Ports that disappointed you.

[Melbu Frahma]

I recently found a copy of the Descent port for PS1, and bought it on the spot, extremely excited to get it home and try it out. I used to own the original for Windows/Dos, but I let my brother keep it when he moved out of town with his wife, and I figured this'd be an easy way to play the game, without having to get another copy of the original, a decent keyboard and a joystick that the game would support, and figure out how to get it to run in DosBox.

Then I discovered that the graphics were far worse (which I should've realized, really - PS1 port), and there was no support for the DualShock sticks, which made flying really cumbersome and annoying, as well as removing the possibility of buttons for bombs and flare and banking. Overall, just a far less fluid version of the original, that I had trouble enjoying on any level really. Played through the first level, and called it quits.

And it got me to wondering: what other ports have you found to be a mess? I'm not talking so-so, or "eh, should've been better I guess" here, but really, really disappointing.

Edited March 10, 2013 by Melbu Frahma

[PixelPanic]

destroyed my hope in man

[Rexy]

I can't say I played all that many 'ports', but

.

[Garrett Williamson]

Any port that was for the Wii.

If the game was made specifically for the Wii, it may be good. If it was made for the 360, PS3, *and* Wii, though, the Wii port is always the crappiest. I've yet to find a port of a game that is better on the Wii.

Wii was great when it was Zelda or Mario or Metroid.

[Dexie]

Any port that was for the Wii.

If the game was made specifically for the Wii, it may be good. If it was made for the 360, PS3, *and* Wii, though, the Wii port is always the crappiest. I've yet to find a port of a game that is better on the Wii.

Wii was great when it was Zelda or Mario or Metroid.

Resident Evil 4's best version was on the Wii, I felt.

[Brandon Strader]

FF13 (Xbox360) FFX HD

[ad.mixx]

Some ports on the wii werent bad, okami, phantom brave, some of the wiiware games like cave story

I think a newish ff7 port is bad, but i never played either game - the music just sounded horrible.

Edit: i think i actually misunderstood you gmixer. My bad

[Arrow]

Bunch of us were talking about Dracula X for SNES in IRC the other day. As a Castlevania game, it was pretty solid. As a port of Rondo of Blood, it was pretty crummy.

[OceansAndrew]

the PS1 FF4 and CT had bad loads.

bad bad loads.

[zircon]

Same with PS1 FF5/FF6 for that matter...

[ectogemia]

The Genesis port of Zombies Ate My Neighbors always seemed crappy to me.

[Nutritious]

the PS1 FF4 and CT had bad loads.

bad bad loads.

THIS

So frustrating that they screwed this up. Still, I powered through at the time to finish both games.

[Garpocalypse]

The Genesis port of Zombies Ate My Neighbors always seemed crappy to me.

I loved that game! Having never played any other version i can't say any more than that...

The dreamcast port of Omicron was pretty awful but then again the dreamcast had a lot of terrible ports. ABXY for 1st person movement my ass!

Outside of that the Genesis version of Galaxy Force II was horrible. I still loved the game but I wish they would publish the original arcade version on a system I own! I'm hoping to see a cabinet of Galaxy Force II at a future magfest. The one that had a moving cockpit.

Played this one time at Ocean City MD when I was a kid and it was life changing. For a kid. Edited March 10, 2013 by Garpocalypse

[EC2151]

The American version release of the PS1 game RayTracers had removed all the funny, poorly-voiced, stilted dialogue of the

. It really sucks the fun and flavor out of the game to just hear... silence the entire time.

Stuff like that really bugs the hell out of me.

Let's not forget BioMetal on the SNES having its

replaced with 2Unlimited music. Yes, you heard me.

[halc]

The Genesis port of Zombies Ate My Neighbors always seemed crappy to me.

so true, even coming from a sega kid. i always thought it was so stupid that the GUI was all crammed into some black bar that took up 25% of the screen. also i don't remember the music, but it was probably awful compared to the SNES version, which is a fucking masterpiece

[Abadoss]

The N64 port of the Star Wars: Episode I: Pod Racer was crap. The PC port was actually really damn good.

[The Coop]

The Genesis port of Galaxy Force II. The visually intense arcade game was dumbed down to a shadow of its former self. Not surprising, given what the arcade game did (especially in the tunnel sections), but it was still a big let down at the time. I know the Genesis could have done better, at least on the planet stages.

Although, CRI did bring the music over in fine fashion.

[Flash Strife]

Haven't played it myself but Zone of the Enders HD Collection for PS3 is known to have slowdown that wasn't present in the PS2 version, which is terrible for that game since the whole point is HIGH SPEED ROBOT ACTION. Regret pre-ordering it for the most part (got a poster for the pre-order which cushions the blow slightly) especially since I already have the games for PS2.

[PROTO·DOME]

I dunno, Southampton? New York had a pretty terrible port.

Serial? PS/2?

3065? 443? 0's always a let down.

Are these port homonyms doing anything for you?

[lazygecko]

Inferior ports to vastly superior systems tend to be the most noteworthy fuckups. FF Origins for PS1 made the games so, so much worse simply thanks to the addition of loading times.

But the most awful port is a relatively recent one: Mega Man X for iOs. It's actually graphically worse than the SNES original, with sprites having less animation frames and completely lacking parallax background scrolling.

[Doulifée]

The US/Eu port of Ace Combat 3 Electrosphere. no more story branch, anime cutscene etc.

[Rexy]

Any port that was for the Wii.

If the game was made specifically for the Wii, it may be good. If it was made for the 360, PS3, *and* Wii, though, the Wii port is always the crappiest. I've yet to find a port of a game that is better on the Wii.

Apparently, it's been a general opinion amongst fans of Skylanders that the Wii version of Spyro's Adventure was much more presentable on the Wii than the X360/PS3 versions. But I do see what you mean with shoddy Wii variations o.o*

[omnipotentBagel]

Man, I had the exact same experience with the PS1 Descent port. The good news is the PC versions of Descent I and II are available from GoG. And there's a pretty great modding community to modernize the graphics and engine too.

[Melbu Frahma]

Man, I had the exact same experience with the PS1 Descent port. The good news is the PC versions of Descent I and II are available from GoG. And there's a pretty great modding community to modernize the graphics and engine too.

See, I never really felt like the graphics were that bad. TBH, they didn't even look that bad on my 32-inch when I tried the port (and that's the port, too, not the original.) But I have seriously considered getting it for the PC, too. I just don't want to have to find a compatible joystick, and get ahold of a keyboard with a num pad (because I use the num pad for the majority of my flight control.)

This has all got me thinking. I ordered the Magic Carpet PS1 port about two days before I came across the Descent port, and now I'm kind of worried the flight controls on it are going to suck, too. I guess I'll find out when it arrives in a few days.

[Annie Felis]

The FF7 port to PC was a wee bit obnoxious due to how the random battles were not random, and you could literally loop through the same three or four battle setups for a zone over and over. That and a midi soundtrack, which even with the FF7 midi soundfont didn't sound quite right.

Also the Steam port of Divine Divnity, which is too old to play on anything over Direct X 9. I bought the damn thing and it's unplayable due to the interiors of buildings/dungeons being all black. Their solution to the problem was "update your drivers", which I found hilarious because I had just gotten a new video card.