Hi, I am addicted to weird/"interesting" ports/versions of games. Let's look at some examples!

[Tokyo_Funk]

I know people have posted the Master System version of Street Fighter 2, but let me add 2 more "Just because you can, doesn't mean you should" ports.

Mortal Kombat 2 Master System. Trying to jam this down onto Sega's little 8-bit beast was a bit of a case of compromise. While the roster was upped slightly from MK1 and there are more backgrounds it is still a choppy wierd mess. How it updates the tilesets makes the game super judderly/low framerate. On the bright side lots of moves are kept, fatalities and blood is in as well as 2 player if you want to suffer with someone else while playing this.


EarthWorm Jim Master System
It exists. Cut back levels, smaller screen space, awkward controls and missing cool effects like parralax (Which made it into Alien 3 SMS) the devs barely gave a fuck when it came to moving it over from the Game Gear. Even the HUD elements are just upscaled pixelated blobs. What is crazy is that there are NES bootleg devs that made a better version.

 

[sox]

I know people have posted the Master System version of Street Fighter 2, but let me add 2 more "Just because you can, doesn't mean you should" ports.

Mortal Kombat 2 Master System. Trying to jam this down onto Sega's little 8-bit beast was a bit of a case of compromise. While the roster was upped slightly from MK1 and there are more backgrounds it is still a choppy wierd mess. How it updates the tilesets makes the game super judderly/low framerate. On the bright side lots of moves are kept, fatalities and blood is in as well as 2 player if you want to suffer with someone else while playing this.


EarthWorm Jim Master System
It exists. Cut back levels, smaller screen space, awkward controls and missing cool effects like parralax (Which made it into Alien 3 SMS) the devs barely gave a fuck when it came to moving it over from the Game Gear. Even the HUD elements are just upscaled pixelated blobs. What is crazy is that there are NES bootleg devs that made a better version.

Click to shrink...

Sure the graphics aren't great in that Earthworm Jim port but it seems like it plays like the actual game based on the 30 seconds I watched in the video. Seems like a neat port.

 

[Faceless_Caesar]

PS1 Doom is a great example of a completely unique version of the game. It has its own soundtrack, new sounds and colored lighting. It also adds Doom 2 enemies and the super shotgun into Doom 1 levels.

 

[electricmastro]

Space Channel 5: Ulala's Cosmic Attack on GBA, based on the Dreamcast game:

 

[MegaApple]

Do you like Demakes and weird obscure ports?

I have the right engine for you : Java
As in "mobile games before smartphones"

Sonic Unleashed, Assassin's Creed 1/2/3 (actualy most ubisoft games =P), Prince of Persia, Lost Planet, Force Unleashed, God of War, The Sims 3, Sim City, Call of Duty, Far Cry, Turok, Need for Speed, Saint's Row ... even weird chinese versions of Diablo and WOW Wrath of the Lych King

Click to shrink...

Will forever be indebted to Java phone games.
Since none of the Nintendo consoles came to India (legally), this was our handheld experience for a decade.

 

[Stef]

The port of Quake 2 on PS1



I always thought it was amazing considering the limitations of the system.

Click to shrink...

It was incredible, especially the 4 players multiplayer split screen option, a legit reason to get a multi tap along with the game.

 

[Turnabout Sisters]

Somehow I missed this thread back then I guess. How about one that's not particularly notable? I remember being young and seeing that PC version of Gyakuten Saiban (Pheonix Wright Ace Attorney) released in 2005. That boggled my mind. I thought, wow, imagine this game on PC, there must be higher res artwork, mouse control, and other cool features.

I checked it out many years later and it's pretty disappointing. It's just a GBA emulator loaded with a ROM. This is after the release of the DS improved versions in Japan. Very threadbare features, no save states of course. You could remap the controls, which I think wasn't that common for Japanese PC VNs at the time. Also I think there was a couple skins that could serve as a border, but they were not too great.

I think the more interesting takeaway is that this must have been one of the, if not the earliest examples of commercial GBA emulation. And a rare example of commercial emulation of a system that was only 1 year obsolete. (Maybe I'm wrong and it was common for games that I'm unaware of).

But yeah when I installed it several years ago, it was like a decade+ of curiosity sated. Never heard anyone really talk about it, but I guess it's pretty useless if you don't read Japanese. Maybe now that there's an English GBA patch, someone could hack that into the PC version. It would be totally pointless, but someone could do it.

 

[Santar]

Nice idea for a thread!
I've also always been fascinated by ports and different versions of games.
Not entirely sure this fits, but Ghostbusters 2 got a lot of different video game adaptations.

Some computers like the C64 and the Amiga got a game where every stage was it's own sort of mini game. The first stage you lowered Ray down towards the river os slime to get samples. The second stage was a shmup with you controlling the statue of liberty etc.

The NES got a sidescrolling shooter sorta kinda in the vein of Contra with some driving stages.

The NES and game boy also got a top down affair where you run around zapping catching ghosts.

The PC got a more ambitious game where you go out on various ghost busting jobs trying to collect slime and earn enough money to take control of the statue of liberty and defeat Vigo.

 

[TheMoon]

Nice idea for a thread!
I've also always been fascinated by ports and different versions of games.

Click to shrink...

itsbeen84years.gif

yes we were all much younger then

 

[TheUnsungHero26]

Rayman 2 on PS1 is an interesting port. It's very pared down compared to the N64/Dreamcast/PC release, with levels being adjusted, shortened, or completely absent. It also has full voice acting.

I definitely wouldn't recommend it as a first playthrough, but it's an interesting addendum to the originals.

 

[Shaneus]

I only recently found out about this version/port of Road Rash for the Mega CD, despite it releasing literally in the mid-90s. Uses the engine from Road Rash 3 (including the horrible "realistic" sprites) but includes all the licensed music, menus AND cinematics from the 3DO version.

It's also the only version of that game where you can play the licensed music in-game, because all the others stream game assets while playing but the Mega CD one is running the gameplay from memory (because it's basically an MD game at that point).



View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZMQJY-pe9Y

 

[hikarutilmitt]

Reposting this since I don't want to quote a post from 2018 that mentions it, but Toshinden on the Game Boy was part of a tradition of Takara porting a bunch of stuff (though mostly neogeo) to the Game Boy.

https://youtu.be/a8pxUyuwrW4?si=BiyKmphMz4bessHG

 

[SixtyTwoMike]

I feel like quite a few people in this thread would love the port breakdowns of old games in Retro Gamer magazine. It's mad seeing how one game was so different on day Spectrum/Commodore/Amstrad etc.

 

[Culex]

I only recently found out about this version/port of Road Rash for the Mega CD, despite it releasing literally in the mid-90s. Uses the engine from Road Rash 3 (including the horrible "realistic" sprites) but includes all the licensed music, menus AND cinematics from the 3DO version.

It's also the only version of that game where you can play the licensed music in-game, because all the others stream game assets while playing but the Mega CD one is running the gameplay from memory (because it's basically an MD game at that point).



View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZMQJY-pe9Y

Click to shrink...

Just saying Road Rash Sega CD is definitely something special. Yes, it's NOT the 3DO version, but what you get is everything that made the Genesis version great, but even better.

 

[Vito]

 

[Santar]

I feel like quite a few people in this thread would love the port breakdowns of old games in Retro Gamer magazine. It's mad seeing how one game was so different on day Spectrum/Commodore/Amstrad etc.

Click to shrink...

Yeah lots of different ports back in the day. Some platforms even got multiple completely different ports of a game like Afterburner and Bionic Commando on the C64.

 

[plagiarize]

I'll add Ghostbusters: The Video Game on the Wii. It's the same story as the PS3/360 game but with a more cartoony style, different level layouts, and IR aiming.

EDIT: Pic showing the graphical style change.

Click to shrink...

Forgive me if someone else already elaborated on this but the Wii version also was the only version with split screen coop for single player. It also had the option to play as a female character... something clearly planned for the other version at some point, since you may notice that they never actually refer to the rookie as a man in dialogue. They always call them 'rookie' or 'the rookie'. Never he or him.

 

[Burly]

How about Duke Nukem 3D for the Tiger Game.com?


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZMs0Yl_aJI

Notable that you can move forward/backwards and strafe left/right, but you can't move the camera at all. You are facing "forward" for the entire game and have to strafe around until enemies are in your line of sight. Also the game has been re-designed to be a series of long hallways.

 

[knightmawk]

I don't know if anyone has brought these up yet, didn't see them, but there were a couple of Elder Scrolls games released for Java era phones and devices like the Nokia NGage, which was also a phone, but it is worth distinguishing. I didn't find a good gameplay video without supremely annoying commentary, but here is a full play of one of them.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iin9htrRzv0

There was also an Oblivion Travels game in development for the PSP, that was supposed to be more along the lines of a full port of Oblivion, but it never came out. I pre-ordered it as a teenager, pretty sure I just lost that money. I remember it having a trailer but I don't think it ever did, if it did I didn't find it online.

 

[Daggett]

THPS3 on the PS1. It actually had a few leftover assets from the beta/E3 build of the PS2 version, including brands that they couldn't secure the license from in time for the final release.

Geoff Rowley specifically has Flip apparel and his pro model Vans shoes, both of which aren't in the next-gen THPS3 versions.

 

[MoonlitBow]

How about Duke Nukem 3D for the Tiger Game.com?


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZMs0Yl_aJI

Notable that you can move forward/backwards and strafe left/right, but you can't move the camera at all. You are facing "forward" for the entire game and have to strafe around until enemies are in your line of sight. Also the game has been re-designed to be a series of long hallways.

Click to shrink...

Game com games had some interesting solutions for what were originally 3D titles that would have worked a lot better on systems that measured framerate in per second and not per minute. RE2 was another example (though that version probably would have been pretty bland even if it ran well, but it did seem like quite a bit of effort was put to make it work).

 

[Borman]

I don't know if anyone has brought these up yet, didn't see them, but there were a couple of Elder Scrolls games released for Java era phones and devices like the Nokia NGage, which was also a phone, but it is worth distinguishing. I didn't find a good gameplay video without supremely annoying commentary, but here is a full play of one of them.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iin9htrRzv0

There was also an Oblivion Travels game in development for the PSP, that was supposed to be more along the lines of a full port of Oblivion, but it never came out. I pre-ordered it as a teenager, pretty sure I just lost that money. I remember it having a trailer but I don't think it ever did, if it did I didn't find it online.

Click to shrink...

Oblivion PSP was pitched as a port, but quickly became its own thing. It retained the first person view, but covered different parts of the world during the Oblivion crisis, including Rhalta and Anticlere. Early concepts called for a visit to Daggerfall.

 

[Eila]

There was also an Oblivion Travels game in development for the PSP, that was supposed to be more along the lines of a full port of Oblivion, but it never came out. I pre-ordered it as a teenager, pretty sure I just lost that money. I remember it having a trailer but I don't think it ever did, if it did I didn't find it online.

Click to shrink...

A prototype was actually leaked a couple years back, you can watch a playthrough here.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ps91eezMACw

It does look awesome. I do believe it was being developed as a more linear game, not open world.

 

[Borman]

A prototype was actually leaked a couple years back, you can watch a playthrough here.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ps91eezMACw

It does look awesome. I do believe it was being developed as a more linear game, not open world.

Click to shrink...

I was the first one to cover it prior to it leaking, and have revealed more of the game, going back to its earlier engine, and even a PS2 build :)


View: https://youtu.be/P5ALJKhf5G4?si=2siQ4j9CeDzn3hx8

 

[Marmoka]

Sonic Unleashed for PS2 and Wii is pretty different from the original as well

 

[Tortahegesztő]

Do you like Demakes and weird obscure ports?

I have the right engine for you : Java
As in "mobile games before smartphones"

Sonic Unleashed, Assassin's Creed 1/2/3 (actualy most ubisoft games =P), Prince of Persia, Lost Planet, Force Unleashed, God of War, The Sims 3, Sim City, Call of Duty, Far Cry, Turok, Need for Speed, Saint's Row ... even weird chinese versions of Diablo and WOW Wrath of the Lych King

Click to shrink...

Assassin's Creed, NFS Pro Street, Wipeout and I even had some turn based Garfield RPG on my old Sony Ericsson. Also the Bobby Carrot series They were awesome!
If we go even farther, here's Prince of Persia on an old black and white (amber) Siemens feature phone. My dad had one of these and it could even record sound! Imagine that high tech thing in your pocket!

View: https://youtu.be/OKKk_NwhFds?si=EvlSAIHqoPNtOEqq

Just like Ghost Busters, Forgotten Sands and Force Unleashed: X-Men Origins Wolverine had a different game for the PS2 (and Wii I guess?).

View: https://youtu.be/g070EjqR8w0?si=FDpHKcVBiXjcdiqu

 

[Ry.]

People often say that Tony Hawk 2 isometric GBA version is good.

Click to shrink...

Like, it's no Tony Hawk on PS1, but I put more hours into the GBA game by a large margin. I'd say it was a good game for sure, just its own weird unique thing.

*edit* it's getting way too late, I just realized I replied to a 6 year old post haha. My bad.

 

[Rodney McKay]

I actually really enjoyed the DS port of Splinter Cell Chaos Theory.

If I remember right it's a port of the Ngage version, but the DS allows for essentially right stick or mouse camera control with the touch screen.

The performance is bad, and only gets worse when you turn on night and thermal vision, but the game played surpringly faithful to the main versions.

 

[Vampirolol]

I actually really enjoyed the DS port of Splinter Cell Chaos Theory.

If I remember right it's a port of the Ngage version, but the DS allows for essentially right stick or mouse camera control with the touch screen.

The performance is bad, and only gets worse when you turn on night and thermal vision, but the game played surpringly faithful to the main versions.

Click to shrink...

I played that too and it was surprisingly fun! I remember the stiff animations and the funky OST fondly.

 

[AkimbOb-omb]

How about the HD version of Sonic Unleashed compared to the Wii version (dubbed UnWiished).

The Wii version was pretty cool in the sense that it had:

- Worse controls
- Worse visuals
- Cut content
- Barebones level design

and overall, it's just, like, a completely different game.

and it's shit.

Click to shrink...

Amazing post. I realized that this ist 6 years old, but it reads like a forum post from 2008 and completely misses the point of the OP.

Yeah, fuck that pesky little Wii! /S

 

[MikeProtagonist]

I recently rediscovered the unofficial PC port of Street Fighter 2. The official one was notoriously bad, but there was a homebrew one that was available in the early/mid 90's. I remember finding it on my first online excursions. It's called SF2 IBM or SF2 Liu. Someone basically took photos of the SNES game, and scanned those to make sprites. It was updated over the years to look less crap, and there were versions with Mortal Kombat characters. But ultimately it played pretty well iirc. However, by the time I found it, the PC had gotten an excellent port of Super Turbo, so it was a bit redundant.

 

[ImaPlayThis]

There's been a lot of talk about fighting games on handhelds but no ones mentioned the GOAT that is Street Fighter Alpha 3 on the GBA, it's seriously nuts how good it is and what they managed to pack into that small cartridge


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1uCqk0DqBE

 

[TSM]

Seems like no one has brought up Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop. It's a port of the original Xbox 360 version to the Wii using the RE4 engine.

Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[JackOfSomeTrades]

Click to shrink...

This was how I first finished the original RE, it's a neat port!

Not sure if this one was mentioned but the DS spinoff of Prince of Persia (2008) was neato:

View: https://youtu.be/C-RIAuhE19Q
It may be terrible, I haven't played it since back then

 

[Qark-Voss]

I have the same exact problem that you have XD

My collection is also full of this kind of strange ports and "demakes" for portable systems.
Other platforms that are full of this kind of games are PSP and PSVita. Need for Speed Most Wanted (2012) for Vita is quite a crazy porting honestly!

 

[SoneaB]

Nice idea for a thread!
I've also always been fascinated by ports and different versions of games.
Not entirely sure this fits, but Ghostbusters 2 got a lot of different video game adaptations.

Some computers like the C64 and the Amiga got a game where every stage was it's own sort of mini game. The first stage you lowered Ray down towards the river os slime to get samples. The second stage was a shmup with you controlling the statue of liberty etc.

The NES got a sidescrolling shooter sorta kinda in the vein of Contra with some driving stages.

The NES and game boy also got a top down affair where you run around zapping catching ghosts.

The PC got a more ambitious game where you go out on various ghost busting jobs trying to collect slime and earn enough money to take control of the statue of liberty and defeat Vigo.

Click to shrink...

Ghostbusters 2 is such a weird game. I played the C64/Amiga version and it was awful, and only had 3 stages. The last of which was.. a weird isometric puzzle sort of. You could complete the game in 20 min and I think half of that was very bad cutscenes/digitised stills. I would love someone to release a licensed game like this today. I still wish the sequence in the movie had been the Statue of Liberty fighting a ghost like the game though. I wonder if that had been the plan when the game got greenlit and they just couldn't make it look right on film?

 

[Pascal]

Seems like no one has brought up Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop. It's a port of the original Xbox 360 version to the Wii using the RE4 engine.

Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Click to shrink...

My only post in this thread from like 6 years ago was about Chop Til You Drop lol.

 

[TSM]

My only post in this thread from like 6 years ago was about Chop Til You Drop lol.

Click to shrink...

My bad. Thought I searched dead rising on every page.

 

[BrendanSinclair]

I've been playing Metal Slug Advance lately and that's a very different game from the mainline Metal Slugs but still captures a lot of what makes it great, and has some progression with hidden cards that increase weapon power or ammunition of pick-ups. It gets super tough though.

 

[BFIB]

The DooM ports have always fascinated me. I'm not a collector, but if there was one set of games I would collect, it would be all of the ports of DooM.

 

[CielYoshi]

The PSP version of Split/Second not only has all the DLC tracks and modes built-in, but they're also used now during the campaign mode.

 

[hyouko]

More and more of the old Japanese g-mode games have been getting ports... I don't know who is buying those ports but I hope maybe I will eventually get to play some of the really weird ones, like the Etrian Odyssey mobile game.

 

[Nairume]

So something that I've been long obsessed with and actually want to maybe do some kind of deep dive video series into is console conversions of PC RPGs.

Wizardry 1 having an incredible port to NES is partially what got me down this hole, because it was apparently Robert Woodhead's favorite port of 1. Then there's also the wild path to us getting the port of Wizardry 2, because they originally skipped to 3 as the second NES Wizardry game due to how 2 would have had to be redesigned due to it being effectively an expansion pack to the first game rather than something that was intended to be played as a standalone title, but then they ended up having to make an NES version of 2 anyway, and we got that and it's maybe the most accessible version of that game.

There's a lot to be said about Ultima 3's wonky port that tries heroically to bring a groundbreaking title into JRPG framework and not always working, but being a fun play. Or Ultima 4 being a triumph of a port that managed to do right what Ultima 3 couldn't. Or the tragedy of Ultima 5's port where they decided to turn it into a non-functioning clone of Ultima 6, rather than just building off of what they already had done with U4. There's also a lot to say about the very weird but admirable in their changes conversions of Bard's Tale 1 and Might & Magic.

What I really want to highlight, however, is the NES version of Pool of Radiance. They took a very complex CRPG and converted it in a way where it didn't lose much in the process. The party size got reduced and you can now only have one hireling, but it ends up working out for you because it actually led to a good rebalancing of the game. Also the mechanics that did get streamlined, primarily weight and ammunition not being a factor, also makes the game much more accessible. In turn, the game also picked up much snappier combat, which took a very clunky turn based combat system (which is still hard to return to now) and made it snappy to the point that it almost feels like you are playing Fire Emblem when you are in the tactical combat mode. The game still has the same rich world of places to explore, things to do, and characters to build out. Also it brought in music, with the world map theme being an absolute banger

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HRUnjLCoXA&list=PLhPt7n-ALrSDAYbTEqpwdNxr8zDrqShQ0&index=16

That port rules and it is a crying shame that it never really got a followup. Just a bad port of the mini-game collection midquel between it and its sequel, and then a middling TG16 game that was an original work that used a more streamlined version of its mechanics as a base. We were robbed of the possibility of some pretty great SNES D&D games that could have happened using PoR NES as a basis.

 

[ultraluna]

dynasty warriors advance is pretty cool


View: https://youtu.be/umP-8FK4CyY?si=j0I2zZRs3Q2jg9aR

 

[Lord Error]

Need for Speed Most Wanted (2012) for Vita is quite a crazy porting honestly!

Click to shrink...

Especially after being patched to run at native res on an overclocked Vita.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDmK_HrE2mY

I've been playing Metal Slug Advance lately and that's a very different game from the mainline Metal Slugs but still captures a lot of what makes it great, and has some progression with hidden cards that increase weapon power or ammunition of pick-ups. It gets super tough though.

Click to shrink...

There's a prototype of a GBA port of a 'real' Metal Slug game, and it's quite good. Just the first level, sadly.

Metal Slug: Super Vehicle-001 (Prototype)

An early prototype of an unreleased port of Metal Slug: Super Vehicle-001 for the Nintendo Game Boy Advance.

hiddenpalace.org

 

[maximumzero]

The PlayStation version of Rayman 2: The Great Escape is an interesting case where whole sections of the game needed to be reworked to work on the hardware.

 

[Shaneus]

The PlayStation version of Rayman 2: The Great Escape is an interesting case where whole sections of the game needed to be reworked to work on the hardware.

Click to shrink...

Literally on the same page:

Rayman 2 on PS1 is an interesting port. It's very pared down compared to the N64/Dreamcast/PC release, with levels being adjusted, shortened, or completely absent. It also has full voice acting.

I definitely wouldn't recommend it as a first playthrough, but it's an interesting addendum to the originals.

Click to shrink...

 

[maximumzero]

Literally on the same page:

Click to shrink...

It's so nice, it's gotta be mentioned twice!

 

[TheMoon]

Seems like no one has brought up Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop. It's a port of the original Xbox 360 version to the Wii using the RE4 engine.

Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Click to shrink...

My bad. Thought I searched dead rising on every page.

Click to shrink...

just type the words "dead rising" in the forum search bar. it auto-defaults to "search in this thread" now and you'll see like a handful of posts, including my OP which mention it :D

 

[Nyandeyanen]

I think this is one of my favorite weird ports:

Symphony of the Night's Tiger GameCom Port is Unbelievable! | Punching Weight | SSFF

Castlevania SotN almost officially came out for Tiger Electronics' GameCom system. And actually? It's incredible. It might be the best Game Com game even if ...

www.youtube.com

Symphony of the Night didn't get any handheld ports until the PSP, but did y'all know it almost got a Tiger Game.com port of all unholy things?