Its a Capcom weekend! Im feeling energised to continue my complete run through of every Capcom release/port ever, and so I'll be playing quite a few of the same game (Final Fight etc.) across multiple platforms. Rather than count each port as its own game completed, I'll just count them once, and then add the rest to my list as un numbered bonus games (unless the ports deviate fairly far from the original releases - like Bionic Commando NES Vs Arcade ports).
15. Bionic Commando (ZX Spectrum & Amstrad CPC) - Ok, counting these as one as honestly the only difference is the Amstrad one runs slower and somehow looks worse (no idea how that happened, Im suspecting a quick and dirty port of the Spectrum version). But anyway, this is a port of the arcade BC and NOT the amazing NES reimagining that I vastly prefer. That said, I still love the arcade original. Honestly, Im torn on the Spectrum port especially... its actually fairly faithful to the arcade version - looks accurate, controls fairly close to the arcade version and runs at a nice fast pace... but unfortunately it kept the arcade level of difficulty as well, so with a small number of limited lives, its bastard hard.
Enemies constantly spawn, hide off screen (above and to the sides) and stuff like helicopters just... dont leave you alone. It makes ascending and traversing the levels incredibly challenging, as you only take one hit to lose a life, which leads to many an instance where you can walk forward a few steps, have the screen scroll and suddenly a mech leaps at you leaving you (almost) no time to react.
Otherwise the game is great. Its faithful level wise to the original, and really doesnt feel like there's that much cut compared to other ports. Its just a shame that the difficulty probably puts plenty of people off from ever seeing those later levels! (yay for emulation!)
16. Spider-Man 2 (NGAGE) - Based on the second Raimi movie, this game is somewhat similar in structure to the GBA Spidey games of the time, but is actually a completely original game in terms of levels and boss fights (well, bar one).
The game still follows the design of the GBA games - huge levels which usually ask you to find or destroy X of Y. Meanwhile, you need to swing, wallcrawl and brawl your way through the levels to said objectives.
Graphically most of the game mimics the GBA games, save for maybe slightly higher quality animation. It also feels like some of the characters have somewhat of a pre rendered look, which honestly looks worse (especially these days) compared to the GBA sprites.
What does look better though are the webswinging sections that break up chapters in this game. Like the GBA version of 2 you have 3D sections in this game, but unlike the GBA version which uses sprites and trickery to make it seem 3D, this one uses proper polygons to give you these checkpoint based webswinging sections - which run faaaaaaaaaaaaar smoother/faster as well. These are linear mind you, but still a cool way of giving you some 3D action between 2D sections (bonus points for them aging well!)
The combat is still disappointing though - same combos as the GBA version and same problems with some of your hits missing, basically leaning far into "button bashing" to the point where evading enemies is smarter.
One point where this game really suffers is screen real estate. I used an NGAGE emulator (again, own the game, not an NGAGE) and the screen is narrow. Real bad design from the handheld here... Means it makes certain instant KO obstacles real hard to see...
Villain wise it plays real safe with it again using Doc Ock, Mysterio, Shocker and Rhino from Spidey 2 (all games seem like they use these dudes) but like the GBA port we also get Lizard (though Puma is absent from this port...)
The fights with these characters range from laughable to WTF. Mysterio and Rhino are hilariously easy, Lizard is... so-so, Doc Ock takes some understanding as he has a healing gimmick which I dislike, but still not a bad final boss, but Shocker is bizarrely not the jobber you'd expect. Weirdly also, this one pulls the most from the GBA port... of Spider-Man 1! he basically acts identical - basically has a shield round him so you cant just hit him, you gotta wait until he laughs so you can get a hit in... this fight takes forever, but if you time it right eventually when he starts shooting the ceiling causing it to crumble, you just position it proper so it crushes him (again, JUST like the GBA fight in Spidey 1). A note on Shocker - his stage feels entirely ripped from the first movie game on the GBA. No one elses content is, no idea why the heck they did this...
Overall the game is fine. Its certainly not a bad Spidey game (I reserve that tier to shite like GBC Spidey 1, Spider-Man 3 for the GB, Spidey Vs Sinister 6 for the Master System etc.) but its not an all timer either. The small screen and huge levels can often leave you wondering where to go for stretches of time, the combat sucks and boss fights arent too great. They also skip so much of the movie confrontations with Ock (the bank and the train) which is weird because those are iconic moments perfect for a game (I mean, other ports even use them!), so in the end it'll be yet another licensed release shoved out in time to cash in on the movie.
17. Black Tiger (Amstrad CPC & ZX Spectrum) - Another double helping of US Gold flavoured shite, this one borders on their shitacular Final Fight port in terms of "take beloved Capcom arcade classic and make it borderline unplayable).
Black Tiger in the arcades was an excellent platform/action hybrid that was fast paced, full of traps, and had some fun boss encounters. You'd be getting tons of cash to buy better gear (which you'd need in some of the later encounters) and the whole thing was just a really good time. It sorta gets lost in the shuffle when remembering Capcom's platformer output sometimes - Mega Man and Disney had cornered the NES home ports while Ghouls n Ghosts was the superior arcade platformer from Capcom. But none the less I really love this game.
So its super frustrating to yet again see another crappy port from the kings of crappy ports - US Gold and Tiertex... The game actually looks the part - big sprites (arguably too big) and the action is technically accurate to the arcade original - you have a morning star like weapon AND you shoot knives as well for longer range. You head through levels, climb pillars, jump pits, and... well Id say fight enemies but here's one of the problems - the collision detection is so abysmal that if your too close, you dont hit enemies. And enemies basically stick to you not dissimilar to Final Fight's problems. So despite the fact you are shown "hitting" the enemies, it doesnt register. And it basically makes the entire game unplayable.
Secondly, the game (especially on the Amstrad port) is insanely slow. So you plod along with enemies who may or may not be defeated as I ponder my gaming goals for the year!
Not helped any is the jumping controls and the zoomed in nature of the platforming - there's tons of bottomless pits that you wont see until your in them, and the controls are very janky when it comes to grabbing pillars, even a pixel off and you miss and lose a life... So when your not struggling with combat, your in a pit of spikes...
The last boss is hilariously bad as well. Its one of the dragons (which originally is an amazing fight), but here it just sorta... sticks to you, I spent a good several minutes unsure I was even hurting it, until the game threw up a "well done you win" screen and that's it.
All in all, its better than Final Fight, but only just. This is around a 2-3/10 compared to Final Fight barely being a 1/10. Tons of levels are cut and honestly I dont care. Unlike Bionic Commando or Strider which at least managed to accurately replicate the game AND be playable, this is yet another huge miss... I really wonder between LED Storm and Last Duel (my next 8 bit computer ports) which will be less awful! Will one of them accurate meet the oh so low barrier of "playable"? Probably not, but we'll see!
*edit* Because of just how bad this game was, I just had to load up the arcade version thanks to Capcom Arcade Stadium 2 and its infinitely better. Ignoring the obvious improvements due to hardware, the controls, collision detection and general encounter design is so much better its not even funny. Yet another example of Tiertex porting a game badly (that really should have been their motto....)
Bonus. Final Fight (X68000) - The Sharp X68000 was an amazing computer released only? in Japan during the late 80s to 90s. Its rather famous in gaming circles for having amazing ports of arcade games - while I was either trying to be content with Amiga 500 Street Fighter 2 (until getting the SNES version), Japanese gamers had this computer as an option, which legit has some almost arcade perfect ports of stuff like Street Fighter 2, Final Fight etc. Ive owned all the Capcom X68000 games for years, never had the hardware to play them, so with the power of my Steam Deck, I finally got the emulator working, and I am not disappointed.
The last FF port I played was the Amstrad port - an 8bit UK computer which, to be honest, almost didnt run the game at all (see above). Playing this port right after it is night and day. The port is essentially arcade perfect, graphically it looks the part with huge sprites perfectly animated, control and most importantly collision detection wise is PERFECT, it feels just like the arcade port, and even the music is faithful to the arcade (though some audio sounds muffled).
Easy difficulty limits the number of enemies on screen to just 3 - I wondered if this was like the SNES port which could not do any more than 3, but cranking up the difficulty increases enemy count on screen with no notable slowdown from what I can tell.
There's really not much else to say... I did a complete run through to the end, only really struggling, as per usual, on stage 6. There's no question that Id have LOVED to own this computer growing up. Ive quickly tried the other ports and they all seem pretty much arcade perfect as well, so Im looking forward to digging into the rest of them. Kinda wish we'd have gotten more ports though... Id have thrown big money down for a Cadillacs and Dinosaurs port.
Bonus. Street Fighter II' (X68000) - SFII was always going to be a difficult computer port back in the day because most computers over here decided to only give you one fire button... maybe 2 if your lucky. For a 6 button fighter. Yeah, it was shit.
Thankfully over in Japan someone had the bright idea to let you get a 6 button pad and use that instead. Which surprisingly enough made it play better! Alongside the excellent sprite work that looks almost identical to the arcade and seemingly perfect collision detection and controls, this felt like I was playing the arcade version. From what I understand the original computer version has way longer load times, but Im kinda cheating here and am using a file version that fixes that, so its really just a second or two from Vs screen to the fight. Not quite instant, but close.
Gameplay wise Im just play Vs CPU, and AI wise again its just like the original arcade version, down to Ken spamming dragon punches!
Again, not much else to really say about this one, as its practically arcade perfect. This one is impressive even compared to the console ports of the time, which had the gameplay down but compromise mainly on the sprite work (way smaller sprites, not quite as detailed), but this version looks almost spot on.
Bonus. Super Bat Puncher Demo (Evercade) - Im going through the first Morphcat Evercade collection and thanks to the handy manual (remember those?), this was listed as their first game - a small proof of concept release that garnered a lot of attention. The game is pretty short (20 minutes or so) so Im not counting is as a full game on my list, but the game itself does indeed deserve praise. Its a cute little platformer that had some cool mechanics - the idea of using this spring powered boxing glove attack which when used on walls propels you forward far to the opposite side, or using it against a wall on the ground so you curl up like a bowling ball to brake through walls... its rather creative. If they'd created a full game based on these concepts (well, maybe they have, I dont know) Id certainly play it!
Dropped:
Firehawk (Evercade) - When controls ruin a game... I never really had issues with tank controls in Resident Evil. Its a slow paced game and zombies are slow, so for the most part I could weave between enemies just fine, until I had plenty of ammo to go rambo. But what happens when you apply a similar control scheme to a shoot em up? It fucking sucks, that's what. Firehawk's biggest (but far from only) problem is that you have these enemies and shots zipping around you, and turning to avoid anything would take far too long, meaning most of the time your gonna take that hit. Couple that with strict limited ammo, tons of enemies, and even limited fuel and you have a game that basically hates you... a very 80s British concept to be honest...
Ammo and health can be collected by destroying buildings and such but with so many random shots popping up out of nowhere, you can really struggle to survive, let alone make a shred of progress. The early levels ease you into things, and honestly it feels pretty fun, as it feels more balanced at that point, but after around 3 levels, the game goes full on hateful... even with save states, your gonna hate your time with this.
The other main problem comes with the actual requirements in the stages - namely saving downed hostages with your helicopter. You hover overhead to begin a mini game which requires you to time your left and right shots perfectly to hit enemies that move to one side quickly, and if you miss even once, you take damage. Each mini game has upwards of a dozen or more enemies, so yeah it can be a pain. And to make it worse, the geniuses over at Codemasters thought it'd be funny to have your craft move left to right randomly, and the AI of the survivor is so braindead he might not even run toward said copter immediately - meaning the mini game goes on for an undetermined amount of time while you hope the dipshit survivor runs toward your copter.
Its a hatefully, ill conceived idea that doesnt work, and is just so bloody bad to play, you'll want to give up after just a couple of levels, and well... its on my "dropped" list for a reason lol.
The game just keeps on going, I made it to stage 6 before the game screwed me over and I gave up, having no interest in playing any further. Pity, the game was promising but control and design decisions absolutely ruin the game. If you want a decent shoot em up for the NES with planes and shit, go play 1943 instead, that's one heck of an excellent shmup.
Original Post:
Reserving post. May Yakuza 8 not harm my ability to finish too many games lol. 1. The King's Bird (PS4) 2. River City Rampage (Evercade) 3. Double Dragon 2 (Evercade) 4. Treasure Island Dizzy (Evercade) 5. Wonderland Dizzy (Evercade) 6. Mystery World Dizzy (Evercade) 7. Dizzy the Adventurer...
www.resetera.com
Currently Playing:
The Crew (PS4) - Another 10 or so hours in, I have another shiny new fast car AND actual story progress! By now Ive managed to visit most of the locations, and am ticking off the collectibles as I travel. Its not a masterpiece, but its strangely relaxing and very fun. Hoping I have this mostly complete by the time Yakuza releases.
Micro Mages (Evercade) - A really fun 2D indie game harkening back to old NES games. Cleared the first 4 levels, now doing the second loop with harder levels and loving it.
American Arcadia (PC) - Sadly neglected as I work on The Crew, I really must get back to this as the story has just turned a page and its getting really good. I need to carve out some time this week to finish this one off.
