What console games have you played and later discovered it was an arcade game?

[homerhomer]

 

I had this happen to me awhile back with a Wii-Ware game called Carnival King.  It's a surprisingly good little game. You can calibrate the Wii and it was pretty accurate to shoot.  About 8 years after buying it, I was in Canada and went to check out an arcade and I saw a Carnival King arcade unit.  It was funny because I would have never guessed it was arcade game.

 

https://mpamusement.com/products/carnival-king-arcade-shooting-game

 

[DragonGrafx-16]

RoadBlasters

 

Back in 1994 (yes I was like 4) when I was playing this on my NES, I had no idea that it was based off the arcade game and didn't even play the arcade version until I got Midway Arcade Treasures for Gamecube...

 

I did finally beat the NES version 25 years later, last year.

[Steven Pendleton]

After Burner II, Golden Axe, Daimakaimura (or whatever you want to call it in other languages, but I learned of it by its Japanese name), and Gain Ground come to mind.

 

I found out that After Burner II was an arcade game the best way: by going to an arcade and seeing it there. I was like 7~10 years old at the time and I put some of my very few coins in that thing.

 

In Japan the Mega Drive got a really cool marketing thing that we didn't get in the US: Visual Shock! Speed Shock! Sound Shock!, which would later show up on the title screen of Alien Soldier (NOW IS TIME TO THE 68000 HEART ON FIRE!), and I have a Japanese Mega Drive shirt with the system itself and the 3 shocks on it (http://geestore.com/detail/id/00000073013), but if you REALLY want visual shock, speed shock, and sound shock, go play the original arcade version of After Burner or After Burner II in the original cabinet. Holy crap that was an insane experience.

[roots.genoa]

I would say RoboCop! The Ocean ports are far more famous than the Data East arcade game, at least in Europe. But it's a bit particular since, if I'm not mistaken, Ocean got the license and asked Data East to create the arcade game they would port on computers.

 

Edit: is the topic only about console games or computer games are allowed? 😅

Edited April 14, 2020 by roots.genoa

[The Usotsuki]

Contra.

[+jeremiahjt]

I thought most of Tigervision's 2600 games were original, but a good chunk were ports of arcade games I had never heard of. And still have not ever seen any of those games in an arcade cabinet.

[MrMaddog]

I hung out at arcades so I would play those games before they came on home systems, even NES games that saw releases on Vs. Systems & PlayChoice10s.

 

But my answer would be Rygar which I seen on the NES first and had to play because I saw it in the Official Nintendo Players Guide.  Later on would I see the arcade version, and truth be told I actually prefer that over the NES game.  Yeah it was repetative but I didn't have to grind enough XP to build a long life bar to fight the first boss...

 

(My second answer is Solomon's Key which is also a Tecmo title...seems they advertised more on the NES than the arcades.)

 

 

[pablum]

I think the the only one was Carnival by SEGA. I played it all the time on my 2600 as a kid.

Didn't know it was an arcade game until the early days of MAME and saw it in there. Somehow that arcade cabinet always escaped me even though I went to arcades all the time.

Edited April 15, 2020 by pablum

[Black_Tiger]

Strider, Ghouls 'n Ghosts and Forgotten Worlds for Genesis.

 

I was disappointed that "Sega" had thrown together such an un-GnG console sequel to Ghosts 'n Goblins. I wanted more console-like and less arcadey next gen games from the Genesis and Forgotten Worlds was one of the ones that I thought did it right.

 

 

Lock 'n Chase for Intellivision. My family thought that it was Mattel's Pac Man-equivalent exclusive 

 

Venture for Colecovision. Such a great non-arcadey game. I was shocked that it could be played in arcades.

 

Alex Kidd and the Lost Stars for SMS.

 

Aeroblasters for TG-16.

[jhd]

 

Back in the mid-1980s, I received a cassette tape full of games for the Coco in the mail from someone.

 

This tape included the excellent version of Pooyan. It was far and away one of the best arcade games I had played on the Coco to that point (odd colours notwithstanding).

 

I had my doubts that it was an original creation, but it was many years before I discovered that it was actually the port of an arcade game.

 

[BydoEmpire]

2600 Solar Fox, but I read an Electronic Gamer magazine that mentioned it wasn't a well-known arcade game, and one of those "it's better at home" games.

[+save2600]

Here's some (there's more I'm sure) I played, and didn't know were arcade games 'til later:

 

Atari Basketball
Circus Charlie

Crossbow

Lock 'n Chase

Loco-Motion

Marine Wars

Off The Wall

Polaris

Q*Bert's Qubes

River Patrol

Road Runner

Sky Skipper

Springer

Strategy X

Sub Scan

Truxton

Water Ski

 

 

[BassGuitari]

I had never heard of Juno First until the 2600 homebrew came out. 🤷‍♂️

[DragonGrafx-16]

3 hours ago, BassGuitari said:

I had never heard of Juno First until the 2600 homebrew came out. 🤷‍♂️

That was the first 2600 homebrew I ever bought (well it's still the only one but eh). 

[+save2600]

Juno First (could have probably benefitted from a better name) is a good example of a great arcade game that deserved more attention than it got BITD. A real shame. Never heard of it myself until it started popping up in the XX-in-1 Jamma arcade boards, and is among the small handful of games my GF will actually play.   

[John Stamos Mullet]

Tac-Scan. I remember seeing the ads for The 2600 version on the backs of Marvel Comics in the early 80's, along with Solar Fox, But never saw either of them in the Arcade.

 

Also - Lock & Chase. Again - I remember the ads for t he M Network versión but never knew it was an Arcade game. Just thought it was another eat the dots Pac-Man rip off.

[Lord Mushroom]

I was oblivious to most arcade ports being just that. Here are some at the top of my head:

 

Mario bros.

Donkey Kong

Street Fighter 2

Turtles in Time

Saturday Night Slam Masters

Double Dragon

Bubble Bobble

[John Stamos Mullet]

2 minutes ago, Lord Mushroom said:

I was oblivious to most arcade ports being just that. Here are some at the top of my head:

 

Mario bros.

Donkey Kong

Street Fighter 2

Turtles in Time

Saturday Night Slam Masters

Double Dragon

Bubble Bobble

LOL

 

C'Mon. This is your first post?

[BassGuitari]

9 hours ago, save2600 said:

Juno First (could have probably benefitted from a better name) is a good example of a great arcade game that deserved more attention than it got BITD. A real shame. Never heard of it myself until it started popping up in the XX-in-1 Jamma arcade boards, and is among the small handful of games my GF will actually play.   

 

Apparently Juno First was ported to the Commodore 64, Atari 400/800, IBM, and MSX, and even those seem pretty obscure (although in this neck of the woods, the MSX version would be 😜). Even the TRS-80 Color had a clone called Juno (which actually appears more polished than the Commodore and Atari versions), so the game had to have been at least moderately popular for a time.

 

I can't tell if the fact that C64 and A8 people rarely mention Juno First in "Best/Favorite Games" discussions speaks to the game's obscurity, or the mediocre quality of those ports.

[Lord Mushroom]

51 minutes ago, John Stamos Mullet said:

LOL

 

C'Mon. This is your first post?

 Yes. When I grew up I only saw a handful of arcade machines. Gaming on computers and consoles was much more common. So when I played a game on a computer or console, and hadn´t seen it on an arcade machine, I never even considered that it could be an arcade port.

[DragonGrafx-16]

31 minutes ago, BassGuitari said:

 

Apparently Juno First was ported to the Commodore 64, Atari 400/800, IBM, and MSX, and even those seem pretty obscure (although in this neck of the woods, the MSX version would be 😜). Even the TRS-80 Color had a clone called Juno (which actually appears more polished than the Commodore and Atari versions), so the game had to have been at least moderately popular for a time.

 

I can't tell if the fact that C64 and A8 people rarely mention Juno First in "Best/Favorite Games" discussions speaks to the game's obscurity, or the mediocre quality of those ports.

I watched one of those battle of the ports videos on Juno First and they concluded that the Atari 2600 homebrew was the best home port of the game. I do understand that programmers for old systems these days have a lot better understanding of hardware and better tools, but it just really puts all of those other ports to shame! And most of the systems the game was ported to (besides the 2600) all had superior hardware to the arcade version and yet were so bad.

[BassGuitari]

2 hours ago, DragonGrafx-16 said:

I watched one of those battle of the ports videos on Juno First and they concluded that the Atari 2600 homebrew was the best home port of the game.

That's my impression as well. 😄 When I saw the 2600 version and then found out there were Commodore and 400/800 ports, I figured they had to be outstanding. Imagine the disappointment. 🤣 You expect so much more from those systems...maybe it's time for their own updated Juno First remakes?

 

The Color Computer clone is slow but arguably better than those ports IMO.

[Bloodreign]

Kickle Cubicle on NES, I never saw an arcade machine of it, only finding out it was an arcade port once I delved into MAME.

[AtariLeaf]

Blades of Steel. It was a top 3 NES game for me in the 80s. I didn't know it was an arcade game until the mid 2000s

[Tickled_Pink]

Galaga. Believe it or not.

 

I never once came across an arcade machine. Plenty of Galaxians but never a Galaga. So I was definitely surprised to find it was an arcade cabinet.