The TurboGrafx CD was NEC's attempt to offer a meatier experience than current Turbochip (Hu-Card) games were offering, in part to compete against the Sega Genesis.  The resulting games on this system, the first CD-based system ever released, are some of the most treasured games in the history of the hobby, most notably the Ys series.

While the system was quite small in Japan (where it was called the PC-Engine CD-ROM2), the TurboGrafix CD was made substantially larger, most likely in order to fit with the enlarged TurboGrafx 16 console.  The enlarging of hardware in the US by NEC was in part due to the perception that Americans simply prefered their things large.  However, this had the side-effect of making the system look far less attractive.  Also, the initial price of $400 made it an unnattractive buy.  Worse off, even the Turbo fanbase would mostly stay away, waiting instead for the Turbo Duo (PC Engine Duo in Japan), which combined Turbochip and CD functionality into a far sleeker system.

In addition to being extremely bulky, the unit required a "System Card" (a TurboChip with information needed to access the CD drive) to be inserted into the TurboGrafx 16's card slot.  Updated system cards were later released to give the unit the same memory capacity as the updated Turbo Duo.

A plus for the unit is that it had an internal RAM, allowing for users to save their gameplay without buying seperate RAM modules for their system.

Full-motion-animation was not used much in games for the Turbo CD, this being before the "multimedia gaming" fad that the Sega CD and the 3DO fell into.  The cinematics in the games were usually anime in nature, which served to partially hide the limits of the unit's 1X CD drive, with some of the most beautiful cutscenes being present in Ys Book I and II, Cosmic Fantasy 2, and the remake of Valis: The Fantasm Soldier.

The system didn't have that many games released for it, but with no region lock on the CDs, it was entirely possible to play Japanese CD-ROM games, so long as they did not require the Japan-only Arcade Card.

TurboGrafx CD - Recent Games

		Name	Platforms	Developer
		Cho Aniki released on Sept. 8, 2008	TGCD, WSHP	Masaya
		Bonanza Bros. released on Jan. 29, 2007	AMI, GEN, SMS, CPC, AST, C64, SPEC, TGCD, ARC, WSHP
		Puyo Puyo 2	GB, GG, GEN, SNES, PS1, SAT, TGCD, WSC, NGPC, WSHP	Compile
		Steam Hearts	SAT, TGCD	TGL Micro
		Legend of Xanadu II	TGCD	Nihon Falcom Corp.
		Kuusou Kagaku Sekai Gulliver Boy	SNES, SAT, TGCD	Bandai Co., Ltd.
		Brandish	SNES, TGCD, PC	Nihon Falcom Corp.
		Ai Cho Aniki	TGCD	Masaya, Vanguard Works
		Popful Mail	SNES, SCD, TGCD	Nihon Falcom Corp.
		Legend of Xanadu	TGCD	Nihon Falcom Corp.
		Cosmic Fantasy 4: Ginga Shounen Densetsu - Gekitouhen: Hikari no Umi no Naka de...	TGCD	Shin-Nihon Laser Soft Co., Ltd.
		Dragon Ball Z: Idainaru Goku Densetsu	TGCD	Bandai Co., Ltd.
		3x3 Eyes: Sanjiyan Henjou	TGCD	Nihon Create
		Cosmic Fantasy 4: Ginga Shounen Densetsu - Totsunyuuhen: Densetsu e no Prelude	TGCD	Shin-Nihon Laser Soft Co., Ltd.
		Cal III	TGCD	Birdy Soft
		Emerald Dragon	SNES, TGCD	Glodia
		Princess Minerva	SNES, TGCD, PC	Riverhill Software Inc.
		The Space Adventure	SCD, TGCD
		Knights of Xentar	TGCD, PC	MegaTech Software, Elf Co., Ltd.
		Ys IV: The Dawn of Ys released on Dec. 24, 1993	TGCD	Hudson Entertainment, Inc.

TurboGrafx CD - Upcoming Games

		Name	Platform	Developer