those Medusa heads were the death of me
Those still haunt me to this day. There were several other games, most notably Ninja Gaiden that had something similarly infuriating. I can still hear the sound of the death music from NG in my head right now despite having not played that game for over 30 years.
I loved the arcade version of Ninja Gaiden but just could not get into the NES version, I can't even call it a port it is a completely different game.
I had a friend that loved that series on NES and could not stand the arcade game. He would play it relentlessly when I would visit. He let me try maybe once per his three to five game overs so I never really had a chance to learn it. I just knew enough that I wasn't spending my allowance on a copy of my own.
Later when I saw the Atari Lynx port of the arcade game, I contemplated getting a Lynx (I was working a part time job at the time) but after some basic math I decided that would be a bad investment (I was making like $4 an hour and the Lynx was $180).
To put that in perspective to today, I was making just under $10 an hour and the Lynx was $450. No brainer that I would get tired of the game LONG before I saved versus going to the arcade on the weekends and playing $3 to $5 in quarters.
There were lots of reasons to not buy and Atari Lynx. I was one of the few people that purchased and Atari Jaguar and that was one of the biggest letdowns of my entire gaming life.
A friend of mine purchased the TG-16 portable for something crazy like $400. That thing was very ahead of its time but the price tag basically ensured that not many people were going to buy it.
For me, the only reason to get a Lynx was Ninja Gaiden as everything else on that portable was available in a better iteration on something I already owned. I wasn't into After Burner style shooters so no need to bother with Blue Lightning. I was burned out on basic maze games and the Pac family titles that showed up were just that - ports of nearly a decade old arcade games with nothing new or interesting (and those games were on other platforms).
There just wasn't much interesting, at least to me, exclusive to the Lynx. Even today, the few I have seen come up for sale locally are priced quite a bit higher than I care to pay.
Oh man, the TG-16 was definitely on my radar for a while. I wanted Splatterhouse and to play Blazing Lazers but the local EB only ever had games like Tricky Kick, JJ and Jeff, and similar titles in stock. They only received 1 copy of Splatterhouse, it was apparently a low print run as NEC had little faith in it in North America. To think they pushed JJ and Jeff HARD just makes it worse.
It was expensive though. I got one on clearance after TTI pulled the plug on the Turbo Duo. I think I got the TG-16 and 5 games (China Warrior is the only one I remember, I think I got Vigilante as well) for $100. I remember the EB I bought it from had the Japan version of Splatterhouse but it was $89, not marked down, and they were sold out of the card adapter so basically useless to me (even if I had the $129 they were charging for the adapter - I did not). $200 to play Splatterhouse was just out of my budget.
you might want to get one of the TG-16 mini boxes. I think they are like $100 or something like that and of course Spatterhouse is on it. The TG-16 was a system that I loved but yes, you are correct, getting your hands on games unless you were prepared to catalogue order them, were really tough to find especially after the very unsuccessful launch into US markets competing with both Genesis, NES, and with Super Nintendo just around the corner. I don't think TG really even tried to enter the market again after Bonk failed to really draw a bunch of people in. Their 2 button controller was a strange choice considering how controllers were evolving at the time as well.
NEC made so many stupid mistakes with the TurboGrafx-16. One controller port, requiring fans buy an adapter to play two, or more, player games.
The stereo add-on, that also acted like a battery backed save game accessory, being an additional purchase.
The self censoring of Splatterhouse. Not just the color of the mask but also some scenery elements were removed. Why? They were the underdog, run with the controversy, run with the playground word of mouth - who was going to stop them?
As you mentioned, the two buttons on the controller. At least they offered auto fire.
Delaying the console nearly a year in the US as they argued over what case to put it in, then having to run that by the US government for approval - just change the color, or not, of the PC Engine and run with it. Imagine had NEC been out nearly a year before Genesis rather than less than two weeks different.
Just one bonehead move after another. It didn't even help that they let Hudson basically buy out the US operation and form TTI either. Just more bumbling messes there (Bonk 3 on CD and HuCard? Why just that one game, why not others?).
I loved the TG-16, or at least the idea of it back in the day. I had a very limited collection of games but I played them a lot. They felt different than NES/SNES/Genesis games somehow.