The Don Bluth ones are pretty fun to learn and to come back at here and there. And so are some of the Japanese ones (Esh's Aurunmilla, Super Don Quix-Ote, Road Blasters, Time Gal...)
The production value of these three "games" were mind-blowing for the time. The animations are on par with theatrical animated features. I have yet to see another game/interactive movie with hand drawn animation THIS good!
@@JustPeasant Does play far worse with the lack of on screen prompts, though. Which is saying something when we are talking about Dragon's Lair et al. At least with the versions I played. I like the openish world though, joys of CD over laserdisc, I suppose.
Lucky. The games my family owned on CD-i were Hotel Mario and Mystic Midway: Phantom Express. Fortunately there was a rental place not far away, so I did get to try these out. Though my favorite game to rent around 1995 was Zombie Dinos From Planet Zeltoid.
@@RetroCore Makes me wonder if some enterprising coder might have attempted a CD32 port, using the MPEG decoder, used by, hum, one game? Cannon Fodder cutscene, iirc.
There was also a DVD version of this, along with Dragon's Lair and possibly Dragon's Lair II. These played surprisingly well and at least one was on the flip-side of a double-sided DVD that came free with one of the UK Playstation magazines ('Side A' containing video footage of new games). They were also available to buy separately.
I used to rent this back in the day. The CD-i version. Yes, my father was insane, though I think we got it towards the end of the thing’s life, so it may have been sold at a cutrate discount. But then, knowing him, he may have bought it full price thinking it was the future, lol.
Lol, that's dad's for you. Mine was the same. He'd often buy something subpar because he thought it looked hightech to which the sales staff built him up on.
I can remember playing this on an Amiga all morning with friends in a game shop where the manager was a friend's older brother. Sadly the shop is long gone, but they were fun times.
@@RetroCore we were about 15, my friend's brother was 18 and the manager, the shop owner was hardly ever there. you can guess what happened most of the time - it was full of teenage boys playing games for free every weekend lol!
The main villain, Commander Borf looks like a mix between Mr. T and the Genie from Aladdin. He looks kind of like his insane uncle who just escaped from prison.
Great video. Oof, yeah we did have the Atari ST version. At the time it was best and fun way to bring home that arcade feel with the hardware available. There was a Space Ace II Borf's Revenge for the Atari ST and Amiga but was supposedly just the stages they didn't fit on the "first game."
I remember there being a big article about the IIGS version in inCider, the Apple II magazine. They just took a screenshot from it and blew it up to the full page and it looked unreal. I begged my parents for it and I got it for Christmas. I know you are waiting for the part where I say "We all hated it" but on the contrary we thought it was awesome and played the heck out of it, we were so blinded by the crazy graphics!!! The IIGS didnt get a Dragon's Lair port so we never saw anything like it before.
I knew of the SNES port and expected the computer versions to be like it, so I was pretty surprised to see them ported as faithfully as they were. Just a shame this is a game that's more fun to watch than actually play.
My childhood home town of Selby in North Yorkshire had a "Space Ace" and I remember 16-year-old me being utterly blown away by it. Until, that is, I tried PLAYING the damn thing! Still, it does look pretty.
It's such a shame too, considering how, by redoing the assets, they could've made it into a cool little action game. Instead, they tried to emulate the arcade's flaws - turning into a poorly-controlling game of memorization. 😢 You can't even act & react to anything. It's just about trial & error - remember to stand here, not there. Then jump here, but don't jump ahead. Stay there. Then jump here. Geez.
Love Space Ace. The pacing is sooo much more frantic than Dragon's Lair. The HD version available on PSN as part of the Dragon's Lair Trilogy is nearly flawless, highly recommend if you haven't tried it (it addresses the on-screen prompting you mention, so it's much more accessible than the original arcade version and early ports).
I had the snes version on my first pc when I was a kid. I managed to beat the game using save states and I didn't know you can turn into the adult ace when it says energize on the screen. Later when I got my new pc I decided to relive the nostalgia and discovered that you can turn into adult ace. I don't remember but you can use Ace's pistol only when you energize into the adult form, I think.
Not being nitpicky but you missed the brilliant Nintendo Wii version, it had both Dragons lair games and Space Ace all in one package. Still a port, no different to the 3DO or Mega CD, just visually better. Basically a perfect arcade port.
I missed all those out simply because they're not different enough from each other. Same goes with the HD versions, Jag CD, Windows and DVD player versions.
@@RetroCoreThe CD-I port is a bit different. It looks better than the 3DO due to the video cartridge but it’s strangely missing a playable scene in the beginning of the game from the arcade that was included on the 3DO port.
They’re almost arcade perfect. The arcade originals were 4:3 aspect ratio and the Wii / PS3 /PS4 versions cropped the images in order to make the game widescreen.
I remember plugging in two of my very scarce quarters (it was more expensive than other games, 50 cents a pop) as a kid to try it and couldn't figure out what I was supposed to be doing. Pretty sure that's the only time I've ever played it, though I certainly remember watching the attract mode a million times in the arcade.
You know, I could have sworn I'd done Dragon's Lair which is why I went straight to Space Ace. Looks like I'll have to get Dragon's Lair on to the to do list.
I never liked these game, but I had the non-playable demo of Space ace. I also used to meet a lot of fellow Commodore owners through the local bulletin board systems (BBS). One day I had a guy come over, who only had a C64 and who had never seen an Amiga in action. I loaded the Space Ace demo. By the end of it, he was sitting there with his mouth literally hanging open. ☺
Let's also not forget the version for modern platforms, which is in HD & looks cleaner than the laserdisc arcade version (at least the one presented here). For instance, it doesn't have any interlacing & colors are more vibrant. Some of Borf's lines are incorrectly programmed, tho. It's available on & part of the Dragon's Lair Trilogy.
Dragon's Lair had far more ports worth comparing. I was always gutted they didn't do a Space Ace port on the C64. Would've been great! I confess, I was a massive fan of those style games.
I believe we are well into a era where this kind of game can be made entirely in real time, even on portable hardware, no pre-rendered animation required. Although it would be a bit pointless.
Not sure what you mean. It’s just drawn on paper animation. The transfer technology is the same as film. Not much flexibility. I mean if you mean recreating a 2d Handdrawn look, the. It’s too much work to be worth it. Cell shading has gone far, but the imperfections of when you draw can’t be translated.
The imperfections can be replicated in 3D. The issue is that you need top tier artists to accurately imagine and sculpt those mistakes, with an eye towards human perspective vs. actual 3D space. Expensive, soul breaking, and time consuming and who would buy it?
The 3DO is the closest to the arcade. However, the arcade stick is pricy and it's only in Japan... I'll be using the RetroArch with the 4DO core and the USB arcade stick once I get the 3DO version of this game...
There are also two different dos versions. The older, disk based version is essentially the same as the amiga/iigs game. The CD-ROM version is more similar to the 3d0 version, but it's limited to 256 colors because VGA. There's also a Jaguar CD version that I think is mostly the same as the 3d0. After that, I think the only console that didn't use proper mpeg-2 or AVC FMV was the DSi.
Great video, but you left out several versions , Big Box PC on Floppy and CD , Atari Jaguar, CDI , DVD player , Macintosh and others. Apparently this was also on IOS and Android at one point.
the original Amiga version was on 4 floppy disc, not 5. The Amiga version used a costume disc file format, that could hold about 120kb more data than normal Amiga Floppy could disk (about 1MB). Hence the cracked version required one more (880kb). WHDLoad does not support the cracked 5 disc version. Require the original of course.
Always been a fan of Space Ace & Dragon's Lair. How I wish we got more games in the series. Ideally, a seqyel or new game in the series would have full control of the character & be in either 3D polygons, cel shaded or hand-drawn, but move in a polygonal 3D space environment - think a more sophisticated version of the 16-bit Disney games on the MegaDrive & SNES. Key would be making sure the art-style, animation & timing on the animated assets are similar to these laserdisc arcade games. Also, the raster bg textures would have to look very similar as well. Finally, the game should cut to full-screen death animations whenever your health depletes entirely, showing how Ace lost his life. So...anyone care to have a go & join me in a "proof of concept" demo?
There's even a version you can play on most standard Blu-Ray players, along with an older port for DVD players, but personally i'm not sure I'd want to be using an IR remote for this game on either format. 😅
@@CommodoreFan64 You're right, I forgot about it. I actually have the DVD and is states "Compatible with Xbox" on the cover and I think I can use a regular Xbox controller to play but I don't remember.
@@arioca They are emulation, the current machines are more than capable of running them through emulation (they have been emulated for quite awhile on things like the Daphne emulator). It's pretty much like the Arcade Archives seen on modern consoles today, ROMS running on a front end through emulation (M2 and Hamster should be commended for finally bringing some of these games to home consoles). Ports would've been on stuff like the PS1 and Saturn, which in Japan saw ports of LD games, like Time Gal, and Ninja Hayate from Taito, or Roadblasters on the Saturn. Those machines were only capable of running basic emulation, for the early arcade games of the 80's (the Midway compilations), even Namco's Museum packs were all rebuilt from the ground up ports of Namco's games from the early to mid 80's arcade games on the PS1.
Fun Fact @RetroCore the Dragon's Lair Trilogy versions of the Don Bluth laserdisc games that on PS4 and Switch which btw both have a rare Limited Run Games physical version does have a much needed quality of life improvement with on screen hints that make the games more playable worth pointing this out BTW?
I don't like when FMV Arcade games doesn't give a timed clue too, I played the DSi version of Dragon's Lair and I died more than 50 times in the final battle with Singe for not pressing the *actual* right button.
I agree with you 100%. This is why I'm not a fan of the western laser disc games. A flash on the screen isn't good enough. In fact, sometimes the flash doesn't even correspond to the direction you are supposed to push.
It blew my mind when I saw it first time back in the days but the interaction was poor. Some home versions are well made despite the hardware limitations of the time. Worst thing about home versions is that the developers divided the original into 2 parts sold separately to milk more money from users.
I was drawn to this and Dragon's Lair at the arcade, but rarely played them. It was just a waste of my coins- the trial and error it would take me to get anywhere made them an expensive play
Got this for the Amiga, had 2 floppy drives (never had an HDD for the Amiga) and swapping was annoying! You got 10 secs of animation and 1 min for loading hahaha! Then I noticed disc 5 had a write error, coudn't finish it...
Back in 1983/84 laser disc games were enormous... I remember John Craven's Newsround TV show in the UK had a report on the massive interest and queues for Dragon's Lair... as graphics got better there was no real value in these games... The first laser disc game I ever played was Astron Belt in Blackpool circa 83... I thought it was incredible... quite comical to watch now... Firefox was another game that captured the imagination but is quite poor in retrospect...
The GBC actually can kind of do stuff like Dragon's Lair, and it looks convincingly like basic FMV, though it is grainy as sin, but still playable, and that's weaker hardware.
newr keen on those kind of games, regaardless its japanse or not. The only one im personally did liked to play was Mad Dog McCree in the arcades (and a danish magasin reviwewed that game 100% in the PC version, lol) ...... But its very cool to see this game anyway. Its have its right place on the history books and yes the the floppy versions is well done really. dispite limits.
As I recall, the arcade version did not have those juttering stops and everything was a smooth experience. Also no ugly HUD like this mame version has. What a mess. it is unwatchable, let alone unplayable. Funny how in 2024 it is still not possible to get this right when the technology is already so old and apparantly vastly superior!
The arcade version did have those pauses between scenes. It varied slightly depending on what ld player was used inside the machine but non did any sort of pre-fetching so there were always going to be seek times.
@@meetoo594 yes, but they were super fast! It took not that long and the last frame fif not pausr. think the screen went black and then the death scene, not leaving it pauzed like in mame. Something is not right. I can't put my finger on it
The Wii version would have been perfect, hadn't it been for their decision to change the infanto ray color into blue... it's the last version (to my knowledge) to have uncropped aspect ratio, and it has well integrated visual clues, compared to these simplistic arrows the cropped HD versions got. A bit of a shame, but that's the way it is...
When I saw stills in Amiga magazines, I lost my mind? How a game like this is even possible? Never knew about Laser Disc arcade at time! To my knowledge, Space Ace (and Dragon's Lair) were ported to Amiga and Atari ST by one guy who invented new way of compression for it. Every publisher called it impossible port! For me, even more remarkable is that game have all sound samples! When I started to play it I was in disbelief what I am seeing at first but soon got bored of it due to lackluster gameplay. But, there was hack code by which you can watch whole cartoon play itself. Still is broken by frequent loading. After a while, Don Bluth style cutscenes game with full control appeared on Amiga, called Guy Spy. While it was full control and graphics were good, gameplay is lacking!
That Bluth era animation really is outstanding. So full of character and personality. Contrast to a lot of animation these days, with its reliance on mo cap, and they're so bland and lifeless.
How I hated that type of games. Except Road Avenger, It has arrows and signs, no flashing parts of the scenary for your actions. Mega CD port looks as good as Dragon's Lair one. With the same protagonists 😂
I never liked this kind of game for one reason. You can't enjoy the full animation unless you're really good at it. It's an innovative concept and all, but I just wanted to see Don Bluth's animated masterpieces without having to fail at these games. I swear I remember seeing some sort of DVD Rom version of Dragon's Lair that had an option to just watch the cartoons. Luckily they're all up on YT. Also, I find it funny that both Dragon's Lair and Space Ace did have Saturday Morning Cartoons that were just before my time. Of course, Space Ace wasn't its own show, just being part of the Saturday Supercade series.
This game is the true definition of a quarter muncher or at least the worst example of one... it really needs overlays that help the average player know where to go and when instead of relying vague memorization and trial and error gameplay which always sucks... The worst part of this game is that like Dragon's Lair, it just looked amazingly pretty which is like admiring a very pretty apple that you did not know was painted with real paint on a real apple thus leaving a bad taste once you bit into it.
Laserdisc games are fun to look at, but very few are fun to play.
I agree 100%, the are cool from a technical standpoint for their time, but rarely fun to play.
I think the Japanese ones by Data East are easily the best followed by Taito's Time Gal.
@@RetroCore There are of course exceptions, but for the vast majority of FMV based games no matter the format, they just aren't that fun for me.
The Don Bluth ones are pretty fun to learn and to come back at here and there. And so are some of the Japanese ones (Esh's Aurunmilla, Super Don Quix-Ote, Road Blasters, Time Gal...)
@@RetroCore Cobra Command was pretty fun.
The production value of these three "games" were mind-blowing for the time. The animations are on par with theatrical animated features. I have yet to see another game/interactive movie with hand drawn animation THIS good!
Brain Dead 13, perhaps?
@@Idelacio Close. ReadySoft did Dragon's Lair II and ported other Don Bluth interactive movies to various systems.
@@JustPeasant Does play far worse with the lack of on screen prompts, though. Which is saying something when we are talking about Dragon's Lair et al. At least with the versions I played.
I like the openish world though, joys of CD over laserdisc, I suppose.
The soundtrack for the SNES is of surprisingly high quality!
Some tracks are while others are pretty poor. I did use the SNES audio for the opening and ending of this video though 👍
My dad had this and Dragons Lair for the CD-i. They blew my mind in1995
Lucky. The games my family owned on CD-i were Hotel Mario and Mystic Midway: Phantom Express. Fortunately there was a rental place not far away, so I did get to try these out. Though my favorite game to rent around 1995 was Zombie Dinos From Planet Zeltoid.
@diebesgrab we had the Zelda cd-i games and I had a Richard scarry game on top of space ace and dragons lair
Sadly the space ace port on the CD-I requires the MPEG cart so that's a bit of a bummer.
@@RetroCore hah, I had no idea! I do have the MPEG but never tried this game, you just inspired me to try it
@@RetroCore Makes me wonder if some enterprising coder might have attempted a CD32 port, using the MPEG decoder, used by, hum, one game? Cannon Fodder cutscene, iirc.
Mega-CD version is quite good! Thanks for this battle.
To me, the most important thing about this game is that it set up the vibe for the show "Galaxy High".
Battle of the Ports! Such a cool and well made series thx!
There was also a DVD version of this, along with Dragon's Lair and possibly Dragon's Lair II. These played surprisingly well and at least one was on the flip-side of a double-sided DVD that came free with one of the UK Playstation magazines ('Side A' containing video footage of new games). They were also available to buy separately.
I used to rent this back in the day. The CD-i version. Yes, my father was insane, though I think we got it towards the end of the thing’s life, so it may have been sold at a cutrate discount.
But then, knowing him, he may have bought it full price thinking it was the future, lol.
Lol, that's dad's for you. Mine was the same. He'd often buy something subpar because he thought it looked hightech to which the sales staff built him up on.
I can remember playing this on an Amiga all morning with friends in a game shop where the manager was a friend's older brother. Sadly the shop is long gone, but they were fun times.
Ah, classic game shops. I miss them so much.
@@RetroCore we were about 15, my friend's brother was 18 and the manager, the shop owner was hardly ever there. you can guess what happened most of the time - it was full of teenage boys playing games for free every weekend lol!
The main villain, Commander Borf looks like a mix between Mr. T and the Genie from Aladdin. He looks kind of like his insane uncle who just escaped from prison.
Lol, now that you mention it.
He looks a bit like bluto from popeye.
There was also the Jaguar CD version playable in BIGPemu.
Have you covered Dragon's Lair yet? Jim Bagley managed to do an amazing port to the ZX-81!!!
Thought I had done but it seems not. Just as well as I didn't know about the ZX-81 version.
Came for the animation, stayed for the redhead.
Say what you like about Don Bluth's stories, man knew how to draw sex appeal. >.
Great video. Oof, yeah we did have the Atari ST version. At the time it was best and fun way to bring home that arcade feel with the hardware available. There was a Space Ace II Borf's Revenge for the Atari ST and Amiga but was supposedly just the stages they didn't fit on the "first game."
I think you're right about the 2nd game on the ST.
Yes they divided the game in 2 to milk money from us the same way they did with dragon's lair.
Despite the Amiga, Atari ST, and the Apple IIgs looking the same, the Apple IIgs seems to have the most bitcrushed audio!
Yep. Just behind the ST. The Amiga wins in the audio department for sure.
Commander Borf's voice is still absolutely terrifying to listen to. I remember that it gave me nightmares as a kid.
Oh, that was Don Bluth doing the voice!
I remember there being a big article about the IIGS version in inCider, the Apple II magazine. They just took a screenshot from it and blew it up to the full page and it looked unreal. I begged my parents for it and I got it for Christmas.
I know you are waiting for the part where I say "We all hated it" but on the contrary we thought it was awesome and played the heck out of it, we were so blinded by the crazy graphics!!! The IIGS didnt get a Dragon's Lair port so we never saw anything like it before.
I knew of the SNES port and expected the computer versions to be like it, so I was pretty surprised to see them ported as faithfully as they were. Just a shame this is a game that's more fun to watch than actually play.
Yeah, the old computure ports while crap as a game are technically impressive.
Great video, as always.
Thanks for watching 👍
Great video again! Only missing the Jaguar CD version, as far as I know
My childhood home town of Selby in North Yorkshire had a "Space Ace" and I remember 16-year-old me being utterly blown away by it. Until, that is, I tried PLAYING the damn thing! Still, it does look pretty.
I’m pretty sure SNES Space Ace is the single worst game I own. And I own a lot of stinkers.
You should sell that pile of shame. I’d be ashamed to own a game that’s called “worst of all time” by the gaming medium.
It's such a shame too, considering how, by redoing the assets, they could've made it into a cool little action game. Instead, they tried to emulate the arcade's flaws - turning into a poorly-controlling game of memorization. 😢 You can't even act & react to anything. It's just about trial & error - remember to stand here, not there. Then jump here, but don't jump ahead. Stay there. Then jump here. Geez.
The soft controls and floaty jumps just make it unbearable
Wow, what other stinkers do you own.?
Absolutely. At least the Arcade version had flashing to give you a vague idea of what to do.
Oh man that Mega CD dithering.
Great video. BTW The Mrs watches a lot of NHK and I showed her your last video. She was very impressed.
That's awesome! By last video I'm guessing the life in Japan video?
@@RetroCore correct.
I could never get to grips with these games, but I loved trying 😮😊
The ps4 has a dragon's lair collection that includes space ace, it fixes the cue thing by having flashing which direction to go. Its pretty good
I think that is a port of the Nintendo Wii version but in HD.. Does it have Dragons lair 1 & 2 plus Space Ace?
If so then it is definitely a Wii port.
@@bit-ishbulldog2089 I recall seeing that port sold on GOG as well.
Yes, also on Switch
Is there a version out there for the home that ha the correct aspect ratio?
Love Space Ace. The pacing is sooo much more frantic than Dragon's Lair. The HD version available on PSN as part of the Dragon's Lair Trilogy is nearly flawless, highly recommend if you haven't tried it (it addresses the on-screen prompting you mention, so it's much more accessible than the original arcade version and early ports).
Yeah, I think the Dragon's Lair trilogy is fantastic and those games really do shine in HD.
I had the snes version on my first pc when I was a kid. I managed to beat the game using save states and I didn't know you can turn into the adult ace when it says energize on the screen. Later when I got my new pc I decided to relive the nostalgia and discovered that you can turn into adult ace. I don't remember but you can use Ace's pistol only when you energize into the adult form, I think.
Excited for the first battle of the ports for 2025!
Patreon supporters already have access to it 👍. It's going to be a show where the Amiga fans are going to be pleased for once 😅
the animation quality on this is incredible. but thena gain its Don Bluth and hes one of the greats.
Not being nitpicky but you missed the brilliant Nintendo Wii version, it had both Dragons lair games and Space Ace all in one package.
Still a port, no different to the 3DO or Mega CD, just visually better.
Basically a perfect arcade port.
Emulation, not a port.
I missed all those out simply because they're not different enough from each other. Same goes with the HD versions, Jag CD, Windows and DVD player versions.
@@RetroCoreThe CD-I port is a bit different. It looks better than the 3DO due to the video cartridge but it’s strangely missing a playable scene in the beginning of the game from the arcade that was included on the 3DO port.
They’re almost arcade perfect. The arcade originals were 4:3 aspect ratio and the Wii / PS3 /PS4 versions cropped the images in order to make the game widescreen.
@@arioca Boooohhhh! When will eople learn to respect artistic intention???
After seeing all those. The CDi port is definitely the best one, looks way better than the 3DO version. Still have my CDi hooked up 😂
I remember plugging in two of my very scarce quarters (it was more expensive than other games, 50 cents a pop) as a kid to try it and couldn't figure out what I was supposed to be doing. Pretty sure that's the only time I've ever played it, though I certainly remember watching the attract mode a million times in the arcade.
Great video. Would love to see you do one on Dragon's Lair. They had a lot of bizarre attempts in bringing that home.
You know, I could have sworn I'd done Dragon's Lair which is why I went straight to Space Ace. Looks like I'll have to get Dragon's Lair on to the to do list.
and the MS-DOS version? I played that one back in the day, it was pretty similar to the AMIGA version.
Could get that to work.
I never liked these game, but I had the non-playable demo of Space ace. I also used to meet a lot of fellow Commodore owners through the local bulletin board systems (BBS). One day I had a guy come over, who only had a C64 and who had never seen an Amiga in action. I loaded the Space Ace demo. By the end of it, he was sitting there with his mouth literally hanging open. ☺
Lol, I can imagine that so well.
Another Laserdisc classic
Let's also not forget the version for modern platforms, which is in HD & looks cleaner than the laserdisc arcade version (at least the one presented here). For instance, it doesn't have any interlacing & colors are more vibrant. Some of Borf's lines are incorrectly programmed, tho. It's available on & part of the Dragon's Lair Trilogy.
Dragon's Lair had far more ports worth comparing. I was always gutted they didn't do a Space Ace port on the C64. Would've been great! I confess, I was a massive fan of those style games.
Was supposed to come out on the Amiga LaserDisc System, but never came.
No sign of the CDi version. I wonder why not. :)
Jontron did great review of SNES version 😅
I believe we are well into a era where this kind of game can be made entirely in real time, even on portable hardware, no pre-rendered animation required. Although it would be a bit pointless.
Not sure what you mean. It’s just drawn on paper animation. The transfer technology is the same as film. Not much flexibility.
I mean if you mean recreating a 2d Handdrawn look, the. It’s too much work to be worth it. Cell shading has gone far, but the imperfections of when you draw can’t be translated.
The imperfections can be replicated in 3D. The issue is that you need top tier artists to accurately imagine and sculpt those mistakes, with an eye towards human perspective vs. actual 3D space.
Expensive, soul breaking, and time consuming and who would buy it?
Oh yeah there's tiny arcade machines with basically cheap phone hardware running this. Makes a good arcade clone.
I would say your right but would anyone want to play such a game in this day and age? Maybe ad in some more flexibility.
That garbage chase scene in Shenmue II that runs on for *way* too long is all real time QTE.
Surprised the pc version isnt here, but its just like the other pc version.
What about the Philips CDI version?
The 3DO is the closest to the arcade. However, the arcade stick is pricy and it's only in Japan...
I'll be using the RetroArch with the 4DO core and the USB arcade stick once I get the 3DO version of this game...
Probably the best option of you're looking to play a retro port.
Think you should of includes the dvd version of this. That should count as a port
Imagine if this game was ported into the Bandai Playdia QIS
That console could've handled the laserdisc arcade classics considering its nature
There are also two different dos versions. The older, disk based version is essentially the same as the amiga/iigs game. The CD-ROM version is more similar to the 3d0 version, but it's limited to 256 colors because VGA. There's also a Jaguar CD version that I think is mostly the same as the 3d0. After that, I think the only console that didn't use proper mpeg-2 or AVC FMV was the DSi.
Thanks for the information, it's amazing how many different versions there are.
Great video, but you left out several versions , Big Box PC on Floppy and CD , Atari Jaguar, CDI , DVD player , Macintosh and others. Apparently this was also on IOS and Android at one point.
Yeah, too many that look too similar.
I did mention this is text when showing the screen shots.
the original Amiga version was on 4 floppy disc, not 5. The Amiga version used a costume disc file format, that could hold about 120kb more data than normal Amiga Floppy could disk (about 1MB). Hence the cracked version required one more (880kb).
WHDLoad does not support the cracked 5 disc version. Require the original of course.
Big fan of this series. I was wondering if you could do a Galaxian episode sometime?
It's on the cards to be covered at some point.
Space Ace SNES feels more like "Space Ass"
Always been a fan of Space Ace & Dragon's Lair. How I wish we got more games in the series.
Ideally, a seqyel or new game in the series would have full control of the character & be in either 3D polygons, cel shaded or hand-drawn, but move in a polygonal 3D space environment - think a more sophisticated version of the 16-bit Disney games on the MegaDrive & SNES. Key would be making sure the art-style, animation & timing on the animated assets are similar to these laserdisc arcade games. Also, the raster bg textures would have to look very similar as well.
Finally, the game should cut to full-screen death animations whenever your health depletes entirely, showing how Ace lost his life. So...anyone care to have a go & join me in a "proof of concept" demo?
This game has so many versions. There are also ports for the CD-I, Jaguar CD, Wii and PS3.
The latter 2 would be emulation, he doesn't tend to cover those versions as they are not ports.
@@Bloodreign1 I understand but as far as I know both the PS3 and Wii versions were ports done by Digital Leisure, not emulation.
There's even a version you can play on most standard Blu-Ray players, along with an older port for DVD players, but personally i'm not sure I'd want to be using an IR remote for this game on either format. 😅
@@CommodoreFan64 You're right, I forgot about it. I actually have the DVD and is states "Compatible with Xbox" on the cover and I think I can use a regular Xbox controller to play but I don't remember.
@@arioca They are emulation, the current machines are more than capable of running them through emulation (they have been emulated for quite awhile on things like the Daphne emulator). It's pretty much like the Arcade Archives seen on modern consoles today, ROMS running on a front end through emulation (M2 and Hamster should be commended for finally bringing some of these games to home consoles).
Ports would've been on stuff like the PS1 and Saturn, which in Japan saw ports of LD games, like Time Gal, and Ninja Hayate from Taito, or Roadblasters on the Saturn. Those machines were only capable of running basic emulation, for the early arcade games of the 80's (the Midway compilations), even Namco's Museum packs were all rebuilt from the ground up ports of Namco's games from the early to mid 80's arcade games on the PS1.
Fun Fact @RetroCore the Dragon's Lair Trilogy versions of the Don Bluth laserdisc games that on PS4 and Switch which btw both have a rare Limited Run Games physical version does have a much needed quality of life improvement with on screen hints that make the games more playable worth pointing this out BTW?
Those enemies look like Master System sprites. 8:27
I still like the Amiga port.
The amiga is the same way they did dragons lair...
I played this on the Commodore 64
No Atari jaguar port?? why!
I don't like when FMV Arcade games doesn't give a timed clue too, I played the DSi version of Dragon's Lair and I died more than 50 times in the final battle with Singe for not pressing the *actual* right button.
I agree with you 100%. This is why I'm not a fan of the western laser disc games. A flash on the screen isn't good enough. In fact, sometimes the flash doesn't even correspond to the direction you are supposed to push.
It blew my mind when I saw it first time back in the days but the interaction was poor. Some home versions are well made despite the hardware limitations of the time. Worst thing about home versions is that the developers divided the original into 2 parts sold separately to milk more money from users.
Gosh, doing all that pixel tracing of the original animation for the Amiga et al versions must've been tedious!
I was drawn to this and Dragon's Lair at the arcade, but rarely played them. It was just a waste of my coins- the trial and error it would take me to get anywhere made them an expensive play
Never been a fan of LD games...fancy gfx but very little gameplay wise.
To be fair I only played those from Dragons Lair and Space franchises
You should try road Blasters or ROAD Avenger as it's also called. Thunderstorm FX / Cobra Command is another worth checking out.
Got this for the Amiga, had 2 floppy drives (never had an HDD for the Amiga) and swapping was annoying! You got 10 secs of animation and 1 min for loading hahaha! Then I noticed disc 5 had a write error, coudn't finish it...
That's always a bummer with multi disc games.
Back in 1983/84 laser disc games were enormous... I remember John Craven's Newsround TV show in the UK had a report on the massive interest and queues for Dragon's Lair... as graphics got better there was no real value in these games... The first laser disc game I ever played was Astron Belt in Blackpool circa 83... I thought it was incredible... quite comical to watch now... Firefox was another game that captured the imagination but is quite poor in retrospect...
Those "minor ports" look like rotoscopy.... kind of...
The SNES game would have been great if they went with an unironic earthworm Jim style game
The GBC actually can kind of do stuff like Dragon's Lair, and it looks convincingly like basic FMV, though it is grainy as sin, but still playable, and that's weaker hardware.
The GBA is vastly more powerful than a SNES. the only areas it is weaker is the sound and resolution.
@@RetroCore Check out the Game Boy Color port of Dragon's Lair, it's actually a wonder they got it running on the GBC hardware.
newr keen on those kind of games, regaardless its japanse or not. The only one im personally did liked to play was Mad Dog McCree in the arcades (and a danish magasin reviwewed that game 100% in the PC version, lol) ...... But its very cool to see this game anyway. Its have its right place on the history books and yes the the floppy versions is well done really. dispite limits.
3D0 version looks identical to the PC version.
As I recall, the arcade version did not have those juttering stops and everything was a smooth experience. Also no ugly HUD like this mame version has.
What a mess. it is unwatchable, let alone unplayable. Funny how in 2024 it is still not possible to get this right when the technology is already so old and apparantly vastly superior!
The arcade version did have those pauses between scenes. It varied slightly depending on what ld player was used inside the machine but non did any sort of pre-fetching so there were always going to be seek times.
@@meetoo594 yes, but they were super fast! It took not that long and the last frame fif not pausr. think the screen went black and then the death scene, not leaving it pauzed like in mame. Something is not right. I can't put my finger on it
So its like Dragons lair
Yep, very much so.
None of the ports turned out well, just stick to the arcade version on the Wii that comes with the 2 Dragon's Lair games.
Time Gal for life.
The Wii version would have been perfect, hadn't it been for their decision to change the infanto ray color into blue... it's the last version (to my knowledge) to have uncropped aspect ratio, and it has well integrated visual clues, compared to these simplistic arrows the cropped HD versions got. A bit of a shame, but that's the way it is...
Time Gal is pure class.
It's a shame that the snes version is bad, because we get what they were trying, but they did badly
Yeah. If the game had responsive controls and collision detection that worked, it would have been a fun title.
Hmm hmm! "Hmm hmm"? Hmm hmm... *HMM HMM!?*
When I saw stills in Amiga magazines, I lost my mind? How a game like this is even possible? Never knew about Laser Disc arcade at time! To my knowledge, Space Ace (and Dragon's Lair) were ported to Amiga and Atari ST by one guy who invented new way of compression for it. Every publisher called it impossible port! For me, even more remarkable is that game have all sound samples! When I started to play it I was in disbelief what I am seeing at first but soon got bored of it due to lackluster gameplay. But, there was hack code by which you can watch whole cartoon play itself. Still is broken by frequent loading. After a while, Don Bluth style cutscenes game with full control appeared on Amiga, called Guy Spy. While it was full control and graphics were good, gameplay is lacking!
It is amazing what was achieved. But like you said, the game plays very poorly. Still, as a demo it is amazing.
That Bluth era animation really is outstanding. So full of character and personality. Contrast to a lot of animation these days, with its reliance on mo cap, and they're so bland and lifeless.
How I hated that type of games. Except Road Avenger, It has arrows and signs, no flashing parts of the scenary for your actions. Mega CD port looks as good as Dragon's Lair one. With the same protagonists 😂
Ironic the one version that tried to have actual gameplay turned out the worst.
I never liked this kind of game for one reason. You can't enjoy the full animation unless you're really good at it. It's an innovative concept and all, but I just wanted to see Don Bluth's animated masterpieces without having to fail at these games. I swear I remember seeing some sort of DVD Rom version of Dragon's Lair that had an option to just watch the cartoons. Luckily they're all up on YT. Also, I find it funny that both Dragon's Lair and Space Ace did have Saturday Morning Cartoons that were just before my time. Of course, Space Ace wasn't its own show, just being part of the Saturday Supercade series.
Yep, there is a DVD version and also Blue Ray I believe.
Try battle of the Ports: Asteroids the game.
Oh man, there must be a billion official ports of that.
8:43 I've heard about this port from jontron's video. I already knew it's trash!
I actually enjoy Space Ace better than Dragon's Lair Mark. Always into futuristic titles than Medieval Times instead bro.
Anthony..
Same here 👍
No love for the PS3 port?
Emulation, not a port.
@@Bloodreign1Stop saying it's emulation, for fuck's sake. The video files were remastered
I don't own a PS3 or own a PC capable of emulating it well.
That SNES music is atrocious, lol
This game is the true definition of a quarter muncher or at least the worst example of one... it really needs overlays that help the average player know where to go and when instead of relying vague memorization and trial and error gameplay which always sucks...
The worst part of this game is that like Dragon's Lair, it just looked amazingly pretty which is like admiring a very pretty apple that you did not know was painted with real paint on a real apple thus leaving a bad taste once you bit into it.
Wasn't this crap also released for the Pioneer LaserActive???
Not that I know of
Few you missed. Atari Jaguar. CD-i version. Plus a DVD and Blu-Ray. Jaguar was probably the best.