Golden Axe on the Megadrive always impressed me, it's the reason I bought mine when it came out. Really bright colors, moved quickly, the gameplay was the same, I loved it. Not a console port but the Atari ST version of Arkanoid always really impressed me. It felt arcade perfect, looked incredibly similar considering the lack of colors available on the ST and played amazingly.
I basicly agree with you. I would definitally say that most 16-bit console versions of arcade games fall into the same category, even though they offered a big leap in quality and ability to capture the arcade essense than 8-bit versions. many 8-bit arcade games even had to be downgraded on the 16-bit consoles (i.e. Double Dragon and Double Dragon II on MegaDrive). in general, it took a 32-bit home console to match a high quality 16-bit arcade game. yeah me too. Golden Axe for the Megadrive was a very good translation of the incredible arcade version. especially since the arcade was 24 or 28 meg while the Megadrive version was a small 4-meg cart. Forgotten Worlds was also impressive.
if you talking about that one, the SMS version was unbeliveable great as well, concidered to its hardware specs.
Although not technically perfect, the Saturn editions of Daytona USA and Sega Rally both maintained the same addictive playability of their Model 2 source material, therefore qualifying (in my view, at least) for status as amazing arcade ports... even though both were actually conversions and not based directly on the code from the coin-op originals! For a better example on Sega's beloved 32-bit system, how about Athlete Kings or Radiant Silvergun as these both took advantage of the similarities between Saturn and the STV/Titan board for near-flawless domestic recreations?
Well, play-wise they were close - not sure how well Sega Rally 1 did with the wheel though compared to the arcade version. Still, nothing beats a good ride on the olde' Sega Rally 2 cabinet. I wish i had the space and the funds to buy such a unit for my room one day! BTW: was jumbo safari and brave firefighters ever released on the DC? I miss those games
Brave Firefighters and Jambo! Safari were both due to appear along with a conversion of Emergency Call Ambulance on Dreamcast as part of a compilation dubbed the Real Life Career Series. I'm not really sure why this impressive package of arcade titles failed to materialise, though it should be noted that while "Ambulance" and "Jambo" (yes, that is spelled correctly) ran on Model 3 and NAOMI respectively, Brave Firefighters was powered by the later Hikaru platform. Actually, this stop-gap hardware solution was created in the first place specifically for "Firefighters" because the original NAOMI board lacked the ability to produce realistic-looking flame effects, which is why only a handful of games were ever made for it before Sega launched a proper successor. Since the Dreamcast was limited to NAOMI ports, I doubt it would have even managed any Hikaru or NAOMI 2 games - AM2 producer Yu Suzuki confirmed that Virtua Fighter 4 was passed over to the PlayStation 2 after preliminary research concluded that a Dreamcast version would be too compromised graphically for its critically demanding fanbase. Heading back to the subject of the Real Life Career Series for a second, does anybody know if this was ever in development, or could it have just been a concept that never left the planning stages?
I seem to recall some mention on such a compilation. Didn't know they were running on three different platforms however, very nice info, thanks! more on the Hikaru platform: http://www.system16.com/hardware.php?id=724 lying bastards in the greek magazine GAMES (or gamepro?) said Star Wars Episode 1 racer Arcade ran on NAOMI! - and i thought the console version was a port of that - what's the deal?
Sega Saturn Sega Rally was fantastic! System 10/11 or STV ports don't count, as they are basically the exact same hardware. Please read from the intention of the thread. Virtua Fighter 2 on the Saturn was another amazing port/conversion.
The few companies that still print non-standardized arcade boards often write their games in Assembly. I know the Cave IGS games do (presumably all IGS games?) which were a bitch to port. Not many companies do this anymore though. They've all moved on. You would think things like Type-X which are PC based and very, very standardized would be great for arcade and console gaming in general, but nothing could be further from the truth. To date, every Type-X game has looked worse than peanuts in shit. We've only had like 2 pretty Naomi games in the last 3 years as well. IGN reported a Gamecube port of Planet Harriers in the works... and that was about all that was ever heard of it.
Planet Harries from an interview I read with one of the developers never ended up being ported to cube since they found that most players felt the game was "too hard".
Was the music really better than the PC version? The way I remember it they were pretty much the same, but it's been a while since I've played either one. About Planet Harriers - I wonder how close they were to completing it? That's one beta I'd love to see.
What didn't have Mario in it? :lol: The Gamecube was probably the wrong console to port the game to anyway, the Playstation 2 or Xbox would have been much better choices.
Speaking of games on Sega's Hikaru board such as Planet Harriers not making it over to consoles, the game I really wanted was Brave Firefighters. It was supposed to come out on Dreamcast in a compilation along with Emergency Call Ambulance (MODEL 3 Step 2.1) and Jambo! Safari (NAOMI).
