Favourite and/or most disappointing home arcade ports

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Favourite and/or most disappointing home arcade ports

Post by crunchywasp »

Back in t' day I remember the term 'arcade perfect' being overused by game reviewers and marketing departments alike, often being an optimistic exaggeration or entirely false. As home consoles have caught up with the arcade hardware over the years it's a term that I reckon's become pretty meaningless since the days of the Dreamcast/128 bit/6th(?) generation era.

Regardless of whether or not they were technically arcade perfect there's no doubt that there were a load of great arcade ports for home consoles that perfectly captured the spirit and gameplay and closely mimicked the visuals and sounds of the original albeit with some compromises. Inevitably there were also a bunch of right stinkers that had little more in common with their arcade counterpart than the name/franchise.

Whether it be looking back with rose tinted glasses or upon playing them nowadays, what arcade ports did folks enjoy or anticipate the most / have the fondest memories of / regard as the most technically impressive / consider as the most faithful port when compared to the arcade version? Similarly what were the worst and most disappointing?

Arcade ports which I've fond memories of that immediately spring to mind for me are:

Silkworm on the C64 - They had this in the local chippy and although the C64 port was pretty poor in comparison I used to love it. I've not played it since I was a kid but I'm guessing it's a lot worse than I remember it being.

Golden Axe and Forgotten Worlds on the Mega Drive - I remember getting Golden Axe and Forgotten worlds with my Mega Drive because the local sports centre had both. Owning them at home was beyond awesome at the time.

Street Fighter 2 :The World Warrior on the SNES - I played the SNES version of SF2 before the arcade one but wasn't disappointed when I went back to it after playing the arcade, although it was 50hz with massive borders :palm: SF2 was never out of my SNES for a long time and I couldn't have been more excited when I heard about Turbo.

Final Fight on the Mega CD - One of the games I played most in the arcade so I was very excited when a complete & 2P version was announced for the Mega CD - Cracking port IMO and the remixed music was ace. The speech over the intro was a bit of a novelty too. The SNES version which I owned before the Mega CD one was disappointing in hindsight but I loved it at the time - I always go Cody anyway :awe:

Sega Rally and Virtua Cop - Sega Rally was in the local bowling alley and I couldn't wait to get it at home. I still love playing the Saturn version and thought it was a solid port. Likewise with Virtua Cop - You couldn't beat playing this with 2 guns at home with your mates. I loved most of the Model 1 & 2 ports if I'm honest.

Ridge Racer on the PS -When I first saw Ridge Racer on the PS I couldn't believe my eyes. I was a big fan of RR up until RRV on the PS2. The series has never been as good as the ones that come before V IMO. I've been jaded by all the console release day versions :yawn:

As I was a more discerning buyer when I had to really save for games or wait 'til Christmas the disappointing stinkers that I was unfortunate enough to own are less memorable but Space Harrier and Bad Dudes on the C64, Robocop on the Speccy, Operation Wolf & Chase HQ on the Master System, Alien vs Predator on the SNES (more an 'inspired by' release) and likely a Double Dragon of some description, would be among them.
Last edited by crunchywasp on July 29th, 2012, 8:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Favourite and/or most disappointing home arcade ports

Post by LoRez »

Despite having to use a pad,XBLA Daytona USA for me,by a country mile.Such a shame nobody seems to play on Live anymore :(
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Re: Favourite and/or most disappointing home arcade ports

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Wow. I wasn't even aware that SF2 was released on the C64. Looks a right shambles and that looping music would likely drive you nuts
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Re: Favourite and/or most disappointing home arcade ports

Post by crunchywasp »

LoRez wrote:Despite having to use a pad,XBLA Daytona USA for me,by a country mile.Such a shame nobody seems to play on Live anymore :(
Agreed it's ace but I'm one of the many that've not played this for ages :cry:
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Re: Favourite and/or most disappointing home arcade ports

Post by LoRez »

I try(mostly in vain)to get a game most days at some point.There are still a very few half decent players doggedly hanging on....just nowhere near enough for the best arcade racer of all time bar none! :(
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Re: Favourite and/or most disappointing home arcade ports

Post by CPS2 »

Street Fighter Zero for Sega Saturn. CPS2 seems easy now, but in 1996 on JPN Saturn. :awe: :awe:
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Re: Favourite and/or most disappointing home arcade ports

Post by Paulie »

Another +1 for final fight but I had the super famicom version, I know it was only 1p but I loved it. I only played the mega cd version when I got one from a car boot sale maybe 7 or 8 years ago and yep it's brill.

Bomb jack on the Atari st was a fave as I played that a fair bit in the arcades on holidays and it was great to be able to play it at home.

Again sf2 on the super famicom, thought this was ace when I was a nipper.

More recntly Outrun 2 on the xbrick :awe: port, I'm not really into that many driving games but loved this.

Disappointments I don't think I bought too many that come to mind.
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Re: Favourite and/or most disappointing home arcade ports

Post by emphatic »

Most disappointing home port - Rygar on the C64
Best home port - Do-Donpachi Daifukkatsu on the 360. Especially the Black Label Arrange is :awe:
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Re: Favourite and/or most disappointing home arcade ports

Post by instant_classic »

Final Fight Mega CD - about as close to the arcade version you will find.

SF2T on SNES....epic back in the day.

Daytona USA on xbla. This IS arcade perfect

And Sega Rally on the Saturn, easily my most played home game ever. I remember getting the Saturn for xmas with a copy, i was blown away!! :awe:

And the worst port ever has to be Pitfighter on all released computers/consoles
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Re: Favourite and/or most disappointing home arcade ports

Post by crunchywasp »

I remember there was a really extortionate games swap shop in town and I swapped a bunch of Mega Drive and GameBoy games for Mega Drive Pitfighter pretty much because I wanted a new game that day and there was nothing else to swap for at the time :palm: 'twas a **** horrible game

That place went out of business pretty sharpish and as a kid I was really upset. My parents must've been delighted though - my Dad always used to try in vain to talk us out of swapping loads of games there and protested every time we asked him to take us there at the weekends :awe:
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Re: Favourite and/or most disappointing home arcade ports

Post by theevilfunkster »

I was pretty obsessed with Sega Rally when I was a young lad, wasn't much of a looker compared to the Model 2 arcade but I always thought it was a damn sight more fun to play and the soundtrack rocked my male chicken off. I still try to play it regularly and even won a time trial competition that some retro game site held a few years ago.

Sega Rally 2 Dreamcast on the other hand, blugh. Horrible, floaty controls, looked like complete ****, **** poor framerate. Luckily the arcade version pops up in just about every arcade you go to.
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Re: Favourite and/or most disappointing home arcade ports

Post by gundarN »

I was just writing this as theevilfunkster posted his above:
Far from arcade perfect, but I liked the Saturn version of Sega Rally.
I also liked Virtua Fighter 2 and Street Fighter Alpha 2.
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Re: Favourite and/or most disappointing home arcade ports

Post by gundarN »

kernow wrote:Yeah, SR2 was a bloody travesty, one of the few DC games that did actually use WinCE underneath, and it showed.
Although disappointing, I still played it quite a bit.

While I'm here, Street Fighter 2 The World Warrior: I paid a fortune for an imported American version and an adaptor.
Good times, man...
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Re: Favourite and/or most disappointing home arcade ports

Post by Porl »

kernow wrote:I bought SF2 on c64 and took it back the same day, it kept crashing on the 2nd fight, but obviously that wasn't the main reason I took it back.


Haha thats the first game that sprung to mind for me when reading the original post. I was never under the delusion that it would look like the SNES version which I loved but I remember being super excited when I bought it from the little games shop which had the arcade room in it where I originally played SF2. I remember I kept reading over ever bit of the box on the way home and when it finally loaded up I was a little bit like :palm: dang it! haha

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Re: Favourite and/or most disappointing home arcade ports

Post by NeoD »

I played SR2 loads on the DC. If you did the 60fps code it actually was pretty nice for the time.
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Re: Favourite and/or most disappointing home arcade ports

Post by instant_classic »

theevilfunkster wrote:I was pretty obsessed with Sega Rally when I was a young lad, wasn't much of a looker compared to the Model 2 arcade but I always thought it was a damn sight more fun to play and the soundtrack rocked my **** off. I still try to play it regularly and even won a time trial competition that some retro game site held a few years ago.

Sega Rally 2 Dreamcast on the other hand, blugh. Horrible, floaty controls, looked like complete ****, **** poor framerate. Luckily the arcade version pops up in just about every arcade you go to.
I couldn't agree with this more :)
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Re: Favourite and/or most disappointing home arcade ports

Post by crunchywasp »

I bought SR2 alongside my DC and did enjoy it at the time, mainly because it was running on a shiny new console and I'd never played the arcade version at that point. The controls were really floaty though and a let down after the precision controls of the original on the Saturn. I completely neglected it for Soul Calibur though so never really played it long enough to have a firm opinion.

Ports that I did absolutely flog to death on the DC were Crazy Taxi, SFA3, SF3, CvS & CvS2 :awe:
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Re: Favourite and/or most disappointing home arcade ports

Post by cools »

Wonderboy In Monsterland is better on the SMS than in the arcade. That doesn't stop me wanting the PCB with a patched "real" english translation, however.
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Re: Favourite and/or most disappointing home arcade ports

Post by instant_classic »

The DC is probably the console the best ports!! Like crunchy said there were a ton of great Sega arcade ports.... At the time bass fishing, hotd2, crazy taxi and virtua tennis were all awesome.
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Re: Favourite and/or most disappointing home arcade ports

Post by tart31 »

I remember getting virtua racing on the megadrive, it just felt a bit naff. But more embarrassing was trying to spell daytona with the car to unlock the daytona track! Yup spent a whole saturday after realizing it was a april fools in the magazine :palm:
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