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Favorite Downports?


KWKBOX

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Some games got ported to everything and others got questionable downports. For example my favorite version of Ghouls n Ghosts is on the Sega Genesis and it is a of the arcade.

 

This version of Streets of Rage is no where near as good as the Sega Genesis but pretty good considering the hardware it was on and overall fun to play. What are some good and bad downports you can think of?

 

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Tutankham on the 2600. It doesn't even play like the other 'real ports', but for some reason I like it better. Maybe it's because you're collecting different treasures instead of generic ones (they're all listed in the manual with little descriptions and stories)? It always made me feel like the game had a purpose.

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Isn't the qualifier "down" kind of redundant here? I guess some ports are lateral moves to similarly powered hardware, but seems to me in common usage--especially in retro gaming--the word "port" almost always implies "a game originally released on hardware platform A reworked to run on hardware platform B, where platform B is less capable than platform A."

 

Semantics aside, my faves are:

 

Golden Axe - Genesis

Contra - NES

1943 - NES

Xevious - Atari 7800

Frogger - Atari 2600

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From memory I'll stay off Sega here as the SMS-GG-Gen stuff is covered and known.

 

Gameboy had some solid stuff going for it. Early on in the Super Gameboy era you had various arcade conversions, 2 packs of stuff like Galaga//Galaxian which were pretty faithful. But even earlier into the life of the little system there was stuff like Double Dragon 1 which was more like the arcade than the sorry NES version ever wished itself to be. Puzzler Qix got some fine justice for it. GBC was a host to some decent to screwy but good conversions of old games. Capcom was on the forefront of it though in respect to 1942, Ghosts n Goblins and the laserdisc conversion of Dragons Lair which was insane. Midway did a solid job with 4 sets of two-pack arcade conversions such as the Spy Hunter-Moon Patrol cart, or another with Gauntlet. There were solid downports too of Rampart, Marble Madness, Klax, and others.

 

Less surprising I guess would be the more obvious NES. TMNT2 was brought up, but also there were a lot of SNK arcade conversions of shooters, Capcom arcade, other Konami titles (Castlevania, Gradius, etc) and down the list from the arcade-console roll over stuff going on.

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Isn't the qualifier "down" kind of redundant here? I guess some ports are lateral moves to similarly powered hardware, but seems to me in common usage--especially in retro gaming--the word "port" almost always implies "a game originally released on hardware platform A reworked to run on hardware platform B, where platform B is less capable than platform A."

 

Semantics aside, my faves are:

 

Golden Axe - Genesis

Contra - NES

1943 - NES

Xevious - Atari 7800

Frogger - Atari 2600

Funny, I totally agreed with your symantics comment but then you undermined your own credibility by favoriting Frogger on the 2600! I appreciate that we're talking about opinions and personal favorites, but Frogger on the 2600?! I mean, there's even the supercharger version available for the 2600 that spanks it. Frogger on the 2600 pshaw.

 

I love this board and thank you for the opportunity to be a troll. I'll take my lashings off the air.

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Shinobi on the Sega Master System is one for me. I loved the arcade game as a kid, and while it doesn't look as flashy or as smooth, the SMS version has a great feel. Same for R-Type on the same system while we're at it. Definition of "downport" aside, I think both capture a lot of the essence of their source material while still serving up a lot of the same feel despite drastically downgraded hardware.

Edited by mikey.shake
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KWKBOX I wasn't going to go there originally but I remember you from at least 2 other gaming forums, one which has had far better days in the past. In each case you have popped up and discussed very little yet always lead off dropping a video and getting people to go there to watch it probably in hopes of getting a few subs, perhaps some monetization out of it. One site went as far as banning people putting personal videos (which this falls under) except within one solitary thread for it so people can avoid site leaving video links.

 

It's really not hard if you want to post a video to put a textual discussion of what you cover in it into the same first post there in hopes of directly engaging people. It's not hard to then hope people would maybe choose to watch the video instead of being forced into it, or just ignoring the thread. I never but once watched one of those videos of yours elsewhere, and if you recall I also brought this up before in years past trying to hope to get you to engage in direct discussion but it really went nowhere. A lot of people don't want to watch a video when they could get the entire concept in 1 minute reading instead of 10-15minutes of video backed rambling.

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Not handy no. I fairly recently in the last few years had some solid Sega stuff, even went as far as going into imports where things came up short like on the SMS. Various SMS games were also GG titles and some had roots that started on the Genesis. Ristar, Streets of Rage 1 and 2, Vampire Master of Darkness, Dynamite Headdy, Ecco and some others. Typically you would lose that audio and visual quality a bit, but on the better stuff it was not by much and the core gameplay mechanics were still as sound given the Genesis really used only 3 buttons most the time anyway in games and even then some overlapped. Due to the Genesis not being a big color pushing powerhouse, if you stacked up some games on it against the SMS/GG for instance, the losses weren't that bad other than a little bit of a loss of detail and a little lower resolution. I'm sure something like the smspower site or sega-16 itself would probably have stories or write ups going into detail about it.

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Not sure if arcade ports really count as downports. There's just too many arcade ports, and there's nothing unusual about an arcade port. Arcades were almost always much more powerful, so there's nothing interesting there.

 

I think the definition here should be a console/computer game of one generation that was then ported to the last generation of machines.

 

There aren't that many. Sega did that with the SMS/Game Gear, downporting Genesis games. I'm thinking a lot of Game Boy games were downports from NES and SNES. And also Neo Geo games downported to SNES and Genesis. I'm sure there are other examples too.

 

So now, for the best ones? Not sure, this is a tough question. I'll have to give it some more thought.

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If you want to talk about it explain here at Atari Age instead of dropping your monetized youtube video.

 

I was kind of wondering when someone was going to mention this. Every topic is an advertising link for a youtube video. That's incredibly slimy. You probably should throw some money towards AA, if you want to continue using it as a billboard

Edited by keepdreamin
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I apologize if I came off as a video spamming troll. I just like to post threads related to my recent videos because that is what I have been recently working on and is fresh in my head to discuss. You bring up valid points and I will adjust my future posts. This is a very good forum and I do not want to jeopardize my membership here.

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I apologize if I came off as a video spamming troll. I just like to post threads related to my recent videos because that is what I have been recently working on and is fresh in my head to discuss. You bring up valid points and I will adjust my future posts. This is a very good forum and I do not want to jeopardize my membership here.

Maybe you should reverse your process. Engage in a discussion that would lead towards the content creation of a video, instead of after the fact.

 

It would actually be more beneficial that way. You'd have more things to discuss, angles you didn't think about.

Edited by keepdreamin
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Maybe you should reverse your process. Engage in a discussion that would lead towards the content creation of a video, instead of after the fact.

 

It would actually be more beneficial that way. You'd have more things to discuss, angles you didn't think about.

I like that idea. We could help him out if he posed his questions in his mind that may end up as future thing he produces. At least you get a lot of view points and ideas of games or styles that wouldn't have normally been thought up. I made that Famicom post yesterday to do just that, let people discuss the system and favorites that are more under the radar than the usual loving the Konami and Nintendo non-releases for the US stuff.

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See here for an example:

 

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/258716-was-anyone-here-an-early-adopter-of-the-sega-master-system/

 

He was asking for input a full month before the video posted.

 

He didn't just quickly slap up a video on the launch of the SMS, and then ask "so what do you remember?" after the fact.

That was a pretty slick trojan horse approach for a monetized youtube video. I appreciate the example and info. The real question is did he get Tanooki to watch his video though? That is my life's goal right there.

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