I thought I create a topic on this because I ran into a port of a game that was so atrocious it should have never been made; also, allyourbaseare's topic on Ys Books I & II for the DS pushed me in this direction as well.

What game am I talking about? Doom for the SNES

Wow, talk about a steaming pile of (expletive)! I mainly bought this to hear Bobby Prince's music in context but the context is terrible! The fact the monsters can only display a front side because the side and back views/frames of animation had to be cut for space restrictions is sad. I also get that sick feeling when I move because the textures are terrible. Despite using the Super FX2 chip this has to be only an 8-16 meg game at the most...? You'd at least need a 32 meg cart to make this look decent. I spent $7 dollars on the game and I'm not even mad because it makes me laugh out loud like no tomorrow but I could only imagine someone buying this new when it came out at full price. I'd be sending an angry letter to Williams Entertainment...

The music was the only thing that is good here! The sound programming through the SNES sound chip is right on...

So, what are some other bad ports you have played? The ones that come to my mind are the Capcom VS games on the PS1 there the tag team element had to be scrapped because the PS1 couldn't load the animation frames for 4 characters in a fight which essentially turned them into one-on-one fighters. If you have to take out the element that makes the game different from previous ones why port it? Why port a game to a system that can’t or can barely handle it? Nevermind, I know the answer: anything to make money.

Well to name a big one, Super Street Fighter Turbo 2 Revival for GBA. It was decent but simultaneously an atrocity. If they just would have waited for DS then perhaps it wouldn't have been so bad. Also Hexen for the N64. The port on that one was piss poor.

Psychonauts for the PS2 is a shadow of its XBox counterpart, but the worst port I've played is Chrono Trigger on the PSX (FF Chronicles). Not only did the music sound different but the load times absolutely ruined this port for me. Seriously, loading when entering/exiting a menu on a SNES RPG? Thanks, but no thanks!

I forgot entirely how awful the Trigger port was on PSX. Thanks unregressing my memories, mang.

Speaking of GBA ports, how about Crazy Taxi on GBA? Talk about a game whose very reason to be doesn't work without the perspective its in...

Agreed on Chrono Trigger PSX, disagreed on Super Street Fighter Turbo 2 Revival.  I thought SSFT2R looked and played great on the GBA.  The exclusion of two attack buttons was a shame, naturally, but the optional "Easy Operation"-esque feature allowed for some flexible (read: cheap, but ridiculously fun!) techniques that you'd never be able to pull off in SF2 otherwise.

Also, I wouldn't exactly deem it a terrible port, but Gitaroo Man on the PSP paled in comparison to its original PS2 counterpart.  The UMD-based load times are ridiculous, the framerate got cut down to sub-30fps fugly, and the analog nub just isn't as precise as the sticks on a Dual Shock.

I wish they hadn't made that FFVI GBA port. I could handle the loss in audio quality, but the overly bright, washed-out graphics just ruined it for me.

To be fair, that could be said of most arcade-to-home conversions before arcade games started using boards based on consoles. It's interesting, though, that part of what killed arcade games was the fact that newer systems offered perfect ports.

I dunno, I really dug the new anime sequences, so it wasn't a complete waste.

Not to mention that it has the best SF2 character portraits ever.

Some bad ports/versions that I've played:

-Street Fighter Alpha 2 (SNES)
-Capcom Vs. SNK Pro (PSX)
-Chrono Trigger (PSX)
-Final Fantasy IV-VI (PSX)
-Mega Man 1-8 (PS2/XB/NGC)
-Street Fighter Alpha 3 (GBA)
-The Orange Box (PS3)
-XIII (PS2)

For the record, I thought the SSF2T Revival on GBA was quite good.

GBA has had some atrocious ports (GTA, Sonic the Hedgehog, Jet Grind Radio for Pete's sake), and mobile phone and iPod ports are islands unto themselves, but the one that makes me most angry to recall is the Sega Smash Pack on Dreamcast. What they did to SoR2's music must never be forgotten, nor forgiven.

PS: apparently the Phantasy Star GBA set randomly wipes your data a lot, too. Terrible.

FF6 was completely unplayable on the PS1. I'd say it was worse than CT because you had to fight a LOT more in that one. But both are atrocious.

SNES Alpha 2 is pure lol. I bought it for like, 2 bucks just to see how bad it was and I wasn't disappointed.

I remember Grandia II's PS2 port getting panned pretty badly, which was too bad, because I so wanted to play that on the Dual Shock (as opposed to the Dreamcast controller).

And Capcom's Marvel Vs. games on the PS1. No...Just no.

Edit: Wow, I didn't read the above responses before posting and it looks like mine lined up perfectly with everyone else's, for the most part. lol

Oh man, I'd forgotten how awful the PS2 version was.  The slowdown was truly intolerable. 

I'm really glad I snagged a Dreamcast to play that one.

Heh, I would like someone to try and top this horrible port! This here, is definitely a port that should not have been!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShC8zJgbTts

Am I crazy to think that's freaking awesome?  I even dig the creepy chiptune music.  Too bad the responses are all along the lines of, "OMG, I'm so glad that we moved past 8-bit graphics". -_-

Yes, yes, you are... OK, to be fair, given that it's an 8-bit port, it is quite impressive for managing to remain so true to the original RE. Nevertheless, I don't think it should have been made in the first place. Do you seriously think you would enjoy playing through the WHOLE game like that? Especially after playing the "real" RE... I seriously doubt that. At any rate, I definitely would not. Now, had this been made 20 years ago, that would have been impressive! Now, I find it amusing at best. I do however agree that the music is kinda catchy.

cheers,

-avatar!

I actually have a good bit of respect for the SNES Doom port. I mean, it was Doom. On a SNES. That alone is worthy of some praise in my opinion. And SNES SFA2 is perfectly playable.

And, yeah, I think the GBC RE looks amazing. I wish it had seen completion.

For ports that should not be, I guess my vote would go to the bootleg Street Fighter V NES cartridge I have. Aside from being a port of a game that doesn't exist yet, it's pretty unplayable with the two buttons and all the new SFV characters look suspiciously like SF2 characters with different names. It's cack.

Actually, I got Street Fighter Alpha 2 cart for christmas the year it came out and I'd hardly call it bad. Yes, the speed is no where near as fast as the 32-bit renditions even on the highest turbo setting, the pause before fights is annoying, the sound isn't too great (although I kind of like some of the tracks more piped through the SNES like Ryu and Charlie's stages) and the backgrounds suffered in transition (loss of frames in Chun Li's and next to no spectators in Birdie's) but for being on the SNES it's respectable. The game even used a special compression pack (Star Ocean being the only other game to use it I believe) to get that far.

I'd say the worst thing about being raised on the SNES version is the speed. I bought the PS1 Anthology and the game was just way too freakin' fast for me... that and the blisters I got from the PS1 pad. Oh, and I'm sorry - M.Bison is the devil incarnate in the original SFA.

Alpha 2 on the SNES has loading times...That's all you need to know.

No doubt Capcom agreed with you in the end since it was never released.

I didn't answer the main topic before, but the only ports that come to mind are Konami's arcade ports to the Genesis.  Ports like Turtles in Time which was released as Hyperstone Heist on the Genesis.  Unlike the SNES version which retains virtually everything from the arcade version and adds to it, the Genesis version is butchered.  It may still be a okay game, but it has fewer stages and if I remember correcty, they throw in a gauntlet of rehashed bosses near the end (I've always hated that gimmick) to try and make up for it.

I never played Sunsetriders on the Genesis, but it seems to be the same story.