The next game on my TurboGrafx journey is Fighting Street, a port of Capcom's original Street Fighter arcade game.
Street Fighter was the introduction of Ryu and Ken, and followed much the same format as its hit sequel: Street Fighter II. While you don't get to choose your fighter, you can choose your starting country, then you fight two fighters per country as you make your way around the world.
Street Fighter is much more difficult than Street Fighter II ever was, and while Ryu and Ken have their signature special moves (fireball, spinning kick and dragon punch) its WAY harder to pull them off. In fact, I've only ever been able to get the spinning kick to work.
You can watch some gameplay from the original Street Fighter arcade below, before we get into how the TurboGrafx-16 port of it compares:
Fighting Street was one of two games (the other being Monster World) initially released for the TurboGrafx-CD add-on in November 1989.
Fighting Street is a good port of Street Fighter, and the only port of Street Fighter released on a home console (although computer ports were widely released.)
You still can't select your fighter, but the TurboGrafx port does let you select from four different starting countries, while the arcade only allowed you to select from two (China or USA).
The character VS screen looks very good, with detailed sprites, and practically looks identical to the arcade version.
The stage graphics look very good as well, even if they aren't necessarily pixel perfect, and while the characters are large and well animated, they are not quite as good looking as the arcade.
One thing that is very much like the arcade, however, is just how difficult the game is, although the TurboGrafx version might be slightly-less brutal than the arcade version.
Enemies hit hard, like REALLY hard. If you get hit just a few times, you are likely going down. And your hits? Ha! You're likely to barely hurt them at all with a single kick or punch. It's all pretty brutal and MUCH tougher than the enemies in Street Fighter II, even on the highest difficulty.
While I was able to defeat the first enemy (eventually) in some of the destinations, generally the second enemy in the same location would mop the floor with me.
For example, in USA, Mike (Tyson?) is the second opponent, and holy hell he hits hard. Like 2 or 3 punches and you are done. In the meantime, you can try and jump-kick him all you want, and you might get him down quite a bit, but if he just connects a few times you are done for.
Also, while it's true you have your signature special moves (fireball, hurricane kick and dragon punch), I challenge you to actually be able to pull any of them off. It seems nearly impossible.
There are also sequences that are similar to the "test your might" challenges in Mortal Kombat, although Street Fighter predates Mortal Kombat by quite a bit, so if there was any "inspiration" it was MK that was inspired by Street Fighter. Although, instead of button mashing you have to time your button press on a bar that keeps filling up and emptying. The more full the bar is when you press the button, the more stuff you smash and the higher score you get.
Being a CD game, Fighting Street has a great soundtrack, and sounds better than the arcade version, however it still has the same "voices" in the arcade when you either win or lose. They sound really terrible, but are one of the more memorable parts of the arcade game.
I ended up seeing the various defeat screens quite a bit, but I did manage to beat a few opponents and see the victory screen, like the one above.
Street Fighter arcade wasn't particularly popular in the United States, and it isn't hard to see why. It's a really painful game to try and play.
If you want to see some of my gameplay from Fighting Street, you can check out the YouTube video below:
Thankfully it must have been good enough in other regions to inspire Capcom to create its sequel and kick-off the entire fighting game craze of the 90s.
Even though I don't think I'll play too much more of Fighting Street, it isn't because there is anything wrong with the port on the TurboGrafx-16. The port is really competent, and does a great job brining the arcade experience home. The arcade experience, in this case, is just pretty terrible.
Now that I've played Fighting Street it's time to move onto the other TurboGrafx-CD launch title...
Vigilante is the next game I played on my TurboGrafx journey.
Released in November 1989, Vigilante was one of the games available during the TurboGrafx's first Christmas holiday, delighting dozens of children as they pummeled rival gang members and sought to rescue Madonna from the clutches of the evil Guy Ritchie (or something like that.)
More than just a way to live out your childhood fantasy of rescuing Madonna, Vigilante was a port of the arcade game developed by Irem. Think of Vigilante as the bastard child of Double Dragon and Kung Fu Master.
The game is built in stages, each with a stage boss. After defeating the stage boss, the bad guys somehow always manage to escape with your girlfriend (kind of like a beat 'em up version of "Your Princess is in Another Castle".)
Graphically, Vigilante on TurboGrafx looks really good, and VERY close to the arcade version. There are slight differences to be sure, but if you compare the version of Vigilante on the TurboGrafx to the Sega Master System version, it's a night and day difference.
You can see video of my gameplay from the Sega Master System below:
The music and sound fx are also very close to the arcade, however the TurboGrafx version is just missing the satisfying punch and kick sounds, that honestly sound like they were directly ripped from Double Dragon.
The enemies feel a lot closer to Kung Fun Master than Double Dragon, however, with the most basic enemies simply walking at you and then holding you tightly if you don't kill them first (which also drains your health very quickly) and other enemy types taking more hits and carrying weapons.
In the arcade and TurboGrafx versions, you move left and right on a pure 2D plane, and you jump by pressing up, much like fighting in Street Fighter.
In the Sega Master System version you have to press both the 1 and 2 buttons in order to jump, then you have to mash a bunch of buttons in order to do a jump kick (honestly have no idea what the button combination is), and if you think that sounds awful, I guarantee you it's much worse than it sounds.
Each stage has an end stage boss, and typically they aren't too difficult, so long as you make gratuitous use of the jump kick (although some require you to duck and miss their jump kicks).
Then there is one stage where it starts out overlooking NYC (seen in the screenshots below and above) and motorcycles drive at you. The only solution is to jump kick them (or simply jump over them until you move far enough they stop coming).
There are also enemies with guns who fire bullets at you, however you can generally just duck and let the bullets fly harmlessly over your head. Honestly, there isn't any one enemy type who is particularly hard to defeat, but its more the combination of the regular "huggy" enemies that constantly come at you AND the other enemy types that become challenging.
While the arcade version seems a bit harder, and was certainly a quarter muncher back in the day, at least you could keep continuing until you reached the end of the game.
In the TurboGrafx version of the game, the enemies are not quite as aggressive, but you only get three continues, and this can make finishing the game be quite challenging, especially since those "huggy" enemies can really mess you up at the wrong times.
You can check out some of my gameplay from the TurboGrafx version of Vigilante in the YouTube video below:
Overall I really enjoyed my time playing Vigilante, and I think this is one of the most fun "launch window" titles for the TurboGrafx that I've played so far. I could certainly see myself playing a lot of this game if I had gotten it for Christmas back in the day.
If you want to see some of the arcade version's gameplay to compare it to what you've seen from the TurboGrafx version, you can check out my playthrough on YouTube below:
Now, with the next game on my TurboGrafx journey, I'll continue to explore the world of pixel-powered street fighting, with...
Fighting Street is a port of Capcom's original Street Fighter, and was one of two games launched alongside the TurboGrafx-CD. It's also the first TurboGrafx-CD game that I'll be playing.
As I've been embarking on my TurboGrafx journey, I've been trying to play the games in rough chronological order, meaning I've been trying to stick to games released in a similar timeframe, before moving onto the next timeframe.
However, I've had trouble finding good resources that make this easy, since a lot of online information mixes the TurboGrafx and the PC Engine together, and don't clearly delineate between the two.
So...
I decided to try and create my own, both as a self-reference as I keep going on my TurboGrafx journey, but also as a resource for others possibly looking to do the same.
As a caveat, however, this will be looking at the timeline of the TurboGrafx-16, as released in the United States, therefore other games released outside of the US won't be counted (but there are PLENTLY of resources on PC Engine games, so you shouldn't have issues finding that).
And if a game is listed that I've posted an article for, I'll add a link to the listing. Similarly, I plan to keep building upon this article as I discover new information, so check back from time-to-time and see if there's anything new.
Let's get started...
August 1989
TurboGrafx-16 released on August 29, 1989, retailing for $199.99 (equivalent to ~$500 in 2024), in select locations in New York City and Los Angeles.
Games released on TurboChip:
Keith Courage in Alpha Zones (pack-in game) [link]
TurboDuo released in Los Angeles, CA, in limited quantities.
Console initially retailed for $299.99 (equivalent to $667 in 2024)
This introduced the new "Super-CDROM2" format, which required a new TurboChip for the regular TurboGrafx-16 to play the new Super-CD format on the original TurboGrafx-CD.
Games included with the TurboDuo:
Ys Book I & II (CD)
4-in-1 Super CD Compilation (Bonk's Adventure, Bonk's Revenge, Gate of Thunder and Bomberman)
The release of Bonk 3 on Super-CD would be the final release for the TurboGrafx-16 in the United States. Like many endings, there wasn't any significant event to mark the occasion. You never really knew when the end was coming, until nothing else came after it.
I still have a long ways to go in my TurboGrafx journey, but even now (have just played Vigilante for the first time) I can see the missed potential of the console.
Just looking at things like its release price ($199 while Genesis was $189), its pack-in game (Keith Courage?!?), its lack of placement in 1989 holiday catalogs (didn't even make it in the Sears catalog at all!), and its strange and ineffective marketing (just look back at the ads from Sega and other video game publishers at the same time), and it isn't hard to see why the TurboGrafx failed so hard.
It's a real shame though, because the console had a lot more potential than it was ever able to realize in the United States, and US gamers missed out on some really fun releases.
R-Type is the latest game I played in my TurboGrafx journey for Turbo Times, and although I've never played R-Type on TurboGrafx before, I was already familiar with the game itself.
Even if you never actually played R-Type, if you were reading video game magazines back in the 80s and 90s, you were certain to see a regular cadence of R-Type ads and articles.
R-Type on TurboGrafx is a port of the original arcade game, and a really good one. One advantage the TurboGrafx version has, however, is the turbo features of its controller, which really make a big difference.
The graphics in R-Type are very colorful and well animated, but being a solid arcade port, that's to be expected. What's great though is that the game has minimal slowdown and flicker, considering all the onscreen action at times. That's not to say that there isn't any slowdown or flicker, but I've certainly seen much worse with games that don't look nearly as good.
R-Type also has some legendary, screen-filling bosses, that serve as a great endcap to each level.
Like all of the TurboGrafx games I've played so far, the music is good and really fits the action, although as an arcade port, this has more to do with the design of the arcade game than it does with the port to the TurboGrafx.
The controls in R-Type are tight and well designed, with one button assigned to firing the primary laser and the other button assigned to combining with and separating from the Power Pod. But despite the great design and fluid controls, the game's difficulty is quite legendary.
Despite several attempts, I haven't been able to get past the third stage so far, which is that massive ship that has cannons all over. It's a very cool stage and a great looking boss, but man is it difficult.
You can check out some of my gameplay, including my various attempts at beating the third stage, in this YouTube video:
I can definitely see myself playing the heck out of this back in the day, even though I'm sure I would have gotten frustrated with it. Of all the titles I've played so far, this is one of the games I could see myself coming back to again and again (especially to try and beat that annoying third stage).
R-Type wasn't released for many home consoles in the United States, but it did come to the Sega Master System prior to the release of the TurboGrafx version. Overall it looks good and plays really well. Certainly one of the better arcade ports on the console.
You can check out some gameplay from R-Type on the Sega Master System in the YouTube video below:
R-Type on the TurboGrafx-16 is generally regarded as one of the most accurate home ports of the arcade game. I recently played the arcade game so I could compare them, and I agree that the TurboGrafx version seems very close, although maybe a bit easier than the arcade (but still hard).
You can check out some of my arcade gameplay in the following YouTube video:
Overall, R-Type seems like it is one of the more solid games to release around the launch of the TurboGrafx-16. I'm guessing there were some happy kids that Christmas.
R-Type is definitely a game I can see myself continuing to play, and I want to continue trying out different ports of it as well. I just recently downloaded the port on iOS, so I'll give that a try and upload some video to YouTube for anyone interested in seeing it.
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