Double Take: The Punisher

Marvel's brooding vigilante, the Punisher, has been striking fear into the hearts of criminals for more than three decades. After making the rounds in arcades via a stellar Capcom beat-'em-up, Frank Castle blasted his way onto the Genesis. The port has always been a title of controversy, due to how watered down it is, but there's a large portion of the Genesis community that loves it. We reviewed it a while ago, and now staff writer Christian Matozzo takes another look at the game in the latest installment of our Double Take series. Read the full article and lock and load!

Hey dude! Capcom didn't create Castlevania Bloodlines.

Whoops! Did I write that? That should be TMNT: The Hyperstone Heist, haha. Sorry!

Konami again. You were probably thinking about Ghouls 'n Ghosts but that was ported by Sega.

Capcom did SSF2, Megaman: Wily Wars, Circus Mystery and Slam Masters (which was developed in Japan but released only in Europe and the US).

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Originally Posted by Christuserloeser

Konami again. You were probably thinking about Ghouls 'n Ghosts but that was ported by Sega.

Capcom did SSF2, Megaman: Wily Wars, Circus Mystery and Slam Masters (which was developed in Japan but released only in Europe and the US).

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Geez, what am I saying? Haha! That's right, Ghouls N' Ghosts was Capcom. SSF2 wouldn't be a very good example though, haha!

TMNT was Konami too.

capcom never seemed to make crap at least on the genesis
(ok strider retarns blew)

i thought it(punisher) was as good as the arcade

loved their mickey game

this game isn't that 'easy' near the end..this is a hardcore beat'em'up that deserves more 'props' than it got in the article.

I don't think this article was necessary. If the author didn't like the game he should have just commented on it in the review (which was referenced but wasn't linked to in the article :?). This whole thing reeks of a personal rant attempting to discredit the previous opinions of others. It should have been a forum thread rather than an article. The blurb at the end about it still being "fun" tries to make it look like the game was given a fair shake, but the whole thing was obviously biased. I think a better choice for the article would have been a strict comparison to the arcade game without the reference to the review and reader comments.

I'm pretty sure I read somewhere else that this port was outsourced, and not handled by Capcom internally?

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Originally Posted by bohokii

capcom never seemed to make crap at least on the genesis
(ok strider retarns blew)

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Strider Returns wasn't Capcom. You can wholeheartedly blame TierTex and U.S. Gold for that abortion.

Capcom can't really get credit for the Genesis versions of Ghouls 'N Ghosts, Strider, Forgotten Worlds, MERCS, or any other early release either. Those were licensed and ported by Sega. Capcom didn't do the programming for those on the Genesis.

That basically leaves the four titles christuserloeser mentioned (along with SFII: SCE) as the company's only output on the Genesis. It was definitely more SNES-friendly.

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Originally Posted by GeckoYamori

I'm pretty sure I read somewhere else that this port was outsourced, and not handled by Capcom internally?

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This port was done by Sculptured Software. More evidence of just how little Capcom thought of the Genesis. It didn't even bother to port the game itself.

It's telling that other companies have more Capcom releases on the Genesis than Capcom itself.

ARRGH! See, this is exactly what I've been saying, whenever I say a game is mediocre for being a bad port, (Strider/MK2 for instance) I get slammed because it's still a good game overall, but when I defend games like the Punisher, suddenly everyone else wants to slam it for being a bad port, regardless of how enjoyable the game is. When I bash MK2, I say how they left out so many sprites and made the controls awkward, but everyone says "it's worth it to have it on a home console," but when I say the EXACT SAME THING about Punisher, they say it's a shitty game because it's a bad port. WTF PEOPLE! BLARG!

Yeah the game was nothing like the arcade. But when this game came out I was an 11 or 12 year old gamer and was just happy to have this on the Genesis. I'm more inclined to agree with the original reviews.
I will agree that its too expensive on the used market.

It's definitely a mediocre port. Despite this, it's still an above average beat 'em up on the Genesis. I just wish Capcom had done the port. That would have been incredible.

I pretty much can't stand anything that Capcom does, but I can honestly say that I enjoy this game quite a bit. It's not perfect, but the overall experience is fun.

Any idea why this game is so darn expensive? I've bid on it a couple of times, but it always ends up past $25.

I don't know why it's so expensive either. To be honest it's not even that overly rare, just uncommon. I'm glad I only paid a buck for my boxed copy because it's a lazy port.

It's probably gone up in price within the past decade because of the resurgence of popularity in Marvel Comics' properties with all of the movies and such, including the 2004Punisher movie.

Interesting note: due to lower-than-expected sales of their carts during 1994 (*coughSSF2cough*), Capcom produced low print runs for the remaining 16-Bit titles they had to release in 1995-1996. "The Punisher" was Capcom's last Genesis release in early 1995, so this makes sense. The titles that suffered the most from Capcom's downsizing and restructuring during 1995 were Mega Man X2, 7, and X3 IMO, which were pretty expensive upon release (read in an article of a circa-Spring '96 issue of GamePro, which talked about an increase in game cart prices due to publishers lowering their print runs as a result of declining sales, that MMX3 was $74.99 MSRP) and difficult to find soon after release. I remember my pops paying $30 for used copies of MMX2 & X3 each back in 1998. And they were always expensive as hell on FuncoLand price sheets too. (Then again, the worthless proprietary C4 chip in both games may have been a factor that prevented their re-printing, which MMX1 enjoyed courtesy of Majesco)

I remember getting a CIB copy of Punisher for no more than $15 at a local, now-defunct chain store. *sniff sniff*, I miss Record Explosion, got so many cheap CIB Genesis games there during my second stint of Genesis fanaticism in '01.......

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Originally Posted by Melf

Strider Returns wasn't Capcom. You can wholeheartedly blame TierTex and U.S. Gold for that abortion.

Capcom can't really get credit for the Genesis versions of Ghouls 'N Ghosts, Strider, Forgotten Worlds, MERCS, or any other early release either. Those were licensed and ported by Sega. Capcom didn't do the programming for those on the Genesis.

That basically leaves the four titles christuserloeser mentioned (along with SFII: SCE) as the company's only output on the Genesis. It was definitely more SNES-friendly.



This port was done by Sculptured Software. More evidence of just how little Capcom thought of the Genesis. It didn't even bother to port the game itself.

It's telling that other companies have more Capcom releases on the Genesis than Capcom itself.

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Kind of Ironic, given that they were one of the very few third party developers to fully support the Saturn(several high quality arcade ports, not to mention Mega Man 8 was intended to be exclusive, and they even bothered to port Resident Evil over). Even better support of the Dreamcast, where as if Konami would have thrown the DC a Metal Gear/Contra/Castlevania bone(opposed to the garbage shovelware they dumped on the poor system) they would've pitched in and done their part to help the Dreamcast stay on the market for a few more years.

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Originally Posted by shinobimusashi

Kind of Ironic, given that they were one of the very few third party developers to fully support the Saturn(several high quality arcade ports, not to mention Mega Man 8 was intended to be exclusive, and they even bothered to port Resident Evil over). Even better support of the Dreamcast, where as if Konami would have thrown the DC a Metal Gear/Contra/Castlevania bone(opposed to the garbage shovelware they dumped on the poor system) they would've pitched in and done their part to help the Dreamcast stay on the market for a few more years.

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I think the increased partnership between Sega and Capcom after the 16-Bit era was due to several factors.

The N64 was late in coming, so Capcom jumped aboard the already available PS1 & Saturn, considering they had virtually done everything they could with 16-Bit technology (which was no longer capable of handling ports from their then-new CPS2 arcade hardware). Plus the Mega Drive was unpopular and bombed in Japan, while Saturn held promise (and indeed developed a cult following in Japan) and Sega went far to court third-parties, as did Sony with PS1.

Nintendo's announcement that the N64 would be cart-based may have similarly turned off Capcom as it did Square. Developers were gnawing at the bit to ditch the expensive cart format by 1995.

The 2D power of the Saturn over the PS1, as well as it's expansion capabilities (4MB RAM cart) made it the 32-Bit home for Capcom's best arcade ports. Sony (both Japanese and American divisions) being unfriendly towards 2D may have fueled this. And it just got better from there with Dreamcast, as Capcom adopted the NAOMI tech after maxing out their CPS2 board.

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Originally Posted by Melf

Any idea why this game is so darn expensive? I've bid on it a couple of times, but it always ends up past $25.

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Oh to be a Sega Genesis collector. That is laughably cheap compared to the PAL vesion :(

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Originally Posted by old man

I don't think this article was necessary. If the author didn't like the game he should have just commented on it in the review (which was referenced but wasn't linked to in the article :?). This whole thing reeks of a personal rant attempting to discredit the previous opinions of others. It should have been a forum thread rather than an article. The blurb at the end about it still being "fun" tries to make it look like the game was given a fair shake, but the whole thing was obviously biased. I think a better choice for the article would have been a strict comparison to the arcade game without the reference to the review and reader comments.

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Your argument is kind of weird here, as there really is no such thing as an unbiased Opinion. Every review is biased, you see. In the world of entertainment, there isn't the fact of "Good" or "Bad", simply "Generally Considered" Good or Bad. It's all the opinion of the person.

It's average at best. Not "Death and Return of Superman" dull, but definitely not "Streets of Rage 2" fun. It's a silly middle.

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Originally Posted by Baloo

Your argument is kind of weird here, as there really is no such thing as an unbiased Opinion. Every review is biased, you see. In the world of entertainment, there isn't the fact of "Good" or "Bad", simply "Generally Considered" Good or Bad. It's all the opinion of the person.

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Sorry, I wrote that in kind of a hurry. I realize you can't have an unbiased opinion. I felt like the article would have been better, though, if you had left out condescending stuff towards the review, and wrote more about the differences with the arcade game. Your description of the game and it's problems was good, but I would have liked to have known how it matched up to the original.

The game is extremely fun that's what matters

It is the 2nd best beat em up on the Genesis after SOR 2 (Heck this game is in the top 5 combining Snes/Genesis Beat Em Ups)

This game has disappointing graphics kind of like SOR 3 does and a lot of Genesis games

People just can't get over how good the arcade looked, if this was not an arcade port and a stand alone game it would be considered a classic.

I am clearly a fan Nick Fury = GOAT

i agree with you cowboyscowboys
it's really fun, and no matter how different it is from the arcade version, it is still better than a majority of the beat em ups on the genesis.
it isnt a 10/10 game but its still pretty good

This is a strange coincidence - never been a fan of this character but a few days ago I decided to get some TPBs of Punisher comics by Garth Ennis (a good read, highly recommended). And now I see a feature about The Punisher in sega 16! :)

This is a very hardcore game - I managed to finish it only once in normal mode, many-many years ago. It's not as easy as this review describes, maybe only the first levels. I still have my copy despite I haven't played it for ages, I really like the boxart. For $1 this game is worth having for its pretty box LOL.

http://img573.imageshack.us/img573/4...rmegadrive.png

I'd love to see the original arcade game released in Playstation Network/Xbox Live etc, it's one of the best and most fun clones of Final Fight.

His face on the box art never fails to make me laugh

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Originally Posted by cowboyscowboys

The game is extremely fun that's what matters

It is the 2nd best beat em up on the Genesis after SOR 2 (Heck this game is in the top 5 combining Snes/Genesis Beat Em Ups)

This game has disappointing graphics kind of like SOR 3 does and a lot of Genesis games

People just can't get over how good the arcade looked, if this was not an arcade port and a stand alone game it would be considered a classic.

I am clearly a fan Nick Fury = GOAT

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Originally Posted by snotmaw

i agree with you cowboyscowboys
it's really fun, and no matter how different it is from the arcade version, it is still better than a majority of the beat em ups on the genesis.
it isnt a 10/10 game but its still pretty good

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/thread

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Originally Posted by Melf

We reviewed it a while ago,

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Janus is not active since 2006, any way to contact him ? I want to ask if I can use part of his review in a repro cover.