What's your instance on ports?

[foxhound1022]

For me, the only genre I play enough to notice are fighters. To get the closest to arcade-perfect, most turn to Neo-Geo, simply because it uses basically the same components. Other than that, the Dreamcast is the only other system that really does its best to give you the “true” arcade feel. I usually try to get the most definitive port, but sometimes get some based on rarity. Which is why I own SF: The Movie on PS1.

[ExedExes]

For me, the only genre I play enough to notice are fighters. To get the closest to arcade-perfect, most turn to Neo-Geo, simply because it uses basically the same components. Other than that, the Dreamcast is the only other system that really does its best to give you the “true” arcade feel. I usually try to get the most definitive port, but sometimes get some based on rarity. Which is why I own SF: The Movie on PS1.

That was a reason I love the Dreamcast so much -- when companies used their NAOMI technology to put their latest games on, we were treated to arcade-perfect home ports. Sega managed even to make some good ports out of their Model 3 games like Sega Bass Fishing.

[foxhound1022]

Yep. That's why I got one, while everyone else moved on to PS2. I was always hanging out in arcades, so I got the system that offered the “arcadey” style games.

[MrPopo]

I have ports like the GBA ports of the three SNES FF games which significantly add to the experience and can be considered the definitive versions

That was a major point for me to get a GBA. The processor in there compares to the SNES so there are so many SNES to GBA ports I am unaware of. I just found out *today* all 3 FF SNES games made it to GBA -- sweet

I'd recommend you get the European version of FFIVA. There is a bug in the US version that essentially causes enemies to get their turns much slower, which trivializes a lot of the encounters. This is fixed in the EU version, and GBA carts are region free.

[ExedExes]

I'd recommend you get the European version of FFIVA. There is a bug in the US version that essentially causes enemies to get their turns much slower, which trivializes a lot of the encounters. This is fixed in the EU version, and GBA carts are region free.

I saw that on the very well-written and humorous overview of the Final Fantasy games over on HG 101 today. That bug would ruin an otherwise perfect port. I wonder how difficult it would be to source a EU GBA game, there was another one I was interested in from that region as well.

[BoneSnapDeez]

I have ports like the GBA ports of the three SNES FF games which significantly add to the experience and can be considered the definitive versions

That was a major point for me to get a GBA. The processor in there compares to the SNES so there are so many SNES to GBA ports I am unaware of. I just found out *today* all 3 FF SNES games made it to GBA -- sweet

There's some solid RPG remakes and ports on the GBA. Check out the Phantasy Star Collection and Tales of Phantasia.

As far as ports go....... I generally try to play the original version of a game. If it's rare, expensive, on a console I don't have, or not in English then I'll check out a port.

[ElkinFencer10]

I generally go with the system that I like the most. For older games where there were MAJOR differences (NES/SNES/Genesis TMNT Tournament Fighters, for example), I'll try to get multiple if not all of the, but for the most part, I get it for the system I like the most. Sometimes price has to win out over preference, though. I prefer the Saturn over the Playstation, for example, but when I was going to buy Resident Evil a couple of years ago, I found it for Playstation for $3 in a thrift store wheras it would have cost me about $20 on Amazon.

With the complications, I typically prefer to have them separately unless there's some reason for me not to. I'm thinking about getting House of the Dead 2&3 for Wii because, although I would normally get HotD2 for Dreamcast, I don't have a system for which 3 was made. I do similar things with some ports. I wanted the Gamecube version of Resident Evil 4, but the Wii version had the extra features of the PS2 port with motion controls, so I bought RE4 for Wii.

Still haven't decided about House of the Dead. If anyone has a suggestion or some advice for me about that, I'm all ears.

[ExedExes]

[quote="BoneSnapDeez"There's some solid RPG remakes and ports on the GBA. Check out the Phantasy Star Collection and Tales of Phantasia.[/quote]

The first 3 PS games on one little GBA cartridge is nice. Did some price tracking and it's fairly reasonable here online too.

Happen to know if any other SNES RPGs were ported over besides the Final Fantasy titles?

[Anapan]

I fully support a dedicated topic or topics on pros and cons of the ports - I want to know which version of the game to play to get the best experience. Over the mass of top 100 game posts here I'd really like to see maintained posts that keep track of the pros and cons of the various ports for each system.

The various ports of Ys' 1 for example are staggering! At first look, the Saturn version is the way to go, but it turns out, aside from the graphical enhancements it's not a true representation of the original game the way the TG16 port, or the first releases of the game are. There's an enhanced version for PSP that includes a multitude of options, but I still don't know which version I want to play. There's many series filled with plusses and minuses in the various ports, especially the handheld remakes. Even a great game like Castlevania SOTN has a dedicated thread here on Racketboy because of the obvious flaws in the enhanced Saturn port versus the graphical and solid framerate of the original PS1 version. I couldn't play the remake for the PSP since the game crashed every time I got damaged while transforming - that's a serious bug (possibly not in the UMD, but I didn't buy that as I own so many versions already).

I feel bad posting about this because until about 4 years ago I was adamant about emulation being the best option for everything retro (I had long ago given away most of my incredible console collection because of that belief). Now that I've had a chance to catch up to most members here on old hardware, and tried out the real hardware on games I never could before, I can confidently say that the originals can't be emulated in any sort of perfection unless the developers put some real effort into it, or remake the game from source with some real care and attention; Possibly love? There's a fairly large gap between the years-developed dedicated emulator authors and the rushed efforts of cash-in port developers. Check out the list of PocketNES derived GBA ports.

There are some fantastic remakes that utilize the original engines but remake the games to use the improved hardware - too many to recall since re-releases aren't supposed to be noticed, thery're supposed to be invisibly perfect or contain the original gameplay but achieve more perfection from the original intent:
- Super Mario Bros. DX - limited by the screen, but very well implemented
- Super Mario All Stars - Physics are impecable - a must buy for anyone
- Phantasy Star Collection on GBA - I read on an interview that the guy responsible for the major part of it built a static recompilation of the first and the team rebuilt the rest from scratch based on source.
- San Francisco Rush on Midway Aracde Treasures 3 on PS2 - plays at 60FPS and takes the best of the different releases
- Ridge Racer Turbo (as included with ridge racer 4) - Improved graphics, and 60FPS while retaining all of the original goodness
Shadow of the Colossus & ICO PS3 - They succesfully took the originals and ported it to a new better graphics mode. As was the intent there wasn't much to notice, but I did enjoy some higher resoluton textures for mostly everything you can get close to besides the rocky terrian. The textures that were blurred out in the distance were replaced by their highest resolution replacements. They bumped everything up a notch. Awesome.


Not that I don't have lots more good stuff to say because gaming companies mostly do it right - they know how to milk a franchise without souring their customers. However I do have a few gripes about some badly done ports I paid for.

- Sonic the Hedgehog Genesis - if you've tried it you know how bad it is. Sonic regularly embeds himself into the ground because the porting team took two engines, some graphics and botched them together. It's horrible.

- Sonic the Hedgehog collection PS2 - It didn't properly scale the graphics - I tried to get different hardware hacks to force something good out of the emulation engine and it either stuttered or died. I couldn't enforce 240P or 480P and it was always blurry no matter which display I used. I try to make an effort to avoid emulating when I can. In this case the Sega Saturn Sonic Jam collection was the answer. It did it all perfectly. Not that I don't play it on my Genesis, but I like to try all my options to enjoy possibly better games.

- Megaman Compilation for any system. Bad scaling and timing problems - I'm kinda particular about my favorite franchise. If the timing and graphics and palettes aren't right, and I can't force the hardware to make them right...
I haven't found a replacement for the original NES. I'm currently running it through my XRGB3 with very specific settings, but there's a forthcoming AV Famicom mod that's kinda expensive. The best alternative I've found is a PS2 emulator which forces a 240P component mode.

- Resident Evil IV PC - This game is horrible and unplayable! I applied the patches of a dedicated hacker which took the Gamecube higher-res non crappy textures and forced them into the game, then used a hacked-in mouse emulation patch to make it so my movement wasn't solely controlled by an analog stick (the rest of my controls were forced to be on the controller) that's unforgivable on a PC game, and the loader patch that makes it so I can use high-resolution wide screen video modes. I started playing again after almost giving up when I thought I fixed the bad stuff - okay the controls are stiff, but I can aim at least, graphics don't suck anymore; I get to the house - and what happens? A 320x240 cutscene recorded from the PS2 port (the worst port except this aparently) with added MPEG artefacting! These cutscenes happen any time something good is about to happen - about every 45 seconds if you don't get lost. Why?!? Oh well, I got the Wii version now so I play that on Dolphin so I'm not stuck at 480P for a modern game.

- Pac-Man Atari 2600 - This is a large part of the reason Ms. Pacman got popular. The original Pac-Man has been remade more than even Space Invaders I think, and this port is the very worst of them (I've played a lot of them, but feel free to correct me). Ms. Pacman fixed it, but the gameplay reflected that game's enhancements, meaning you couldn't rely on your strategys from the original Pacman in the arcade despite the different playfield.

- Final Fantasy VI and V GBA - I can't fault either of the games for gameplay or content really, but when Square-Enix paid development companies millions to develop ports, and one dedicated fan improved the games so profoundly using media from the enhanced ports so easily (I'm sure he spent a lot of time, but reading the dev-log he didn't have to reinvent the wheel), why didn't Square-Enix add it as an option?


Well, I've got more to say but I'm gonna go do other stuff. I'm looking forward to my SLG-3000 so I can combine it with my Ultimarc Arcade VGA and an older PC motherboard. I guess I'm just not hardcore enough to spend over $200 per ancient arcade game - I hear the copyrights expired on every one that I play anyway.
I'll also be killing a PC10 motherboard soon to extract it's PPU so I can enjoy a NES in RGB perfection. I kinda feel like an ivory poacher - like more than I felt about the whole emulation thing since I'm literally gonna kill a peice of gaming hardware for it's good parts. From what I can tell that's what it takes to play the best games with the best experience. If I didn't do that I'd probably spend that money building an amazing Wii Virtual Console collection.

*note - VC isn't the best way but it's easy... If you can't tell the difference do it, the emulation is stolen from years-refined emulators and it's kosher legal-wise.

[BoneSnapDeez]

Happen to know if any other SNES RPGs were ported over besides the Final Fantasy titles?

I'm not entirely sure if I'll get them all in this post... I tried to look up a list of GBA RPGs at work, but so many game sites are blocked by the filters here.

Make sure you check out Breath of Fire I & II. Great games and the GBA versions play pretty much identically to the SNES originals.

The Mother 1 & 2 collection is amazing, but in Japanese.

There is also a GBA version of Eye of the Beholder (a Western D&D RPG), but it's more of a complete re-imagining of the original PC game and has little to do with the SNES version.

The GBA also has direct ports of Zelda I & II, as well as a remake of Link to the Past with the Four Swords. Whether or not these are RPGs is a point of contention on this website.

There are a couple of ports/remakes of non-SNES 16-bit RPGs as well. Lunar Legend is a remake of The Silver Star, but since it's on the GBA there's no voice acting or cut scenes. I'm playing it right now. Also, there's Shining Force: Resurrection of the Dark Dragon which is a remake of the original Shining Force.

I guess I should mention Sword of Mana too, which is a remake of the Final Fantasy Adventure (the Game Boy game).

So much good stuff on the GBA.