SuperGrafx only saving grace is it’s ability to play the entire PC Engine library. If it weren’t for that fact this would be one of the greatest console failures right up there with the CDi, 32x, Virtual Boy & Jaguar just to name a few.
Every time I think of the SuperGrafx, I immediately think of the old Die Hard Gaming ads back in the day. They advertised the hell out of the SuperGrafx and that unreleased version of Strider. It was always "coming soon". Then a few months later, it disappeared altogether.
I remember DieHard Gamefan. I used to get that magazine on a subscription because they had high quality picsband even the paper they used to publish was an upgrade. I also still have the issue with the racist review that was published. Lol
Lol, that's what I think of too. Besides Strider, they listed a bunch of other "soon to be released" games but none came out. I wanted a SuperGrafx but the lack of games told me it was D.O.A.
Haha. Yeah man. So rich it only took months of saving and washing Pepsi trucks in the winter cold to get it. Had money falling out the crack of my ass indeed.
@@SegaLordX Oh yeah, they must have been "waking up in a motel room bath full of ice" money. But you must have paid a good $600-$700 for it. I remember my local import shop wanting £1200 ($1800) when the Sega Saturn first came out, but they were kind enough to give you a copy of Virtua Fighter for free :D But the most expensive thing I bought for years as a kid was a Super Wild Card for my SNES.
Yo Sega Lord! I truly appreciate your work on the SEGA Saturn and Sega Dreamcast! I binged on them videos many a time! Great video brother. PS: I'm from the same era as you.
@@EdgarFleming WiiU was mis-sold - its potential never realised as it had been unfortunate to become another 'Wii' console even though it has more in common with the switch (that gamepad) than the Wii. I dont believe gamers regularly use the Switch out of Dock mode in their home or regularly outside your home in portable mode lol (and yes, my og switch is 99% used in Dock Mode at home :D)
Growing up I was a Major NEC / TG 16 fan. I remember buying the system and the CD addon from TRU. I remember seeing the Supergrafx in a magazine and telling my grandparents it was the system I wanted for Christmas. Sadly it never came out.
I never paid much attention to nec back in the day I remember the bonks adventure commercials but I was always a Sega and Nintendo person myself but still find it interesting
I took a chance on a turbo graphx 16 at Toy's r us for $50 that included Keith Courage and Bonks Adventure, Keith was meh but Bonk was amazing, i liked it just as much as Super Mario world.
@@hpickettz34 Yeah. I never played any PCE/TG16 until many years later. Bonk was the first game I played and I was surprised how much fun that was. It definitely competes well with other mascot platformers.
Just discovering the Turbografx/supergrafx today(it was a bit before my time, but my first console was a genesis). The colors are SO rich in these consoles, it's amazing
I'm so thankful to myself back in 99/00 who bought the SuperGrafx as well as all the games. And also had foresight to mod with S-video and region switch :p From memory it was really cheap coz hardly anyone knew and wanted.
I never hear anything about the fact that the system came out during the バブル景気, baburu keiki, "bubble economy" which lasted from 86 to 91. The Neo Geo AES came out in 1990 and it cost more than the Supergraphx to own. It really all just boiled down to them abandoning support. The same for the Dreamcast. You can't have management that won't strand behind a product and expect a system to flourish.
Man ... over the years your format and narration has become very slick. Look forward to every new video. Thank you for inspiring me to get back into SEGA & gaming in general. This slightly obscure prospect is an interesting footnote in the NEC / Hudsonsoft saga - I'd like one for my collection... G'day from Australia 😎
@@jacobprayer8656 I think you better go climb your ladder Jacob, because if you're gonna go around the internet pointing out every grammatical mistake you'll be here till the crack of doom.
@@dexocube nah man that's more than a grammatical error. The guys sentence made no sense whatsoever. Also aren't you doing the same thing as him complaining about someone complaining lol
@@Ralph_Sandwich Bro, in real life many people have dyslexia or learning difficulties. Mocking them for it is just bullying. I don't like bullies. And I didn't complain, I took the piss out of him, because here in a virtual world taking the piss is as close as we can come to taking somebody down a peg or two.
Eric Estevez I’m just a fan of the game and want to try another version. I played the Genesis one to death. Supergrafx looks better, but I’ll have to reserve judgment on how it plays/sounds until I actually try it.
@@victor.elkins I think it looks a little better than the Genesis version. It has some nicer color use and it also probably benefits a bit from a larger ROM size(as the Genesis game would have if it was larger). But it's only a slight difference and certainly not worth the premium price of the game and a new system. I agree that the Genesis version sounds better(though I like the PCE game's sound). And the Genesis version has more options and infinite continues, so some may prefer that.
@simon woods Thank you. I've used the hidden options before in that game. Hidden options menus were quite common on PCE, and perhaps were just common for the time. As I recall, you can add continues, but they're still limited. Between infinite continues and the option to allow diagonal presses, some might still say the Genesis/Mega Drive version is more forgiving and preferable.
Don't buy that garbage. You can get all the roms online and load them on a pi or just play it in your PC. It's way overpriced and they won't even include subtitles that are also available online. Retro game collecting is being taken advantage of by these shitting companies banking on nostalgia.
You had access to imports at a young age?!? No freakin’ way! I wish I did that! But there weren’t any way us Canadians were able to get their hands on imports (I think). Or was there? You read import magazines/catalogues and placed orders the old-fashioned way? I did that at Sears before but sadly it is gone now. No longer can I order from catalogues which is sad because I had fond memories of doing it like that. I would always tell my mom what I wanted as I would circle down the desired item. As a kid, I’ve always wanted Japan-imported games (I was able to play those) but as of now, I own a bunch and I’m extremely thankful to have these because so many games only released in Japan are so fucking awesome. I wish I ordered from import magazines/catalogues like you did when I was younger. I’m jealous of you for that. Things are what they are.
Awesome video! I never heard of this console till now! I enjoyed learning something new about gaming! Even though a lot of people may have disliked the console i know you still have some good memories with! Have an awesome day everyone! Great Video SLX!
It would suck to be an early adopter of this thing! Imagine being all happy to have the next PC Engine, then only getting one crappy game and not even being able to buy another one for it for 4 months! People complain now when they don't have every genre and most major franchises represented at launch.
WooW! didint know only 5 games was released for this platform! Im from Argentina and never saw pc engine or turbografx (except by the european videogames magazines ) But it looks like a cool machine ! Great video as always Lord X! greetings!!!
Always loved that system even with the 5 games. Sadly, they are super expensive now to obtain.. has the superior version of Ghouls and Ghosts over the Genesis version.
Oh man! I remember seeing ads in the back of GamePro with pictures of up coming games and the photo of Strider looked incredible! I imagine it's a bitter pill to swallow paying a premium for a system that only had 5 releases.
5 games has got to be the lowest amount of games in the history of consoles. I cannot think of any other console that had so few releases. I don't know what they were thinking with such modest hardware improvements at such a high price for system and games. Being backward compatible, the games obviously didn't cost more to make, and at $400 they clearly weren't selling the console at a loss.
And then Hudson was brought by Konami the company that exploited their Creators treat their workers like s***t and and most of all ruined most of gaming's most beloved series like Castlevania for example and bringing back the turbo graphx 16
I feel sorry for any gamer that didn't grow up in the late 70s to 90s because you missed probably some of the best designed consoles in terms of looks you will ever see
I was kinda tempted to get a SuperGrafx back then but it was solely for Aldynes and I always thought that it was, obviously, not enough to justify acquiring the frigging thing. The SuperGrafx is probably the most puzzling system ever in gaming history. Way too expensive for what it is, even the games were overpriced (not all of them though, but the ones that mattered most were significantly more expensive than on competiting systems). Here are some date and price comparisons to get a better idea about the subject: Mega Drive console (1988-10-29 | ¥21,000) game prices: -Air Diver (1990-03-09 | ¥6,800) -Thunder Force III (1990-06-08 | ¥6,800) -Daimakaimura (1989-08-03 | ¥6,800) -Musha Aleste (1990-12-21 | ¥6,800) Supergrafx console (1989-11-30 | ¥39,800) game prices: -Battle Ace (1989-11-30 | ¥6,500) -Aldynes (1991-02-22 | ¥9,800) -Daimakaimura (1990-07-27 | ¥10,800) -1941: Counter Attack (1991-08-23 | ¥9,800) Super Famicom console (1990-11-21 | ¥25,000) no idea though about the game prices at the time in Japan. Someone knows? Anyway yeah, not sure about what were they thinking with the Supergrafx and not sure either about what it is trully capable of. It's basically a PC Engine but with 2x the GPU and more RAM. Other than that, same 8-bit CPU, same sound chip with still no sound CPU and also still no native RGB and still a single controller port so for that price, it's rather questionable. And the extra load of work from the second GPU might be too much to fully exploit for the main CPU. In fact, Supergrafx games tend to sound worse than some PC Engine games and barely sound better than some NES games more likely because the main CPU has little left to handle the sound.
@@Lightblue2222 well, as you can hear in this video, the games have rather cheap sound effects and the music is kinda mid-gen, just like the "regular" pc engine except that, as I said, there are some pc engine games that sound better than what's on supergrafx more likely because the CPU of the latter has more work to handle and thus less ressources available for sound
psyance_ql Well, good thing that Aldynes along with Ghouls 'n' Ghosts are going to be part of the TurboGrafx-16 Mini. I think those were only two Super Grafx games are going to be on the system.
@@DigiPen92 it's good and bad at the same time. good because this will allow more people to access those games legitimately (although since they were at it, they should have included all the five supergrafx games in the mini) but bad because it's supposed to be a *pc engine mini* yet it will include games that aren't just pc engine games but pc engine CD games and supergrafx games which is a crap move regarding gaming legacy (it'd have been better had konami released a pc engine mini first and a pc engine CD mini thereafter (but now you gonna say: but what about the supergrafx games? and yeah, this clearly would have been too much to ask for a supergrafx mini so maybe it's better this way afterall))
Ah the bullshits expert . "And the extra load of work from the second GPU might be too much to fully exploit for the main CPU. " I like the men that speakof things they don't know about . This add nothing to the CPU, is like to say that a second layer or sprites taxing the MD's CPU .Really guy stop speaking like you know something about programing. Aldynes or 1941 show you that the SGX can display more sprites on screnn than MD, without any slowdowns, even better 1941 is a 2 players game . For the 100 times, adding a second GPU adds nothing more for the CPU than MD or snes ones . To animate sprites or collisions between them for exemple, the pce cpu is faster than the Md 68k,and it's also the case for most of other tasks .
Thank you kind sir, only still Plodding thru the backlog of utube games you have made over tbe years as I've just found out about your channel. I am a big sega, esp JP MD but also peecee engine and snes. Keep up the good work sega lord god xxx
I think in 1989 I’d have been pretty damn impressed with Battle Ace. The entire catalog of 5 games there’s really no duds, the pricing is what ultimately killed this, because the games lineup was off to the right start!
The best thing about the SuperGrafx was the Super Cool Case... other than that it was nothing but another overpowered 8 bit machine. You would of thought NEC had all the experience having the least underpowered system (original PC Engine) compared to the MegaDrive and and SFC to make a nice true 16 bit system. I was 14 years old at the time and remember reading about the SuperGrafx on EGM as SushiX covered it quite a bit. There has been this long controversy of which version of Ghouls n Ghosts was better.. which was a first gen MegaDrive game and only 5 megabits I believe.. so I always wondered how a second gen version in an 8 megabit cart would of looked. I tell people to just look at Strider and how it turned out so close to the arcade version. Given that it had a third of the memory of the Capcom arcade game. The 68000 on the Megadrive was somewhat of an industry standard in arcade motherboards and it showed on almost every port when compared to every other console out there. There is a reason why SNK used it on the Neo Geo.. although that was a far more powerful system(faster CPU clock speed and mated to a Z80) and by comparison buttloads more memory, there is something to say about the processing power compared to the NECs and even the SFC's super slow CPU. I was able to see Ghouls n Ghosts on the SuperGrafx later in the early 90s as there was a store in the DC area that had imported systems and man I was disappointed when I saw it and heard it. That was also first time I saw Super Mario World on the Japanese SFC and man that was definitely a sight to see. But that is another story.. good video overall Sega Lord.
I remember the ads of this console in magazines and was so curious, too bad I wanted different consoles around besides the Genesis and SNES! I would have definitely bought one the graphics look so cool!!
It was the first game I got with my Snes (i got the one control deck with no game) so i played it a lot & got good at it & it was a great feeling beating it, really rewarding. Now the original 8bit version is really a nightmare.
The rush you get when you're close and you're perfectly "in the zone" and the feeling of accomplishment once you've conquered the game. It's a pretty unique feeling to know you're at the top of your game, especially when you're 13 or 14!
All we had was still images and screenshots in magazines of the original PC-Engine, so it garnered a bit of a cult status, here in the UK. We built it up to be literally 'arcade perfect' lol.
you could get import pc engine hardwares and games back then in UK and the system was officialy sold here, in france. my brother even bought his pc engine (a coregrafx model) in a supermarket :D but the pc engine was kinda overhyped in magazines, yeah, and while it has some genuinely great games and the CD add-on was groundbreaking at the time, it's still overrated and many games ended as being disappointement
As far as other means are concerned. An original wii with mednafen is easily one of the best options. Can do 480p via component cables but even better it has a 240p option for proper CRT use as well. I grew up with a Tg16 so I can say that the quality+accuracy of wii mednafen is ridiculously spot on for the pc engine/turbo/supergrafx.
I got to know about this (Turbographx 16 / PC Engine) because of Hi Score Girl. That console was inexistent in my country. Supergraphx, this is the very first time I hear about it.
great video many thanks. any chance of a video dedicated to the pc engine? you mention it with other consoles but those of us unfamiliar might appreciate a dedicated pc engine video especially with the mini coming out
Gambit771 the prices are off in this video. The console was roughly 565$ in today’s USD if you look up the JPY/USD exchange rate, then adjust for inflation. The price was high but not too far out of the ordinary for the time. 3d0 was like 1200$ at launch in today’s USD
@Emerald Danjon forgotten worlds and chiki chiki boys (megatwins) have tons of issues on pc engine. it's a shame because I really wanted to like that forgotten worlds port but the lack of parallax scrollings ruins it and also the awful loading times (ten second blackout before the bosses...), the lack of co-op, the constant sprite flickering... daimakaimura now that's a really good one (although far from "perfect" unlike what some people claim) but it wasn't done by NEC avenue but by alfa system instead and it's on supergrafx anyway and despite being released later, using a bigger cart (8 meg vs 5) and costing more, it's still barely better than the mega drive port (so imagine a mega drive port using a 8 meg cart too and released around the same time!)
I remember seeing this thing in EGM as a kid. Maybe my favourite hardware design ever, it's a shame it was so weirdly mishandled. It almost smacks of internal sabotage, like it was some exec's pet project but others in the company had it out for him or something. There's no way they had market data that this type of price tag or library could break even.
I recently confirmed that Darius Alpha is not SGX-enhanced at all. It may have the detection routines as Chris Covell and others have discussed but it has no enhancements what-so-ever. I confirmed this using UperGrafx UGX-02 which only outputs digital graphics from one of the two graphics chips. Output is 100% identical. I uploaded a short video to my Twitter a bit over a month ago (@CZroe)
As someone that was and still is a huge fan NEC/HUDSON's hardware from the beginning.. I just couldn't justify the massive expense of the SG, no matter how cool the actual console itself looked!! Was simply ludicrously overpriced and vastly under-supported by its makers.. That said though, hat's off to You SLX! Great video that clearly explains the pros and cons of an extremely niche part of gaming history. The best summation I've ever come across on the subject! Also, please keep adding Your honest take to Your videos. As it really helps to make things more approachable in general. PS: I was also a long time customer of Japan Video Games. The family that ran that place gave Me a great deal of My import game collection and were always easy to deal with. Sadly they got out selling games about a decade back. Now they just sell Collectibles, Figures & Toys. Internet pricing and import tariffs basically made it impossible to compete anymore! JVG was really cool though.
Remember seeing this in gaming mags. The TG16 cd was also expensive and games were slow to release. I thought the Duo got it right, but it was too late.
Thanks Sega lord I didn't know the supergrfix is different from the turbo 16...... What about the specs of the supergrfix? What's the difference with the genesis and snes and supergrafix? ¿???
I seem to have a habit of developing affection for systems with followups that tanked hard... Hyper Neogeo 64 and SuperGrafx both were complete failures, but they have their charms. At least the SuperGrafx is easily emulated... not so much with the HNG64.
I remember I wanted the SUPERGRAFX only for STRIDER... I never knew the game was cancelled until 5 years later.. So right now, I´m not very intereted in adding the SUPERGRAFX to my collection.
By the time NEC AVENUE finally got around to PCE Strider they and the system had lost all momentum. Shame really as Strider would probably have been so much better as a straight conversion as a SuperGrafx HuCard title , especially if it was developed & released in 1991...
I imported the Supergrafx around 1998 used. I was able to find Ghouls and Ghosts along with Gran Zort. It was ok. I also had a great hope that Strider was coming for system. I remember those mentions in the magazine's also. I did end up getting the Arcade card version of Strider later, but was not impressed. Even with CD sound, cinemas, 2 added levels, the Genesis version was alot better. Lots of flicker and smaller sprites on the Supergrafx. A great collector's piece if anything.
Man I thought owning a 32X was a bummer. I can’t imagine the sinking feeling that the early adopters must have felt as they waited for ANYTHING to come out.
It did play regular PC Engine games as well, so there were plenty of games for it. But the very few SuperGrafx games meant it really wasn't worth the much higher price tag. At least the thing wasn't a totally useless brick, but one would have been better off just getting a regular PCE and saving money.
Another great video. I love my super grafx. I have one and a turbo cd with arcade card. I use my everdrive card on my super grafx and cd games on my turbo cd. I think the 5 games for the SG are decent in my opinion. It was suppose to compete with the mega drive and super famicom. They rushed it and too few enhancements were given to it. The limited sound wasn't improved. I can see where that, price and too few games turned off Japanese gamers.
I think it annoyed the game developers too. They were happy to have a decent user base with PCE, then they suddenly had another system, with no users, to consider because NEC wanted to push an upgrade.
First of all the reasons why the SuperGrafx never really caught on is because of fierce 16 bit competition, next is there were just way too many delays on releasing games exclusively to the console and of course the lacking of variety of games across all genre's.
Fun look back at an odd system. One thing I like about the SGX is that it gives us a look at what the PC Engine would have been like with a second hardware background layer(and more sprites, but the BG layer is more noticeable). It would have been interesting to see what the system could have done and how far it could go, especially with the Super/Arcade CD games using the enhanced hardware. I know some have claimed that the CPU wasn't up for pushing the extra sprites, and that's not my area of expertise and I've heard credible assertions to the contrary, but it would be cool if we could have seen how far the CPU could have gone as well with this setup. I think it's natural to assume the five games came out at or not long after launch. I remember looking into the system and realizing it took nearly two years for the games to come out. I've blown a few minds with that bit of trivia. As cool as a game like Daimakaimura is, it's a tough proposition to get people to buy it at double the price of a standard game. Even if you were willing to buy a new piece of hardware for it, the MD was a far better choice and its port of the game was still excellent. I've always had a suspicion that Aldynes was originally designed to be a standard PCE game. The first stage doesn't look like it uses a second BG layer as I recall. Its parallax effects look like simple line scrolling, which is a very nice effect, but certainly possible on a standard PCE(and many other systems). Perhaps the stage boss is larger than normal due to extra sprites, but it doesn't look designed with the second layer in mind. Later stages make better use of it, however. It's like they switched it from the PCE to SGX after it was partly developed.
1941 "Except for when that damn low energy alarm is drowning everything out" LOL no doubt, one of the most stressful and annoying sounds in video gaming
I bought one when the price came down to $300 in Die Hard Gamefan. I would use money from selling previous systems and games. This is the time of my life when I learned what denial was. BTW Genesis G&G is ultimately the best version (even over the arcade). Being able to come back at the boss reduced frustration 100%.
Probably missed it, but do I need this specific console to run these games? I just got a modded PC engine duo R that does hucards and cds and is region free. Trying to build a collection and play these amazing games?
SuperGrafx only saving grace is it’s ability to play the entire PC Engine library. If it weren’t for that fact this would be one of the greatest console failures right up there with the CDi, 32x, Virtual Boy & Jaguar just to name a few.
Every time I think of the SuperGrafx, I immediately think of the old Die Hard Gaming ads back in the day. They advertised the hell out of the SuperGrafx and that unreleased version of Strider. It was always "coming soon". Then a few months later, it disappeared altogether.
I remember DieHard Gamefan. I used to get that magazine on a subscription because they had high quality picsband even the paper they used to publish was an upgrade. I also still have the issue with the racist review that was published. Lol
Lol, that's what I think of too. Besides Strider, they listed a bunch of other "soon to be released" games but none came out. I wanted a SuperGrafx but the lack of games told me it was D.O.A.
This console has so much potential for a really kickass homebrew community.
I would agree. I'd love to see someone really take advantage of it.
You owned one when they first came out? That's amazing, I wanted one too, but they were ridiculously expensive.
Haha. Yeah man. So rich it only took months of saving and washing Pepsi trucks in the winter cold to get it. Had money falling out the crack of my ass indeed.
@@SegaLordX Oh yeah, they must have been "waking up in a motel room bath full of ice" money. But you must have paid a good $600-$700 for it.
I remember my local import shop wanting £1200 ($1800) when the Sega Saturn first came out, but they were kind enough to give you a copy of Virtua Fighter for free :D
But the most expensive thing I bought for years as a kid was a Super Wild Card for my SNES.
@@0BRAINS0 It was more like trolling dude
@@0BRAINS0 The switch already exists and its cards are even smaller than hucards.
@@SegaLordX de ja vu on this video
I'll never forget one of my middle School friends calling this the "turbo grafx SHITstain". Ahhh memories
That Ghouls n Ghosts footage made me smile. Ya almost made it! Such a cruel game 😊
Yeah, I felt that little clip summed up the game so well.
The GG footage made me almost have a heart attack
Yo Sega Lord! I truly appreciate your work on the SEGA Saturn and Sega Dreamcast! I binged on them videos many a time! Great video brother. PS: I'm from the same era as you.
If you get frustrated at a horrible face you won't be the first
Every company gets drunk with success and arrogance comes with it making them think that gamers will buy any next console they put in the market
That's true with about games but not consoles nowadays.
@@quajay187 WiiU was a recent example of co. arrogance
Yep, Sega did same with the Sega CD / 32X....... Nintendo did the same with the N64.......Sony also with the PS3..... History repeats.....
@@EdgarFleming WiiU was mis-sold - its potential never realised as it had been unfortunate to become
another 'Wii' console even though it has more in common with the switch (that gamepad) than the Wii.
I dont believe gamers regularly use the Switch out of Dock mode in their home or regularly outside your home in portable mode lol (and yes, my og switch is 99% used in Dock Mode at home :D)
@@TheKayliedGamerChannel-TH-cam Microsoft did it with Xbox one
Love your channel, man. I just picked up Dark Savior today and thought about you haha
Growing up I was a Major NEC / TG 16 fan. I remember buying the system and the CD addon from TRU. I remember seeing the Supergrafx in a magazine and telling my grandparents it was the system I wanted for Christmas. Sadly it never came out.
I eventually picked this up about 20 years ago and all the games for it. It's definitely an oddity in the world of retro gaming.
i like the new intro.
ALL HAIL SEGA LORD X!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The Supergrafx is backwards compatible with hundreds (maybe thousands) of games. A small comfort to those who invested in one.
I never paid much attention to nec back in the day I remember the bonks adventure commercials but I was always a Sega and Nintendo person myself but still find it interesting
I took a chance on a turbo graphx 16 at Toy's r us for $50 that included Keith Courage and Bonks Adventure, Keith was meh but Bonk was amazing, i liked it just as much as Super Mario world.
@@hpickettz34
I was always intrigued by Bonk back in the day but ultimately never got to play it then. The demo units in stores always had Air Zonk.
@@hpickettz34 Yeah. I never played any PCE/TG16 until many years later. Bonk was the first game I played and I was surprised how much fun that was. It definitely competes well with other mascot platformers.
Well you missed out on lot of original and exclusive titles from that era then.
Just discovering the Turbografx/supergrafx today(it was a bit before my time, but my first console was a genesis). The colors are SO rich in these consoles, it's amazing
I'm so thankful to myself back in 99/00 who bought the SuperGrafx as well as all the games. And also had foresight to mod with S-video and region switch :p From memory it was really cheap coz hardly anyone knew and wanted.
Yep, cheap out-dated console with getting more expansive games, :-P !
I never hear anything about the fact that the system came out during the バブル景気, baburu keiki, "bubble economy" which lasted from 86 to 91. The Neo Geo AES came out in 1990 and it cost more than the Supergraphx to own. It really all just boiled down to them abandoning support. The same for the Dreamcast. You can't have management that won't strand behind a product and expect a system to flourish.
The PC Engine Supergraphfx makes the SEGA 32X and the Nintendo Virtual Boy look dame good in comparison.
Man ... over the years your format and narration has become very slick. Look forward to every new video. Thank you for inspiring me to get back into SEGA & gaming in general.
This slightly obscure prospect is an interesting footnote in the NEC / Hudsonsoft saga - I'd like one for my collection...
G'day from Australia 😎
Aldine and Ghouls and ghosts were great. I played them on the pc engine mini and lived them
The friends I still have today from befriending schoolmates I knew who had rare systems. Funny how life works.
Sentence structure, No idea have I what you say.
@@jacobprayer8656 I think you better go climb your ladder Jacob, because if you're gonna go around the internet pointing out every grammatical mistake you'll be here till the crack of doom.
@@dexocube nah man that's more than a grammatical error. The guys sentence made no sense whatsoever. Also aren't you doing the same thing as him complaining about someone complaining lol
@@Ralph_Sandwich Bro, in real life many people have dyslexia or learning difficulties. Mocking them for it is just bullying. I don't like bullies.
And I didn't complain, I took the piss out of him, because here in a virtual world taking the piss is as close as we can come to taking somebody down a peg or two.
@@dexocube dude, I was just teasing. I honestly can't understand the original comment. I can send you a donut to sit on if you are butt hurt.
Aw, hell yeah. Hardly ever see anyone talk about this baby.
This piece of trash you mean. 5 games? Lol if a company pulled that shit today people would go batshit crazy
The Super Grafx console looks like a manual credit card reader or something.
LOL! I remember those even though I was too young to have and use a card back in those days.
I’m REALLY looking forward to playing SuperGrafx Ghouls ‘n Ghosts on the Turbografx mini. I’ve never had a chance to try this version.
Eric Estevez I’m just a fan of the game and want to try another version. I played the Genesis one to death.
Supergrafx looks better, but I’ll have to reserve judgment on how it plays/sounds until I actually try it.
@@victor.elkins I think it looks a little better than the Genesis version. It has some nicer color use and it also probably benefits a bit from a larger ROM size(as the Genesis game would have if it was larger). But it's only a slight difference and certainly not worth the premium price of the game and a new system. I agree that the Genesis version sounds better(though I like the PCE game's sound). And the Genesis version has more options and infinite continues, so some may prefer that.
@simon woods Thank you. I've used the hidden options before in that game. Hidden options menus were quite common on PCE, and perhaps were just common for the time. As I recall, you can add continues, but they're still limited. Between infinite continues and the option to allow diagonal presses, some might still say the Genesis/Mega Drive version is more forgiving and preferable.
Me too but it looks even more difficult than the other versions.
Don't buy that garbage. You can get all the roms online and load them on a pi or just play it in your PC. It's way overpriced and they won't even include subtitles that are also available online. Retro game collecting is being taken advantage of by these shitting companies banking on nostalgia.
It’s so ugly. It looks like something you would strap on your chest to play laser tag with.
I think it's the best looking of the NEC systems.
yeah sure!! 😂😂😂
@@jC-kc4si I kind of like the look of the duo
You had access to imports at a young age?!? No freakin’ way! I wish I did that! But there weren’t any way us Canadians were able to get their hands on imports (I think). Or was there? You read import magazines/catalogues and placed orders the old-fashioned way? I did that at Sears before but sadly it is gone now. No longer can I order from catalogues which is sad because I had fond memories of doing it like that. I would always tell my mom what I wanted as I would circle down the desired item. As a kid, I’ve always wanted Japan-imported games (I was able to play those) but as of now, I own a bunch and I’m extremely thankful to have these because so many games only released in Japan are so fucking awesome. I wish I ordered from import magazines/catalogues like you did when I was younger. I’m jealous of you for that. Things are what they are.
Awesome video! I never heard of this console till now! I enjoyed learning something new about gaming! Even though a lot of people may have disliked the console i know you still have some good memories with! Have an awesome day everyone! Great Video SLX!
Excellently done. Not too long while extremely informative.
Great presentation as always!
Man you just churn video after video! Keep it coming and more power!
It would suck to be an early adopter of this thing! Imagine being all happy to have the next PC Engine, then only getting one crappy game and not even being able to buy another one for it for 4 months! People complain now when they don't have every genre and most major franchises represented at launch.
I been watching a lot of your videos lately. Great content. Long live SEGA
Dude, you're seriously pumping out the content! Wow! While I love it, please don't burn yourself out!
WooW! didint know only 5 games was released for this platform! Im from Argentina and never saw pc engine or turbografx (except by the european videogames magazines ) But it looks like a cool machine ! Great video as always Lord X! greetings!!!
Always loved that system even with the 5 games.
Sadly, they are super expensive now to obtain..
has the superior version of Ghouls and Ghosts over the Genesis version.
Oh man! I remember seeing ads in the back of GamePro with pictures of up coming games and the photo of Strider looked incredible! I imagine it's a bitter pill to swallow paying a premium for a system that only had 5 releases.
5 games has got to be the lowest amount of games in the history of consoles. I cannot think of any other console that had so few releases. I don't know what they were thinking with such modest hardware improvements at such a high price for system and games. Being backward compatible, the games obviously didn't cost more to make, and at $400 they clearly weren't selling the console at a loss.
Microsoft entered the Chat
There was also a Laserdisc console by Pioneer that cost about $1000 (in the 90s so imagine the inflation now) and it had very few exclusives.
And then Hudson was brought by Konami the company that exploited their Creators treat their workers like s***t and and most of all ruined most of gaming's most beloved series like Castlevania for example and bringing back the turbo graphx 16
I feel sorry for any gamer that didn't grow up in the late 70s to 90s because you missed probably some of the best designed consoles in terms of looks you will ever see
Agreed I was born in the late 70's
@Mr. Sega and Mr. 3DO no I'm not being sarcastic the 70s to the 90s were a great time for gaming
I was kinda tempted to get a SuperGrafx back then but it was solely for Aldynes and I always thought that it was, obviously, not enough to justify acquiring the frigging thing. The SuperGrafx is probably the most puzzling system ever in gaming history. Way too expensive for what it is, even the games were overpriced (not all of them though, but the ones that mattered most were significantly more expensive than on competiting systems).
Here are some date and price comparisons to get a better idea about the subject:
Mega Drive console (1988-10-29 | ¥21,000)
game prices:
-Air Diver (1990-03-09 | ¥6,800)
-Thunder Force III (1990-06-08 | ¥6,800)
-Daimakaimura (1989-08-03 | ¥6,800)
-Musha Aleste (1990-12-21 | ¥6,800)
Supergrafx console (1989-11-30 | ¥39,800)
game prices:
-Battle Ace (1989-11-30 | ¥6,500)
-Aldynes (1991-02-22 | ¥9,800)
-Daimakaimura (1990-07-27 | ¥10,800)
-1941: Counter Attack (1991-08-23 | ¥9,800)
Super Famicom console (1990-11-21 | ¥25,000)
no idea though about the game prices at the time in Japan. Someone knows?
Anyway yeah, not sure about what were they thinking with the Supergrafx and not sure either about what it is trully capable of. It's basically a PC Engine but with 2x the GPU and more RAM. Other than that, same 8-bit CPU, same sound chip with still no sound CPU and also still no native RGB and still a single controller port so for that price, it's rather questionable. And the extra load of work from the second GPU might be too much to fully exploit for the main CPU. In fact, Supergrafx games tend to sound worse than some PC Engine games and barely sound better than some NES games more likely because the main CPU has little left to handle the sound.
Nice. I was wondering if it was any closer to 16 bit, or if it had any better sound. Thx for the input.
@@Lightblue2222 well, as you can hear in this video, the games have rather cheap sound effects and the music is kinda mid-gen, just like the "regular" pc engine except that, as I said, there are some pc engine games that sound better than what's on supergrafx more likely because the CPU of the latter has more work to handle and thus less ressources available for sound
psyance_ql Well, good thing that Aldynes along with Ghouls 'n' Ghosts are going to be part of the TurboGrafx-16 Mini. I think those were only two Super Grafx games are going to be on the system.
@@DigiPen92 it's good and bad at the same time. good because this will allow more people to access those games legitimately (although since they were at it, they should have included all the five supergrafx games in the mini) but bad because it's supposed to be a *pc engine mini* yet it will include games that aren't just pc engine games but pc engine CD games and supergrafx games which is a crap move regarding gaming legacy (it'd have been better had konami released a pc engine mini first and a pc engine CD mini thereafter (but now you gonna say: but what about the supergrafx games? and yeah, this clearly would have been too much to ask for a supergrafx mini so maybe it's better this way afterall))
Ah the bullshits expert .
"And the extra load of work from the second GPU might be too much to fully exploit for the main CPU. " I like the men that speakof things they don't know about .
This add nothing to the CPU, is like to say that a second layer or sprites taxing the MD's CPU .Really guy stop speaking like you know something about programing.
Aldynes or 1941 show you that the SGX can display more sprites on screnn than MD, without any slowdowns, even better 1941 is a 2 players game .
For the 100 times, adding a second GPU adds nothing more for the CPU than MD or snes ones .
To animate sprites or collisions between them for exemple, the pce cpu is faster than the Md 68k,and it's also the case for most of other tasks .
Thank you kind sir, only still
Plodding thru the backlog of utube games you have made over tbe years as I've just found out about your channel. I am a big sega, esp JP MD but also peecee engine and snes. Keep up the good work sega lord god xxx
I always liked the dark rugged looking industrial design of the Supergrafx.
Haha...me too.
I think in 1989 I’d have been pretty damn impressed with Battle Ace. The entire catalog of 5 games there’s really no duds, the pricing is what ultimately killed this, because the games lineup was off to the right start!
Wow! Thanks for this video! I didn't know this system existed!
The best thing about the SuperGrafx was the Super Cool Case... other than that it was nothing but another overpowered 8 bit machine. You would of thought NEC had all the experience having the least underpowered system (original PC Engine) compared to the MegaDrive and and SFC to make a nice true 16 bit system. I was 14 years old at the time and remember reading about the SuperGrafx on EGM as SushiX covered it quite a bit. There has been this long controversy of which version of Ghouls n Ghosts was better.. which was a first gen MegaDrive game and only 5 megabits I believe.. so I always wondered how a second gen version in an 8 megabit cart would of looked. I tell people to just look at Strider and how it turned out so close to the arcade version. Given that it had a third of the memory of the Capcom arcade game. The 68000 on the Megadrive was somewhat of an industry standard in arcade motherboards and it showed on almost every port when compared to every other console out there. There is a reason why SNK used it on the Neo Geo.. although that was a far more powerful system(faster CPU clock speed and mated to a Z80) and by comparison buttloads more memory, there is something to say about the processing power compared to the NECs and even the SFC's super slow CPU. I was able to see Ghouls n Ghosts on the SuperGrafx later in the early 90s as there was a store in the DC area that had imported systems and man I was disappointed when I saw it and heard it. That was also first time I saw Super Mario World on the Japanese SFC and man that was definitely a sight to see. But that is another story.. good video overall Sega Lord.
I remember the ads of this console in magazines and was so curious, too bad I wanted different consoles around besides the Genesis and SNES!
I would have definitely bought one the graphics look so cool!!
Man... It's a piece of history....
Thx 4 this...
Thanks for the awesome video! Please do a video about the Hudson Soft history!
I've never understood the appeal of Ghouls and Ghosts. Its a bat-shit difficult game that you have to beat twice in one go, to see the actual ending.
Same here, love the style and overall presentation but in the end the game trolls you over and over...
It was the first game I
got with my Snes (i got the one control deck with no game) so i played it a lot & got good at it & it was a great feeling beating it, really rewarding. Now the original 8bit version is really a nightmare.
The SNES and Genesis versions are great games
Bought it for the SNES in my younger days and returned in to the shop a week later as it was too hard 😄
The rush you get when you're close and you're perfectly "in the zone" and the feeling of accomplishment once you've conquered the game. It's a pretty unique feeling to know you're at the top of your game, especially when you're 13 or 14!
I still remember the ads for Strider on supergrafx
@14:35 If you think that's bad.. take a look at the guys who purchased the XBOX ONE-X.
All we had was still images and screenshots in magazines of the original PC-Engine, so it garnered a bit of a cult status, here in the UK. We built it up to be literally 'arcade perfect' lol.
you could get import pc engine hardwares and games back then in UK and the system was officialy sold here, in france. my brother even bought his pc engine (a coregrafx model) in a supermarket :D
but the pc engine was kinda overhyped in magazines, yeah, and while it has some genuinely great games and the CD add-on was groundbreaking at the time, it's still overrated and many games ended as being disappointement
I remember seeing import games for the PC Engine and we saw 16 bit games for the first time. They looked pretty darn good.
A system I’d love to have for no other reason than it’s weird...oh and for ghouls n ghosts
As far as other means are concerned. An original wii with mednafen is easily one of the best options. Can do 480p via component cables but even better it has a 240p option for proper CRT use as well. I grew up with a Tg16 so I can say that the quality+accuracy of wii mednafen is ridiculously spot on for the pc engine/turbo/supergrafx.
I wanted one of these so bad because of the promise of arcade perfect Strider which never materialized.
I figured the Supergrafx was never released. Even my local import shops didn't think it was released. (They sucked though so no surprise)
One of my best console ever with unique design 😍 Easy (but expensive) to have SGX fullset 🤣
I got to know about this (Turbographx 16 / PC Engine) because of Hi Score Girl. That console was inexistent in my country.
Supergraphx, this is the very first time I hear about it.
An interesting collectors item to be sure. I'm glad they decided to include the Ghouls 'n Ghosts on the PC Engine Mini though.
great video many thanks. any chance of a video dedicated to the pc engine? you mention it with other consoles but those of us unfamiliar might appreciate a dedicated pc engine video especially with the mini coming out
I like your straightforward system/games-reviews!
I remember importing the PC Engine arcade card. Man, that shit was expensive.
Aye, at least you can play that rare as fuck Sapphire shmup.
Wish the turbografx mini came with the supergrafx games on it.
Well..2 of them
Hopefully, on the 2nd model they'll add it.
$800 us dollars when adjusted for inflation.
Or, the cost of the upcoming PS5.
Gambit771 the prices are off in this video. The console was roughly 565$ in today’s USD if you look up the JPY/USD exchange rate, then adjust for inflation. The price was high but not too far out of the ordinary for the time. 3d0 was like 1200$ at launch in today’s USD
@@bschinzel crazy how much tech cost back then.
No wonder computers like the ZX Spectrum was so popular in Europe.
@@Gambit771 Why was ZX Spectrum popular in Europe?
@@NewportBox100s Because it was cheap
That Strider port is no where NEAR the Mega Drive version. Yeah, less sprite flicker.. but man.. that animation is awful.
@bUH sNUH flicker is one of the bigger issues with the PCE unfortunately. Strider is the type of game that would be difficult in those terms.
Eric Estevez the voice sample when swinging the sword is there in all of the Japanese versions of Strider, not just the PC Engine CD version.
@Emerald Danjon forgotten worlds and chiki chiki boys (megatwins) have tons of issues on pc engine. it's a shame because I really wanted to like that forgotten worlds port but the lack of parallax scrollings ruins it and also the awful loading times (ten second blackout before the bosses...), the lack of co-op, the constant sprite flickering...
daimakaimura now that's a really good one (although far from "perfect" unlike what some people claim) but it wasn't done by NEC avenue but by alfa system instead and it's on supergrafx anyway and despite being released later, using a bigger cart (8 meg vs 5) and costing more, it's still barely better than the mega drive port (so imagine a mega drive port using a 8 meg cart too and released around the same time!)
I just like that it looks like something you'd strap to the top of the engine in your car :P
I remember seeing this thing in EGM as a kid. Maybe my favourite hardware design ever, it's a shame it was so weirdly mishandled. It almost smacks of internal sabotage, like it was some exec's pet project but others in the company had it out for him or something. There's no way they had market data that this type of price tag or library could break even.
Me too! When I saw this, I was like holy…. It looks powerful!! Too bad.
Can't wait till the Mini drops!!!!
I recently confirmed that Darius Alpha is not SGX-enhanced at all. It may have the detection routines as Chris Covell and others have discussed but it has no enhancements what-so-ever. I confirmed this using UperGrafx UGX-02 which only outputs digital graphics from one of the two graphics chips. Output is 100% identical. I uploaded a short video to my Twitter a bit over a month ago (@CZroe)
Crappy voice dictation fixed
As someone that was and still is a huge fan NEC/HUDSON's hardware from the beginning.. I just couldn't justify the massive expense of the SG, no matter how cool the actual console itself looked!! Was simply ludicrously overpriced and vastly under-supported by its makers.. That said though, hat's off to You SLX! Great video that clearly explains the pros and cons of an extremely niche part of gaming history. The best summation I've ever come across on the subject! Also, please keep adding Your honest take to Your videos. As it really helps to make things more approachable in general. PS: I was also a long time customer of Japan Video Games. The family that ran that place gave Me a great deal of My import game collection and were always easy to deal with. Sadly they got out selling games about a decade back. Now they just sell Collectibles, Figures & Toys. Internet pricing and import tariffs basically made it impossible to compete anymore! JVG was really cool though.
Remember seeing this in gaming mags. The TG16 cd was also expensive and games were slow to release. I thought the Duo got it right, but it was too late.
It seems like the PCEngine/TG16 was overpowered, and the SuperGrafx was underpowered. Very strange.
Thanks Sega lord I didn't know the supergrfix is different from the turbo 16...... What about the specs of the supergrfix? What's the difference with the genesis and snes and supergrafix? ¿???
Great video my dude! Love you're channel.
I seem to have a habit of developing affection for systems with followups that tanked hard... Hyper Neogeo 64 and SuperGrafx both were complete failures, but they have their charms. At least the SuperGrafx is easily emulated... not so much with the HNG64.
I remember I wanted the SUPERGRAFX only for STRIDER... I never knew the game was cancelled until 5 years later..
So right now, I´m not very intereted in adding the SUPERGRAFX to my collection.
By the time NEC AVENUE finally got around to PCE Strider they and the system had lost all momentum.
Shame really as Strider would probably have been so much better as a straight conversion
as a SuperGrafx HuCard title , especially if it was developed & released in 1991...
I imported the Supergrafx around 1998 used. I was able to find Ghouls and Ghosts along with Gran Zort. It was ok. I also had a great hope that Strider was coming for system. I remember those mentions in the magazine's also. I did end up getting the Arcade card version of Strider later, but was not impressed. Even with CD sound, cinemas, 2 added levels, the Genesis version was alot better. Lots of flicker and smaller sprites on the Supergrafx. A great collector's piece if anything.
Strider is not a SGX game but a PCengine one .
@@TOUKOretrotaku Agreed
Man I thought owning a 32X was a bummer. I can’t imagine the sinking feeling that the early adopters must have felt as they waited for ANYTHING to come out.
Pays to not be an early adopter.
It did play regular PC Engine games as well, so there were plenty of games for it. But the very few SuperGrafx games meant it really wasn't worth the much higher price tag. At least the thing wasn't a totally useless brick, but one would have been better off just getting a regular PCE and saving money.
Another great video. I love my super grafx. I have one and a turbo cd with arcade card. I use my everdrive card on my super grafx and cd games on my turbo cd. I think the 5 games for the SG are decent in my opinion. It was suppose to compete with the mega drive and super famicom. They rushed it and too few enhancements were given to it. The limited sound wasn't improved. I can see where that, price and too few games turned off Japanese gamers.
I think it annoyed the game developers too. They were happy to have a decent user base with PCE, then they suddenly had another system, with no users, to consider because NEC wanted to push an upgrade.
@@ravagingwolverine plus being a rushed console.
Even though the supergraphx only had 5 games for it plus the tg16 library I would’ve loved to have had a chance to have owned one.
One of the unique stories with systems from the past.
Great video bro..
First of all the reasons why the SuperGrafx never really caught on is because of fierce 16 bit competition, next is there were just way too many delays on releasing games exclusively to the console and of course the lacking of variety of games across all genre's.
Supergrafx makes 32X look like a worthwhile upgrade. Geez la weez.
And yet, do you see what Superfrafx consoles sell for these days? Yikes. Luckily two SGFX games will be on the PCE-mini. A full 40% of the output.
Fun look back at an odd system. One thing I like about the SGX is that it gives us a look at what the PC Engine would have been like with a second hardware background layer(and more sprites, but the BG layer is more noticeable). It would have been interesting to see what the system could have done and how far it could go, especially with the Super/Arcade CD games using the enhanced hardware. I know some have claimed that the CPU wasn't up for pushing the extra sprites, and that's not my area of expertise and I've heard credible assertions to the contrary, but it would be cool if we could have seen how far the CPU could have gone as well with this setup.
I think it's natural to assume the five games came out at or not long after launch. I remember looking into the system and realizing it took nearly two years for the games to come out. I've blown a few minds with that bit of trivia. As cool as a game like Daimakaimura is, it's a tough proposition to get people to buy it at double the price of a standard game. Even if you were willing to buy a new piece of hardware for it, the MD was a far better choice and its port of the game was still excellent.
I've always had a suspicion that Aldynes was originally designed to be a standard PCE game. The first stage doesn't look like it uses a second BG layer as I recall. Its parallax effects look like simple line scrolling, which is a very nice effect, but certainly possible on a standard PCE(and many other systems). Perhaps the stage boss is larger than normal due to extra sprites, but it doesn't look designed with the second layer in mind. Later stages make better use of it, however. It's like they switched it from the PCE to SGX after it was partly developed.
Mado king granzort looks like a reskin of keith courage, even has some of the same exact sounds. Now I want to check it out.
1941 "Except for when that damn low energy alarm is drowning everything out" LOL no doubt, one of the most stressful and annoying sounds in video gaming
I love my SuperGrafx. I just don’t have an authentic 1941 (I own a repro), but might just go ahead and bite the bullet for a full set.
5 titles?? Is that a record?
Less games than the Virtual Boy
*But we had CD s back then!*
Exactly as much as the Hyperscan
PS5 leaked photos looks like a Supergraphix
Hello, evrabudday!
First, Happy Valentines Day to all! Hope all goes well.
Second, are you all excited for the Sonic movie?
I heard it's actually good!!
Ron Fiasco, you're in luck. I just came home from the theaters.
I had no idea that only 5 games were ever released for the supergrafx
the supergrafx may have lost with only five games but at least those five beat the five available on the hyperscan
May be better than CDI with just those 5 games.
So what version better ghouls ghosts, gen or sfx?
They both have their plus and minus points. I prefer the Genesis version overall, but the SG version is no slouch.
@@SegaLordX thank 🙏 you so much for your reply bro and answer, keep up the great videos you are legend.
I bought one when the price came down to $300 in Die Hard Gamefan. I would use money from selling previous systems and games. This is the time of my life when I learned what denial was. BTW Genesis G&G is ultimately the best version (even over the arcade). Being able to come back at the boss reduced frustration 100%.
Probably missed it, but do I need this specific console to run these games?
I just got a modded PC engine duo R that does hucards and cds and is region free.
Trying to build a collection and play these amazing games?
Good video...😏👍
Awesome!