Good game, bad port

[RageBurner]

While this is less prevalent these days, during the 4th and 5th console generations we'd see a great disparity of quality spread among machines. Companies often had a target platform and put most of its efforts into said target platform, ports playing second fiddle and sometimes suffering for lack of quality and/or content.

One case that comes to mind quite vividly is Sunset Riders - one of the most venerable classic run and gun games bar none, an artifact of a time when Konami meant something good, rather than something forgettable. Speaking of forgettable, this can quite nicely define the port the good old Mega Drive got saddled with for this game. Cut and simplified stages, poor color usage, missing playable characters... really a textbook example on how to not port something.

By contrast, the SNES got a port that for all intents and purposes was perfect by standards of the time: it had great palettes and all the content was present. I don't know if Sega is partially to blame for forcing Konami to use a cartridge with very little ROM space (likely, considering how Sega is famous for bad decisions) or if Konami got paid extra to make sure the SNES port were the superior product (also likely, Nintendo being Nintendo).

My hope is that the fan made port will finally do the venerable Mega Drive justice.

So there you go, that's my entry, feel free to add more examples and discuss.

Mega Drive on the left, SNES on the right.

 

[Xdqwerty]

The PS1 and DS ports of Rayman 2 might qualify

 

[RageBurner]

The PS1 and DS ports of Rayman 2 might qualify

Oh, why is that? I never played any Rayman game.

 

[Hikari.EXE]

The Ratchet and Clank HD trilogy. Honestly not that bad, but might be my bias since that's how I first played them, but there are many graphical glitches and the aspect ration is larger than the original, making some weird character models pop out due to them being hidden outside of the players view at the time.

 

[No-Bo-Dy]

The hd collection of Silent Hill 2 & 3.

 

[OmegaPunch's iconOmegaPunch]

PS1 port of Tactics Ogre.
The slowdowns really kill the experience.

 

[Xdqwerty]

Oh, why is that? I never played any Rayman game.

Both versions run like shit, the PS1 has several levels missing, and the DS version aside from the dpad controls and input lag is glitchy af

 

[Tonberry]

The PS1 and DS ports of Rayman 2 might qualify

Oh, why is that? I never played any Rayman game.

That's a great example actually. Rayman 2 is one of my top 3 all-time favorites, and I would never ever choose these versions over the one billion other ones.

The DS port of Rayman 2 is almost unplayably bad. Awful performance, awful controls and riddled with bugs.
The PSX version is bad in other ways. It's got unique levels but it removes many others, and it's more or less an abridged version of an already very short game.

 

[RageBurner]

The Ratchet and Clank HD trilogy. Honestly not that bad, but might be my bias since that's how I first played them, but there are many graphical glitches and the aspect ration is larger than the original, making some weird character models pop out due to them being hidden outside of the players view at the time.

Ouch, that's pretty bad.

PS1 port of Tactics Ogre.
The slowdowns really kill the experience.

Thankfully the Saturn port saves the day there.

 

[Xdqwerty]

The PSX version is bad in other ways. It's got unique levels but it's more or less an abridged version of an already very short game.

Atleast you can play a level from the 2d prototype of the game in the PS1 version

 

[bjork]

An early example of this is Donkey Kong. The 2600 and Intellivision versions are pretty rough, while the Colecovision one is not arcade perfect, but still much better than the other two. Not sure who worked on all of those. Then the NES one is quite good, but iirc it's still missing a stage?

 

[Xdqwerty]

Then the NES one is quite good, but iirc it's still missing a stage?

I think there was a rerelease of the NES version that re-added that missing stage

 

[Yousef]

For some reason I never noticed your profile frame until now

 

[OmegaPunch's iconOmegaPunch]

Thankfully the Saturn port saves the day there.

And it also has voice acting! Which was very uncommon in 5th gen japanese games.

 

[Xdqwerty]

 

[Cu-Neo]

Carmageddon on almost every System outside PC, but specially on the N64

 

[MemeAlert]

Atleast you can play a level from the 2d prototype of the game in the PS1 version

I would defend the PS1 version, its more streamline and has a better final boss. Would play that version over Rayman Revolution.

 

[starseeker300]

The PS1 version of chrono trigger introduced load times where there weren't any before

 

[Evaccaneer Doom]

While this is less prevalent these days, during the 4th and 5th console generations we'd see a great disparity of quality spread among machines. Companies often had a target platform and put most of its efforts into said target platform, ports playing second fiddle and sometimes suffering for lack of quality and/or content.

One case that comes to mind quite vividly is Sunset Riders - one of the most venerable classic run and gun games bar none, an artifact of a time when Konami meant something good, rather than something forgettable. Speaking of forgettable, this can quite nicely define the port the good old Mega Drive got saddled with for this game. Cut and simplified stages, poor color usage, missing playable characters... really a textbook example on how to not port something.

By contrast, the SNES got a port that for all intents and purposes was perfect by standards of the time: it had great palettes and all the content was present. I don't know if Sega is partially to blame for forcing Konami to use a cartridge with very little ROM space (likely, considering how Sega is famous for bad decisions) or if Konami got paid extra to make sure the SNES port were the superior product (also likely, Nintendo being Nintendo).

My hope is that the fan made port will finally do the venerable Mega Drive justice.

So there you go, that's my entry, feel free to add more examples and discuss.

View attachment 28769View attachment 28773

Mega Drive on the left, SNES on the right.

-Symphony of the Night on Saturn
-Metal Slug on PS1
-Dodonpachi Daioujou Black Label Extra (a hastily put together port for Xbox 360 full of stolen code from the PS2 port)
-Chrono Trigger PC (at least I hear, I haven't played it on Steam)
-Ys IV on PS2
-Persona 3 Portable on Steam (smushed graphics and terrible sound quality in battle unfortunately permeates here)
-AtGames Sonic
-Mega Man & Bass on GBA
-Sonic games on PS2
-Dodonpachi SaiDaiOuJou outside the arcade
-Super Mario 3D All Stars
-Gunstar Super Heroes (I don't care if it's technically a new game, it is practically identical to the original minus bit crushed music and Gunstar Red being gender swapped for some reason)
-TWEWY Final Remix
-the original Asuka 120% Special Burning Fest for Playstation (there's actually two versions of this specific game, the one that has a black dot next to the title is an updated version that the Japanese use to play competitively, while us Westerners prefer LimitOver, a different version released for Sega Saturn, fun fact. V1 vs V2, remember the black dot)

-anything ported to the short-lived Google Stadia
-32X Doom (aka Toilet Doom)
-GTA Advance
-Sonic Genesis
-Dinosaur Planet for Gamecube lmao

 

[Xdqwerty]

The PS1 version of chrono trigger introduced load times where there weren't any before

Mostly bc it was a cartridge game being ported to a disc

 

[BitterDemon]

resonance of fate on pc still have terrible frame drops and audio stutters

 

[ObscureJigglypuff]

Mana khemia on PSP.
Bayonetta on ps3.

 

[Gromoff]

Literally anything ported to the Ouya, regardless of console origin.

 

[Jeff]

Atari 2600 Pac-Man port

NES port of Ghostbusters. Commodore 64 and Master System versions had better gameplay.

Switch Port of Sonic Colors had long loading times than the original Wii release.

 

[Bakuma1997]

Look how they massacred my boy on DS