TurboGrafx-16 Master Archive Card Pandora Game Console

The console a lot of people missed

If you never owned a TurboGrafx-16, the TurboGrafx-16 Master Archive Card is the easy way to find out what you missed. We feel a little sorry for anyone who skipped it. NEC and Hudson Soft launched it in the US in 1989, right as the Genesis arrived, and it lost that fight on marketing and third-party support. The games were never the problem.

On paper it was an 8-bit machine, since the CPU was 8-bit, but the graphics chip could put out pictures that looked like the 16-bit consoles. Its games came on HuCards, little credit-card-sized carts. With more support it could have given Nintendo real trouble. The library it did get is full of shooters, platformers and odd experiments that still play well.

What this card collects

These are the US versions of the games, the ones sold here under the TurboGrafx-16 name rather than the Japanese PC Engine releases. A few we would start with:

• Bonk's Adventure, Bonk's Revenge and Bonk III, the caveman series that became the system's mascot
• Air Zonk, a shooter set in Bonk's world
• Blazing Lazers, Soldier Blade and Super Star Soldier
• Devil's Crush and Alien Crush, two pinball games set in horror worlds
• Bomberman 93
• Splatterhouse
• Neutopia and Neutopia II, an adventure series that plays a lot like early Zelda
• Dungeon Explorer and Cadash
• Military Madness, a turn-based strategy game
• Keith Courage in Alpha Zones, the game that came packed in with the console

That is a slice of it. Click for Game List to scroll through every title, from Aero Blasters to Yo Bro.

Shooters are the reason to own one

If you only play one genre on this card, make it the shoot 'em ups. Blazing Lazers is the one most fans name first: fast, loud and packed with weapon upgrades. Soldier Blade is the tighter, later version of the same idea. R-Type, Ninja Spirit and Galaga 90 are here as well. Play them on the arcade stick of a Pandora Game Console and they feel close to the cabinets they came from.

How it looks and plays

The Pandora Platinum board outputs these games in HD, so you get a clean picture on a modern TV without hunting for an old CRT and composite cables. Play on the arcade panel or plug in your favorite controller; the platformers like Bonk feel natural either way. There is a video on this page of the card running on the console.

Compatibility

The card works in a Pandora Game Console built on the Pandora Platinum Pro mainboard. It is not compatible with consoles using any other mainboard. The archive itself can change at any time.

**Pandora Game Console consoles do not come with any pre-installed licensed or unlicensed software. Any Added Archive service is provided as-is with no implied warranties or licenses. Performance of archive has been tested and will work with your Pandora Platinum Pro version console. Adding an archive card constitutes your acknowledgement of ownership of original licensed hardware/software and your request of the service permits us to perform archiving for you on your behalf as a service.