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prfsnl_gmr
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Re: Together Retro September 2021: "Inferior" Ports

by prfsnl_gmr Wed Sep 15, 2021 11:07 pm

BoneSnapDeez wrote:Now that is some serious commitment! Poor 7800. :cry:


:lol:

Not really. You can beat most of these games, with a little practice, in a few minutes. You have to put up with a lot of frustration, though!

If you’re going to play any of them, play the arcade version of Kung Fu Master (to appreciate its influence), the NES version of Kung Fu (because it’s so much fun), and the Atari 2600 version of Kung Fu Master (because it’s so impressive for the hardware). Skip all versions of Vigilante entirely.
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BoneSnapDeez
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Re: Together Retro September 2021: "Inferior" Ports

by BoneSnapDeez Thu Sep 16, 2021 8:51 am

I've never been able to play Vigilante for more than five minutes straight. It's awful.
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marurun
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Re: Together Retro September 2021: "Inferior" Ports

by marurun Thu Sep 16, 2021 9:30 am

It is not a "gem" of a game from Irem, that's for sure.
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MrPopo
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Re: Together Retro September 2021: "Inferior" Ports

by MrPopo Thu Sep 16, 2021 10:55 am

Vigilante didn't get playable until the 7th sequel.
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Re: Together Retro September 2021: "Inferior" Ports

by prfsnl_gmr Thu Sep 16, 2021 11:24 am

Researching this a bit, I learned about Takashi Nikiyama:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takashi_Nishiyama

What an influential game developer! He created Kung Fu Master immediately after Moon Patrol. He later moved over to Capcom, and the boss battles in Kung Fu Master inspired him to create Street Fighter and Fatal Fury. So, in a sense, not only is he the father of the beat ‘em up genre, but also the side-scrolling action and fighting genres too.

Also, and apparently, Capcom’s Trojan is the true spiritual successor to Kung Fu Master, and I guess I should play through that game too!
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Re: Together Retro September 2021: "Inferior" Ports

by marurun Thu Sep 16, 2021 11:31 am

Street Fighter is rough as fuck, man, but Fatal Fury is great.
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Re: Together Retro September 2021: "Inferior" Ports

by prfsnl_gmr Thu Sep 16, 2021 8:34 pm

marurun wrote:Street Fighter is rough as fuck, man, but Fatal Fury is great.


Frankly, it totally sucks. Its influence can’t really be denied, though, since it laid the groundwork for the even-more-profoundly-influential Street Fighter II.
Last edited by prfsnl_gmr on Wed Sep 29, 2021 2:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Together Retro September 2021: "Inferior" Ports

by Nemoide Wed Sep 29, 2021 10:48 am

I haven't had as much gaming time as I'd like this month, but I finally made a serious attempt to beat Streets of Rage for Game Gear! I played as Blaze and got RIGHT UP to the big doors before the last boss but was killed by the return of the stage 3 boss (two acrobatic women).

I have to say: prfsnl_gmr's write-up is spot-on. This game has some excellent music and makes a good effort to port the game to an 8-bit handheld, but MAN, the gameplay is pretty rough. The most obnoxious aspects are the hit detection and awkward combat system. It's very easy to get surrounded by enemies who keep attacking you before you can recover/get some distance between them. Using the lead pipe weapon is the only time you feel capable at actually taking down enemies in later stages, losing it can be very discouraging. Enemies can take SO MUCH DAMAGE that it becomes obnoxious.
I'm not really itching to play again and see the ending (which I'm fairly sure I could do based on how close I came on my first try), but I would very much like to try playing it two-player at some point. I suspect the game was balanced with that in mind.
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Re: Together Retro September 2021: "Inferior" Ports

by msimplay Wed Sep 29, 2021 2:36 pm

For the longest time I only wanted to play the best port of a game.
However this can lead you down a long path of not playing anything.
These days there is always a definitive port being released however sometimes being better in some ways doesn't mean the experience is what was intended.

In my mindset these days I am thinking of the days when one could only afford one console.
So that would be Mega Drive or Super Nintendo not both
Playstation or Sega Saturn not both.

In this case you would simply have to play the port of the game you could buy.
Sega Saturn has better ports of The King of Fighters 95 and Street Fighter Alpha 2 but the PS1 ports are not bad.

The latest one for me is Wii vs Switch I didn't play through all the Wii U games I had bought and I was ready to jump on the Switch and rebuy them but I decided not to as they are still essentially the same games

I think there's no reason to upgrade to a better port for minor changes unless you absolutely love that game.
The other reason to play an so called inferior port would be because that's how you remember the game and you don't like the changes made.

I still prefer to play Super Mario Bros on the NES when I think of which one to play even though when Super Mario Allstars came out it totally beat the NES version in every way.

I also like when software pushes a certain platform for example the way the uncharted series pushed the PS3 the fact the PS4 version is better in every way kind of dimishes the achievement that Uncharted was on the PS3.

Switch comes to mind @ Inferior ports and similarly the gameboy came to mind it was my portable console of choice so I wanted to be able to play the same games on the handheld as I did on the SNES.

Zelda a Links awakening was a Gameboy title and I love it to this day but I considered the Snes game a Link to the past my favourite because of its graphics and sound.
I still consider the Gameboy version to be the way I would revisit the game and the Switch version more of a curio not the way I would want to always play the game.

So to sum it up I love inferior ports :lol:
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Re: Together Retro September 2021: "Inferior" Ports

by Note Thu Sep 30, 2021 9:14 pm

You bring up some good points, msimplay. Back in the day, there were ports I wasn't even aware existed. If I hadn't heard about it word of mouth, saw it in a store, or saw it in a gaming magazine, I probably missed it. In regards to Street Fighter Alpha 2, I had the PS1 port as that's the console I had access to at the time and I didn't even realize it was considered an inferior port until much later. I never had any issues with the gameplay, my only issue was that I didn't really care for the PS1 controller when it came to fighting games.

As for games I've been playing, I've played a bit of Double Dragon for the Sega Master System. I actually really like this port of the game. The graphics are good for the 8-bit era, except there are instances of sprite flicker when there are multiple enemies on the screen. But to have two player gameplay is pretty awesome -- I would've been happy to have this game if I got it back in the day. I've been able to get up to the fourth level, but wasn't able to make it past that just yet. I think there is an extra continues code in the game, so I'll probably resort to that to try to finish it.

There are so many ports of Double Dragon, I'm not even certain which one most people prefer. The NES version? The Genesis version? I'm curious about which version of most RBers like best. I think the NES version is considered the most iconic, as that was the port I played when I was a kid but no two player mode for the main game is a bummer.
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