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Tricky Kick is one of a seemingly long line of odd choices for games to release on the TurboGrafx-16. Don't get me wrong, as puzzle games go it is a pretty decent game and puzzle fans should enjoy this one. It's just that given the relatively small quantity of games released for this system in North America, I'm not sure that this one really did much to draw new people to the system.
The game consists of six scenarios. However, regardless of scenario, the basic gameplay is the same. Your goal is to kick various creatures through a landscape littered with obstacles until you match up its pair. It is a single-player game but the amusement factor increases greatly with an audience.
The game's flaw isn't being a bad game. It's being an obscure title on a relatively obscure system with simplistic and odd artwork on the box. There were lots of these sort of titles on the TG-16. There are various reasons but the biggest reason was Nintendo's draconian hold on its licensees. You weren't likely to see the same game on the TG-16 as you would see on the NES or SNES. Nintendo's licensing rules were too strict for that.
Puzzle fans should definitely give this one a try. You will have to track down an original copy or use emulation though as it has not had a re-release on any newer system.
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This is one of those "hidden gems" that I discovered when I discovered the Turbo Grafx-16. While far from perfect, limited animation and quickly stale gameplay, it was still fun and a brain teaser that did not involve dropping blocks from the top of the screen.
If you think this one is weird, check out Chew Man Fu. It is another weird import from NEC back during this period.
While we wonder why they brought these games over instead of stuff like Salamander, Gradius, Rayxanber, and others is because NEC was not like Sega and Nintendo. NEC USA was very much under the ruling thumb of NEC Japan to the point that NEC USA could not really do anything unless the Japanese headquarters did it - including marketing - which explains the weird release choices, the weird box art on what we got, and the weird ads we saw.
Not until Hudson and NEC collaborated on TTI (Turbo Technologies Inc) did we see most of this stuff brought over to the USA branch along with more control over what games were released here. That is when we got Lords/Gates of Thunder, Bonk 3 (CD and Hucard versions), and I believe this is when New Adventure Island finally got released (though by then it was not all that popular with NES fans).
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And by the time TTI came along, it was really too little to late. The Duo was a very expensive system and while its capabilities may have justified that price for the time, the quantity of software available did not. In 1993 there was something like 30-35 titles released for the TG-16/CD/SuperCD combined. By comparison, the out of date NES had nearly twice as many titles and the SNES and Genesis far more. Quantity isn't everything of course but there was just so much more to chose from with those systems.
NEC needs to jump on the mini bandwagon and release a mini TG-16 or mini Duo.
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I agree, by the time NEC came to their senses (at least the Japanese headquarters) it was too late. The war was lost to them and it was not going to be pretty from then on out.
The high price tag is part of the reason the Turbo Duo probably didn't sell well - the lack of software, I think, hurt it a lot more. Had they been able to secure some of those Konami classics then it might have helped a bit - at least they would have some name recognition on the store shelves.
Shoot, if they had gotten Gradius they could have done what Sega did and produced a side by side comparison against the SNES version of Gradius III (in all its auto-slow motion glory).
NEC assets as far as gaming are concerned were picked up by Konami. I believe this was just the United States side of things but they would be the ones to launch a TG-16 Mini.
I am working on an article right now concerning this possibility as the E3 content announcement for Konami was just published earlier today and it has a "compilation" listing for all of the major platforms and mobile. No word on what it is but earlier this year Konami did secure the rights to "Turbo Grafx 16".
Could be connected. May not be. They also have that successful Castlevania mini series on Netflix that could be tied into with a compilation of Belmont adventures.
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Time to fire up the emulator. Never heard of this one!
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