TurboGrafx-16 Mini review: Mostly best-in-class retro gaming, sometimes WTF

Enlarge / Say hello to the TurboGrafx-16 Mini. (credit: Sam Machkovech)

With the arrival of every recent, retro-minded "mini console" launch, we've had at least one original console to compare with. The same goes for fancypants, FPGA-fueled console recreations. We've always had tangible reference points for the West's console biggies: Nintendo, Sega, and Sony.

When we talk about this month's launch of the TurboGrafx-16 Mini, we should get one key difference out of the way: nobody at Ars has an original TurboGrafx-16 console to compare this with. Our classic gaming experts missed the TG-16 boat when it reached our shores in 1989, and we weren't alone. The TG-16 was a famous casualty of late-'80s NEC failing to unseat either Nintendo's dominance or Sega's upstart momentum in the States.

As we've come to realize in the decades since, this one-step-up console kicked way more butt in Japan, where it was known as the PC Engine. In fact, its overseas presence persisted for a long time, in part thanks to add-ons like the PC Engine CD (which also got a Western version but, again, didn't do as well here). We've mostly explored the TG-16's legacy via unofficial emulation, but that changes this week with a bold launch from the console's current copyright holders at Konami.

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