What is your favorite "obscure" platform?

[lordofduct]

I hear some of you want a 3DO... I've got an FZ-1 (the tray loading model), 2 controllers and some games that I'm willing to sell.

[Majors]

Never thought the TG-16 was "obscure" but it was my fav growing up. I think you will lose a lot of the draw of the Turbo if you didn't "get" it, when it came out. To hear Brent Spiner on Y's while ST:THG was current cannot be reproduced. My Express still get lots of play...shooters will never die.

[CurulleanCat]

The PC Engine is GOD, but unless you read Japanese I'd stay away from the PC-FX. Only 1 shooter. Most are RPG or dating sims.

I would also recommend to pick up the Turbografx-16/PC-Engine for some pure 2-D goodness that was overlooked in the 1990s. Some awesome exclusives include: Air Zonk, Bonk's Revenge, Parodius Da!, Demon Castle Dracula X, Ys I and II, Lords of Thunder, Devil Crusher, and Bomberman 94.

AAAAHHHHHHH One of the best of all castlevanias. unfortunetly I can only play it on a emulator.

[neohx_7]

The Neo Geo Pocket Color. I still play it because it had a bunch of perfect games. (the rest were awful unfortunately)

[Ivo]

The Neo Geo Pocket Color. I still play it because it had a bunch of perfect games. (the rest were awful unfortunately)

I reccommend a reading of Wikipedia's entries on consoles.

Definitively get a NGPC, such a nifty handheld with great battery life... And has some nice games for sure.
And besides, as we know you love fighting games - it has the special "thumb joystick", something no other handheld has (as far as I know)... Along with a pretty solid library of beat-em ups including Match of the Millennium (it is so hard to type Millennium)

If you do want obscure stuff, and if you know some japanese, get a Wonderswan handheld (best one being the Swan Crystal model, apparently). I seem to recall you having a Gamepark machine, and apparently it can emulate a Wonderswan, but with a real one you can play vertical or horizontal (which is an interesting feature). I think it has the best battery life of a handheld, but I might be wrong, and the form factor is really compact.

Another couple of things to consider:
1. N-Gage QD, the cell phone for gamers
2. Gizmondo (the GPRS system for gamers? )
I posted a while ago in the portables section asking for some input on how decent these were. I doubt anyone in the forums has a Gizmondo though, but there was some nice info on the N-Gage that I'm thinking of buying one (but the things are so expensive unless on a SIM contract)

Outside the handheld front:
From the time of the Saturn (and the 3D0 and the CD-i and the Jaguar), I had a Commodore Amiga CD32. The machine is actually quite decent (the official controller was a bit crappy though). In terms of price vs quality of the time, I would say it clearly beat the other 3 mentioned above (but I might be biased).

Unfortunately a great deal of the games were just ports of the diskette based Amiga as publishers were wary of going for the system with Commodore being in financial difficulty (indeed, it went bankrupt shortly after), but that won't matter much to you as I don't think you ever played Amiga games and there's definitively some quality gaming. If you're interested I can go more in depth about this system.

Ivo.

[xwierd]

Nintendo's vritual boy (b/c no one has listed it)
and you can always get a rare modal of a normal system like the top loading NES
but the 3DO and NeoGeo pocket have my vote to.

[ducktapevoodoo]

wonderswan

[CurulleanCat]

Vectrex. I had one back around 5 or so.

[NeoRage]

I'd go with the Nintendo 64 Disc Drive and Famicom Disk System.

N64 DD had off the wall Art and Music games and the Famicom Disc System had Doki Doki Panic(Unmodified (US) Mario 2).