Porting Disasters Thread

[Maes]

Digital Illusions' Pinball Fanstasies received a little-known port for the Sony Playstation -yes, the first one-, called "Pinball Fantasies Deluxe", exclusively for the Japanese market. Not unusual per-se, considering that there was a CD32 port before, and other pinball games of the era received Playstation ports as well.

 

 

Unfortunately, while it might look the part, it plays nothing like the original Amiga and PC versions. The music is somewhat off -as if the PSX had a problem with tracker music, which might as well be, there are some annoying voiceovers, but these are non-issues. What really kills it, at least for me, is that they somehow managed to make the controls stiff and delayed, to the point that the "flow" of the original tables is completely ruined. Maybe if you never played the Amiga or PC versions before, you might be able to adjust and even consider it "normal", but I would have to completely re-learn everything, so I'll pass. Only buy/download/burn/whatever if you have to collect every pinball game for the PSX ever made. Otherwise, if you want a fun game to play, try something better. Like Kiss Pinball. And yes, I mean the Playstation version, which is a notable porting disaster itself of an already mediocre pinball game, but I'll make a separate post for that. Someday.

 

Edit: there's a -presumably better- port of Pinball Fantasies for the PS3, made by the Silents, FWIW.

 

 

[Wadmodder Shalton]

Popeye - Nintendo Switch & Playstation 4: not really a port but rather an inferior and poorly done 3D remake of the 1982 Nintendo arcade game released in 2021. It has very bad graphics that looks like something from the fifth generation of game consoles (Nintendo 64, Playstation 1, Sega Saturn, 3DO, or Atari Jaguar), something you would find on crappy Roblox or Source engine multiplayer game servers, or any early 3D arcade games from the mid-1980s to early-1990s, no voice acting, and each of the three stages are now way too linear and inferior (LOL XD Linear and Inferior, despite the differences with the ear/ior plural suffix they rhyme), renaming of the "Sea Hag" to "The Witch", altering of the arcade game's mechanics, fundamentals and rules, including the inability to punch out the vulture without the spinage and no longer getting extra lives, and tons of invisible walls, bugs and glitches.

 

The game is also an inferior asset flip running on the Unity engine, as the three stages use the Polygon Pirate Pack (designed for both Unreal, Unity and probably others) from Synty Studios, and the 3D models of the Popeye characters appeared to had been lifted from a fan-created set of 3D models of Popeye characters.

The game appears to be clearly Unwinnable and it's likely that this game has NO credits at all, making beating or longplaying the game a near 100% impossibility, and next to NO chance to roll credits for this game at all.

Edited February 17, 2022 by Wadmodder Shalton

[unerxai]

The port of Kaboom on the Activision Anthology for PS2. The controls made it unplayable basically. It's like they knew it was bad because the requirement for the badge was a pretty low score.

 

At least the rest of the compilation is pretty good and I love the 80's room theme.

[Wadmodder Shalton]

A couple of Commodore 64 ports of popular arcade games often had different versions for Europe and North America. The results are often considered obvious, with either the version for Europe or North America being rather inferior to one another.

Here's a couple of examples that YouTuber Retro Core took a look at in his Battle of the Ports series of videos:

Cabal - has two versions, one for NTSC regions & another for PAL regions. Both have different mechanics but otherwise aren't bad but not great games on the system either.
Space Harrier - has two versions, a decent conversion by Sega themselves, and an inferior rubbish version by Elite.
Mario Bros. - has two versions, a superior one for the NTSC regions, and an inferior PAL version by Ocean Software.
Donkey Kong - has two versions, a decent PAL version developed by Arcana Software and distributed by Ocean Software, and an inferior NTSC version developed by Atari.
BurgerTime - Had an official release that is deemed inferior due to the fact that when you lose a life the playfield and parts of the hamburger reset. There was also an unofficial version released in 1997 that is better, but still not good that plays better and doesn't reset the playfield and parts of the hamburger every time you lose a life.
Commando - has two different versions with differences to audio and graphics, but otherwise both are very decent ports.

Star Wars Arcade 1983 - two versions were released, one based upon the one by Parker Brothers for the Atari consoles & ColecoVision released in late 1983-early 1984, and the other one released in 1987, though neither version is particularly good.

Jackal - two versions were made, one for PAL regions which is flawed in most ways, and an NTSC version which is very inferior.

Double Dragon - two different versions released with neither being good, one by Mastertronic and one by Ocean Software.

After Burner - two versions were released, an inferior PAL version by Dalali Software and a better but still not good NTSC version by Weebee.

Just wanted to get these out of the way.

Edited February 12, 2022 by Wadmodder Shalton

[RaszagalPhoenix]

On 7/1/2021 at 1:43 PM, NuMetalManiak said:

Definitely Wolfenstein 3D's GBA port. No music, worser draw distance which actually makes the disappearing sprites bug much more prevalent, can only save after you beat a level.

Don't know if somebody already talked about this, but there's also the Super Nintendo port. It was censored to hell due to Nintendo's strict policies at the time; this meant that there were no Nazi-related imagery and no blood (unless you count BJ's face below 25% health; i think that's the only uncensored part of the game); the censorship also replaced the dogs with freakin' huge rats of all things.

[Wadmodder Shalton]

Also got to mention the notoriously shameless ports of Dingo Pictures' mockbuster animated films developed by The Code Monkeys & originally published by Midas Interactive Entertainment for the PS1 until Phoenix Games took over publishing and distribution. Phoenix Games would take most of their same games and port them to the PS2, and in rare cases the Nintendo DS and Wii.

These games were nothing but lame puzzle minigames tied in with a inferior animated film by German studio Dingo Pictures. There otherwise hadn't been much clean up to the picture quality, and what little clean up there was appeared to had damaged the picture quality when compared to the original master tape, then making it better.

I'll start off with the Phoenix Games titles, which are as follows:

The Dalmatians - originally released by Midas Interactive Entertainment on the PS1 in 2000, it was republished by Phoenix Games in 2003 as Dalmatians 2 & later the same year ported to the PS2 under the title Dalmatians 3, with the last ports for the Nintendo DS & Wii supposedly released in 2008 & 2009 under the title Dalmations 4, but it's likely that the latter two ports never existed. It can be considered the mockbuster equivalent of either Hanna-Barbera's The Pound Puppies or Disney's 101 Dalmatians.

Animal Football - originally released by Phoenix Games on the PS1 in 2003, it was later ported to the PS2 in 2006 under the title Animal Soccer World. It's considered the mockbuster equivalent of the animated soccer scene from Disney's Bedknobs and Broomsticks.

Dinosaurs - originally released by Phoenix Games on the PS1 in 2003, it was ported to the PS2 the following year in 2004 under the title Dinosaur Adventure. A mockbuster equivalent of Don Bluth's A Land Before Time.

Toys - originally released by Phoenix Games on the PS1 in 2003, it was ported to the PS2 the following year in 2004 under the title The Toys Room. A mockbuster equivalent of Disney's & Pixar's Toy Story.

Detective Mouse - originally released by Phoenix Games on the PS1 in 2003, it was ported to the PS2 the following year in 2004 under the title The Mouse Police. A mockbuster equivalent of Disney's The Rescuers

Lion and the King 2 - originally released by Phoenix Games on the PS1 in 2003, it was ported to the PS2 the following year in 2004 under the title Son of the Lion King. A mockbuster equivalent of Disney's The Lion King.

Atlantis: The Lost Continent - originally released by Phoenix Games on the PS1 in 2003, it was ported to the PS2 the following year in 2004 under the title Empire of Atlantis. A mockbuster equivalent of Disney's Atlantis The Lost Empire.

Winky the Little Bear - originally released by Phoenix Games on the PS1 in 2003, it was ported to the PS2 in 2006 under the title Countryside Bears. A mockbuster equivalent of Disney's Winnie the Pooh series of films.

Now onto the Midas Interactive Entertainment titles, which are as follows:

Goldie - a mockbuster equivalent of Disney's Bambi.
Hunchback to Notredame - mockbuster equivalent of Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
Nice Cats - a mockbuster equivalent to Disney's The Aristocats.
Anastasia - a mockbuster equivalent of Don Bluth's Anastasia.
Lord of the Jungle - a mockbuster equivalent of Disney's Tarzan.
Moses: The Prince of Egypt - a mockbuster equivalent of DreamWorks Animation's The Prince of Egypt.
Legend of Pocahontas - a mockbuster equivalent of Disney's Pocahontas.
The Sword of Camelot - a mockbuster equivalent of Warner Brothers' Quest for Camelot.

There was also evidence of the Nintendo DS and Wii games Peter Pan's Playground, Princess Snow White, Cinderella's Fairy Tale which was very likely to be ports of the same three Familijny CD-Romek games previously ported to the PS2 (in the case of the Snow White, Cinderella & Peter Pan games from that series by Longsoft Multimedia), but it's unlikely these were ever released or if they never even existed.

Two other animated movie puzzle games were released by Phoenix Games but they have nothing to do with either Dingo Pictures or Longsoft Multimedia, and were made by other unknown animation studios. They also share the same interface as the Dingo Pictures-based games.

These games are as follows:

Legend of Mulan - knows as the former title on PS1, also known as Mighty Mulan on PS2, both ports were released in 2004. A mockbuster equivalent of Disney's Mulan.

Herkules - originally released by Phoenix Games on the PS1 in 2003, it was ported to the PS2 the following year in 2004 under the title Legend of Herkules. A mockbuster equivalent of Disney's Hercules.

Wanted to get these ports out of the way.

Edited April 9, 2022 by Wadmodder Shalton

[PsychEyeball]

On 2/3/2022 at 3:36 AM, Maes said:

Digital Illusions' Pinball Fanstasies received a little-known port for the Sony Playstation -yes, the first one-, called "Pinball Fantasies Deluxe", exclusively for the Japanese market. Not unusual per-se, considering that there was a CD32 port before, and other pinball games of the era received Playstation ports as well.

 

Unfortunately, while it might look the part, it plays nothing like the original Amiga and PC versions. The music is somewhat off -as if the PSX had a problem with tracker music, which might as well be, there are some annoying voiceovers, but these are non-issues. What really kills it, at least for me, is that they somehow managed to make the controls stiff and delayed, to the point that the "flow" of the original tables is completely ruined. Maybe if you never played the Amiga or PC versions before, you might be able to adjust and even consider it "normal", but I would have to completely re-learn everything, so I'll pass. Only buy/download/burn/whatever if you have to collect every pinball game for the PSX ever made. Otherwise, if you want a fun game to play, try something better. Like Kiss Pinball. And yes, I mean the Playstation version, which is a notable porting disaster itself of an already mediocre pinball game, but I'll make a separate post for that. Someday.

 

Spidersoft sadly didn't have a great track record porting a lot of these pinball games. It's kind of amazing considering they made many pinball games and yet could never get the physics right in about any of these. Pinball Dreams also suffered on the PC when Spidersoft ported it from the Amiga, reducing the game to a sluggish, clunky affair.

 

If you want more Spidersoft shenanigans, they made some pinball games of their own: Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends Pinball, Pinball Mania and most importantly, Pinball World, which is somehow an open world pinball game. They also made a pinball game builder but I'm still dreading to open this can of worms.

 

Fun fact: Kiss Pinball also was ported by Spidersoft under the name Tarantula Studios, who later would become Rockstar Lincoln. 

[DarkIceCyclone]

Every Need For Speed game has horrendous ports for atleast something, but the 2 that are most talked about:

MW 2005: Xbox is actually better than PC version, but Gameboy, PSP, PS and other ports like that are just horrendous
Carbon: Again, ported to gaming consoles (I believe it was GBA or one of the PS consoles) with horrendous results. 

 

Doom: Well... just google awful doom ports and you'll find plenty. There is a reason "Can it run doom" exists. 

Command and Conquer series:
Newer series also have console equivalents, and ironicly, some of them are harder on PS and XBOX, than they are on PC. Won't lie, I don't remember too much about them, but I know Tiberium saga was mentioned, as well as Red Alert 3

 

[Artsmen]

Earthworm Jim 1&2 for the GBA. Not much I need to say I mean just take a look at all the footage of them on the internet.

 

 

 

[Wadmodder Shalton]

The PS3 version of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie video game released under the PS2 Classics line exclusively on the Playstation Store in 2012.

 

This version was extremely rushed with the 4:3 picture being stretched to 16:9, input lag with the PS3's DualShock 3 controller, the audio delay of one second in the in-game engine cutscenes, and all still images being blurry due to being upscaled in-engine rather than replacing the assets.

 

This port was removed from the Playstation Store shortly after its release/launch without even an official reason given, though gamers speculate that it was the technical issues, others say it was due to THQ's financial troubles or Activision acquiring the Nickelodeon video game license. I've heard about this version being still available at GameStop's website as a download code but that it had also been removed as well, but there is no evidence to this.

 

This botched PS3 version of The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie video game makes the GTA Trilogy Definitive Edition look like a masterpiece in comparison.

Edited February 28, 2022 by Wadmodder Shalton

[luke11685]

Sonic Colors Ultimate,Jazz Jackrabbit Advance,Doom for Sega 32X Mega Drive/Genesis hardware add-on,Crazy Bus,Sonic 1 GBA port,Gunstar Super Heroes...etc.

[Dark Pulse]

On 2/10/2022 at 3:25 PM, RaszagalPhoenix said:

Don't know if somebody already talked about this, but there's also the Super Nintendo port. It was censored to hell due to Nintendo's strict policies at the time; this meant that there were no Nazi-related imagery and no blood (unless you count BJ's face below 25% health; i think that's the only uncensored part of the game); the censorship also replaced the dogs with freakin' huge rats of all things.

I honestly don't know if I'd call that a porting disaster. The game itself was impressive considering the limits of the hardware (remember, unlike SNES Doom, this ran with no accelerator chips). The censorship got forced on them by Nintendo, but that has nothing to do with being a bad port, per se.

[RaszagalPhoenix]

On 2/27/2022 at 6:47 PM, Dark Pulse said:

I honestly don't know if I'd call that a porting disaster. The game itself was impressive considering the limits of the hardware (remember, unlike SNES Doom, this ran with no accelerator chips). The censorship got forced on them by Nintendo, but that has nothing to do with being a bad port, per se.

I'm gonna have to agree there; after trying it out again, it really isn't that much of a porting disaster. Definitely has some flaws, but it's not in the same levels of shabbiness as 32X or 3DO Doom.

[Wadmodder Shalton]

Apparently, there was an unofficial port of the E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial Atari 2600 game to the ZX Spectrum under the title E.T.X. or E.T.X. the Extra-Terrestrial Xargon.

It was developed and published by Abbex Electronics in 1983, yes, the same year as the North American Video Game Crash.

There's a couple of changes to the formula. For example, it's set in the UK rather than the US, the player is being chased by agents of the MI5 rather than the FBI, Elliot is now Ernie, the Reese's Pieces are now fruit, and the alien protagonist now speaks in the game, constantly saying "OUCH" everytime you fall into a pit, and "BE GOOD" when near Ernie. Aside from those changes, it's the same telephone piece collecting rules to complete the game. It also is less of a hassle to get out of the pits as most glitches had been fixed, and includes four difficulty settings.

Interestingly, despite having a UK subsidiary, Atari likely never heard about the game, and they never bothered to threaten a lawsuit or to cease and desist the game, likely because they were struggling to recoup its losses in North America with the Video Game Crash that year.

 

Not really an official port, but I just had to mention it.

Edited March 4, 2022 by Wadmodder Shalton

[Dark Pulse]

8 hours ago, RaszagalPhoenix said:

I'm gonna have to agree there; after trying it out again, it really isn't that much of a porting disaster. Definitely has some flaws, but it's not in the same levels of shabbiness as 32X or 3DO Doom.

Even 32X Doom I'll give a pass on. The game had to be considerably cut down to fit a 3 MB Cart, and yes the music was awful, but that's because it was rushed for release. Carmack supposedly worked his ass off for about six weeks near the end to make the port happen. And the port does definitely run and look good - it just happens to not sound great on the music and have an entire episode's worth of maps cut.

 

3DO, I'll agree there 100%. That was a case of the guys who bought that having no idea what doing what they wanted would actually take. Burger Becky also did the best she could in a timeline not much better than 32X Doom, and was the only person working on the project, so I don't really blame her so much as the overambition of the publishers. She did the best she could with what little time she was given.

[Wadmodder Shalton]

Final Fight for SNES, a butchered version of the Arcade game with a few characters removed and the Industrial Area stage was also cut.

[Maes]

On 2/17/2022 at 2:03 AM, PsychEyeball said:

 Pinball Dreams also suffered on the PC when Spidersoft ported it from the Amiga, reducing the game to a sluggish, clunky affair.

 

Heh, figures. Even though Pinball Dreams was the first pinball game I tried on the PC (via the single-table Ignition demo), I was never particularly thrilled by it, and never progressed far enough in the demo. I even found a full version some time later, but something didn't feel right, and none of the tables seemed particularly appealing. Later, I found out Pinball Fantasies which looked very similar in style but was leagues superior in gameplay, and kinda forgot about Dreams. Much later I formed this idea in my mind that Pinball Dreams must be a sort of less refined, but still playable version of Pinball Fantasies, with merits of its own, and that I just misunderstood it due to inexperience.

 

So, with the knowledge of a 10000 pinball games later, I fired it up in DOSBOX again. Well... at least the PC port is like a kind of VERY crude Pinball Fantasies. Somehow all the shots feel "forced" and "strained", most of the tables have some cruel SDTM traps/patterns (which cannot be entirely avoided even if you memorize the layout before shooting blindly), and I found myself struggling even with the basic left ramp shot in Ignition, the very first/demo table. Steel Wheel is the only one that is somewhat Fantasies-like in fluidity, Beat-box is OK but unexciting, and Graveyard seems like a clunkier version of Stones & Bones from Fantasies.

 

In all tables, a ball headed towards the inlane/outlane post is a 50%/50% affair at best and last-minute saves appear nearly impossible to do, as Tilt tends to either not work at all or sending the ball to the moon. The ball "jittering" is also very noticeable: if you hold it with the flippers, the ball will visibly jitter in-place, long after you could attribute that to "momentum/spin simulation", very similarly to what happened in the old NES Pinball (where this was even more pronounced). It can even unlodge itself from the flipper's joint and roll up the inlane's slope! OK, even Pinball Fantasies does that sometimes, but it's not as frequent. Here, you can even see the ball bouncing and CRAWLING UP by itself into the outlane once it made it far enough into the inlane. This leads to some very unpredictable bounces, and many bullshit/SDTM drains. Ball saves were rare in Fantasies, but I wouldn't be surprised to learn that they do not even exist in Dreams.

 

I haven't played the Amiga version to draw comparisons, but I suppose it should have been a lot better in many of the aforementioned aspects, to be considered so groundbreaking.

Edited March 6, 2022 by Maes : Heh, "STDM".

[Wadmodder Shalton]

Sword of Sodan - Sega Genesis: a near unplayable port of the Amiga game with bad controls, poor hit detection & awful enemy AI.

[Dark Pulse]

On 3/7/2022 at 8:18 PM, Wadmodder Shalton said:

Sword of Sodan - Sega Genesis: a near unplayable port of the Amiga game with bad controls, poor hit detection & awful enemy AI.

Winners don't do drugs.

[Maes]

On 3/8/2022 at 3:18 AM, Wadmodder Shalton said:

Sword of Sodan - Sega Genesis: a near unplayable port of the Amiga game with bad controls, poor hit detection & awful enemy AI.

 

More like Sword of Sodom, by the sounds of it.

 

 

This Sodom, ya pervs

[Wadmodder Shalton]

Mortal Kombat 3 - Game Boy, Game Gear & Master System: all three versions are the same 8-bit version with the same available characters, lousy music, muddy visuals, awful enemy AI, stiff controls and bad color in the latter two versions. They are still nowhere near as bad compared to Mortal Kombat Advance which came out six years later.

 

Mortal Kombat 4 - Game Boy Color: obviously a reskin of the MK3 Game Boy port but with even worse color, awful AI, stiff controls & lousy music. The fatalities are now just grainy FMVs badly compressed that makes it look like Digital Eclipse took a camcorder on an Arcade cabinet screen, badly compressed it on a VHS tape or Video CD, took out a bunch of frames, saturated and decolorised it, damaged the image quality, make it better and badly compress it onto a GBC cartridge.

 

Now onto the following non-gaming software porting disasters:

 

Microsoft Office 4.2 - Macintosh: the troubles of this port was trying to make it universally coded to be Mac and PC friendly for 68k and x86 code, but the result was a slow, memory-intensive clunker. Thankfully, Microsoft learned their lesson with the release of Office 98 released two years after Office 97.

 

Apple QuickTime - Microsoft Windows: while earlier versions were less buggy and less of a target for security vulnerabilities and can be considered passable, version 7 originally released in 2005 easily takes the cake for being an abysmally terrible port, riddled with bugs, security vulnerabilities, lousy performance and badly programmed bloatware. In fact, even Apple itself wanted to disown their own Windows port of QuickTime 7 and pulled the plug on the port/project in April 2016, three months after version 7.7.9 was released in January for Windows, and nearly 11 years after version 7's first release. They kept their macOS version of QuickTime 7 supported for three more years after killing of the Windows port and killed it off in 2019, ending the technology in Apple's Audio/Video codec & web development. Even more annoying though, in the early days of QuickTime for Windows, most PC games required the user to have QuickTime installed, otherwise the game wouldn't run. Despite all this, it's useful for Windows for the older codecs it once supported between 1991 until 2018 before Apple pulled the plug on 32-bit Audio, Image and Video formats in macOS Catalina, mostly the codecs, encoders & decoders that Apple never updated for years.

 

Now I know this thread focuses of console & PC games but I had to include non-gaming software as part of it.

Edited May 4, 2022 by Wadmodder Shalton

[Denim Destroyer]

8 hours ago, Wadmodder Shalton said:

Now I know this thread focuses of console & PC games but I had to include non-gaming software as part of it.

No complaints from me! It is nice to gain a perspective from the non-gaming side of software development.

[Wadmodder Shalton]

Because so many people were disappointed by the official Atari 2600 version (which was written in only 4KB of code), some hackers have tried to make up for the lack of a proper Pac-Man conversion. Many people have succeeded in bringing a more faithful version of the game to this system, mostly by hacking existing games.

 

Here's a couple of these homebrew Pac-Man conversions that I'm aware of:

 

Pac-Man Arcade (1999) - Released by Rob Kudla. Hack of the Atari 2600 port of Ms. Pac-Man, turning it into Pac-Man. Originally released under the name "A Better Pac-Man"; it was changed to "Pac-Man Arcade" for later reprints.

 

Pac-Man Ebivision version (1999) - A very limited release by Ebivision. Cartridges were given away as part of a competition (?) for Pesco, another Ebivision game which was similar in gameplay to Pac-Man. Its limited release was reportedly out of legal fear.

 

Hack 'Em (2005) - Released by Nukey Shay. Hacked version of the aforementioned Pesco in attempt to recreate the near-impossible to find Ebivision Pac-Man. Also includes ports of Pac-Man Plus and the bootleg Hangly-Man.

 

Pac-Man Arcade Enhanced (2011) - an improved version of Rob Kudla's Pac-Man Arcade by El Destructo to make the visuals more closer to the original.

 

Pac-Man 4K (2014) - Released by Dintar816. Very arcade-accurate conversion, done in only 4K of cartridge memory - the same amount the 2600 original used. This version was included on the Atari Flashback Portable dedicated handheld console instead of the original official one from 1982.

 

Pac-Man 8K (2015) - Modified version of Pac-Man 4K that doubles the memory, adding a title screen and intermissions.

 

New Pac-Man 2600 - another homebrew port of Pac-Man similar to Pac-Man 4K, but the author or year it was released isn't currently known.

 

These unofficial homebrew ports and projects also probably cut out the two-player support from the original like the official ports of Ms Pac-Man and Jr Pac-Man before these homebrew gems. These unofficial ports are still better than the official Atari version of Pac-Man that's for sure.

[Wadmodder Shalton]

Flatout 3 Chaos and Destruction - PC: while you might think this is an original third installment in the Flatout series, it's something more than that just that when you look at the graphics and assets which makes this a dead giveaway. Instead of taking assets from Bugbear's earlier Flatout games, Team 6 Studios instead recycled assets and ported over their own 2010 Flatout Wii game which means the vehicles, the tracks, the gameplay and such are all identical to Flatout Wii. That's not the only assets Team 6 Studios recycled either, the game mode "Speed" is a strange hybrid sequel to another 2010 Wii racing game Speed, the checkpoint system from the racing game Glacier 3 originally released on PC and Wii in 2010 is reused in the game mode "Offroad", and lastly a stage from the yet another Wii racing game Monster Trucks Mayhem originally released in 2009 is reused in the game mode "Splatout".

This means we were playing a secret Wii-centric Asset Flip ported to Steam on PC this entire time.

[Wadmodder Shalton]

Medal of Honor: Underground - GBA: a classic on the PS1 turned into a linear and inferior FPS game released two years after its release. Awful framerate, low-quality graphics, unresponsive controls, and terrible NPC AI. Thankfully, EA learned from the reception of this port that they contracted Netherrock to develop Medal of Honor: Infiltrator for the same system which was a top-down shooter. This would sadly be Netherrock's only game they developed.

Peter Jackson's King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie - Nintendo DS: while the PC and console versions are well-known and great interpretations of the 2005 remake of the 1933 film King Kong, the Nintendo DS port is easily abysmal, with tons of bugs and glitches, awful AI, pathetic framerate, slow movement and low-quality graphics. At least the PSP version was better with the inclusion of multiplayer, despite cutting half of the campaign levels. The GBA version titled Kong: The 8th Wonder of the World (also known as King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie in Europe) also looked better than this DS abomination

[Dark Pulse]

On 3/4/2022 at 11:03 AM, Wadmodder Shalton said:

Final Fight for SNES, a butchered version of the Arcade game with a few characters removed and the Industrial Area stage was also cut.

I actually should come back to this one and give it some context.

 

I don't think Final Fight SNES is fair to call a porting disaster, for three reasons:

1. It was literally Capcom's first-ever SNES game
2. It was nearly a launch title, so that put further pressure on them (it came out one month after the JP launch of the system, and two months after the US launch)
3. It was constrained hard by cartridge size - the game fit on a paltry 1 MB cartridge when the arcade game was about 3.75 MB

Obviously the lack of space meant some cuts were necessary, so the fact it was only one character and one stage is actually kind of impressive. And in terms of gameplay, it's actually surprisingly faithful to the original.

 

Furthermore, if you look up TCRF's article on it, you'll actually see Capcom had a lot more planned for it. There is still existing code and variables set up for a two player mode, for example, and mention of a mysterious "Battle Mode" which looks to have possibly been something where you and a friend could've picked any character (including enemies!) and basically fought each other.

 

So I think Final Fight was basically a victim of "not enough time to meet every goal they wanted" and "constrained due to the limits of cartridge size." I think a modder could relatively easily restore Guy and the missing stage by bumping the cartridge up to 4 MB. They'd have to finish coding in proper two-player support, as well, but if that was done, the port would be absolutely excellent.

 

Now, if you'd like a porting disaster of Final Fight, may I direct you to the Amiga version?

 

 

It may have Guy and the Industrial Area, and the gameplay is noticeably considerably different. For example:

• Sodom doesn't even have his katanas
• Edi E. (or Eddie E here) doesn't even use his gun
• Pipes don't automatically knock an enemy down and do a lot less damage (J and Two P take four hits from this thing whereas piping them in the other versions would usually be a one-hit KO unless it was later stages where they had beefier health)
• Lots of swapped-around enemy names for no good reason - Jake is now Simons, Bill Bull is actually G. Oriber, Slash is now Axl, Axl is now Slash, Andore Jr. is given Abagail's sprite, etc.
• Different damage values across the board - getting hit by Slash/Axl in the Arcade and SNES versions would take away a huge chunk of health, but here it's barely stronger than a normal punk hit
• Axl/Slash seem to have lost their ability to block attacks
• Holly Wood/El Gado seem to be missing entirely
• No pit fight versus G. Andore/U. Andore in Stage 3 (though it tries to do something similar in the hallway before you get out of the bar)
• It may have the Industrial Area, but it is considerably shortened, and the boss fight with Rolento is missing entirely
• You can beat up Poison just fine, but apparently being able to hit Jessica is a no-go: Belger appears without her
• Belger also gets back in his wheelchair after he fires shots, making him a lot more mobile than the other versions
• Oh yeah - he's no longer Belger, he's just "Boss."
• Ending is completely gone for a simple one-screen text ending where "our heroes are free to continue their normal existences." Guess you don't end up in jail, Cody!

Not to mention if you know your Amigas, you know that US Gold was about on par with, say, Tiertex. It's also missing a whole bunch of sound (like voices), no music (...on a system where one of its strengths was its audio hardware), etc.

 

To be fair, Richard Aplin had to do this pretty much by himself. I don't blame him, I blame the lack of resources and support he was given. And his secret rant hidden in the game is quite legendary stuff, as is his easter egg.

 

 

But it's still a pretty shit port. Understandable considering the circumstances, but compared to that, the SNES port is far better, even if it's missing some things here and there.

[Wadmodder Shalton]

All of Data Design Interactive Wii games released between 2007 and 2009 qualify, as they were nothing but shameless ports of their Europe-exclusive PS2 and PC games, which were (in addition to being released in Europe) also brought over to both North America and in some cases Australia.

 

These are as follows:

 

Ninjabread Man, Myth Makers: Trixie in Toyland, Anubis II and Rock 'n' Roll Adventures - namely the main platformers, as they all use the same engine, gameplay, assets (with major reskinning for each of the four titles), controls and even the same bugs and glitches. There was supposed to be a sequel to Ninjabread Man, titled "Ninjabread Man - Blades of Fury" but it was never produced, released or completed due to DDI going under in 2012.

 

Hamster Heroes and Myth Makers: Orbs of Doom - both use the same engine and have the same gameplay, with the abysmal motion controls.

 

The Kidz Sports series - namely the first three titles Basketball, Ice Hockey and International Soccer/Football, as the fourth title Crazy Mini Golf/Crazy Golf and it's lesser known sequel Crazy Mini Golf 2/Crazy Golf 2 were released exclusively on the Wii. The first three games are easily the most dreadful Wii ports with their low-quality graphics, abysmal motion controls, bad gameplay, and awful AI that doesn't even know how to play any of the games. The first three titles were IGN's worst reviewed Wii games with all three titles receiving a 1.0 (unbearable) out of 10.

 

Billy the Wizard: Rocket Broomstick Racing - an attempt at a flight racer similar to Harry Potter: Quidditch World Cup with awful motion controls. With three game modes for racing and flying through rings, taking out a dragon with a wand, and collecting books, the game is clearly the Wii equivalent to Superman 64. The graphics are bad (for the Wii in 2007), the gameplay is atrocious and the broomstick are nearly impossible to control.

 

Kawasaki series - basically Jet Ski, Quad Bikes and Snowmobiles, with each of them having awful driving mechanics with motion controls.

 

Monster Trux Extreme - Both Arena and Offroad editions ported over to the Wii with awful motion controls.

 

Rig Racer 2 - an awful racing game that looks like a middle-budgeted rip off of Big Rigs: Over The Road Racing with motion controls, but hey, at least it has collision detection unlike Big Rigs.

 

Mini Desktop Racing - an awful attempt at a Micro Machines-inspired game on the Wii with motion controls.

 

London Taxi: Rush Hour - an awful attempt to rip off Crazy Taxi on the Wii with awful motion controls.

 

Urban Extreme: Street Rage - an awful racing on the Wii with similar motion controls.

 

Myth Makers: Super Kart GP and Action Girlz Racing: both are more or less the same game just with different graphics and tracks, with the same controls, abysmal motion controls and awful camera where it is hard to see what's going on making it impossible to see where you are going. Action Girlz Racing also is IGN's lowest-rated DDI game reviewed, where it recieved a 0.8 out of 10.

 

The other DDI games reviewed by IGN got as low as 1.0, as middle as 2.0, and as high as just 3.0 out of 10.

 

Now the following were released as exclusives for the Wii by DDI and aren't classified as ports, these are Farmyard Party, My Personal Golf Trainer, Junior League Sports (a reskin of the first three Kidz Sports games with slightly better graphics) and Kidz Sports Crazy Mini Golf 1 & 2.

 

Wanted to get these ports out of the way as they are the infamous abominations of the Wii shovelware library.

Edited October 26, 2022 by Wadmodder Shalton

[Wadmodder Shalton]

Also, because the version of Lego Star Wars II for Nintendo DS was extremely rushed, the developer of the port Amuze Entertainment had to release a revision of the port to fix most of the bugs, but even then many copies of that version are extremely rare, and there are differences between the Japanese and European versions in regards to bug fixes. Too bad that nobody has created a ROM hacked version that backports the minor fixes from the North American, Japanese, European and North American revision version to fix many of the minor bugs present in each version. FWIW, linterni Gamer has a review that showcases the rare revision version of this version providing difference between versions.

With the release of Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga, TT Fusion handled the Handheld versions of every Lego Movie-based game on the Nintendo DS and later the PSP, 3DS and PS Vita up until the late-2010s.

Edited July 8, 2022 by Wadmodder Shalton

[Ozcar]

Sonic colors ultimate, Seriously imagine a game from hardware inferior run 30fps at portable superior hardware, and the worst thing is sonic fans defend this port and blame nintendo switch because switch "cant" handle remaster even tho the graphics just little improved, what about the doom 2016? what about the warframe? what about the super mario oddysey?

[Wyrmwood]

Pretty much every arcade port prior to Dreamcast Soul Caliber, with the obvious exception of Neo-geo (which were not really ports, the carts were arcade boards). I remember people saying Megadrive Golden Axe or Snes Street Fighter 2 were arcade perfect at the time, truth is, though good games their both vastly inferior to the actual machines. Early 8-bit computers like the Zx Spectrum came off much worse, some games were unrecognizable.

 

Nintendo ds has tons of great games which respected its specs and made good use of it unique controls but was swamped with tons of ill advised ports from the "big" consoles. Oh and if you didn't like the PC port of Rainbow Islands you'd really hate what they did on ds. You can't even jump, Bob is stuck inside a bubble and you drag him with the stylus and draw rainbows on the screen. 

 

The worst I tried in recent years was the Switch version of Ark. Looks like shit and plays like shit. Luckily I saw someone else play and didn't splash out for that.