History Main / PortingDisaster

* The Japan-only Saturn port of ''CastlevaniaSymphonyOfTheNight'' attempted to add some extras to the game by making Maria playable and adding two new areas. Unfortunately the novelty of the new features are quickly canceled out by the actual quality of the port itself: the game suffers from constant slowdown when the screen is filled with enemies, most of the graphical transparency effects are lost, and the game loads before and after entering the transition rooms between areas (you know, those rooms that were there to ''lessen'' the loading times in the first place).

* ''StarControl'' for the Sega Genesis, programmed by an unlicensed subsidiary of Accolade known as Ballistic and touted as the console's first 12-Megabit cartridge. Sure, it managed to pack in some graphics and sound effects from ''Star Control II'', but oh, did it come at a price: it absolutely [[GameBreakingBug slows the game to a crawl]], even in the relatively-simplistic Full Game map screen. Game Genie codebooks even published a code to turn off asteroids in combat to try and make it a wee bit faster. The sad thing is, some of the original SC developers were responsible for the Genesis port. They regretted having botched it in many interviews to come.

* ''StarControl'' for the Sega Genesis, programmed by an unlicensed subsidiary of Accolade known as Ballistic and touted as the console's first 12-Megabit cartridge. Sure, it managed to pack in some graphics and sound effects from ''Star Control II'', but oh, did it come at a price: it absolutely [[GameBreakingBug slows the game to a crawl]], even in the relatively-simplistic Full Game map screen. Game Genie codebooks even published a code to turn off asteroids in combat to try and make it a wee bit faster.

* The SNES version of ''FinalFight'' do a good job of replicating the graphics of the original, but everything else takes a noticeable hit. Three enemies or so at a time, which dulled the gameplay. Co-op multiplayer is missing, as is Guy (though Capcom would make a rental-only rerelease which replaced Cody with him) and the Industrial Zone level.

* The SNES port of ''PrinceOfPersia 2: The Shadow and the Flame'' featured bad controls, mistimed and glitchy gameplay, a GameBreakingBug in the form of one specific mook that crashes the game when he dies, and screens that scroll only because the display tiles are too wide. The true final level went missing. It reeks of pure atrocity next to Konami's amazing port of the first game on the same console. The developers of this PortingDisaster went on to make ''Superman 64''.

* Badly-redrawn graphics.

* Clumsy controls, even if you [[DamnYouMuscleMemory try to forget the old control layout]]. This might involve not supporting the mouse in a console-to-PC port, or trying to cram too many hotkey functions onto controller buttons in a PC-to-console port.

** The loading was made so bad because of a very, very poorly-made decision. The decision to cut some corners and save some money by using an emulated version of the game. An emulated version which then had to be translated while the game was running, too. Loading times were terrible because the buffer was already being overrun.
*** ''FFIV'' wasn't ''that'' bad when it came to loading times. What were horrible were the read/writes to the save file, which could take well over 30 seconds. Thank God for QuickSave. ''FinalFantasyVI'', on the other hand, had far worse loading times than ''FFIV''. At least Square finally got their act together when then released ''Final Fantasy Origins''.

* Some copies of ''[[SonicTheHedgehog Sonic R]]'' for the PC shipped without any in-game music, which were stored on CD Tracks 2 and up.
** Given what ''Sonic R'''s soundtrack is ''like'', I think most people would count this as a [[GoodBadBugs feature, not a bug.]]
** Ignore this philistine. ''Sonic R'''s [[YourMileageMayVary soundtrack is excellent.]]
** Music issues aside, the PC port of ''Sonic R'' did miss out some of the Saturn's more fancy graphical effects -- most notable on the final track Radiant Emerald, where the crystalline landscape lacks the translucency of the Saturn original.

*** This troper cannot find that information on Wikipedia, and that claim should not be believed in this case. Problematic as the Saturn port was, no rooms were cut out; this troper has attained well over 200.6% completion in the Saturn version thanks to the extra in-game areas (and without using any map-escaping glitches), and he's not even sure that he found everything. Removing previously extant game rooms to maintain a 200.6% game map with the new areas would have required excising a lot of content.

* The [[SoBadItsHorrible god-awful]] Super NES port of ''Pit-Fighter''. A PortingDisaster of the Arcade Game, it features: stiff and unresponsive controls, [[MostAnnoyingSound a repetitive soundtrack and muffled sound effects]], [[FakeDifficulty a game that is very hard for the wrong reasons]], and TheComputerIsACheatingBastard. There are also no continues, one life, Ty being a GameBreaker when used correctly (which, of course, is a GuideDangIt), and beating the game [[spoiler: only gives you [[AWinnerIsYou an ending with only text]], followed by the game over screen]]. Its Genesis port, ironicially, turned out to be better.

* The WiiWare port of ''CaveStory''. The game itself, barring the occasional glitch. runs perfectly, and the graphics were given a makeover. The music, sadly, was a disaster. The game offered two soundtracks - the original PC game's, and a new soundtrack composed of remixes. However...
** A programming glitch removed many instruments (including all the drums) from the new soundtrack, as well as changed the mixing of what instruments were left. The soundtrack you hear in the game sounds little like what the developers intended.
** As for the classic soundtrack, instead of porting the obscure[[hottip:*:As in, it was made by Pixel's friend and hasn't been updated in years]] ORG music synthesizer to the Wii, the developers chose to convert the entire soundtrack to the OGG (a format similar to MP3) format. This created serious problems with looping - the intro of every song repeated even though they aren't supposed to, and the transition between the end of one song and the beginning of the next was often jarring.
** The developers have promised to fix this for the European version, but there is little to no chance of North American players receiving a patch. Nintendo will only pay WiiWare developers if they sell above a certain threshold, and if you patch the game after it's released the number resets.

** The developers have promised to fix this for the European version, but there is little to no chance of North American plays receiving a patch. Nintendo will only pay WiiWare developers if they sell above a certain threshold, and if you patch the game after it's released the number resets.

** A programming glitch caused removed many instruments (including all the drums) from the new soundtrack, as well as changed the mixing of what instruments were left. The soundtrack you hear in the game sounds little like what the developers intended.

* The PC version of ''MetalGearSolid2'' would have been better had it actually been compatible with anything. To play it, it needs to be patched to Hell and back. With ''fanmade patches''.

** To make matters worse: Matt Gray, the guy who composed the music in the original C64 version of ''Last Ninja II'', also did music for a number of Codemasters' NES games, including ''Fantastic {{Dizzy}}'' and ''{{Micro Machines}}''. It's obvious from the style of the music in those games. But they couldn't bother to hire him for this one; instead, they wrote new music in-house at Beam Software. (This company that also made the execrable ''BackToTheFuture'' game with its single in-game tune.)

* The SNES version of ''FinalFight'' do a good job of replicating the graphics of the original, but everything else takes a noticeable hit. The weak SNES processor meant that the game could only show three enemies or so at a time, which dulled the gameplay. Co-op multiplayer is missing, as is Guy (though Capcom would make a rental-only rerelease which replaced Cody with him) and the Industrial Zone level.