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Amiga
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cross-posted from: https://kbin.social/m/retrogaming/t/33037
I'd love to hear the conversation that took place sometime in the early 90s about converting Lemmings to the humble ZX Spectrum.
"Sir, we've got this great idea for a Spectrum port!"
"Go on..."
"It's colourful, mouse-driven, with pixel-level graphic detail and many, many moving characters."
"Ummm..."Anyway, somehow someone thought it would be possible and it happened. In fact, it happened to all the 8-bit home computers. But, did it end up as a floater or was it led over the edge to die?
Let's go!
Everyone knows Amiga Lemmings, right? Of course you do... it's almost the Mario of the Amiga scene. Level after level of convoluted, destructible landscapes. A continuous stream of tiny, potentially multi-talented rodents. Some quirky British humour that manifests in things like the self-destruct button or the catchy music...
It's a game that has aged like fine wine and can still entertain today. If you somehow haven't played it, go dig up a copy today. It's great!
Screenshot of Spectrum Lemmings
Uhoh! first and worst of all is the ZX Spectrum. Actually, I found it difficult to know where to place this one. It plays reasonably well, and captures that basic Lemmings-ness. But it looks so... ugh.
I appreciate the problem. Lemmings requires pixel-level detail; Spectrums can do two colours per 8x8 square. So it is monochrome by necessity. But BOY is it monochrome. It's aggressively monochrome. No nuance or detail. It looks like the Amiga gfx were sampled down to 2 colours and that's it.
Boo!
Screenshot of Amstrad Lemmings
The Amstrad port is better, in looks at least. The graphics are bright and chunky, and the play area is large. What lets this port down is the speed. It's very slow. The "mouse" pointer is unresponsive and sluggish which makes it hard to control.
Also, the music sounds ever so slightly wrong, to the point where it makes you feel on edge.
It's not terrible though.
Best of the 8-bits is the C64 version. This port has good music, the graphics are nice and detailed, and the game is snappy and controls well.
What let's this one down is that the play area is kind of squeezed down to a narrow strip in the centre of the screen. For a game that requires you to see what is coming to the left and the right, this means you end up scrolling a lot. Still, it's not a deal breaker.
So, for 8-bits at least, a C64 win!
There were many other Lemmings ports, of course, most notably to the popular consoles of the day. This isn't a format you'd expect to do well with a generally mouse-based game, but they all turned out pretty good...
MegaDrive and SNES both got a port. The MD version was my weapon of choice growing up, and it plays really well. The SNES version is similarly good, and both are well worth a look today.
NES got a port, and it's okay, the worst of the consoles... It seems to play way too fast, which makes even the early levels tricksy.
Biggest surprise is the MasterSystem. Its port is rad! Looks great, sounds great, plays really well and has some amazingly clear speech samples.
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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/1254962
In the UK, we have a peculiar turn of phrase: "to make a good fist of" something. It means to put up a good show, to make the best of what you have, to succeed despite your challenges. And if you ever need to demonstrate to a non-English speaker what this means in practice, you can show them the 8-bit micro ports of Golden Axe!
Neither the Amstrad, C64 or Spectrum should be capable of running this game well. Yet, somehow, they all make a really good fist of it.
But which fist is best?
Arcade Golden Axe is a Sega classic. A two player fantasy hack 'em up, with three playable characters, some incredibly detailed and imaginative locations and enemies, a great soundtrack and plenty of goblin kicking.
It also came pretty late in the lifespan of the 8-bit micros, around 1990, a time when arcade conversions to the trusty three stalwarts were money generating afterthoughts, intended to milk a captive market hungry to play the big games. It's fair to say, expectations weren't high...
Worst of the three is, surprisingly, the C64 version. But, it's not terrible. It moves well, controls well, and the music is really good. It just feels extremely cut back.
It loses the two player mode of the other ports and generally has only one enemy on screen at once. Some of the enemy and creature placement is different as well. Shame, because it looks pretty nice in motion.
Next - and I'm going to have to ask you to trust me on this - is the really quite good Spectrum version.
Okay, so it looks like a bad Ceefax crash, but if you look beyond the graphics there's something of a game in there.
It feels like Golden Axe. It has the same enemy placement as the arcade. It has two players. It has all the playable characters. It just looks... bonkers.
But the best 8-bit micro port of them all, is the Amstrad version!
It is obviously cut from the same cloth as the Spectrum port, with the same arcade-faithful feel. Two players, all characters, plenty of enemies. But unlike the spectrum, it doesn't look like sick. It's Amstrad-chunky, you know? Colourful, bright, it moves pretty well and controls okay. It feels like a solid attempt that mostly works.
So a rare Amstrad win... among the feeble micros at least!
There were, of course, ports released on more capable systems.
The Amiga got a really good version. Clear, smooth graphics (albeit with quite sparse backgrounds at times) and an excellent soundtrack. In its initial release, it was let down by the limitations of a single button joystick (meaning jump was up and fire), but in this glimmering far future time, we're lucky enough to have the patched WHDLoad version, which allows for two button joysticks and makes the port much more enjoyable! Almost on par with the console versions, surprisingly.
No such luck on the Atari ST, which suffers not only from one-button limitations, but also everything else limitations. It's kinda like the Amiga version but with worse sound (so far, so normal), and has the play area bounded by two large gaudy UI panels. Boo!
The MSDOS port is okay, if a little nimble on my MiSTerFPGA emulation. It sounds good though, and the graphics are faithful. It did annoy me by demanding I produce a manual-based password before I could start the game... I had to find a forum post from 1995(!) to get around it (the password is probably AXE, if you're ever stuck like this!)
Finally, over on the consoles, the Megadrive port is the clear winner. It looks good (especially if you play the colour corrected version), and plays great. A quintessential early title for the system.
The PCEngine CD is, surprisingly, terrible. With drab graphics, jerky movement, the whole thing is annoyingly generally janky.
The Master System is better than it has any right to be. Very playable, but a bit jerky and only one playable character.
The biggest surprise is the (checks notes) Wonderswan Color version. Tiny and faithful, a great port and well worth checking out, should be looking for something to play on your, um, Wonderswan Color.
If you're going to play one, go with the Megadrive/Genesis version.
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