Battle of the Ports / Retrocore - Youtube channel

[ReadOnlyCat]

A new episode was released today.

Show #125: World Heroes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . [ Show youtube player ]

It was created in 1992 for the Neo Geo MVS arcade boards and was ported to a few consoles.
No Amiga port for this one, even though a reasonable one seems achievable on the 500 with a few compromises.
Any taker for a conversion?
Enjoy!

[Amigajay]

I like watching the dif ports as long as people get the facts about the machines running them.
I.e to compare a £99 computer I.e Speccy against a £2500-£3000 dev machine i.e the Sharp X68000 is like comparing a Ford Fiesta to a Jaguar
That along with home computer ports esp ineurope had teams of 1-3 and dev times of 3-9 months, compared to 20+ and 12-18 months for Japanese console/computer versions, as long as these facts are present its more fair to compare, what and why things went wrong in some versions rather than the hardware was not up to the task in a lot of cases.

[ReadOnlyCat]

Originally Posted by Amigajay

I like watching the dif ports as long as people get the facts about the machines running them.
I.e to compare a £99 computer I.e Speccy against a £2500-£3000 dev machine i.e the Sharp X68000 is like comparing a Ford Fiesta to a Jaguar

He compares how well each port addresses:
- the target platform
- the original arcade gameplay

This is perfectly acceptable, regardless of the systems. "Is the port worth playing?" is the question he answers and the hardware does not matter there. I am not sure why you think he is ignoring the differences between each system. He does take them explicitly into account.

Originally Posted by Amigajay

That along with home computer ports esp ineurope had teams of 1-3 and dev times of 3-9 months, compared to 20+ and 12-18 months for Japanese console/computer versions, as long as these facts are present its more fair to compare, what and why things went wrong in some versions rather than the
hardware was not up to the task in a lot of cases.

He does not put the fault on the hardware but on the developers so I am not sure what you are referring to?

He does mention explicitly several times that good developers are essential to a good port and regularly praises even Spectrum ports when they are good so your point seems most weird. Again, what are you referring to?

[Amigajay]

I never mentioned the person making the videos, I said 'people' I.e the viewers.
But anyway of course it's down to if its worth playing, but I disagree if blame is fully on the developers, as in certain Amiga games 1 or 2 devs have been 'given' 3 months to port an arcade game, no matter how good a dev may be these money pumping companies I.e us gold, ocean etc didn't give a shit if a game was any good, I always feel bad on these devs if the timeframe is so unrealistic they had no chance in reality.

[ReadOnlyCat]

Originally Posted by Amigajay

I never mentioned the person making the videos, I said 'people' I.e the viewers.
But anyway of course it's down to if its worth playing, but I disagree if blame is fully on the developers, as in certain Amiga games 1 or 2 devs have been 'given' 3 months to port an arcade game, no matter how good a dev may be these money pumping companies I.e us gold, ocean etc didn't give a shit if a game was any good, I always feel bad on these devs if the timeframe is so unrealistic they had no chance in reality.

Oki, we are in agreement then.
Note that referring to "people" means that it is almost guaranteed that everyone will think you are talking about them.

You are right that publishers do have responsibility in the quality of a port but so do developers: accepting to do a 3 months port just means accepting to produce low quality work. With the video games market ever growing at that time and the high demand for developers they were not exactly at risk of being homeless if they refused, so they have to bear the responsibility of accepting and producing the horrors we got sold.

[Amigajay]

Well true, but it's a part of videogame history that doesn't really get told, esp when people compare like for like and say oh why is the ST or Amiga version so shit when the Megadrive version is decent, the dumb answers you usually hear are because the ST or Amiga couldn't handle the game, when we all know here in a lot of cases if they had a 20 strong team i Japan working on it for 18 months then I'm sure as hell would be a lot better then 1 man in his loft in Grimsby and another in Aldershot doing it!

[roondar]

Hmm, his Amiga Emulation settings seem way off though.

As an example: his video on St. Dragon has the Amiga version have lots of screen-tearing and (as far as I can see) more frames dropped than is seen over at the version shown by Zeus's channel ( [ Show youtube player ]).

Not that the original doesn't have choppy gameplay here and there, but it's seems to run better than in his video anyway.

[dreamkatcha]

One thing I'd like to see are optional subtitles. The videos I've been downloading contain hardcoded ones that are really distracting when audio commentary is also available. I can't not read text if it's in front of me.

Anyway, it's magnetic stuff. I've binge-watched all the ones that appeal now.

[ReadOnlyCat]

Originally Posted by dreamkatcha

One thing I'd like to see are optional subtitles. The videos I've been downloading contain hardcoded ones that are really distracting when audio commentary is also available. I can't not read text if it's in front of me.

Anyway, it's magnetic stuff. I've binge-watched all the ones that appeal now.

True, it is something I keep planning to ask him to do and keep forgetting.
I will do it tomorrow!

Also, do not watch too much of it in a row!
An overdose of US Gold/Tiertex crap can have serious health consequences.

[ReadOnlyCat]

New episode this week: [ Show youtube player ].

No Amiga ports this time either but frankly sometimes when I look at Fightin' Spirit I tell myself that graphically at least it is possible to reproduce a very rich number of details of the graphics (colors especially) and keep the core gameplay intact.
Obviously, parallax layers, animated background elements and other details would have to suffer but an ECS port could be both beautiful and playable.

[B14ck W01f]

What a great idea. ROC. While we're at it, let's make a thread covering all of ZEUZDAZ's uploads, both Amiga and non-Amiga. :/

I am enjoying the Retro Core series as well. I am just starting the first season, and his reviews determine the game I am going to play next.

[ReadOnlyCat]

New show this week is an all time favorite of mine: [ Show youtube player ].

This was by far my favorite shoot-em up in the arcades at that time and I must have spend well over the price of a few Amiga originals playing it, hoping all the time that an Amiga port would be coming at some point.
Sadly, there never was a port of Truxton/Tatsujin on home computers which is why the video is so short. Hopefully, this horrible historical mistake shall be corrected at some point.

@B14ck W01f, doesn't Zeuzdaz already have a dedicated thread for his uploads? Since he is active here I feel he should be the one maintaining it.

[roondar]

Sorry for the necromancy here, but I figured it's better than opening a new thread. Is it just me or has the Retro Core channel really gone down the rabbit hole of "Amiga sucks and it's community is terrible" recently?

I just watched the Speedball II video he released yesterday and he actually couldn't stay positive about the Amiga and it's community even for a game he admitted was pretty good on the system. He literally talked about angry Amiga fans soiling their pants and made a special point about how this game might be good, but so many others were terrible...

I wonder if this is even salvageable at this point, he never says or does anything of the sort for any other system.

[manossg]

Originally Posted by roondar

Sorry for the necromancy here, but I figured it's better than opening a new thread. Is it just me or has the Retro Core channel really gone down the rabbit hole of "Amiga sucks and it's community is terrible" recently?

I just watched the Speedball II video he released yesterday and he actually couldn't stay positive about the Amiga and it's community even for a game he admitted was pretty good on the system. He literally talked about angry Amiga fans soiling their pants and made a special point about how this game might be good, but so many others were terrible...

I wonder if this is even salvageable at this point, he never says or does anything of the sort for any other system.

Frankly, I feel the same way, even though I generally enjoy Battle of the Ports. But it's just the opinion of a console fanboy, obviously, so no biggie there.

[roondar]

Obviously it's not an important subject, but I do find it a bit sad as I like the idea of a "Battle of the Ports", but he is just too biased for me to enjoy it much. I'd much rather see more "neutral" take on this idea. Not to say the maker of the video can't have any form or bias or that he/she should be 100% neutral (we all have opinions), but just not to the level seen here.

[manossg]

Originally Posted by roondar

Obviously it's not an important subject, but I do find it a bit sad as I like the idea of a "Battle of the Ports", but he is just too biased for me to enjoy it much. I'd much rather see more "neutral" take on this idea. Not to say the maker of the video can't have any form or bias or that he/she should be 100% neutral (we all have opinions), but just not to the level seen here.

Yes, the concept is great, but the execution is blatantly unfair (not just to the Amiga, but a lot of times to the 8-bits as well) and, thus, poor.
That's why I prefer watching Chinnyvision's videos more. I feel that chinny actually cares about these good, old machines.

[roondar]

I do agree he's unfair to not just the Amiga. But he is definitely more unfair about the Amiga than other systems. In general he's extremely pro-Japanese games and systems and tends to be a lot less "nasty" when games on those systems disappoint.

Ah yes, Chinnyvision - he does this kind of thing as well but in a nicer way... I remember now... I could've sworn I've already subscribed to him but can't remember any of his videos in my subscriber feed. Something to check out

[manossg]

Yes, that's what I feel exactly. It's sad, but, ultimately you can just ignore his biased content (it's just the opinion of a console fanboy, big deal) and watch youtubers who do a fair comparison and respect the various systems instead.

OSG also has some nice videos for games in order of greatness, where he compares the various ports and ranks them accordingly.

[dreamkatcha]

He does seem to be making a concerted effort to ramp up the snarkiness with each new episode, I've noticed that too. It's coming across as a bit of a hornet's nest poking exercise to me. It attracts controversy/viewers so happens like an automatic reflex. James Rolfe has a lot to answer for.

[roondar]

Well, the difference between James Rolfe and Retro Core to me is in how they present themselves.

The Angry Video Game Nerd is an over the top character whose whole thing is to be negative and, well, angry. AVGN is clearly meant to be funny as well as informative, often favouring the funny aspect over the informative one. Retro Core presents his videos as a reasonable, albeit opinionated, viewpoint on the respective qualities of the ports he features.

To me that is different and makes it a bit less acceptable when he acts like that. It is a shame too because his other content (and Battle of the Ports episodes without the Amiga in it) is much nicer to watch.