PC Engine - what's the deal?

[originalbadboy]

The PCE was a great (little) machine at the time ... Still amazing how they managed to get something into such a small package. OK some of the arcade conversions were not great, and if you are talking about current thoughts about it I would rather play arcade games on a cabinet now than on the PCE anyway.

However there are some great games for the PCE, Ken & Ken, Dungeon Explorer, Jackie Chan, PC Kid series, the best version of Side Arms and not forgetting Super Star Soldier of course as well. From that point of view it was and still is one of my favorite consoles.

[speedlolita]

Fire up R-Type on a PC Engine and you'll understand.

I prefer it to the arcade version.

[Soundwave]

I'd written out a long reply for you there TA, but there's just no point in answering you and putting it up. This was boring with you all those years ago when it started between us, and it's even more boring now.

Asura, i'll try and knock up a decent post for you tonight as to the positives of the system and why I hold it in such high regard. Depending on what you're in to games wise, there's a huge amount to be taken from the system. As you'll no doubt see here today, it's not for everyone though!

I'd love to read your thoughts.

I actually brought Retro Gamer for the first time in ages on the fact they were doing a retrospective of the little white box, only to get home read it & find it to be a pretty boring article.

Barely anything in it worth reading & the little bits on the games in side bars was so minute they may as well not have even been there total waste of my time.
I was hoping for much much more from it...Subscription cancelled

As I said I've always always wanted one, it's just one of those machines...much like the Neo Geo to me, just that little bit to rich for me to get into & enjoy properly.

Neil

[Colin]

I don't know why you're getting to ratty

I'm not feeling in the slightest bit 'ratty', and not bothering to discuss anything with you from this point will maintain that wonderful feeling of calm. If anything, I'm disappointed I acknowledged you in the thread in the first place, as it would only ever see one outcome. I'll try to fight my way through the sadness of that mistake though. It'll be tough, but with the support of my friends and family I'll pull through.

[Team Andromeda]

If anything, I'm disappointed I acknowledged you in the thread in the first place, as it would only ever see one outcome.

And I'm sorry that I acknowledged you 1st, because there was only ever going to be 1 outcome in a PC-Eng thread with you.

[nakamura]

Don't worry lads, SNES tops them all. (SNES fanboy raving here...)

[Colin]

Ok then Asura, getting past the tangent your thread headed off in, here's my personal outlook on the 'why' of the PC-Engine. It's a bit of a 25 year videogaming love affair for me and one that will probably go on forever! What follows might be a bit long winded, but it's the story of why I can't resist the little powerhouse...........

Going back to the eighties when the system was released, I first became aware of it when it started to get a small amount of coverage in some of the UK magazines. At that point, as far as people I knew were concerned the Commodore Amiga and Atari ST were what we all really aspired to own, the reality was though that we mainly had spectrums and Commodore 64's. For me, I'd already been totally hypnotised by the magic of arcade games and the way they played due to random visits to seaside arcades as a kid. Growing up to that point I'd always loved games, but when it reached the stage of Sega releasing stuff like space harrier, afterburner, outrun and thunderblade I just flipped my lid! I knew at that point that arcade thrills'n'spills were what I loved gameplay wise, and still do to this day. Hitting the arcades was also responsible for getting me started on console gaming in the form of the Sega master system, as in my eyes it was the only option in the UK back then to get those thrills at home. (I won't go in to the massive tale of talking my mum in to buying that one.....) R-Type in the arcade had then become my gaming obsession of choice along with bubble bobble, so when I started to get my first glimpses of R-Type on PC-Engine I couldn't believe my eyes! I think in the UK we were pretty much happy with games being at least similar to the original coin ops in those days, and comments like "arcade perfect" for titles released on the Amiga etc were pretty loosely thrown around. (If you look back on those conversions now, they're shockingly bad in some cases!) Looking at those screenshots in the mags though, it really, REALLY looked like the machine i'd been pumping all my 10p's in to and I had to have it, so it became a little bit of an obsession. When the grey imports started making their way in to the UK, it seemed unbelievable to me that something so powerful only cost something like half of what an Amiga did. Keeping in mind the system is roughly 5 inches wide, it may as well have just landed from another planet, how could something this small possibly be producing stuff like this? (I think to this day it's the smallest home console ever made?) For my money, the design of the original white PC-Engine is the best there has ever been, I mean just look at it!



So my absolute need to get the system probably started my well known trading history with gaming items. I wasn't quite old enough to have left school and be earning yet, so stuff was sold, money was scrimped and odd jobs were done in order to make sure I could get my hands on one, and there started my introduction to importing. Thankfully I was still young and stupid enough that I didn't realise how poor the picture quality of the Pal modified units doing the rounds were, but we didn't really know the wonders of RGB outputs at that point. It made no difference to me though, I was playing R-Type, at home, and it was as good as the genuine article. Mind. Blown.

Unlike now though, games could only be bought few and far between as I had to save my arse off to buy them, or cling to the hopes of Christmas presents. In the early days I still managed to play a lot of the PC-Engine catalogue, and the sheer quality of what was being imported saw me not leave my bedroom for days on end. The look on friends faces who had by then achieved ownership of the mega powerful (or so we'd thought) Amiga when they saw what this little thing was doing will always stick with me, classic times. Of course I then went on to enjoy all of the wonders of the 16-Bit era, every one of those systems holds amazing memories The PCE, MD, SFC and NEO, jesus, it was just such a great time. So consoles came and went, and during the actual lifespan of the PC-Engine I never owned 'big' collections, simply because I couldn't afford to. I never lost my love for the system though, so when I reached the point of earning decent money, that's when my PC-Engine love reached another level. I started to build a collection of all the classics i'd played up to that point as well as taking the chance to experience everything i'd missed. For example I didn't sample the arcade CD-Rom titles until long after their actual release. Up until say twenty years after the console first came out I was still finding hidden gems i'd never played.

That brings me to my biggest reasons as to why the system is so great. Take my 5 favourite games, two of them are PC-Engine titles. And that's not my 5 favourite old games, that's my favourite 5 games EVER. The big one on the shmup front for me is soldier blade, a game that's now something like twenty years old. And you know what, to this day I still regularly play it. I still want to beat my score, I still want to play the game to absolute perfection. I've still never one life cleared it, but i'm still trying after all this time. It cost something like ?35 when it came out, i've taken twenty years of fun out of it (so far), beat that on the value for money stakes! And I can use that same story against many, many games on the system. Take what I love about gaming, the PC-Engine is the system which gives me that in the largest selection of games on one console which still have a beauty both visually and sonically to this day. I'm not saying it's the best console of its time to the masses, but it's the best console of its time for me. The NEO is the rolls royce of 2D gaming, the SFC and MD both did things the humble little white box could only dream of, yet it still stood toe to toe with them all and for a long time held it's own. No matter what gets said in here, it's home to some of the best arcade style games of the era, and I genuinely can't understand anyone saying otherwise.

If it's a system you decide to try out, i'd be more than happy to make some recommendations games wise. Just let me know what kind of stuff you're in to and i'll try to cherry pick some of the consoles classics. Despite what many will say, as you've seen in here already, there's many of them.

[nakamura]

Great read Colin. It really was an incredible time in gaming. I broke into the arcade scene in the very late 80's and loved every minute. The magic of gaming is long gone for me. Firing up my SNES brings it all back, much like the PCE does for you. To me it is a stark reminder that there are no old games or new games, only great games.

[Baseley09]

Well done on the essay Ikobo. Playing Splatterhouse for the first time was ridiculous.....especially considering that the other game I got with my first PCE was Ballistix. 0_o.

[Asura]

Thanks Ikobo, that was great to read and exactly the sort of thing I was after. I hadn't planned on getting one; I think it's one of those machines that you had to experience at the time, but it's great to learn a little bit more about it.

[Colin]

Oh there was much more I could have written, but at the length I got to I thought I would probably be stretching peoples boredom levels already.

[Asura]

Oh there was much more I could have written, but at the length I got to I thought I would probably be stretching peoples boredom levels already.

Don't be daft. If people got so easily bored we'd all have left this place long ago.

[Magnus]

The Pc Engine is a great little machine, and I bet it was amazing at the time. But the games feel a little lightweight to me. match up the full library against the Snes or Megadrive and its not even close to either of those IMO.

I always wanted one, but like many on here price was an issue. I got lucky one day and actually picked up a boxed SuperGrafx with 10 games for ?46. TBH once the initial excitement wore off I never really bothered with it, its still in my cupboard.

[Grapple Convoy]

DELETED!

[QualityChimp]

I think the white PC Engine is one of the best looking consoles ever, and still doesn't look dated.

To avoid buying a console I know I'll hardly have time for, I just bought The PC Engine Bible so I can gaze at the box art and screenshots!