Video game series that weren't complete on the system?

[leech]

So there are a few game series out there that I'd love to finally sit down and play through, but then randomly we have games in the series missing on a particular platform.

 

A good example of this is Phantasie. Looks like the three main 8bit platforms managed to get all three (Apple II, Atari and C64). The Atari ST got all three as well, but the Amiga, inexplicably only got 1 and 3. Oh, this is of course ignoring the 4th game, which seems to have only been released on some of the systems that were only available in Japan (I think it was only in Japanese as well).

 

Only platform to seem to have gotten all of the Ultimas is DOS, though I think 9 may have required Windows.

 

Bard's Tale sadly only had the first one released for the ST.

 

Pool of Radiance never showed up on the ST, and I think only Curse of the Azure Bonds did. None of the other Forgotten Realms games came out for it (at least that I can recall).

 

Another one that is odd, Zool 2 was released on the Jaguar, but not the first one. Then again Iron Soldier 1 and 2 were released for that, but 3 was PSX and Nuon only.

 

There have been a few ports from the ST to the Amiga, and I think a few from the Amiga to the ST (I'm talking about in the last few years, vs back when it happened all the time and was by the publishers). For example, Gauntlet was finally released on the Amiga. ( http://www.lemonamiga.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9842).

 

There is also the fantastic work by CyranoJ in porting games to the Jaguar. Any other porting efforts to fill in these gaps?

[BassGuitari]

The Atari 2600 and 7800 never got Double Dragon 2 or 3.

[leech]

Yeah! Double Dragon was all over the place! Though to be fair the 2600 definitely got a lot of ports that were much after it was 'dead'. Oddly my progression of gaming went from the 2600 to the 8bit computers, and computers after that until the Jaguar. I mean my family had a Sega Master System and Genesis somewhere in between, then my younger brother was the console gamer and I was the computer gamer after that.

 

Jag only got the weirdly named Double Dragon 5.

 

Edit: To add to this, I swear almost ALL the ports were pretty terrible of Double Dragon. Though there were some 'best in class' ones, like the SMS port was the best for the 8bit generation, the Genesis/Mega Drive one was good too. But any of the computer ports were pretty crap.

Edited February 11, 2018 by leech

[Gabriel]

Well, if you're including Ultima 1-9, then I guess I'll nominate Dragon Quest (Dragon Warrior)

Dragon Warrior 1 - 4 are available on the NES.

Dragon Quest 5 and 6 are available on the Super Famicom and weren't brought to North America at the time.

Dragon Quest 7 is available for the Playstation.

Dragon Quest 8 is on the Playstation 2.

Dragon Quest 9 is for the Nintendo DS.

Dragon Quest 10 is a MMORPG and doesn't count.

Finally, Dragon Quest 11 is for the 3DS and PS4.

So, there's the problem, right there. Dragon Quest is all over the place.

It's possible to get Dragon Quest 1-6 on the SNES. There are fan translated Super Famicom remakes of 1, 2, and 3.

The 3DS is also a good way to play Dragon Quest. Remakes of 4, 5, and 6 have been made for the DS, which is compatible. Entries 7 and 8 have also been remade for the 3DS. So, with a 3DS it's possible to play official releases of entries 4-9 and 11 in english, making it the best bet if you are a western Dragon Quest fan.

Dragon Warrior 1 through 3 are also available as Game Boy Color remakes. There was also a Japan only Dragon Quest Collection for the Wii which contained the original Dragon Quest 1 - 3 for Famicom as well as their Super Famicom remakes.

And Dragon Quest is so sprawling that I'm almost certain to have gotten something wrong.

[Flojomojo]

Rolling Thunder 2 and 3 on Sega Genesis

Jedi Outcast on GameCube

Outrun 2 on Xbox

 

Probably many many others

[+save2600]

Isn't the MegaMan series divided up and all over the place that way. Some Japanese exclusives with no ports until later on different systems.

 

Castlevania IV and Dracula X. Too bad the PC Engine didn't more Castlevania games. Imagine 1-3 on it!

[Eltigro]

The Ni No Kuni series is all over the place, too.

 

The first one "Dominion of the Dark Djinn" was on the DS.

 

Next was "Hotroit Stories" for mobile devices (but only on one particular cell service).

 

Then, "Wrath of the White Witch" came out for PS3.

 

Then, "Daibouken Monsters" for mobile again.

 

Then, "Ni No Kuni II, Revenant Kingdom" on PS4 and Windows.

 

But I imagine there are tons that might fit the description mainly because the series lasted longer than the consoles/platforms on which they first appeared. Like the Wipeout series that started out on the Playstation and Saturn, but is still going. Same with Tomb Raider and many others.

[Tales from the Game Room]

"Alternate Reality" for Commodore 64. Only the first two games of the series [The City and The Dungeon] were released, and then Datasoft decided to end the series all together.

 

There were six games planned in the beginning:

• The City [which became split in to 2 chapters: The City and The Dungeon]
• The Arena
• The Palace
• The Wilderness
• Revelations
• Destiny

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternate_Reality_(series)

[Tanooki]

Yes Mega Man was 1-6 on NES, 7 on SNES, 8 on SAT/PS1, 9-10 on digital multi-format over a decade plus later.

 

Mass Effect would be one, the lame WiiU got ME3 for $60 at the same time they put the ME Trilogy out on PS3/360 for less money just to twist the knife. PS3 never had ME1 but did get #2 so #2 got this digital comic up front to do the story and throw a few decisions in there to get the action up to spec for the sequel.

 

The Dragon Ball frachise and Dragon Ball Z has jumped a huge amount of formats for gaming beyond just hardware console maker but into handheld and other.

[zylon]

Thunderforce II, III, IV (Lightening Force)- where in hell's the 1st one?

I give a pass on SMS to Gen as SMS can play in Gen 1-2's

Gauntlet- NES, Gauntlet II-NES, Gauntlet III-Lynx, Gauntlet IV-Gen wtf?

[BassGuitari]

Atari 2600, Atari 7800, Atari XEGS, Intellivision, Colecovision: each had Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr.; none had Donkey Kong 3.

 

Saturn had the first Resident Evil but none of its sequels.

 

No Doom II or Final Doom for 32X, 3DO, Jaguar, or SNES. They didn't even have Thy Flesh Consumed.

[high voltage]

C64 never got Pools of Darkness, Treasures of the savage Frontier, The dark queen of krynn...I was really miffed about that, but I already had a PC, so all was fine.

Edited February 11, 2018 by high voltage

[famicommander]

I feel like this is so broad that it is going to apply to pretty much any popular, long-lived series.

[fiddlepaddle]

I'm still waiting for Worm War II on the VCS.

 

and I've never been able to find Pepper I for Colecovision.

 

and the N64 had Madden Football 64, then skipped everything from 1965 through 1998, then had Madden NFL 99 through 2002.

[leech]

"Alternate Reality" for Commodore 64. Only the first two games of the series [The City and The Dungeon] were released, and then Datasoft decided to end the series all together.

 

There were six games planned in the beginning:

 

• The City [which became split in to 2 chapters: The City and The Dungeon]
• The Arena
• The Palace
• The Wilderness
• Revelations
• Destiny

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternate_Reality_(series)

For sure. Sadly The Dungeon was never released on any 16bit platform, only being released for the three, Apple 2, Atari 8bit and C64.

 

Still one of the best RPGs that literally sits in a limbo of unfinished greatness. Philip Price is a member here, if only we could get a team together to kickstart either a new game, or to complete the old one under emulation/real hardware.

[leech]

Thunderforce II, III, IV (Lightening Force)- where in hell's the 1st one?

I give a pass on SMS to Gen as SMS can play in Gen 1-2's

Gauntlet- NES, Gauntlet II-NES, Gauntlet III-Lynx, Gauntlet IV-Gen wtf?

Good point about the SMS to Genesis.

 

But about Gauntlet. The NES version is way different than the Arcade.

[leech]

I feel like this is so broad that it is going to apply to pretty much any popular, long-lived series.

Ha, well truthfully I was thonking more along the lines of ones that were contemporary with the systems. Clearly something like Final Fantasy (that has what, 20 different games includung Japanese only ones?) Isn't going to all release on the same system. But when Bard's Tale, which I believe allows you to transfer characters only gets the first game on the ST, it kind of sucks.

 

On that note, true story, I thought our copy of it was buggy because we would just rush through each square of the game in one key press. Little did we know that it wasn't like Alternate Reality with it's multiple steps per square.

[Stage_1_Boss]

To be honest, I thought it strange that the Jaguar just as of a few years ago got Another World when Flashback was officially on the system retail, even though they're not the same creator, I was always under the impression Another World was more well known or received. It ended up being great on the Jag. Otherwise, the one I'll go with is the Genesis having Splatterhouse 2 & 3, if there were also a decent port of the first, that'd be the go to system for classic Splatterhouse.

[StopDrop&Retro]

Crimson Sea | Xbox exclusive

Crimson Sea 2 | PS2 exclusive

 

 

Hunter: The Reckoning | Xbox & Gamecube

Hunter: The Reckoning: Wayward | PS2 exclusive

Hunter: The Reckoning: Redeemer | Xbox exclusive

 

Yes, that is a trilogy and yes they are stupidly titled like that with multiple colons.

[high voltage]

For sure. Sadly The Dungeon was never released on any 16bit platform, only being released for the three, Apple 2, Atari 8bit and C64.

 

Still one of the best RPGs that literally sits in a limbo of unfinished greatness. Philip Price is a member here, if only we could get a team together to kickstart either a new game, or to complete the old one under emulation/real hardware.

 

The series was Atari 8bit originals, it wasn't further supported because of Americans didn't support the A8 enough. I always hated the Americans for this.

[carlsson]

In 1992, US Gold released Summer Games, Summer Games II and California Games II for the Amiga. However they never ported Winter Games, World Games nor California Games 1.

 

I suppose the main reason for porting Summer Games eight years after the 8-bit versions was to have some multi sports event ready for Barcelona '92, even if it had aged quite a lot. It seems that US Gold secured the rights for Lillehammer '94 which probably was why they never bothered porting Winter Games.

[leech]

To be honest, I thought it strange that the Jaguar just as of a few years ago got Another World when Flashback was officially on the system retail, even though they're not the same creator, I was always under the impression Another World was more well known or received. It ended up being great on the Jag. Otherwise, the one I'll go with is the Genesis having Splatterhouse 2 & 3, if there were also a decent port of the first, that'd be the go to system for classic Splatterhouse.

Another World is one of my favorite games, and yet the Sega CD was the only platform to get the actual sequel (Heart of the Alien). Wonder if someone would port that to the JagCD? The sequel to Flashback I think was only released on the PSX and DOS. Sadly it was a terribly buggy game, now that they've done a remake of Flashback, they should have remade Fade to Black.

 

Crimson Sea | Xbox exclusive

Crimson Sea 2 | PS2 exclusive

 

 

Hunter: The Reckoning | Xbox & Gamecube

Hunter: The Reckoning: Wayward | PS2 exclusive

Hunter: The Reckoning: Redeemer | Xbox exclusive

 

Yes, that is a trilogy and yes they are stupidly titled like that with multiple colons.

Ha, I've played the second one. Wasn't aware until later that it was part of the White Wolf background (Vampire: The Masquerade).

 

 

The series was Atari 8bit originals, it wasn't further supported because of Americans didn't support the A8 enough. I always hated the Americans for this.

Definitely a reason to hate Americans. AR was released after it became Atari Corp. and they had almost given up on the 8bit line by then. Still kind of perplexed how Ultima 5 and 6 was released for the C64, but not the Atari 8bit. Then again I had read that Ultima 6 was terrible on the c64, with a ton of disk swapping.

 

In 1992, US Gold released Summer Games, Summer Games II and California Games II for the Amiga. However they never ported Winter Games, World Games nor California Games 1.

 

I suppose the main reason for porting Summer Games eight years after the 8-bit versions was to have some multi sports event ready for Barcelona '92, even if it had aged quite a lot. It seems that US Gold secured the rights for Lillehammer '94 which probably was why they never bothered porting Winter Games.

I think Winter Games was another one that some in the Amiga community were talking about doing a port for to fill in that gap. I used to play the hell out of Summer Games on the Atari 8bit.

[jhd]

Final Fantasy is the most obvious example of cross-platform series: NES -> SNES -> PSX -> PS 2 -> PS 3 + the various handheld games and a handful of Windows ports.

 

There is also the Phantasy Star series: SMS -> Genesis -> multiple other platforms

 

Still one of the best RPGs that literally sits in a limbo of unfinished greatness. Philip Price is a member here, if only we could get a team together to kickstart either a new game, or to complete the old one under emulation/real hardware.

 

Development has apparently ceased, but there was a project underway: http://www.crpgdev.com

[pablum]

Thunderforce II, III, IV (Lightening Force)- where in hell's the 1st one?

I give a pass on SMS to Gen as SMS can play in Gen 1-2's

Gauntlet- NES, Gauntlet II-NES, Gauntlet III-Lynx, Gauntlet IV-Gen wtf?

 

I always wondered where Thunderforce 1 was until I got the internet years later.

 

After seeing examples of it I don't think I'm missing that much, but always nice to have a complete library.

[Gabriel]

Prior to this thread, I had no idea Ultima 6 had been produced for the C64. I'm glad I didn't know about it back in the day, because I would have secured myself a copy. I was still a huge Ultima fan back then.