Complete transparency here for this piece: This was not originally planned in any way. I had hoped for something else to be ready for the first half of November that's (to some extent) out of my control, and it unfortunately didn't come to pass. I'm under no obligation to provide new writings every week or two... but I like to try. Therefore, instead of the usual introduction I would give this kind of Obscusion B-List article, I've decided to be 100% honest & admit that this was literally started on the prior Wednesday; for stuff like this I try to give myself at least a week, just to think things out & take my time. Also, let's face it, after three prior entries of this subject it's honestly just getting hard to make an intro that's somewhat unique from the prior ones. At least it's been around two years since the previous version of this B-List, which just happened to be how I wound up pacing these, completely by accident. Finally, I just like making these lists, because this is a really fun subject to look into.
Anyway, let's go over still yet another six video games that were ported to hardware that, in essence, really had no reasonable right or reason to be playing them!
In theory, every new piece of gaming hardware needs a handful game types at launch, and I don't necessarily mean specific genres. What I mean is that a good hardware launch should have at least one killer app that makes people want to buy it, at least one title that'll keep people coming back for more over & over, & at least one title that can showcase what the hardware is capable of. For that last example a common direction used to be releasing a port of some sort, something that wasn't capable at all on prior hardware (at least, not without major changes) to show people that this truly was "next-gen". Both the ColecoVision & NES had Donkey Kong, the Genesis had Altered Beast, the SNES had Final Fight & Gradius III, and the Dreamcast & PS2 had SoulCalibur & Tekken Tag Tournament, respectively, among other examples. The Game Boy Advance had a bunch of hardware spectacles for its launch in 2001, showcasing the handheld's ability to handle things that the Game Boy & Game Boy Color never could, and there were also ports of older games. Most of these were ports of 16-bit classics, like Earthworm Jim, Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure, & the SNES remake of Super Mario Bros. 2/USA, but there was one GBA launch title (for North America & Europe, at least) that dared to go even further & show that the GBA was truly a 32-bit handheld: Rayman Advance.
Originally released in 1995, Rayman was the game Ubi Soft (now Ubisoft) used to move out of the European-focused PC market & into a more worldwide console market, and it was simply a game that was not possible on 16-bit hardware. While at one point it was being made for the unreleased SNES-CD, when that got cancelled development then moved over to the Atari Jaguar (with ports to the PlayStation, Saturn, & PC later determined), which allowed it to focus on large, high-quality 2D sprites & colorful backgrounds that just were not doable on something like the Genesis or SNES; a 32X version was announced & shown briefly at E3 1995, but never came out. After all of those initial versions came out, Rayman did get reworked into a Game Boy Color version in 2000, though that understandably was as much its own thing as it was a "port", due to the sheer difference in hardware. However, just one year later saw the release of Rayman Advance, which was ported to the GBA by Digital Eclipse, which even back then had shown prowess in delivering impressive ports, like Williams Arcade's Greatest Hits for the SNES & Genesis and the immensely impressive remaking of Dragon's Lair for the Game Boy Color (which I covered in the first of this type of B-List back in 2017). From a visual perspective, this GBA port was the OG Rayman in its full glory, with the colorful backdrops & outstanding sprite work mostly maintained (with only a few exceptions), though this resulted in a smaller viewable screen due to the smaller resolution; to compensate, 1 Ups were slightly more common & you have more health points than normally. In terms of sound the music easily suffered the most, though the tracks are still readily identifiable in their compositions (&, remember, the GBA mostly relied on the original Game Boy's sound tech, with only two extra PCM channels to enhance it), but by & large this was truly the "real" Rayman on the go, & it remains an extremely impressive port.
Since then the original Rayman has seen some other handheld ports, namely on the DS & mobile devices, while both the PS1 & GBC versions were later officially re-released via emulation for the PSP & 3DS, respectively. You can certainly play better, more accurate versions of this classic game on handheld devices, but when you consider how rarely actual 32-bit games were ported to the GBA during its life that makes Rayman Advance all the more impressive that it was a launch title.
To be perfectly honest, anything involving either a first-person perspective or 3D polygons on the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive was kind of programming miracle, since it essentially always involved making it happen using tech that was originally released in 1988 in Japan; Virtua Racing is the literal only game for the console to use extra hardware on the cartridge, the SVP Chip. While there weren't many of these kinds of games on the console, they are all impressive on some level... even if the performance wasn't always good, even for the time. Interestingly enough, December 21, 1990 saw the release of two different first-person, polygon-driven games for the Mega Drive over in Japan, one of which was released internationally, while the other was planned but wound up staying in Japan. One of those titles was Tengen's port of 1989 arcade driving game Hard Drivin', which also saw ports to the Atari Lynx & various computers of the time; the later ports of sequel Race Drivin' are definitely the more notorious ones. The other 12/21/90 release, though, was arguably the more impressive & ambitious one: Star Cruiser.
Developed by Arsys Software, which stayed around until 2001 & even helped develop the original Ace Combat & Gran Turismo (though by this point the company's name was now Cyberhead), Star Cruiser was first released on the PC-8801 in 1988 before getting ported to the Sharp X1, PC-9801 & X68000 computers up through 1989. Today it's considered a game highly ahead of its time by being an action RPG that also featured elements of FPS gameplay, all while also being a bit of an open-world exploration title with six degrees of freedom, as well being very heavily focused on its storytelling & character development, and it'd even get a sequel for the PC-98 in 1993. The Mega Drive port actually looks to have been done in-house over at Arsys, being the studio's first console project (& the only one for the Mega Drive), & teamed with Masaya for publication. The end result, while apparently streamlined in some ways from the PC original, is just a technical showpiece for the hardware. Remember, this is still pre-Wolfenstein 3D (hell, it even predates Catacombs 3-D by a year!) yet the MD port looks amazing (not accounting for personal taste for the visual style, which could be a turn off for some people), runs at a respectable enough frame rate, and even filles up most of the screen with its first-person polygonal visuals; in fact, this port even uses up more of the screen than on the PC-88! Compared to later attempts on the console, like Corporation/Cybercop or even Zero Tolerance, Star Cruiser more than tops what those games were trying to do with the hardware & honestly makes Arsys seem like technical wizards; add in really good music, too.
Today, Star Cruiser is actually officially available outside of Japan in its original PC-88 form via D4 Enterprises' Eggconsole series of releases on Switch, though that naturally has no English translation outside of the non-game menus. It is a shame that the planned "Star Quest" release in English Namco had planned for July 1994 never happened (&, hell, even by that point I think it still would have held up rather well), but the MD port (as well as the PC-88 & X68000 versions) at least does have a fan translation, so it hasn't been totally forgotten with time, and it was included as one of the games for the Sega Mega Drive Mini 2 in Japan.
Back in the very first take on this concept I included the 1997 Master System port of Street Fighter II' done by TecToy over in Brazil. Well, that wasn't the only 8-bit (kinda-sorta) console to receive an official port of that game! While Street Fighter II's numerous updates & variants (both official & bootleg) has admittedly long been a running gag for decades (it was already being poked fun at while it was happening!), there was a reason for it. SFII was an undeniable smash hit in arcades, so it was only natural that Capcom wanted to make updates so as to keep it competitive for players, and the idea of simply patching a game was still a long time away. Therefore, Capcom's only real method was to simply put out an entirely new variant in arcades. SFII': Champion Edition added in mirror matches & the ability to play as the four bosses, SFII' Turbo: Hyper Fighting sped up the gameplay & added at least one new special move to nearly every character (in response to bootleg versions, like "Rainbow Edition"), Super SFII featured enhanced & updated visuals (due to it moving to new hardware) alongside four new characters, & Super SFII Turbo added the speed increase back in & introduced both super moves & a new secret boss in Akuma/Gouki. Every version of SFII saw some sort of home console port, but aside from the original Game Boy there was no official 8-bit port of any SFII variant until 1997 with the Master System port... at least, from a certain point of view.
Whether the PC-Engine/TurboGrafx-16 is an 8-bit or 16-bit console is kind of a moot point nowadays, but it is neat to look back at. You see, from a CPU perspective the console was 8-bit, but because it used a 16-bit GPU it was capable of outputting visuals that just were not possible on the NES or Master System. Therefore, while Street Fighter II wasn't really plausible on the "true" 8-bit consoles, at least not without major changes (as seen with the later Master System port), it could theoretically be possible on the PC-Engine... as long as ROM space wasn't an issue. You see, the PC-Engine used Hudson Soft's proprietary HuCard for its games, which were meant to be small (no larger or thicker than a credit card) & at its best could only hold around 8 megabits, or 1 MB. That would change somewhat with the "ROMRAM HuCard", which would bulk up one end of the HuCard a bit but allow up to 20 megabits/2.5 MB of space. The first game to use this type of HuCard was a port of Populous released in April of 1991, but the only other ROMRAM HuCard release would be the PC-Engine port of Street Fighter II': Champion Edition released on June 12, 1993; unsurprisingly, both of these ports were Japan-exclusive. The focus in these lists is to feature "impossible ports" that did not utilize extra hardware, and this one kind of skirts the line, but in the end it's solely just extra ROM space in the end. The end result is a remarkably damn good port of SFII': CE, with some even feeling that this PC-Engine port outperforms the slightly later Sega Genesis port, in some regards. Naturally, since the PC-Engine controller only had two buttons on it a special six-button controller was produced just for this game (though some later PC-Engine games likely included some bonus support for it), and that updated controller would go on to be the basis for the PC-FX controller.
Still, when you consider that the PC-Engine originally came out just a couple of months after the initial arcade release of the original Street Fighter in mid-1987, it's astonishing that the console was even capable of something like this. This specific port would later see worldwide release via the Wii Virtual Console, but today it's obviously nothing more than a novelty for hardcore fans to try out.
The Game Boy Color is a fascinating piece of hardware, because when it came out in late 1998 it was in some way nothing more than a beefed up Game Boy, with twice the processing power, four times the memory, & the ability to display up to 56 on-screen colors out of a total 32,768, though certain programming tricks could allow more than 2,000 colors on-screen. However, it was still the same exact 8-bit CPU as in the original Game Boy & the resolution was the same exact 160x144, mainly for the sake of native backwards compatibility. That being said, though, advancements in technology throughout the 90s were so fast that numerous developers were able to make the GBC do things that no one would have ever thought of doing on the original GB a decade prior. As I've detailed in prior entries in this type of B-List the GBC was home to a pixel recreation of Dragon's Lair in its original arcade form, as well as a version of Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare that displayed visuals no one ever thought was even plausible on the hardware. Well, for this go around we have a port of an iconic Amiga classic that saw ports to various hardware in the 90s, and for its GBC port it not only delivered the same overall experience but also tossed in another thing thought impossible for the hardware. I'm talking about Cannon Fodder.
Developed by Sensible Software & originally released for the Amiga in late 1993, Cannon Fodder is an overhead real-time strategical shooter where you control your squad of troops & take on stage after stage by destroying all of your opposition. The game was made as a piece of dark satire with an anti-war message, complete with a catchy theme song about how "War has never been so much fun!", and while there was some controversy with it (most notably with the usage of the remembrance poppy) it was overall widely praised & today is considered one of Sensible's greatest games, alongside the Sensible Soccer franchise; it'd also receive two sequels, which were considered good but not much else. During the 90s Cannon Fodder would receive ports to other PCs, as well as consoles (Mega Drive, SNES, 3DO, & Jaguar), and in 1999 Sensible would close up shop & be sold off to Codemasters. It was then decided to port Cannon Fodder to the Game Boy Color for a late 2000 release... and it's all there. Sure, the visuals took a slight hit (it used the Sensible Soccer engine, so it was never a visual powerhouse), but it looks definitively like Cannon Fodder, all of the missions are included, there's even the occasional bit of voice work (if really scratchy sounding)... and Codemasters even was able to squeeze in a ~17-second FMV intro! That's right, full-motion video on a Game Boy Color made possible by Jools Jameson, the co-creator of Cannon Fodder who was working for Codemasters at the time & pushed for this port, in the first place.
Today, Electronic Arts owns Codemasters, buying the studio in 2020 mainly for its history of racing games, namely Dirt, Grid, & F1, so obviously Cannon Fodder isn't a priority for EA in any fashion. However, the Game Boy Color version is proof of just what that handheld was capable of when in the right hands, both in delivering an extremely accurate port of a PC classic but also for doing things that I'm sure not even Nintendo thought could be done on the hardware.
With a ~15-year lifespan of 1977 to 1992, the Atari 2600 still looks to hold the record for "longest-lived video game console", at least from an "officially licensed releases" standpoint, with its closest competitors being the Neo Geo (1990-2004), Game Boy (1989-2003), & PlayStation 2 (2000-2013); the PlayStation 4, while still being officially supported, is only at 11 years, so far. Because of that anyone who developed for the 2600 in its later years, especially during its revival as a budget console option after the NES revived the American video game market, had to come up with ways to either reinterpret then-modern games for the hardware or do things that were simply never thought possible back in the late 70s; after all, the "VCS" was really only designed to play Combat & Pong. This is the era that gave us technical marvels like Track & Field, Midnight Magic, Solaris, & Secret Quest, all of which are often cited as some of the best games on the 2600. In comparison, the port I'm going with might not be quite as technically impressive as those, but it's still remarkable in its own way... and it's literally how Atari Corporation said goodbye to the 2600, at least in Europe.
It's often a confusing thing when it comes to companies named "Atari", so much so that I even did an entire piece going over each & every one of them in chronological order last year, but the main thing to remember is that Atari Corporation (which held on to the computer & home console side of things) & Atari Games (which held on to the arcade side of things) were completely different entities following the split in 1984 that resulted in their respective founding. However, the two Ataris were still willing to work with each other from a licensing standpoint, which meant that Atari Games was willing to license its various arcade games out to Atari Corp. so that the latter could make ports for its own consoles (all while Atari Games would release its own home console ports on other hardware, via subsidiary Tengen), and in the end that would result in the final "official" release for the Atari 2600 (or, at least, the last one for a little over 30 years) being a port of an Atari Games title; remember, third-party releases for the 2600 were technically never "official", in any fashion. Created by Dave Akers & Mark Stephen Prince and released in arcades in 1990, Klax was a tile matching puzzle game where players were tasked with catching tiles as they came down a conveyor belt & dropping them into a well so that they could match at least three of the same color to make them disappear; overall, it's a fun puzzler in its own right, but maybe not one of the all-time greatest. Atari Games, though, wanted Klax to be on as many piece of hardware as possible (Wikipedia counts 27 alone, including ones that came much later), and that included Atari Corporation's hardware... like the 2600. By this point, though, the Atari 2600 was essentially all done, so in 1992 Klax for the 2600 came out only in Europe, with the port being done by Steve DeFrisco, the man who programmed Secret Quest & MotoRodeo; the copyrights say "1990", but from all indications this came out in 1992.
To be fair, from a purely visual perspective 2600 Klax doesn't look super impressive at first glance, but it's the small details that make it really neat. For example, DeFrisco managed to maintain the vanishing point perspective & sprite scaling effect by making the top of the screen feature thinner sprites, and as tiles come down the belt they slowly get thicker. Despite it's simplistic visuals, this is still very identifiably Klax when played on the 2600, even generally considered a solid version, and in this case it's a perfect example of "less is more". Maybe not the strongest example for a list like this, but I really wanted to cover this port, because (as Marge Simpson would say) I just think it's neat.
At the start of this year I did an overview of the Nettou "Deadheat Fighters" Series, a run of eight games published by Takara for the Game Boy that aimed to port over various fighting games to the handheld, all while maintaining what made each of those fighters worth playing in their original arcade and/or console forms. The end result, while mixed, was a series of eight of the best fighting games ever released on the original Game Boy, with even the entries that I felt were more lackluster still easily wiping the floor with most of the non-Nettou competition released on the Game Boy. This series of games were released between 1994 & 1998 (1999, if you count the Kettou Beast Wars anime tie-in that was essentially a spiritual successor), with numerous developers being hired by Takara to make it happen. The developer that was used the most, though, was a studio called Gaibrain. Formed by former Santos staff & existing mainly throughout the 90s, Gaibrain would develop three of the eight Nettou games (plus the Kettou Beast Wars game, afterwards), but what likely got Gaibrain the consistent work on this series was a port the studio had made for Takara prior to any of these, and for a handheld that wasn't the Game Boy.
Simply put, the Game Boy was an utter behemoth that simply could not be toppled, no matter what other company tried its hand at doing so. The one that came the "closest" would be Sega's Game Gear in the 90s, which managed to sell around 10.62 million units, but even that was only roughly 1/10 of what the Game Boy sold, overall. Still, the Game Gear was an impressive piece of tech, essentially being a Master System with a massively improved color palette (4,096, the literal perfect square of the MS!), though the two were not directly cross compatible, as MS games could only be played on GG via an adapter. One genre that the GG was not awash with, though, was fighting games; there were some, including a few ports, but it wasn't really a focus. Maybe that's why Takara decided to release a port of Fatal Fury Special on the Game Gear in 1994, though the selection of this specific version is a bit odd. After all, the Genesis received a conversion of Fatal Fury 2 that same year (also done, in part, by Gaibrain), while the Game Boy's second ever Nettou game was for that same initial version, yet the Game Gear was getting a port of the updated version? Regardless, Gaibrain (alongside co-developer Aspect handling the sound, same as with FF2 for the Genesis) came correct for this port, delivering something that was essentially unbelievable without seeing it for yourself. While about half of the roster isn't here (only 9 out of 16) the ones that are here look absolutely amazing & rather accurate to their original sprite work, though obviously scaled down; however, it's not in the SD style that something like Nettou Fatal Fury 2 was doing on Game Boy. Naturally, the gameplay is also simplified with only two attack buttons & no lane shifting, but from all reports it plays magnificently & is generally considered the best fighting game on the Game Gear, by leaps & bounds. Also, the music & sound effects done by Aspect are stellar, as well.
I can absolutely see Takara noticing what Gaibrain had done with Fatal Fury Special on the Game Gear & going "We need you guys working on the Nettou Series!", because the staff there pulled off a true blue "miracle port" here. It's a testament that Takara bothered to release this version around the world, because they knew what they had on hand; unfortunately, though, this notoriety now results in the actual cart being super expensive.
-----
So there's still yet another six examples of games that, quite honestly, don't really have any right being on the hardware they were ported to. However, because of a bit of gumption, talent, cleverness, & adjustments, they do indeed exist as their respective ports, and in this case they're all actually good to great ports, in & of themselves; not perfect, mind you, but all way better than some other ports I've included in previous entries. I mentioned it last time, but the very idea of these kinds of ports are mostly a forgotten relic, minus some exceptions, so it's always fun & cool to look back at a time when they were more prevalent & attempted, seeing how developers found means to push hardware in ways they sometimes were never intended to do.
Rayman Advance © 2001 Ubisoft
Star Cruiser (Mega Drive) © 1990 NCS Corp. (now Extreme) © 1988 Arsys Software (now defunct)
Street Fighter II': Champion Edition (PC-Engine) © Capcom 1991, 1992, 1993
Cannon Fodder (Game Boy Color) © 2000 Codemasters (now Electronic Arts)
Klax (Atari 2600) © 1990 Tengen (now WB Games) © 1990 Atari, Inc.
Fatal Fury Special (Game Gear) © SNK 1993, Reprogrammed © Takara 1994
No comments:
Post a Comment