category, which nearly had me shut the game off.  You aren't given enough information to really do much of anything, and the picture itself isn't recognizable until you are nearly done with it.  I had no choice but to fill out the five (out of 225!) squares I could using the hints, and then just randomly guess along the edges in order to find something I could work off of.

 

It really does bring the game down quite a bit.  I think the developer should have a been a bit more careful with selecting images for the puzzles, to ensure that they can be solved based solely on the clues given on the sides.  Or, the game should have a "guess" mode that halts puzzle progress so you can make temporary guesses (and then either apply the guesses or revert to the previous state)... Mario's Super Picross (Wario mode) has this, and it's really necessary for puzzles without sufficient clues.

[newtmonkey]

Tongueman's Logic

I'm just a few puzzles away from clearing this, but the game has become an exercise in frustration.  I don't believe that many of the puzzles were checked to see if they were actually solvable by the rules of the game. This is only a minor annoyance with the smaller puzzles; if you have a situation where the clues suggest multiple valid solutions, you can usually guess which one is right by the pattern of the pixels you've uncovered so far.  Later on, with the 25x25 and 30x30 puzzles, it becomes a nightmare as you're sometimes left with only a smattering of pixels uncoverable by the rules, and are forced to just guess completely randomly in hope of finding something to build on.  Since you can only make five mistakes before losing the puzzle, it can be a very frustrating process of restarting difficult puzzles with knowledge from prior attempts.  It defeats the purpose of playing a nonogram game imo.

 

Tengai Makyo: ZIRIA

I made it pretty far into this game a year or two ago, but dropped it due to boredom.  I really want to check out the sequels, so I'm determined to complete this game by the end of the year.  I checked a walkthrough and it turns out I'm actually fairly close to the end; that's good news, because this game is sort of terrible.  I'll go into more detail why when I finally complete the game, but for now I'll just say this: it's completely blown away in scope, variety, complexity, graphics, and sound by Phantasy Star II (released the same year), and Dragon Quest III (release the prior year); hell, it's eclipsed in every way by even Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest II release two years prior!

[newtmonkey]

Tengai Makyo: ZIRIA

I am very close to completing this now.  It's very clear that this game was rushed, and there are so many weird things as a result.  You'll arrive at a town that sells upgraded equipment, but then five minutes later find even better stuff for free as part of the main quest.  Or you'll receive some awesome sword only to lose it five minutes later when you get captured.

 

The final area of the game presents you with a massive spike in difficulty.  Random encounter enemies all have their stats boosted to the extreme... hard to hit, tons of HPs, and capable of killing a character in two hits.

[SlidellMan]

I just got into making PC-E/TG-16 chiptunes with Furnace Tracker, and it has turned out easier than I thought. However, it will be some time before I release a WIP.

[+Black_Tiger]

8 hours ago, newtmonkey said:

Tengai Makyo: ZIRIA

I am very close to completing this now.  It's very clear that this game was rushed, and there are so many weird things as a result.  You'll arrive at a town that sells upgraded equipment, but then five minutes later find even better stuff for free as part of the main quest.  Or you'll receive some awesome sword only to lose it five minutes later when you get captured.

 

The final area of the game presents you with a massive spike in difficulty.  Random encounter enemies all have their stats boosted to the extreme... hard to hit, tons of HPs, and capable of killing a character in two hits.

 

Ziria was a very ambitious game with ahead of the time assets and was hoped to be the CD fornat's killer app at or near the hardware launch.

 

I don't remember exactly how it happened, but the entire project data was lost and they threw this version together in a short period of time.

 

There is a bit of video of the original version out there.

[newtmonkey]

Tengai Makyo: ZIRIA

Finished!

I checked some guides after clearing the game, and they all seemed to recommended grinding up to level 65 or so, but there was no need; my last save had me at level 50 (though I probably gained another 3-4 levels throughout the "boss rush" before the last boss), and I had no difficulty whatsover completing the game.  I was treated to a pretty decent ending, though.

 

I'm glad to get this one over with, and despite it being a pretty terrible RPG and game in general, I didn't completely hate it.  It has some good stuff (fun characters, interesting "magic" system), and a lot of bad stuff (graphics, overall structure, everything else).

I mentioned earlier that the game feels completely unbalanced and thrown together at the last minute, and from what I've read about its development, it's true.  The concept bounced back and forth between being a game and an animated feature, before everyone settled on making a killer app for the PC Engine CD-ROM².  The first version of the game actually made it into the prototype stage, and the footage I've seen looks very impressive, with large sprites walking around on maps, animated enemies and spells during encounters, etc.  It was apparently scrapped due to various problems the team encountered working with the new hardware.  Check it out here:

The second version was apparently an action-RPG, and this one apparently was nearly finished, but again scrapped due to trouble with the hardware.

 

The third version, which is the version that was ultimately released, was basically thrown together over the course of six months, and it shows.  It's full of copy-pasted content, the graphics are poor, and the balance is all over the place.  Without enough time to actually make a good game (or balance this one), the developers just put a bunch of band-aids on the game.  Whenever you hit a difficulty spike, the game immediately hands you some tool to completely negate it.  Toward the end, you have a technique that completely blocks all enemy attacks and another technique that completely blocks all enemy magic... these work 100% of the time, even on bosses.  This makes the final area, including a tedious "boss rush" against literally every boss you've defeated over the course of the game, a total cakewalk.  The last boss, by the way, is incapable of hurting you at any level, as the quest items you gather in his castle reduce his damage to 0.

 

---

 

With that done, I'm actually looking forward to the game's sequel, Tengai Makyou II: Manji MARU, which is much beloved by Japanese RPG fans.

[SlidellMan]

Iga Ninden Gaiou:

Nichibutsu's forgotten hack-&-slash platformer. It suffers from being too slow for its own good.

For those who missed Kaze Kiri before:

I bet if this had better level design and a camera, this would have been one of the best platform games on the system. Still, I'd like to see these two and Goetzdiener get fan translated.

[Yakumo1975]

Recently I've been in the mood to play PC Engine . I haven't used it in a good 6 months. Was surprised to find out the Avenue Pad 3 cable had become sticky. Be sure to clean your cables guys

 

Anyway, today I'm playing a overhead run'n gun called Mystic Formula by Micro Cabin.

 

 It looks great at 1440p on my LG.

You can tell the game was programmed poorly (as to be expected by Micro Cabin) because there's alsorts of crap the appears in the overs scan areas which you wouldn't normally see on a CRT.

In this case we have a double set of character specs.

 

I wonder which game influenced the design of this last boss 😛

Edited July 2, 2023 by Yakumo1975
Fixing image links

[SlidellMan]

Mystic Formula makes Iga Ninden Gaiou and Goetzdiener look like The Legendary Axe and Bonk's Adventure.

However, in its defense, it isn't often that you see any Super CD Run-&-Gun games. If anyone decides to make a translation patch for this game, they should at least fix some of the glitches that MicroCabin left behind.

[Yakumo1975]

1 hour ago, SlidellMan said:

Mystic Formula makes Iga Ninden Gaiou and Goetzdiener look like The Legendary Axe and Bonk's Adventure.

However, in its defense, it isn't often that you see any Super CD Run-&-Gun games. If anyone decides to make a translation patch for this game, they should at least fix some of the glitches that MicroCabin left behind.

They'd need to fix quite a lot of sound glitches as well as having to press start twice to continue.  Such a sloppy developer. 

[SlidellMan]

Super Raiden:

 

[Hwlngmad]

On 7/2/2023 at 10:46 AM, Yakumo1975 said:

Recently I've been in the mood to play PC Engine . I haven't used it in a good 6 months. Was surprised to find out the Avenue Pad 3 cable had become sticky. Be sure to clean your cables guys

 

Anyway, today I'm playing a overhead run'n gun called Mystic Formula by Micro Cabin.

 

 It looks great at 1440p on my LG.

You can tell the game was programmed poorly (as to be expected by Micro Cabin) because there's alsorts of crap the appears in the overs scan areas which you wouldn't normally see on a CRT.

In this case we have a double set of character specs.

 

I wonder which game influenced the design of this last boss 😛

Looks interesting.  May try and give this a go sometime.

[+jgkspsx]

17 hours ago, SlidellMan said:

Super Raiden:

 

Sure looks a lot like regular Raiden  

[DragonGrafx-16]

6 minutes ago, jgkspsx said:

Sure looks a lot like regular Raiden  

Biggest difference is the arranged soundtrack.

[+jgkspsx]

Yeah. And not a difference for the better 😬

[DragonGrafx-16]

2 minutes ago, jgkspsx said:

Yeah. And not a difference for the better 😬

It would have been amazing with a heavy metal arranged version of the sound track but I guess that was too expensive and so they went with a version recorded from a rompler synth. Was very common with CD games then.

The game predate's Go Sato's band, Heavy Metal Raiden but a re-released version of Raiden with music by Go Sato would be sick, much like the remixed music in Raiden IVx Mikado Remix.

[SlidellMan]

By the way, the HuCard version of Raiden was released stateside. Too bad that it now comes with a high price tag.

[newtmonkey]

Dragon Slayer: The Legend of Heroes

I've always been curious about this one, since it's from Falcom's heyday.  It leaves a good first impression, with a great CD soundtrack (and, impressively, the option to switch to a chiptune version of the soundtrack to reduce loading, which actually sounds really good) and some charming graphics reminiscent of Ys I/II.  Combat is also blazingly fast.

 

However, that good impression doesn't last very long.  This is the first RPG I've ever played that has mandatory grinding as some sort of built-in mechanic.  I'm not saying that the game requires you to grind to get powerful enough to beat bosses (though that's also true)... I'm saying that you will reach a point early in the game where characters start telling you stuff like, "we're too weak to go on, we need to be at least level 8 for this part."  In a parody RPG that would be funny, but not in what is meant to be a pretty serious game.

 

It gets worse.  The game actually flags events required to make progress in the game, based on your level.  I've played and completed dozens of RPGs, and this is the first time I've seen such a thing.

 

For example, in order to get a required NPC to join your party you need to be at least level 5 (he literally tells you this btw). Then, in order to continue to the next area just two screens away, you then need to be at least level 8 (a helpful NPC tells you the level requirement).  These are not recommedations; the game literally prevents you from progressing.

 

After doing that, I was able to enter the next area, but the boss absolutely slaughtered me in the first round (he casts a silence spell right away, so the powerful wizard character that just joined is rendered completely useless).  He has hundreds of HPs, and my attacks were doing 2 points of damage; literally impossible at level 8.  A helpful NPC tells me that the boss is a "level 11 fighter," so I guess I need to grind up some more levels.

 

---

 

It's supposed to be a pretty short game, so I might just grind my way through it while listening to some podcasts or something.  So far, this gets a 1/5.

Edited July 4, 2023 by newtmonkey