Review: Analogue Duo

There's a good chance you've never played one, much less seen one, but the PC Engine—branded in the US as the TurboGrafx-16—is a game console that arrived at a unique moment in gaming history. A bona-fide Nintendo-threatening hit in its home country of Japan when it launched there in the late 1980s, this system from computer maker NEC and game company Hudson Soft (makers of Bomberman) could have changed the gaming landscape. But in the US, the console was quickly overshadowed by the Sega Genesis, which launched around the same time.

Thankfully, all those long-neglected PC Engine and TurboGrafx-16 games are being given another chance. Since finally launching its first handheld system, hardware maker Analogue is taking a crack at the PC Engine, giving its software a home suitable for the 21st century. The Analogue Duo is a compact, retro-styled console that lets us consider what could have been. Imagine a moment in time when it seemed like the Japanese economy could grow forever, the lush city pop vibes would never end, and an oddball video game console could take on the world. If you're fascinated by Japanese culture of the late ’80s and early ’90s, the Analogue Duo is likely to give you a turbo hit of nostalgia.

Analogue is hardly new to the boutique gaming hardware business. Last year the company finally shipped the Analogue Pocket. Prior to that, it made systems that let users play their old Nintendo NES, Super Nintendo, and Sega Genesis games on modern hardware designed to hit these ancient piles of code with some digital pixie dust to make the graphics look fantastic on a modern big screen, saving many games from an unplayable fate.

Until now there were limited ways of sampling the titles the PC Engine offered. Of course, you could play with emulators—software that runs on a computer and pretends to be a PC Engine—or with aging original hardware, warts and all. For the real tech heads, the MiSTer system provides hardware emulation through an FPGA, a chip that can be reprogrammed to mimic the functions of other chips, so it functions like original hardware. The Analogue Duo also uses FPGAs but makes firing up long-dormant games a cinch.

Unlike the other solutions, the Analogue Duo has an eye-catching design on its side. It clearly takes a lot of inspiration from its namesake—the PC Engine Duo—but has simplified the case into a clean, slab-like shape up front, with a playful wavy pattern along the back. It's fun and small but also looks serious. Up front are a power button, a HuCARD game slot, with a slot-loading CD-ROM drive on the other side of an eject button. The power button has a power LED embedded, but other than the quiet purr of the CD drive, you can't tell it's on from across the room.

On the left side of the machine, you'll find a chunky hookup for original NEC controllers, a headphone jack with a volume wheel, and a pairing button and LEDs for 2.4-GHz wireless controllers like those made by 8bitdo. (Analogue sent over two wireless PC Engine-style controllers to try, and I thought they were a joy to use.) Around the back is a USB-C port for powering the console; two USB-A ports to hook up other controllers; an HDMI-out; and a slot for the SD card, which is used to load firmware updates and collect screenshots.

When it was released in 1987, the PC Engine was the futuristic way to play video games. The console itself was a compact white square, with games stored on credit-card-shaped slivers called HuCARDs. In 1988, support for CD-ROMs was added. The console garnered wide-ranging software from the likes of Konami (Castlevania: Rondo of Blood, Tokimeki Memorial, Snatcher, Gradius), Taito (Darius, Space Invaders), and Namco (Galaga, Splatterhouse, Pac-Land). If you love older Japanese games—especially arcade-style shooters, platformers, and RPGs—the Analogue Duo lets you dig into a rather exciting back catalog of titles, most of which are otherwise out of reach.

A big hurdle to enjoying these games today is the wide array of console types available on the used market. Some games require obscure upgrades or special RAM-filled cards to play. Some games are only on CD, and not every PC Engine model has a CD drive. There’s also the added annoyance of titles being locked to one geographical region. That's what Analogue is hoping to eliminate with the Duo—its mission is to play every game, every type, every region, no muss, no fuss. Analogue arranged for me to borrow a bunch of titles across CD-ROMs and cards, and as someone with little exposure to the PC Engine and its derivatives, I was shocked. While these games can be brutally hard in the way only old video games are, they can also be so much fun.

From what I experienced, the PC Engine and TurboGrafx-16 games feature punchy colors and high-quality animations of onscreen characters. I cackled when caveboy Bonk, the star of Bonk's Big Adventure, grew to fill a quarter of the screen and went nuts after scarfing down a hunk of meat. (I've arrived at the opinion that Bonk is leagues more charming than milquetoast Mario and less of a tryhard than edgy Gen-Xer Sonic.) In Parasol Stars, I inexplicably scooped up (??) and flung (???) animals, musical instruments, balls of water, lightning bolts, and whatever else was around with an umbrella (!), and had a blast doing it. I have no idea what this game is about, but it's a hoot and a half.

CD-ROM titles like the role-player Ys III and space shooter R-Type Complete hold up surprisingly well, with cool animated intro sequences, snippets of voice-over, and incredible, god-tier synthesized soundtracks. These early '90s games can be a whole aesthetic experience.

All of these games are made to look and sound their best by the Duo, but if you don't want them at their best, you can make them look worse. By default, the console uses a "pixel perfect" interpretation to upscale games, and it looks great for cartoony games, letting you appreciate the time and care that went into every element. Then there are three novelty display filters—a pair that degrade the image to look like the different portable variants of the console, and one that tries to simulate the look of a Sony Trinitron tube TV. I didn't love the portable looks, but the Trinitron look is stunning—especially for dark, moody titles.

As someone who prefers handheld gaming so I don't hog the whole TV with my sessions, the layout and selection of ports on the Duo was greatly appreciated. With HDMI-out, I was able to hook up a computer monitor to the system. Thanks to the Duo’s 3.5-mm headphone jack and volume wheel, I could plug nice headphones straight to the box. This meant I could play at my desk, with sound, for hours on end.

Unfortunately, the weak point of the whole system is its software, AnalogueOS. It has a simple text-based menu system (just like on the Analogue Pocket), but the Duo has some missing features out of the gate. For now, Analogue Duo can't complete instant saves within games, which means you'll have to tough out some truly unforgiving boss battles that send you back to the very beginning of the game every time you die. You can nab screenshots, tweak the display settings, and get a little information about each title you insert, but it feels bare-bones at launch. One feature that's unsupported on the Duo is openFPGA, which lets Analogue Pocket users load all sorts of software "cores" onto their handhelds, encouraging developers to make the handheld compatible with a ton of additional systems. It's safe to assume that Duo will never be able to play games beyond those made for the PC Engine and TurboGrafx-16.

The physical design of Analogue Duo has some quirks too. The port for the original-style controllers is all the way around one side of the Duo instead of smack dab on the front like on the original NEC-built hardware, making it inconvenient to access. Also, the slim, front-facing game slot covers up most of the artwork on cartridges—maybe not a huge deal, but it was a feature of the original hardware that's missing from this modern recreation. (For what it's worth, many American games had ho-hum text on the front instead of splashy art.)

Diving into the past with the Analogue Duo, I can't help but be struck by the legacy of the PC Engine. By letting collectors play American and Japanese games on a rock-solid piece of hardware, Analogue is giving this underappreciated system a new lease on life. For American TurboGrafx-16 fans, and perhaps especially gamers in Japan with hoards of games waiting to be revisited, Analogue Duo makes it dead easy to plug in and revisit old favorites, all while making them look better than ever.

Let's be clear: Collecting and playing old video games is an expensive hobby for the privileged. Maybe you wanted to import a PC Engine, CD drive, some games, and some controllers (and multi-tap—you're not playing alone are you?)—you would be out hundreds of dollars. If you want to shore up that old console and fix leaky capacitors and busted CD drive gears and get it outputting HD-grade video, stack a few more Benjamins on top. A competing modern console, the Polymega, can play most of the same games, but it costs more than a PlayStation 5. In that context, with all its quirks and key software features yet to come, the $250 Analogue Duo seems like a decent deal.

Part time machine, part media preservation effort, the Analogue Duo will impress its niche audience even more than it impressed me. Dust off your Tatsuro Yamashita cassettes and rev up the Toyota Sera—the creative spirit of Japan's Bubble Era is still alive in the exquisitely '90s games of the PC Engine.