Games that could have been great

Lyle · Post by **Lyle** » Tue Jul 19, 2005 8:42 am

Playing Varth a few days ago, I came to the conclusion I had never seen a shmup so beautifully ruined by developers. Either Capcom wanted to attempt something new or they just didn't care for the game and botched it up at the end. I find it frustrating as there were basics for a brilliant game. I'm pretty sure it could have been as good as 19xx, perhaps even better.

They obviously spent much time on those gorgeous design and gfx, the sounds are good enough, but the general structure and many levels make the overall experience so bland, and the difficulty is so balanced. Easy, even empty at times, then suddenly insanely hard. To bad, really...

Can you think of other potentially good games that were ruined with as much "talent" ?

Elixir · Post by **Elixir** » Tue Jul 19, 2005 9:34 am

Generally all fighting ports have at least one or two million mistakes.

Marvel vs. Capcom 2 on PS2 is god awful, and the dreamcast version is entirely different.

Guilty Gear XX isn't anything compared to what #Reload is. A good Robot-Ky on GGXX will kill the fuck out of everything, however on #R everything is balanced and nobody can complain. Isuka is also trash.

Capcom vs. SNK 2 isn't worth bothering with on the gamecube.

Street Fighter III: Third Strike isn't worth bothering with on the dreamcast as it has input lag making it horribly annoying to play with. The PS2 anniversary edition doesn't come with 3rd Strike, forcing you to buy the xbox version. Excellent.

I could go on, but alot of arcade games that have been shoved to consoles are rather poor. It's like getting yourself see-through paper and tracing a picture of something, no matter how good it is, it rarely comes close to the original thing.

Herr Schatten · Post by **Herr Schatten** » Tue Jul 19, 2005 10:00 am

X-Out. Lots of very promising ideas, poor execution.

Phelios. Badly balanced and lacklustre in several aspects. At least that's true for the Mega Drive version, don't know whether the arcade one is any better, but I doubt it.

BrianC · Post by **BrianC** » Tue Jul 19, 2005 11:06 am

Elixir wrote:Generally all fighting ports have at least one or two million mistakes.

Marvel vs. Capcom 2 on PS2 is god awful, and the dreamcast version is entirely different.

Guilty Gear XX isn't anything compared to what #Reload is. A good Robot-Ky on GGXX will kill the fuck out of everything, however on #R everything is balanced and nobody can complain. Isuka is also trash.

Capcom vs. SNK 2 isn't worth bothering with on the gamecube.

Street Fighter III: Third Strike isn't worth bothering with on the dreamcast as it has input lag making it horribly annoying to play with. The PS2 anniversary edition doesn't come with 3rd Strike, forcing you to buy the xbox version. Excellent.

I could go on, but alot of arcade games that have been shoved to consoles are rather poor. It's like getting yourself see-through paper and tracing a picture of something, no matter how good it is, it rarely comes close to the original thing.

Umm. The PS2 Street Fighter Anniversary Collection does have Third Strike. It's an excellent port too. No explination for Capcom vs. SNK 2 for the GCN or how the PS2 Marvel vs. Capcom 2 is "entirely different"? If you can't play Capcom vs. SNK 2 GCN with the standard pad, why not play with a fighter stick before judging it? From what I heard, the Xbox version is pretty much the same, but with online, but somehow instantly becomes much better even with the limited online it has?

Elixir · Post by **Elixir** » Tue Jul 19, 2005 11:23 am

Umm. The PS2 Street Fighter Anniversary Collection does have Third Strike.

Wrong.

It's an excellent port too.

Sure, if you can actually lk lk xx super with a PS2 controller. There's only 82374873248 3rd Strike players using Ken, so this is essential. If you can't perform this, there's no point in Ken. Either way. Shoryuken.com users buy the xbox version and usually one of these followed by a saturn controller. The xbox version has xbox live also, which is a nice addition as the entire difficulty of the game becomes predictable.

No explination for Capcom vs. SNK 2 for the GCN or how the PS2 Marvel vs. Capcom 2 is "entirely different"?

Holy fuck.

Allow me to guess this is coming from a guy who has never played Marvel vs. Capcom 2 on PS2? First of all, MvC2 has loading times. It also has horrible sound. The ROM infinite is almost impossible to perform on the PS2 version, although it does happen. All in all, MvC2 for PS2 is horrible. I own both legal copies and can judge by myself.

Glitches taken out
Many good AAA assists had lost invincibility making them suck more
SLOWDOWN
bad graphics
bad sound
soundown causing the pace of the game to suck

La..

If you can't play Capcom vs. SNK 2 GCN with the standard pad, why not play with a fighter stick before judging it?

Why would you do this, when Capcom vs. SNK 2 has xbox live compatabilities on xbox, and if you already have third strike and/or other specific fighting games and controllers for it, what's the point in owning the gamecube version? There's none, at all.

Ord · Post by **Ord** » Tue Jul 19, 2005 11:26 am

I believe the Japanese edition of Street Fighter Anniversary collection DOES have SFIII 3rd Strike.

Elixir · Post by **Elixir** » Tue Jul 19, 2005 11:30 am

And since the majority of people here are from PAL regions, saying that is pretty much insignificant.

BrianC · Post by **BrianC** » Tue Jul 19, 2005 11:42 am

Ord wrote:I believe the Japanese edition of Street Fighter Anniversary collection DOES have SFIII 3rd Strike.

I thought Hyper Street Fighter II and Third Strike were seperate in Japan (doh. Forgot about the later Japanese PS2 collection that I read might have online). I was talking about the US collection. BTW, Elixier, it is possible to state opinions without being negative and using the f word.

IMO, "entirely different" is a poor choice of words. The PS2 version of MvC 2 may not be a good port of the DC or arcade ones, but it is the same game.

Luke_H · Post by **Luke_H** » Tue Jul 19, 2005 11:43 am

Just to add to the discussion; 3rd strike on PS2 is scan-doubled and therefore crap, at least the DC version has a code for true low res. The scan-doubled look is really apparent when using RGB, even the "filters" are useless: actually the game looks better with the filters turned off.

Luke

Post by **Ghegs** » Tue Jul 19, 2005 11:44 am

Elixir wrote:And since the majority of people here are from PAL regions, saying that is pretty much insignificant.

No it's not. Especially since most people on these boards (PAL gamers in particular) frequently import games anyway. And I believe most people here are from USA. I think we did a poll in the old forums which proved this.

ANYWAY, back on topic.

Gaia Seed. Sooo much potential crippled by the lack of difficulty and the regenerating shield. Fix those and it could've been THE horzie shmup on PS1.

chtimi-CLA · Post by **chtimi-CLA** » Tue Jul 19, 2005 11:45 am

Elixir wrote:And since the majority of people here are from PAL regions, saying that is pretty much insignificant.

pff, about 897987 people on this board import.

Ord · Post by **Ord** » Tue Jul 19, 2005 12:00 pm

chtimi wrote:
Elixir wrote:And since the majority of people here are from PAL regions, saying that is pretty much insignificant.
pff, about 897987 people on this board import.

PS2 import is really the only way to go.

Sly Cherry Chunks · Post by **Sly Cherry Chunks** » Tue Jul 19, 2005 12:05 pm

Elixir wrote:All in all, MvC2 for PS2 is horrible. I own both legal copies and can judge by myself.

So do I. I have no idea what you're fussing over.

Elixir · Post by **Elixir** » Tue Jul 19, 2005 12:08 pm

That'd be great if I owned a modchipped PS2, but as I don't, it doesn't matter.

The PS2 version of MvC 2 may not be a good port of the DC or arcade ones, but it is the same game.

This isn't right at all. They aren't the "same game" if they aren't "arcade perfect." It's like this: Dodonpachi on the PS1 has a "slowdown" ability. By pressing R1, it significantly slows the entire framerate down. Now I could go, grab myself a high score, and claim that I 1 cc'd dodonpachi and my points are 84378927489274131238. However, did I obtain it the same was as I would had I of been in the arcade? No, so therefore it is not "arcade perfect."

It doesn't take a genius to discover that a large portion of games, despite how much they are loved, are badly moved to consoles.

Just visit here from time to time and you'll see that the PS2 version is entirely different. After about 80 hours or so of MvC2 spanning over 3 years along with other fighters, I now cannot play the PS2 version due to it being too "different" from the others.

BrianC · Post by **BrianC** » Tue Jul 19, 2005 12:15 pm

Elixir wrote:That'd be great if I owned a modchipped PS2, but as I don't, it doesn't matter.

The PS2 version of MvC 2 may not be a good port of the DC or arcade ones, but it is the same game.
This isn't right at all. They aren't the "same game" if they aren't "arcade perfect." It's like this: Dodonpachi on the PS1 has a "slowdown" ability. By pressing R1, it significantly slows the entire framerate down. Now I could go, grab myself a high score, and claim that I 1 cc'd dodonpachi and my points are 84378927489274131238. However, did I obtain it the same was as I would had I of been in the arcade? No, so therefore it is not "arcade perfect."

It doesn't take a genius to discover that a large portion of games, despite how much they are loved, are badly moved to consoles.

Umm. No reason to be overly technical. I meant same game as in they are both Marvel vs. Capcom 2 with the same characters and stuff like that. I didn't mean that they are the same port wise. I wish I could explain this better.

Post by **Ghegs** » Tue Jul 19, 2005 12:33 pm

Elixir wrote:That'd be great if I owned a modchipped PS2, but as I don't, it doesn't matter.

So your logic is "Since I can't play those games, they are as good as non-existant"?

The ability to have the world revolve around yourself alone must be pretty cool.

Elixir · Post by **Elixir** » Tue Jul 19, 2005 12:59 pm

No, brainless. The xbox version would still be better as it has xbox live capabilities, and the magic box. Like I have stated before, why would you take a fighting game seriously on a PS2 or gamecube controller?

"There's arcade sticks for PS2." don't even say it. That doesn't come into this considering the amount of lag experienced on PS2-"online." It's so bad, it doesn't matter what controller you use.

More to the point, I never said the "PS2 3rd Strike" was a bad port. I never even brought it up. Funny how I'm being blamed for something that was obviously missed by your incoherent reading abilities. My original reply was "The PS2 version doesn't include 3rd Strike" and where I live, it doesn't.

There's little point in denying the obvious. Most if not all of the games I've mentioned are somewhat problematic in one form or another. Hell, I have the backup to prove it.

BUHA · Post by **BUHA** » Tue Jul 19, 2005 1:14 pm

okay, back on topic for me.

Chaos Field could have really been something, but it just ended up being all wrong. It had a ton of potential.

Post by **system11** » Tue Jul 19, 2005 1:29 pm

Elixir wrote:No, brainless. The xbox version would still be better as it has xbox live capabilities, and the magic box. Like I have stated before, why would you take a fighting game seriously on a PS2 or gamecube controller?

Why would you use a lag ridden Magic Box converter when you can now buy 6 button pads for the PS2 AND Xbox? The only fighting games I play now are DOAU (with the default pad) on xbox, and Vampire Savior 2 (on the newly released PS2 pack), using a Saturn controller in VS colours. I bought a Magic Box some time ago for racing games, there was too much lag even for a tightly controlled arcade racer, how you can suffer it on fighting games is beyond me.

As a side note, how about a tiny scrap of respect for the other forum users, even if you disagree with them or they're just plain wrong on something? I'm happy to show you the door if required.

Post by **BulletMagnet** » Tue Jul 19, 2005 1:38 pm

Imo Dimahoo had a ton of potential that it didn't tap...in terms of its concept I absolutely love it, the item collection gimmick is very unique and compelling. However, the game also failed to get some of the basics right, in that the bullets are often hard to see and your firepower often seems inadequate to do very much damage. A "good" shooter which could have been one of the best.

mannerbot · Post by **mannerbot** » Tue Jul 19, 2005 1:47 pm

Elixir is a big dum-dum and should win a ribbon for it. However, he is right about the PS2 port of MvC2 and the GCN port of CvS2 being garbage.

Back to the topic. BulletMagnet, I think Matt might have some words with you if he saw that (Dimahoo is his favorite game)! Anyway, my personal pick would be R-Type Final. Great graphics and presentation but man...

Post by **BulletMagnet** » Tue Jul 19, 2005 1:51 pm

mannerbot wrote:Back to the topic. BulletMagnet, I think Matt might have some words with you if he saw that (Dimahoo is his favorite game)!

Heh, I know I'm rather in the minority when it comes to this game (and many others), but hey, if others enjoy it more than me, more power to 'em. As for Matt, methinks I'll still respectfully keep my position, at least until he shows up at my house demanding his RGB cable back.

Marc · Post by **Marc** » Tue Jul 19, 2005 2:15 pm

Project Snowblind (Xbox) could have been a genuine alternative for those who found Deus Ex a little too in-depth, but falls just short of greatness. There are so many good weapons, but nowhere near enough reason to use them, some bland level design and a few niggles dragging down what could hhave been a real stormer.

Jet Set Radio (DC) - TOO SLOW. Could have been utterly exhilerating, but man, the pace...

Psyvarier 2 (DC) - I want to love this game, I really do. I dig the character design, the explosions, the concept, even the music - which is in a style I normally hate. but it's just too empty, slightly longer levels and some more dense bullet curtains could have raised this to classic level.

Elixir · Post by **Elixir** » Tue Jul 19, 2005 2:52 pm

I'm not being a "dum-dum" over anything. Every single game that I've mentioned is deeply flawed in one aspect or another. If you disagree, I can easily find sources to back up these claims. So instead of telling me I'm wrong, there's the possibility of showing common sense and just admitting that these games are deeply flawed.

Why would you use a lag ridden Magic Box converter when you can now buy 6 button pads for the PS2 AND Xbox? The only fighting games I play now are DOAU (with the default pad) on xbox, and Vampire Savior 2 (on the newly released PS2 pack), using a Saturn controller in VS colours. I bought a Magic Box some time ago for racing games, there was too much lag even for a tightly controlled arcade racer, how you can suffer it on fighting games is beyond me.

Since when do Magic Boxes have lag? I haven't experienced any with a saturn controller, and if you think you're going to get away with playing a fighting game with an xbox S controller you have got to be joking.

Jet Set Radio (DC) - TOO SLOW. Could have been utterly exhilerating, but man, the pace...

They made Jet Set Radio: Future and fixed this.

even if you disagree with them or they're just plain wrong on something?

I apologize. I respect the fact that people are wrong in thinking that the games I have listed(for specific consoles, not game specific) are worth playing. I respect the fact that these people are entirely wrong in playing an arcade port which, if they went to the arcade, would find to be different.

BrianC · Post by **BrianC** » Tue Jul 19, 2005 3:01 pm

Sonic Adventure 2 would have been much better if it wasn't for the searching levels and the poor camera angles.
The GBC Magical Drop could have been so much better if it had all of the modes of the other versions and not just an endless mode for one player.

yojo! · Post by **yojo!** » Tue Jul 19, 2005 3:18 pm

Fixeight could have been the ultimate shooter;aftter outzone, how could they possibily mess it up so badly ?. It is so bad that it malkes me wonder if Toaplan had Acclaim working on it...

Marc · Post by **Marc** » Tue Jul 19, 2005 3:28 pm

Quote:
Jet Set Radio (DC) - TOO SLOW. Could have been utterly exhilerating, but man, the pace...

They made Jet Set Radio: Future and fixed this.

Still far from the pace that a game of that ilk should have been. And they fixed the speed somewhat, but dumbed down the graffiti controls.

Since when do Magic Boxes have lag? I haven't experienced any with a saturn controller, and if you think you're going to get away with playing a fighting game with an xbox S controller you have got to be joking.

Got to say, I've used mine with a DC Arcade Stick, and haven't eexperienced any either. Although I'm not as attuned to stuff like this as others are I guess - I couldn't give a monkey's about the whole fake/true/hi/lo res thing either unless it's a REALLY bad example.

Post by **system11** » Tue Jul 19, 2005 3:31 pm

Elixir wrote: Since when do Magic Boxes have lag? I haven't experienced any with a saturn controller, and if you think you're going to get away with playing a fighting game with an xbox S controller you have got to be joking.

The Magic Box lag was most noticeable with analogue games - although an added annoyance was the deadzone which was completely wrong and led to very twitchy playing. The lag with a PS2 pad on an Xbox was so bad that it put my racing off line badly enough that I had to learn to use the controller S, a hated creation. Another downside of course was with online gaming, as the MB doesn't provide a port for the Live headset. This is a double edged sword, while it turns you into a deaf mute, it also means you don't have to listen to 12 year olds rapping at you.

And it's quite possible to play a fighting game on the controller S, depending on the game. DOAU doesn't rely on very rapid combo dialling, and only uses three buttons (although I picked 4 as two opposites in a diamond formation are hard to press at once). Absolutely hopeless for SF Anniversary though, but that game was plagued with such ridiculous network lag that it really didn't matter.

BrianC · Post by **BrianC** » Tue Jul 19, 2005 3:38 pm

I never disagreed with what was said about the PS2 version of Marvel vs. Capcom 2 except for it being "entirely" different. It IS different from the DC one, but if it was entirely differerent, it would have totally different characters, graphics, etc.

Would someone please explain to me exactly what makes the GCN version of Capcom vs. SNK 2 worse than the Xbox one besides the controller and lack of online? (Edit: I read some reviews and I was wrong about the online being limited) I know that both the Xbox and GCN versions have the same tweaks like the removal of roll canceling and a easy operation mode for beginners.

Back on topic:
I think Puyo Pop GBA, though not bad, would have been much better if it didn't have extremely easy AI. Glad this was fixed in the GBA Puyo Puyo Fever.

As far as shmups go, I think Reflection would have been much better with more levels and less slowdown, but Sister Skain is working on that. Reflex shows huge promise and is already much better than the game it started out as.

Lyle · Post by **Lyle** » Tue Jul 19, 2005 3:41 pm

Sorry, the title of thread wasn't clear enough but it was intended to be about shmups only.