The TurboGrafx-16 Mini is my new favorite all-in-one mini retro console, but it's definitely not for everyone. I know, I know, when I reviewed the SEGA Genesis Mini last year I said THAT was my favorite, but the TurboGrafx-16 Mini has bumped it out of the top-spot thanks to a solid selection of obscure games and oodles of M2-emulation charm.
That said, the TurboGrafx-16 was never a mainstream console, but it was historically significant. It was the first console of the 16-bit generation, although its CPU was only 8-bit. It was also the first to feature CD-ROMs, all the way back in 1988. The Mini celebrates the history of the TurboGrafx-16, but with the bulk of its games available only in Japanese and the relative obscurity of its English-language game selection, it's a niche product aimed at old people like me and not a mainstream audience.
More Like CharmingGrafx-16
The original, proprietary TurbGrafx-16 controller ports have been removed here in favor of USB, but that's fine. Other small details have been kept, like the little tab that moves over the end of the game card slot when you turn on the power switch, just like it does on the actual hardware. There's absolutely no reason for this feature to exist, and yet it does, just for the charm of it. I appreciate it almost as much as I appreciated the spring-loaded cartridge bay doors on the Genesis Mini.
My one gripe with the console's design is the plastic shell covering the power and HDMI ports on the back. I found it a little tricky to pop off, taking just a bit more force than I felt comfortable giving it on my first try. The shell keeps the TG-16 Mini looking accurate while at the same time hiding the ends of the HDMI and USB cables, making them appear to be hard-wired into the unit itself. It's pretty cool, actually, but it comes at the expense of easily swapping cables if you tend to move your consoles around a lot like I do.
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Inside the period appropriate, vaporwave-aesthetic box is an HDMI cable, USB power cable, the console itself, and a controller. Other than the small complaint with the plastic shell, my other beef is with the controller. You may have noticed I said "controller," and not "controllers." There's only one included with the TG-16 Mini, and that's one too few when you consider the quality of the multiplayer games included. If you want another controller, that’s $24.99 on top of the $99 console. Who sees a Bomberman game and thinks "can't wait to dive into that single-player story?" No one, that's who.
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It is possible to play Bomberman in its true, multiplayer glory with an optional multi-tap adapter that allows up to five players to compete. It costs an additional $29.99, plus another $100 for four more controllers. If you really need to play Bomberman '94 as the developers intended, it's pretty pricey.
One more potentially crucial omission from the box: an AC adapter. If you don't have a spare USB port or a wall adapter, you're looking at another $19.99 just to power it up. This doesn't bother me in the least, since I have AC adapters for USB devices all over the place. It just needs to be pointed out.
The included controller with the TurboGrafx-16 Mini is great. The Japanese PC Engine Mini, already available in the wild, includes an inferior, original-run controller without turbo-fire toggle switches. Another thing I love is the cord is super-long. It's at least 10-feet, which might hold the record for longest controller cable on a mini-console yet.
Serving Up the Classics
The menu for the TurboGrafx-16 interface is instantly recognizable if you're familiar with the SEGA Genesis Mini. It's almost as though this is a sequel to the earlier console, albeit with totally different games and ecosystems. The similarities in menu design are pretty obvious, but there are lots of cool extra touches with the TurboGrafx-16 Mini menu missing, or hidden, from the Genesis.
For example, there are PC Engine-kun wandering around the menu screens. PC Engine-kun is an anthropomorphized, pixelated version of the Japanese PC Engine, dozens of which wander around the background when navigating the menus. It can be turned on or off, but why? In this era of social distancing, PC Engine-kun, you’re just what I needed right now.
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There are five different display settings, four of which let you turn on CRT scanlines: 16:9, two different stretched 4:3 modes, and a pixel-perfect mode. The fifth and final is my favorite mode of all, the TurboExpress. If you're unfamiliar, the TurboExpress was a portable TurboGrafx-16 with a built-in TV tuner, and I only ever knew one kid who had one. The tiny screen was a massive eye-strainer, but the novelty of playing games of TurboGrafx caliber on-the-go made up for it. The filter gets it completely right: not only is it housed in a TurboExpress shell, but the screen-filter replicates the horrible picture of the original unit. It's so stupid and pointless, something I'll probably never use in a meaningful capacity, but I'm a sucker for that kind of thing.
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You can also switch between the TurboGrafx-16 and PC Engine from the main menu screen. Making the switch simulates the look of powering down an old CRT television. There's no reason for it to have that extra bit of flair, but it does, and once again it's something I love.
Other amazing touches to the interface include an animation of each card loading into the console. Better still, when you select a CD-ROM game, it loads the CD-ROM software card into the slot and a pixelated version of the TurboGrafx CD (or PC Engine CD, depending on which you're playing) pops up. That would be more than enough for my tastes, but again, we're talking about M2, whose commitment to pure delight seemingly knows no bounds. Before a game starts, the near-forgotten sound of a mechanical drive spinning up a CD plays and I almost fell into a nostalgia coma.
Oh Right, It Plays Games Too
Oh right, the games! There are 57 included with the TurboGrafx-16, but the majority of them are PC Engine releases… which is kind of a bummer because they’re all in Japanese, which I cannot read. But of the 57, 25 were released in the West, and they range from must-play retro games like Alien Crush and Splatterhouse all the way down to games like JJ & Jeff, a terrible side-scrolling garbage dump of a game which I played for the purpose of this review and will never again boot up. Overall, the selection is a classic shmup-lover's dream, with shooters being the predominant genre here.
On the PC Engine side of the interface, there are a few duplicates from the Western release line-up, but by and large it has a solid selection of games you've probably never played and its fair share of games you might not have even heard of. Similar to the TurboGrafx-16 line-up, they range from "awesome" games like Salamander, Ghosts n' Goblins, and Bomberman '94, to bizarre things like "The Genji and the Heiko Clans," a side-scrolling fever dream I don't think I ever want to play again.
Other PC Engine notables include the excellent Castlevania: Rondo of Blood, the famously bizarre Cho Aniki, and Ginga Fukei Densetsu Sapphire, an original copy of which will set you back a few hundred bucks on eBay. Having Hideo Kojima's Snatcher on the TurboGrafx-16 Mini had me briefly considering learning Japanese (it's easier to just find a walkthrough, FYI).
Hidden Gems
It wouldn't be an M2 product if it weren't hiding some secrets, and there are at least 3 hidden games on the TurboGrafx-16 Mini: Force Gear, Twin Bee Tanks, and the arcade version of Konami's Salamander. They're all excellent shooters, accessible through a series of button pushes during Salamander's loading animation. Their existence had me looking through every game, mashing buttons to see if I could unlock even more secrets. (Narrator's voice: I didn't)
from IGN Reviews https://ift.tt/34AQSJc
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