PC Engine Core Grafx Mini

It has finally arrived!

Finally got it, supposed to get out back in march, but thanks to the global pandemic it was obviously postponed. As a bonus it came right before I went on summer vacation. I've mostly seen people talking about the American release (since most Youtubers I watch are Americans), the TurboGrafx-16 mini, and I gotta be honest, it looks bad. I get why they changed the colours from the original PC Engine, but how could they make it so big and bulky? At least Europe got the Amazon black and blue. Funny enough the smallest of the mini consoles I have, but the most games on it... technically. It sports 57 games on the back-cover, but the thing is that some of them are the same game, but both a japanese and an english version. And some of the Japanese-only games are with japanese text and sound... meaning that I can't actually play them. The two games most effected are Snatcher and a game called Necromancer. Both very text heavy so that makes it rather impossible to play them. The german voice for Castlevania: Rondo of Blood isn't a problem since I know enough and it's just the intro.

Now, some information that I tried to find was how many controllers are there in the package? Just one, you were supposed to buy at least one more to get the most out of the console. And if you wanted to go all in you could get the multitap and buy three more so that five people could play games like Bomberman and Dungeon Explorer. Now, the pandemic shut down that idea as well so I have just the one. Although I thought that it's basically a NES-controller with some added turbo-configuration I though I would try some of the other controllers I had laying around. Now, I only got the Sega Mega Drive Mini controllers with USB-connections and they didn't work. So when the logistics of Konami is solved I will probably pay for 4 more controllers and a multitap. Gotta need some spare at least. The d-pad is a bit harder than the NES mini, but overall works like normal. Greath lenght on the cable so no need for extensions.

Like the Sega Mega Drive mini you can get to the game menu from the games, but this time holding both the Select and Start button... or Select and Run button. Save stats goes a long way and you can choose different backgrounds. They also decided to divide up the games for the PC Engine and the TurboGrafx-16 (I assume the European releases were rather insignificant or that the PAL format really messes with the games) so you gotta switch them around to get to the games. Interesting choice and since they have doubles I get why they did that. They also play little animations while starting up the games, reflecting if it was a huecard (the cartridge the first games come on) or a CD-ROM game. 

Speaking of the games, I've got a couple of them before on Wii and Wii U (and the Switch arcade archives). As mentioned, some games that are completely in Japanese I can't play if I wouldn't do something drastically like putting in some translation patch (which I won't do since I'm not that technical). Other games don't need it, Castlevania or some of the shooter games since the words don't affect how you play the game. I started up snatcher and the visuals and music are fantastic but a lot of text and words in Japanese and as the game starts... you gotta chose words to progress and I can't read it. And it is pretty much a visual novel I gather? Might just youtube someone playing the Sega CD version. You got a lot of shooters like Salamander (the arcade original of Life Force, which I gotten 7 times... and some times twice on the same console). With this I might finally finish Neutopia and Castlevania: Rondo of Blood, but since it's the Summer (as of writing) I might play Ys 1 & 2 again, especially since I just learnt that Ys IX is coming next year.

Playing some of the games and looking at it... probably had I not gotten the games on Wii and Wii U it would probably be the best way to experience these games for someone who haven't played the games. It was a bit more pricey, but I think it's worth it. This is at the moment also the last mini console I will get unless they release a Nintendo 64 mini (I'm not touching the Playstation mini).