In which my partner and I check out a forgotten piece of gaming history with 12 games for the TurboGrafx-16, the distant third place competitor to the SNES and Sega Genesis. This collection we got from a yard sale covers a wide variety of what the system was capable of!
Even with the success of Super Bomberman overseas, Hudson Soft had different plans for the next 1993 entry. Bomberman ’94 brings the series back to the PC Engine and is the first entry to (initially) release as a Japan exclusive since 3-D Bomberman. This was likely due to the fact that the PC Engine underperformed outside of Japan, though the platform would be discontinued everywhere in 1994 regardless. To better accommodate overseas markets, the game was ported to the Mega Drive as Mega Bomberman in 1994, so its Japanese exclusivity technically didn’t last long. As the final main series entry on the PC Engine, Bomberman’94 specifically picks up where Bomberman ’93 left off and refines it to a striking degree, making for a worthy sendoff for the platform.
Keith Courage in Alpha Zones (TG16 / Advance Communication Company / 1988)
Arguably the least needle-moving console launch pack-in game ever, Keith Courage is… fine. The alternating play styles (slow dude and faster mech) are novel, but unremarkable, and the fact that the game is based on an anime that likely no one in America had seen didn’t help.