Deserving arcade games...

[Leo_A]

Lots of vertically oriented arcade games have appeared, including the Raiden Fighters series that ran on the same hardware as Viper Phase 1 yet still saw a compilation release on the Xbox 360.

If you only want official ports on modern (post-2000) hardware, you should edit the first post to say so -- these criteria are not at all clear in the OP.

Nope, there's no need to when we're talking about Gorf for the Atari Jaguar and perhaps nothing else that has been recreated in essentially 100% form by a homebrewer. And I didn't limit it to post 2000 systems, either.

Not sure why you guys are taking an interesting topic and nitpicking it to pieces, but have at it since I've had my fill.

[celerystalker]

Lots of vertically oriented arcade games have appeared, including the Raiden Fighters series that ran on the same hardware as Viper Phase 1 yet still saw a compilation release on the Xbox 360.



Nope, there's no need to when we're talking about Gorf for the Atari Jaguar and perhaps nothing else that has been recreated in essentially 100% form by a homebrewer. And I didn't limit it to post 2000 systems, either.

Not sure why you guys are taking an interesting topic and nitpicking it to pieces, but have at it since I've had my fill.

Leo, thanks for posting. It's a fun idea to see what arcade games people are passionate enough about to want better or any great home version of to play.

[Tron 2.0]

Demon Front,another similar to metal slug it's a shame it had no port to consoles.

Osman,pretty much a spiritual successor to strider it had the same director to.

Ninjabat Baseball Man,i second that such a quirky beat'em up to.

Mystic Warriors,why konami couldn't be bother to port this one leaves me puzzled.

Metamorphic Force,another hidden gem by konami that they totally forgot about.

[Scissors]

I've never played it, but I would like to see a home version of Planet Harriers, a Space Harrier sequel. There were rumors of a Gamecube version in development, but it never happened.

[goldenband]

Nope, there's no need to when we're talking about Gorf for the Atari Jaguar and perhaps nothing else that has been recreated in essentially 100% form by a homebrewer. And I didn't limit it to post 2000 systems, either.

If you don't want to include unofficial ports, sure, I respect that. But when you post about the lack of a highly accurate home port of GORF and someone points out that one's been made already, I'm not sure how the cost of the system or game is relevant, unless you're simply lamenting that you can't afford them (in which case I sympathize, since neither can I).

Not sure why you guys are taking an interesting topic and nitpicking it to pieces, but have at it since I've had my fill.

Because it's frustrating when the OP moves the goalposts after you've put in the effort to reply, and then takes a nitpicky tone in his own reply. The right answer to my post was something like "Hey, good point, though I'd rather stick to 100% authorized releases. Too bad the Jaguar CD and the game itself are so expensive." Then I feel good, you feel good, the world's a happy place. Why be defensive when you could be gracious?

BTW there are other unauthorized homebrew ports out there that are fully arcade-accurate. Certainly they exist on home computers from the 1980s and 1990s, like Donkey Kong for the CoCo 3, and some doujin software for X68000 that's escaping me right now.

As for authorized ports from the cartridge era, Marble Madness has a perfect port on the Mega Drive (not the EA version for the Genesis). About the only difference from the arcade is that the difficulty settings are actually calibrated a bit higher (5 seconds less across the board, IIRC). There are also quite a few arcade games based on console hardware, which can often be fully duplicated at home.

[Leo_A]

Wasn't planning to come back, but I want to clarify that the post you took offense to was only partially directed towards you. I could've made it clearer by bothering to use quotes like I'd normally do, but the part that you didn't like was actually meant for rmaerz and was completely innocent.

He listed a good number of solid adaptions from back in the day like Berzerk on the 2600, but like I said from the get-go and explained again in that later reply, I was talking arcade perfect versions. I never thought anyone would've taken it any other way, let alone with the negatively that you read into it that still has me perplexed.

I see nothing wrong in confirming to you that there was indeed a Gorf homebrew on the Jaguar CD when you asked, and then explaining why I still placed it in my list despite knowing that it did in fact exist in very accurate form on that console. Not sure why you're picking it apart or object to it all. Heck, there's more original Gorf cabinets owned by registered KLOV members than there were Gorf CD's sold. So that there's still a glaring omission there very much stands.

As for the cost associated with Gorf CD, I owned all of the hardware necessary for it but personal issues kept me away from supporting that particular effort when it first appeared. The creator didn't do such a good job of interacting with the community at AtariAge and it soured me over the deal.

[Badhornet]

Great thread!

[Alianger]

Willow


Toki - Supposedly on iOS but yeah. There was also a remake coming (greenlit on Steam) but I think it's dead.


More:
Legend of Hero Tonma
ESWAT: Cyber Police - I don't think this version has been re-released?
Ginga Ninkyouden
Yokai Dochuki/Shadow Land
Ninja Kazan/Iga Ninjutsuden: Goshin no Sho
Pitfall II: Lost Caverns - Sega's version
Major Havoc
Mirai Ninja/Cyber Ninja
Act Fancer: Cybernetick Hyper Weapon
Demon's World/Horror Story
Escape from the Planet of the Robot Monsters
Wild Fang/Tecmo Knight
Monster Bash
Gain Ground

[SparTonberry]

I thought this thread was about arcade games without console ports, and several of those games do have ports.

[goldenband]

I thought this thread was about arcade games without console ports, and several of those games do have ports.

No, it's about games that don't have arcade-perfect home ports -- and, as it turns out, official ones. I may disagree with the OP in certain respects, but to be fair he was upfront about the "arcade-perfect" part from the beginning.

(EDIT: Actually, the original post is kind of ambiguous about whether "arcade-perfect" is a criterion, though I understood it that way from the start.)

With those criteria, the releases that "count" will be 98% emulation compilations, plus a bare handful of ports on systems capable of reproducing contemporary or recent arcade games (mostly Saturn and Dreamcast titles, I'd imagine, plus rare outliers like the MD Marble Madness port). Some homebrews would qualify if it weren't for the "official" requirement.

I'd love to see home ports of Major Havoc and Golden Axe:RODA. Mad Planets is another one I'd throw in the mix. And at one point a port of I, Robot for the 32X was being contemplated, which would be fantastic.

The 32X would have been a great platform for arcade-perfect ports of tons of 1980s games, but unfortunately there wasn't enough of a market for that; still, we got unprecedentedly good (though not perfect) ports of Space Harrier, etc.

[Leo_A]

I'm seeing Major Havoc mentioned, but this one is actually is out there ever since Atari: 80 Classic Games in One for the PC appeared back in 2003.

It has since been in Atari Anthology, the DS and mobile versions of Atari Greatest Hits from Code Mystics, Game Room for the Xbox 360, Atari Vault on Steam, and now the upcoming Atari Flashback Classics line. Might be even more instances of it out there.

And I've never seen Marble Madness on the Genesis cited as a perfect conversion until this thread. Is it really essentially 100%, minus sacrifices to adapt it to a digital Genesis controller (No mouse support, I'm sure)?

No, it's about games that don't have arcade-perfect home ports -- and, as it turns out, official ones. I may disagree with the OP in certain respects, but to be fair he was upfront about the "arcade-perfect" part from the beginning.

(EDIT: Actually, the original post is kind of ambiguous about whether "arcade-perfect" is a criterion, though I understood it that way from the start.)

I thought it was reasonably clear from the onset...

So what classic arcade games would you like to see finally escape the vault? Here's my list of games that I'd love to see make it home finally in arcade perfect form, many of which never even saw a watered down home conversion back in the day.

I didn't say that you couldn't list candidates that weren't perfect or darn near to it for all but the pickiest of players. But you'd also have to really nitpick my opening post apart to interpret it in any other way than what I clearly intended, since it's quite clear that I was talking about 1:1 conversions. But even if you do stick with what I meant the direction of this topic to be, personal standards on accuracy are very ambiguous...

Frogger for the Genesis for instance counts for me as the most perfect home version of the game in every area that matters, but there were sacrifices made that some players might object to. Especially those skilled enough to get deep into the game will see many differences, as explained in the link I've included below.

Yet for 99% of us, it's all there intact with the only noticeable difference being the logical rearrangement of the screen display that was done to preserve the original aspect ratio while making it fill as much of a 4:3 tv as possible.

http://gdri.smspower.org/wiki/index....gger_(Genesis)

With those criteria, the releases that "count" will be 98% emulation compilations, plus a bare handful of ports on systems capable of reproducing contemporary or recent arcade games (mostly Saturn and Dreamcast titles, I'd imagine, plus rare outliers like the MD Marble Madness port). Some homebrews would qualify if it weren't for the "official" requirement.

There really is no official requirement. I explained why I essentially think that the Jaguar conversion of Gorf is merely an interesting side note in order to explain why I personally still listed it in my list despite previous knowledge of its existence and quality. It really never went any deeper than that. You just read far too much into it all...

That said, I'm quite sure that the list of 100% homebrew conversions is going to be quite small. Even something like the homebrew Donkey Kong for the OpCode expansion module of the Colecovision isn't 100% from what I've read, with a lot of flicker to get what's otherwise a 1:1 conversion done.

Even so, anyone is of course free to list a deserving homebrew recreation of their favorite arcade game, even if it isn't arcade perfect. Never hurts to give a shout out to excellent games like the Juno First homebrew on the Atari 2600, which is one of my personal favorites.

[goldenband]

I've never seen Marble Madness on the Genesis cited as a perfect conversion until this thread. Is it essentially 100%, minus sacrifices to adapt it to a digital Genesis controller (No mouse support, I'm sure)?

To be precise, what I'm referring to is the Tengen port, released only in Japan for the Mega Drive (and rather rare, I'm afraid). It wasn't dumped until relatively recently.

I think it may actually have mouse support IIRC! It's easily the most accurate home port I've ever seen for a 16-bit system, of any game. The EA port, released in the US and EU, is pretty wretched by comparison.

I didn't lay down any rules here. I just thought it would be a fun topic. Wasn't intended to stir argument or put people on the defensive.

I understand -- I'm not inferring (or implying!) any malice or ill will on your part. It's just been unclear from the start whether you wanted an exclusive list (i.e. please only post ports that meet these criteria) or an inclusive list (I'm mainly interested in these criteria, but post whatever you think is a good fit).

I think people have been frustrated because it seemed like you wanted an exclusive list with set rules, but weren't as explicit as you could have been about the criteria. But this post makes it clear:

Even so, anyone is of course free to list a deserving homebrew recreation of their favorite arcade game, even if it isn't arcade perfect.

[Leo_A]

If it's of interest to Jaguar fans that might read this thread, check out AtariAge for some great news about the development of a reprogrammable multicart for the system with support for disc images.

There just might be a reasonable way to enjoy Gorf on your system in the coming years if the programmer of that nice effort happens to be amicable to making the disc image available to be enjoyed on this (A big "if", if my memories of his posts at AA are anything to go by).

To be precise, what I'm referring to is the Tengen port, released only in Japan for the Mega Drive (and rather rare, I'm afraid). It wasn't dumped until relatively recently.

I'm aware of it and knew what you meant.

I think it may actually have mouse support IIRC!

I looked up a list after I posted and didn't see it, so I sadly think it doesn't.

A lot of great opportunities slipped by on both the Genesis and Super Nintendo where their mouse accessories were concerned.

[XYXZYZ]

I second Willow, I loved that game.

Another game I really liked in the arcade was Crime Fighters, a Konami beat'em-up that I supposed was pretty generic, but I liked it anyway. I would have loved an NES port of that one. Speaking of Konami beat'em-ups, I'd love to have seen the first Ninja Turtles arcade game on SNES or something more powerful than the NES. I played the NES port a lot, but it just wasn't the same.

[FrankSerpico]

WWF Wrestlefest. I know it's basically impossible at this point, but damn.

This was one of my favorites as a kid. It absolutely killed the 8 and 16-bit home WWF games available at the time. I also second Sega Super GT. It would be great if the oft-referred to (in 1999 at least) Dreamcast port was far along enough that it actually surfaces at some point

[BlastProcessing402]

Just out of nostalgia, and knowing full well it's not really a great game, and pretty much impossible to get a true port due to its nature, but damn it, Baby Pac-Man was a staple at the local non-Chuck E Cheese pizza/arcade/animatronic attraction joint. I'd like to play it again, just because.