My impressions of the Duo

[/turboG16]

I had to wait until the weekend to give it a full test toast.

I spent some time firing up some PCE And TG16 HuCards and CD games. I too, was disappointed the version 2.5 Ed I had didn't work. Pretty sure there will be an update to use it, and if course the inevitable jailbreak to play games from the SD card.

All the PCE and TG16 games ran perfectly right down to the flicker. That wave of nostalgia hit just right playing Gate Of Thunder. Super Star Soldier and Sidearms played as I remember. I played both the HuCard and CD version of Sidearms. Both played flawlessly. I will of course play more but I'm impressed with how well the Duo ran everything.

I owned an OG TG16, upgraded with the CD Rom system and then eventually upgraded to the Duo. My relationship with my Duo has been a love hate relationship. The PCE and TG16 is one of my favorite consoles and has a special place in my heart. I strove to bring my TurboDuo into the modern ages with a recap, component mod and a region switch. After a while turned out the system had been modded in such a way that it was not getting enough power to the HuCard slot and after the region mod was removed, HuCard reading was spotty at best and the component mod had jailbars. I was not interested in sinking more money in it so when I saw that the Duo preorders were still available I ordered one right away.

The hardware looks very much at home in a retro collection, meaning if you were looking at my setup, it looks as close to a TurboDuo as you can get as long as you squint a bit at the size different.

Controllers were a pain to sync with my 8bitdo, until after perusing the Analogue sub, I had to upgrade to the Analogue Dock firmware. They eventually got paired, but it was a pain in the ass.

The 8bitdo controllers are a bit off compared to OG. I miss the sliders for the OG controllers. Some games liked 3, others 2. The 8bitdo controllers have that second set of buttons but it's weirdly awkward to press if the game needs turbo on one and normal on the other button. They feel fine and play accurately, but the turbo buttons compared to the og controllers don't feel consistent to turbo 2 or 3. Game Sack mentioned it as well. It feels off. I'll get used to it I'm sure but it's weird.

The hdmi output is beautifully crisp and looks great on my 4k LG. The sound is crisp and sounds exactly like I remember albeit a bit quieter. I didn't bother with the scan lines although the TurboExpress PCE LT screen modes are cool. I know everyone wants CRT images but I don't care much for it. I want my pixels sharp enough to shave with.

I will say I thought I had bricked it after following the instructions on updating the firmware. I thought it had powered off after the firmware screen bar had finished, so I restarted it. The led lights on the side were blinking yellow, which meant it was applying the firmware. Thankfully the pdf instruction manual explained what the lights meant.

All in all, I'm very impressed with the Duo. An easy on the wallet entry to the TG16? And it can play CDs? From all regions? Holy shit. Just buying an uncapped TurboDuo or TG16 is the same price if not significantly more. As a gamer who went TG16 pretty hardcore back in the 80s/90s, I'm very pleased with this.
submitted by /u/IronhideD
[link] [comments]

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/TurboGrafx/com ... f_the_duo/