Monday, December 16, 2013

Five arcade classics I wish had been ported to certain handhelds

You may be wondering what prompted me to write this post. Strangely enough, it came to mind while I was playing the Game Gear port of Namco's quarter-munching classic, Mappy, last week.

While admiring the quality of the adaptation, I couldn't help but wonder why Namco ended its Game Gear ports with Galaga, Mappy and Pac-Man. What about Warp & Warp (aka Warpman), The Tower of Druaga or Dig Dug?

That line of thinking then led to me to ponder why some other arcade classics--like the five detailed below--were never ported to the following handheld systems despite the fact that they would've been perfect fits (or at least interesting fits) for each other.


Baby Pac-Man (DS or 3DS)--I've wanted to play this half-Pac-Man-game-half-pinball-machine oddity at home ever since I encountered it in a local arcade as a teen. I can see why it never earned a console conversion, of course, but a DS or 3DS version could've been (or could still be) magical. The question is: who would develop and publish it, Bally Midway or Namco? (My guess: neither!)


Detana!! TwinBee (WonderSwan Color)--For some strange reason, the folks at Namco only made one game, Beatmania, for the WonderSwan, and even then it was for the original black-and-white version of Bandai's niche-y handheld rather than its colorized follow-up. Why they never ported this pastel-coated cute 'em up to the WonderSwan Color is beyond me, as I have to imagine a lot of gamers would've enjoyed playing it with their portable of choice held vertically.


Dig Dug (Game Gear)--I'm sure the powers that be at Namco had their reasons for not green-lighting this handheld port, but for the life of me I can't fathom what they may have been. After all, the company's portable re-imaginings of Galaga, Mappy and Pac-Man are about as spot-on as could've been expected. (By the way, I also wish Namco had made and released a Game Gear version of Marvel Land--even though its graphics would've had to have been downsized and simplified quite a bit.)


Don Doko Don (GameBoy Color)--Don Doko Don has long had a place in my pixelated heart for all sorts of reasons, which is why it saddens me that Taito never released a handheld version. Although the GameBoy Advance could've received an arcade-perfect port, I think I'd actually have preferred to see one that was more of an homage to the original (a la Bubble Bobble for Game Gear), hence my call for it to be made for the GameBoy Color instead.


Mr. Do! (Neo Geo Pocket Color)--I don't know about you, but I think it would've been awesome it someone had brought this Dig Dug-esque game to SNK's brick-like handheld in some form or fashion--especially if they'd updated the graphics a bit like ADK did when they remade Make Trax for the system (after renaming it Crush Roller). Instead, NGPC owners were given a million pachinko simulators. Not fair!

14 comments:

Obscure Video Games said...

Oh I love all of these games too. Mr. Do was probably my favorite Colecovision cartridge. You know about Dig Dug: Digging Strike and TwinBee Portable, right?

thegaygamer.com said...

Oh, yes, I know about Dig Dug: Digging Strike and TwinBee Portable, Steve. Still, I wish I could play Dig Dug on my Game Gear and TwinBee on my WSC--especially if the ports weren't "arcade perfect."

Obscure Video Games said...

That's interesting, I don't think I've ever heard anybody else say they want an old game ported to an old system (or wished that it happened back when the system was still new). Constantly it's the other way around, people moaning about they can't play their favorite game on their new system so they don't have to unpack (or re-buy) the old one. I guess the closest thing is when people do things like make a version of Halo for the 2600. But it's not like there's any demand for it. Even as a "retrogamer" myself, I don't know what I would ask for. I'm just so happy I don't have to buy batteries all the time now.

thegaygamer.com said...

Well, no one ever accused me of being typical, Steve :)


As for why I'm longing for say, a Game Gear port of Dig Dug, it's like I said in the opening paragraphs of this post: I really like how some of these old ports approximate the arcade experience without being exact replicas.


Take the Famicom/NES versions of Bubble Bobble, or esp. the Game Gear version of the same game: they sound and play just like the arcade original, but they look different/unique because of the console/handheld hardware.


There's just something appealing about those differences for me at this point, I guess, which is why I found myself thinking, "it's really too bad we didn't get more of those kinds of ports."

Obscure Video Games said...

I think I can appreciate that. I actually had something similar happen recently -- all the talk about this new PS4 game Resogun and how it's just like Defender made me crave playing Defender. But I HATE the original arcade version of Defender cuz of all the buttons. However I love the severely downgraded version for the 2600 -- because of simple joystick control it actually makes it more fun for me. So even though I could play the arcade one on MAME, I went and played the 2600 one instead. I guess a lot of people would think that's crazy too.

jc m said...

Well I love Baby Pac-man and Mr. Do. These were 2 of my childhood favourites. I remember playing Baby Pac-man at a place called Pizza Piazza or Show-biz pizza in México and after the placed closed down I was really sad because no other place had that game and after trying to play it on Mame it's impossible to get the roms. The pinball-arcade combo goes for sale for around $3000 dollars. So yes, I would love Namco to release it since they own the rights to Pac-man series and games.
Mr. Do was a cute but hard game. I even enjoyed it more than Dig Dug as it was quickly challenging. I did played variations of the game. One is Mr. Do's castle or Mr Do vs the Unicorns http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a6/Docastle.png and the other one was Mr. Do wild ride http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jgH00pk_KoI/UgtZ3UEAp9I/AAAAAAAAF8g/daUCwoY34fk/s640/mr+do+wild+ride.png . The last one was harder but I would love Universal to release a Mr. Do compilation with these games.
Also another one of my favourite childhood games was Dynamite Dux. Did you ever played that one? I think I fell in love with that one because the character resembled more of Woody Woodpecker than that of a duck.

thegaygamer.com said...

Yes, your reasons for wanting to play the 2600 version of Defender are along the lines of my reasons for wanting Dig Dug on the Game Gear, or TwinBee on the WonderSwan.


For me, it comes down to not enjoying playing arcade games on my PC via MAME, plus the curiosity and interest I feel in seeing how developers recreate games like these using hardware that's not quite capable of producing an arcade-perfect port.

thegaygamer.com said...

Hey there, JC! I can't believe someone else who visits this site has played Baby Pac-Man! I've only seen it in the wild once in my lifetime, and that was back in my teens. (At a local arcade, strangely enough.)


Anyway, yes, I'd love it if Namco remade and released it for the 3DS. I have a feeling they have no interest in doing that, though, as they didn't make the original version and probably consider it to be more of a "hack" than anything else.


As for Mr. Do!--oddly, I didn't gain an interest in this game until a few years ago. I knew about it back in the day, but for whatever reason I didn't play it back then.


I'd also like to see some sort of compilation of this series' games, by the way. Releasing it on the 3DS eShop would be perfect!

Monster_Hunter2882 said...

Aside from Dig-Dug this is first time of hearing about the existence of all these games. That's one of reasons I keeping coming back to this blog.


Off topic: I got a Christmas tree in New leaf so if you still need one I can order one for you.

thegaygamer.com said...

Well, I'm glad I could introduce you to some new games, Sam! Or some old games. Er, you know what I mean :)


Thanks for letting me know about the Christmas tree, but I finally got both the small and big trees in one of my towns!

TheGameroomBlitz said...

Oh man, you do not want Baby Pac-Man. Mechanical and electronic games seem like a perfect pairing, but the execution here is just awful; more Frankenstein's monster than Reese's peanut butter cup. The video game half is especially wretched, running on hardware inferior to what was used in the official Pac-Man games. The colors are ugly, monsters are less detailed, and they have a disconcerting habit of backtracking on themselves, which is against established Pac-Man rules and ensures that you'll die quickly and often. The pinball half is slightly better (but really barren for a pinball game), but eventually you'll have to go back to the video game half, and nobody wants that.

thegaygamer.com said...

Aw, I don't remember all the bad stuff, GameroomBlitz; I just remember the awe of seeing it in the wild. I don't even remember if I played it! Anyway, it's always intrigued me, although considering it wasn't actually made by Namco, I certainly can believe it isn't/wasn't completely up to snuff (or at all up to snuff).

TheGameroomBlitz said...

In all honesty, I didn't either... which is why I had to play it on Visual Pinball/Visual PinMAME to refresh my memory. Now I realize that emulation isn't a perfect reproduction of an arcade game. However, it's close enough to the genuine article to reveal its fundamental flaws, and boy are there ever flaws in Baby Pac-Man. The sad thing is that it would be so much more fun if the monsters only acted the way they did in Namco's games, rather than pacing back and forth through corridors like so many hungry wildcats...


Have you played Visual Pinball, by the way? It's a bear to set up, but it's the only way to play popular pinball games at home without breaking the bank. Granny and the Gators (although itself not a fantastic game) is a better hybrid of video and pinball gaming than Baby Pac-Man; most strongly resembling Atari's sleeper Toobin'.

thegaygamer.com said...

After looking at a few screenshots of the arcade portion of Baby Pac-Man, I have to agree with you that it's ugly as sin. Which is a shame, as pretty much every other officially released Pac-Man game (this isn't one of them, in a way) looks pretty darn good given the time of release.


As for Visual Pinball: I've never even heard of it! Guess I'll have to hit up the Googles sometime tomorrow :)