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1989: Beat-em-ups

originally written July 20, 2007 / Last edited November 4, 2020

When a game is remade to for a different system (a.k.a. ported), one of sometimes necessary steps is to modify the graphics to work with with that new system. That process can include resizing the assets (sprites, backgrounds, fonts, etc.), changing the screen resolution or ratio, or adapting the colors to the system's palette while keeping the game instantly recognizable. This happened mostly back in the days when the arcade coin-ops machines were more powerful than the home systems. Those who had to port those arcade games to the home systems had to find ways to make up for the lack of power. Some teams just downgraded everything and called it a day, either out of being rushed for time by a company or, sometimes, they just didn't give a crap. But when there was a team with some true pep in their step, you'd get something that'd truly feed your jonsing for an arcade fix. In some really rare cases, the play mechanics of the original were improved to play even better than the arcade despite not being as pretty. That may not mean much in an age where home systems are powerful enough to render nearly anything designers can dream of, but this meant everything back when the arcades ruled the land.

Leonardo from TMNT: Turtles in Time (Arcade and SNES) and TMNT: the Hyperstone Heist (Genesis)

Arcade
Genesis
SNES

Arcade 200%
Genesis 200%
SNES 200%

Other than Sega themselves, I don't think anyone really knew how to work Genesis/Mega Drive conversion magic better than Konami. The Hyperstone Heist game for the Genesis wasn't officially a Turtles in Time port, but we all know the truth. I was a bit shocked to see that the Genesis sprites have more detail than the SNES ones that have a better palette. It's more proof that Konami always went that extra mile when developing arcade ports.

Captain America from Data East's Captain America and the Avengers

Arcade
Sega Genesis
Super Nintendo

Arcade 300%
Sega Genesis 300%
Super Nintendo 300%

Here's an odd case where the arcade sprite was converted to have less colors in one version but had added colors in another port. Cap was a casualty in the war of getting the game to fit into the Genesis palette. Until recently, most televisions didn't have a picture sharp enough to show sharp pixels (or 'jaggies' to the complainers out there). Except for a single missing pixel from Genesis Cap's shadow, they're all the same size. Both Data East and Mindscape did their own tinkering with the shading on their ports, with Mindscape taking advantage of the SNES to make the shading a bit smoother in some cases.

Combatribes by Technos

Arcade
SNES

In this arcade-to-SNES port, Technos had to remake the group shot from the arcade game's Attract Mode. The smaller size and decreased colors give more room on the game cart for all the cut-scene art, Vs. Mode portraits and more.

Guy from Capcom's Final Fight - 100%

Final Fight - arcade
Final Fight Guy- SNES
Final Fight Guy- Sega CD
Final Fight ONE- GBA

Guy from Capcom's Final Fight - 200%

Final Fight - arcade
Final Fight Guy- SNES
Final Fight Guy- Sega CD
Final Fight ONE- GBA

Notice how the arcade version of Guy looks wider than most of the others? That's because Final Fight, along with Capcom's other CPS and CPS2 arcade games, processed graphics wider than most normal displays (384 pixels as opposed to 320 pixels) that the monitor sqaushed down to 320, so the home versions' graphics were usually resized horizontally to be thinner so they'd have that same look on a television's screen ratio. Also, thinner sprites take up less precious memory space, which was much more expensive on carts back then. Oddly enough, they're all the same height.

Magic Sword (Capcom)

arcade/CPS

arcade/CPS, squished to 320 pixels, monitor display width
Super Nintendo

Here's another Capcom CPS-to-SNES conversion. The sprites and backgrounds had a width reduction similar to the Final Fight ports. The visible playfield was made smaller while the graphics' height remained the same. The SNES can't handle as many on-screen objects as a CPS system, so the cropped view lets it handle a more managable amount of screen action while also keeping nicely sized sprites. The port is only a single player game, so this doesn't cause the action to get cramped.

Ryu Hayabusa from Tecmo's Ninja Gaiden

NES 400%
SNES 400%

Now let's put this thing in reverse. When Tecmo repackaged the Ninja Gaiden NES games into an SNES compilation, the graphics were re-colored with few other modifications.

Rash from Tradewest's Battletoads

NES 400%
Genesis 400%

In the case of Battletoads, we have a game that started on the NES and was ported to the more powerful Sega Genesis. As you can see in those zoomed-in sprites, there was only a tiny bit of upgrading for nearly all of the in-game graphics. The cinema scenes turned out a lot better although the full story intro from the NES was just left out. Luckily, most of the effort seems to go into one sprite set...

the Dark Queen from Tradewest's Battletoads

NES 200%
Genesis 200%

...and I won't argue with the results. To be fair, she has about 2 or 3 sprites in the whole game, so they could do much more reworking with her and not worry so much about all the sprites in the set matching up. Plus, if you have to spend a lot of time on some pixels, that's a nice set to work with.

In some future additions to this feature, we'll get in the groove with music conversions, praise examples where the games were improved and talk about how some games were mostly rebuilt from the ground up.

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Leonardo from TMNT: Turtles in Time (Arcade and SNES) and TMNT: the Hyperstone Heist (Genesis)
Arcade	Genesis	SNES
Arcade 200%	Genesis 200%	SNES 200%
Other than Sega themselves, I don't think anyone really knew how to work Genesis/Mega Drive conversion magic better than Konami. The Hyperstone Heist game for the Genesis wasn't officially a Turtles in Time port, but we all know the truth. I was a bit shocked to see that the Genesis sprites have more detail than the SNES ones that have a better palette. It's more proof that Konami always went that extra mile when developing arcade ports.

Captain America from Data East's Captain America and the Avengers
Arcade	Sega Genesis	Super Nintendo
Arcade 300%	Sega Genesis 300%	Super Nintendo 300%
Here's an odd case where the arcade sprite was converted to have less colors in one version but had added colors in another port. Cap was a casualty in the war of getting the game to fit into the Genesis palette. Until recently, most televisions didn't have a picture sharp enough to show sharp pixels (or 'jaggies' to the complainers out there). Except for a single missing pixel from Genesis Cap's shadow, they're all the same size. Both Data East and Mindscape did their own tinkering with the shading on their ports, with Mindscape taking advantage of the SNES to make the shading a bit smoother in some cases.

Combatribes by Technos
Arcade	SNES
In this arcade-to-SNES port, Technos had to remake the group shot from the arcade game's Attract Mode. The smaller size and decreased colors give more room on the game cart for all the cut-scene art, Vs. Mode portraits and more.

Guy from Capcom's Final Fight - 100%
Final Fight - arcade	Final Fight Guy- SNES	Final Fight Guy- Sega CD	Final Fight ONE- GBA
Guy from Capcom's Final Fight - 200%
Final Fight - arcade	Final Fight Guy- SNES	Final Fight Guy- Sega CD	Final Fight ONE- GBA
Notice how the arcade version of Guy looks wider than most of the others? That's because Final Fight, along with Capcom's other CPS and CPS2 arcade games, processed graphics wider than most normal displays (384 pixels as opposed to 320 pixels) that the monitor sqaushed down to 320, so the home versions' graphics were usually resized horizontally to be thinner so they'd have that same look on a television's screen ratio. Also, thinner sprites take up less precious memory space, which was much more expensive on carts back then. Oddly enough, they're all the same height.

Magic Sword (Capcom)
arcade/CPS
arcade/CPS, squished to 320 pixels, monitor display width	Super Nintendo
Here's another Capcom CPS-to-SNES conversion. The sprites and backgrounds had a width reduction similar to the Final Fight ports. The visible playfield was made smaller while the graphics' height remained the same. The SNES can't handle as many on-screen objects as a CPS system, so the cropped view lets it handle a more managable amount of screen action while also keeping nicely sized sprites. The port is only a single player game, so this doesn't cause the action to get cramped.

Ryu Hayabusa from Tecmo's Ninja Gaiden
NES 400%	SNES 400%
Now let's put this thing in reverse. When Tecmo repackaged the Ninja Gaiden NES games into an SNES compilation, the graphics were re-colored with few other modifications.

Rash from Tradewest's Battletoads
NES 400%	Genesis 400%
In the case of Battletoads, we have a game that started on the NES and was ported to the more powerful Sega Genesis. As you can see in those zoomed-in sprites, there was only a tiny bit of upgrading for nearly all of the in-game graphics. The cinema scenes turned out a lot better although the full story intro from the NES was just left out. Luckily, most of the effort seems to go into one sprite set...

the Dark Queen from Tradewest's Battletoads
NES 200%	Genesis 200%
...and I won't argue with the results. To be fair, she has about 2 or 3 sprites in the whole game, so they could do much more reworking with her and not worry so much about all the sprites in the set matching up. Plus, if you have to spend a lot of time on some pixels, that's a nice set to work with.