Arcade games that received good ports to the genesis

In some instances the ports actually improved on the original game VASTLY. Prime example Shadow Dancer (a la my name).


Games that I know got good accurate as possible ports I will start it off

Fatal Fury 1, wow, If I would have owned this in the early 90s I probably wouldnt have bought it first for my NeoGeo later in my teen years like I did. Playing my NeoGeo copy then going directly to the Genesis version, it is a phenomenal port of its time and loses no speed if anything it plays faster than the original. 10/10 compared to the rest of the 1993 releases that year. Its even better than Fatal Fury 2 port in my opinion

Strider, wow, awesome game, total arcade experience at home.

Shadow Dancer, a whole new game compared to the arcade one, and a much better one to boot. Bonus levels that give you vertigo and all.

I'm sure you guys got tons of games you can think of

Strider and Shadow Dancer. Also Street Fighter 2, it had bad sounds but that's pretty much all that was wrong with it. Golden Axe too I suppose, it was a good port the original wasn't that good to begin with. Altered Beast was a good port too, the game just sucks whatever version.

Looking at the list of genesis games I typically play there isn't a single arcade port in there.

Truxton is probably the only game where I preferred the Genesis version to the arcade.

Pit fighter was a bad game that got a good port on the Genesis.
Street Fighter II CE was a tremendous port.
Super Street Fighter II wasn't half bad either.
If you can get past the missing audio, the ports of MK I and II were both very good.

^ I have to disagree with your Pit Fighter comment

the arcade game is very good. You must turn down the difficulty only one notch so its not a quarter stealer.

My list of good arcade ports to Genesis/MD:
Strider -> Superb job, almost arcade perfect. Go for the Japanese version, the US one is missing several samples.
Forgotten Wolds -> Another great job, the 2-player mode was a very rare feature at those times...
Ghouls N' Ghosts -> Great job, fantastic soundtrack.
Vapor Trail -> Fantastic soundtrack and 2-player mode maintained.
Aero Blasters -> One of the most overlooked games on MD. Such an awesome job here and so much fun! Arcade superior IMO and 2-player mode!
Golden Axe -> Good port of an average game and 2-player mode maintained.
Altered Beast -> Good port of an average game and 2-player mode maintained.
Super Hang-On -> Commendable early effort, fantastic soundtrack (the game is using everything that the console has in terms of soundchips)... Slow sometimes, but if can do an overclock on you system it becomes perfect.
OutRun -> great music and controls, good graphics and some slowdowns.
After Burner II -> Simplified but still a good port.
Burning Force -> Great conversion by Namco, impressive scaling quality.
Rolling Thunder II -> Another great job by Namco, maintaining the 2-player mode...
MK3 & UMK3 -> very good conversions and some extras... Much faster gameplay compared to the SNES versions...
WWF Wrestlemania Arcade-> Excellent job and far superior to the SNES version.
SF2 CE Plus -> Weak samples, but the rest is great. The Japanese version is the only home port to retain the original introduction intact.
FireShark -> Very faithful port. Based on the original game, not on the special version with 2-player mode, sadly.
Crude Buster -> Butchered backgrounds but far better gameplay and great soundtrack. 2-player mode maintained.
Slap Fight MD -> A whole new freakin' mode with awesome soundtrack.
Rainbow Island Extra -> The original + Extra versions...
Snow Bros. -> Great, great port.
Crack Down -> Watered down, but still great. Co-op mode is very addictive.
E-SWAT-> I like this game, has some unique feeling on it. Clanged for the better.
Shadow Dancer -> Same as above.

Great ports but with the 2-player mode removed:
Truxton
Hellfire
MERCS
Darius II
Chiki Chiki Boys
...

The above + OutRun. Dunno how you forgot that one.

Pit Fighter in the Arcade is the only game that ever made my arms sore after playing it. I really loved that game, but I thought they could have made the sprites larger in the Genesis port, I prefer the Lynx version.

I thought After Burner II was a competent adaptation for the time, but I'll play pretty much anything After Burner. That game is why I am a gamer.

Shadow Dancer and E-Swat are basically better games on the Genesis. Rolling Thunder 2 is way closer to being Arcade perfect than Strider or Ghouls N Ghosts are. I thought Golden Axe was a bad adaptation back in the day, now I like it fine.

The Punisher and Captain America and the Avengers are good and disappointing in different ways. Growl is good if you don't mind the single player only nonsense. Sunset Riders might as well be a prequel.

Hard Driven' and Race Driven' are about as good as can be expected, better than the SNES handled them anyway.

I was kind of let down by the job done on Crack Down back in the day, but man do I love that game.

Oh and scaling sprites or no I insist that Super Monaco GP is the best racer of that generation.

Ironically, the MD port of After Burner II is technically the worst of all, completely missing the intermission landing scenes. All the other console ports seem to have them, even the NES ports (and don't get me started on the PCE port, that's ridiculously accurate for the most part).

Also nobody's gonna mention Rainbow Island or Slap Fight? Those are definitely accurate ports and both received a special mode with updated graphics and sound =P

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Originally Posted by Olls

The above + OutRun. Dunno how you forgot that one.

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Me too! Fixed. ;)

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Originally Posted by sheath

Pit Fighter in the Arcade is the only game that ever made my arms sore after playing it. I really loved that game, but I thought they could have made the sprites larger in the Genesis port, I prefer the Lynx version.

I thought After Burner II was a competent adaptation for the time, but I'll play pretty much anything After Burner. That game is why I am a gamer.

Shadow Dancer and E-Swat are basically better games on the Genesis. Rolling Thunder 2 is way closer to being Arcade perfect than Strider or Ghouls N Ghosts are. I thought Golden Axe was a bad adaptation back in the day, now I like it fine.

The Punisher and Captain America and the Avengers are good and disappointing in different ways. Growl is good if you don't mind the single player only nonsense. Sunset Riders might as well be a prequel.

Hard Driven' and Race Driven' are about as good as can be expected, better than the SNES handled them anyway.

I was kind of let down by the job done on Crack Down back in the day, but man do I love that game.

Oh and scaling sprites or no I insist that Super Monaco GP is the best racer of that generation.

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How come? The Japanese Strider on MD is only missing the narration samples in the cutscenes and the other level of parallax (some color too, of course, but it was a great job).

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Originally Posted by Sik

Ironically, the MD port of After Burner II is technically the worst of all, completely missing the intermission landing scenes. All the other console ports seem to have them, even the NES ports (and don't get me started on the PCE port, that's ridiculously accurate for the most part).

Also nobody's gonna mention Rainbow Island or Slap Fight? Those are definitely accurate ports and both received a special mode with updated graphics and sound =P

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After Burner II plays great on MD. Compare it with Space Harrier or Super Thunder Blade ports...
Rainbow Island has a flicker fest with the updated graphics. But both this and Slap Fight MD are good ports.
Snow Bros. is better than Rainbow Island IMO.
I forgot about Aero Blasters too. Awesome job there.

List updated and fixed.

In my opinion there were none because there was always too much stuff missing that I noticed. Golden Axe kinda made up for it by adding an extra level.

I thought Marble Madness and Paperboy were close but to be honest its not too difficult to emulate MM on most systems and it still remains one of the most frustrating games i have ever played :mad:,i also enjoyed Golden Axe,Strider,Alien Storm and Outrun as i though they were close.Some shooters were pretty close converstions too like Master Of Weapon which i enjoyed and Air Buster (Blaster) was a real good looking game,a few other shooters were close like Zero Wing and Hellfire,they seemed to be slightly lacking a few things though such as the purple gas type formations in the background at the start of LvL1 on Hellfire in the arcade were replaced with just a starfield on the MD version.

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Originally Posted by agostinhobaroners

How come? The Japanese Strider on MD is only missing the narration samples in the cutscenes and the other level of parallax (some color too, of course, but it was a great job).

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I'm not calling Strider or Ghouls N Ghosts bad adaptations by any means, I've just found Rolling Thunder 2 to be even more similar to the Arcade original.

Mercs, it has a new genesis only arranged mode that can be selected. Also Midnight Resistance let's you select contra style controls to play it with.

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Originally Posted by agostinhobaroners

After Burner II plays great on MD. Compare it with Space Harrier or Super Thunder Blade ports...

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Yes, but it's still the worst of the console ports (EDIT: well, not worst (NES ports are worse) but definitely the laziest). Also, technically they didn't port Space Harrier, they made a new game =P And Super Thunder Blade has a different name because of the massive tweaking going on for the levels (they removed the initial part where you see from the top of the helicopter but IIRC they added more stuff later in the levels to compensate).

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Originally Posted by agostinhobaroners

Rainbow Island has a flicker fest with the updated graphics.

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That's because for whatever reason they tried to use the same kind of algorithm used in third generation consoles (where flickering is practically needed because of the ridiculously tight sprite limits). The game really didn't need it as sprite overflow is really rare (does it even happen?).

EDIT: unless you mean playing in the special mode, I usually just play in the original mode >.>