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The PC-Engine was released and incredible games were unleashed to unsuspecting customers. Carbon copies of popular arcade games were immediatly made, and stereo sound now added depth to every game. The Nintendo Entertainment System suddenly smelled death, and NEC got a firm grip in the video game market of Japan. Sega (unfortunatly) was a day late in releasing their 16-bit system: the Genesis
Word got out that there was a new 16-bit machine capable of incredible sound, large sprites, multiple processors, scaling & rotation, and a larger color pallette to choose from (sound familiar?). The result would be the Super Famicom from Nintendo.
Fearful of the possible destruction of their grip in the 16-bit market, NEC decided to battle this new machine with an incredible invention of their own: the SUPER GRAFX!
Incredible power, speed, and a nifty design made the SuperGrafx the ultimate.... 8-bit .... machine. Even though it was an 8-bit machine, the amount of processors, and the way they were set up, made this the best machine out on the market. The SuperGrafx overshot the Super Famicom, and many people shook their heads when they learned that the Super Famicom wasn't going to be what they had expected. Because of this, the PC-Engine was still good enough to compete with the Super Famicom, and the Super Grafx became a wasted effort.
The Super Grafx was capable of doing some pretty incredible things. It had a color pallette of 4096, and I've never seen any specs on what it can display, so I will assume that it can display 256 colors at a time. The sprites ranged anywhere from 64 to 128 maximum on the screen at one time. It also had hardware scaling and rotation like the Neo Geo. The sound was a let down though, because it had the same sound card that the PC-Engine had. Don't let that fool you though. From what I've heard, it sounds much better! PC-Engine games are also compatible with this system (long live NEC!!).
The Super Grafx has a very unique shape. It is much larger than the original PC-Engine, and it is comparable in size to that of a Turbo Grafx-16, or a PC-Engine with a CD. The Hu-Card slot points upward and faces you. The power switch is green, a bit hard to use at times (very solid) and it also doubles up as a Hu-Card guard. There are two ports, one on the back which is supposed to be used for expansions or a CD-ROM drive, and one on the front, called the S Epansion, which was supposed to be used for further upgrades like game enhancers (probably like the 32X, or extra memory) as well as heavy duty add-ons.
Video out on the SuperGrafx is standard composite just like the Duo and later systems.
The controller is like the Turbo Duo's controller, but it is dark gray and blue just like the system.
The games released for the Super Grafx were incredible for their time and very fast. The first game released was called Battle Ace. It can be safely described as a cross between Afterburner II, and Galaxy Force. This game makes some of the 32-bit games of today seem slow! After Battle Ace, came the ultimate version of Ghouls and Ghosts! Ghouls and Ghosts was better than any arcade version made, and it made the Genesis version look ancient. Around the same time, GranZÖrt came out. GranZÖrt was a standard side scrolling fighting(??) game with incredible backgrounds and graphics. Strider was supposed to be imported to the Super Grafx, but unfortunatly it only got to the beta stages. The pictures of the game made any other version look ancient. A little after that, a version of 1941 was imported to the Super Grafx (a version existed for both the Mega Drive and PC-Engine). Once again, top speeds, incredible graphics, and large sprites filled the screen. (for more info, go to the Super Grafx games page)
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