What Are Some Strange Ports Of Games?

[Magmavision2000]

By strange, I'm talking about games that we're either too powerful to be ported to a system or we're just on a system that you wouldn't expect.

 

One example is Virtua Fighter 2 on the Sega Megadrive/Genesis: 

 

Or Double Dragon on the Atari 2600: 

 

Edited April 12, 2020 by Magmavision2000

[Steven Pendleton]

All of the Sega arcade ports on the PC Engine.

[+save2600]

 

 

 

...when I first learned of Sonic for the SMS, thought that was pretty strange - but then I saw that Mortal Combat and SFII were also ported!  

 

 

[Black_Tiger]

It Came From the Desert for TurboGrafx-16 is super weird in its own right, but also completely different from the source material.

 

 

https://youtu.be/JFyOMNipn_4

 

 

https://youtu.be/vPlOv5tbbBo

[+save2600]

These games were nearly unheard of, even in arcades. Why they were chosen for the VCS, befuddles to this day.

 

 

 

 

[mbd30]

11 minutes ago, save2600 said:

These games were nearly unheard of, even in arcades. Why they were chosen for the VCS, befuddles to this day.

 

 

 

 

 

Sky Skipper one of the rarest arcade games to get a console port.

 

 

 

[+save2600]

Oh yeah, totally forgot about Sky Skipper. Parker Bros. strikes again!

 

Q*Bert's Cubes, Mr. Do!'s Castle and Sky Skipper... a trifecta of strangeness to be sure.   🤣

[doug0909]

Every port to the Odyssey 2 was strange because of its limited graphics and built-in character set... Some are reasonable close to the source material and very good (Turtles), many make do with the Odyssey 2's limitations and are still good (Frogger divided into two screens, Qbert with just dashes for cubes, one screen at a time "scrolling" Super Cobra, 2 demons on the screen at a time Demon Attack, an excellent Atlantis with large enemies and also smart bombs), and some not so good (the ugliest Popeye you'll ever play in a completely altered game). 

 

Also some O2 games can be seen as attempts at "ports" of famous 8 bit games with interesting changes (KC Munchkin is Pac Man with movable dots and invisible or programmable mazes and resulted in a lawsuit, UFO is sort of Asteroids with a shield you can bash enemies with, the excellent Pick Axe Pete appears sort of inspired by Donkey Kong, Blockout/Breakdown is breakout with player 2 controlling little "Demons" in the bricks who can rebuild the playfield, and Alien Invaders Plus is a very interesting take on Space Invaders with extra ships hidden in your shields, shields for the aliens, a boss character descending from the top of the screen, and a 10 battle set up instead of a points competition...) 

[mbd30]

Dragon's Lair for the Coleco Adam.

 

 

[Magmavision2000]

2 hours ago, mbd30 said:

 

Sky Skipper one of the rarest arcade games to get a console port.

 

 

 

I always find this port strange. Why didn't they cancel the port after Nintendo canceled the arcade game? 

[Magmavision2000]

Although this isn't a port, they're still interesting considering how the Super Mario Bros. has been exclusive to Nintendo systems for 30 years.

 

Edited April 12, 2020 by Magmavision2000

[Magmavision2000]

There's also another one that I find weird, but I can't find anything but the ESRB entry for it.

 

Grand Theft Auto on the Palm Pilot.

[Tanooki]

For the last few years that Sky Skipper rebirth cabinet we'll call it, a converted back to old spec from the popeye conversion machine has been making the rounds in my area for the arcade expo.  I always have to get a round in or two with it, and I've had my kid play it as well.  It's strange, doesn't quite make sense either, but it's not bad.

 

I'll add something to the strange, maybe less or more?  Mighty Final Fight for NES, a post-SNES title from the era.  Why?  Because it's dramatically MORE accurate than the mutilated port the SNES was given.  The stages are there, the women are back in, and all THREE characters are selectible as well.  They even adopted despite the standard move set an Xp system which grows the life bar but also gives you a few added moves.

 

 

[chuckwalla]

7 hours ago, mbd30 said:

Dragon's Lair for the Coleco Adam.

 

 

 

How about Dragon's Lair for the SNES? 

Luring gamers to spend money and getting a cheap trick (bait and switch?).

Q.C. totally thrown out the window.

 

[+thegoldenband]

2 hours ago, chuckwalla said:

 

How about Dragon's Lair for the SNES? 

Luring gamers to spend money and getting a cheap trick (bait and switch?).

Q.C. totally thrown out the window.

If you feel that way about the SNES game, you're going to love the NES game!

 

Actually, the NES game is super on-point in that it looks really nice (especially the versions released outside the US), but the gameplay is a memorization-dependent chore. The real kicker though is the last level, which goes way, way over the top with player-hostile mechanics.

 

The Zaxxon ports for Atari 2600 and Intellivision are pretty odd. Understandable, since people wanted to play it at home, but the result is essentially a different game.

 

The Tandy CoCo also got some strange ports, like Super Pitfall and Robocop. Why those particular games made it on, I have no idea, but I guess it's probably as simple as being available at a reasonable cost.

[Magmavision2000]

I just remembered another weird port! The Three Stooges on the GBA:

this game was like 15 years old when it was put on the GBA and it wasn't good, to begin with.

[DragonGrafx-16]

16 hours ago, save2600 said:

 

 

 

...when I first learned of Sonic for the SMS, thought that was pretty strange - but then I saw that Mortal Combat and SFII were also ported!  

 

 

I'm pretty sure that the NES SFII Is just a romhack of the NES version of Teenage Mutant Turtles: Tournament Fighters... it definitely is a bootleg though.

[BassGuitari]

Xenophobe, Ikari Warriors, Rampage, and Commando were some gutsy and unexpected latter-day arcade ports to appear on the Atari 2600, of all things, arriving at a time everyone else was playing Altered Beast or Super Mario Bros. 3. Quite a few of the games that were ported to the Atari in the early '80s were just strange, though, in the sense that they were often better described as interpretations shoehorned into the system's limited hardware and RAM. Pac-Man, Defender, Zaxxon, Miner 2049er, Burgertime, Tapper, and Star Raiders are prime examples. Even more capable Atari hardware had some odd-duck ports, like the 400/800 version of Space Invaders, the 5200 version of GORF, and the 7800 version of Double Dragon.

 

The Commodore 64 was another platform that hung around longer than it probably had a right to, and became home to a regrettable (yet weirdly compelling) port of the NES original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles that is somehow both worse and better than the DOS port.

 

Demon Attack, Atlantis, and Turtles! for Odyssey 2 are strange because...they were licensed arcade ports on the Odyssey 2. Brazilian and European Odyssey/Videopac users could add Frogger, Q*Bert, Super Cobra, Popeye, and Tutankham to that this (and maybe others I'm forgetting--I usually just stick to North American stuff). Speaking of ports that are strange purely for existing in licensed form on hardware not known for them: Frogger (TRS-80, TRS-80 Color, Timex Sinclair), Zaxxon (TRS-80, TRS-80 Color), Demon Attack and Dragonfire (TRS-80 Color).

 

Basically every Game.com game was weird, but Resident Evil 2 and Duke Nukem 3D stand out in particular as why are these games on this system and what has it done to them? And speaking of Duke 3D, there was also the weird and improbable Brazilian port for the Genesis.

[Steven Pendleton]

I forgot Medal of Honor Underground on the GBA and Thunder Spirits on the SFC/SNES.

[DragonGrafx-16]

Yeah Thunder Spirits is just a worse version of Thunder Force III...

[homerhomer]

On 4/11/2020 at 9:54 PM, Magmavision2000 said:

By strange, I'm talking about games that we're either too powerful to be ported to a system or we're just on a system that you wouldn't expect.

 

One example is Virtua Fighter 2 on the Sega Megadrive/Genesis: 

 

Or Double Dragon on the Atari 2600: 

 

I sometimes wonder is the Virtua Fighter II for the Genesis was originally for the 32x. The audio and color usage is great in this port.

[zzip]

On 4/12/2020 at 10:40 AM, mbd30 said:

Dragon's Lair for the Coleco Adam.

 

 

I kinda like it though..    Considering how badly an 8-bit port of this game could have gone,  they made a nice attempt to keep with the spirit of the game.

[zzip]

No mention of 2600 PacMan?   Or is it a dead horse already beaten to death?

[Magmavision2000]

5 minutes ago, zzip said:

No mention of 2600 PacMan?   Or is it a dead horse already beaten to death?

The 2600 was powerful enough to run Pac-Man and it was a no brainer to port it over to the 2600. It's just a bad port (although I do love its awfulness).

[pablum]

DOOM on SNES always seemed very ill-fitting to me.

 

The Lynx getting the only handheld/console port of Ninja Gaiden arcade was also perplexing to me. Would have been perfect for the Genesis.