GBA Doom 1 and 2 vs. all other Doom ports.

It's a thread that I've been thinking for a while now.

As for me, GBA Doom 2's got a lot of anomalies in it's own, like the gameplay that's got some of it's features broken, alongside graphical issues.

GBA Doom 1 and SNES Doom is really slow. 

They're terrible, but marginally better than the SNES one. I guess they had their appeal back in the day, you know, being able to play Doom on a portable device, but they are painful to play nowadays.

I wish the GBA Doom 2 used an optimized version of the GBA Doom 1 engine because the engine it is run on suffers from gameplay and camera issues.

I doubt it's only an optimization problem though. The specs of the GBA aren't anything impressive.

You do know how GBA Doom 2 is faster than GBA Doom 1, right?

Just now, Cacodemon345 said:

You do know how GBA Doom 2 is faster than GBA Doom 1, right?

I have to admit I haven't played D2 on the GBA, but still, it's hard to imagine it running how it's supposed to.

I remember GBA Doom being fun on the GBA but it's been forever since I played them. 

I like the more electro sounding renditions of the MIDI tracks too. 

I expected a comparison in this thread against all other Doom ports lol.

GBA Doom 1 was not that bad for me. Originally I was going to buy Doom 2, because I knew it was a lot more smooth, but it was nowhere to be found on the store, so I got 1.

I just tweaked some things in the settings, concerning the lighting and I played in my desk, under the light, because my GBA is frontlit (thought this sucked at first, but it is cool when you want to play under the morning sun).

Anyways, it was kinda slower and that is respectable considering the hardware and I think some levels were omitted from the game (I was surprised when I saw it had Limbo in).

There were also like 5 control schemes available, so I found the one that suited me best and the frustration of a game that is slow and hard to control started backing off the more I played it.

The music was ok (not a Soundblaster or anything, but it was ok) and about the sprites, they seemed really pixelly on the distance (you could just know what enemy it was from the general look and the colors), while they grew to be more detailed as you approached them (note that the game looks better on the handheld, compared to youtube videos, probably due to smaller resolution on the GBA - this is something I noticed and I wanted to mention).

Now, about other ports, iirc from a video I saw, I think the 32X had better gameplay, the SNES better music, the Jaguar better in everything and the PSX one was amazing and atmospheric, though I haven't had the luck to try it out. The GBA doesn't stand a chance against the competitors, but it is portable, so that is one thing the others don't do.

On 5/3/2018 at 6:07 AM, KVELLER said:

They're terrible, but marginally better than the SNES one. I guess they had their appeal back in the day, you know, being able to play Doom on a portable device, but they are painful to play nowadays.

Pretty much this. Doom 2 felt a lot more polished and better to me. 

*Somewhat unrelated banter* ...and I also remember trying to buy it when I was 13, at Hastings...but they wouldn't let me. (Game was rated T btw), and I had to get my brother to buy it for me. Even though the SNES version isn't "good" either, it holds a special place in my heart being my first dive into Doom.

DOOM on the GBA is respectable given the platform and when it came out. It performs well enough and plays fine, and it basically features the Jaguar level set. My biggest issue with it is the music, which is placed on the wrong maps. Graphics get pretty pixelated, but it's a GBA--its resolution is pretty low regardless, not much that version of DOOM can do about it. Still, it's a solid version overall and leagues above the SNES one from a playability standpoint.

DOOM II is an interesting one. It doesn't use the DOOM engine and so it feels pretty different. The hit detection feels totally off compared to the PC original, and the game's performance is also much less consistent than the first DOOM on GBA. The framerate will jump up extremely high when staring face to face with a wall, to extremely low when you look into an open room with lots of enemies. It gets kudos for featuring most of the stages from the PC game, so it's definitely content-rich. Fun thing of note (well, not really when you're playing it)--the armor system is broken and doesn't work correctly. Apparently armor pickups only apply to the stage you are on, and technically resets to 0% on the next map despite the number carrying over.

As far as how the first GBA DOOM compares to other ports from back in the day, I think it compares favorably to the Jaguar and 32X ones. Jaguar version looks the nicest, but the 32X version feels the most responsive. GBA has individual strafe left and right functionality with the shoulder keys which makes it the easiest to play. The GBA one also has music (versus the Jaguar's silence), and the quality is better than the 32X's soundtrack. GBA one has the Jaguar level set (so, more maps than the 32X one), so I can see some preferring it overall to the Jaguar or 32X versions. The SNES is its own thing and it's obviously hard to recommend these days, but the music is still pretty sweet.

It would take a super long time to compare them to other ports, but Doom1 on GBA had surprisingly accurate gameplay even if the framerate was a little low. Doom2 on GBA was nicer to look at and had much better music, the main drawback of not using the actual Doom engine is that the sprites are notably larger than their hitboxes which really kills my mojo. Player movement feels kind of weird and off in Doom2 on GBA as well, in contrast to the Doom1 port.

i just watched a review on both, and it appears that doom 2 is faithfully recreated, even the music, all 32 levels, weapons and enemies, the Doom 1 port is missing cyber and mastermind - a shame really.

what is really cool is you can coop on the GBA and do a 4 man multiplayer.

Doom 1 is basically the Jaguar version shoved into the GBA awhile Doom II uses an FPS engine made specifically for the hardware, so of course it’ll be faster. Despite its quirks, I’m impressed how intact the level structure is. For the most part, they just added objects to obstruct visibility, like a big pillar in the center of the Crusher’s titular room.

Never played those versions, but nothing could be worse than the Saturn or 3DO ports, right?

4 hours ago, Knee Deep In The Fan said:

Never played those versions, but nothing could be worse than the Saturn or 3DO ports, right?

Hey, at least the 3DO version has cool music!

Saturn version isn't great, yeah. 3DO version is trash, but it at least has an interesting backstory to it.

1 hour ago, amackert said:

Saturn version isn't great, yeah. 3DO version is trash, but it at least has an interesting backstory to it.

Could only play the Saturn version for like 15 min before I had to stop. The motion blur and choppiness was giving me a horrible headache. Also, when you say backstory are you referring to the in game story or the story about the development?

49 minutes ago, Knee Deep In The Fan said:

Could only play the Saturn version for like 15 min before I had to stop. The motion blur and choppiness was giving me a horrible headache. Also, when you say backstory are you referring to the in game story or the story about the development?

Story about the development:

https://youtu.be/rBbIil2HPSU

GBA Doom 2 is really good. imo it's the best official portable Doom game. Compared to other console ports, beginning with my most unpopular opinion first:

PSX version is a bad port

Saturn version is bad

32X version is a bad port

3DO version is bad

IOS version is unplayable

SNES version deserves respect for being a monumental technical achievement for the platform, but it is also a bad port

Doom 64 gets special mention since it is of course its own game and can't be compared fairly, but it's a great game

I do like the fact that everything is intact from Doom 2, but the gameplay isn't accurate to GBA Doom 1 and is far more harder than intended, alongside palette issues and weird behaviour of the camera. The fact that the hitboxes are larger causes serious problems in certain situations, like if you got a Pain Elemental in front of you, you will get killed quickly by the Lost Souls.

The palette was changed to accommodate the lowest common denominator of GBA hardware. The original unit did not have a backlit screen, so the contrast of everything was increased and two palette entries were changed because colors #0 and #14 (?) are treated specially by the engine. I consider it a non-issue given the intent behind the change

I've been replaying through GBA Doom 2 very recently and to this day I don't find the hitbox issue to be particularly game-breaking. Pain Elementals were a joke in how trivial they were to dispatch in the PC version, the fact that they are a threat at all in the GBA port is an improvement as far as I am concerned

One DOOM that I was always familiar with as a child until I had my hands on a PC and play DOOM and DOOM 2 completely was Sega 32X DOOM. A highly flawed port, the game's monsters only face you due to the limited engine and sprites. But at least the gameplay is still much better than SNES.

On 5/9/2018 at 10:31 PM, DILDOMASTER666 said:

PSX version is a bad port

I disagree, 's all.

16 hours ago, ZeroTheEro said:

I disagree, 's all.

Ditto.

But I do love hearing Burgertime's Youtube vlog about how the Jaguar 3DO port was developed. Makes it less hated on. Programming a DOOM game from scratch in less than a week or two isn't easy at all to do esp. in the 90's.

I would agree, I think the PSX Doom TC's are better than the original PSX Doom ports.

19 hours ago, Repentance said:

One DOOM that I was always familiar with as a child until I had my hands on a PC and play DOOM and DOOM 2 completely was Sega 32X DOOM. A highly flawed port, the game's monsters only face you due to the limited engine and sprites. But at least the gameplay is still much better than SNES.

What's funny is that the 32X port looks, sounds, and plays so much better than the Saturn version. Not a good look for Sega.