worst shmup ports you ever seen?

BareKnuckleRoo · Post by **BareKnuckleRoo** » Tue May 03, 2022 1:07 am

What exactly is bad, let alone the worst, about the NES port of Parodius Da! ?

Steven · Post by **Steven** » Tue May 03, 2022 1:24 am

It's emulated, not ported, and there is a huge difference between those things, but Cotton Guardian Force Saturn Tribute on Switch.

Rastan78 · Post by **Rastan78** » Tue May 03, 2022 1:41 am

Micronics always comes up eventually in these threads. I found it really ironic to see M2 faithfully port the jank onto modern consoles. K Tiger FC is not without its charms though. At least until the framerate drops to what feels like 3 fps.

Steven · Post by **Steven** » Tue May 03, 2022 2:08 am

Rastan78 wrote:I found it really ironic to see M2 faithfully port the jank onto modern consoles.

lol yes. NES Sky Shark: it looks like a bootleg, sounds like a bootleg, and plays like a bootleg, but it's not a bootleg.

BIL · Post by **BIL** » Tue May 03, 2022 2:15 am

Sumez recently did a very enlightening breakdown of Micronics' 1942 for Famicom. Spoiler: it's shite.

As far as devs with entire catalogues of shite-to-mediocre work go, they must surely rank way up there. FC Tiger does indeed heave itself up and over the bar, reaching their zenith of Tolerable (with bugs). One of the few devs I genuinely dislike, although a little less now that butcherings like Ikari and Dogosoken have lovely ACA emulations. They actually demonstrated the kernels of some good ideas in both of those (I like FC Ikari's knife for CQC kills, and the heli hijacking is neat, prefiguring later, better works by DECO, IREM and Nazca), but it's all a waste when the move/shoot chassis is a heaving 20fps wreck.

The distinction between talentless hacks and genuinely passionate, talented people cannot be more starkly felt than when going from FC Ikari to SNK's in-house FC Guevara, or to a slightly lesser extent, their FC 1942 vs Capcom's 1943: The Battle of Valhalla. I swear it's the STG equivalent of autoerotic asphyxiation. (don't get into that stuff, lads! cf Davey Carradine and Mikey Hutchence, if something goes wrong it's all they'll ever remember you for!

)

Sima Tuna · Post by **Sima Tuna** » Tue May 03, 2022 3:02 am

Some of the NES ports of SNK classic arcade titles are absolutely horrendous.

That said, the most recent Cotton Guardian Force Collection definitely is in the running for worst modern porting jobs, along with those Psikyo ports. Special thanks go out to Zerodiv for providing no fucking training options for Dragon Blaze. The lag isn't even the worst thing about that port. It's the fact you can't do shit to learn the game because the port gives you zero tools.

BareKnuckleRoo · Post by **BareKnuckleRoo** » Tue May 03, 2022 3:27 am

1942 seems to have had a lot of unfortunate ports. It wasn't really the greatest shmup to begin with (the audio is incredibly grating). The C64 version actually isn't all that bad if only because it's arguably got some of the best audio.

I can't think of any truly horrendous ports I've played. I've complained about the Game Gear port/sequel of Halley's Comet, Halley Wars, but really it'd be a good game if not for one unfortunate issue with the movement.

Koa Zo · Post by **Koa Zo** » Tue May 03, 2022 3:37 am

BareKnuckleRoo wrote: the Game Gear port/sequel of Halley's Comet, Halley Wars, but really it'd be a good game if not for one unfortunate issue with the movement.

That's definitely a bad one.
I'd always figured it was just a terrible game and I could never understand why it was ported to the GG in the first place.
It wasn't be until just last year; thanks to the Hamster Arcade Archives thread, that I played the original arcade Halley's Comet - and I got hooked. The original is a great game, I feel like I missed out having never played it in the arcade.

Game Gear's Galaga '91 is also a pretty bad port. I'd rather play SG-1000 Galaga than Galaga '91.

Radirgy PresciouS on PS2 had its problems. Most slowdown I've experienced since the NES days. So much slowdown it was kind of charming.

MidnightWolf · Post by **MidnightWolf** » Tue May 03, 2022 8:59 am

- Donpachi on Sega Saturn was a steaming pile of broken crap.

- Ibara on the Playstation 2 was also hot garbage.

- Akai Katana on Xbox 360 is still £19.99 brand new today on Amazon for a reason, it is an alright port but has terrible accuracy.

- Ketsui on Nintendo DS was a £70 boss rush that i would also like to forget. Possibly the worst pre-order i ever made.

Bassa-Bassa · Post by **Bassa-Bassa** » Tue May 03, 2022 9:25 am

PS2 Ibara was not that bad thanks to the exclusive mode, which indeed is very well regarded. And the broken display can be fixed with a mod. DC Giga Wing, on the other hand...

My vote goes to Detana! Twin Bee on the 32bit machines. Konami were overprotective when they decided not to include a tate mode. It would have been a first for them, as this company avoided the feature like the plague.

Gekirindan on the Saturn was also a shameful port for no reason, as it was Strikers 1945 II and K. Tiger II? My memory is not like it used to.

sunnshine · Post by **sunnshine** » Tue May 03, 2022 10:02 am

I'm old enough to remember (and own!) this-

Spoiler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9Ai0pplAUo

Invisibullets anyone? They're fun, aren't they.

Mero · Post by **Mero** » Tue May 03, 2022 11:34 am

Sakura Flamingo Archives could be a contender for this.

Rastan78 · Post by **Rastan78** » Tue May 03, 2022 1:03 pm

MidnightWolf wrote: - Ibara on the Playstation 2 was also hot garbage.

This is a total exaggeration IMO. Sure the less crispy image quality and missing slowdown are noticable issues, but they shouldn't ruin anyone's ability to play and enjoy the game.

Training mode is also a major bonus of the port.

The PCB does have a rather low contrast look to begin with. Having seen the port and PCB side by side the port really doesn't look that much worse. Softer yes, but hot garbage no way.

As far as the slowdown I think it won't effect routing or anything. If you can play the game well you should be able to switch between versions without too much trouble.

Port is hot garbage yet it was good enough for the arcade WR holder to play?

https://youtu.be/T0Ol7KkwHI4

BareKnuckleRoo · Post by **BareKnuckleRoo** » Tue May 03, 2022 1:10 pm

Rastan78 wrote:
MidnightWolf wrote: - Ibara on the Playstation 2 was also hot garbage.
This is a total exaggeration IMO.

Agreed. The port for Ibara on the PS2 plays fine, and looks quite good. Especially when compared to the Mushihimesama PS2 port which plays decent but has some issues with the visuals.

The original [Halley's Comet] is a great game, I feel like I missed out having never played it in the arcade.

Apparently there's a Famicom port, it looks quite good though I haven't had the chance to invest any time in it.

Vexorg · Post by **Vexorg** » Tue May 03, 2022 5:01 pm

It's been a while since I've played it, but I seem to recall Raiden Trad on SNES being a rather poor port. The Genesis/MD version is fortunately much better.

That said, there seems to be a lot of awful ports of arcade games mostly coming from "shovelware" studios like US Gold and Ocean to platforms like ZX Spectrum, C64, Amiga and BBC Micro, and I'm sure you could find a fair amount of terrible ports among those.

BIL · Post by **BIL** » Tue May 03, 2022 5:26 pm

SFC Raiden was by lovable Micronics and is indeed dishwater dull, though for whatever reason (hardware? experience? new staff?), their 16bit works aren't as arrestingly horrid as their Famicom run. SFC Acrobat Mission and Sonic Wings, and MD Atomic Robokid Special are all relatively presentable, though I know at least Acrobat has some very apparent bugs, so they were by no means totally reformed.

MD Raiden was straight from Seibu themselves, AFAIK - a lovely conversion either way. Funny how it plays more like Raiden's template Kyuukyoku Tiger than KT's own, perversely lovable crash-zoomed 4:3 MD port.

Vexorg · Post by **Vexorg** » Tue May 03, 2022 6:15 pm

Another one that comes to mind: Bio-ship Paladin on MD/Genesis. Can't say if it's just a bad port or a bad game overall, but about the only thing I remember from the Genesis port was ridiculous amounts of slowdown, bordering on being unplayable at times.

Zeether · Post by **Zeether** » Tue May 03, 2022 8:57 pm

- Silpheed on the CoCo (no music, looks dreadful)
- ZX Spectrum Salamander (only 3 stages, invisible bullets on Golem sometimes, Center Core boss you can only kill with missiles??)
- PS1 Viewpoint (awful look, awful soundtrack)
- UN Squadron on Amiga (one word: Tiertex)

pegboy · Post by **pegboy** » Tue May 03, 2022 9:12 pm

Strikers 1945 II PS2.

Post by **BulletMagnet** » Tue May 03, 2022 10:58 pm

Utterly flabbergasted that the back-and-forth here regarding the PS2 has been about Ibara and not Giga Wing Generations.

Bassa-Bassa · Post by **Bassa-Bassa** » Tue May 03, 2022 11:22 pm

Or about anything from these collections:

BrianC · Post by **BrianC** » Wed May 04, 2022 12:42 am

Does Total Carnage count? The Gameboy port of that is terrible. Much of the game is without music and sprites are extremely ugly.

heli · Post by **heli** » Wed May 04, 2022 1:58 pm

I think you can add raiden x mikado PS4 also, i assume the orignal dont lag stutter framerate.

DenimDemon · Post by **DenimDemon** » Wed May 04, 2022 4:15 pm

Raiden on the SNES was a huge disappointment. I still have the cart tough.
Not a bad port but one that traumatised me: UN Squadron on the ZX Spectrum. You had to load every stage, it would take forever and if you died you would need to load the first stage once again. There was a problem with my tape, every time I tried to load stage 3 I would get a loading error. Then needed to reset the game and load it up again. I thinking I’ve spent more time on the loading screen than actually playing it.

WarpZone · Post by **WarpZone** » Wed May 04, 2022 5:22 pm

Not familiar with most of these, but I'll go with R-Type III GBA.

Sturmvogel Prime · Post by **Sturmvogel Prime** » Wed May 04, 2022 6:17 pm

Sky Shark on the NES, the hit detection was horrible, if a bullet was like 2 or 3 pixels away, it counts as a hit, terrible graphics. To put it simple, was too much for the NES to handle.
The Taito Legends 2 ports of G-Darius and RayStorm are also the worst, most of the time you will be loading between levels and even after adding the first credit.
Raiden Trad on the SNES is a bad one with butchered stages and crammed boss fights (Stage 2 boss is a great example), but is not as horrible as the Atari Lynx port which is definitely the worst.

davyK · Post by **davyK** » Wed May 04, 2022 6:40 pm

The Gunbird 1 & 2 disc for PS2 is a low point. I seem to remember it features load times mid level!!!

To add insult to injury it got butchered in PAL. Don't even think it saves high scores.

But - even a game like that can entertain - as annoying as it was.

The biggest sin a game can be accused of isn't inaccuracy - it's being boring.

I remember being horrified by the Defender port on 2600. Flickering. Inaccurate. The ship and bullet shared the same sprite - so when you fired the ship disappeared!!

But...it was entertaining (this was '83). I played the hell out of it.

There's a port of Tokio (aka Scramble Formation) on one of the Taito Legends discs and it is the most ugly, boring generic shooter I have ever played. But I don't know if that's because the arcade game was boring or not so I can't judge how bad a port it is.

Marc · Post by **Marc** » Wed May 04, 2022 7:07 pm

Nemesis on Spectrum has to be up there.

copy-paster · Post by **copy-paster** » Wed May 04, 2022 7:08 pm

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