Turning the TurboGrafx-16 Mini on boots up a system that features the same attractive interface and polish as the Nintendo and Sega systems.
On the bright side, the controls are very responsive under the thumbs. The gamepad is made of the same plastic, and doesn’t have the bulletproof feel of the NES and SNES Classic controllers. The system is made of a fairly light black plastic with a matte finish, and along with its larger size, it doesn’t feel quite as dense as the multiple textures, finishes, and colors on different parts of the NES Classic, SNES Classic, or Genesis Mini.
The system and controller look great, but the build quality feels a bit cheap. Two three-way sliding switches sit above the I and II buttons, providing turbo fire of two different rhythms for each control.
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It features only two face buttons on the right, I and II, along with a circular direction pad with a prominent plus shape on top and Run and Select buttons in the middle. The gamepad is rectangular, with a very similar configuration to the NES controller. It’s a faithful reproduction of the TurboPad, the original TurboGrafx-16’s controller.
The TurboGrafx-16 Mini comes with one controller, mounted on a generous 10-foot cable ending in a USB plug. A micro USB cable and HDMI cable are both included.
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A cutout in the removable shell lets you replace it on the back of the system and run both cables out to a power adapter (not included) and your TV while hiding the ugly, TurboGrafx-CD-less plastic block on the back. Instead, an HDMI port sits on the back edge of the console, to the right of the TurboGrafx-CD protrusion, while a micro USB port for power sits in a recess within the plastic extension. Molded labels on the top panel point out where the antenna switch and power adapter connectors would be on the original, but those components aren’t present on this version. The back is covered with a trapezoidal shell that pops off to reveal a smaller, flat-topped protrusion where the TurboGrafx-CD add-on would be mounted on the old hardware. A molded slot on the front and top mimics the game card slot on the original system, and is flanked by a power switch and two USB ports. The system oozes early '90s style, with a chunky black plastic design covered in stylistic ridges and sporting the console’s classic orange-and-yellow logo on the top. So this isn’t much of a “mini” console at all-it's simply a retro compilation system. In fact, at 1.2 by 9.4 by 6.2 inches (HWD), it's actually bigger than the Japan-only PC Engine and European CoreGrafx versions of the system (of which there are retro versions, just like the TurboGrafx-16 Mini). Designĭespite its name, the TurboGrafx-16 Mini is surprisingly large compared with the SNES Classic, Sega Genesis Mini, and PlayStation Classic. That’s enough for the TurboGrafx-16 Mini to earn our Editors’ Choice. It packs 50 different PC Engine and TurboGrafx-16 games into one $99.99 package that looks just like the original system, opening up a whole new library of retro titles you might not have played before. This makes the TurboGrafx-16 Mini, produced by Konami, an excellent opportunity for Western gamers to try out something that’s old for the industry, but new for them. The NEC PC Engine, probably know it better by its Western name, the TurboGrafx-16, got plenty of excellent games of its own, though not as many Americans played them because the system wasn’t nearly as popular.
The 8- and 16-bit console generations were dominated by Nintendo and Sega, which already have excellent retro models in the forms of the NES Classic, the Super NES Classic, and the Sega Genesis Mini.