WORST Arcade-To-Home Translations!

[Aswald]

Ah, remember when you bought a new cartridge (or CD, later on), often with your hard-earned money, eager to play it because it was a version of your (current) favorite arcade game? You waited, you finally got it.

You got it home, took it out of the box, plugged it in, fired it up...

%&@!!%!!

Only to be SERIOUSLY disappointed!

Sorry to say, but while there were a lot of wonderful home versions of our favorite arcade games, there were at least as many failures, games so bad, you wanted to bury them all in a landfill (preferably on another planet). Along with whoever was responsible.


So- what games made YOU wonder "is there any way I can get my money back on this...?"


Atari 2600-

Pac-Man tops the list, but once the early 1980s hit, and the level of sophistication of arcade games skyrocketed, it was often, though not always, a bad idea to try. Crazy Climber and Congo Bongo come to mind, as well as Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr.


Atari 5200-

Congo Bongo. I'm not familiar enough with this system to know of any others.


Atari 7800-

Xenophobe. Galaga. And Double Dragon was by far the weakest of the versions available at the time for "current" systems. Atarian magazine actually showed photos from Tandy computer versions while advertising for Atari consoles in one case!


ColecoVision-

Space Fury. Omega Race. Subroc. Time Pilot. Q*Bert's Qubes. Victory. And to a lesser extent (lousy graphics, but good gameplay) Popeye, Mr. Do!, Q*Bert, Frogger, and Gyruss.

[Neil Koch]

NES Double Dragon -- now I can see that this is a pretty decent game in its' own right, ut how can you have a game called DOUBLE Dragon that's only one-player.

SNES Pit Fighter -- a big steamy pile of poo

[Raccoon Lad]

NES Q*bert, ugly, and doesn't play as well as the arcade game

SMS Ms. Pacman, They tried "updating" the graphics on this one, and did a HORRID job. Ms Pac-man's mouth doesn't open as wide as in the arcade, so it looks like she's nibbling instead of chomping, and the ghosts are just AWEFULL! There are other serious things wrong with this game, but I don't like to 'Dis on the Sega, so I'll just end by saying- Shame on you Tengen, you really screwed up this time!

[Aswald]

Now that you mention it, Ms. Pac-Man for the Sega Genesis was also disappointing. It was dark, and proved that if you have enough memory to do a souped-up version, you should also include the original version, too.

[Sotenga]

SNES: Final Fight

The graphics and sound are pretty good, but there isn't any fourth stage, Rolento's missing, there is no two-player action ( ) AND WHERE THE @#$% IS GUY?!?!?!?!?

[Gamereviewgod]

Now that I go back and play it after playing the Arcade version again on MAME: TMNT: The Arcade Game on the NES....talk about wonky hit detection....

[NE146]

2600 AMIDAR.. What a pile of poop!

People will say 2600 Zaxxon as well.. Yeah it wasn't a good arcade translation (it aint even close) but it's a pretty decent 2600 game when it stands on it's own.. maybe if they named it something else besides Zaxxon and bringing everyone's hopes up :P

[hamburgler]

Neo geo: Ninja combat

I mean come on, the game is way too easy and could be beaten in a couple of hours without any trouble which doesn't give a challenge at all. Not worth to buy at all costs.

[The Unknown Gamer]

The 3 worst arcade translation ever...

Ten Yard Fight - NES

Shinobi - SMS,NES

Bad Dudes - NES

None of those games even play at the arcade speed. In fact in Bad Dudes you look as if your playing in slow motion.

[xolik]

Street fighter 2 for the Gensis. The crappy sound in that game made me sell it back the next day. I lost $20 on that!

[Arqueologia_Digital]

Shinobi - SMS,NES

SMS version??, naaaaaaa!!!!
NES is very bad
I think the only bad arcade translation for SMS is Ms. Pac man (i think the same that Racoon)

[JLukas]

Final Fight as mentioned, was butchered. Still a lot of fun, though.

SNES Mortal Kombat, replaced fatalaties...

And I'll probably get some angry responses for this one, SNES Street Fighter 2. Yes, it was a great port for a game from that era, and I still played it countless hours. However, I was really disappointed when I put in the cart for the first time and saw the smaller character sprites, the missing background details, and the changed bonus round. I had known about those details from the magazine previews but didn't think it would be so drastic.

[swlovinist]

Time Killers for the Sega Genesis has got to be one of the most gosh awful translations I have ever seen. You can barely play the game, and man it is slow and unresponsive! The arcade game wasnt that good, but it was way better in terms of funfactor! I put it up there with Pac Man for the 2600.

[Gamereviewgod]

Time Killers wasn't even a good game to begin with and that was half the trouble. But yes, the Genny version was pitiful.

[ManekiNeko]

Several of Midway's arcade games were poorly translated to home systems. Those games include Defender for the 2600, Defender II on the NES, and Mortal Kombat for the Sega CD. Smash TV on the Genesis was a dreadful mess, and not nearly as good as the coin-op that inspired it.
I have a big beef with several of Nintendo's third parties, who released many games that were only loosely based on popular arcade titles. Strider, Bionic Commando, and (shudder) Ninja Gaiden were three good examples. I found this immensely frustrating... when I buy a game called "Ninja Gaiden", I want to play the game I remember from the local arcade. Don't give me something entirely different.

JR

[ManekiNeko]

Street fighter 2 for the Gensis. The crappy sound in that game made me sell it back the next day. I lost $20 on that!

Oh, COME ON. You're going to call the Genesis version of Street Fighter II one of the worst arcade translations you've ever played just because the voices are rough? Everything else was spot-on. Capcom was so concerned about the quality of this game that they actually went back and reprogrammed it from scratch, and they did a wonderful job with it.
I've had it way up to here (steps on his tiptoes and puts his hands above his head) with people damning the Genesis version of Street Fighter II simply because the sound effects were mediocre. Perhaps that's the case, but it's also worth mentioning that the graphics are very close to the Super NES version, and the gameplay (with Sega's awesome six button arcade pad) is superior. That HAS to count for something!

JR

[WiseSalesman]

Except the Genesis d-pad was so amazingly uncomfortable for playing fighters that I couldn't stand to play them for more than thirty minutes at a time max. Playing SamSho2 on that thing used to rip skin OFF my thumb. Sorry, Neko, but for my money the SNES SFII still reigns.

[ArnoldRimmer83]

Toobin for Nes was a horrible port. Gone are the lighthearted bright visuals of the arcade version, the graphics were hideous in the home port. The dreary colors gave the game almost a sinister feel, instead of a comical one. Also the two player simultaneous mode is gone, replaced by alternating. And the worst part is how the game handled deaths. In the arcade version when you lost a life, you instantly reappeared where you died. In the Nes version when you die, you start the entire stage over again, and the stages in the game are very long and it's often very easy to die.

[Mark III]

I'm suprised that no one's mentioned The Punisher for the genesis, and Aliens Versus Predator for the SNES. Both great arcade games, both ported horribly, especially Alien vs Predator, what a waste of a great liscence.

[Dire 51]

AvP SNES was a totally different game than AvP arcade. Activision created that horrible SNES game, whereas Capcom did the arcade game. The only thing they had in common besides the license was the style of gameplay.