A lovely way to spend my lunch break: “Legendary Axe” on the TurboGrafx-16 and Sony mini-Trinitron display
A lovely way to spend my lunch break: “Legendary Axe” on the TurboGrafx-16 and Sony mini-Trinitron display
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For anyone who doesn’t know or remember this console, this is the TurboGrafx-16, the US version of the Japanese console called the PC Engine. This system was launched in the US in 1989, just a couple weeks after the Sega Genesis. The Japanese version (the PC Engine) was a massive success, but the US version (TurboGrafx-16) struggled against the Sega Genesis, and was basically wiped out once the Super Nintendo arrived a couple years later.
Despite its failure in the US, it is home to a really fun and quirky library of oddball games – many of which were never published on other platforms (other than retro compilations in recent years). Today I’m playing “Legendary Axe,” an absolutely fantastic action/platformer that was one of the launch titles in the US.
I have the TurboGrafx-16 connected to [my Sony Trinitron PVM 8045Q](https://i.imgur.com/hWuHDVz.jpeg), a tiny portable professional-quality CRT that is a perfect fit for my limited desk space. I’m using an “EDFX” module – basically an adapter that plugs into the back of the TurboGrafx-16 and allows it to use high-quality Sega Genesis-style RGB cables – a perfect match for this cute little monitor!
One of the funkiest things about the TurboGrafx-16 is the format of its games. Unlike the big chunky cartridges used in more common consoles like the NES, SNES, and Genesis, TurboGrafx-16 games came on “HuCards” – [slim, credit-card-shaped cartridges that somehow still seem futuristic](https://i.imgur.com/wzLEODh.jpeg) all these decades later. Here are four of my HuCard games alongside a US quarter for scale (I’m fresh out of bananas, sorry!)
Here’s a close-up [view of Legendary Axe inserted into the HuCard slot](https://i.imgur.com/5bWaJf4.jpeg) on the front of the TurboGrafx-16. This game is super fun and is well worth checking out, whether on original hardware like mine, or via a modern emulation system.
I’d love to know if you remember the TurboGrafx-16, and if so, what your favorite games were!
I loved my TG-16. Bonk, Keith Courage, Legendary Axe.
Dungeon Explorer and Bomberman with 4 people were so awesome. Veigues Tactical Gladiator was rad.
Ninja Spirit, man. What a great game. Aero Blasters was fun as hell. So many awesome, unique games.
Ah, one of the other 7 people who remember this console.
Keith Courage, Legendary Axe, Ninja Spirit, JJ & Jeff, R Type, and Final Lap Twin were some of the ones I still remember and played as a kid.
Would you connect a current-gen console to that TV? It’d be cool.
Never owned one, although an older kid in the neighborhood had it. It looked fun enough, especially the Bonk games. Sadly, outside of Japan, the PC-Engine/TurboGrafx-16 just never caught on. Just so much bad timing and stiff competition…
For example, the system had a very competent port of Street Fighter II Champion Edition during Street Fighter’s peak years, but it never got released, one again, outside of Japan. That would have helped immensely, even if the packed in controller lacked the buttons.
Eh, then again, who knows. Sega had so much momentum and Nintendo was Nintendo. Maybe it was never meant to be. Well, the 90’s are long over, Hudson Soft was absorbed into Konami, and NEC keeps trucking on.
At least we’ve got the memories.
Oh, and the actual console, in your case.
The future looks bleak