Your favorite hidden gems ports!

Wasabikakipi

Wasabikakipi

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Just recently discovered The King of Fighters EX2 <howling blood> for Gameboy advance. Quite a nice port. EX1 was god awful though…reason why I ignored EX2.
Its basically a toned down KOF2000 (video playing on the Analogue pocket).
 
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yagamikun

yagamikun

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EX2 is pretty solid for what it is, especially compared to EX1. If we're talking handheld ports of fighting games, Street Fighter Alpha on Game Boy Color, Fatal Fury Special on Game Gear, and KOF95 on Game Boy are all better than they have any right to be. I have a soft spot for FFS on SNES and Samurai Shodown on 3DO as well, as these games are what turned me into an SNK fan boy in 1995.

I wouldn't call any of these "hidden gems," but they are good ports worth playing for some of their unique features or the ways they subverted hardware limitations to sill produce a fantastic gaming experience.
 
geladobom

geladobom

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It needs a neogeo port, and i'm not lying or joking. Using KOF99 and 2000 Version.
Using the mugen sprites.
 
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@M

@M

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I also love the Gameboy Nettou fighters, I bought every one that got released in the US, even Battle Arena Toshinden, and used emulation for the ones that didn't.
 
Satoshi_Matrix

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King of Fighters '96 on GameBoy. It shouldn't work. The GameBoy is just too limited to do fighting games properly at all. But this version manages to defy expectations. It's very playable and smooth. No, of course it doesn't compare graphically with the Neo-Geo. But it has the soul of the Neo Geo.
 

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Tarma

Tarma

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PSX port of Money Puzzle Exchanger (such a shame this didn't make it to the Neo-Geo CD), and Fatal Fury for the Mega Drive.

The latter may be incredibly cut back from the Neo-Geo original, but it was great fun at the time, and a good diversion from Street Fighter II... which was all people seemed to be talking about.
 
pixeljunkie

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Satoshi_Matrix said:
King of Fighters '96 on GameBoy. It shouldn't work. The GameBoy is just too limited to do fighting games properly at all. But this version manages to defy expectations. It's very playable and smooth. No, of course it doesn't compare graphically with the Neo-Geo. But it has the soul of the Neo Geo.
Click to expand...

And different sound FX on the Super Gameboy
 
Ralfakick

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The first KOF I ever played was US KOF 95 on the PlayStation. Not a hidden gem, but I was working at a game store and my friend who was another employee and I rented (took it out for free) it, got a ton of wings and watched football and then played KOF all night. I was amazed by the roster size compared to street fighter, and it was so much fun checking out each character for the first time.

Usually for Christmas I got one video game from my parents and that was the one I asked for.

Not a hidden gem but certainly a port that has a special place for me.
 
Capitalistix

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yagamikun said:
EX2 is pretty solid for what it is, especially compared to EX1. If we're talking handheld ports of fighting games, Street Fighter Alpha on Game Boy Color, Fatal Fury Special on Game Gear, and KOF95 on Game Boy are all better than they have any right to be. I have a soft spot for FFS on SNES and Samurai Shodown on 3DO as well, as these games are what turned me into an SNK fan boy in 1995.

I wouldn't call any of these "hidden gems," but they are good ports worth playing for some of their unique features or the ways they subverted hardware limitations to sill produce a fantastic gaming experience.
Click to expand...

As a GG fan I really want to check out FFS. Also now really curious about KoF 96 on GB. I had no idea any KoF was ported to GB let alone well or with any capacity for fun.

For me, a port that astonishes me in quality and that I love is Sonic Jam on Saturn. I would never have dared sell Sonic 1,2 and 3 for my Genesis until I bought and experienced Sonic Jam. I think its really special that they got those games nrunning natively on Saturn to the point they could tweak things like adding spindash to 1, and as a Sonic 2 fanboy makes Sonic 1 feel more palletable to me. I only wish it included Sonic CD
 
Neo Alec

Neo Alec

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city41 said:
The PC Engine Neo Geo ports in general are very impressive.
Click to expand...
True, but they ought to be for the price of admission. I seem to remember the Arcade Card Duo and Arcade Card Pro retailing at just under $200. For PC Engine owners it was basically like a Mega Drive owner shelling out for a 32X -- a complete system upgrade. I'm not sure how much of that is lost on people these days if they weren't around for that.
 
Capitalistix

Capitalistix

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Neo Alec said:
True, but they ought to be for the price of admission. I seem to remember the Arcade Card Duo and Arcade Card Pro retailing at just under $200. For PC Engine owners it was basically like a Mega Drive owner shelling out for a 32X -- a complete system upgrade. I'm not sure how much of that is lost on people these days if they weren't around for that.
Click to expand...

Agreed, however, at least the few games that were released for it, were legitimately good games. To boot they billed other games as arcade card enhanced, not unlike the current Xbox situation so I dont think thats as lost on this generstion as it might seem at first. As an owner of a Series X, whats the point, currently? Most all games save like Flight Simulator, can be played on Xbone, however some of these games are billed as "enhanced" on Series X as extra incentive to buy one.

As a 32X fan as well, I gotta say, yeah it had 30 something games but most of that library is a whiff and it didnt do anything for existing Genesis games.

I think NEC had a better idea and implementation than Sega at least. When youve got some quality ass games, an upgrade/add on like that makes sense to me.
 
O

oliverclaude

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Back in the day, I played a lot Super Baseball 2020 on the SNES with a buddy. Good port, but nothing special. Not enough to call it gem.

More recently I really fell in love with the Genesis port of Viewpoint. Technically it's a mixed bag, it offers 60fps, but flickers and slows down a lot. Some graphics took a cut and musically it's just ok but... somehow it still manages to capture what made the original so fascinating. How is that possible with all those audio-visual inferiority mentioned? Pretty simple: brilliant gameplay. Turns out that VP wasn't just an awesome graphic demo some deemed it to be, and proving that is the real surplus value of this port.

Last but not least, there's Twinkle Star Sprites on the DC, which offers the more complete experience than the original due to its slowdown on/off option. Excuse me, that's sprite limitation of course hehe...

Honorary mention goes to the Sengoku Mega-CD port. It comes with an asid approval, too.

BTW it's a shame Andro Dunos never made it to the Super CD. I bet that port would've managed to run w/o the infamous elevator flickering in the second stage. Because, well, 8bit, I guess... so it would have run on native hardware, right?
 
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