The Arcade Experience at Home - The Complete Series

[Music] thank you I can remember being absolutely enthralled by Arcade gaming at a very young age I was born in the mid-1970s so right as my interest in gaming began the arcade blossomed into its very own Golden Age it was here when things jumped from the old electromechanical and black and white games to software that was much more impressive visually while offering a ton new variety in regards to gameplay arcade businesses were popping up everywhere and it wasn't hard finding your favorite games at local convenience stores malls and everywhere in between these games had such a profound effect on me as a child it would shape my preferences for years to come around that time console gaming began to really explode as well with atari's VCS or 2600 selling millions of units in the United States alone among its Library would be the very first arcade Port site played sometimes these conversions were quite good while other times they were absolutely Dreadful in part part one here we're gonna take a stroll down memory lane and go over some of my favorite titles when I began first playing arcade games and the home versions that would follow these games were released during the period between 1978 and 1984 an extremely impressionable time in my youth I've got some real Classics for you here so let's get started [Music] foreign memories are pretty vivid for Space Invaders I was too young to play it myself or be any good at it but I remember my uncles and older cousins going ape crazy for it when it came out I believe this shaped my excitement for arcade games in general because I was always the tag along always The Watcher and their interest and enthusiasm is all I really knew my cousins would take me with them when they played it at the gas station down the street and I was happy to just be there they thought arcade games were the coolest things ever so in turn that meant I did as well I was around five or six when this was going on so Not only was I impressionable but it was really the very first time I had really spent any time with the game be it playing it or watching it the influence this time period had on me is pretty important it was my first exposure to Arcade gaming and I wanted to see more which didn't take long because Space Invaders came home to the Atari 2600 soon after the port was actually really solid the arcade was a fairly simple game itself so capturing the essence of that gameplay wasn't going to be too hard again I was super young so my memories are more flashes of everyone else wanting to play it and me tagging along within that excitement is sold like crazy on the 2602 becoming one of the most recognizable titles in the early 1980s [Music] foreign Space Invaders came the Namco hit galaxian this one really blew me away because it was so much more Dynamic and colorful these enemies didn't wait to be destroyed they were much more aggressive and difficult being the age I was it was pretty much the same as before my older family members playing it while I watched this didn't dull the excitement at all again they were having fun and I was just happy to be included every so often I got a chance to play it a bit and while I died quickly it was exciting as hell to be given the chance at all my memories of this one are very similar to the ones for Space Invaders it's more flashes of being included with my family and their love of gaming rubbing off on me and man they sure did love this one it took a few years to show up on the Atari 2600 but when it did it again did a damn fine job overall of capturing the feel of the gameplay of course the sound and the visuals ended up being a big step back but hell at the time there wasn't much else to compare it to I really enjoyed this one especially since I was a bit older when the home version landed [Music] I actually remember Missile Command here because no one would let me play it it was tough for me because the arcade used a trackball to move the cursor and I was about as inaccurate as you could be in these games literally hitting nothing and losing in spectacular fashion it didn't take long for my family to realize it was a quick waste of a quarter to let me play it so I was excluded on this one quite often I love the idea though shooting missiles out of the sky and protecting your cities was such a cool concept my little hands just couldn't control it well enough so I was relegated to just watching the vast majority of the time when it came home to the 2600 I was elated to see that it used the standard joystick and I was much better at it this is one where the visual cutbacks didn't really matter it was a simple game in the arcade so the Home Port didn't have a lot to live up to while my family had excluded me in the enjoyment of the arcade version I made up for it when it came home one of my early favorites and most played games on the platform Pac-Man is the first game on my list where I was old enough to actually play it on my own my father loved this game and that made me want to be really good at it and I must say I wasn't bad for my age it was the first time my dad actually engaged in something I enjoyed and I was thrilled he was much better at it than I was but I tried like Hill to impress him each time I had a chance Pac-Man was also one of the most popular arcade games I can recall it was everywhere you didn't have to look far to find it so I remember getting a chance to play it quite often my father would follow at home to the Atari 2600 which he would play for years despite the rather less than Stellar conversion it looks sounded and played nothing like the arcade in fact the colors were muted the stage layouts were different and all the audio was just wrong I would much rather play the arcade but my dad loved it all the same even when I got my NES and was excited to show him a better home version he Shrugged it off and went right back to his attack 2600 my first real lesson that some folks just don't appreciate change very much [Music] Defender really was the first game of its type I had exposure to it was a horizontal Shoot Em Up where you had to destroy an invading Army while protecting your people it was fast flashy and loud and perfectly captured what the arcade experience was all about it was hard too the screen was loaded with enemies and you needed to be extremely accurate with your shots to win like Pac-Man this was everywhere if a place had arcade machines in the early 1980s you can bet one of them was a Defender this is one of the earliest arcade games I can remember really kicking my butt I sucked at it when it hit the Atari 2600 as well it actually was not a bad port at all all things considered but it was still fairly difficult especially with the stiff joystick the 2600 had I remember everyone loving it at the time but I just couldn't get into it much getting blown out the sky constantly tends to do that to me I do still recommend having a look at it though there's a sequel on the 2600 as well we all have that game that comes along and really grabs our attention Donkey Kong was one such title for me it was so well paced and so full of Personality that I just wanted to play it every time I had a chance running and jumping had never felt so good in digital form originally done by Fame Nintendo Legend Shigeru Miyamoto you must rescue your lady from Donkey Kong a massive gorilla hell-bent on your destruction you battle across multiple screens before you finally fill the great beast and it was one of the best games of its day it had everything great graphics Unique Sounds and a story that gave every character an identity and purpose I wanted to play it every time I saw it which is still the case all these years later the 2600 Port managed to capture a bit of the magic when it was released in 1982 the gameplay is mostly intact though we did see stages cut in a big audio visual downgrade I love the arcade version so much I just overlooked that however and enjoyed it quite a bit I got so good at it I could play for a really long time before losing all my lies I don't play the 2600 much these days but when I do this is the one that gets the call [Laughter] [Music] [Music] I held a similar fascination with Frogger when I first played it it was so cool to be able to move all over the Playfield at will with so many dangers all around you everyone loved Frogger too my family my friends the arcade machine at the gas station was always being played and it was a regular fixture beside Pac-Man and Galaga for years its Home Port was highly anticipated and like Donkey Kong one of my most played games for the 2600 it had the expected cutbacks but still played great my dad even played it in between sessions of Pac-Man and we often battled it out for high score it's also one of the first times I'd see sega's name on a home game this one was special and I still have great memories of it foreign I loved Burger time in the arcade it was such a simple concept but running from food to make food was gloriously stupid and fun the aim was to drop the various pieces of burger onto the plates below by running across them you had a pepper shaker to momentarily stun your foes and you could use the falling pieces of burger to kill them it had such memorable music and it was really challenging unfortunately this was around the time I really began to dislike the cutbacks in the 2600 ports I was getting older and wanted to play games that looked and sounded like the arcade and the 2600 was quickly wearing out its welcome it played so slow and I just wanted more I wanted accurate Sprites detailed play areas and Better Sound I played the 2600 home version a bit but by 1984 my tolerance and patience for its ancient technology was reaching its end foreign [Music] Patrol was a great game in the arcade it was a horizontally scrolling shooter that had you jumping obstacles and Blasting enemies and lo and behold there be Parallax in those backgrounds that's right dude this game absolutely floored me visually I had never seen anything like it it was so colorful and had so much depth in the backgrounds I would watch people play it just to see the graphics scroll by when I learned of the home version I was stoked to get my own I must have forgotten what system I owned though because they butchered this on the 2600 it's not the same game at all the cutbacks brutally changed the look and feel of pretty much everything they tried to mimic the background layers but it just comes off as choppy and much less impressive by this point my cousins were rocking me in television in ColecoVision so I was truly hating life with the 2600 I pleaded with my father could we upgrade but he was still fine playing Pac-Man and Demon attack foreign [Music] position was really popular in the arcade when it hit that forward scrolling was super smooth and few companies had really tried anything similar at the time there was also a wicked cool sit down Deluxe cabinet that really made you feel like you were driving this along with what Sega was doing really lit a fire under my love of Sprite scalers Which would really explode a few years later and while the 2600 Port was never gonna mimic the arcade accurately I hated that version the cars didn't look anything like cars the screens scrolled differently and the sound just wasn't there I began to really feel like an outsider at this point because many of my friends at the time seemed to love the 2600 release while I just wanted to go back and play Frogger I respect the attempt to do the game justice but this just fell way way short of the arcade's glory foreign [Music] for the first time in the arcade blew me away while I didn't care much for the gameplay the visuals were incredible you had to be aware of your height in relation to the objects around you a gameplay trade I had never really seen before it was colorful smooth and a hell of a challenge when the 2600 version was released I was both shocked and happy at the same time instead of a completely botched attempt at copying the arcade this was basically an entirely new game it ditches the isometric look for one that Scrolls forward similar to games like Buck Rogers I was impressed by this perhaps because it gave me something new to play instead of ruining software I already had expectations for it was repetitive choppy and nothing like its source material but for a 2600 game I think it was a great way to go given the Hardware's lack of power thank you in part one we went over some of my earliest memories of the arcade and the home conversions I had on the Atari 2600 these games were my introduction to the Hobby and some of my favorite software during the Golden Age of the arcade we went over stuff like Pac-Man zaxon and Frogger true Classics in every sense of the word but that was only the beginning and we have a long way to go before the story is finished in this episode we're gonna move on a few years to the Christmas of 1986 when I got my brand new Nintendo Entertainment System I had known about it for over a year thanks to a few friends getting it and when I finally got one to call my own I was so excited to play everything I could for the next three years I would rent borrow trade and pretty much do everything in my power to play as much as possible and boy it was a hell of a ride in this episode we will be going over the arcade games and their home conversions I'd be playing from 1986 to 1989. talk a bit about how they turned out and even touch upon a few of the other Home systems I played during this stretch hope you guys enjoy the arcade experience at home part two my early days with the NES of course started with the so-called Black Box games a collection of titles that included a number of arcade ports the ones that caught my eye immediately were favorites like Donkey Kong Popeye Kung Fu and Mario Brothers these games were very close to their arcade counterparts and visuals and sound impressing me well beyond what I had played at home before it had the NES been released in the United States in 1983 this would have meant it would have been capable of nearly one-to-one arcade ports and would have been the best thing ever the problem was is that arcade gaming had seen a massive push in technology by 1986 so while these older games held up great on the NES newer arcade games were orders of magnitude more impressive in regards to graphics and sound this actually created a situation very similar to what I experienced on the Atari 2600 some games were great arcade ports While others suffered mightily during the journey I encountered plenty of both and we're gonna take a look at some of them now before I jump into this I want to be clear that I'm focusing on actual arcade ports here while I love games like rygar Ninja Gaiden and Bionic Commando the NES versions were entirely different from the arcade and I'm not covering them in this video These are good old-fashioned arcade games converted to home releases [Music] when I first played the 1985 Capcom hit ghost and goblins it whooped my 10 year old ass up one side the arcade and down the other oh my God was it hard right from the opening stage it showed you no mercy no quarter and was out to steal as many of those as it could it looked great too arcade games had begun to ditch their single screen roots and had begun to scroll more and more making each World seem much larger and giving you a feeling like you were exploring something your little dude and his enemies had great animation well beyond the stuff you typically saw when it hit the NES in 1986 the port was relatively solid while the color and animation took some hits it still looked and played mostly like it should the difficulty was still there the scrolling was smooth and it had the stages bosses and ending for a complete package far from perfect but given the power difference this was a damn solid version of the arcade foreign [Music] Shoot Em Up started out pretty simple in the arcade but by the time we got to 1985's gradius there had been some huge improvements in graphic sound and gameplay I really loved the way the weapons upgrade bar showed what she had and what she could get I also appreciated the level design and music here it's one of the first shoot em ups that I can honestly say the sound made me want to play it Konami had done a killer job taking a genre I had cared little about and making it one of my new favorites and the NES continued that fine piece of software at home with a stellar conversion don't get me wrong it saw a host of changes and omissions but the gameplay and the great soundtrack really held up it was one of my favorite NES games early on and one of the first famicom games I bought when I began collecting for it foreign [Music] K zakari Warriors had been quite popular in the arcade when it was released the two-player vertically scrolling run and gun gameplay was intense and challenging there was always loads of enemies on the screen and he even got the commandeer tanks to blast your enemies in a way it was Metal Slug 10 years before that showed up on the Neo Geo the NES home version was heavily cut back in every area the gameplay feels quite a bit different as well the number of enemies and speed is perhaps the most glaring downgrade but don't be fooled into thinking that makes this one easy it's not at all this will chew up newcomers and feed them to the wood chipper having not played it in a long time it absolutely wiped the floor with me like a lot of NES arcade ports the music actually holds up pretty well here foreign [Music] I loved me some Spy Hunter your job is to hunt down enemy vehicles in your super car and take them out every so often you can even transform your vehicle into a boat for some water action you got to be careful though there are civilians out there you gotta watch for it was fast fun and hard as hell sunsoft brought it home to the NES in Surprise it was a damn good conversion it kept the arcade speed the gameplay was spot on and hot damn did it have some great music it's pure adrenaline fueled chaos foreign [Music] showed up in the arcade it pushed a lot of things forward run and guns weren't anything new in 1987 but it really changed my thinking on them large Sprites great Co-op and some of the best boss battles I had ever seen it was an instant hit with me and my friends and when we found out it was released for the NES it was a must play immediately while the Home Port is based on the arcade content this may be the very first game I had ever encountered that I thought was actually better at home the visuals take some hits but everything else here is point blank a better experience the soundtrack is a plus the gameplay is faster and smoother it keeps the two-player Co-op and though the levels are a bit mixed up most of the content is here this is a classic in just one example where the developers had the good sense to take the arcade content and make it even better for those interested the Japanese version has more more content than the North American release there are new cinematics music and the stages have new animations in the background [Music] Double Dragon was the kind of game that was made for the arcade two players memorable music hard as hell I mean the Staples were therefore a classic it pretty much was too technos Japan crafted a beat-em-up that had you punching kicking jumping grabbing elbowing kneeing and throwing your enemies all over the screen there are even weapons like dynamite knives and baseball bats to even the Playfield a bit when you really think about it it was quite a step up from much of the other games we had seen from the genre a Home Port naturally had the attention of many of us back then and the NES game was pretty damn solid overall it lost the two-player Co-op which is a shame but it kept much of the enemy in stage design the same it gained a level up system where you get new moves as you play but I was not a huge fan of this there is still a two-player mode but it comes in the form of a versus Battle option and the music here is freaking Unforgettable foreign [Music] force was quite the impressive evolution of what Konami started with gradius it changed up the setting quite a bit covered both horizontal and vertical shooting stages and had massive boss fights the U.S release was a remix of the Japanese shooter salamander now taking place inside an alien body with Organic enemies it was something to see in the arcade way back then so I expected the home version to be butchered top to bottom not so the NES really kicked some serious ass here it's mostly based on the biological changes that were made to the US arcade version and like the NES version of gradius before it does that content very proud Lifeforce had a killer soundtrack great graphics and even has the two-player Co-op I love this game as a kid and it was definitely one you just gotta have for your collection [Music] online Rampage was the type of game I was drawn to in the arcade I could play it with my friends and the only goal was to bust up what more could you want this one was sort of a dream come true they took an old love for Godzilla movies and put me in the role of a giant monster raising hell I really dug the setup and it was a great looking game too buildings smashed up real good in the little people and vehicles made you feel like you were 10 stories tall but man did the NES butcher this game I hate it the way it looked it sounded worse and I just didn't find the gameplay all that appealing I had trouble doing simple things like climbing buildings and bashing things just didn't feel the same I know some of you like it but this was a big big Miss for me [Music] foreign loved when an arcade game would come along and present a slightly new take on an old formula Jackal took a simple Shoot Em Up and added pows that needed rescuing while you gunned down enemy troops and vehicles best part was is that she had to run of the play area allowing you to go where you wanted when you wanted it had two weapons from the outset a machine gun and grenades but the latter could be upgraded to various types of missile launchers two players could play it together too adding to the appeal the NES Port kept everything that made the arcade great Sansa hit the color in detail my friends and I played the ever loving hell out of this the gameplay Rivals Contra in terms of multiplayer fun and there isn't much like it on the NES there was a time when Konami was one of the best developers on the planet and their NES output is simply legendary foreign [Music] [Music] there was a ton of love for Bad Dudes in the arcade Data East did the game on 1988 release that featured two-player Co-op and beat-em-up style gameplay the evil dragon ninja have kidnapped the president and it's up to you to get him back the gameplay is kind of a mix of a few different arcade titles it's got a bit of Kung Fu Master a dash of Shinobi and a trickle of the Double Dragon games it all added up to a good looking title that was really fun when the NES Port dropped I was not impressed however the gameplay felt so clunky and even the screen didn't scroll all that well the hit detection was kind of screwy too almost like your attacks took another second to register on some of the enemies there was a ton of sprite flicker as well enemies especially bosses are always flashing and when two enemies or more hit the screen it became a blink Fest I don't know man some of you played the ever loving hell out of this as kids I know my friends did but this was one port I just never could could get into [Music] it as the NES got older arcade games had begun to pass it by in such huge strides that ports really began to suffer visually it had a great audio chip that held its own but man were things falling apart in the graphics Department as a big fan of the film RoboCop you can imagine my love of the arcade when it was released it was a gorgeous game of great voice samples and music straight from the movie The gameplay was simple enough but it had enough style and visual fortitude to be something provocative but all that came crashing down in the NES Port we lost the killer Graphics the voices and just about everything that had made the arcade stick out it wasn't that it was necessarily a bad game it just was a shell of a much better experience it was 1989 and it was time for me to move on to newer Hardware you are under arrest you can't talk about the arcade in Nintendo in the 1980s and not mention the versus system in the play choice 10. these were two platforms that were based on the technology that powered the NES the Nintendo versus system was released in the United States in 1984 and had games like versus tennis versus duck hunting versus baseball other games like mockrider excitebike and Super Mario Brothers saw eventual release as well many of these were sort of reverse conversions where the existing famicom game was taken and modified a bit in terms of visuals and difficulty this was a very popular arcade platform for Nintendo and its success is one of the main catalysts for the company's confidence to release the NES in North America Nintendo wasn't done pimping the NES in the arcade with the versus system either in 1986 they released the play Choice 10 a machine that was similar in ideology to Data East Deco cassette system and the later release Neo Geo here you could add up to 10 ROM boards to the unit with each game offering hints and strategies via a second screen the games were governed by timers and featured some of the NES platform's biggest hits like Tecmo Bowl Ninja Gaiden and the Mario titles I remember seeing these machines quite a bit in the arcades at the time and often played Castlevania and Mike Tyson's punch out at my local Sears both the versus system and the play Choice 10 created incredible Gateway opportunities for Nintendo those that had not gotten an NES yet could see what all the fuss was about right there in the local arcade while these games lacked a wow factor of the more advanced games at the time every title released on these two platforms could be played at home virtually unchanged a huge selling point for the NES [Music] thank you [Music] the Master System was a complete mystery to me the first few years it was on the market I was lucky to have gotten an NES back then and for a time I didn't know a single person that owned a Master System hell I had never seen one sold at a retail store back then lucky for me my best friend Robert got one for his birthday a while after I had gotten my NES allowing me to have access to some of the games for that platform perhaps unfairly I had loved sega's growth in the arcade with their super scalers so it was those games I wanted to play most on the Master System initially I had been utterly disappointed in what I had found games like space Harrier afterburner thunderblade and outrun were so heavily cut back I just couldn't enjoy them very much they looked different sounded different and most importantly played different from their arcade versions but things didn't stay that way for long while the super scalers had been let down I found plenty elsewhere to love about the Master System rosten was a great Port of the arcade it had a unique soundtrack and the gameplay was quite close in feel Rampage Point Blank blew the NES Edition away I mean it's not even close it's a better port in every category and one of my favorites on the platform sega's own Shinobi took a hit in detail but was still a killer side-scrolling action game the NES tried to give it some love but the Master System version simply did it so much better there were plenty of other great arcade ports too Paperboy r-type super off-road and Wonder Boy just to name a few but I quickly found that Sega had some big problems that made me realize the NES was what I wanted to support outside of next to no one actually owning a Sega Master System the games were hard to find and when you did actually find a store that carried them the selection was minuscule next to the NES Nintendo had slit sega's throat with some questionable business practices and it had reduced any chances of success for them in the United States the Master System was a fine platform I grew to love it quite a bit over the years but Nintendo's crippling effects cannot be denied [Music] also during my run with the NES one of my friends got an Atari 7800 I hadn't known a lot about it when he got his in the summer of 1987 hell to be truthful I didn't even know Atari still existed at that point I had not been impressed with the 5200 so they fell off my radar but you know what the 7800 didn't seem like a bad console for older arcade ports I had initially played games like Miss Pac-Man and Galaga which were really solid but the overall tiny library and lack of modern third-party titles really hammered my interest in it my friends and I would enjoy a game of food fight here and there but by the time we got to play games like Double Dragon and Rampage it was clear the NES was the system to own in North America once my friend moved away in 1989 he took his 7800 with him and I have never seen or played another one since foreign [Music] [Music] it's the Christmas of 1989 and my mother scores me a Sega Genesis to call my own the commercials the magazine ads and even the box of the unit itself Proclaim this thing to be the arcade at home it's something that I had been searching for since the early 1980s and it seemed like I was finally gonna get it but my early days of the Genesis were actually rather disappointing I went into space area 2 and super thunderblade expecting arcade Perfection but came away severely disappointed in their quality my 14 year old self just had no clue that the Genesis lacked smooth Hardware accelerated Sprite scaling and I genuinely wondered had I made a mistake jumping ship to Sega fortunately other titles reinforced the notion that the Genesis indeed had some serious power when it came to painting the screen full of impressive visuals right off the bat the pack and Altered Beast Stood Beside the arcade rather impressively the Sprites were large it kept the two-player Co-op the bosses were huge and it even had multiple background layers where the arcade did not Ghouls and ghosts was a killer arcade conversion that was damn near one to one Sega programmed it themselves on license from Capcom and they showed that the hardware was more than up to doing modern arcade games at home forgotten world was another Capcom property that turned out quite well on the Genesis again the visuals were really close with the massive boss battles and two-player Co-op defining that incredible arcade feeling at home Sega won back a measure of respect with their release of super hang on for the Genesis while their previous attempts had fallen flat with me this one was much better and much closer to the arcade inspiration but it was when Sega released golden ax that it became clear that the Genesis was the platform for me the faithfulness to the arcade for a home version was at a level I had honestly never thought possible especially considering that golden ax had only been released in the arcade a mere six months prior they even added an extra stage to give it a bit more run time in this episode we are going to pick up right around the end of 1990 when the Genesis really starts to turn on the heat and the platform really starts to come into its own I'd own and support this machine for nine years of my life and it's one of my favorites of all time remember we are shooting for actual arcade conversions here not games with similar names hope you guys enjoy the arcade experience at home part 3. when Strider hit the arcade in 1989 it was a tour de force of graphical Splendor Hugh huge enemies great backgrounds and even the soundtrack was nice when I first saw it I watched an amazement at how much better it looked than most of the titles around it while the Genesis had played host to a number of Arcade Hits before Strider it was this title right here that set the standard going forward coming in at a then whopping 8 megabits of ROM Strider was a direct Port of the Capcom CPS driven arcade game and what a job Sega did in the conversion everything about it was meant to mimic the source and the outcome was nothing short of spectacular outside of some color differences and some Sprite flicker here and there the Genesis version was a showstopper the original had only been released the year prior so having this at home was something special I was already enjoying my Genesis at this point but this erratically changed my expectations going forward foreign [Music] the arcade version of midnight resistance was a weird one a used rotary controls to determine your firing Direction something they took a bit of practice it was a good looking game though and had much in common with konami's efforts of the late 1980s with contra establishing my love of the Run and Gun on the NES I was very much looking forward to the Genesis version unfortunately we got a lot of cutbacks in the transition first we lost the two-player mode a huge blow that was immediately disappointing we also got some pretty intense slowdown and Sprite flicker coupled with the usual hits to color it was still a fun shooter but from a purely visual standpoint it most certainly had its problems to compensate the music here is redone and is some of the best Tunes you'll hear out of the Genesis no dude this is the kind of stuff FM synth was made for foreign [Music] hit the arcade in 1986 it was a stunner it looked so good Ran So Fast and the soundtrack was Unforgettable I adored the game for years wanted a home version that looked just as good luckily by the time it showed up on the Genesis in 1991 I had gotten over my naive expectations and just took the port at face value I Knew by then the home version had zero chance of replicating the arcade's brilliant technology what we were left with was a fun enough game otherwise it was colorful the gameplay felt similar in the music recognizable don't get me wrong there's a lot here to be disappointed in given the amount of time that it passed but super scalers were never gonna be overly impressive on the Genesis in fact for all my love and adoration for the platform its lack of Hardware Sprite scaling is perhaps its biggest letdown [Music] thank you [Music] the venerable title showed up in 1991 with a four player beat em up called growl it was a wild tale of a forest ranger out to stop evil poachers he had tons of weapons you could use and could even enlist the help of the local Wildlife I don't think I have ever seen so many enemies on the screen at one time in any beat em up before it either when it came home to the Genesis shortly thereafter it was a big big step back right off the bat you lose the four player co-op all the way down to a single player experience as if that wasn't enough the graphics engine is much simpler with much smaller Sprites and of course the usual hits the color and background detail it could still be a good time because the heart of the design was so strong to begin with and there are still lots of enemies on the screen but I'd be lying if I didn't say this one was still a bit of a letdown I mean why is this only one player when so many enemies are on the screen they couldn't sacrifice an enemy or two to drop in a second player while the Genesis certainly could do some special things in the right hands it did not lack for its disappointments [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] Street Fighter 2 and Mortal Kombat came along and pushed the fighting genre to the Forefront of arcade gaming there were titles like 1990s pit fighter from Atari it used digitized fighters in Arena combat to give something more akin to the stuff like SNK Street Smart than what we'd see later on it was certainly eye-catching in the arcade I hadn't really seen anything like it before and of course I was always down for something that let me beat the hell out of a friend when it showed up in late 1991 for the Genesis it was a shadow of its arcade Source material the fighters were tiny the background simplified incredibly and of course the animation is nowhere near as good it also lost the three-player competitive mode now only supporting two opinions of the gameplay vary quite a bit but I personally never thought it played all that well either I don't know man this one just wasn't that great if you were coming from the vastly superior coinop version foreign [Music] I always enjoyed atari's 1987 combat racer Road blasters it was sort of a super scalar version of Spy Hunter with the main goal of keeping your fuel up and avoiding enemies and obstacles it was a great looking release back then and even had a deluxe cabinet that was pretty cool I had to chuckle a bit when I saw there was a Genesis release if Sega had trouble getting super scalers running on the Genesis just what do these Jokers at sterling silver software think they're doing turns out the joke was on me because these guys freaking nailed the look and feel of the arcade I mean I was completely blown away the road moves great and while the Trackside detail is a bit choppier you gotta respect the conversion this was a fine lesson for me on just how important developer skill figures into software like this sometimes who is doing the work is just as important as the hardware it's on thank you [Music] Titus could Dash was a strange one in the arcade when it was released it was a hybrid of a side-scrolling action title mixed with RPG elements the fantasy based story had you out to stop an evil wizard from Conquering the world and you could even do it with a friend you also got a choice of four different Warriors The Fighter the Mage the Priestess and the ninja the setup and gameplay were unique among arcade offerings at the time and there were even machines linked together to support four players the home version for the Genesis in 1992 saw a few unfortunate changes the classes were cut in half to only include the Mage in the fighter and the color palette is much too dark and one of the boss battles was removed entirely on the plus side you get some nice large Sprites the gameplay was faithful in the arcade's time limit is gone it won't win any awards for its accuracy but as far as conversions go you can do a lot worse than this one thank you [Music] thank you in 1991 Data East released the arcade classic Captain America in The Avengers a four-player beat em up starring some of Marvel's finest Heroes you could take Captain America Iron Man vision and Hawkeye into battle against the evil Red Skull and his minions it was a solid game with very memorable music and sound effects when the Genesis got its port in 1992 the gameplay was pretty much spot on playing them back to back here it's actually quite amazing how close they feel in timing and speed of course since this was on Arcade Hardware that could display much more color the backgrounds take some pretty profound downgrades in detail and complexity it also only allows for two-player Co-op but still has all four playable Heroes it has its shortcomings but hell I thought it was worthy all the way around washer away [Music] about the time the Genesis begins its run in North America the Neo Geo arcade games begin to show up in 1991 SNK releases fatal Fury hoping to soak up some of that hype that was generated by Street Fighter 2. it was a great looking title that used both foreground and background Lanes you could fight on you know the drill the Bogard Brothers Terry and Andy are out to avenge their father and take down the evil geese Howard you can also play as their Buddy Joe who is a Muay Thai Master as you'd expect the Genesis Port is toned way down particularly when it comes to background detail and animations it was also missing two fighters from the arcade version to put things into perspective though the Neo Geo version comes in at 55 megabits while the Genesis ROM is just 12. considering the huge difference there I happen to think this turned out not so bad its sequel made its way to the Genesis as well all right [Music] laughs in 1992 arcade gaming would be changed forever with the release of midway's Mortal Kombat never before had we seen such violence in a video game oh it's true games had some pretty risque content before it but the digitized images and motion captured animation made it all feel so much more real aside from the blood that would erupt from uppercuts and roundhouse kicks during the match you also had the ability to kill your foe at the end of the match and these deaths were violent as hell you could rip hearts out tear heads off and even burn your enemies alive my friends and I were absolutely enthralled by its violence and once the home version showed up in 1993 the expectations were nothing short of incredible I'm not gonna sugarcoat it either the Genesis version was a shadow of the arcade from a graphics standpoint while it mimics the content as best it can the color the animation the detail I mean everything about it is heavily compromised visually sound effect effects are missing as well I did like the weird music it brought along and the gameplay was quite good but this was 1993 and the Genesis was starting to show its age quite a bit to its credit Sega had the balls to allow it to be uncensored something Nintendo refused to do multiple sequels would follow with roughly the same results less color less sound effects and less animation fortunately they all played about as good as you could have hoped for Sub-Zero wins fatality [Music] Street Fighter 2 is a legend when it comes to arcade games Capcom crafted one of the greatest titles ever here and they improved it multiple times with the Champion Edition and Hyper fighting upgrades in the following years six different buttons for six different attacks plus special moves and combos to master each fighter had their own style and the multiplayer was simply Unforgettable despite the original coming out earlier in the arcade the Genesis Champion Edition release didn't show up until 1993. well after other Home ports perhaps because this uses hand-drawn art and animation the results here were much more impressive than the Mortal Kombat conversion you lose some animation the voices are scratchy and the fighters are smaller but I respect the hell out of the Genesis effort otherwise most important of all the gameplay here is as good or better than any other Home version you could play at the time you can even get modern hacks that fix the voices in color showing us all that it could have been even better a follow-up Super Street Fighter 2 the new Challengers came out in 1994 and while the gameplay was nice they utterly ruined the music [Music] everybody [Music] another Midway property was NBA Jam when it launched in arcades across the United States in 1993 it recaptured the same magic that elevated other sports games like Tecmo Bowl double dribble and Blades of Steel by simplifying the game down to just two players per team and playing loose with the rule book it left you basically in a shootout with your favorite NBA players the Genesis version was released in 1994 and while paired back a bit is remarkably close the players are smaller and the color is much more subdued but otherwise it looks just like the coin op the only real area it truly suffers in is the sound in music which both see major downgrades fortunately the series got better with each release NBA Jam tournament Edition and NBA Hang Time both appeared on the Genesis as well and are very much worth your time [Applause] [Music] [Applause] the score is tied he shoots from the outside [Applause] Capcom was churning out beat em ups in the arcade left and right after the success of final fight among those 1993's The Punisher it had all the trademarks of their design two-player Co-op crazy boss fights and of course plenty of weapons to help you kill the bad guys it was a great looking game and really captured the feel of the comic book inspired visuals shockingly the Genesis was the only home platform to receive a conversion of it in early 1995. this was done solely for the Western Market and developed by the us-based sculptured software coming in at 16 megabits it had zero hope of replicating the arcade and it was downgraded heavily to fit within the tiny ROM you of course expected to see less color and enemies on the screen but here you get some pretty lame gems music less interaction with your environment and censorship on some of the skimpier outfits I don't know I feel this should have been a better game I never expected one-on-one parody but final fight looked in place better than this on the same Hardware in 1994 arcades everywhere received Virtual Fighter 2 one of the most visually pleasing 3D polygon titles of its era it was so smooth in the new texture mapping truly elevated it above the original for a very long time there was not a prettier fighter to be found and it played incredible as well I chose this not to directly compare the Genesis version but to illustrate the divide that was coming for arcade ports for a very long time the bulk of Home conversions had been 2D in nature but with 3D polygon technology On The Rise everything was about to change we were about to see gaming split into two very different paths while one was reaching a state of diminishing returns the other was only taking its baby steps to its fullest potential when Virtua Fighter 2 showed up on the Genesis late in the system's life Sega didn't even try to make it 3D no special SVP chip no miracles of engineering to be had just a sad 2D effort of of a much better game it was the white flag of surrender that the 16-bit era had come to an end and polygons were about to take its place as the next big thing [Music] why Ray foreign [Music] much like Nintendo Sega decided to bring the technology of the mega drive to arcades across Europe and Asia these machines started out with the mega Tech system a dual screen cabinet that could play multiple games each game used a timer that was tied to your credit once the timer was out you needed more money to continue playing the arcade board was similar to Nintendo's play Choice 10 as well it had multiple slots for additional cartridges that looked just like regular games but were not directly compatible many of sega's most popular 16-bit titles saw release on this platform Altered Beast Shadow Dancer and Sonic just to name a few some Mega Tech machines even had Master System titles in them in 1991 Sega decided to release a new Mega Drive based arcade system called the mega play this time they did away with the timer based mechanic and instead you pay for lives like most normal arcade titles this meant the games released for it would be modified to have things like extra lives and bonus stages removed making many mega play releases much harder than their home versions again Sega would only release this platform across Asia and Europe [Music] [Music] cool during my time with the Genesis there had also been the turbo Graphics 16. they had been released right on top of one another and this was sega's direct competition in the years before the Super Nintendo showed up I had greatly enjoyed the turbo and it had some fantastic arcade Forks like Sega NEC had banked on these types of games helping the platform's image as a powerful unit capable of equaling the arcade experience seeing our type was a revelation it was so close to the original you needed them side by side to see the differences sega's fantasy Zone was super colorful and very close to the arcade as well I was somewhat surprised to see this as Sega seemed to be clamping down on their games appearing on other platforms during this time space Harrier even showed up on the turbo and I dare say it was quite a bit better than part two on the Genesis I thought it was smoother and played more Faithfully a port of bloody wolf showed up the only time we'd see the data East Run and Gun during that generation it had some Cuts but was still a really fun time Iron's ninja Spirit showed up as well and it was a damn flying Port of the arcade they nailed this one so close you could hardly tell the two apart and of course there was the incredible Splatterhouse easily one of my favorites on the turbo and one of the best home conversions of its day best part was that it played just as well as the arcade of course many more turbo games were arcade ports but with the system getting crushed at retail by the Genesis and then by the Super Nintendo its place in history was greatly diminished it did much better in Japan where it got many many more games and is definitely worth some time to play it what fight [Music] ER [Music] tiger [Music] early in the life of the Super Nintendo it very much tried to compete directly with the Genesis in terms of arcade ports it had a number of titles that fall into that category and like Sega some turned out great and others not so much gradius 3 had the sound and Graphics to be a winner but good God is the Slowdown crippling I have seen few retail products display this much slow down I don't mean it's here and there I mean it's ever present and at its worst renders the game nearly unplayable it was a worrying first step for Nintendo's new console fortunately final fight came along and renewed my confidence Not only was it a great looking Port of the arcade but it sounded and played as well as I could have hoped the only blemishes it suffered were the lack of a two-player co-op mode and one of the characters was missing that really did suck but it was still fun for what it was super smash TV did the system proud as well the controller for the Super Nintendo worked great with it and it had loads of Sprites on the screen it was the best version of this game available at the time the Super Nintendo really made a name for itself when it got its own version of Street Fighter 2 however at a time when the arcade version was a gaming sensation Nintendo's platform was the only place you could play it at home in the United States I have so many fond memories of this and you really can't argue with the results excellent ports of hyper fighting and the new Challengers would follow it's one of the main reasons that the Super Nintendo was able to stay competitive with the Genesis in North America Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles turtles in time was that rare case where the home version was almost better than the arcade it had more content and the sound and visuals were top-notch the only thing it really lacked was the four-player co-op there was also a port of the Atari racer Road Riot four-wheel drive the Super Nintendo absolutely butchered this game though I thought Sega did a poor job with its Sprite scaling ports but this looked and played about his bad as it could have it's ugly choppy and a shadow of the arcade experience similar to other bad ports like outrunners it is always in a split screen mode even in single player I think the Super Nintendo did it about as bad as any home conversion I had ever seen fortunately the Super Nintendo also got ports of the Mortal Kombat games while there is much discussion about how these games played against their Genesis counterparts there is no discussion whatsoever about which one looked the best the digitized images of the arcade look so much better using the higher color palette of the Super Nintendo I preferred its visuals of the first two games without question as the Super Nintendo aged it began cranking out more and more titles made specifically for its hardware and it was better off for it the platform excelled at RPG and Adventure titles and of course anything Nintendo made almost always was solid gold while I considered the Genesis a much more capable machine in regards to shoot em ups I still think the Super Nintendo had loads of great games [Music] during the 16-bit era there was a legend it told of a Home console so powerful it could do one-to-one home versions of all its games in the arcade everything about it was arcade Perfection it even shipped with arcade style joysticks right in the Box this miracle of Technology was known as the SNK Neo Geo I was very familiar with its games in the arcade but the home machine was a distant dream never to be realized when it came home in 1991 it sold for an astounding 650 dollars as if that weren't shocking enough the games were often a few hundred dollars at release so while I'd love to tell you stories about how much I loved my Neo Geo and its arcade Perfect Games the truth is I did not own the platform until many years later at the time I coveted the hell out of it though Neo Geo games looked great in the arcade and the idea of having that at home was really a dream come true I had always wished that Sega had done something similar with their system 16 or system 32 boards create a high-end Market to run parallel to their other Home efforts I would have much rather have had that than a Sega CD or 32x when the Neo Geo CD hit in the mid 90s the platform finally became affordable but the CD format had a ton of limitations the cartridge system didn't have these days I own two consolized MBS arcade boards and Flash carts with the entire library and it's still impressive all these years later [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] I did it in case you were wondering why the episode focuses so heavily on the Genesis when the turbo graphics and Super Nintendo had plenty of arcade ports well it's because the Genesis is where I spent most of my time it was my 16-bit platform of choice and its Games held the most appeal for me it was during the Genesis that I got my very first job and imported my first Japanese games I had buying power for the first time and could get the games I wanted when I wanted them while I played them plenty both the Super Nintendo and turbo Graphics tended to have exclusive stuff I went after they each had a library of must-known software that weren't connected to Arcade versions and I felt their strength were mostly in these kinds of titles eventually the same thing would become the norm for the Genesis as well it seems to be a pattern for all these older systems in fact they start out with a bunch of arcade ports but as they get older they begin to rely on those less and less I suppose this is because they are much more competitive to Arcade technology and beginning of their lives but a few years in the arcade leaves them in the Dust by the time 1994 rolls around arcade games are starting to be polygons regularly so the Genesis Super Nintendo and turbo Graphics really had nowhere to go the new era of arcade technology demanded new home consoles and the Saturn and Playstation were right around the corner I had absolutely loved the 16-bit era though the games were simply amazing perhaps the greatest variety and quality the hobby has ever seen you had games that had been so close to their arcade counterparts that you really did feel like you were playing the real thing not to mention the massive amount of original content that had been so fantastic it was an unforgettable time to be in gaming and with all the new polygon games right around the corner an exciting New Beginning as well as we enter our fourth and final edition of the arcade experience at home we take a look at some of the arcade conversions that made their way onto fifth generation consoles are what is commonly referred to as the 32-bit era it was here where many two-dimensional ports the king virtually indistinguishable from one another and we saw a big uptick in the number of polygon games released we had the expected Hardware entries from Sega Sonia Nintendo but also some wild cards from Atari and Panasonic this particular time in gaming was exciting for a few reasons polygons were introducing new kinds of games we had never played before while 2D games were looking just about as good as they possibly could in many instances we had never seen arcade games at home that were of this quality this frequent across all the major platforms while the 16-bit systems had some stunners of their own damn near everything here was on a completely different level of sound and visuals in this episode our journey will go across the 3DO all the way to the Nintendo 64 and cover some incredible home conversions hope you guys enjoy the arcade experience at home part 4. the fifth generation released started for me with the 3DO it was here that I got some of my first arcade ports that truly blew me the hell away some of those LaserDisc games from the 1980s showed up here in incredible form Dragon's Lair had never looked so good and the Mad Dog McCree light gun games were here as well fighting games made a heck of a showing on the 3DO Primal Rage was here and far better than the other ports on the 16-bit home systems the color in detail really stood out the Neo Geo fighter Samurai Showdown showed up too and side by side it was nothing short of amazing that it looked so similar it was the first time I had access to a Neo Geo game that was this close to the original Namco starblade brought some spectacular polygon action home that was in many ways better looking than the arcade original think of it as a spaceship version of Panzer Dragoon when Super Street Fighter 2 turbo was released the 3DO finally came into its own it was one of the better home versions of the Street Fighter games at its release and really showed that the 3DO was no slouch replicating the more powerful arcade platforms the truth was none of these games were perfect they all had their issues with missing content and cutbacks but they all still represented the arcade versions as well or better than anything I had seen before I had always felt that had the 3DO gotten a port of Mortal Kombat in 1993 when it launched it would have sold much better especially once the price drops hit the platform will be remembered more for its original games but I still enjoyed its arcade conversions quite a bit [Music] oh my God of course everything changed in 1994 when I received my Japanese Sega Saturn Not only was the Saturn considerably more powerful than the 3DO but it was also going to get many more games while the arcade ports from Sega started right off the bat it took a while for the two-dimensional games to really get going some of the first arcade ports to hit the machine were shoot em ups we got a few parodius titles and one compilation that were pretty much spot on perfect I mean outside of some variance and resolution and sound this was exactly what I had been hoping for from the fifth generation they were some very solid games too they are basically the second and third entries in the parodius line a series of games that were cuter versions of konami's gradius it set the stage for a coming flood of the genre's best including layer section or what had been known as Ray force in the arcade this was a vertically scrolling shooter from taito where you could fight both enemies in the background and those that were right in front of you again the Saturn makes them arcade ports look easy replicating the Sprites and backgrounds at a level I had only dreamed of in previous generations gorgeous Graphics Kick-Ass music and gameplay that never misses a beat another taito winner Darius Guyton was on Saturn and to no surprise at all it was excellent as well hell if I showed this to a hundred people 99 wouldn't be able to tell it apart from the arcade it was that close it was also one of the first games that put to rest the notion that Saturn could not do transparencies because they are everywhere in this game just like the arcade of course many more Shooters would follow and many more would be killer versions of their arcade counterparts sometimes you got some differences in sound and sometimes you've got some changes in the resolution that affected the way the Sprites and backgrounds looked but honestly the Saturn did a bang-up job on the vast majority of them the Saturn may have been taking a beating in the Press early for its three-dimensional performance but nobody could see a damn word about its growing library of killer two-dimensional shoot em ups [Music] [Music] it would take a bit longer for arcade fighting games to show up but they made just as much noise as the shoot em ups we just covered X-Men Children of the atom was the first big 2D arcade fighter on the Saturn and it was a doozy while it did see some cuts to animation thanks to the CD-ROM technology in the Saturn the visuals themselves were every bit as impressive side by side the fighters in the backgrounds lose nothing in the move to a home system they are just as large just as colorful and just as detailed my friend and I imported this when it launched and sat and stunned amazement when we first dropped it in the Saturn then came capcom's new entry into the street fighter series called zero in Japan and Alpha in the US and Europe I had loved this game in the arcade so I had been really looking forward to the home version and the Saturn did not disappoint it was the kind of close to the arcade I had been wanting for 15 years at that point and I damn near Cry tears of joy it was so damn good Capcom wasn't done oh no because we got vampire Hunter the second entry into the dark stalker series of fighting games again minus some missing animations this thing was so close I just couldn't believe it Saturn had taken three of capcom's biggest arcade titles at that point and effortlessly brought them home at a level that it trumped everything the previous 20 years the Saturn controller proved to work with these games incredibly well not just because of its six button face but also because of the perfectly balanced directional pad getting Fireball and uppercut motions off had never been so easy so not only were these games visually stunning but they played just as good these early releases made it clear Saturn was a force to be reckoned with if you enjoyed fighting games and they made the console worth owning all by themselves thank you [Music] Sprite scaling games had a long history of disappointing home ports most were butchered in the 8 and 16-bit eras every so often we got one worth talking about but for the most part it was a sad list that let me down again and again when Saturn showed up I was praying that would change I mean surely a machine made more than a decade after the technology first showed up would mean perfect ports right well yes and no some games really shined on the Saturn After Burner 2 was a really good translation it was smooth had loads on screen and was just as fast and as playable as the original space Harrier was a good one too again smooth fast and immensely playable it did the arcade proud outrun was actually better than the arcade it had all the content plus some new music and a new hyper smooth Graphics option that made it look so much faster and fluid it was the best home version of this game for a very long time Title Games got in on the Sprite scaling releases as well Knights Striker s was a visually stunning Port of the 1989 arcade I really enjoyed this one and think it more than proved the Saturn was capable of doing these games Justice I mean take a moment and consider what you're seeing here had any machine before the Saturn done a game like this at this level Chase HQ plus SCI was a part of the first two games in that series I always thought it did a very decent job of recreating the graphics but some folks don't like how it plays I personally enjoyed it well enough however things got a bit murky when it came to some of the other Sprite scalers on the Saturn games like Galaxy Force 2 weren't done by the same developer they did outrun and the conversion was really lacking its main issue was the choppy performance which is surprising considering a game like night Striker s was so much better the arcade racer power drift was on Saturn and while the conversion was better than Galaxy Force 2 it still runs at half the arcade's frame rate like many releases the quality of these games were intricate tied to who developed them some devs simply could do it better as the Saturn matured and more games were released we really started to see some freaking A-Plus releases of some of the best arcade games ever created the follow-up to the original elevator action returns was a run and gun with a Twist you must fight your way through different environments that range from buildings to warehouses to jumbo Jets the Sprites are small but don't be fooled into thinking that means the action isn't intense the animation is worth playing it for alone hyper duel's Saturn Port isn't just the only conversion you could play at the time but was also upgraded to be even better than the original arcade tons of Sprites detailed backgrounds and the gameplay is a spot on as you could want it salamander Deluxe pack brought that series to the Saturn in fine form this one had not just salamander and life force but the relatively new salamander 2 as well it showed that not only could the Saturn Port older arcade shoot them UPS perfectly but newer ones as well and the ports just kept coming Capcom release an entire line of generation compilations that featured many of their best arcade games many looking and playing quite well on the Saturn more shoot em ups and fighting games made their way out keeping those of us willing to import games well stocked with new stuff to play every week the US saw a few of them but the vast majority were unfortunately released in Japan only [Music] foreign [Music] games had been everything was taken up a notch with the release of the expanded Ram cartridges these add-ons were sold separately and packed in with certain games and added more memory to the Saturn's pool of ram meaning things like sound and animation would need less cuts and the games that supported them things started well enough with the one megabyte version Capcom games like cyberbots used it quite effectively it added a level of Polish above what we had already seen Neo Geo ports made use of the cartridge quite a bit which included some real winners like metal slug while still not 100 perfect its quality was well above the Neo Geo ports we had received on the Genesis and Super Nintendo when it came to detail amount of stuff on the screen and the size of your enemies it really held its own Samurai Showdown 4 uses the ram expansion to some Fine Results as well again the size of the fighters the backgrounds the color the Saturn really did well painting a picture that was nearly indistinguishable from the arcade but as good as these games were the one megabyte expansion could only do so much the Saturn was still a CD-ROM based device and things needed to be cut or modified for these conversions Sega recognized that it needed more so they created the four megabyte extended Ram cartridge inviting ports from the latest and greatest two-dimensional Fighters right away things kicked off with a blast thanks to X-Men vs Street Fighter capcom's tag team fighter that would have been impossible without the cartridge it had four individual Fighters that could be changed at will anytime you wanted the arcade had been a beauty and released only a year prior having this on Saturn at this level was nothing short of spectacular it easily put the awful Playstation release to shame vampire savior used a four megabyte expansion as well and again the results were impressive you wanted arcade goodness well here it was and no other system could do it the same level of Justice even Street Fighter 0-3 came to the Saturn and using the upgrade it was super late in the platform's life and sort of a thank you from Capcom for buying all their games I still consider it the best port of this title released for any platform complicated foreign probably noticed by now that I have stuck to two-dimensional arcade games and their ports for the Saturn I wanted to do this so you could understand the divide that this generation presented while the technology of the Saturn meant that 2D games often turned out really well 3D polygon titles were something else entirely when Saturn released in 1994 mainstream polygon titles had only been released in the arcade for a few years meaning the technology was still new and rapidly changing during the life of the Saturn we jumped from the Sega model 2 to the Sega model 3 a massive shift that guaranteed sega's home division had zero chance of porting anything Faithfully the early months of the Saturn presented some questions about its capabilities the flat-shaded virtual fighter looked noticeably more anemic beside its arcade counterpart despite the older technology it had other problems too polygons would glitch out in replays in the ring that's right the platform you fought on actually had polygon pop in this was a terrifying reality for Sega because the PlayStation was pimping a fully textured mapped fighter that had none of these issues more questions came up with the release of Daytona USA the arcade had been a visual showpiece but on the Saturn it had all sorts of problems the geometry Drew in right in front of you in massive chunks and it ran at one-third the arcade's frame rate Gale racer was a weird one the arcade had been a straight up super scaler but the Saturn version decided to add polygon cars for some reason the mix was awkward and the conversion just wasn't that accurate otherwise it was something that Saturn should have done perfectly but again it had problems that people blamed on the Saturn's technology these early days were also loaded with original games that had trouble with 3D polygon engines Sega tried a new hang-on title that wasn't terrible but certainly wasn't a home run there was a hovercraft combat game called Grand Chaser that had potential but again the visuals were marked by terrible draw distance and an unstable frame rate most of these early titles had gameplay that was quite solid but in the face of vicious competition the Optics of the situation couldn't have been worse a bit over a year after the Saturn launched in Japan we finally started to see some games that showed potential Sega had been hard at work on a set of new titles it was hoping would turn everything around Virtua cop was a great Recreation of the model 2 arcade original I mean you get some lower polygon models but you gotta respect the effort here side by side the Saturn Port is a Dead Ringer and you even got your own virtual gun at home for authentic gameplay two-player Co-op was there as were a few new modes for you to mess around with Sega rally was a shocker for everything Daytona did wrong Sega rally improved it further draw distance better performance and it even had a two-player mode it was the kind of difference that made you realize had Sega had this at launch things likely would have gone a whole lot better but it was Virtua Fighter 2 that really showed that the Saturn could do so much more it of course couldn't match the model 2 arcade one for one but considering what the first game would look like it was almost as if it was on different Hardware entire early it's night and day it runs at 60 frames per second uses the Saturn's high res interlace mode and has some of the better textures I had seen at that point Sega even nailed the gameplay which was fast smooth and perfect for multiplayer had Sega kept up this level of quality in the years that followed their battle would have been so much less stressful foreign [Applause] [Music] [Music] ly most third parties had a much harder time with Saturn's polygon performance than Sega did it was a fact that dominated the system's narrative throughout its life most games that were shared between the Saturn and Playstation almost always turned out better on the latter the real killer in this regard was that many third parties didn't even try to Port their games Namco announced Saturn's support early and even began work on Cyber sled but bowed out when they ran into issues getting the engine up and running and had so much more success on the competition's hardware the sad reality was that Saturn simply didn't have the sales potential worldwide for studios and Publishers to invest the resources to make their games for it when someone did show up with an arcade Port using polygons it was often well below expectations [Music] foreign [Music] like the Mega Drive before it Sega prepared an arcade version of the Saturn called the STV Titan this was driven by much of the same Tech that was in the Saturn but used ROM cartridges instead of the CD format believe it or not this thing was loaded with releases totaling nearly 70 unique arcade games many of these would end up being some of the better games on the Saturn the cotton shoot em ups on the Saturn originated here they showed off some great backgrounds Sprites and special effects you didn't see often in games of the time decathlete the multiplayer track and field sensation used the same mode that had made Virtua Fighter 2 so visually pleasing still running at a buttery smooth frame rate the killer aerial based combat game Astra Superstars came to this with all its impressive animation and flashy special effects and you can't forget about Die Hard arcade the beat em up Loosely based on the popular movie The genre had taken a back seat during that generation but this one turned out just fine despite the popular thinking that all the games for the STD Titan were perfectly ported to the Saturn this is not true because these two platforms use different storage methods the STV Titan versions often had more animation and a larger variety of sound effects games like golden ax The Duel have noticeable animation cuts when viewed side by side [Music] [Music] foreign of course there is no conversation about that era that does not include the Sony PlayStation there is no amount of time I can give it in this video to do its Library Justice over 4 000 games were released for this platform the thing that many people don't realize is that the Saturn's better games including the two-dimensional releases were on the PlayStation while the rest of the world was basking in the new light of 3D polygons Japan kept the 2D games coming while Saturn was getting all those shoot em ups and fighting games the PlayStation was getting them as well and the thing is they were damn good ports themselves it's easy to disparage the shortcomings but many of these games were perfectly fine on the PlayStation the PlayStation did the Street Fighter Alpha games all kinds of Justice shoot em ups like Don patchy are considered better on the PlayStation and its sequel was a damn fine Port as well and perhaps most important of all the platform had its own exclusive two-dimensional games you couldn't play anywhere else while the Saturn was special in its own right right the PlayStation provided me with endless Alternatives and exclusives to fill any downtime in between Saturn releases would I rather play X-Men versus Street Fighter on the Saturn absolutely but outside of ram expansion games the PlayStation often was no slouch at 2D games and many were just as playable in fact it was a 2d game that got me interested in the platform in the first place of course the arcaded home took one another meaning during this system's run many of its biggest hits were done on Playstation based RK technology and when they came home they often had more content the Tekken series started here in the first two home versions were one-to-one Perfection Namco also managed some killer ports of their other arcade games like Time Crisis and Ridge Racer proving that the design of the PlayStation was powerful enough to do a damn good job porting games from other arcade platforms while the Saturn was my preferred system I played my PlayStation just as much and enjoyed new games long after Sega put the Saturn and Dreamcast out to pasture should you be one to thumb your nose up at the 2D games for this system thinking they aren't worth your time I highly advise you reconsider it's well known that 3D games were solid here but you might be missing a treasure Trove of 2D content as well [Music] foreign thing I appreciated about the Nintendo 64 at the time was that its arcade ports were often radically different than the games released on the Saturn right off the bat I enjoyed the cruising USA Series yeah it was simple as hell but I really like the outrun style setup where your joy of driving was the main reason you played it none of them were arcade perfect but they were close enough to have a good time with there were also many more Midway ports like Gauntlet Legends it was a 3D update to the classic Dungeon Crawler it had four players support and was a blast to play with your friends Hydro Thunder made a showing that was worth playing and a few Mortal Kombat games showed up too I also adored the arcade Sports titles it received NBA hang time was the best home version of that game released and I lost many an hour in its excellent gameplay NFL Blitz was a winner as well it ran so good and looked so close to the arcade while retaining that Killer fun factor and tons more Midway ports showed up there were Rampage releases some crappy 3D Fighters and even the rush games showed up to the party truth be told the Nintendo 64's tiny Library didn't have many arcade ports that weren't in some way tied to Midway in some form I didn't mind that though Nintendo's platform often had a distinctive look and feel that was quite unique when compared to what was received elsewhere I won't blow smoke up your ass though many of these games have aged far worse than Saturn games the blurry textures can be a real eyesore luckily its exclusives picked up the slack and made the Nintendo 64 one of my favorite machines ever thank you some of you may be wondering why stop here why not keep going with a part five and six honestly home ports of arcade games really began to lose their luster after the fifth generation for me the Dreamcast home system and the Naomi arcade platform had been developed as to allow games to transition seamlessly so you pretty much knew what you were getting there really were no surprises there there were only a handful of Sega model 3 games ported to the home systems and by the time the Xbox and Playstation 2 had shown up arcades were disappearing at an alarming rate the great arcade manufacturers had turned almost completely to home consoles for their games and most arcade platforms were either based on those consoles or some variant of PC Hardware as time went on the remaining arcades began to morph into ticket-based mini-games that had little to do with the games of yore it was really sad to see the once Mighty technological showpieces in the arcade relegated to games that honestly were little more than generic time-based affairs with virtually no style or substance when you walk into an arcade today most of the games there look like they belong on your telephone in a way the arcade had been victimized by the very technology that had propped it up for so many years once home Graphics Hardware had gotten to the point where it could do similar levels of quality and became affordable the only alternative for the arcade was to stay way out in front and Cutting Edge a perilous proposition for the developers involved one failed arcade game could have met the end of the entire company with arcades coming to an end high-end PC graphics cards have sort of replaced them as the de facto gaming option if you want the best a game can look and run that's pretty much where you need to be of course I still miss the days where dropping a quarter into a machine at the local 7-Eleven could allow you a few minutes of pure spectacle that simply could not be equaled at home it was a part of my youth I revisit often my memory is still fresh with the family and friends that surrounded me many of them are no longer with me but like the games we all enjoy together they live on in our Nostalgia latent dreams of Good Times past on sigalord X thank you guys for watching and I will catch you next time [Music] foreign [Music]

Channel: Sega Lord X

Views: 159,874

Keywords: retro gaming, genesis, sega lord x, segalordx, sega saturn, sega genesis, sega dreamcast, mega drive, megadrive, game gear, 32x, mega cd, saturn, master system, sega, sega cd, gameplay, review, movies, retro games, video games, ps4, xbox, wii, nintendo, gamecube, n64, ps1, ps2, ps3, psp, vita, switch, atari

Id: vEKo7yqwIJQ

Length: 100min 46sec (6046 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 11 2022