My first encounter with the Turbo was about a few months before they were
available in the States... I had saw the ads and fell in love with two of
their commercials:
1) The first commercial for the system that featured all sorts of games...
all my friends gasped when we saw the screens for "Legendary Axe"
2) The Blazing Lasers commercial...
Then, lucky for me, a radio station was doing somewhat of a pseudo/contest
where all I had to do was announce the number one song for their daily
countdown and I received the TurboGrafx core system... not bad for
pretending to like Milli Vanilli. =)
Because of this contest, I managed to get the system a month before store
release in Boston, and I was the envy of the 'hood... although when they
first saw Keith Courage they almost laughed at me. THANK GOD for the
transformation scenes!
Then, the bug spread like wildfire... I saw the Bonk commercial and
instantly fell in love with it and managed to get the game shortly
thereafter. When the CD attachment went down to $150, I quickly spent
half of my paycheck to get one at the time (College WorkStudy was good
for something after all).
For the longest time, my only games were Ys Book 1 & 2, Exile, Bonk's
Adventure, JJ & Jeff, Klax, Galaga 90 and Fantasy Zone... but then it
seemed like overnight that all the Turbo stuff became very cheap to own,
and then my collection literally doubled. I started buying every game I
saw, including Parasol Stars, Cadash, Vasteel, Cosmic Fantasy 2 (YES!),
Splash Lake (and yes, I HAVE done all the boards), Impossamole (we all
make mistakes), and Super Star Soldier.
Then, the Turbo list came along and I managed to triple my stash over the
last few years... managed to get a TE along with 6 games and a game
converter (which also came with a copy of Street Fighter II CE). Managed
to also find a copy of Dracula X on the list before the price
skyrocketed... someone was actually nice enough to GIVE me their Super CD
Card 3.0 so I could continue to playing and buying more games. By that
time, the Japanese gaming bug had bit, and I was an owner of all the Ranma
1/2 titles, Parodius, Road Spirits, Urutsei Uatsura, Batman, Rainbow
Islands, Bonanza Brothers, Mesopotamia, Neo Nectaris, Ken & Kato and
Vasteel 2.
Through another deal with a list member, I managed to purchase the Arcade
Card Pro, and with that I started purchasing all of the SNK ports and
Kabuki Den Fighter...
And I still want more... one day I'll get all the titles I want for this
system... maybe one day I'll actually land a PC Engine LT as well (wishful
thinking). =)
Curtis L. Atchison
xxxxxx@vol.com