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Great Selloff – TurboGrafx 16 & PC Engine

This page is a work in progress. I will be adding to it for days or weeks.

People, like times, change. I’m not the same person I was five years ago, never mind 20 or 30 years past, which is when I bought most of this stuff. I always wanted to just dive through all this amazing art and entertainment, like Scrooge McDuck through his money. I bought it all for me. I bought most of it to play, I bought some of it just to take apart and see what was inside. Some I bought because they were cheap, or because they were rare, or because – at the time – no one else had heard of it and I wanted to share whatever I could.

But I bought it for me and I never used most of it after too short a time. I always held on to it, thinking I’d have friends over and we’d talk about how cool this stuff was and play the games and generally share the excitement.

But adulting is hard. Time is always short, schedules never match, and now I’ve moved into a new house, shuffling the same tubs and crates and boxes into it that I did the last one, and the one before that, and before that, and those times I moved house in Japan, and Canada before that. Here, then, are many of my treasures, my prized possessions, that I bought for myself and held on to and never used.

Here, then, are my collected arts and toys and games, the things that made me happy for so long.

I’ll try to group them, somehow. I’ll try to make them easy to find (click the #greatselloff hashtag). I’ll try to tell you why I bought it, what it meant to me, and what its story is.

Here, then, are those things, their stories, and your chance to be part of their story.

Pricing

  • All prices are AUD.
  • Pricing is based on -sold- prices on Ebay, Yahoo, forums and wherever I can find sold pricing. Current listings and asking prices are often unreasonable, so I didn’t pay attention to them. I went high where my stuff is mint, but some of it might turn out to be less great, and the price will reflect that when I dig into the items individually.
  • For the most part I stuck to ~80% of the max prices I saw. I need money but I’m not in it for the money.
  • Some of my stuff is so uncommon prices aren’t available.
  • Everything is negotiable. If I’m way off base, do tell me.
  • I am accepting trade offers. Mostly arcade stuff. I don’t have a want list, but I like shmups.

Condition

I am using a simple 3-tier condition rating system:

  • A – Minty fresh, like new. A tiny number of minor imperfections.
  • B – Good shape, normal signs of wear for a 30 year old game.
  • C – Yeah look, maybe I dropped it, or it was stored with my sandpaper collection. It ain’t BAD but it ain’t GREAT.

Please assume all the CDs have a few minor marks on them. It’s fiendishly difficult to photograph unless it’s really bad, and I owned these games to play. So, they got played, at least a few times. So, maybe a few marks. If that’s a problem for you, maybe ask about specific titles.

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Click here for a huge WIP list of stuff, and estimated pricing. This isn’t nearly all of it, I’m adding to it as I find stuff.

TurboGrafx 16

This is probably the system I love most. I worked all summer in 1989 or ’90 to earn enough for a PC Engine, and I fell so in love with that tiny powerhouse. Games were harder to get than they were for the TurboGrafx 16, so I bought one of those too. And then the CD ROM system, with a copy of the astonishingly great Monster Lair. And then I bought a Duo, with Gate of Thunder, and I absolutely destroyed my friend’s love of his SegaCD with Sewer Shark. He never forgave me.

And then I bought a SuperGrafx, and a CoreGrafx and CoreGrafx II, and a Duo Monitor and an LT and an X1 Twin and a LaserActive with the LD ROM module, and and and… It was just awesome. I had so many great games. When I was in the hospital recovering from surgery, I asked only for my Turbo Express and a stack of HuCards to keep me busy.

But, like so many things, I stopped playing most of the games. I lugged them around the world, across three continents, and recently pulled them out of storage for the first time. I did not know I had some of these games. I was just stunned to find a boxed Ys I & II, Bonk 3, Parasol Stars. I had no idea I owned two copies of Nexzr. I lost the power supply for my PCE with CD ROM, and that was my favourite way to play these games. So I stopped playing.

Parasol Stars (new)

Estimated Price: $???
When TTI Canada was clearing stuff out, I bought a ton of their stock. They didn’t have a lot left, the only things I remember clearly were Parasol Stars, and Turbo Express units. I bought, if I recall, ten of each. They wouldn’t let me buy any more. I sold them to my customers in my store, and made a lot of people happy.

Apparently I kept a copy of Parasol Stars. This one is unopened. There’s a small ding on the back side, but it’s otherwise A grade.

Parasol Stars

Estimated Price: $???
This was my own copy of this excellent game. I opened the box, pulled out the HuCard, then slapped a cover on the case and put everything but the HuCard into storage. And promptly played it maybe four times in 25 years.

Soooo it’s in great shape. A- box, A everything else.

Bomberman ’93 (used)

Estimated Price: $???
I remember buying this. I was at home with a few friends, back when I still lived with my parents. We were playing Bomberman with the multi-tap and I remembered seeing the sequel for sale at Master Player, the local game store. I told my friends to hold tight, and I ran down there and bought Bomberman ’93. I rushed back home and we played this brand new amazing shiny 5-player bomb-a-thon until late in the evening. It was glorious. A year later I would be managing that same store (before buying their furniture when they closed up, and opening my own store).

Of course I kept it. So many memories.

Really great condition. The manual looks like it’s never been read, the HuCard has only the smallest marks on it. The box is uncreased, and shows only miniscule wear. A tier.

Bomberman ’93 (new)

Estimated Price: $???
I have no idea where I got this copy from. But it’s brand new. A tier.

Bonk 3

Estimated Price: $???
I don’t remember where I got this game either. I thought I only owned the Japanese version. But, there in the box of a hundred loose HuCards, was Bonk 3. And in another storage tub, the box, still in its shrink wrap. A total mystery. Best I can imagine, it was a trade-in at my store and I somehow ended up with it after I sold the store.

B tier box. The shrink wrap has never been removed but the top flap has got a few creases. The HuCard tray is A and the HuCard itself is damn near perfect, but for a few scuffs on the back from being inserted into the magic machine. So, A- I guess.

Ninja Spirit

Price: $240 AUD
I loved this game. IREM were great on the PCE/TG16, and this game is no exception. I could one-life it all the way to the last stage. The cheap deaths in the falling sequence always wiped me out. I don’t think I ever finished the game.

Excellent condition.

Klax

Price: $40 AUD
It is the nineties, and there is time for…

Some yellowing on the HuCard. Manual is mint, and the case is in great shape.

Alien Crush

Price: $120 AUD
The first TG16 game I ever saw, running on a PC Engine at a demo kiosk in a shopping mall in Canada. It blew my mind.

This copy is complete and in very good shape.

Lords of Thunder

$400 AUD
I loved the shit out of Gate of Thunder, and the sequel pushed hard against the boundaries of the hardware. There was so much going on, with four types of weapon loadouts, a store to power up between stages, gems to collect, and stunning gothic design. And then, the soundtrack. Oh, yeah. People ask why I’m not a fan of Taito’s Zuntata music, and like, when it comes to shooters? Give me metal.

Excellent condition. A- at worst.

Ys I & II

$1200 AUD
Man, I loved this game. I don’t like RPGs, but this was something special. The combat was funky, the story engaging, and the length was quite tolerable. And ye gods, that soundtrack. I couldn’t get enough of it. I’ve gone start to finish with this a half dozen times (though, I gotta say, fuck Solomon Shrine. I get stuck there every time.)

This, obviously, is the boxed version. Unlike the version that shipped with the Duo, this one has a proper box, and a paper map, and it’s a different looking CD. It’s much, much less common. The previous owner ran a strip of clear tape across the bottom of the box for some reason.

PC Engine

I added a lot of PCE games to my library over the years. Up until 2004 I was still buying them, adding them to my storage stockpile after playing them a few times, promising myself I’d play them more later.

Yup.

Dracula X

Price: $500 AUD
This game I bought from a game store in Penticton. They were often importing games I’d never seen. When I had a chance to buy this one, I jumped on it. Who doesn’t love a bit of Castlevania? I’ve still got it, 25 years later. It’s a glorious experience, one of the PCE’s crown jewels. If it was released in the West, if more of the library was this calibre, the console wars might have been very different.

This copy is in excellent condition. A- tier at worst, solid A for the most part.

Side Arms Special

Price: $80 AUD
I wanted to love this one, but after playing the HuCard version, I couldn’t get into this one. The soundtrack on the HuCard version was just so much better, I couldn’t understand why they changed it for the CD release. Turns out the CD version was an arranged version of the arcade original, the HuCard music was new. Oh, well, that’d be why then. Still, SideArms is a great game, and the CD version adds a remixed game mode as well with different bosses etc.

A tier condition. There’s a small sticky bit inside the spine card, which was fairly common with some Japanese players, back in the day. It held the card in place.

Neo Nectaris

$120 AUD
This is one of the best strategy games out there. It improves on the Nectaris formula in many ways, and is a much more enjoyable game. It’s a shame this series isn’t better known (though, I guess within the small number of players who like hex sims at all, it’s well known enough). I love Nectaris. I had the TG16 original, this, the Xbox 360 version, the Win 95 version (and the German-only PC sequel) and the X68000 version and the Playstation version (for which I still have the Japanese strategy guidebook) and the Wii version…

Nectaris fucking rocks.

This copy is in perfect condition. Solid A tier.

Summer Carnival ’92: Alzadick

Price: ???
I didn’t like this game at first. It’s short. But, it’s a score competition game. It’s short, but deep. There’s a lot to figure out with the sequences and the scoring.

I love this game.

A tier.

--NFG
[ Mar 14 2024 ]
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