Battle of the Ports Remastered- Ghouls'n Ghosts (大魔界村) Show 434 - 60fps 

We forgive you Mark. We are people of tolerance and mercy.

That's what happens when you have a lot of games in your collection, I feel your pain.

Mistakes happen to you.

Lol, so very true. It becomes a blurred mountain.

Mistakes happen to all who are under a deadline 😉

In the 80s and 90s my friends and I would talk about games that were _conversions._ If games used at least some code they were ports. I still use this terminology but the word 'port' is now so widespread that I think it's a bit like recovering, for example, 'decimate' to mean to reduce by one tenth, and numerous other words that get used wrongly then become widely accepted. After more than 400 episodes of Battle of the Ports, I don't think the series will get a new name. Hmm... how about it, Mark - 'Battle of the Ports and Conversions'?

Fair comment. We too used to say “arcade conversions”. Hadn’t seen this channel before. Can’t expect Liverpool vs . Felixstowe or Ruby vs. Tawny.

Wow, cool. Thanks for posting a comment. I do like how well the speccy version plays. Sure, it's slightly different in level design but what is important is the playability. I wonder, was it not possible to add music? The title track by Tim was very good. I guess CPU cycles and memory would be an issue. I do agree about not calling these games (in most cases) ports. I only use the term as it's easy to understand for the everyday viewer. They're more conversions I'd say. But yeah, cheers for posting! 👍

Lol, I know just what you mean. Yeah, the true term is conversion but as you said, the word port is now used for all versions of a game. Kind of how every in development build of a game is now a beta even though that's not correct most of the time.

True, once a word enters the mainstream its meaning gets almost invariably distorted. Beta is a great example, it's actually a very late stage of development when only bug fixes remains to be done but every one (even devs, which is infuriating but it's usually the marketing guys who do (they are probably responsible for the vast majority of meaning distortion moreover)) uses the word to mean in-development. It's actually probably Google who started distorting Beta by associating it with a product (Gmail) which was not feature complete.

It was one of the best ports available for quite a while.

Damn.... Finally!!! I've been waiting for someone to do a remake of that game without the 5 meg limitation. That's awesome!!!

Indeed,!

i would choose better audio, graphics, music, sound, visuals instead of unlimited continues

I commend you on getting that far.

As long as you enjoyed it, that's all that matters. Especially when you didn't have another option. I loved plenty of crappy Saturn ports for example.

@@RetroCore at the time, I really enjoyed the Atari 2600 versions of Defender, Kanagro and Battlezoone, having never played the Arcade versions, Atari 800 Thrust (the worst version going), having never seen the C64 version. Sometimes i miss the innocence of just being able to play a game because I didn't know any different.

I never played it on Amiga, but on emulator years after. I enjoyed the near arcade perfect Ghost'n'Goblins, but when I finally played this port I only saw U.S.Gold bullshit so bad as 8bit computers versions. A very awful port for a most capable system, a usual eith most arcade ports, specialy the ones managed by U.S.Gold

@@RetroCore That's why I fondly remember the 2600 port of Pac-Man. that was literally the only way I could play the game.

@@SomeOrangeCat I had the Apple II port of Pac-Man (on a green monochrome monitor, no less). No way was I having an arcade at home, so, as a kid, I was pretty content with it.

The first Ghosts n Goblins game was made in Capcom's second year they first made games. It was bound to be a little rough, but what impressed me was how good it turned out despite inexperience. I've seen worse arcade games like it.

Yep, pure ports. I don't think either of those consoles were powerful enough to emulate CPS1 games.

Yep. I would recommend the MASTER System version as a beginners start to the game.

On a technical level I have never liked the Spectrum, just too many compromises and Z80 processor nope. However I can overlook any system when I see a good game, and there were many great games that came out on the Speccy. I bought one, played what I wanted then sold it. It was a brief but good time.

That's both genius and bloody masochistic insanity....kind of like the game itself.

That really paid off too. The Speccy version is quite good.

You're very welcome on the Japanese pronunciation 👍

I can believe it. Whatever its capabilities were on paper, I wish people like that lots of enjoyment playing those hypothetical games that achieve such quality.

@@ravagingwolverine Look at Agony and Shadow of the Beast. Also, No Second Prize. It's a wildly varying standard of quality (Shadow is quite terrible to actually play), but it should give you an idea of why some people might be tricked into thinking the Amiga is more powerful than it is. If you knew what you were doing, and you had the time and resources to actually do it, then you could blow away what consoles were doing at the exact same time... In the same way it would be impossible for the SNES to handle Alien Soldier and the Genesis to pull off Super Mario RPG without a ton of compromises. Or for the Amiga 500 to get a port of Super Street Fighter 2 that can compare to either. Every platform had carefully chosen strengths and weaknesses. Even the Neo Geo library had to fake sprite scaling (It could only reduce them, unlike the Lynx and Sega CD) or background tiles. (they're all made of sprites, which is why it avoids layers of parallax whenever possible.)

@@juststatedtheobvious9633 i think it's the sprite issue that doomed amiga arcade ports. just 8 hardware sprites compared to so many more on the megadrive and snes. and i owned all 3 machines, used my amiga for octamed etc, i knew where the best games were.

Lol, that's Amiga fanboys for you. They always have an excuse for a shitty port. It really amuses me as Atari ST fans never try to defend shitty ports. Of course, the Amiga has a lot of good games that aren't arcade ports but the truth is that most arcade ports suck on the Amiga and ST. There are a few impressive ones though such as the Titles Ocean France ported.

Nice, that was quite some time ago.

Chris Butler was great.

I wonder how his port would have turned out. I think it would have been much better than what was released.

Damn, talk about tough luck for C64 owners. This said, anyone leaving the trash pit that is US Gold needs to be applauded and thanked so I am happy Chris Butler left for hopefully better pastures. If only all competent devs had refused to work for US Gold where their skills and efforts were squandered the gaming world would have been a much better place. 😉

Thanks. I plan to eventually remaster all the old episodes that have no voiceover.

Yeah, it's a nice entry level version of the game I think.

Thanks for watching.

For me it is the opposite. The super g'n'g is the only version I ever managed to finish without cheats.

Yeah you should try the SNES version again... with the slowdowns you can actually beat the game completely without cheating per se... however there is a rom hack that removed the slowdowns in Gradius III and Super Ghosts n Ghouls for Super Nintendo which you can try out with a SD2SNES SD Card Cartridge instead of the rip off ever drive by the Russian dude.

I find that one to be the easiest of the first 3 games.

The first stage is indeed beautiful. As is the second section to stage 2.

Yep, you can wear that hardcore badge with pride. The NES Ghost'n Goblins is a tough one.

The ST version was bad but the Amiga version was the worst. You'll notice that all the footage is from stage 1. The lag is so bad that I couldn't get past stage 1. I should have played the Amiga version first so my brain wasn't expecting sharp controls. Of course, the Amiga version is so laggy simply because its a ST port.

It sure was an impressive port at the time. It made the Mega Drive version look quite lame.

Oh man, I know what that is like. Nagging none stop.

Thank you for watching.

It sure is.

Wow, interesting trivia about the Saturn's music. I need to go back and check that out.

@@RetroCore you will notice in stage 3, 4, 5 and the ending after defeating Lucifer.

Ooh, I hate it when thag happens. I normally just kill myself to avoid getting the other weapon. But at times that isn't possible as well.

Thanks Kevin. Glad you enjoyed the video.

Phantasy Star 2 & 3 and Kirby's Adventure also used 6Mbits as well

It is a very odd size but not totally uncommon. You are right though. Games at that time were 2, 4, 8, 12 and 16mbit. Then came 24 and 32. I think Super Street Fighter 2 on the Mega Drive was the largest official game at 64mbit.

Same here. The remake looks amazing.

Thanks.

No, not extractly the same ay. pitch is quite different between Amstrad and Spectrum. Tunes and SFX would sound wrong if do not modificed it, etc the mhz speed. Amstrad has a much lower pitch when compared to Spectrum example.

@@spacefractal Yes of course, it's not exactly the same frequency. But it's a detail clearly as with just some adjustments, Spectrum musics can be played on CPC and vice versa. So what I'm saying here is that when you have AY music on Spectrum, it's a shame you don't have the same on CPC as it was really easy to convert it.

Thanks!

I think the channel was always Retro Core (before that it had no name) but I did used to host my Segagaga Domain videos on RU-vid.

Nothing wrong with that. It's a tough one. You'll see I was also playing in practice mode for parts of the game.

Thanks!

Sadly I have no idea how to play that game. Maybe n the future. I'll add it to the to do list.

@@RetroCore it’s very simple even for someone who has never played a strategy game.

I'd like to see that. The C64 version is the worst of the bunch.

I think the Irem name is just a licensing thing. For example, Nintendo got a licence to distribute R-Type arcade cabinets, so some R-Type machines have the Nintendo logo, Data East got a licence for Commando, etc, so you sometimes saw other companies' names mentioned even if there was no direct involvement.

@@videogamebookreviews OK cool. I just don't remember seeing the Irem name when I played the C64 version back in the day

Will do in the future 👍

Very true but I wonder how the original would have turned out had there been no memory issues. The port of Strider shows us that the MD could compete with the CPS1.

Yep, it would be the PlayStation version. Makes sense since PlayStation games run natively on the PS2.

I sure couldn't.

Sure. I don't think the tunes are bad, just not suitable for the game.

It is. I just wish it was included during the game. Asking a bit much I guess.

Anyone who thinks the 32x was bad, should really look into the Supergrafx and 64DD. Sega went above and beyond to reward loyal Genesis fans, by comparison.

@Benjamin Jagun Virtua Fighter, Virtua Racing, Space Harrier, and Afterburner, sure. But which one's your fifth? Because apparently, people get really passionate about which of the remaining games they also consider good. NBA Jam: TE fans especially, insist that a super zoomed in camera improves the game by making it harder to see your team mates and plan an effective route. I ward them off with a copy of Sensible Soccer wrapped around my neck.

@Benjamin Jagun There's a homebrew restoration that fixes all of these and improves the frame rate. I'm not sure why you'd want it, considering how easy it is to find a good version of Doom, but I can't really talk when I consider every version of Virtua Fighter and Samurai Shodown a must own.

Yeah, surprisingly the ZX Spectrum version plays really well. After the poor C64 and not so great CPC version, I expected the worst but no, it is a good game. Controls very well.

It sure was. All this extra hardware and then they only go and release 5 games. Crazy! NEC lost the plot after the PC Engine was released.

@@RetroCore Effectively they just added 1 parallax layer. Woot?

Thanks for watching. That was a nice coincidence that you were thinking of a remastered video then it shows up :)

Thanks for watching. That was a nice coincidence that you were thinking of a remastered video then it shows up :)

It is a shame that the MD version suffered due to a lack of memory.

Thanks!

Ah, this is so true.

Back in the day, Amiga developers often had to recreate arcade games from scratch by literally buying a cabinet, sticking it in the office, and eyeballing it and remaking it by hand/ear. Japanese publishers would give them the rights to do it, but they would refuse to offer any other help - which meant no assets, no source code, no music charts etc. The british teams would also often only get a couple of months to do it, and the teams were pathetically small, and then the publisher would ship the game in time for xmas if it was ready or not.

@@stevenuss1482 I understand, but that's hardly an excuse for games that control bad or move choppily like this one. They would have been bad games even if they weren't ports. Sure many UK devs worked on crunch conditions on these games and don't have to be blamed 100% but still these ports will go down in history as embarassing to say the least. Also, while the Amiga/ST and other micros were plagued by piracy these licensed titles would still sell well and make a lot of money due to name recognition. E. g. there is a disproportionate amount of copies of Amiga Street Fighters II around (compared to other better games and what it should have actually deserved to sell). Big UK publishers were still making millions until the end of the 16-bit era, so I don't really think these lazy cash grab jobs should get a free pass. And this is coming from someone who likes a lot of Amiga games and doesn't have any problem with the European style of action games, like euro-shmups or euro-platformers. So it's not like I inherently despise European developers.

Building a game from scratch does not excuse crappy graphics, frame rate, laggy controls or half sized gameplay window. Sure, having the source code is very helpful in speeding up development time and graphic ripping (maybe). This is just a shoddily made game on the Amiga and ST. Be that the fault of poorly skilled developers, tight development window or small team. That's just how arcade game ports in the West were made at the time. The publisher didn't care for quality.

Saturn version surprisingly has longer load times than the PS1 version, you even get a nice Now Loading screen between levels not present on the PS1 version.

Ah, that's probably from some remix game music site that I can't remember now OCMix or something like that.

@@RetroCore Oh. Thanks for telling me.

Considering Final Fight isn't arcade perfect, I'm going to guess there was still some work to be done adapting the game for consumers using the base level system without further purchases? Also, how large was the potential audience vs. the major consoles?

@@juststatedtheobvious9633 From what I've heard the x68000 was like the Rolls-Royce of computers in its day. Even the base model cost several thousand yen so unless you made a lot a money or had rich parents it wasn't likely you'd run into one in person. Not sure which kind of computer was most common in Japan at the time though. I kinda miss having unique computer architecture.

@@NotaPizzaGRL It's fair to compare the situation to the Neo Geo, from the analysis I've seen. The software wasn't as expensive, but it was still given the prestige treatment and you were expected to pay more than you would for a cartridge ROM. But technology didn't wait for anyone, and roughly 7 years after it launched, consoles had passed what it could offer. Could this have then been a situation similar to the Vita, where a high cost of entry (those memory sticks were insane) and a high level of quality, compared to the competition when it entered the market, filters for a loyal niche' audience that eagerly awaits anything they can get? Perhaps Capcom's delay in creating these seemingly easy ports was just a quick cash grab? A "We know there's not a lot of competition for your money right now. Check this out!" Or perhaps, setting cynicism aside for a few moments, this was just a thank you to the community? From x68000 fans for x68000 fans. Maybe it didn't matter whether it made them much of a return, since it probably didn't cost them much to create in the first place...?

We can't. There's no public rom as of yet. The video I showed was form aMaru's RU-vid channel.

That's an interesting idea.

Sorry, English or Japanese only. But yes, Ghost'n Goblins is next.

@@RetroCore Can't wait. And if I'm not mistaken, there are three versions I wanna see featured on the video: one on the PSP as Ultimate Ghosts 'n Goblins, one on the WonderSwan as Makaimura for WonderSwan, and one on the PS4 (since you have one) as Ghosts 'n Goblins Resurrection.

The P4 game I don't have do that can't be featured I'm afraid unless someone csn share video of it.

Yep, it is really dumb that the 2nd button was never really made use of. Only a very select few games actually used it. Such a shame.

Must be based upon something but I was playing the Japanese arcade so I don't think it's that.

It should be, it's arcade emulation 👍

Yep. They're secret brothers.

No worries. I dont mind Atari ST defenders. It's the Amiga ones that drive me nuts 😁

🤣

The Saturn is king!

God bless Tim Follin. I miss him.

Fair enough but maybe adding his own tracks as bonus tracks would have been better? I wonder what he would do now if given the same game to compose for?

I think what was acceptable back then is often looked over. Or there maybe two versions like Ghost'n Goblins. I believe that had a US and UK release.

ZZAP were probably good mates with the publisher. Also It still has an incredibly high user score on Lemon64 too, they are insane.

Some money or favours exchanged hands for sure!.

@@RetroCore As someone who enjoyed the C64 port, I can see it getting a pretty good score. Especially if you don't want to admit how fast you died without a trainer. But yeah, anything that high was paid for.

Back in the days, lot of western computer players never played Ghouls'n Ghosts on arcade or any other japanese system. So the music wasn't shocking and we just loved Tim Follin's work. That's clearly what an arcade or console player of the time can't understand. Personally, Ghouls'n Ghosts on Capcom Generation on Playstation correspond to the first time I played this game on something other than my CPC, my ST then my Amiga.. Nice music too, but a bit weird for me 🤣

I'm not sure about that. Ghouls'n Ghosts was quite an easy game to find in the arcades. I used to see it at all the southern camping sites in the UK and in the likes of seaside resorts up norther such as Blackpool.

@Benjamin Jagun I don't really see what is a weak argument in what I told... but my English is far from perfect and maybe I didn't express myself correctly 🤔. Fabulous music from Tim Follin can't save this game, yes, but nowadays it remains a good opportunity to hear his work. To go further, I even think that without these crappy ports, Tim Follin wouldn't have been so famous, because they give him the opportunity to compose and spread his music. Title theme is particularly unforgettable. And when you never heard the original OST, back in the days the GnG music from Tim Follin was great to hear. That's just what I say 😉

@@RetroCore It's interesting to hear about the arcade distribution in England from someone that was here at the time. In France, arcade games had a bad reputation (contextual, after some legal problems). You only found one or two cabinets here and there in pubs and bars. To find a certain number of them and be able to really enjoy them, you had to go to dedicated places. We also found some in ski resorts or by the sea but frankly, the few games we could play during the vacation time, usually waiting for our parents, were not in my opinion sufficient to get a real idea of a game and even less of its music whose volume was often low enough to avoid hubbub. I base this opinion on the numerous exchanges that I have had with players of our generation on forums, RU-vid or social networks. What stands out is that if you did not live in a big city offering arcades where you easily went to try games regularly replaced by new ones, it was rare to come across a game at the right time you had the leisure to play regularly before getting an adaptation for your personal computer. In my opinion, in any case in France, when you bought an adaptation of a Capcom, Taito or even Jaleco game for example, you had at best been able to play it once or twice by falling on it by chance (I often hear friends say of that game they remember playing it once in an airport or train station waiting room, a bar, or a carnival, or on vacation). There were exceptions of course, but the trend seems to be that. Under these conditions, it's difficult to compare an adaptation of an arcade game with its original version. Especially the music. This in no way excuses mediocre conversion work. You don't need to have the original cabinet next to your home to see that the Amiga or ST conversions of Ghouls'n Ghosts are a shame compared to what these computers could have offered with more care. But from there to realize the difference in music, I have big doubts. I would be curious to know how many computer gamers cried out when launching the game: "Hey, where is the original music?" In my opinion, it shouldn't be too much. On the other hand, I think the number of players who simply shouted "Hey, what the f...?" is much more important 🤣

It is true that there were way fewer arcades in France than in the UK, although I would not say that they were rare, you'd often one cabinet or two in bars and restaurants. But yeah, this could not match the UK, when I was 14 I visited the South of England with my family and I remember being astounded at the sheer number of not cabinets but amusement establishments filled to the brim with arcade machines. It was heaven on earth, especially Brighton. If I could time lapse back to that time, I'd do it in a second (and probably steal all those cabinets before coming back 😅).