Favorite And Least Favorite Video Game Ports

[ultrairongorilla 2,064]

My favorite ports

• Kingdom Hearts Remix Collections, which come with Japanese only bonus content, and 60 FPS if your playing on Playstation 4
• Final Fantasy IX on Playstation 4 which comes with a bunch of ways to break the game if you want to. Plus I love the more cleaned up presentation.
• Banjo Kazooie and Tooie on Xbox 360 and Xbox One, for a more consistent frame rate.
• Jet Force Gemini on the Rare Replay Collection
• Resident Evil 4
• Jak and Daxter Collection
• Sly Cooper Collection
• Dark Souls 2:Scholar of the First Sin
• Halo: The Master Chief Collection
• Bioshock The Collection
• God of War Collection
• Doom: BFG edition

My least favorite ports

• Sonic Genesis (Gameboy Advance) Candidate for the worst Sonic game ever made.
• Return to Arkham Collection - framerate issues, and only making the game slightly brighter, and tweaking the color a bit.
• Destroy All Humans HD port crashing and other weird bugs.
• Ratchet and Clank HD collection + Deadlocked for not really adding much. Plus all the bugs, glitches, graphical problems and saving issues.

[Snow Frostflame 3,568]

My favorite port would be Skyrim remastered.

Least favorite would be The Sims 4 (console).

Edited January 24, 2018 by Snow Frostflame

[Kyoshi Frost Wolf 41,478]

My least favorite port of all time is definitely the Sims 2 for console. I don't even know if it would count as a port since it is so different from the PC version, but it bears the same name so, port. Holy hell what a train wreck. It had hardly anything that made the original game great. No multiple floors for houses, weak customization and no kids whatsoever?! Hooooooow? I view the Sims 2 as the prime example on how to not do a PC to console transition. Which is why I am so happy that the Sims 3 on consoles turned out quite well. I even like the Sims 4 on consoles. It is definitely not perfect, but compared to the console port of Sims 2..It is heaven.

 

Favorite ports? Hmmm...

I am quite enjoying Skyrim on the Switch so far. Kinda amazing that such a massive game is on a friggin handheld console! And while there is a bit of bugginess here and there as always, this version actually runs smoother than the PS3 and 360 versions and with it being on a handheld unit, that is friggin cool. Definitely one of my favorite ports.

Here's a weird one: Rollercoaster Tycoon for the original Xbox. Yeah, that happened and it was RAD. Thing is, this version is actually hated by a lot of fans because of its controls. I mean, obviously they are going to be inferior to the PC version, but honestly I got used to it just fine. Took me a bit, but after a little while, I was loving it. I think Frontier did a pretty good job with the control layout on a console. Beyond the changed control scheme, everything was there. It was literally Rollercoaster Tycoon on Xbox, it was the exact same game and for that, I love it. I'll take some quirky controls if it means I get the exact same game on a console.

[Tacodidra 61,168]

I thought Sonic Mega Collection for GameCube was good. The game experience was comparable to the original (the GameCube controller was great for the games), and it was nice to have all the classics on one disc.

Pac-Man for Atari 2600 is often said to be one of the worst ports. I have only played an emulated version, but I can see why people found the flashing ghosts annoying (they are migraine-inducing and make the game essentially unplayable).

Edited January 25, 2018 by Tacodidra

[Will Guide 21,360]

8 minutes ago, Tacodidra said:

I thought Sonic Mega Collection for GameCube was good. The game experience was comparable to the original (the GameCube controller was great for the games), and it was nice to have all the classics on one disc.

Yes I agree with that!

I personally didn't became a gamer until after Sega left the Consoles War, so I was never into that stupid rivalry between Nintendo's Mario and Sega's Sonic. And being a Nintendo Gamecube owner, that particular game collection made me realize how exciting the earlier Sonic games were.

Against popular opinion, I also loved Sonic Spinball from the collection as well as the History of Sonic video within the Extras menu.

Worst port I personally played was Myst for Nintendo DS. You get stuck in the library after beating the story. You're better off with its remake realMyst: Masterpiece Edition.

[Here No Longer 5,276]

Since I'm unsure if remakes really count as ports, so I'll just plop a bad one here.

Thrillville: of the Rails for the Nintendo DS. If the original were this bland, repetitive, ugly, and repulsive in every way, I have no idea how people liked it. No actual storyline for the story mode, boring gameplay filled with the most mundane minigames, puke-worthy graphics, and a downright pathetic soundtrack. Pretty sure it's the worst game I've ever played.

Edited January 25, 2018 by Duzzkey

[Megas 27,628]

Best would easily be Xenoblade on the New 3DS, how they managed to get this game to run on the New 3DS without any sort of noticeable compromises(besides slightly weaker visuals) is nothing short of amazing. Also Resident Evil 2 on the N64, where they managed to put two PS1 discs(which was roughly 800mb together) into a tiny N64 cartridge(about 64mb at best), again, with almost zero compromises(they even left the FMV in tact!) is some Iwata level tech wizardry

Worst ports are definitely Sonic Genesis for the GBA and Jak and Daxter Collection for the Vita, these platforms are more than capable of running these games and the fact that they're such disasters was a massive embarrassment, especially for Sonic Genesis as there was a fan who eventually managed to get a working port of the game working properly. The developers of those two games should be ashamed of bringing those games out in those states

[Sparklefan1234 170,741]

On 1/23/2018 at 9:40 PM, ultrairongorilla said:

Return to Arkham Collection - framerate issues, and only making the game slightly brighter, and tweaking the color a bit.

 

I had to turn "Return to Arkham: Batman: Arkham City"'s brightness up to the max setting because I had trouble seeing everything. 

[ultrairongorilla 2,064]

3 minutes ago, Sparklefan1234 said:

 

I had to turn "Return to Arkham: Batman: Arkham City"'s brightness up to the max setting because I had trouble seeing everything. 

I never even bothered completing Arkham City on the Return to Arkham Collection because the framerate and constant screen tearing gave me a headache. They delayed the collection for this problem too. 

Definitely play the PS3, Xbox 360, or PC complete editions, as they're best way to experience it without inconsistent lighting, framerate, or graphical problems. The Wii U port had similar issues, but not as bad.

[Envy 6,162]

Favorite:

The Kingdom Hearts series ones (I.5, II.5 or the combo, etc.) - My favorite thing is really that KHI and II got updated OSTs that replaced the MIDIs with the actual instruments. These ports have also always come bundled with at least two full KH games, have always gone on sale really fast, and then were reduced in price permanently fairly quickly. Very much worth the money.

My least favorites are Nintendo's Zelda ports. Sure they're technically fine, but they are overpriced. I mean, Twilight Princess HD was released around two years ago, and is still being sold for $60 at Target. If The Wind Waker, Twilight Princess, and Skyward Sword were all put in an HD remaster bundle, than it would be a really good deal... But one of each for $60? No way!

[Magic Note 2,748]

Favorite ports:

GTA3/VC/SA (PC) - all three are on PC and can be modded to fix any issues the games had, resulting in a virtually bug-free game. 

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe - It's a Switch port that can be taken on the go and runs seamlessly on the Switch screen. What else is there not to like?

Chrono Trigger (DS) - Another game that can be taken on the go, this time on the DS. It's also the first time I believe Europe and Australia got this game because Square games were never released in Europe. Even better, it has the PSX FMVs without the loading times!

Least favorite ports:

GTA4 on PC - What's worse than a game with ungodly system requirements? The possibility of having your game save being unrecognized by the game and having to start over!

Sonic the Hedgehog Genesis - Released only in North America, it has frame rate/physics issues and glitches that can easily break the game. The soundtrack and sound effects were absolutely awful, and it shows how much effort went into the game: zero.

Crystalis (GBC) - It takes away quite a lot from the NES original, and makes it so linear and makes the game more difficult for the wrong reasons: the swords can deal partial damage instead of being completely nullified but there's no way to tell if you're dealing the right amount of damage or not. The soundtrack was changed for the worse, redoing the game's underrated soundtrack for no rhyme or reason.

Dishonorable mention: Mortal Kombat Advance (GBA) - Cheap AI, unresponsive controls, and you may end up facing Scorpion as your very first opponent. If that happens, you're likely screwed because his AI is almost impossible to counter.

[Krampus 197]

My favorite ports would have to be:

Dust: An Elysian Tail (even if the old controller menu still shows up every so often)

Battlefront 2

Saint's Row The Third

 

Least favorite is really only 2:

Dark Souls: Prepare to Die (You need a mod just to connect to other players, c'mon Fromsoft)

Saint's Row 2, for virtue of being virtually unplayable without Gentleman of the Row installed

[Kyoshi Frost Wolf 41,478]

7 hours ago, Duzzkey said:

Since I'm unsure if remakes really count as ports, so I'll just plop a bad one here.

Thrillville: of the Rails for the Nintendo DS. If the original were this bland, repetitive, ugly, and repulsive in every way, I have no idea how people liked it. No actual storyline for the story mode, boring gameplay filled with the most mundane minigames, puke-worthy graphics, and a downright pathetic soundtrack. Pretty sure it's the worst game I've ever played.

Ahhh yes, Thrillville. What was huge waste of time that game was. It was pretty bad across all platforms, I actually owned the PSP version. It was just so....bland. And guess who made it? Frontier. Same studio that made the incredible Rollercoaster Tycoon. How Thrillville failed so hard is beyond me. If the DS port was even worse, then yikes. Crazy thing, I am sure the DS could handle the original RCT, that would have been SWEET. They should just pull a Skyrim and port RCT1 and RCT2 to everything. I wouldn't mind it. When you basically have perfection, you might as well put it on all the things. Smartwatch Rollercoaster Tycoon, someone should kickstart it.

[ultrairongorilla 2,064]

I actually really liked the Conker's Bad Fur Day Port/Remake they had on the original Xbox called Conker's Live and Reloaded. First off, the game is the best looking original Xbox game bar none. The fur textures, the dust floating around, the water effects, grass textures, the colors ooze and pop, it just looks gorgeous all around. All that, mixed with a remixed soundtrack, and you've got yourself a game with a absolutely beautiful presentation. 

The game fixed a lot of the control problems I had with the 64 version like during the "It's War" chapter, and The "Spooky" chapter.(Plus they got rid of that tedious part with the eel, thank god.) It was hampered by one HUGE downside though, when they decided to redo the voice acting they decided to censor even the minor swear words that the Nintendo 64 version didn't, that and they scrapped the fun split screen multiplayer with something more mundane and generic.

Edited January 26, 2018 by ultrairongorilla

[Kyoshi Frost Wolf 41,478]

1 minute ago, ultrairongorilla said:

I actually really liked the Conker's Bad Fur Day Port/Remake they had on the original Xbox called Conker's Live and Reloaded. First off, the game is the best looking original Xbox game bar none. The fur textures, the dust floating around, the water effects, grass textures, the colors ooze and pop, it just looks gorgeous all around. All that, mixed with a remixed soundtrack, and you've got yourself a game with a absolutely beautiful presentation. 

The game fixed a lot of the control problems I had with the 64 version like during the "It's War" chapter, and The "Spooky" chapter.(Plus they got rid of that tedious part with the eel, thank god.) It was hampered by one HUGE downside though, when they decided to redo the voice acting they decided to censor even the minor swear words that the Nintendo 64 version didn't, that and they scrapped the fun split screen multiplayer with something more mundane and generic.

The ONE thing I never understood about the Xbox version of Conker was the censoring. They for whatever reason censored its language more than the N64 version, which makes no sense at all since the violence was more amplified on the Xbox version if I recall, better graphics and all that. They even censored 'Twat' in that version. It has confused me even to this day.

[ultrairongorilla 2,064]

Just now, Kyoshi said:

The ONE thing I never understood about the Xbox version of Conker was the censoring. They for whatever reason censored its language more than the N64 version, which makes no sense at all since the violence was more amplified on the Xbox version if I recall, better graphics and all that. They even censored 'Twat' in that version. It has confused me even to this day.

Originally the game was supposed to be released as Conker Live and Uncut with a completely uncensored script back in E3 2003, but according to an article with the development team, they stated that Microsoft got "cold feet". What's even weirder, is that there is actually a potty mouth uncensored version you can unlock after you beat the game once. For the Multiplayer mode..... 

[Megas 27,628]

13 hours ago, ultrairongorilla said:

Originally the game was supposed to be released as Conker Live and Uncut with a completely uncensored script back in E3 2003, but according to an article with the development team, they stated that Microsoft got "cold feet". What's even weirder, is that there is actually a potty mouth uncensored version you can unlock after you beat the game once. For the Multiplayer mode..... 

I kinda find it amusing how goddamn Nintendo was...mostly fine with it being raunchy and offensive, and left it as is, while Microsoft of all companies wanted to censor it heavily

[Cash In 22,313]

Favourites are the Sonic 1, 2 & CD ports on mobile. It's hard to go back to the originals with all the QoL improvements and smoother gameplay.

Staying with Sonic, least favourite game port is easily Sonic Genesis on the GBA. Game looks and controls like shit. Screen crunch and slowdown are dreadful. I still can't believe how they butchered that.

[UltimateGhost3 498]

Halo 2 anniversary in the Master chief Collection (though i still run old graphics in gameplay )

Don't get me started on ports of sonic games, advance series is great but most gba sonic games are meh at best.

[Here No Longer 5,276]

Since people have mentioned games sort of like my favorite port, I'll put it here now as well (I didn't because as I said, I'm not sure if it's necessarily a "port" or just a remake.)

Super Mario 64 DS. It's basically just like the old SM64, except they added a few extra characters in the game who have different attributes, loads of addicting minigames (heck there's a few I could play for HOURS), and it even had a few extra additions that extended the playtime slightly longer than in the original game, including 3 mini-bosses that served as obstacles to unlocking characters. Most of the fights were structures really well also. Literally my only gripe is the camera is sometimes wonky, but the old game was no better with it.