Turbo... Duo?

[AirVillain | 490]

I was wanting to get into some TurboGrafx 16 because I always remembered playing Bonk's Adventure at a buddy's house and loving it. (Enjoyed the NES version as an adult)

Also, there seemed to be a couple shooters I was interested in.... Dragon Spirit, Air Zonk, Fantasy Zone, etc. 

So the other day after being absolutely crushed and defeated by some tiny store owner () and leaving with nothing I wanted to totally redeem myself by getting some Turbo Grafx gear. 

I had been into a pretty decent store locally that had a SHIT TON of Turbo games a while back but recently they were gone. They also had a boxed system and a loose system.

When I got there the games were still gone, loose system was gone, but the boxed system and a Turbo Duo was there. I had never really bought anything big there before and the owner is kinda hard to read. 

And I also don't know what the fuck I'm dealing with with the Turbo Duo and it looks like he has TWO there. One cheaper. Of course, as suspected, one is the PAL. But he's like "Oh, the Duo is the one you want, no question, it can play both the cards and CD's".... which of course I realize and knew but damn, seemed pretty awesome. So it's either that, or the boxed Turbo Grafx 16. 

"And what about all those games that were here, did someone buy them up?" "Oh no, I have the Turbo games in the back." Fuck yes I think and say "Awesome, I'd love to see them".

I didn't want to push too hard and I was just so damn happy the games were still there and we was cool with taking the time to go get them all for me (he was also packing for a convention this weekend in Toronto) so I just said "If I grab a couple games and the system will you work with me on a price" "Oh yeah man, for sure."

Pull out some games, grabbed some TMNT figures and WHAMMY. He rounded down to the nearest hundred, threw in an extra TMNT figure after that, and offers no tax for cash (13% here) so I was happy.

New proud owner of a TurboDuo. 

It was great because when I came back from looking at the figures he had it hooked up (before me even asking) to test it out and make sure the cards and CD were working. 

Gotta figure out what the hell CD's and games to buy now. He had quite a few more games to choose from but because I don't know what the fuck I'm looking for I only grabbed the couple big name ones that I knew for sure I wanted. 

There were some biggies in there though.... 
 

Edited August 27, 2022 by AirVillain

[MrWunderful | 2,927]

Thats clean. The hu card door is a rarity at this point. Great buy! I would have grabbed it too. 
 

good chance it needs new caps if they havent been replaced though. 

Edited August 27, 2022 by MrWunderful

[a3quit4s | 4,102]

Blazing lasers!

[Tanooki | 4,934]

If you need a bit of help there are some people here who are into that system currently or had been.  I've owned both a US and Japanese Duo over the last 25 years, also a core grafx 2 too the second go around.  But because I had to make some solid choices with my time I ended my ownership by converting over to just a PCE Mini which is still more than enough for me, even if I do miss a few things (emulator can fix that.)

I can suggest quite a few really nice games, just keep in mind that DUO will *NOT* play stock Japanese HuCards unfortunately, but there are card converters you can get that'll adapt to the other type.

I will warn you, the US stuff is toxic priced on the whole, one of the most obscene and asinine abuse of classic gaming prices for what you get across the board.  The Japanese stuff historically was dramatically less, but as more catch on and bought, the Japanese caught on and pushed their prices up a lot, so in either region, unless you need them complete, I'd go for card only to save a lot.

That said, there is a turbo everdrive, costs around $100 and you can fit the entire chipped library on a very small micro SD card, and quite a few JP titles have solid full english translations.  I'm considering getting one of them again, once the analogue pocket shipment B goes out and they offer up the $30 PCE/TG card adapter for it.

If you want a slice of good quality info and mini reviews for both card and CD go here: http://www.videogameden.com/index.htm they cover Nintendo FC, FDS, and SFC games too.  But it is for just the Japanese stuff, though while the TG got far less titles, most were just repackaged JP titles that needed little to no translation anyway.

 

Also big warning, the Duo (other than the late RX in Japan) are capacitor disasters, right up there with the Turbo Express/PCE GT, and the Sega Game Gear.  IF it works, great, it probably won't much longer, get it recapped because the fish stank from hell eats a hole in your board.

Edited August 27, 2022 by Tanooki

[Brickman | 3,987]

The PC engine is an awesome machine and even went head to head with the Famicom in Japan.

I agree with Tanooki, the Duos are known to always have cap issues both in the US and Japanese models. 

The PC engine Duo R and RX fixed this issue if you ever decide to get into the Japanese side.

I have about 200 games for the PC Engine so if you ever need recommendations let me know.

[bowser | 598]

I did a recap on one of these recently with SMD style replacement caps and it was a royal pain in the ass.

[Deadeye | 1,596]

Have a PC Engine DUO, great system with killer titles.  I did go the route of getting a region mod installed, so I can play TG16 and PCE HU Cards, not necessary unless you plan to play both libraries. 

Favorites currently are:

• Ys Book I&II
• Devil's Crush
• Blazing Lasers
• Soldier Blade

[DoctorEncore | 3,691]

22 hours ago, AirVillain said:

I was wanting to get into some TurboGrafx 16 because I always remembered playing Bonk's Adventure at a buddy's house and loving it. (Enjoyed the NES version as an adult)

Also, there seemed to be a couple shooters I was interested in.... Dragon Spirit, Air Zonk, Fantasy Zone, etc. 

So the other day after being absolutely crushed and defeated by some tiny store owner () and leaving with nothing I wanted to totally redeem myself by getting some Turbo Grafx gear. 

I had been into a pretty decent store locally that had a SHIT TON of Turbo games a while back but recently they were gone. They also had a boxed system and a loose system.

When I got there the games were still gone, loose system was gone, but the boxed system and a Turbo Duo was there. I had never really bought anything big there before and the owner is kinda hard to read. 

And I also don't know what the fuck I'm dealing with with the Turbo Duo and it looks like he has TWO there. One cheaper. Of course, as suspected, one is the PAL. But he's like "Oh, the Duo is the one you want, no question, it can play both the cards and CD's".... which of course I realize and knew but damn, seemed pretty awesome. So it's either that, or the boxed Turbo Grafx 16. 

"And what about all those games that were here, did someone buy them up?" "Oh no, I have the Turbo games in the back." Fuck yes I think and say "Awesome, I'd love to see them".

I didn't want to push too hard and I was just so damn happy the games were still there and we was cool with taking the time to go get them all for me (he was also packing for a convention this weekend in Toronto) so I just said "If I grab a couple games and the system will you work with me on a price" "Oh yeah man, for sure."

Pull out some games, grabbed some TMNT figures and WHAMMY. He rounded down to the nearest hundred, threw in an extra TMNT figure after that, and offers no tax for cash (13% here) so I was happy.

New proud owner of a TurboDuo. 

It was great because when I came back from looking at the figures he had it hooked up (before me even asking) to test it out and make sure the cards and CD were working. 

Gotta figure out what the hell CD's and games to buy now. He had quite a few more games to choose from but because I don't know what the fuck I'm looking for I only grabbed the couple big name ones that I knew for sure I wanted. 

There were some biggies in there though.... 
 

Damn dude, nice get!

[AirVillain | 490]

Thanks everyone. I'm learning more with every post.

 

On 8/26/2022 at 9:51 PM, MrWunderful said:

Thats clean. The hu card door is a rarity at this point. Great buy! I would have grabbed it too. 
 

good chance it needs new caps if they havent been replaced though. 

Thanks! Yeah, when he brought it out from the case and I saw how clean the control pad was, I knew I was in pretty good shape. The buttons are crisp, too. 

And the door seems like it was in decent shape other than the scratch/scuff so that's good to know it's a good find. 

I have passed by it a few times, but after the scare of all the games being taken into the back, and the TGFX selling, I didn't want to risk it any longer, hahaha. 

 

On 8/27/2022 at 1:59 AM, bowser said:

I did a recap on one of these recently with SMD style replacement caps and it was a royal pain in the ass.

On 8/27/2022 at 12:25 AM, Brickman said:

The PC engine is an awesome machine and even went head to head with the Famicom in Japan.

I agree with Tanooki, the Duos are known to always have cap issues both in the US and Japanese models. 

The PC engine Duo R and RX fixed this issue if you ever decide to get into the Japanese side.

I have about 200 games for the PC Engine so if you ever need recommendations let me know.

New caps? What's all this about new caps....?  

Any ideas, let me know!

I've got a decent list set-out. 

Mostly shooters. The platformers look like shit. 

Edited August 29, 2022 by AirVillain

[Abelardo | 154]

Awesome purchase! North American Duos are really difficult to come by, let alone with the original controller and HU card door. 

Of you tested CD games and they ran without any issues then most likely the capacitors (that's the caps they're talking about) have been replaced already, of you want to check you can put in an audio CD and it should play smoothly and you should be able to hear both left and right audio channels, alternatively you can download the 240p suite for TG16 Super CD-ROM and burn the image in a CD-R, the Duo should be able to play it, it has a series of sound tests and you should be able to determine if everything is working correctly: https://artemiourbina.itch.io/240p-test-suite

[Brickman | 3,987]

22 hours ago, AirVillain said:

Thanks everyone. I'm learning more with every post.

 

Thanks! Yeah, when he brought it out from the case and I saw how clean the control pad was, I knew I was in pretty good shape. The buttons are crisp, too. 

And the door seems like it was in decent shape other than the scratch/scuff so that's good to know it's a good find. 

I have passed by it a few times, but after the scare of all the games being taken into the back, and the TGFX selling, I didn't want to risk it any longer, hahaha. 

 

New caps? What's all this about new caps....?  

Any ideas, let me know!

I've got a decent list set-out. 

Mostly shooters. The platformers look like shit. 

I don’t know anything about the TG16 library but the pc engine has good platformers.

[Gex | 120]

Sick PU bro, need to burn some CD games now

[AirVillain | 490]

On 8/29/2022 at 7:01 PM, Abelardo said:

Awesome purchase! North American Duos are really difficult to come by, let alone with the original controller and HU card door. 

Of you tested CD games and they ran without any issues then most likely the capacitors (that's the caps they're talking about) have been replaced already, of you want to check you can put in an audio CD and it should play smoothly and you should be able to hear both left and right audio channels, alternatively you can download the 240p suite for TG16 Super CD-ROM and burn the image in a CD-R, the Duo should be able to play it, it has a series of sound tests and you should be able to determine if everything is working correctly: https://artemiourbina.itch.io/240p-test-suite

Thanks!

Good to know... as I said, once I saw how nice/clean/crisp the controller I knew I was doing okay. And the cords still seem quite fresh, too.

Neat, okay, thanks. Yes, they put in a CD game before I left. Good to know they have all that fancy testing stuff if needed,  though. 

 

On 8/30/2022 at 8:12 PM, Gex said:

Sick PU bro, need to burn some CD games now

I'd rather burn in hell. Pun intended.