Just so you know, Ghouls n' Ghosts does have a difficulty selecting screen, its just not available normally. You have to hold a button combination at the start and then the option becomes available(I foget it, but easily searched). Why they just didn't include it without the extra step is a head scratcher, but par for the course with this system. And even with the difficulty selection, this version is still hard as hell, and thats coming from someone who has finished most games in the series.
@@pojr If you hold "1" button and hit "run" on the title screen you get the options menu where you can set the difficulty, select amount of knights you start with, set your bonus knight score, and a sound test.
The reason why is pretty obvious when you think about it: Both Ghouls’n’Ghosts and 1941 Counter Attack boot with a mock RAM test to mimic the arcade board. If they want it to seem that much like the arcade board to stress authenticity, they aren’t going to undermine it with an in-game difficulty selection. Putting it in a hidden menu makes it even more authentic since that’s how arcade operators would adjust it (hidden service menu).
@@emmettturner9452 That actually makes perfect sense, as I never much noticed the mock ram test, as I've been playing arcade and home roms for decades, and often switch back and forth between the two(cool detail for them to have added). That would also explain the many different difficulty options given, as it is way more than a standard home port would normally ever have. More in line with the dip switch settings of coin-op games, where you have tons of options to fine tune the experience.
@@chrislaustin Yeah. Even though they were ports they really wanted it to seem like it was the go-to arcade-at-home console… like Neo Geo or CPS Changer or something. :) For 1941 they even left the title screen copyright date as “1990” for a 1991 release. It ended up being the only official way to play Counter Attack at home until the 2000s! NEC must’ve had some exclusive license since Capcom never even released the arcade version for CPS Changer.
nice video, I live in japan and remember this first hand since I bought it on launch day. in the gaming mags they also wrote that Strider was going to be on SuperGrafx I was excited because Strider was my favorite game at the time and I wanted "more backgrounds" that's what we called parallax scrolling at the time, unfortuantely Strider was cancelled. SuperGrafx was advertised of having "more backgrounds". 1941 was very popular in the arcades at the time which is why it was on the console. I think i only had the console for a couple months before I sold it to a second-hand shop since it felt that NEC just gave up.
I liked that the PC Engine was really a "super Famicom", a natural evolution of the Famicom architecture. The actual SFC/SNES went off in lots of interesting directions, which was called for at the time, but represents a fundamental change in design philosophy.
The PCE used the actual Famicom's CPU. And its chipset was designed to be familiar to FC programmers. The Apple IIGS also used the 65c816, but it doesn't make the Apple IIGS architecturally similar to a Famicom, or even an Apple II. (The IIGS basically had to have the entire Apple II chipset embedded in it to have backward compatibility.) When it comes to 80s consoles and home computers, support chips matter more than the CPU when it comes to system architecture. The Atari 2600, C64, Apple II, and NES all used the same CPU architecture, yet those systems were not like each other in any meaningful way aside from instruction set.
The Supergrafx was an interesting system, but i think it would have been smarter if they'd stuck with the base hardware. If memory serves, i believe a few of the Supergrafx games worked on the base PC Engine, just without the extra enhancements. Great video Pojr!
Correct. proof read youe editing skills and presentation is great but you really need to proof read your scripts and fact check a little better. The SuperGrafx is an 8-bit video game console by NEC Home Electronics. It was released in Japan as an upgraded version of the PC Engine, also known as the TurboGrafx-16, two years after the original console. The SuperGrafx had an 8-bit HuC6280A CPU, extra RAM, and a second graphics chip compared to the PC Engine, but was otherwise similar internally.
NEC was so weird with the PC engine. The base model had full compatibility, but then released this thing, and also the PC Engine Shuttle which broke compatibility with the ROMROM unit (the cd addon). And let's not forget the PC-FX which was technically a PC engine with FMV support hidden in a tower pc format. The PCE is still one of my favorite platforms ever, but the mismanagement it had must be studied for decades
@aDumbHorse the level of mismanagement was insane 🤦🏾♂️ but the PC-FX wasn't a PC engine it was the next generation successor. Also bare in mind that NEC did the graphics hardware for the dreamcast & the CPU for the n64 so they had the expertise & knowledge to put out a proper next generation 32bit machine with 3D graphics if they wanted to but bought into the FMV nonsense which was on the mega CD to some extent too
@@cryptocsguy9282 It might be fun to know that the PC-FX did have 3D graphics, it just was barely used and never really used for anything major (but it could do it). The reason for it was that it was a mess with no real 3D graphics chip, which was standard by the time it was released (though not so during it's development and initially planned release date). But there were plans for a 3D graphics chip for the PC-FX and was produced, but only available on the PC-FX-GA (A PC-FX system on a card for in a PC) and the PC-FX had a port for upgrades like such chips. With the chip being roughly on par with N64's graphics handing capabilities. However the PC-FX was very much geared towards FMV games which where the big sellers during the latter part of the PC-Engines lifespan. However by the time it was actually released (more than 2 years after it's initially planned release date) FMV was a dying. If it released on time, back when FMV was still wildly popular in Japan early-1992, the PC-FX would have probably been much more successful and allowing for the 3D upgrade. It being meh at launch and only going downhill from there it wouldn't make sense to release an add-on. Or the TL;DR: The made a machine for early 1992 but released it late 1994.
@@relo999 Yep what you say is true , FMV crap was a trend at the time but surely they knew 3D was coming at some point and could have pivoted during 1993 in development when virtua fighter which is exactly what sony did with the playstation making it a 3d machine when it was originally supposed to be a 2d machine. Also since hudson soft made mario party games on n64 ( a party game with hudson characters instead of nintendo) , bloody roar games , a possible 3d bonk game would have been cool on a PC-FX that had 3d graphics built in from the start of release so they had a lot of untapped potential
NEC basically got drunk off their own rookie success in the market and just couldn't see the forest from the tress with this launch. They essentially doubled up two of the exact same video display processors from the base PC Engine and output it to a single TV output. Since the PC Engine VDP was already advanced for the time it's not that crazy of an idea and is what some Arcade manufacturers did with their machines in the 80s with stacking identical or similar video chips to a single display instead of waiting for a new R&D tested higher end video chip. Imagine if for example Nintendo did the same with the NES where by then you could do true parallax scrolling, you could double the screen color limitation from 25 to 50 with clever programming and double the total number of sprites from 64 to 128. But what really did this console in was the fact the PC Engine CD Add On was just released in 1988 for $400 then this comes out a year later at $300 bucks. Also, what's often left out is that the Super Grafx games cost $100 on average compared to the regular HuCards. It was quite the gamble and you're right that other than Aldynes none of the games really showed off the power of the new tech.
NEC threw two strands of spaghet at the wall for beating Sega, the Supergrafx and the CD-ROM/CD-ROM². The Supergrafx obviously didn't stick for them, but the CD peripheral kept the PC-Engine in 2nd place in Japan, over the Mega Drive/Genesis.
@@ostiariusalpha Only thing I disagree slightly is the PC Engine CD showed brilliant foresight from NEC in that they invested into CD technology and saw the potential way before everybody else did. By the way and not to nitpick but if I'm not mistaken the PC Engine was actually in 1st place for a short while from 1990-1991 leaving the Megadrive at a distant 3rd and the Famicom in 2nd. But yeah the Turbo Express and the Super Grafx was spaghetti flinging that didn't go well.
@@thedrunkmonkshow The PC-Engine was #1 in monthly sales over the waning Famicom for a short time, but it never matched the full ownership numbers of the FC at any time. The mapper chips actually helped reboost FC sales to match the PC-E again, and once the Super Famicom was released, it was over.
it always bugged me how they upgraded the video but left the same audio chip as the pcengine!. i guess kinda like how the atari 7800 chip was the same as the 2600, except the 7800 could use custom cartridge based audio chip (Pokey). another cool fact bout the 7800 is unlike its contemporaries it didnt use a tile based graphics, i believe it used bitmap which makes for interestering grafx.
yup, nec really charged a premium for the supergrafx games. on the back of my gng i believe its translated to around 90.00 give or take! and that was in the late 80s!
yeah. the gng port tho had alot of the details mostly in the backgrounds that the genesis port lacked, as well as the story intro from the arcade that again the genesis omitted.
The Supergrafx had the same 8-bit CPU that the PC-Engine/Turbografx had. The only improvements to the hardware was more 4x more system ram, 2x video ram, and a second graphics (VDC) chip. The 8-bit CPU in both the Turbo and Super was actually competitive performance wise to the Genesis/Megadrive's 16 bit and Super Nintendo/Famicom's 8/16 bit hybrid CPUs due to clock speed and efficiency. Also, the Supergrafx was actually designed more so to compete with the upcoming Super Famicom since the Megadrive did not do well in Japan. $100 games was a killing point since as you had mentioned the improvements weren't very noticeable.
The dirty little secret about SuperGrafx is that it nearly became the SNES, had it utilized a 16-bit variant of the MOS-6502 like the 65c816, which was the basis of the custom Ricoh chip Nintendo used.
@@TurboXray in a round about way, it sure as hell is. The hardware architecture is very similar, and Nintendo utilized a custom version of the 65c816 made by Ricoh. That chip, as well as the HuC62** chip line are all derived from the same MOS 6502 chip used in the NES. The SNES is essentially what the SGX was originally specked out to be before NEC scrapped the idea to use a 16-bit cpu. Supplemental hardware, obviously, notwithstanding.
@@hammerheadms The NES didn't use a MOS 6502. It's a Ricoh derivative (with some changes to it, and downgrading to remove BCD). The SNES hardware is nothing like the SGX, and there isn't anything technical wise stating early chip capability. If anything, you see the roots of the sPPU in the SFC from original PPU of the FC. Hudson's 6270 VDC is nothing like the FC or SFC PPU. At all. The 6280 processor might share the same inherited ISA, but that's about it (there are ALOT more changes to the 6280). Just because that share a link in the 65x ISA, doesn't mean they're anything a like. The SGX, which IS a derivative of the PCE, isn't blocked by vblank only writes/reads to VRAM. Being able to read and update vram at ANY time.. makes the PCE much different than any other console back then.. including the SNES. And the SGX is this exact same design. Writing software, interfacing with hardware, etc - is nothing alike between the SNES and SGX. About all they have in comin, is that they are tile and sprite based systems.. like every other console at that time.
I think this system could have survived if it used the 3DO manufacturing and licensing model for hardware, with the CD add-on being mandatory to spur the sale of all-in-one Karaoke systems (e.g. JVC X’eye/Wondermega); where NEC wouldn’t have been responsible for the manufacturing costs, and needing to sell whole consoles, instead focusing on licensing deals and chip sales. From my experience in business, I wouldn’t be surprised if the above actually was proposed by a “low ranked” or “the wrong person”, with the idea being dismissed outright by management. This scenario happens in offices everyday, where managers try to “pick winners” rather than letting them emerge, resulting in bankrupted companies and layoffs.
The problem with this idea is that NEC mainly _was_ a hardware manufacturer, nobody was really going to build it for less than they could. NEC needed others to make software for their hardware, which worked well in the partnership with Hudson Soft, but they couldn't interest anyone in making any launch titles for the Supergrafx besides their own inhouse studio. NEC cajoled Hudson into releasing 3 games for the Supergrafx, and Capcom made one, but each game was months apart in being released, and such a slim trickle of titles would have been unviable for any console.
it wouldve been cool but really expensive. hudson who designed the pcengine kinda did that tho, for every pcengine sold nec paid hudson. same with the hucard format, for every game on cart sold hudson got a profit. so i can imagine nec was really happy when the cdrom extension sold well so from then on they didnt have to license or pay hudson.
Based on everything I've been able to find over the years, the SGX was meant to compete with the upcoming SFC. The Mega Drive in Japan was not doing as well but Nintendo's Super Famicom on the other hand was perceived as a threat to the PC Engine. However, NEC and Hudson abandoned the SGX allegedly because they realized they could compete with the SFC without having the extra cost of the new hardware. However, some do find it odd that they didn't try to incorporate the SGX into the TurboGrafx-16 as it was being developed around the same time as the release in North America. I believe it's just a combination of not wanting to have the extra cost in the North American system as well as NEC of Japan's lack of faith in the SGX in general.
I actually always preferred the look of PC Engine/TG-16 games over the MegaDrive/Genesis. Even back in 1989 it was clear the TG-16 just had a much wider color palette compared to the Genesis and to me that made a far bigger visual difference than parallax scrolling. The Genesis certainly did not make the TG16 look obsolete to me. They seemed pretty comparable when they launched as a 12 year old child at the time. Games like Blazing Lazers and Zonk look so bright and vibrant compared to the more muted colors of games like MUSHA or Revenge of Shinobi on Genesis. They were all good games but I always preferred the more colorful look of the former. The stock TG16 looked pretty comparable to the Genesis back then, games like Blazing Lazers easily match MUSHA, and the version of Lords of Thunder is definable more colorful and vibrant on the TurboDuo than the Sega CD version.
yeah, there were games that appeared on both consoles, some were CD games too. I thought they were very comparable for the most part. Sometimes the PCE/TG=16 looked and sounded better, sometimes the MD/Genesis versions looked and sounded better. Sometimes they were similar enough where it didn't matter much.
Dude, A game featuring Ninjas, in the dark of the night... isnt supposed to be full of Bright Neon colors. And Musha, is supposed to be a flying Mech game... not a rainbow festival. Seriously, your comment is Beyond Stupid. The Genesis is capable of Displaying very Bright and Saturated colors. Look at "Wonder Boy in Monster World", as an example. One might also check out "Fantasy Zone", or "Phelios" for some pretty colorful examples. That said.. None of the PC-Engine shooters, can even come close to comparing with Thunderforce II. Not in gameplay, music and sound effect quality, nor in graphical details. It also has detailed parallax scrolling layers, as well as many levels that are very colorful. The problem wasnt really the lack of bright colors... but the lack of ability to display enough of them onscreen, all at the same time. Most of the color choices that were made, were merely artistic choices, by the Artists themselves.
@@johndough8115 PCE could display 256 colors at one time, Genesis 64. Genesis had true hardware scrolling, PCE did not, but PCE did "fake" it well for many games. Look at the scrolling in Air Zonk for example or Magical Chase.
Well, they're generic because they're not actually Ghouls-Ghosts sequels, they're a cheap spinoff. Still, I wish they had finished their storyline with a third game.
I went from NES to SEGA Genesis to SNES to SEGA Saturn. Then to Playstation/Playstation 2/Playstation 3 to GBA family of systems and low end PC pixel art games. Strange how things go.
I always liked the small form factor of the PCE. Consoles are always big and bulky, and here comes this pocket sized thing that if released today would be mistaken for a plug n play.
In Japan, they like their stuff small. In the west, they like their stuff big. This is why the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive console is big whereas the PC Engine/Super Grafx is small. This is why Nintendo always make their consoles medium size so to cater to both regions. The only time when Japan like big console and the west like small console is during the Saturn and Dreamcast era. Saturn is a big console and Dreamcast is a small console but Saturn was more successful in Japan than the west whereas Dreamcast was more successful in the west than Japan. In this generation the only reason PS4, PS5, and Xbox failed in Japan was cause they are too big compare to the Switch. The reason why Japan like Saturn even though it's big but not the Dreamcast even though it's small was because of the controller, the Saturn controllers are small and comfortable to use whereas the Dreamcast controllers are clunky and big and thus Japan hates it as it was mostly unresponsive most of the time.
I saw this console in magazines (namely Electronic Gaming Monthly) back in the 90s and I always wondered what those 6 circles were used for. You know, the ones that look like Thor's vest? It turns out they're not used for anything, just decoration, right? It's so weird.
Mega Drive in Japan was not has successful as PC Engine there. Japan was really the only region PC Engine saw success. As for it being "obsolete" as I think you use that word a couple of times compared to the MD/Genesis. Not really, MD/Genesis could do hardware parallex scrolling, could utilize 2 extra sound channels with the backwards compatibility of the SMS, and could display slightly more sprites on screen, but PC Engine/Turbograx-16 could display 4 times as many colors on screen at one time (256 to 64). So some games looked better on PCE, some looked better on MD.
One of the best looking games on PC engine CD was Rondo and they managed to make that game look at least as good if not better than anything on the Genesis so I’m not sure why they needed to release the SuperGrafx.
this is a good video. if your interested in a story theres the development of the super famicom, which was originally was to be released a little earlier and with different specs, and how the there was to be a adaptor for it that hooked up to a new famicom but in the end that was scrapped which left the sfc with a slower cpu that was a relative of the famicoms cpu. if i remember correctly the super grafx was also made to compete not only with sega but the upcoming sfc. and cool fact the pcengine has more on screen colors than the sfc which i always thought had the most onscreen colors, tho the sfc had a far bigger pallet to choose from than the pcengine or genesis. or how about the sfc almost released with the super fx chip included but because of cost and delays it wasnt included. and from what i understand the super fx chip was one of the first if not the first external gpus like we have now. or the almost neo geo (neo star console, a 32bit cd console) anyway carry on and i look forward to your future!
hey POJR, thank you so much for the video, after seeing this I am scrapping my SuperGRFX system and it's collection.. I mean who that hell wants a system with only 5 games.. not to mentioned the hundredths others that it is compatible with..
the cool thing about the supergrafx is that it can be hooked to a super cdrom2, so in a way if you add in the arcade card then you have the nec's version of sega's tower of power! lol.
Some errors in this video: * The SuperGrafx was not rushed. This a ridiculous assertion. It was merely designed as an incremental upgrade that could compete in the 16-bit market. No different than Sega Genesis because Master System didn't cut the mustard for the next gen. NEC's fatal flaw was not securing 3rd party software support in anticipation of its release. The same thing that has killed other systems in the past that were NOT rushed either. * The SuperGrafx was not created to compete with the Sega Genesis especially out of panic. It was in steady development in order to compete with the upcoming Super Famicom. * While one can argue that the TurboGrafx-16/PC Engine was really 8-bit. It's disingenuous to say that they duped people because of the -16 in the name. It literally says Turbo"Grafx". AND the VDC (it's GPU if you want to call it that) WAS 16-bit. * The SuperGrafx was just as 8-bit as the PC Engine. Used the same CPU as the PC Engine (HuC6280) and an extra VDC. Some suggestions (no offense meant here): * I realize that being dramatic gets clicks, but can you please stop using the world "massive" for every tiny thing that doesn't meet whatever the standards of the day are when you make your video? It comes of as overly dramatic and therefore stops having any meaning other than to come off as needlessly emphatic. * PLEASE do more research when you do these videos. I realize not everything is obvious but there are a lot of assumptions that go into these videos that destroy the credibility of the effort. It miffs me for instance, all the trash talk about the Famicom. It was literally designed with mappers in mind. Like, planned for 100% in order to save on cost for the base unit. It was a great strategy. Set prices for the more complicated games with expensive mappers and leave the onus on the customer to decide if that's what they want. If someone wants to play UNROM games, right on. * PLEASE stop bashing developers for "not trying". You have absolutely no idea how difficult it was to make games for these systems and if a system lacked certain capabilities it was a budget consideration to make hacks for a negligible if any increase in sales. It's a business, not a demo scene contribution. I hope you take this criticism to heart. I think you have great charisma, clearly a passion for games and a clear effort in putting out content. If you want to be the go to source for this information, you have some steps to take. It'll be worth it. Cheers.
Just a note -- when you write the script for these (assuming you work from a script) be cautious how long you say "this game" and "the game". You don't need to repeat it when what you are referring to is implied and it is particularly notable in a few areas in the middle of the video. Fantastic content thought! Love your channel!
Hey, you said that you read all of your comments so i wanted to say something. First, keep up the great work, I really like your videos. Second, I wanted to make a video suggestion. In the 90s there were multiple mascot characters trying to compete with the likes of Mario and Sonic. Characters like Bubsy, Awesome Possum, Rocky Rodent, Aero the Acrobat, Jazz Jackrabbit, Zero the Kamikaze Squirrel, Ardy Lightfoot etc. I wanted to suggest possibly doing a video where you do a rundown of about ten or so of these types of characters and their games. It would definitely be interesting to see all the different types of characters that came out of the woodwork just to end up forgotten.
No its no unusual with a healtbar in 1941 as 1943 DID have a health bar. It was just in the NES version then whent with a number (probably for technicial / simplicity reasons) POJR I love you to death (I mean I have to - you look like a visual copy of myself 10 years back) but you really need to up your fact checking game lol :D
@@pojr no worries. Also I played up half my allowance on the arcade back in the late 80s so that is why I remember this meter 😅 (me and my friend was pretty good at it - actually it really shows it’s strength as a two player game) We had one hour lunch at it took a bit over 30m to reach the final (insane) level so we gulped down the food as fast as we could ran over to the arcade and played and rushed back into class some minutes late 😅
@@BeefJerkey it’s both. It’s a draining fuel / energy bar. But it acts as a power bar anyway pure functional. It’s you power. It goes down by itself. By hits and by use of special attacks
Ghouls and Ghosts on SGX does have an options menu. Granzort has three characters you can cycle through by pressing a button, including one that levitates up so that you can go to higher platforms. You start the game with all three characters available. The SGX is also an 8-bit CPU. Not sure why they didn't bother to make it 16-bit but cost is probably the factor.
You should talk about the PC Engine Arcade Card. The card that gaves to the PC Engine CD a massive boost and allowed Neo-Geo perfect ports, and high-quality graphics on video games, such: Strider for the cutscenes, Mad Stalker for its larger sprites, in-game graphics, cutscenes and no slowdowns action, and Sapphire (the best shump on the PC Engine) which has faux-3D renders. Also, even Strider has to be a SuperGrafx title. However it was scrapped and finally released on PC Engine Arcade CD-ROM. Arcade CD-R
The SG System was made this way for 100% backwards compatibility, NEC and Hudson needed that to ensure the huge PCEngine library was available at launch. Hudson also helped Sharp with their development of the X68000 chipset and OS. The Sharp Graphic chipset was similar in Capcoms CPS which I believe capcom used to base its designs. The MegaDrive was also much less successful than the PCEngine in Japan, which was surprising for NEC, so in effect NEC were only realistically competing against themselves at the time of the Sega MD consoles Japan release. However, the hugely successful launch of SFC in Japan was the reason NEC and Sega struggled to gain extra sales traction in uts home territories from that point onwards. SG is a capable system if programmed properly, Daimakaimura proves this, the 8bit CPU was not an issue, extra hardware was added to enable effective dual GPU processing.
The SuperGrafx and TurboGrafx-16 hardware was identical in every way except for the amount of memory and the extra graphics chips. The real mistake was not including that in the Turbo. That would have incentivized developers to make games for it. The extra memory was needed for the CD add-on anyway, so a small boost to the console price could be countered by a lower drive cost.
Just a slight correction, NEC didn't go to Nintendo, Hudson did. The PC Engine was entirely designed by Hudson, and was meant to be an upgrade to the Famicom. A Super Famicom, if you will. Hudson, though, had some pretty insane terms regarding manufacturing and royalties. Essentially, they wanted Nintendo to pay them for each card manufactured. If that sound familiar, it's because that's the same terms Ninntendo had as a condition of working with them for the Famicom at the time. Obviously, they didn't want to cut Hudson in on that. NEC however, did. I don't know how drunk they were during that meeting, but they accepted against all logic. This came back to bite them in the butt on numerous times. The development of the CD attachment for instance, was not just a way to advance technology, but a way to avoid paying royalties to Hudson. It's kind of sad, really. The SGX is far more capable than the games that showed up initially make it out to be. Of course, we wouldn't start seeing that potential until like thirty years after the system failed and homebrew devs started really digging into it.
You confirmed something in this video I always had a suspicion about rather or not the turbographics 16 was actually a 16 bit system because a lot of the games that are played on it seemed like a more glorified 8-bit system than it did in the actual 16 bit system.
Also the cool parallax 3D FX you mention is not real parallax but the same Fake parallax that the PC Engine could do :) So nothing that really showcase the parallax power of SuperGrafX. On the other hand they use the second layer for the HUGE bosses so that of course would not be possible on PC Engine
I really appreciate you making a video about this system, as there's very little documentation around. I also hope you will make a video about the European Turbografx now, since I'm about to buy one from someone.
Great as always POJR my dude. I had the turbografx-16, turbo CD, and the turbo express. But I had jumped to Genesis and Super Nintendo before I was aware of the SuperGrafx. Cool though.
@@pojr yeah what's a tearjerker though is out of all my systems those somehow got lost over the years 😔. It's Ok though I'll be going the Mister route later this year most likely lol.
I was wondering when Rondo of Blood would be mentioned, but then I realized I confused the Super Grafx with the Turbo Grafx. Also for some reason I have this random distain for the genesis version of Ghouls n' Ghosts, probably because it's missing a ton of visual details from the arcade version, so I'd probably prefer this version of it.
A legitimate game console that had fewer titles made for it than the Barcode Battler? And the Barcode Battler only had a 4 bit CPU and no true graphics to speak of.
@@greenaum True, but I was thinking of the various licensed expansion packs, Nintendo and Nihon Falcom packs and free cards included in Coro Coro Comic which were all marketed as "Exclusive Card Software".
1:08 the collaboration wasn't perfect as they had issues splitting up revenue between the software & hardware makers. It would had made more sense for NEC to buy out Hudson soft or for Hudson soft to have hardware manufactured directly with OEMs in hindsight
It’s functionally a standalone 32X. Plus, they have just released CD-ROM2 a year ago at the time. The timeframe is ridiculously short for a Pro upgrade. But hey, the console has one of the cleanest good games track record in video game consoles history!
yeah, the CD add on had the improved sound quality and expanded the memory from the restrictive HuCards/Turbochips from normally 4-6 megabits to hundreds if needed. But the CD add on didn't improve the base tech other than that, I think the Sega CD did slightly upgrade the MD/Genesis in hardware.
I have gone full circle and am on Famicom for my main Console. I play handheld with the HG-938 and I have the Famicom Top loader and the Rad2X Cable for TV play.
It was released with an even lower game count. Some games, like 1941 Counter Attack were released after the system was discontinued. I got my boxed SGX for a total steal!
I have one! It's one of my curiosities in my collection for sure. 5 games doesn't make it worth getting, but I bought it just because I like the PC Engine. I was able to downpay on it to avoid spending PS5 levels of money all at once. I have most of the games, but games like 1941 are way out of my pricerange.
i always believed that the SuperGrafx shell was developed with western style in mind and if it had worked it wouldve been released to us back then. look at the console, it looks almost militery-ish, or like a huge diesel engine what with its dark grey color and its molded bolts like a car engine. and the name SuperGrafx sounds like they liked the TurboGrafx name and wanted the next upgrade to it. to me the console looks like it wouldve been at home on the set of bladerunner or aliens. to my eyes its stylish!, and looks sweet with the super cdrom2 hooked up to it, which i love that consoles look alot too!
1) The PC Engine was never marked as a 16-bit console in Japan. The Turbografx-16 was in the USA 2) The Supergrafx was still an 8-bit console. It had more memory and a better video processor.
Adventurevision had only 4. That was a really cool console. Used a vertical strip of LEDs, and a spinning mirror, to "scan" an image across your eyeballs! A lot like how the Virtual Boy's display worked, but a bit more primitive. Amazing it worked, but a somewhat hi-res display on a portable machine with a real CPU is amazing for the time (early '80s)!
I only know the TurbograFX 16... wish I knew SuperGraFX 8. Bonks Adventure... Keith Courage & The Alpha Zone (Title?) College Basket Ball (I know title is wrong) World Series Baseball (I know the title is wrong) King of Casino (correct title) Dragon's Curse (Not Sure Release Title) Cadash/Kadash (Not Sure Release Title). Bonk's Revenge (Not Release Title) Side-Scrolling Shooters were not available in my city/US State.
I used to have a Neo Geo 64 with only 4 fighting games for it. The shooter and car games were not compatible. And to think that there was a hardware devoted to mass audiences with only 5 games in Japan. This was so poorly executed that even the 32-X fiasco looks fine in comparison.
yeah I kinda agree with the video, just 5 games but at least 2 excellent titles, however didn't the N64 get released with just 3 games IIRC? Mario 64, Pilot Wings and Star Wars?
Maybe I'm weird, but I liked more of the games for the Genesis than for the SNES. This might merely be because I had a Genesis and only got to play SNES games years later after doing some collecting. There is after all something to be said for the nostalgia factor, but in straight comparisons between games that were released for both, I feel like the Genesis wins. I even say this as a fan of FF games, but I did have a PS1 during the next generation and every FF game published for it, so I didn't feel like I missed as much from the SNES at the time.
This system was the perfect example of "if you build it, they will come", and nothing could have been further from the truth. Too many companies over the years had this same broken mindset, as the 32X was another such device that should have never been made. The PC Engine is one of the best gaming consoles ever created(in Japan anyways), and this system did nothing to expand its legacy. Just a quick cash grab hoping all those who supported the PCE would just make SG games, but the gaming market is always in a state of flux. And by the time this system made it to market it was already DOA, and became one of the biggest failures in gaming history. But I still play the Ghouls n' Ghost port on the regular, as it was for sure the best thing to come out of this s**t show.
@@pojr Sadly, when it comes to 3rd party support, it always comes down to the installed user base, as the larger the number, the more copies you're likely to sell. Those 5 titles released went on the faith of potential future sells, and got burned, as the system died straight out of the gate. That's why you rarely see major titles at launch unless they are 1st party, as no one else wants to take the risk. Even when the Switch 2 launches, you're better off making games for the old unit, with 140 million in the wild, than trying to make money with the 2-5 million units you might see in the first year.
32X used the same sound chip as Genesis/MD, I think it did increase the on screen color count slightly? It utilized the base Genesis/MD for parallex scrolling. Maybe it could have done better if the Saturn wasn't looming and the add-on was more ambitious to be the "next gen" hardware. Maybe sell it as a stand alone and add-on and Saturn never exists. But it was doomed in how it was handled.
play 5 games on it? The LGN video art had only one "game" if you can call it that, the on screen coloring book, two if you could the blank screen you color do art on if you turn it on without the cartridge in it. Also, the Viewmaster interactive vision only had 5 or maybe less games
People can say what want... But in my opinion the optimization of this console was the best of that period ( sound a part) ... But the pc engine and turbogrfx had the best port of coin ops not Sega Megadrive or SNES.
Technically, it does. But no game takes advantage of it. But NEC always treated CD games as the upgrade if you wanted better sound. I mean.. the Duo replaced them all.
sound was pretty comparable to the MD/Genesis though. I think when MD/Genesis used the extra sound channels built into the backwards compatibility with the SMS, it could have added sound channels, but it wasn't always used, so they music and sound effects were at the same level, sometimes PCE games sounded better, sometimes MD games sounded better for the same games.
I had never heard of this system, I had the turbo-grafix 16 (american PC engine) and that had the CD add on, so this is a crazy weird system for them to try and push out
oh hell yeah, glad to see this console talked about :3 I think like Gamesack is the only other high profile channel thats talked about this thing (though im probably very wrong about that)
@@pojr just a heads up, I went back and checked that same Gamesack episode to be sure, but the robot platform game you looked over has two other selectable characters that would have made the out of reach jumping easier since one of them floats and has a shield to take a extra hit
Had NEC put more effort in creating a more powerful system with a bigger library of games & even backward compatibility with the PC Engine, the Super Grafx might have been a serious contender with Nintendo & SEGA's 16-bit consoles.
There isn't a single game on that system I have any desire to play. Even as a kid when I had patience for difficult games "Battletoads, TMNT, ETC" I couldn't stand the Ghost and Goblin series. Was never a big fan of side scrolling shooters they all felt too similar to me. I liked Lifeforce on NES and that was about it.
This video was my introduction to this channel. It was in my recommendations, I just sat down with breakfast and thought let’s go. Immediately cringe hosting, poor chromakey, obtrusive mic setup. This was followed by a plea to subscribe and a mid-roll ad before any substance. I have no choice but to block and report this trash.
Just so you know, Ghouls n' Ghosts does have a difficulty selecting screen, its just not available normally. You have to hold a button combination at the start and then the option becomes available(I foget it, but easily searched). Why they just didn't include it without the extra step is a head scratcher, but par for the course with this system. And even with the difficulty selection, this version is still hard as hell, and thats coming from someone who has finished most games in the series.
Interesting. I didn't realize that. Thanks!
@@pojr If you hold "1" button and hit "run" on the title screen you get the options menu where you can set the difficulty, select amount of knights you start with, set your bonus knight score, and a sound test.
The reason why is pretty obvious when you think about it:
Both Ghouls’n’Ghosts and 1941 Counter Attack boot with a mock RAM test to mimic the arcade board. If they want it to seem that much like the arcade board to stress authenticity, they aren’t going to undermine it with an in-game difficulty selection. Putting it in a hidden menu makes it even more authentic since that’s how arcade operators would adjust it (hidden service menu).
@@emmettturner9452 That actually makes perfect sense, as I never much noticed the mock ram test, as I've been playing arcade and home roms for decades, and often switch back and forth between the two(cool detail for them to have added). That would also explain the many different difficulty options given, as it is way more than a standard home port would normally ever have. More in line with the dip switch settings of coin-op games, where you have tons of options to fine tune the experience.
@@chrislaustin Yeah. Even though they were ports they really wanted it to seem like it was the go-to arcade-at-home console… like Neo Geo or CPS Changer or something. :) For 1941 they even left the title screen copyright date as “1990” for a 1991 release. It ended up being the only official way to play Counter Attack at home until the 2000s! NEC must’ve had some exclusive license since Capcom never even released the arcade version for CPS Changer.
nice video, I live in japan and remember this first hand since I bought it on launch day. in the gaming mags they also wrote that Strider was going to be on SuperGrafx I was excited because Strider was my favorite game at the time and I wanted "more backgrounds" that's what we called parallax scrolling at the time, unfortuantely Strider was cancelled. SuperGrafx was advertised of having "more backgrounds". 1941 was very popular in the arcades at the time which is why it was on the console. I think i only had the console for a couple months before I sold it to a second-hand shop since it felt that NEC just gave up.
yeah, Strider ended up being a CD game for the PC Engine and was not as good as the Mega Drive/Genesis cartridge version.
I liked that the PC Engine was really a "super Famicom", a natural evolution of the Famicom architecture. The actual SFC/SNES went off in lots of interesting directions, which was called for at the time, but represents a fundamental change in design philosophy.
But the actual super famicom basically just used an upgraded famicom CPU, so the name makes sense
The PCE used the actual Famicom's CPU. And its chipset was designed to be familiar to FC programmers.
The Apple IIGS also used the 65c816, but it doesn't make the Apple IIGS architecturally similar to a Famicom, or even an Apple II. (The IIGS basically had to have the entire Apple II chipset embedded in it to have backward compatibility.) When it comes to 80s consoles and home computers, support chips matter more than the CPU when it comes to system architecture. The Atari 2600, C64, Apple II, and NES all used the same CPU architecture, yet those systems were not like each other in any meaningful way aside from instruction set.
So this is basically a PC Engine Pro (Similar to the DSI, New 3DS, PS4 Pro, and XBOX One X).
It wasn't meant to "beat" Sega. Sega was a distant 3rd in Japan. It was meant to go up against the upcoming SFC... which got delayed.
This is the correct answer
Even though he's wrong Pojr still has more credibility than any nutjob that originally came from the PCEngineFX hate forums :)
The Supergrafx was an interesting system, but i think it would have been smarter if they'd stuck with the base hardware. If memory serves, i believe a few of the Supergrafx games worked on the base PC Engine, just without the extra enhancements. Great video Pojr!
Just two Darius games.
They generally aren't counted as Supergrafx games. It's more a trivia question than anything.
Thank you!
The Supergrafx still uses the 8-bit CPU.
Correct. proof read youe editing skills and presentation is great but you really need to proof read your scripts and fact check a little better. The SuperGrafx is an 8-bit video game console by NEC Home Electronics. It was released in Japan as an upgraded version of the PC Engine, also known as the TurboGrafx-16, two years after the original console. The SuperGrafx had an 8-bit HuC6280A CPU, extra RAM, and a second graphics chip compared to the PC Engine, but was otherwise similar internally.
Someone on UA-cam did benchmarks of the SNES, Genesis, and PC Engine CPUs. Surprisingly, the PC Engine 8-bit CPU came out on top.
Do you have a link to that video?@@hammersampson
So does the Snes
The 6502 could do some instructions in only 2 cycles, while the 68k needed a minimum of 4 cycles and many using far more . Ofc they would use it.
NEC was so weird with the PC engine. The base model had full compatibility, but then released this thing, and also the PC Engine Shuttle which broke compatibility with the ROMROM unit (the cd addon). And let's not forget the PC-FX which was technically a PC engine with FMV support hidden in a tower pc format.
The PCE is still one of my favorite platforms ever, but the mismanagement it had must be studied for decades
@aDumbHorse the level of mismanagement was insane 🤦🏾♂️ but the PC-FX wasn't a PC engine it was the next generation successor. Also bare in mind that NEC did the graphics hardware for the dreamcast & the CPU for the n64 so they had the expertise & knowledge to put out a proper next generation 32bit machine with 3D graphics if they wanted to but bought into the FMV nonsense which was on the mega CD to some extent too
@@cryptocsguy9282 It might be fun to know that the PC-FX did have 3D graphics, it just was barely used and never really used for anything major (but it could do it). The reason for it was that it was a mess with no real 3D graphics chip, which was standard by the time it was released (though not so during it's development and initially planned release date). But there were plans for a 3D graphics chip for the PC-FX and was produced, but only available on the PC-FX-GA (A PC-FX system on a card for in a PC) and the PC-FX had a port for upgrades like such chips. With the chip being roughly on par with N64's graphics handing capabilities.
However the PC-FX was very much geared towards FMV games which where the big sellers during the latter part of the PC-Engines lifespan. However by the time it was actually released (more than 2 years after it's initially planned release date) FMV was a dying. If it released on time, back when FMV was still wildly popular in Japan early-1992, the PC-FX would have probably been much more successful and allowing for the 3D upgrade.
It being meh at launch and only going downhill from there it wouldn't make sense to release an add-on.
Or the TL;DR:
The made a machine for early 1992 but released it late 1994.
@@relo999 Yep what you say is true , FMV crap was a trend at the time but surely they knew 3D was coming at some point and could have pivoted during 1993 in development when virtua fighter which is exactly what sony did with the playstation making it a 3d machine when it was originally supposed to be a 2d machine.
Also since hudson soft made mario party games on n64 ( a party game with hudson characters instead of nintendo) , bloody roar games , a possible 3d bonk game would have been cool on a PC-FX that had 3d graphics built in from the start of release so they had a lot of untapped potential
Kinda funny that I was playing a PC engine game right before this video came out
Same 😂 (i was playing puzznic)
Sounds like you saw this video coming lol
Same ... Translated Dracula x on mister 😂
rondo of blood is fire
@@ajsingh4545Such a cool game
You've got good taste :3
NEC had so much potential. With just a little bit more discipline and focus, it could have been a winner.
In JP they were doing better than the Genesis, but I must say it. The color in Turbo-Grafx games is much better than the Genesis.
NEC basically got drunk off their own rookie success in the market and just couldn't see the forest from the tress with this launch. They essentially doubled up two of the exact same video display processors from the base PC Engine and output it to a single TV output. Since the PC Engine VDP was already advanced for the time it's not that crazy of an idea and is what some Arcade manufacturers did with their machines in the 80s with stacking identical or similar video chips to a single display instead of waiting for a new R&D tested higher end video chip. Imagine if for example Nintendo did the same with the NES where by then you could do true parallax scrolling, you could double the screen color limitation from 25 to 50 with clever programming and double the total number of sprites from 64 to 128. But what really did this console in was the fact the PC Engine CD Add On was just released in 1988 for $400 then this comes out a year later at $300 bucks. Also, what's often left out is that the Super Grafx games cost $100 on average compared to the regular HuCards. It was quite the gamble and you're right that other than Aldynes none of the games really showed off the power of the new tech.
NEC threw two strands of spaghet at the wall for beating Sega, the Supergrafx and the CD-ROM/CD-ROM². The Supergrafx obviously didn't stick for them, but the CD peripheral kept the PC-Engine in 2nd place in Japan, over the Mega Drive/Genesis.
@@ostiariusalpha Only thing I disagree slightly is the PC Engine CD showed brilliant foresight from NEC in that they invested into CD technology and saw the potential way before everybody else did. By the way and not to nitpick but if I'm not mistaken the PC Engine was actually in 1st place for a short while from 1990-1991 leaving the Megadrive at a distant 3rd and the Famicom in 2nd. But yeah the Turbo Express and the Super Grafx was spaghetti flinging that didn't go well.
@@thedrunkmonkshow The PC-Engine was #1 in monthly sales over the waning Famicom for a short time, but it never matched the full ownership numbers of the FC at any time. The mapper chips actually helped reboost FC sales to match the PC-E again, and once the Super Famicom was released, it was over.
it always bugged me how they upgraded the video but left the same audio chip as the pcengine!. i guess kinda like how the atari 7800 chip was the same as the 2600, except the 7800 could use custom cartridge based audio chip (Pokey).
another cool fact bout the 7800 is unlike its contemporaries it didnt use a tile based graphics, i believe it used bitmap which makes for interestering grafx.
yup, nec really charged a premium for the supergrafx games. on the back of my gng i believe its translated to around 90.00 give or take! and that was in the late 80s!
Ghouls 'N Ghosts..... Killing demons in your underwear!!!!!!!!!!!
Crazy to know it had a Ghouls n' Ghosts port when it should've failed similar to the Hyperscan
yeah. the gng port tho had alot of the details mostly in the backgrounds that the genesis port lacked, as well as the story intro from the arcade that again the genesis omitted.
The Genesis port was still really good.
The Supergrafx had the same 8-bit CPU that the PC-Engine/Turbografx had. The only improvements to the hardware was more 4x more system ram, 2x video ram, and a second graphics (VDC) chip. The 8-bit CPU in both the Turbo and Super was actually competitive performance wise to the Genesis/Megadrive's 16 bit and Super Nintendo/Famicom's 8/16 bit hybrid CPUs due to clock speed and efficiency.
Also, the Supergrafx was actually designed more so to compete with the upcoming Super Famicom since the Megadrive did not do well in Japan. $100 games was a killing point since as you had mentioned the improvements weren't very noticeable.
The dirty little secret about SuperGrafx is that it nearly became the SNES, had it utilized a 16-bit variant of the MOS-6502 like the 65c816, which was the basis of the custom Ricoh chip Nintendo used.
@@hammerheadms That's not true at all haha
@@TurboXray in a round about way, it sure as hell is. The hardware architecture is very similar, and Nintendo utilized a custom version of the 65c816 made by Ricoh. That chip, as well as the HuC62** chip line are all derived from the same MOS 6502 chip used in the NES. The SNES is essentially what the SGX was originally specked out to be before NEC scrapped the idea to use a 16-bit cpu. Supplemental hardware, obviously, notwithstanding.
@@hammerheadms The NES didn't use a MOS 6502. It's a Ricoh derivative (with some changes to it, and downgrading to remove BCD). The SNES hardware is nothing like the SGX, and there isn't anything technical wise stating early chip capability. If anything, you see the roots of the sPPU in the SFC from original PPU of the FC. Hudson's 6270 VDC is nothing like the FC or SFC PPU. At all. The 6280 processor might share the same inherited ISA, but that's about it (there are ALOT more changes to the 6280). Just because that share a link in the 65x ISA, doesn't mean they're anything a like. The SGX, which IS a derivative of the PCE, isn't blocked by vblank only writes/reads to VRAM. Being able to read and update vram at ANY time.. makes the PCE much different than any other console back then.. including the SNES. And the SGX is this exact same design. Writing software, interfacing with hardware, etc - is nothing alike between the SNES and SGX. About all they have in comin, is that they are tile and sprite based systems.. like every other console at that time.
@@TurboXrayIsn't the disconnected BCD literally the _only_ difference between the 2A03 and 6502?
I think this system could have survived if it used the 3DO manufacturing and licensing model for hardware, with the CD add-on being mandatory to spur the sale of all-in-one Karaoke systems (e.g. JVC X’eye/Wondermega); where NEC wouldn’t have been responsible for the manufacturing costs, and needing to sell whole consoles, instead focusing on licensing deals and chip sales.
From my experience in business, I wouldn’t be surprised if the above actually was proposed by a “low ranked” or “the wrong person”, with the idea being dismissed outright by management. This scenario happens in offices everyday, where managers try to “pick winners” rather than letting them emerge, resulting in bankrupted companies and layoffs.
The problem with this idea is that NEC mainly _was_ a hardware manufacturer, nobody was really going to build it for less than they could. NEC needed others to make software for their hardware, which worked well in the partnership with Hudson Soft, but they couldn't interest anyone in making any launch titles for the Supergrafx besides their own inhouse studio. NEC cajoled Hudson into releasing 3 games for the Supergrafx, and Capcom made one, but each game was months apart in being released, and such a slim trickle of titles would have been unviable for any console.
it wouldve been cool but really expensive. hudson who designed the pcengine kinda did that tho, for every pcengine sold nec paid hudson. same with the hucard format, for every game on cart sold hudson got a profit. so i can imagine nec was really happy when the cdrom extension sold well so from then on they didnt have to license or pay hudson.
Lol that's a terrible idea
Except for the fact that the "3DO manufacturing and licensing model" was a complete failure
"Wake up babe, Pojr is comin' at us with another video!"
Just kidding. I live alone.
Well, if you weren't living alone, you most certainly would be after having made that statement. LOL
PC Engine had a multitap that allows connecting 2-5 controllers, so car racing or bomber man with 5 players were a hit with friends back then.
Based on everything I've been able to find over the years, the SGX was meant to compete with the upcoming SFC. The Mega Drive in Japan was not doing as well but Nintendo's Super Famicom on the other hand was perceived as a threat to the PC Engine. However, NEC and Hudson abandoned the SGX allegedly because they realized they could compete with the SFC without having the extra cost of the new hardware.
However, some do find it odd that they didn't try to incorporate the SGX into the TurboGrafx-16 as it was being developed around the same time as the release in North America. I believe it's just a combination of not wanting to have the extra cost in the North American system as well as NEC of Japan's lack of faith in the SGX in general.
I actually always preferred the look of PC Engine/TG-16 games over the MegaDrive/Genesis. Even back in 1989 it was clear the TG-16 just had a much wider color palette compared to the Genesis and to me that made a far bigger visual difference than parallax scrolling. The Genesis certainly did not make the TG16 look obsolete to me. They seemed pretty comparable when they launched as a 12 year old child at the time. Games like Blazing Lazers and Zonk look so bright and vibrant compared to the more muted colors of games like MUSHA or Revenge of Shinobi on Genesis. They were all good games but I always preferred the more colorful look of the former. The stock TG16 looked pretty comparable to the Genesis back then, games like Blazing Lazers easily match MUSHA, and the version of Lords of Thunder is definable more colorful and vibrant on the TurboDuo than the Sega CD version.
yeah, there were games that appeared on both consoles, some were CD games too. I thought they were very comparable for the most part. Sometimes the PCE/TG=16 looked and sounded better, sometimes the MD/Genesis versions looked and sounded better. Sometimes they were similar enough where it didn't matter much.
Dude, A game featuring Ninjas, in the dark of the night... isnt supposed to be full of Bright Neon colors. And Musha, is supposed to be a flying Mech game... not a rainbow festival. Seriously, your comment is Beyond Stupid.
The Genesis is capable of Displaying very Bright and Saturated colors. Look at "Wonder Boy in Monster World", as an example.
One might also check out "Fantasy Zone", or "Phelios" for some pretty colorful examples.
That said.. None of the PC-Engine shooters, can even come close to comparing with Thunderforce II. Not in gameplay, music and sound effect quality, nor in graphical details. It also has detailed parallax scrolling layers, as well as many levels that are very colorful.
The problem wasnt really the lack of bright colors... but the lack of ability to display enough of them onscreen, all at the same time. Most of the color choices that were made, were merely artistic choices, by the Artists themselves.
@@johndough8115 PCE could display 256 colors at one time, Genesis 64. Genesis had true hardware scrolling, PCE did not, but PCE did "fake" it well for many games. Look at the scrolling in Air Zonk for example or Magical Chase.
Capcom made a sequel to Ghouls n Ghosts called Maximo on PS2. The games are good, but feel kind of generic.
Well, they're generic because they're not actually Ghouls-Ghosts sequels, they're a cheap spinoff. Still, I wish they had finished their storyline with a third game.
There is a true sequel to Ghouls 'n Ghosts, it's called Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts.
I went from NES to SEGA Genesis to SNES to SEGA Saturn. Then to Playstation/Playstation 2/Playstation 3 to GBA family of systems and low end PC pixel art games. Strange how things go.
I always liked the small form factor of the PCE. Consoles are always big and bulky, and here comes this pocket sized thing that if released today would be mistaken for a plug n play.
In Japan, they like their stuff small. In the west, they like their stuff big. This is why the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive console is big whereas the PC Engine/Super Grafx is small. This is why Nintendo always make their consoles medium size so to cater to both regions. The only time when Japan like big console and the west like small console is during the Saturn and Dreamcast era. Saturn is a big console and Dreamcast is a small console but Saturn was more successful in Japan than the west whereas Dreamcast was more successful in the west than Japan. In this generation the only reason PS4, PS5, and Xbox failed in Japan was cause they are too big compare to the Switch. The reason why Japan like Saturn even though it's big but not the Dreamcast even though it's small was because of the controller, the Saturn controllers are small and comfortable to use whereas the Dreamcast controllers are clunky and big and thus Japan hates it as it was mostly unresponsive most of the time.
I saw this console in magazines (namely Electronic Gaming Monthly) back in the 90s and I always wondered what those 6 circles were used for. You know, the ones that look like Thor's vest? It turns out they're not used for anything, just decoration, right? It's so weird.
one of the dreamcasts early system prototypes always reminded me of the supergrafx. kinda looks like a engine or something to me.
Mega Drive in Japan was not has successful as PC Engine there. Japan was really the only region PC Engine saw success. As for it being "obsolete" as I think you use that word a couple of times compared to the MD/Genesis. Not really, MD/Genesis could do hardware parallex scrolling, could utilize 2 extra sound channels with the backwards compatibility of the SMS, and could display slightly more sprites on screen, but PC Engine/Turbograx-16 could display 4 times as many colors on screen at one time (256 to 64). So some games looked better on PCE, some looked better on MD.
One of the best looking games on PC engine CD was Rondo and they managed to make that game look at least as good if not better than anything on the Genesis so I’m not sure why they needed to release the SuperGrafx.
True. They pulled off some very cool effects in that game. It almost looks like the console has two background layers when it in fact doesn't.
this is a good video. if your interested in a story theres the development of the super famicom, which was originally was to be released a little earlier and with different specs, and how the there was to be a adaptor for it that hooked up to a new famicom but in the end that was scrapped which left the sfc with a slower cpu that was a relative of the famicoms cpu. if i remember correctly the super grafx was also made to compete not only with sega but the upcoming sfc.
and cool fact the pcengine has more on screen colors than the sfc which i always thought had the most onscreen colors, tho the sfc had a far bigger pallet to choose from than the pcengine or genesis.
or how about the sfc almost released with the super fx chip included but because of cost and delays it wasnt included. and from what i understand the super fx chip was one of the first if not the first external gpus like we have now.
or the almost neo geo (neo star console, a 32bit cd console)
anyway carry on and i look forward to your future!
Thanks for the video. As a PC Engine (orig) and CDROM2 in a briefcase set-up owner, I learnt from this video
Is it Pojr time already? I've always been curious about this console, there's not a lot about it online. Great video!
It sure is. Wednesday comes sooner than you might think.
hey POJR, thank you so much for the video, after seeing this I am scrapping my SuperGRFX system and it's collection.. I mean who that hell wants a system with only 5 games.. not to mentioned the hundredths others that it is compatible with..
the cool thing about the supergrafx is that it can be hooked to a super cdrom2, so in a way if you add in the arcade card then you have the nec's version of sega's tower of power! lol.
Some errors in this video:
* The SuperGrafx was not rushed. This a ridiculous assertion. It was merely designed as an incremental upgrade that could compete in the 16-bit market. No different than Sega Genesis because Master System didn't cut the mustard for the next gen. NEC's fatal flaw was not securing 3rd party software support in anticipation of its release. The same thing that has killed other systems in the past that were NOT rushed either.
* The SuperGrafx was not created to compete with the Sega Genesis especially out of panic. It was in steady development in order to compete with the upcoming Super Famicom.
* While one can argue that the TurboGrafx-16/PC Engine was really 8-bit. It's disingenuous to say that they duped people because of the -16 in the name. It literally says Turbo"Grafx". AND the VDC (it's GPU if you want to call it that) WAS 16-bit.
* The SuperGrafx was just as 8-bit as the PC Engine. Used the same CPU as the PC Engine (HuC6280) and an extra VDC.
Some suggestions (no offense meant here):
* I realize that being dramatic gets clicks, but can you please stop using the world "massive" for every tiny thing that doesn't meet whatever the standards of the day are when you make your video? It comes of as overly dramatic and therefore stops having any meaning other than to come off as needlessly emphatic.
* PLEASE do more research when you do these videos. I realize not everything is obvious but there are a lot of assumptions that go into these videos that destroy the credibility of the effort. It miffs me for instance, all the trash talk about the Famicom. It was literally designed with mappers in mind. Like, planned for 100% in order to save on cost for the base unit. It was a great strategy. Set prices for the more complicated games with expensive mappers and leave the onus on the customer to decide if that's what they want. If someone wants to play UNROM games, right on.
* PLEASE stop bashing developers for "not trying". You have absolutely no idea how difficult it was to make games for these systems and if a system lacked certain capabilities it was a budget consideration to make hacks for a negligible if any increase in sales. It's a business, not a demo scene contribution.
I hope you take this criticism to heart. I think you have great charisma, clearly a passion for games and a clear effort in putting out content. If you want to be the go to source for this information, you have some steps to take. It'll be worth it.
Cheers.
Just a note -- when you write the script for these (assuming you work from a script) be cautious how long you say "this game" and "the game". You don't need to repeat it when what you are referring to is implied and it is particularly notable in a few areas in the middle of the video.
Fantastic content thought! Love your channel!
Hey, you said that you read all of your comments so i wanted to say something.
First, keep up the great work, I really like your videos.
Second, I wanted to make a video suggestion. In the 90s there were multiple mascot characters trying to compete with the likes of Mario and Sonic. Characters like Bubsy, Awesome Possum, Rocky Rodent, Aero the Acrobat, Jazz Jackrabbit, Zero the Kamikaze Squirrel, Ardy Lightfoot etc.
I wanted to suggest possibly doing a video where you do a rundown of about ten or so of these types of characters and their games. It would definitely be interesting to see all the different types of characters that came out of the woodwork just to end up forgotten.
No its no unusual with a healtbar in 1941 as 1943 DID have a health bar. It was just in the NES version then whent with a number (probably for technicial / simplicity reasons) POJR I love you to death (I mean I have to - you look like a visual copy of myself 10 years back) but you really need to up your fact checking game lol :D
I looked into it. Yeah you're right about the 1943 thing. My bad lol.
@@pojr no worries. Also I played up half my allowance on the arcade back in the late 80s so that is why I remember this meter 😅 (me and my friend was pretty good at it - actually it really shows it’s strength as a two player game)
We had one hour lunch at it took a bit over 30m to reach the final (insane) level so we gulped down the food as fast as we could ran over to the arcade and played and rushed back into class some minutes late 😅
Original arcade version of 1943 had a bar, but it slowly drains even when you aren't getting hit. So it's still like a fuel level, or something.
@@BeefJerkey it’s both. It’s a draining fuel / energy bar. But it acts as a power bar anyway pure functional. It’s you power. It goes down by itself. By hits and by use of special attacks
5:54 What a nice parallax scrolling!
Indeed, even up and down.
@@pojr absolutely!
Air Zonk on standard PCE hardware looks as good, also Aero Blasters in some parts looks similar. Magical Chase really "faked" parallex scrolling well.
@@hepwo91222 Yeah, but this parallax scrolling here has soo much more depth.
@@Kig_Ama I dunno, there were parts of Air Zonk that looked insanely good for a console that can't do "true" parallex
Ghouls and Ghosts on SGX does have an options menu.
Granzort has three characters you can cycle through by pressing a button, including one that levitates up so that you can go to higher platforms. You start the game with all three characters available.
The SGX is also an 8-bit CPU. Not sure why they didn't bother to make it 16-bit but cost is probably the factor.
Oh what are you PCEngineFX/Discord creeps gonna do now? Send death threats to Pojr for leaving out minor details?
You should talk about the PC Engine Arcade Card. The card that gaves to the PC Engine CD a massive boost and allowed Neo-Geo perfect ports, and high-quality graphics on video games, such: Strider for the cutscenes, Mad Stalker for its larger sprites, in-game graphics, cutscenes and no slowdowns action, and Sapphire (the best shump on the PC Engine) which has faux-3D renders.
Also, even Strider has to be a SuperGrafx title. However it was scrapped and finally released on PC Engine Arcade CD-ROM.
Arcade CD-R
The SG System was made this way for 100% backwards compatibility, NEC and Hudson needed that to ensure the huge PCEngine library was available at launch. Hudson also helped Sharp with their development of the X68000 chipset and OS. The Sharp Graphic chipset was similar in Capcoms CPS which I believe capcom used to base its designs.
The MegaDrive was also much less successful than the PCEngine in Japan, which was surprising for NEC, so in effect NEC were only realistically competing against themselves at the time of the Sega MD consoles Japan release.
However, the hugely successful launch of SFC in Japan was the reason NEC and Sega struggled to gain extra sales traction in uts home territories from that point onwards.
SG is a capable system if programmed properly, Daimakaimura proves this, the 8bit CPU was not an issue, extra hardware was added to enable effective dual GPU processing.
The SuperGrafx and TurboGrafx-16 hardware was identical in every way except for the amount of memory and the extra graphics chips. The real mistake was not including that in the Turbo. That would have incentivized developers to make games for it. The extra memory was needed for the CD add-on anyway, so a small boost to the console price could be countered by a lower drive cost.
The SuperGrafx was good for the time, but they missed an opportunity to include better audio. It was really far behind in that area.
The song "ONE GAME I DON'T KNOW WHY" comes to mind 😂
Just a slight correction, NEC didn't go to Nintendo, Hudson did. The PC Engine was entirely designed by Hudson, and was meant to be an upgrade to the Famicom. A Super Famicom, if you will. Hudson, though, had some pretty insane terms regarding manufacturing and royalties. Essentially, they wanted Nintendo to pay them for each card manufactured. If that sound familiar, it's because that's the same terms Ninntendo had as a condition of working with them for the Famicom at the time. Obviously, they didn't want to cut Hudson in on that.
NEC however, did. I don't know how drunk they were during that meeting, but they accepted against all logic. This came back to bite them in the butt on numerous times. The development of the CD attachment for instance, was not just a way to advance technology, but a way to avoid paying royalties to Hudson.
It's kind of sad, really. The SGX is far more capable than the games that showed up initially make it out to be. Of course, we wouldn't start seeing that potential until like thirty years after the system failed and homebrew devs started really digging into it.
POJR you make good stuff, bright kid you have a good relaxed format, keep it up 👍🏻
I appreciate that!
You confirmed something in this video I always had a suspicion about rather or not the turbographics 16 was actually a 16 bit system because a lot of the games that are played on it seemed like a more glorified 8-bit system than it did in the actual 16 bit system.
Also the cool parallax 3D FX you mention is not real parallax but the same Fake parallax that the PC Engine could do :) So nothing that really showcase the parallax power of SuperGrafX. On the other hand they use the second layer for the HUGE bosses so that of course would not be possible on PC Engine
I really appreciate you making a video about this system, as there's very little documentation around. I also hope you will make a video about the European Turbografx now, since I'm about to buy one from someone.
The Super Graffix looked like an accessory that you would attach to a console! It always looked kinda odd to me.
Great as always POJR my dude. I had the turbografx-16, turbo CD, and the turbo express. But I had jumped to Genesis and Super Nintendo before I was aware of the SuperGrafx. Cool though.
I appreciate that! And really cool that you had most of the Turbografx-16 consoles.
@@pojr yeah what's a tearjerker though is out of all my systems those somehow got lost over the years 😔. It's Ok though I'll be going the Mister route later this year most likely lol.
3:47 ooooooooohhhhhh no you didn’t!
Just a fact . After so many years I hope people is able to accept the truth by now lol
I was wondering when Rondo of Blood would be mentioned, but then I realized I confused the Super Grafx with the Turbo Grafx. Also for some reason I have this random distain for the genesis version of Ghouls n' Ghosts, probably because it's missing a ton of visual details from the arcade version, so I'd probably prefer this version of it.
The supergrafx could even fill the screen with sprites using the 512 pixel mode. Or have 3 background layers in the 256 pixel mode.
Yeah well unfinished jeez I’m not surprised when it skipped testing it.
Thank you for reading my comment. I love you.
you're very welcoms
hang about, did the CD add on for The PC Engine come out after the SuperGrafix?
A legitimate game console that had fewer titles made for it than the Barcode Battler?
And the Barcode Battler only had a 4 bit CPU and no true graphics to speak of.
LIterally everything in the supermarket is Barcode Battler software!
@@greenaum True, but I was thinking of the various licensed expansion packs, Nintendo and Nihon Falcom packs and free cards included in Coro Coro Comic which were all marketed as "Exclusive Card Software".
1:08 the collaboration wasn't perfect as they had issues splitting up revenue between the software & hardware makers. It would had made more sense for NEC to buy out Hudson soft or for Hudson soft to have hardware manufactured directly with OEMs in hindsight
It’s functionally a standalone 32X. Plus, they have just released CD-ROM2 a year ago at the time. The timeframe is ridiculously short for a Pro upgrade. But hey, the console has one of the cleanest good games track record in video game consoles history!
yeah, the CD add on had the improved sound quality and expanded the memory from the restrictive HuCards/Turbochips from normally 4-6 megabits to hundreds if needed. But the CD add on didn't improve the base tech other than that, I think the Sega CD did slightly upgrade the MD/Genesis in hardware.
I don't see this console covered very often, so it was a pleasure to watch
My Cuz got one years ago along with Ghouls and Ghosts. Never beat it, but we had a lot of good times with that game.
Always wondered if the SG wasn't planned to be the US release for the console and just wasn't ready in time.
I have gone full circle and am on Famicom for my main Console. I play handheld with the HG-938 and I have the Famicom Top loader and the Rad2X Cable for TV play.
And I thought the Hyper Scan was infamous for its abysmal game count.
Hate crime. Cause they should also pay for court fees.
It was released with an even lower game count. Some games, like 1941 Counter Attack were released after the system was discontinued. I got my boxed SGX for a total steal!
I have one! It's one of my curiosities in my collection for sure. 5 games doesn't make it worth getting, but I bought it just because I like the PC Engine. I was able to downpay on it to avoid spending PS5 levels of money all at once. I have most of the games, but games like 1941 are way out of my pricerange.
The Super Grafx had the same 8-bit CPU (HuC6280) as the PC Engine.
No mention of the Turbo CD? That's what put the console on my radar at the time.
i always believed that the SuperGrafx shell was developed with western style in mind and if it had worked it wouldve been released to us back then. look at the console, it looks almost militery-ish, or like a huge diesel engine what with its dark grey color and its molded bolts like a car engine. and the name SuperGrafx sounds like they liked the TurboGrafx name and wanted the next upgrade to it.
to me the console looks like it wouldve been at home on the set of bladerunner or aliens. to my eyes its stylish!, and looks sweet with the super cdrom2 hooked up to it, which i love that consoles look alot too!
1) The PC Engine was never marked as a 16-bit console in Japan. The Turbografx-16 was in the USA
2) The Supergrafx was still an 8-bit console. It had more memory and a better video processor.
Is there a released console with fewer dedicated games than the SuperGrafx?
I can't think of one off the top of my head. The SuperGrafx might be the winner (or loser, depending on how you look at it).
You're delusional 🤪
Adventurevision had only 4. That was a really cool console. Used a vertical strip of LEDs, and a spinning mirror, to "scan" an image across your eyeballs! A lot like how the Virtual Boy's display worked, but a bit more primitive. Amazing it worked, but a somewhat hi-res display on a portable machine with a real CPU is amazing for the time (early '80s)!
@@greenaum Never heard of this, but just checked it out and it's a really cool little machine for its time.
good question, NEC's next console the PC-FX didn't have many games either. Also Virtual Boy had a very small library too. but like 5 games? Thats low.
I was always interested in the Turbo/Supergrafx as a kid but never even knew anyone that had the systems. Great video Pojr!
Thank you! I don't know a single person IRL with a T16 or SuperGrafx.
I only know the TurbograFX 16... wish I knew SuperGraFX 8.
Bonks Adventure...
Keith Courage & The Alpha Zone (Title?)
College Basket Ball (I know title is wrong)
World Series Baseball (I know the title is wrong)
King of Casino (correct title)
Dragon's Curse (Not Sure Release Title)
Cadash/Kadash (Not Sure Release Title).
Bonk's Revenge (Not Release Title)
Side-Scrolling Shooters were not available in my city/US State.
I have one. Just for backwards compatibility. Such a missed opportunity.
I used to have a Neo Geo 64 with only 4 fighting games for it. The shooter and car games were not compatible. And to think that there was a hardware devoted to mass audiences with only 5 games in Japan.
This was so poorly executed that even the 32-X fiasco looks fine in comparison.
Aw, I missed the Premier!
Let's Go Pojr!
yeah I kinda agree with the video, just 5 games but at least 2 excellent titles, however didn't the N64 get released with just 3 games IIRC? Mario 64, Pilot Wings and Star Wars?
The N64 had a limited amount of launch titles, but it got more games afterwards. The SuperGrafx only had 5 games during its entire lifespan.
Wasn't the jetski one a launch title? Wave Race IIRC.
Maybe I'm weird, but I liked more of the games for the Genesis than for the SNES. This might merely be because I had a Genesis and only got to play SNES games years later after doing some collecting. There is after all something to be said for the nostalgia factor, but in straight comparisons between games that were released for both, I feel like the Genesis wins. I even say this as a fan of FF games, but I did have a PS1 during the next generation and every FF game published for it, so I didn't feel like I missed as much from the SNES at the time.
They should totally release a SuperGrafix mini ala NES Classic style!
for 5 games? Some of the games are on the Turbgrafx-16/PCE mini
This system was the perfect example of "if you build it, they will come", and nothing could have been further from the truth. Too many companies over the years had this same broken mindset, as the 32X was another such device that should have never been made. The PC Engine is one of the best gaming consoles ever created(in Japan anyways), and this system did nothing to expand its legacy.
Just a quick cash grab hoping all those who supported the PCE would just make SG games, but the gaming market is always in a state of flux. And by the time this system made it to market it was already DOA, and became one of the biggest failures in gaming history. But I still play the Ghouls n' Ghost port on the regular, as it was for sure the best thing to come out of this s**t show.
Absolutely. Seems like no one wanted to make games for this thing.
@@pojr Sadly, when it comes to 3rd party support, it always comes down to the installed user base, as the larger the number, the more copies you're likely to sell. Those 5 titles released went on the faith of potential future sells, and got burned, as the system died straight out of the gate. That's why you rarely see major titles at launch unless they are 1st party, as no one else wants to take the risk. Even when the Switch 2 launches, you're better off making games for the old unit, with 140 million in the wild, than trying to make money with the 2-5 million units you might see in the first year.
32X used the same sound chip as Genesis/MD, I think it did increase the on screen color count slightly? It utilized the base Genesis/MD for parallex scrolling. Maybe it could have done better if the Saturn wasn't looming and the add-on was more ambitious to be the "next gen" hardware. Maybe sell it as a stand alone and add-on and Saturn never exists. But it was doomed in how it was handled.
I would have loved Madou as an Amiga title if it came cracked with a trainer mode. It still looks awesome graphically.
play 5 games on it? The LGN video art had only one "game" if you can call it that, the on screen coloring book, two if you could the blank screen you color do art on if you turn it on without the cartridge in it. Also, the Viewmaster interactive vision only had 5 or maybe less games
I saw the title and immediately thought NEC super graphics
You missed Darius Plus with its extra features when played on this.
People can say what want... But in my opinion the optimization of this console was the best of that period ( sound a part) ... But the pc engine and turbogrfx had the best port of coin ops not Sega Megadrive or SNES.
Interesting thx
The SuperGrafx didn’t do anything about the proprietary sound problem that the PC Engine/TurboGrafx 16 had.
Technically, it does. But no game takes advantage of it. But NEC always treated CD games as the upgrade if you wanted better sound. I mean.. the Duo replaced them all.
sound was pretty comparable to the MD/Genesis though. I think when MD/Genesis used the extra sound channels built into the backwards compatibility with the SMS, it could have added sound channels, but it wasn't always used, so they music and sound effects were at the same level, sometimes PCE games sounded better, sometimes MD games sounded better for the same games.
Was super graphics not compatible with turbographics games?
I had never heard of this system, I had the turbo-grafix 16 (american PC engine) and that had the CD add on, so this is a crazy weird system for them to try and push out
oh hell yeah, glad to see this console talked about :3 I think like Gamesack is the only other high profile channel thats talked about this thing (though im probably very wrong about that)
I did happen to see Game Sack's episode on it many years back. One of my favorite channels.
@@pojr just a heads up, I went back and checked that same Gamesack episode to be sure, but the robot platform game you looked over has two other selectable characters that would have made the out of reach jumping easier since one of them floats and has a shield to take a extra hit
Had NEC put more effort in creating a more powerful system with a bigger library of games & even backward compatibility with the PC Engine, the Super Grafx might have been a serious contender with Nintendo & SEGA's 16-bit consoles.
You need a shirt that says, "Let's take a look!" 😮
Indeed lol. I do say that a lot.
@@pojr not an insult... Part of your channels character
At least they tried. Well Done, POJR.
never even knew this console existed!
There isn't a single game on that system I have any desire to play. Even as a kid when I had patience for difficult games "Battletoads, TMNT, ETC" I couldn't stand the Ghost and Goblin series. Was never a big fan of side scrolling shooters they all felt too similar to me. I liked Lifeforce on NES and that was about it.
"Nice and floaty like a Mario game" .....yeah the bad Mario games, Super Mario 3 and SMW don't have that problem.
good video, Retro Console for the win
I LOVE my pc engine to this day.
This video was my introduction to this channel. It was in my recommendations, I just sat down with breakfast and thought let’s go. Immediately cringe hosting, poor chromakey, obtrusive mic setup. This was followed by a plea to subscribe and a mid-roll ad before any substance. I have no choice but to block and report this trash.
A lot of your thumbnails have improper headroom smh
Aldynes will always be my game on this system.
These videos are the only reason that i love Wednesday's
I love that!
There were a couple PCE games that could take advantage of the SGX.