Despite never owning, or even playing one, I've had a strange fascination with the PC-Engine for a while now. The main reason for its lack of global success as far as I can tell is a shortage of "big name" titles (the Marios and Sonics of the world). Are there any games that are really worth getting a PCE for? There seem to be a glut of shooters, which I'm not all that interested in. FC Gradius FTW! Haha. The Street Fighter port looks impressive for the hardware, but SF2 Turbo on the SFC will always trump it for me. Anyway, I'm rambling. Any suggestions?
Genpei Toumaden: Kan no Ki
Ninja Spirit: Saigo No Nindou
Shinobi
Momotaro Katsugeki
Genji Tsuushin Agedama
PC Genjin 1-3
And then the Valis games if you count PC Engine CD games.
Check out the PC Engine Thread (http://www.famicomworld.com/forum/index.php?topic=12155.0), I've listed a few of the most famous titles there. But there are many more.
Makyo Densetsu: Legendary Axe is a cool but hard action game.
Quote from: chowder on January 09, 2016, 09:36:15 am
The main reason for its lack of global success as far as I can tell is a shortage of "big name" titles (the Marios and Sonics of the world).
Yeah it was only ever number two in Japan after Famicom, so it failed to get some of the heavy hitters. On the other hand it got the best version of many games like Ys, Valis and Bomberman (of course Hudson makes the best version for their own system). And it has a number of unique games like some of the Far East of Eden games.
There are more CD games than HuCard games, so you should definitely count CD games. I'd start out with a Duo R or Duo RW, and if you like it, I'd eventually get a 5-port multitap (PC Engine only has one Pad port!), at least one more controller, Arcade Card and a Memory Base 128 (or a Save-kun, same thing), and possibly a PC Engine Everdrive.
If you start out with the original PC Engine or Core Grafx, you'll probably just end up spending more money if you get a Super CD-ROM (needs to be repaired). Also avoid the regular Duo (and American Turbo Duo) as it's CD-ROM unit also needs repairs. Also the Duo R/RW CD-ROM can play recordable CD-R discs without problem, which all of the other have problems with.
Personally I love Valkyrie no Densetsu for the PC Engine. I feel like it's a hidden gem, at least when it comes to America because it never really got a release outside of a single Namco PlayStation compilation.
Thank you all for the suggestions, and the hardware details are perfect, thanks P!
@P: By Duo-RW, do you mean RX? The Duo-Rs are going for a lot of money, do you think the CD games make it worth it? Is it possible to play CD games via an Everdrive on an original or Core-Grafx console?
Splatterhouse is amazing.
I have no idea about the PC-Engine, but a month back I ended up with 12 different hu cards and a unit.
(http://i1273.photobucket.com/albums/y419/fcgamer26/IMG_6748_zpsumymyks2.jpg) (http://s1273.photobucket.com/user/fcgamer26/media/IMG_6748_zpsumymyks2.jpg.html)
This is up for grabs on Nintendo Age auction if anyone here wants it.
http://nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=34&threadid=157000
Quote from: chowder on January 10, 2016, 02:52:58 pm
@P: By Duo-RW, do you mean RX? The Duo-Rs are going for a lot of money, do you think the CD games make it worth it? Is it possible to play CD games via an Everdrive on an original or Core-Grafx console?
Ah yes I mean Duo-RX, sorry typo. See Duo-R/RX as a PC Engine + perfect Super CD-ROM
2, so in that case it's cheaper than a Coregrafx + Super CD-ROM
2 unit with capacitors and cogwheel replaced. I can't imagine PC Engine without CD-ROM
2 or Super CD-ROM
2 games (as I said there are more CD games than HuCards) so it's definitely worth it.
No the Everdrive can't play CD games. I don't think it's possible for a flashcart that plugs into the HuCard port to run CD games.
But since the Duo-R and RX can play CD-R discs, all the possibilities of homebrew and such things opens up for you (and to get Akumajou Dracula X, Ginga Fukei Densetsu Sapphire, Sylphia and such games that are just horribly expensive). So in the end a Duo R/RX will save you lots of money and sweat.
There's no real difference between R and RX though (the board was redesigned in RX but they are equally good and identical in function). RX comes with a 6 button controller, but it's said to be pretty bad (I recommend Hori Fighting Commander PC instead). I'd just get the one you can find cheaper (which is probably R).
One more tip: if you plan to eventually get an Everdrive, don't get an RGB-modded or region-modded console as the Everdrive seems to have problems with many kind of mods. Unless the seller specifically states that it should work with Everdrive.
Chowder I can get you an RGB-modded PCE with cables and controllers for £100 if you are serious about getting one. Just a heads up, a friend mods them here in England.
Quote from: L___E___T on January 22, 2016, 02:44:48 am
Chowder I can get you an RGB-modded PCE with cables and controllers for £100 if you are serious about getting one. Just a heads up, a friend mods them here in England.
Thanks for the offer, sounds good :) I will get around to buying one, it's just been sidelined due to illness and lack of time (4.5 month old baby, I understand you'll be blessed with this curse soon too! Congrats ;D) - I'll give you a shout at some point.
Cheers Chowder, and congratulations again, hope all is going well with the little one! :bub:
Can it play the Everdrive, LET?
Oh and congrats both of you!
Cheers P, absolutely, if you have one. My friend uses his to test them.
That's good that there's a way to RGB-mod without destroying Everdrive compatibility.
Oh yes I got a PC Engine Everdrive a while ago, and it works great. Compatibility on PC Engine isn't very hard though since there's only like 3 kinds of HuCards (normal, Street Fighter II mapper and ROMRAM with battery backup) plus the system cards with extra Work RAM for CD games.
Only problem I have with it is that the buttons in the menu is totally wrong. Button I goes back and Button II accepts! What were they thinking, it should be the other way around!!
Rastan 2 had a pretty good port on this. Except for that then well...Gunhed and other SHMUPS are kind of cool and of course you got Wonder Boy and such things. I would personally not get the CD extension since the whole "thing" behind the PC-Engine as a novelty console I would say is the Hu-Cards and anything beyond that you could probably find elsewhere on other consoles (except for a few exclusives of course). I would though recommend the Double Dragon II for that system (if you do intend to get a CD attachment), but if I remember it correctly it was also released except for FC and NES also on the MD. But I am not sure about that....Anyway, have fun!
Not a snowball's chance in hell it is :) (I'd almost say it's mainly a CD system, but I can't ignore the many great HuCard titles). Sure there are a number of ports that plays the same as they do for other systems except with some added voice acting and CD audio, but since the CD library is so big, there are lots of all kinds of games for it: Great ports and crappy ports, great exclusives and crappy exclusives. It's nothing like the Sega Mega Drive CD that's full of crappy FMV-driven games (remember the PC Engine was a big hit in Japan, only outsold by the Famicom during that era).
That said, if you are really unsure about the system it might be easier to just get a cheap CoreGrafx (I or II doesn't matter) and start focusing on HuCards. Without CD you need a backup device (Ten no Koe 2 or Backup Booster) to be able to save though, as HuCards normally don't have battery backup (many HuCard games offers passwords as an alternative to saving though).
From a Japanese perspective and if we talk about the times that console being sold, pretty much 70% of everyone at least I knew, did not have the CD attachment probably due to the fact that initially was just an attachment, just like the FDS.
Can't really compare it to nowadays since the retro scene is so exploited and people has a ton much of knowledge about which title were released or not, but the main feature and actually one of the niches were indeed the actual credit-card sized games themselves. ;)
I don't agree with that. Still there are are more CD games than HuCards. And that's something for an add-on (I guess it's partly because CDs are so much cheaper to mass produce), and there's no lack of quality exclusives either (just browse the PC Engine Bible http://www.pcengine.co.uk/).
Getting an add-on like FDS or a CD-ROM device should be kind of compared to getting another console but a bit cheaper. For PC Engine it's a great upgrade, much better than FDS for Famicom or CD for Mega Drive anyway.
Sure. I didn't say it was a bad thing to get the CD add on. Just telling you how the gaming scene in Japan was back then. An attachment is an attachment no matter how good or bad it was (high vs low sales/releases) I could never say that it mainly was a CD system because simply...it was not.
Anyway, indeed, a bunch of good CD games were produced and sold for the PCE, but that doesn't really makes it "Mainly" a CD based system. :) The main use for the average consumer was to play the Cards and if I remember correctly, the price of a CD unit (both add on and later duo models) were like ridiculously expensive.
If someone wanted starting getting into PCE collecting or just playing around with the system I would clearly suggest a Core Grafx, a Flashcart etc. Many of the CD games were also RPG and strategy = A lot of Japanese text. Anyway, it's a great machine, with or without the CD ;)
Giving how large the CD library is and how many kinds of variants of CD systems it has, it doesn't sound to me that it was as unpopular as you make it sound.
I always understood it that HuCards was the main thing during the 8-bit era, and then the CD extended it to still being able to compete during the 16-bit era (well for a while at least).
PC Engine has many RPGs and other Japanese text heavy games indeed (these where popular genres after all). But there is a lot of everything I think. No CD simply means you are missing out of some of the best games like Akumajou Dracula X.
Unpopular? The CD based DUO systems were not unpopular at all. I just say that I do not know many people that got the attachment who already owned the original that did not play the CDs. In fact, the CD attachment was one of the main reasons why the lifespan of the PCE could survive that long, even though competitors released new systems.
But that's certainly different from recommending a curious newcomer to the system since the DUO systems are maybe around 3 times the price of a non-cd model and one of the nowadays niches for even owning a PCE except for the games would probably be due to the novelty factor of the cards and the minimal form factor.
Another thing is of course the aspect that the original SONY based disc drive was very fragile and therefore it would require a more expensive modification to fix that issue and for someone just want to explore some of the library (there was a LOT of good Hu Card games released) then the price tag doesn't really motivates the product if you are not a diehard fan and must use the original hardware (which is also a price factor since if you have to play the original system but using Everdrive and/or burned CDs, then it is more or less not 100% genuine anyway) then you would probably have to spend X-times the money that you gave for the system to even play the games.
Taken that into aspect, and the fact that he said that he wasn't really into SHMUPS, then what we are left with are the text-heavy games in Japanese, some exclusive puzzle, platform and fighting games, whereas the Akumajou Dracula X was already released on the PSP, PSN and the Virtual Console.
In other words. I think a Core Grafx and an Everdrive is very well enough to start with and if he wants to dig deeper later on, then it sure might be worth the money, but for a starter, no.
So that's why I recommended him a Duo R/RX to save him all that money and headache. It's the cheapest, simplest and most versatile solution to get CD-ROM2, perfect for a newbie.
If you are just going to play the games on Virtual Console instead I don't see the point of collecting old video games.
Quote from: P on February 18, 2016, 03:54:35 pm
If you are just going to play the games on Virtual Console instead I don't see the point of collecting old video games.
So that's why you are recommending him to burn CD-R discs and using Everdrives? Not really collecting in my opinion, although I totally understand people who want to play on original hardware (myself included). I just don't see the reason of throwing out three times the amount of money since it's really a jungle when it comes to DUO systems (including R/RX). A lot of them have faulty lasers, leaking capacitors which potentially might destroy the system and a whole lot of other nasty things that certainly isn't "newbie friendly". That's why I would suggest getting a Core Grafx and if he is really getting the taste for PCE then he would probably both get a DUO system including a lot of games on a later stage...if we are talking about "collecting old video games".
No the Duo R/RX are the only CDs that doesn't yet have problems with capacitors and cogs, which why it's newbie friendly (well friendly for everyone, not only newbies). If you get a CoreGrafx and upgrade to CD from there, you'll have to make sure to get a CD add-on with replaced caps and so on which usually means more money.
Plus R/RX reads CD-R so you can run arbitrary CD images on your machine.
Homebrew, hacks and translations are also factors why you would want CD-R capability. Although I personally don't care about translations since I just play the games in Japanese. Several RPGs and Dracula X has translations though.
For expensive games like Dracula X, I just burn it and download the manuals scans. Once you close the lid there's no difference, it's the same code (as long as it was a proper CD image) running on your genuine hardware.
The same goes for the Everdrive (run arbitrary HuCard images which includes hacks, translations, homebrew etc).
People's preferences may or may not be similar to mine, but I think I made it clear why I give the recommendations I do, and it's from experience.
I also wouldn't recommend anyone to "upgrade" their Core Grafx due to the issues you mentioned but to say that the R/RX is doesn't yet have problems with caps are not true at all. Indeed, amongst all the CD based systems they are less prone to capacitor leakage, but a lot of people here in Japan are re-capping their R/RX machines, for a good reason.
I have no idea about any translations, but the percentage of people that uses their flash devices mainly for hacks and translations vs people who use it for more than that clearly speaks for itself. It would be naive to think something else. Especially here on FW. But just as much as an ED might complement a nice collection, an emulator might complement the convenience of playing on the go, which was why I cited "I don't see the point of collecting old video games".
Anyway, no reason to argue for the purpose of arguing. Hope that Chowder will be pleased with whichever system he choses. PCE is really a great machine. :)
Chowder I know someone that it is a bit of a PCE whizz here in London, let me know if you want his help / advice. He also said someone is working on a CD drive emulation device - which be amazing if so.
Are you sure the R/RX have started getting problems? From what I've heard in the PC Engine communities, the CD add-ons started going bad a few years ago, and now about all of them are bad unless they have been recapped, but Duo R/RX are generally still fine (nothing happened to mine either).
Capacitors will eventually go bad since it's quite an old system but I doubt it will go bad on R/RX before the much earlier released white PC Engine, CoreGrafx etc. Or maybe the CD unit strains the caps more or something, which is why generally only CD add-ons have problems with it? R/RX are very solidly built overall, and supposedly uses higher quality capacitors though (but also it's not as old which could also be an important factor).
Well I just basically revealed that I'm pirating games myself. My point is that the possibility to run arbitrary code on my system is a big selling point for me, and homebrews and hacks is a big part of that. I like to be able to run my own home-made programs.
I'm not interested in arguing at all, but since there are conflicting info here from what I'm aware of, I'm willing to investigate it further.
Simply the first CD units were based off an old portable SONY CD Player (Sony D-50 I think. I do not remember exactly), and in Japan it is a well known fact that among hardware engineers that Sony (at the time being) were very fond of using particular bad SMD capacitors which would eventually leak during time, and destroying the whole system. (Not only Sony but Sony in particular).
That has nothing to do with "strains" on the CD system itself. Nor does it have any connection to wether the machine was released 4-5 later or earlier than another or whatever machine it might be. It is just a question of that Sony, or any other company that produced hardware back in the 80s and 90s probably didn't account that people still would be using their hardware 20-30 years later I suppose.
The newer R/RX models were re-designed (not only externally but internally as well) and does not uses these bad caps. But just like any other optical media, like for example the PS1, the hardware will be much more prone to malfunctioning than with for example PCB based media, and while I am not an expert of the R/RX models by any means, I know that a lot of people in Japan have been starting to re-capping their R/RX machines due to bad capacitors, but that doesn't mean that they are totally faulty/broken....yet. So all in all, even though the Core Grafx machine might be older, it will most probably survive longer than a DUO R/RX, simply because it doesn't uses any optical media.
Anyway, I would recommend you to re-cap your unit asap just for precautions sake.
So it's a precautious recap they are doing. And it sounds like optical media do indeed runs the caps out faster? Or are you talking about the laser and such things when you say hardware failure? I heard the laser can get stuck when reading low quality CD-R or so. Especially it's good to use 600 MB CD-Rs instead of the newer 700 MB, since the 700 MB disks have much thinner tracks which old CD lasers may have trouble reading, and when it can't read it may move out more and more and eventually get dislocated and stuck.
I have also heard R and RX are common to have problems...
With laser or with caps?
With the CD drive, which I imagine would be laser, but that's just what I've heard from someone that services them.
I see, problems with the laser is only what I've heard too.
Doraemon-Nobita's Dorabian Night
Armed Formation F
Alien Crush
final lap twin
Sidearms: Hyperdyne
download
bloody wolf
son son II
splatterhouse
1943 kai
Momotarou Katsugeki
blazing lasers/gunhed
Liquid Kids/Mizubaku Daibouken
Soldier Blade
ai cho aniki
dracula x
asuka 120%
Ginga Fukei Densetsu: Sapphire
last alert
Serei Senshi Spriggan
ranma 1/2
gain ground sx
splash lake
terraforming
Fausette Amour
Mad Stalker
lords of thunder
gate of thunder
I have a refurbished Core Grafx + CD I got from a guy on the PC Engine forums. Great system. Expensive games, though.
What kind of games are you really interested in? Bonanza Bros, Dracula X, Moto Roader MC, Bazaru de Gozaru, Nectaris, Double Dragon 2, Downtown Nekketsu Monogatari (AKA River City Randsom), and many more are all awesome in my book. There are over 700 titles to choose from, so I don't think you'll be lacking anything.
I've been collecting for a while, so I have I think about 300+ titles thus far. But still very far away from making a fullset. lol.