Arcade games that had no home port but should have

[TheGamesArchivist]

Oh, hell, I have one that instantly jumps to mind - CarnEvil - despite being one of Midway's best performing light gun cabs, it never got a home release (many such cases!)

Great on-rails shooter with a spooky carnival vibe, broken into 4 segments:
-Haunted House - A Horror Ride...how original!
Sub Boss: Hambone + Hambone: The Revenge - a masked, lumbering brute with a gatling gun (Hambone)/cannon (The Revenge) mounted on his hand.
Boss: Evil Marie - an evil, Victorian-era ghost wielding twin hatchets (and later, energy blasts)

-Rickety Town - Bumper Cars, Spinning Dino Eggs, and the Big Bunyan Ride Roller Coaster! (and a food court populated with some of the WORST employees)
Sub Boss: None
Boss: KRAMPUS ON ICE - Krampus skates around the arena, smacking you with his claws, his sack, or hurling deadly gifts/coal your way

-The Freak Show - HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS GALORE! GASP IN AWE!
Sub Boss: Eyeclops - A hulking, two-headed brute coated in armor and SO MANY EYES...and will smack the silly sh!t out of you with his sword.
Boss: Junior/Deaddy - Depending on the dipswitch toggle, you had either an amalgamate giant baby, or, if that was a bit in too poor taste for some arcades, a giant, living teddy bear with a mean streak.

-The Big Top - The Grand Finale! Clowns, clowns, and more clowns! Mimes! Devils! Poodles?
Sub Boss: Umlaut - Ludwig Von Tökkentäkker's faithful skull servant.
Final Boss: Ludwig Von Tökkentäkker - With a token in one eye, like a monocle, he'll blast you with his Blunderbuss, launch fireworks at you, throw explosives at you, and summon a nearly endless army of bastard skellies to hinder your progress atop his dirigible fortress.

 

[Nidstang]

Ninja Baseball Bat Man is my pick too. Such a badass and fun game. I'd also love modern ports of all the House Of The Dead games - uncensored, with original graphics. The remakes are ok, but I like the original art style, graphics, and sound better. CarnEvil would be cool too.

 

[Vetusomaru]

There are lots of great arcade games that even today they haven't get a home port, especially the ones from 2000s and after (mostly 3D ones). Here is one of the best ones from people who have worked at the original Metal Slug games:

Sega alone has so many old great arcade games they've never ported to consoles and PC.

 

[Bakuma1997]

There are lots of great arcade games that even today they haven't get a home port, especially the ones from 2000s and after (mostly 3D ones). Here is one of the best ones from people who have worked at the original Metal Slug games:

Sega alone has so many old great arcade games they've never ported to consoles and PC.

Good news! there is a Homebrew port for Dreamcast

 

[Vetusomaru]

Good news! there is a Homebrew port for Dreamcast

Good news indeed.

 

[Antilocal123]

Chunithm and Ongeki Bright Memory, I’d kill for a home port instead of cheesing the arcade card to get my 10 dollars worth.

 

[Aisf]

Fist Talks. It's my favorite arcade game. Unfortunately there's only one video of any footage of this arcade machine on YouTube.

 

[HITMAN_99]

The Simpsons: The Arcade Game.

 

[Skeetos]

Post automatically merged: Feb 18, 2025

I got the wrong video. there is a multiplayer mode with anime style characters and exclusive modes.

 

[HITMAN_99]

Post automatically merged: Feb 18, 2025

I got the wrong video. there is a multiplayer mode with anime style characters and exclusive modes.

god damn that looks sick AF, and really fun.

 

[Evaccaneer Doom]

What are some arcade games that were never ported to home consoles or PC but should've been?

My vote goes to Ninja Baseball Bat Man because that game is fun, especially when you have 3 other players and the whole team gangs up on enemies and bosses. Honestly, it had franchise potential. I could see it getting some sequels and even a cartoon.

NINJA BA-
oh there it is
I also wish these left arcades as well

Post automatically merged: Feb 18, 2025

I'm noticing a lot of these games are multiplayer belt scrolling beat 'em ups.

There's also a lot of SHMUPs too. In fact, the Arcade is where the genre took off. As you can see, shmups instantly died off when arcades became less popular because that's where the money was. Now AAA probably won't ever go back to SHMUPs since everyone wants longer games with story. Cygni's existence was luck and probably won't lead to anything more from Konami.
Shoutouts to Sinistar btw

 

[miguk]

Personally, I would have loved it if SegaSonic Popcorn Shop got released on home consoles. Yes, it would require an ungodly huge attachment for the system to run it, but it would be worth the laugh. At least it runs on MAME now.

 

[DjQuick2008]

WWF wrestlefest would have worked on any home console anytime in the 90s. Re released with a better roster in the late 90s would have made a fortune.

 

[GuyZero32k4]

House of the Dead: Crimson Dawn. I'd have rather had port of that than the remake of 1 or the upcoming remake of 2. I'd didn't even know it existed till i saw it on youtube.

The Castlevaina arcade game. No, the NES or SNES you're thinking of. The FPS one. Could have been ported to the Wii at the time, but no Konami wasn't thinking. I didn't even know this game existed either. Yes, you can play it on PC, but I'd wish I could use a Wii mote, since when you look at the controller the arcade game uses.

 

[Opapete]

House of the Dead: Crimson Dawn. I'd have rather had port of that than the remake of 1 or the upcoming remake of 2. I'd didn't even know it existed till i saw it on youtube.

The Castlevaina arcade game. No, the NES or SNES you're thinking of. The FPS one. Could have been ported to the Wii at the time, but no Konami wasn't thinking. I didn't even know this game existed either. Yes, you can play it on PC, but I'd wish I could use a Wii mote, since when you look at the controller the arcade game uses.

Speaking of Konami, we could have also used ports of all the IIDX games after 16 Empress + Premium Best as well as all the DDR games after Dance Dance Revolution SuperNova 2. (X and X2 came out before the arcade version, so while they are home "ported", it's better to say that these mixes came from the home into the arcade)

And no, I will not count IIDX Infinitas or DDR Grand Prix as viable alternatives to actual home ports, 10.15€ a month for each of these subscriptions (Plus additional tickets in the case of DDR Grand Prix that cost extra, which is even more laughable) is quite frankly absurd if there's literally no alternative. Not to mention DDR Grand Prix again, but it is also feature incomplete. They do not have Nonstop or Dan courses supported. Nonstop courses have been in DDR since 2nd ReMix and in their proper form since 3rdMix. And that's not getting into the additional money sink of music packs. Even worse is that these subscriptions and music packs are also implemented in the actual arcade versions.

But bickering about subscription services aside, it's a shame we haven't recieved a proper home version of these still very popular rhythm games in a decade in a half. Ever since the PS2 hit the dust, it's like no home versions were made anymore, with DDR, there were some Wii games, a PS3/Xbox 360 title and some random PC version made exclusively for schools, where random is taken literally as all charts are auto generated. All in all, it's a real shame we never got further ports of the arcade games of both DDR and IIDX.

 

[Bakuma1997]

House of the Dead: Crimson Dawn. I'd have rather had port of that than the remake of 1 or the upcoming remake of 2. I'd didn't even know it existed till i saw it on youtube.

The Castlevaina arcade game. No, the NES or SNES you're thinking of. The FPS one. Could have been ported to the Wii at the time, but no Konami wasn't thinking. I didn't even know this game existed either. Yes, you can play it on PC, but I'd wish I could use a Wii mote, since when you look at the controller the arcade game uses.

I think Konami wanted nothing with Castlevania after the failure of Judgement and (At the time) poor reviews of Rebirth

 

[groundbeef]

Storm Racer G.

 

[ThatOneLum]

Would like to have seen a port of SegaSonic The Hedgehog, purely for the sake of completeness.

Other than that, both Carnevil and The Simpsons: Arcade seem like obvious answers, although at least one of those has been release digitally at the very least.

Personally, I'd have paid money to get my hands on a home port of Thunder Hoop back in the day. It doesn't get much attention but I always found the art really endearing.

 

[DJPlace]

The Simpsons: The Arcade Game.

well there's kinda of a home port but not really... it's an arcade port on ps3/xbox 360 but there not on those stores anymore the only way you can get them is by having a hacked PS3. but who would do that now a day's just for an arcade port.

 

[Johnathan Smikey]

Shinobi only has the Master System version, but it's not the best. I wish there was a proper home version of the original arcade game.

 

[HITMAN_99]

well there's kinda of a home port but not really... it's an arcade port on ps3/xbox 360 but there not on those stores anymore the only way you can get them is by having a hacked PS3. but who would do that now a day's just for an arcade port.

yeah fair enough, but consider the fact that the game is a damn good Beat 'Em Up game, i think its worthy to preserve.

 

[Lee__Kanker]

 

[TamagotchiTamaHero24's iconTamagotchiTamaHero24]

Probably been said once or twice before, but Daytona USA 2 and Scud Racer. SEGA in general is just a GUTTER of amazing games that never got console ports. It sucks.

Post automatically merged: Mar 21, 2025

There are lots of great arcade games that even today they haven't get a home port, especially the ones from 2000s and after (mostly 3D ones). Here is one of the best ones from people who have worked at the original Metal Slug games:

Sega alone has so many old great arcade games they've never ported to consoles and PC.

As a man who got duped by the fan-made Dreamcast port of this, I agree.

The fan port is great! But I got a bootleg “repro” and it’s miserable. Just TONS of slowdown for the entire game. But the game itself is so good that I still enjoyed my time in spite of the terrible technical issues!
Should’ve at least had a PS2 port. Or, knowing Sammy, an out of left field port to the OG XBox, which might’ve actually been the best option since they could store sprite data on the HDD to speed up performance.

 

[Nebulon_Galaxy]

Every single one of these games NEEDS to be on a collection, its crazy how we never got ports for these.

I could see this work on the Wii or a dedicated controller, I would love to play this outside the arcade.

Same could be said about this FOTNS arcade game, even during the era of motion controls like the Kinect and PS Move, we could have at least gotten a Wii port.

 

[TamagotchiTamaHero24's iconTamagotchiTamaHero24]

Arcade games that doubled down on cool cabinet designs are always the hardest to get home ports of. It’s SHOCKING we got as many home ports of these kinds of games as we did, but that’s definitely thanks to the dance game craze.

I have no idea how you’d make a home port of some more gimmicky stuff though.