Battle of the Ports

[samanosuke]

Wow, the X68k version isn’t the definitive port. Not often you’ll hear that!

Thanks for the vid, Yak. Think I might fire up the old Sega Classics CD on my MCD a bit later as I don’t think I’ve played Columns for some fifteen years or so.

[samanosuke]

Correction: twenty-five years or so. Jesus, I feel old.

[Nu-Eclipse]

Wow, the X68k version isn’t the definitive port. Not often you’ll hear that!

I'd beg to differ. I actually feel that there are more coin-op ports on the X68k that aren't as good as they should be than you think, probably because the dev hasn't got the skill to maximise the machine's capabilities to do the port justice. Not many, but a fair few.

I too have also not played Columns in a decade or two, ffs.

[Leon Retro]

I'd beg to differ. I actually feel that there are more coin-op ports on the X68k that aren't as good as they should be than you think, probably because the dev hasn't got the skill to maximise the machine's capabilities to do the port justice.

Yeah, you need a capable developer to make any hardware sing. The Amiga is a prime example of machine having tons of terrible arcade ports, but also quite a few that really show how capable the hardware could be in the right hands. It was just a sad fact that talent levels varied wildly back in the early days of gaming, so when an arcade port was announced, you had to hope and pray that the port would be decent, even for the mighty X68000.

[Nu-Eclipse]

Yeah, you need a capable developer to make any hardware sing. The Amiga is a prime example of machine having tons of terrible arcade ports, but also quite a few that really show how capable the hardware could be in the right hands. It was just a sad fact that talent levels varied wildly back in the early days of gaming, so when an arcade port was announced, you had to hope and pray that the port would be decent, even for the mighty X68000.

I don't disagree with your Amiga example, although I would say that it was well-known BITD that there were a few cases of Japanese developers not playing ball with western developers in terms of providing them the necessary legacy resources to make Amiga ports of certain Japanese arcade games as good as they could be. But as you rightly say, some Amiga devs didn't produce good enough work in any case.

[Yakumo]

Great video [MENTION=1524]Yakumo[/MENTION].

1) Mark me down as somebody who didn't know that there was an SFC port. In fact, I didn't know that Columns got so many non-Sega ports! I always assumed it was exclusively Sega's in-house answer to Tetris.

2) Why did you use Super Columns instead of the OG pack-in Game Gear port? The original version was the the very first port of Columns that I ever played and actually the very first Game Gear game I ever played, so I have good memories of it.

I wasn't aware there was another GG Columns game

[Nu-Eclipse]

I wasn't aware there was another GG Columns game

Wow. Thought you did research for your vids??

[Yakumo]

Wow. Thought you did research for your vids??

I do in most cases but his and he t week I'm away for 4 days so I just had to go from memory with a quick check on the net.

[Yakumo]

Jaleco make a shooter that is actually rather good.

[JazzFunk]

I think you were being a bit hard on the arcade version, I always thought it had this really crisp, fragile moody look to it, very bipolar, first stage is pleasant verdant mountain stage with blue sky, stage 2 is deep orange moody sunset sky, cool as copulation. That is the sunset warriors see the moment they die.

Amazed (and very pleased) to see the ports are so good, I have only played the PCE one and it's deffo a banger if one liked the arcade.

[Yakumo]

I think you were being a bit hard on the arcade version, I always thought it had this really crisp, fragile moody look to it, very bipolar, first stage is pleasant verdant mountain stage with blue sky, stage 2 is deep orange moody sunset sky, cool as copulation. That is the sunset warriors see the moment they die.

Amazed (and very pleased) to see the ports are so good, I have only played the PCE one and it's deffo a banger if one liked the arcade.

Did You know there's an unreleased Mega Drive version too?
I will say one thing for the Arcade game. It's one of the few games where you can control the explosion.

[JazzFunk]

I didn't know there was an MD version in the works, I'd love to see it!!! Closest thing I played on MD was Fire Mustang, it was a tad workmanlike with the gfx but was pretty cool, the MD could've easy had a good version of this.

Got any footage, Yakumo? Or got a video of unreleased stuff coming up???....

[JazzFunk]

YouTubed it, 'The Freedom Star' is it? Could only find BGM.

[Yakumo]

YouTubed it, 'The Freedom Star' is it? Could only find BGM.

Yep, that's all we have of it Jaleco did a live stream of it once but it seems it was never archived.

[JazzFunk]

Keep us posted if you find owt good, maybe make it a mission!