The bitter taste of retro disappointment....

[kknd]

It’s easy to look at our personal gaming history through rose colored glasses, remembering only the gaming greats, the titles that held you captive for hours and hours on end while you basked in the warm glow of a CRT TV or monitor. Like most historical views, we tend to suppress, forget or smooth over those heart-aching gaming disappointments that were never quite as crushing as when we were young. Obviously, I’m going to drag my biggest retro gaming disappointment out into the light for all to see, are you ready? Can you deal? Good.


For me, there was nothing quite so gutting as firing up Street Fighter 2 on the Amiga 2000HD. Now it would take a person who was simultaneously blind and dead to not notice that the Street Fighter series is a smoking piece of Capcom goodness, and I’d been witness to this phenomenon thanks to Street Fighter 2 on the SNES. The SNES version is about as close to perfection as any game has been, ever. It is – to use the parlance of a Street Fighter competitor – a flawless victory in the gaming world. Gorgeous, vibrant graphics, well drawn sprites, a smooth arcade feel to the entire title and faithful sound effects all made SF2 on the SNES a perfect bite-sized version of the arcade great.

That’s what made the Amiga port such a fruck off slap in the face.

Now obviously the two versions were never going to be identical. The SNES was released years after

the equivalent Amiga, could display 256 colors without breaking a sweat compared to the Amiga’s 32 (without trickery) and a few other things besides. But none of these things should have made it mandatory to produce the squealing, flailing mutant that was the Amiga SF2 port.

The backdrops were lifeless, the parallax scrolling floors were gone, the background animations were cut back to minimum frames and that’s just the start. Rather than fluidly jumping around the screen, fighters jerked from position to position and move to move, seemingly missing most of the in-between frames that give the title its smooth game play feeling. The sound – an area Amiga games normally excelled in – was bland and tinny.

I could go on, but let’s see if we can get a punchy summary going; it’s shit. I was mortified. I had such grand plans of no longer paying 2 bucks for 30 minutes of SNES SF2 at the local video store, instead whiling away hours and hours at home on my very own Amiga Street Fighter 2. Instead, I had experienced the first in a series of terrible truths that would leave me convinced beat-em-up games are diametrically opposed to the computer platform.

A school of thought I still largely subscribe to today.

What about you? What's your biggest retro disappointment?

[Parn]

If you think the Amiga version is bad, you should check out the C64 port. It's pretty lulzy.

For me, the biggest retro disappointment was Ultima VI on the Commodore 64. I've always been a fan of RPGs, and Ultima VI was an awful port of the PC game. The biggest problem by far, was that it was prone to crashing, particularly if you would attempt to engage in a conversation with NPCs. If you played for more than half an hour, a conversation would have a 50% chance of locking up your game. Considering this is an RPG, being able to talk to NPCs is kind of a big deal.

[markeconrad]

I got Mega Man 3 on DOS back in my earlier childhood for like $5. Man I was excited. $5 for a Mega Man game!? Sure it wasn't on my NES, but my computer at home had a 5" floppy drive, so surely I could play this as an acceptable alternative. I brought it home and got it going: "A:\setup.exe" or whatever the hell I was supposed to type. To my horror, it looked like a really crappy version of Mega Man, and not only that, but Mega Man moved extremely slow. I kept playing it though because I was a dumb kid. Looking back, I was a moron for not knowing that my computer just couldn't handle it. Needless to say I was disappointed and might as well have thrown five dollars out the window.

[jay_red]

I remember going to Blockbuster and they had a bin of n64 games for sale. Digging through I found Superman for 5 bucks! I couldnt believe I could actually buy a game with the pocket change I had! Little did I know what horror I was in for....

[lisalover1]

If you think the Amiga version is bad, you should check out the C64 port. It's pretty lulzy.

I just watched a particularly painful Youtube video of the C64 port, and... wow. That makes the ZX Spectrum version look downright respectable. The Amstrad version is pretty good, though; probably the best 8-bit version.

[jfrost]

The Amstrad version is pretty good, though; probably the best 8-bit version.

Hey, there's the SMS version! Which is terrible, but looks pretty for what it's running on.

[lisalover1]

The Amstrad version is pretty good, though; probably the best 8-bit version.

Hey, there's the SMS version! Which is terrible, but looks pretty for what it's running on.

I actually remember the SMS version being pretty fast, and surprisingly playable. Hooray for bootlegs!

[o.pwuaioc]

Final Fantasy II (aka IV) was my first Final Fantasy game. I loved it dearly, playing it all the time. It really immersed me in the world of magic, swords, and dragons that I had not quite gotten into before. I spent hours playing, and then hours recreating it by drawing out different swords, new magic, combination spells, and creatures of all kinds. So imagine my surprise when I saw Final Fantasy Mystic Quest for $5 at a garage sail. Oh, man, was I excited! I got home, plopped it in, and could not believe my eyes. Even at such a young age I despised the game. Where were the random battles? The glorious five party system? The legendary spells? I was bitterly disappointed. I beat it once, and never played it again.

[noiseredux]

Instead, I had experienced the first in a series of terrible truths that would leave me convinced beat-em-up games are diametrically opposed to the computer platform.

but SFII isn't a beat-em-up...

[jfrost]

The Amstrad version is pretty good, though; probably the best 8-bit version.

Hey, there's the SMS version! Which is terrible, but looks pretty for what it's running on.

I actually remember the SMS version being pretty fast, and surprisingly playable. Hooray for bootlegs!

It was an officially licensed game in Brazil.