Honestly, having a gameplay video of the original game before the port is shown is such a good idea to get an idea of how good or bad the port is going to be. Love the Ghosts ‘n Goblins one, as I have a friend who hates the NES version.
I mean. The gameplay of the NES version is on par with the OG, so idk why its considered a terrible port other than the music being a but grating. Like, it's a port from 16 to 8 bit hardware, can't really expect arcade perfect conversions, lol.
My favorite part about the G&G one is the very understandable "I ran out of patience but you get the idea," kept it short while making it clear that version is suffering while promoting the original arcade as tough but fair
yeah, I never understood back then like how or what stupidity is happening at Capcom for going with aggressive bullshit in the NES ver. I rather pay 1000 bucks just to have an arcade version
It cannot be overstated how impressive the Sega AM2 games were for their time. Space Harrier was pushing that fast pseudo-3D 16-bit action the same year Nintendo released _the first Super Mario Bros. game._ Shit, they're still fun! The OutRun port on the 3DS was the bomb. I play it on my Switch every once in a while.
It took them until the Sega Saturn released to finally make an arcade-perfect, full 60fps home port of the big three super-scaler games, they were absolutely well ahead of their time.
AM2 didn't make the NES ports of their games. It was Tengen. That said, yeah, AM2 are the GOATs of SEGA even now. Shame VF5US is still exclusive to PS5 😑
@@alfiehicks1That's mainly because the Saturn was built with Sprite scaling and arcade ports in mind. What's impressive is shit like virtua fighter and virtua racing on the 32x, VF2, Fighting Vipers, and Fighters Megmix on the Saturn, the VF2 demake for Mega Drive, Daytona and Vitual On on the Saturn... a ton of shit. They were Sega's bleeding-edge tech studio in the 90s and 2000s. Even TO THIS DAY they rarely let port studios touch their work. All of the SEGA ages versions of VF, Sonic the Fighters, Fighting Vipers, and even a few older titles like Virtua Racing and Daytona USA are done directly in-house by AM2 vs. Sonic Team offloading everything onto M2 for the past 20-ish years.
The version of Aladdin featured in this pack is not based on the SNES version of the game it's actually based on the Gameboy Port of the Sega Genesis version of Aladdin, it's why Enemies and items have that weird outline, because on Gameboy there was no color and those sprites needed to stand out. So Vinny played a port of a port of a port.
@@fixedfunshow hrm, i swore it was the same in both versions, the only thing i remember being changed were pac's eyes. i still think it was based off of the cartoon though since i've seen multiple sources state it, and the song is the same in all regional versions.
There's actually a bootleg port of Aladdin for the NES that looks and feels pretty much the same as the SNES version, famously better than the official port
I think Hummer Team did that one. Man, those guys knew what they were doing. They also famously did a port of Super Mario World to the NES, with a rideable Yoshi, proving Miyamoto was full of it when he said it couldn't be done.
Well, makes sense since that one's based on the SNES version of Aladdin while the official NES version is a port of the Gameboy Version which is a port of the Sega Genesis version of Aladdin.
Hummer's soundchip was rather peculiar to say the least, but their unlicensed ports were super impressive for what they were. I actually had both their Aladdin port and Somari as a kid, so I have some semi-fondness for their work. On that note, I'm pretty sure the official NES port of Aladdin was actually a port of the fucking Gameboy conversion of the Megadrive game, all of them published by Virgin Interactive. Porting GB versions of licensed titles to the NES was something of a cash-grab trend in the console's twilight years. I believe the same situation came about with the Lion King game, which received a licensed port from the Gameboy and a direct unlicensed conversion of the SNES game. Come to think of it, I had that one too and I'm pretty sure it was also done by Hummer Team.
@@apostlenik809 Yeah, their sound driver wasn't really good, but other than that, these ports were marvels (and IMO the only reason Somari sucks is because of the level design full of inescapable pits, not because any code stuff). If Hummer started few years earlier and did original work instead of the bootleg ports, they could've been another SunSoft or Capcom, easily.
NGL when I was a kid with limited access to videogame consoles I was a big fan of Java games, I have great memories of playing Java ports of the early Final Fantasy games
The music for Mega Man 2 on J2ME really captures the _soundscape_ of desperately trying to kill time while taking a dump in a gas station bathroom in 2003
It's not surprising that multiple of these ports have had AVGN episodes. The Ikari Warriors episode was particularly funny imo, with the "guitar guy" (Kyle I think his name is?) just making up silly songs on the spot and James really struggling not to laugh lol
And don't forget they changed their names to Paul and Vince in the original localizations of Ikari 1-3 Even though Ralph and Clark are completely normal names in English. That has forever bugged the hell out of me.
6:17 NES After Burner II is a downgrade from the FC After Burner II, made by *Sunsoft.* The FC version has better audio and better way to handle graphics thanks to their own cartridge mapper (a thing that NoA was not very kind about). 44:08 FC Space Harrier is a "port of a port:" It is based on the SMS version, and even includes the secret boss, Haya Oh. It was ported by *Whiteboard,* who later became Santos and then, Megasoft (Shinobi III).
I played the Classic NES series version of Ghosts n goblins on GBA as a kid. I'm very glad to know I wasn't just awful at the game and that it truly was pretty cruddy.
Wow, did they seriously not fix it? There's actually a _good_ version of Ghosts 'n' Goblins for the Gameboy/Gameboy Color (one of those black cartridges) that uses the graphics from the NES version, but plays like the arcade (i.e., not 15fps) has *way* better music, and introduces a password system so you can actually save your progress and continue where you left off. Too bad it's expensive as shit to buy it now.
@@alfiehicks1The Classic NES Series/Famicom Mini games for the GBA all ran on Nintendo's in-house NES/FC emulator (the same one included in Metroid Zero Mission as an unlockable, and IIRC a variant of the one used on GCN Animal Crossing) running original ROMs, so yeah, no modifications to the original code were done in any of the games released under the banner
Ghosts & goblins is the kind of game that makes everyone feel like an incompetent baby. The NES port is actually pretty solid, it's just a franchise built on CBT. It's like the demon spawn of Contra and Castlevania.
@@warbossgegguz679Nah man, the NES port is anything but competent lmao And you gotta keep in mind the original GnG is a contemporary of the first Super Mario Bros., developed under the "3 minutes of play per quarter" mentality of arcade games of the time (you can totally 1CC it if you're skilled though)
@@thestripedmenace Bro, I've played both. It runs fine and difficulty wise is about the same... except you have unlimited free continues instead of having to pay.
I helped do QA on the J2me ports of Mega Man 2 and Street Fighter 2! So cool to see J2me featured like this. If you can find God of War on J2me, I know you're gonna hate it! I hated working on those crappy games, a real dark time of my life. It's nice to visit again
@@supermarrio it's all cool, glad to have the opportunity to talk to a dev who used to work on crappy java phone games. And btw, how did you land the job on creating/QA'ing them? And was it something you thought was a neat thing to do at the time or was it you originally wanted to work at an actual game studio that made games for portable handhelds/consoles perferably but couldn't or tricked into doing that instead?
Aladdin for the NES was a cheap cash in port based on the Game Boy version, as was The Lion King. Funnily enough there are bootleg pirate versions of both games on the NES that manage to deliver a better experience closer to the SNES/Genesis counterparts.
Fun fact: The official NES port of Aladdin is such a piece of trash that there's an unlicensed demake from Taiwan that is widely considered to be better.
The Taiwanese bootleg version is based on the SNES version though, not the Genesis version like the official port is (yeah, the little readme Vinny was reading off of was wrong, the version he played was a direct port of the Game Boy game, which itself was based on the Genesis game, not the SNES game).
When I heard "After Burner on NES" I immediately knew that Tengen was involved. They published a TON of NES ports of Sega games, none of which were all that good from what I recall. They did, however, make a better NES port of Tetris than the official NES port.
I had the AC3 on java phone game a long time ago and it was so much fun, and yes his emulator definitely needed some help because it didn't sound like that and it wasn't as laggy
I hope Vinny returns to this segment. I'd like to see his thoughts and reactions to the JAVA ports of various Castlevania games, from the NES original to Aria (and Dawn) of Sorrow.
@@thestripedmenace I'm not sure if they're straight-up ports, but whoever developed it definitely nailed the graphics and "core" gameplay. ruclips.net/video/sF-4OThzX64/видео.html
44:26 That game is called The Wonderful 101: Remastered. The last Operation had an unapologetic Space Harrier throwback. Overall, it's a pretty good and original Hack & Slash game with a variety of gameplay sections, obviously not everyone is gonna like all of them. The Robot Punch-Out, Space Harrier (and one "Star Fox" style boss fight) segments are peak though.
@@thestripedmenace Both bayo 1 and 2 have Space Harrier and After Burner themed levels respectively. with the former also having a Fantasy Zone reference. Important to note that even if it's all published and financially backed by Ninty, Sega still owns Bayonetta along with platinum.
@@thestripedmenace True, it's like a fusion between After Burner and Space Harrier. The angelic red snakes even have the behavior and attack patterns of the dragons found in Space Harrier lol
It is. I have the Game Boy version, and it's practically identical (only with more screen crunch). Also, said ports aren't based on the SNES game like Vinny said; they're based on the Genesis game.
Fun fact: there was a bootleg NES port of the Aladdin SNES game which is actually surprisingly good, especially comparing to the official one. Pretty solid platforming with parkour tricks, neat visuals. It was a really good childhood game for many kids of post-soviet countries (including me btw). The guy behind YT channel "Kinamania" did videos on quite a lot of bootlegs, including this one and also a bootleg King Lion, which was also a big step up from an official NES King Lion game.
I tried to play Dragon's Lair NES because there was a pretty lady on the box art and I wanted to save her but I could never get past the first screen. I was a little kid when I tried but as an adult, past me giving up saved me a headache.
Nice to see Porthole back! I've never submitted a pack before but I could probably make one up someday for this segment. Only games I have on the top of my mind are Duke Nukem for GBC, Beavis and Butt-Head for Game Boy, and Batman: Revenge of the Joker on Sega Genesis. The Batman game is not good in comparison to the NES version, I don't know how faithful the GBC port of Duke Nukem is compared to its original, and the Beavis and Butt-Head game is nothing like the home console versions, but I thought it was alright. I don't know if a completely different gameplay style of a port is allowed though.
Rule #1: GET THE KNIFE. All jokes aside, I never realized how comparatively shitty the NES port of Ghosts and Goblins was, nor that it was developed under license by a third-party company.
I also gave up on the NES Ghosts n Goblins in the cave level because of the 3 Red Arremers you have to fight in a row. I dunno if I'd even have the patience these days to make it that far. lmfao
You are correct, but it's worth noting that Eugene Jarvis was the designer of both with Smash TV being intended as a sort of modernized version of Robotron. Dude's a legend, and legit one of my biggest inspirations from the golden era when it comes to game design, along with Ed Logg.
35:03 Say what you want about Pac-Land's visuals, but looking back I realized just how impressive Pac-Man's sprite is in the Arcade version. Pac-man has a walking animation separate from his running one. Ahead of it's time I must say.
As someone who did (a bit of) J2ME development back in that day, a lot of the suck really does come from restrictions of the platform itself. It was very fragmented, just because a certain phone would fulfill a baseline level didn't mean it would fulfill any of the extensions to make it useful for games, so if you wanted something not custom tailored only for high-end new devices you'd have to fall back to really limited featuresets. For instance originally there was no provision for sound effects, hence a lot of games have only midi music and some (ab)use the midi sounds for sound effects as well, and once the ability to play digitized sound became possible there really was no guarantee it was actually available in sane formats (updates to existing phones' J2ME certainly weren't happening) or whether things were consistent enough... if I recall right, some phones refused .wav files anyway, you'd have to have them compressed in a proprietary format.
Aladdin NES is actually a port of a Game Boy game. And the Space Harrier NES port could have been better, since there's a similar game called 3D Worldrunner and it has better and smoother 3d.
The Ghosts n Goblins one kind of makes sense with the general practices of games made for the NES vs games made for the original Famicom. During that time in Japan, game renting services were non existent, you bought the game if you wanted the game. Because of rental services, NES games were often intentionally made harder than the original Japanese releases.
Smash TV and its sequel Total Carnage fucking rule. Dead Ops Arcade in Black Ops 1 is also highly underrated spiritual successor to Smash TV that people often overlook
I had Smash TV on the Game Gear as a teenager, and it played like the NES game and wasn't the worst playing game. So much better than most of the games featured today.
It’s so weird how the Arcade version of Ghosts and Goblins is more forgiving than the NES version. Like usually the arcade version is designed to be quarter-hogs, while the console versions are more lax. Guess they never got that memo for the NES port
@@thestripedmenace And still failed :x SMS Golden Axe (not Golden Axe Warrior, that is) feels completely off, has bad graphics, but there's the Tyris hack for it that makes it a whole world lot better.
As a teen I only ever bought 2 mobile phone games. Tetris and Stuntman, I could not handle the controls for Tetris and Stuntman was only barely good enough to keep me company in the DMV line once. I decided that these games were trash and never bought another. I apparently managed to play two of the best ones. XD
Aladdin is not from SNES but from Game Boy which is port from Sega. Withut proper upscaling or colored graphics. Same thing happened to Lion King. Shitty port of gameboy version. Unlicensed version of SNES Aladdin known as Alladin 2, 3 or 4 is way better in quality than this. Dragon's Lair was also officially ported on Game Boy Color, while it suffered in graphics department its still solid experience of original game. Wonder if SNES would have enough power with Super FX chip to handle proper port...
The case of Micronics is fascinating. It really goes to show that being a competent developer was not necessarily the key to success during the early years of the Famicom/NES' lifespan. It's really weird how Capcom and SNK (neither of which were quite the powerhouses we know them as now during the eighties, but still) looked at Micronics and decided that they'd be the people in charge of their arcade ports initially. Rumor has it the entire company, at least for a time, consisted of a single employee, namely a Japanese student trying to make a living on the side by coding these games. Whether or not to believe that information is up to you, but it would explain the quality of the early games they put out. They did improve eventually, but it was too little too late, just about the only Famicom game of theirs approaching decent quality that I know of is Kaiketsu Yanchamaru 3 which came out in the early nineties, and their SNES port of Raiden was passable from what I remember, although it does call to mind their NES port of 1942, considering how everything is kinda jittery and janky in both games. Also, I'm willing to bet Vin's friend had 1943: The Battle of Midway, which was a good arcade port that Capcom handled themselves. 1941 was only ever ported to the PC Engine SuperGrafx, that weird upgraded version of the Turbografx-16, a console that never even left Japan, if I remember correctly.
@@thestripedmenace The game speed was faster than the original game's as well; for example, moving platforms and hazards (such as the swinging platforms in Marble Zone, and the circiling spike balls in Spring Yard Zone) traveled very noticeably faster and thus were harder to deal with.
5:36 absolutely vin. Like, regardless of if its fun this is INSANELY impressive for the NES. Idk maybe im just bad for this segment becaue i dont expect much of ports from 16 to 8 bit hardware. Outside of a few like 1942 or Aladin most of these are solid enough imo. The best thing devs could do back then was study the OG game and make the best facsimile they could on totally different and far weaker hardware. Its not like today where you port source-code. These dudes were literally remaking this stuff from the ground up on hardware that could NEVER actually support the proper arcade games.
The Afterburner one is kinda impressive for the NES given the rotational and parallax scrolling. I was expecting a far less detailed powerpoint slideshow tbf.
My first time playing megaman 2 was with that java mobile version, and I actually finished it. At the time I didn't know any better so it didn't feel that bad lol.
So, small comment on Afterburner: Both the NES and SMS versions are decent ports. However the NES version is smoother (except background elements, where both are choppy) And on Space Harrier: The NES Version is way smoother, the SMS version is choppy as hell. On top of that, the SMS version draws only the UI and the player as sprites, EVERYTHING ELSE is background, which means that an enemy shot could hide behind your shot or behind an enemy or behind an obstacle and wouldn't be visible AT ALL until it's too late.
A lot of Sega games on NES had two different versions though: one by Sunsoft and one by Tengen. Only the Sunsoft NES ports are decent. The ones Vinny played are the shitty Tengen versions.
Watching Vinny play that fucking Mega Man 2 port made me pause the video and go listen to The Bit Brigade. If just one person reads this and decides to check out the best NES rock band of all time, then at least SOME good will have come from that heinous port and Vinny's suffering won't have been in vain.
I'm surprised that the java ports of Castlevania Dawn of Sorrow and Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing weren't included in this pack. Dawn of Sorrow was actually kind of good once you get past the weird controls and the Sonic Racing game is a "good" example of a java phone game that supported touch-screens. Not all phones that used J2ME lacked touch-screens.
I actually thought Afterburner on NES looked pretty impressive... compared to the low end LJN and bad games. looked graphically impressive. I enjoyed captain skyhawk and others. There was an atari game my grandma had that played very similart that afterburner reminded of. I need to find it now.
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![10 Weird NES Facts! [Nintendo Entertainment System] | Nintendrew](/img/1.gif)
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Thanks, I'll make sure to avoid that
@@shadybadger7896it's only a matter of time...
Honestly, having a gameplay video of the original game before the port is shown is such a good idea to get an idea of how good or bad the port is going to be. Love the Ghosts ‘n Goblins one, as I have a friend who hates the NES version.
I mean. The gameplay of the NES version is on par with the OG, so idk why its considered a terrible port other than the music being a but grating.
Like, it's a port from 16 to 8 bit hardware, can't really expect arcade perfect conversions, lol.
My favorite part about the G&G one is the very understandable "I ran out of patience but you get the idea," kept it short while making it clear that version is suffering while promoting the original arcade as tough but fair
Avgn style
@@warbossgegguz679 Idk I remember playing a bit of the arcade version and I dont remember it being too bad gameplay wise.
yeah, I never understood back then like how or what stupidity is happening at Capcom for going with aggressive bullshit in the NES ver. I rather pay 1000 bucks just to have an arcade version
As someone, who grew up with Java phones, I'm gonna enjoy this
i use a NES phone
As someone who grew up watching vinsauce, I’m gonna enjoy this
same
same
Well did you?
Holy crap NES Afterburner makes me motion sick more than any game ever has.
To be honest the original also made me more motion sick than any other game ever has
It cannot be overstated how impressive the Sega AM2 games were for their time. Space Harrier was pushing that fast pseudo-3D 16-bit action the same year Nintendo released _the first Super Mario Bros. game._
Shit, they're still fun! The OutRun port on the 3DS was the bomb. I play it on my Switch every once in a while.
It took them until the Sega Saturn released to finally make an arcade-perfect, full 60fps home port of the big three super-scaler games, they were absolutely well ahead of their time.
AM2 didn't make the NES ports of their games. It was Tengen.
That said, yeah, AM2 are the GOATs of SEGA even now.
Shame VF5US is still exclusive to PS5 😑
@@alfiehicks1That's mainly because the Saturn was built with Sprite scaling and arcade ports in mind.
What's impressive is shit like virtua fighter and virtua racing on the 32x, VF2, Fighting Vipers, and Fighters Megmix on the Saturn, the VF2 demake for Mega Drive, Daytona and Vitual On on the Saturn... a ton of shit. They were Sega's bleeding-edge tech studio in the 90s and 2000s.
Even TO THIS DAY they rarely let port studios touch their work. All of the SEGA ages versions of VF, Sonic the Fighters, Fighting Vipers, and even a few older titles like Virtua Racing and Daytona USA are done directly in-house by AM2 vs. Sonic Team offloading everything onto M2 for the past 20-ish years.
The version of Aladdin featured in this pack is not based on the SNES version of the game it's actually based on the Gameboy Port of the Sega Genesis version of Aladdin, it's why Enemies and items have that weird outline, because on Gameboy there was no color and those sprites needed to stand out. So Vinny played a port of a port of a port.
A copy of a copy of a copy
Not even 10 minutes in and Vinny is already talking about how his friends gave him their seed.
I love that PAC land uses an instrumental of the 80s pacman cartoon theme
in the US they had a deal with Hanna Barbera
afaik Pac-Land was actually made because they wanted Namco to make a game for the HB show for whatever reason. That's why he has the hat.
@@bigspaghettio in Japan the hat looks different
@@fixedfunshow hrm, i swore it was the same in both versions, the only thing i remember being changed were pac's eyes.
i still think it was based off of the cartoon though since i've seen multiple sources state it, and the song is the same in all regional versions.
I think NES Dragon’s Lair might be my new favorite death animation. INSTANT SKELETOZATION!
There's actually a bootleg port of Aladdin for the NES that looks and feels pretty much the same as the SNES version, famously better than the official port
I think Hummer Team did that one. Man, those guys knew what they were doing. They also famously did a port of Super Mario World to the NES, with a rideable Yoshi, proving Miyamoto was full of it when he said it couldn't be done.
Well, makes sense since that one's based on the SNES version of Aladdin while the official NES version is a port of the Gameboy Version which is a port of the Sega Genesis version of Aladdin.
Hummer's soundchip was rather peculiar to say the least, but their unlicensed ports were super impressive for what they were. I actually had both their Aladdin port and Somari as a kid, so I have some semi-fondness for their work. On that note, I'm pretty sure the official NES port of Aladdin was actually a port of the fucking Gameboy conversion of the Megadrive game, all of them published by Virgin Interactive. Porting GB versions of licensed titles to the NES was something of a cash-grab trend in the console's twilight years. I believe the same situation came about with the Lion King game, which received a licensed port from the Gameboy and a direct unlicensed conversion of the SNES game. Come to think of it, I had that one too and I'm pretty sure it was also done by Hummer Team.
@@apostlenik809 Yeah, their sound driver wasn't really good, but other than that, these ports were marvels (and IMO the only reason Somari sucks is because of the level design full of inescapable pits, not because any code stuff). If Hummer started few years earlier and did original work instead of the bootleg ports, they could've been another SunSoft or Capcom, easily.
@@UltimatePerfectiongranted only barely when the rest of game really struggles a lot of the time. Loootta slowdown and glitching.
NGL when I was a kid with limited access to videogame consoles I was a big fan of Java games, I have great memories of playing Java ports of the early Final Fantasy games
Simple JRPGs work decently well on J2ME, tbh
Cool basic bitch thought
Showing the originals was much needed for these types of segments, thanks for doing them!
cute profile picture
The music for Mega Man 2 on J2ME really captures the _soundscape_ of desperately trying to kill time while taking a dump in a gas station bathroom in 2003
It's not surprising that multiple of these ports have had AVGN episodes. The Ikari Warriors episode was particularly funny imo, with the "guitar guy" (Kyle I think his name is?) just making up silly songs on the spot and James really struggling not to laugh lol
where did their hair go?
Vinny: I AM PORTHOLIO! I NEED EMULATIONS FOR MY BUNGHOLE!!!
YOU WILL NOT SPEEEEN AS GOOD AS ME!!!!!
Red Rambo & Blue Rambo are my favorite recurring KoF characters
And don't forget they changed their names to Paul and Vince in the original localizations of Ikari 1-3
Even though Ralph and Clark are completely normal names in English. That has forever bugged the hell out of me.
that aladdin port is for the genesis version, not the snes one displayed.
6:17 NES After Burner II is a downgrade from the FC After Burner II, made by *Sunsoft.* The FC version has better audio and better way to handle graphics thanks to their own cartridge mapper (a thing that NoA was not very kind about).
44:08 FC Space Harrier is a "port of a port:" It is based on the SMS version, and even includes the secret boss, Haya Oh. It was ported by *Whiteboard,* who later became Santos and then, Megasoft (Shinobi III).
Bah, não sabia disso sobre o Space Harrier de NES/FC não!
Love how chill these streams are!! =)) and also love the random game facts vinny talks about
I played the Classic NES series version of Ghosts n goblins on GBA as a kid. I'm very glad to know I wasn't just awful at the game and that it truly was pretty cruddy.
Wow, did they seriously not fix it? There's actually a _good_ version of Ghosts 'n' Goblins for the Gameboy/Gameboy Color (one of those black cartridges) that uses the graphics from the NES version, but plays like the arcade (i.e., not 15fps) has *way* better music, and introduces a password system so you can actually save your progress and continue where you left off. Too bad it's expensive as shit to buy it now.
@@alfiehicks1The Classic NES Series/Famicom Mini games for the GBA all ran on Nintendo's in-house NES/FC emulator (the same one included in Metroid Zero Mission as an unlockable, and IIRC a variant of the one used on GCN Animal Crossing) running original ROMs, so yeah, no modifications to the original code were done in any of the games released under the banner
Ghosts & goblins is the kind of game that makes everyone feel like an incompetent baby.
The NES port is actually pretty solid, it's just a franchise built on CBT. It's like the demon spawn of Contra and Castlevania.
@@warbossgegguz679Nah man, the NES port is anything but competent lmao
And you gotta keep in mind the original GnG is a contemporary of the first Super Mario Bros., developed under the "3 minutes of play per quarter" mentality of arcade games of the time (you can totally 1CC it if you're skilled though)
@@thestripedmenace Bro, I've played both. It runs fine and difficulty wise is about the same... except you have unlimited free continues instead of having to pay.
I helped do QA on the J2me ports of Mega Man 2 and Street Fighter 2! So cool to see J2me featured like this. If you can find God of War on J2me, I know you're gonna hate it! I hated working on those crappy games, a real dark time of my life. It's nice to visit again
Did you happen to do the Aqua Teen Hunger Force golf game by anychance?
My friends and i LOVED it back in the day!
@@MrDmoney156 Nah, I only worked on crappy j2me ports. Nothing original sadly lol
@@supermarrio it's all cool, glad to have the opportunity to talk to a dev who used to work on crappy java phone games.
And btw, how did you land the job on creating/QA'ing them? And was it something you thought was a neat thing to do at the time or was it you originally wanted to work at an actual game studio that made games for portable handhelds/consoles perferably but couldn't or tricked into doing that instead?
Aladdin for the NES was a cheap cash in port based on the Game Boy version, as was The Lion King. Funnily enough there are bootleg pirate versions of both games on the NES that manage to deliver a better experience closer to the SNES/Genesis counterparts.
Fun fact: The official NES port of Aladdin is such a piece of trash that there's an unlicensed demake from Taiwan that is widely considered to be better.
I heard the same story about _The Lion King._
The Taiwanese bootleg version is based on the SNES version though, not the Genesis version like the official port is (yeah, the little readme Vinny was reading off of was wrong, the version he played was a direct port of the Game Boy game, which itself was based on the Genesis game, not the SNES game).
When I heard "After Burner on NES" I immediately knew that Tengen was involved. They published a TON of NES ports of Sega games, none of which were all that good from what I recall. They did, however, make a better NES port of Tetris than the official NES port.
And then you remember Tengen was an arm of one of the Ataris...
There is an afterburner II on the famicom made by sunsoft if you want to check out. Unlike the tengen version it is actually licensed
Dude this is amazing I haven't seen these ports anywhere not since they came out
Ya know, I don't hate the idea of like, a 2D Witcher Metroidvania. Think Symphony of the Night, but Witcher-themed, with more blood.
I had the AC3 on java phone game a long time ago and it was so much fun, and yes his emulator definitely needed some help because it didn't sound like that and it wasn't as laggy
I hope Vinny returns to this segment. I'd like to see his thoughts and reactions to the JAVA ports of various Castlevania games, from the NES original to Aria (and Dawn) of Sorrow.
Wait, Aria and Dawn got ACTUAL Java ports???? Not games built using their assets??????
@@thestripedmenace I'm not sure if they're straight-up ports, but whoever developed it definitely nailed the graphics and "core" gameplay.
ruclips.net/video/sF-4OThzX64/видео.html
44:26 That game is called The Wonderful 101: Remastered. The last Operation had an unapologetic Space Harrier throwback.
Overall, it's a pretty good and original Hack & Slash game with a variety of gameplay sections, obviously not everyone is gonna like all of them. The Robot Punch-Out, Space Harrier (and one "Star Fox" style boss fight) segments are peak though.
Bayonetta 1 has an even more explicit Space Harrier reference near its end too - and it was even published by SEGA
@@thestripedmenace Both bayo 1 and 2 have Space Harrier and After Burner themed levels respectively. with the former also having a Fantasy Zone reference.
Important to note that even if it's all published and financially backed by Ninty, Sega still owns Bayonetta along with platinum.
@@thestripedmenace True, it's like a fusion between After Burner and Space Harrier. The angelic red snakes even have the behavior and attack patterns of the dragons found in Space Harrier lol
59:59 I've never seen a combination Donkey Punch/Reacharound. But there it is.
The NES version of Aladdin seems to be very similar to the GameBoy version, just with a larger viewing area
That's probably what happened, such a porting procedure was fairly frequent late in the NES' life
It is. I have the Game Boy version, and it's practically identical (only with more screen crunch). Also, said ports aren't based on the SNES game like Vinny said; they're based on the Genesis game.
Wouldn't that Aladdin be a port of the Virgin version... You know, the one with the sword, and not Capcom's version....?
Yup
Yeah, whoever wrote the little readme file Vinny was reading fucked up.
Fun fact: there was a bootleg NES port of the Aladdin SNES game which is actually surprisingly good, especially comparing to the official one. Pretty solid platforming with parkour tricks, neat visuals. It was a really good childhood game for many kids of post-soviet countries (including me btw). The guy behind YT channel "Kinamania" did videos on quite a lot of bootlegs, including this one and also a bootleg King Lion, which was also a big step up from an official NES King Lion game.
Some games were meant to be system sellers. _Aladdin_ on the NES looks like it was made to sell the Sega Genesis.
The music for Bubble Man's stage gave me flashbacks to "Dawn Comes Through" (the world travel theme) from _The Museum of Anything Goes._
I tried to play Dragon's Lair NES because there was a pretty lady on the box art and I wanted to save her but I could never get past the first screen. I was a little kid when I tried but as an adult, past me giving up saved me a headache.
The NES Aladdin was a port of the GameBoy version. One of the bootleg ports of the game looks better than the official NES game lol
Which itself was a port of the Genesis version, not the SNES version like the little readme file Vinny was reading said.
Way back when, I had Dead Rising on my phone and Puzzle Fighter, and to this day I've never seen those versions mentioned anywhere.
Currently trying to understand why the logo for MegaMan 2 is in chinese while the rest of the game is in portuguese.
Nice to see Porthole back! I've never submitted a pack before but I could probably make one up someday for this segment. Only games I have on the top of my mind are Duke Nukem for GBC, Beavis and Butt-Head for Game Boy, and Batman: Revenge of the Joker on Sega Genesis.
The Batman game is not good in comparison to the NES version, I don't know how faithful the GBC port of Duke Nukem is compared to its original, and the Beavis and Butt-Head game is nothing like the home console versions, but I thought it was alright.
I don't know if a completely different gameplay style of a port is allowed though.
Duke nukem gbc is a complete remake of duke nukem 2
I bet Aladdin was a Game Boy game that got ported to NES
It was. I have the Game Boy version. And they're both based on the Genesis game, not the SNES game like Vinny said.
Ironically, the bootleg NES game is way better in every possible ways.
Rule #1: GET THE KNIFE.
All jokes aside, I never realized how comparatively shitty the NES port of Ghosts and Goblins was, nor that it was developed under license by a third-party company.
I also gave up on the NES Ghosts n Goblins in the cave level because of the 3 Red Arremers you have to fight in a row. I dunno if I'd even have the patience these days to make it that far. lmfao
Smash TV is most certainly not the original twin stick shooter. As far as I know that would be Robotron 2084 which came out 8 years prior.
You are correct, but it's worth noting that Eugene Jarvis was the designer of both with Smash TV being intended as a sort of modernized version of Robotron.
Dude's a legend, and legit one of my biggest inspirations from the golden era when it comes to game design, along with Ed Logg.
@@warbossgegguz679 Oh, I didn't know that. I do like Smash TV as a game but I definitely prefer Robotron.
But will Mega Man try to kill Vinny again?
35:03 Say what you want about Pac-Land's visuals, but looking back I realized just how impressive Pac-Man's sprite is in the Arcade version. Pac-man has a walking animation separate from his running one. Ahead of it's time I must say.
I'm glad Vinny finally played John Turok, Space Marine.
As someone who did (a bit of) J2ME development back in that day, a lot of the suck really does come from restrictions of the platform itself. It was very fragmented, just because a certain phone would fulfill a baseline level didn't mean it would fulfill any of the extensions to make it useful for games, so if you wanted something not custom tailored only for high-end new devices you'd have to fall back to really limited featuresets. For instance originally there was no provision for sound effects, hence a lot of games have only midi music and some (ab)use the midi sounds for sound effects as well, and once the ability to play digitized sound became possible there really was no guarantee it was actually available in sane formats (updates to existing phones' J2ME certainly weren't happening) or whether things were consistent enough... if I recall right, some phones refused .wav files anyway, you'd have to have them compressed in a proprietary format.
Aladdin NES is actually a port of a Game Boy game.
And the Space Harrier NES port could have been better, since there's a similar game called 3D Worldrunner and it has better and smoother 3d.
I like when Vin does stuff that is informative like this. Game preservation, you know?
The Ghosts n Goblins one kind of makes sense with the general practices of games made for the NES vs games made for the original Famicom. During that time in Japan, game renting services were non existent, you bought the game if you wanted the game. Because of rental services, NES games were often intentionally made harder than the original Japanese releases.
Smash TV and its sequel Total Carnage fucking rule. Dead Ops Arcade in Black Ops 1 is also highly underrated spiritual successor to Smash TV that people often overlook
What a nice treat of a video
That Aladdin game looks like a very impressive British PC game from the 80s
Assassins Creed 3 Java looks like it would be a dope gba game
I had Smash TV on the Game Gear as a teenager, and it played like the NES game and wasn't the worst playing game. So much better than most of the games featured today.
There’s something really charming to me about the graphics of the NES Aladdin
Maybe it's because it's practically an exact replica of the Game Boy game.
How do you even emulate old Java games? I really want to know because there are a couple of Java games from my childhood I want to go back to.
KEmulator.
I used it to play the canon God of War Java phone game.
Good luck finding the roms; a lot of old Java games are lost media.
@@Bubbabyte99 I got the roms of the games I care about, just don't know how to play them.
@@Bubbabyte99 they're not hard to find at all dude, lol.
when are you going to play drakengard for java phones
It’s so weird how the Arcade version of Ghosts and Goblins is more forgiving than the NES version. Like usually the arcade version is designed to be quarter-hogs, while the console versions are more lax.
Guess they never got that memo for the NES port
Double click the direction to get worms to jump. Left twice jump left.
Had that one and prince of Persia on my razor.
There were a lot of people who hung onto the nes after the snes came out because of the price.
3:20 better yet, check out *literally any other nes game's ost*. earthbound beginnings is pretty good
Has anyone ever made Phone Game corruptions?
The NES version of Aladdin is based on the Genesis version, not the SNES version.
9:22 why does it sound like someone is getting food an McDonalds
I wonder if Vinny ever checked the Master System ports of Space Harrier and Golden Axe...
Space Harrier tries its darn best and has an extra boss to compensate all of its downgrades, tho!
@@thestripedmenace And still failed :x
SMS Golden Axe (not Golden Axe Warrior, that is) feels completely off, has bad graphics, but there's the Tyris hack for it that makes it a whole world lot better.
As a teen I only ever bought 2 mobile phone games. Tetris and Stuntman, I could not handle the controls for Tetris and Stuntman was only barely good enough to keep me company in the DMV line once. I decided that these games were trash and never bought another. I apparently managed to play two of the best ones. XD
Aladdin is not from SNES but from Game Boy which is port from Sega. Withut proper upscaling or colored graphics. Same thing happened to Lion King. Shitty port of gameboy version. Unlicensed version of SNES Aladdin known as Alladin 2, 3 or 4 is way better in quality than this. Dragon's Lair was also officially ported on Game Boy Color, while it suffered in graphics department its still solid experience of original game. Wonder if SNES would have enough power with Super FX chip to handle proper port...
The NES Pacland Pacman do hit kinda hard to me, ngl.
Super Vinesauce - PortHole for NES and Java.
The case of Micronics is fascinating. It really goes to show that being a competent developer was not necessarily the key to success during the early years of the Famicom/NES' lifespan. It's really weird how Capcom and SNK (neither of which were quite the powerhouses we know them as now during the eighties, but still) looked at Micronics and decided that they'd be the people in charge of their arcade ports initially.
Rumor has it the entire company, at least for a time, consisted of a single employee, namely a Japanese student trying to make a living on the side by coding these games. Whether or not to believe that information is up to you, but it would explain the quality of the early games they put out. They did improve eventually, but it was too little too late, just about the only Famicom game of theirs approaching decent quality that I know of is Kaiketsu Yanchamaru 3 which came out in the early nineties, and their SNES port of Raiden was passable from what I remember, although it does call to mind their NES port of 1942, considering how everything is kinda jittery and janky in both games. Also, I'm willing to bet Vin's friend had 1943: The Battle of Midway, which was a good arcade port that Capcom handled themselves. 1941 was only ever ported to the PC Engine SuperGrafx, that weird upgraded version of the Turbografx-16, a console that never even left Japan, if I remember correctly.
The Sonic 2 OG phone port should have been here. It’s bad but at the same time has some charm to it
I remember the Sonic 1 port being pretty decent, but split in parts!
@@thestripedmenace The game speed was faster than the original game's as well; for example, moving platforms and hazards (such as the swinging platforms in Marble Zone, and the circiling spike balls in Spring Yard Zone) traveled very noticeably faster and thus were harder to deal with.
Is the Famicom version of Ghosts 'n Goblins easier?
thank you for reminding me that I was once desperate enough to play Mega Man 2 on a flip phone
we really have it easy nowadays, don't we?
flashback to 14 y/o me trying to play shitty Sonic Spinball on my flip phone in the school bathroom. good times lol
I remember playing afterburner on NES at my cousins, I thought it was really impressive when I was 5
I played that crusty Turok when I was around 9 and even my lower class-single-mother-raised child ass couldn't get to like it
1:07:27 sounds a lot like the music in the Mr Bean bit when he's driving to the dentist
Fun fact: if you plug your controller into the second controller port while playing NES Pac-Land, you can play with more traditional controls.
5:36 absolutely vin. Like, regardless of if its fun this is INSANELY impressive for the NES.
Idk maybe im just bad for this segment becaue i dont expect much of ports from 16 to 8 bit hardware. Outside of a few like 1942 or Aladin most of these are solid enough imo. The best thing devs could do back then was study the OG game and make the best facsimile they could on totally different and far weaker hardware.
Its not like today where you port source-code. These dudes were literally remaking this stuff from the ground up on hardware that could NEVER actually support the proper arcade games.
What I mostly got from the ghosts n goblins segment was "the incel NES ghosts n goblins vs the Chad arcade ghosts n goblins"
13:30 this joke never gets old
I love how "Never the Club Cousin" has become it's own catchphrase.
The apple sounds in aladdin remind me of waiting for a big mac at 3am
Line Rider Unbound has a PC version, might as well go with that. Wii version crashed a bunch
The Afterburner one is kinda impressive for the NES given the rotational and parallax scrolling. I was expecting a far less detailed powerpoint slideshow tbf.
Did vinny already check the n64 port of Starcraft?
My first time playing megaman 2 was with that java mobile version, and I actually finished it. At the time I didn't know any better so it didn't feel that bad lol.
At least the Aladdin devs seemed to keep true to the original level layout.
Yeah, because it's an exact port of the Game Boy game, which itself is a port of the Genesis game (not the SNES game like Vinny said).
I had that Turok game in my Sony Ericsson W580.
Sonic has some java phone ports.
So, small comment on Afterburner:
Both the NES and SMS versions are decent ports. However the NES version is smoother (except background elements, where both are choppy)
And on Space Harrier:
The NES Version is way smoother, the SMS version is choppy as hell. On top of that, the SMS version draws only the UI and the player as sprites, EVERYTHING ELSE is background, which means that an enemy shot could hide behind your shot or behind an enemy or behind an obstacle and wouldn't be visible AT ALL until it's too late.
A lot of Sega games on NES had two different versions though: one by Sunsoft and one by Tengen. Only the Sunsoft NES ports are decent. The ones Vinny played are the shitty Tengen versions.
@@Bubbabyte99 I'd still say Tengen at worst is DECENT... They could use better artists for some things tho
NES pack was very well done!
Was NES Aladdin ported to the GB from the Genesis and then to the NES? Jeez...
I like the comparisons
Not the DOOM rogue? Turn based doom on phone was wild.
And it was even made by Carmack and his wife at the time!
Watching Vinny play that fucking Mega Man 2 port made me pause the video and go listen to The Bit Brigade. If just one person reads this and decides to check out the best NES rock band of all time, then at least SOME good will have come from that heinous port and Vinny's suffering won't have been in vain.
I'm surprised that the java ports of Castlevania Dawn of Sorrow and Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing weren't included in this pack. Dawn of Sorrow was actually kind of good once you get past the weird controls and the Sonic Racing game is a "good" example of a java phone game that supported touch-screens. Not all phones that used J2ME lacked touch-screens.
The bombs in Aladdin NES sound like the inside of a McDonalds
"Happy Birthday!"
I actually thought Afterburner on NES looked pretty impressive... compared to the low end LJN and bad games. looked graphically impressive. I enjoyed captain skyhawk and others. There was an atari game my grandma had that played very similart that afterburner reminded of. I need to find it now.