sdelfin

I've been saying for a while that Sega should just push the "Sega Racing Classic" moniker for the two games and make the games widely available, especially the second. I think there would be enough good reaction that most people would figure out they're the Daytona games. This is good news, and hopefully it means standalone release in the future. I've never played Yakuza, and I know it has plenty of fans, so maybe I'll end up trying it, but as of right now I see this as a small arcade collection with a giant, complicated hub area.

I mentioned this to a friend yesterday and made the same type of joke, that it's "clicking" with reviewers. I then jokingly apologized for how awful that was and we both had a good laugh. I was really excited about this pad when they announced it, but decided to wait for the reviews, which I've watched in a few sessions in the last couple of weeks. Any negatives brought up don't really apply to me, so this sounds great. I'm planning to put in an order for two of them shortly.

In an odd coincidence, I ordered two of 8bitdo's Ultimate C Wired controllers, which are a crazy value if they suit your needs(they do for me), just a couple of days before they announced these Neo Geo pads. I might have waited otherwise, but I decided to keep them. So far, they've been great, though I haven't tested the d-pads for fighting games to see if they work as well as my old Pro +. But back to these Neo Geo pads, I was really big into the Neo Geo Pocket back in the day and was always aware of the Neo CD controllers, so this is something I've been waiting for. The one thing I still want to know about these things is what sort of microswitches it uses and how readily available they are. And I wonder that because for repairing the original pads, the switches have to be converted to a different type as the originals are no longer available as I understand it.

Very cool set of games here. I never really took a good look at R-Type DX before, and it looks like a nice conversion. Metal Gear Solid GB is an impressive update on the original top-down presentation of the series. It's the only Metal Gear Solid game I like because the limitations prevent some of the things I really don't like in the main series, though the GB version is a bit needlessly verbose at times itself. I have recently been thinking about playing it again. I have always had a fondness for demake-style games for the old portable systems like that, as it's cool to see what developers could manage with limited hardware.

I've picked up a bunch of 8bitdo controllers. I started with one of their Famicom style pads back in 2015. I got one of their micro novelty controllers after that. I was pretty happy with those that I kept an eye on their stuff. I was planning to get an M30, but never did because they came out with the SN30 Pro+ before I was ready, so I bought that instead. That Pro+ was mostly amazing. I'll get to issues shortly.

An earlier commenter mentioned accidental diagonals. I can only speak about the pads I've bought and a couple of others I've used at a friend's place, but I haven't noticed that issue. I'm not saying it isn't an issue at all. It might even vary from person to person. I remember having that issue with Nintendo's Wii Classic Controller Pro design. I didn't hear a lot of people talk about that, so it might have been an issue of preference.

As far as impressions and issues, I liked my original FC30 and had no issues, but I do recall some people having their charging ports break. From what I can tell, 8bitdo improved that for later controllers. My SN30 Pro+ has been fantastic to use. The d-pad accuracy and response is top notch, and my gold standard is Sega's Saturn pads. The issue with it is that the rubber membrane is weak and will tear with some heavy use. I still have to purchase replacements. The Pro 2 seems to have a different membrane, so I don't know if it has the same issue or if they fixed it. I also recently bought the Ultimate C Wired controller. That one, unfortunately, is doing ghost inputs. I haven't had a chance to try a firmware update, so it might take care of it, or maybe a future update will fox it. So 8bitdo hasn't been perfect for me, and the ghost input issue is significant, but I do love their controllers right now. In some ways, their stuff is better than first-party controllers. The Pro+ d-pad works better for me on fighting games than the current Xbox controllers, which are okay for non-fighting games. I have been planning to pick up 8bitdo's Neo Geo CD controllers as they look fantastic and won't have any membrane issues. I just wanted to wait to hear some reviews and impressions. Hopefully, they hold up well over time.

Edit: Quick update on the ghost input issue. I typically use Linux setups, but just had a chance to test it on a Windows machine. No ghost inputs at all on Windows 10 with the Ultimate Wired C pad. I thought it was strange 8bitdo would have let that get past them, unless it was just plain a defective unit. But it seems to work perfectly in Windows which is good news. I'm going to keep looking for new firmware and also try it with newer Linux distros to see if that fixes it.

For me, the Konami jingle was more memorable, but I really liked the quick logo jingles. When I hear the Konami jingle, I immediately hear the Castlevania Bloodlines intro right after, which is good because it has great music. The Capcom jingle was fun too.

Perhaps my favorite jingle is SNK's Neo Geo jingle. Lots of great memories of that one. Also worth mentioning is the Sega Saturn(especially Japan version) and the PS1 had memorable boot up sounds that I still have fondness for.

I was never the biggest RPG fan. I was always very particular about what I liked in an RPG. I did get started on the first Phantasy Star and the first Final Fantasy. I wasn't particularly interested in Phantasy Star 4 when it first came out, but by the time I got the Nomad, I was open to stuff I wasn't really looking at in 1993 and 1994. I really loved Phantasy Star 4 and it's my favorite RPG. It looks great, has great music, and just has a brisk pace in terms of how it plays and how the story unfolds. And I love the style of the cutscenes.

Another one of those games that I picked up used specifically for my Nomad, and I think I bought it together with Phantasy Star 4 at a flea market near where I live, was Light Crusader. I really enjoyed that one quite a lot too. I revisited it several years ago and it was even better than I remembered. Another one with fantastic music as well.

@Gs69 It's good that you play it. It is a fantastic game and deserves to be enjoyed. Neo Drift Out was one of the great surprises for me when I first played it around eight years ago. I heard it was good, but it was so much better than my expectations.

@Gs69 based on other examples like that Capcom arcade stick with Alien vs. Predator, and various arcade cabinets featuring Marvel games like the Punisher, I suspect the terms of licensing are a lot different between selling a physical thing that has built-in games versus actually distributing games directly. At this point, I think Capcom would have made Alien vs. Predator widely available on major platforms if it wasn't for licensing issues. It's just guess, but it does answer the question of why some big retro games are only available on devices like these.

@DeusX Spring 2024 is all the info on that right now.

This looks super cool, especially as I'm a huge fan of Shatterhand, Power Blade, and Natsume's old games in general(Just got Ninja Saviors on Steam last week as it finally came to PC). They nailed the NES look and feel, and the whole presentation is wonderfully '90s, including the game's title Prison City. I was thrilled to see it had a demo, and I tried it out to see how it felt and to get some questions answered. First off, it has nice options including some visual filters, and toggles for screen shake and screen flash. All of those things are things I appreciate. The game looks and feels a lot like Power Blade 2, with Power Blade 1's stage design. There's a bit of Shatterhand thrown in. There's probably some Shadow of the Ninja in there as well, especially with enemy layouts and how they behave. The premise is basically Escape from New York/LA, except in Detroit. And there's some amusing dialogue in the demo. Some of the level design is cleverly deceptive, though everything was pretty fair once I had a chance to examine things. The demo is really good. This looks like a winner.

I didn't play SOTN when it was current. I didn't even have a PS1 until a year or so later. No nostalgia for me. I don't like the original dub. The PSP version was my first experience with the game and I like that dub. For me, SOTN, and Castlevania in general, is too serious in tone for that dub, and I can't even enjoy it in a so-bad-it's-good way. Add to that the recording quality, especially for Richter, is pretty bad. The casting is an issue as well. I get why others like it, but unintentional comedy in Castlevania doesn't fit for me. I actually think I would have had even less patience for it in 1997. At this point, I'm more inclined to play the game in Japanese with translated text next time.

It was not one thing, but a series of bad calls and a toxic corporate culture behind it all. Saturn was a flop everywhere but Japan, though it was a good system to play. Certainly, the Dreamcast was not as successful as Sega needed it to be because of the financial state they were in from the Saturn. And since this has come up again, it's worth pointing out that bernie stolar, who was in charge of Sega of America for the Dreamcast launch, despite doing the marketing right(the one thing he was good at), announced the price of the Dreamcast at $50 below what he was supposed to at a time when Sega needed to minimize losses. It's hypothetical now, but I think the DC launch would still have been successful with the system at $250.

"Nice Guys"??? That's so funny. Especially in a game that lets you shoot humans at point-blank range with rocket launchers.

@Pally356 Apparently, it was also on Taito Legends 2 for XBox and PC, but not PS2, so at least that version is out there. Still, your point stands in that it's still stuck several console generations in the past and should be made available to those who would like to get it.

One of my favorite games of the era and, really, ever. I have played it at least once a year since I got back into retro games. I actually totally missed Shinobi 3 when it came out. It was probably just overshadowed by all the hype for Street Fighter 2 and Mortal Kombat. So it came out at an unfortunate time as far as standing out. I just didn't know it existed. I think it was mid 1995 when a friend of mine was selling off old games to pay for Saturn games. I had some spending money and picked out a bunch of them for both Genesis and SNES. I ran out of money when I got to Super Metroid, unfortunately. But Shinobi 3 was literally my first pick, and it did not disappoint. I was shocked how fun it was and how much variety there was with the moveset, and I was already a fan of the Shinobi games, though Revenge I had not yet gotten to play at that point. It was one of those moments where I said to myself, why didn't I find this earlier.

@ShawnS I'm the same way with the game, and Shadow Dancer as well. Also, Shatterhand is another one where the game just feels so great and I've beaten that one with every variation I can think of.

Interesting development. The original Shadow of the Ninja is a very cool game and it's among my favorites on the NES. So far the art looks good and well judged in my opinion. I look forward to seeing more.

@samuelvictor Yeah, it's really weird how Sega re-did the handling for Daytona after the Saturn version and never did it the original way. But that Dreamcast version is really good, as you say. I enjoy going back to that one quite a bit. I found that with a bit of tweaking, I could get the car to handle in a way I liked. I think I had to turn the steering sensitivity way down, but the adjustments were there. Daytona CCE for Saturn is a totally different story. No matter what I did, I just couldn't get it to handle right. The cool part is, despite the different feel of the original version on Saturn and the DC remake, I can go back and forth between them with minimal issue because they're both consistent, which is not something I felt with CCE.

What an interesting period of time. Everything was new and there was no roadmap on how to do things, for better or for worse. It makes me wonder what Nintendo was expecting when they released the Famicom, as it sounds like they though it might be a modest success. It also shows how things back then took time, which I view as a positive in a lot of ways. I thought it was interesting to hear about the context of the Famicom launching when gaming on early Japanese computers was somewhat popular. The smooth scrolling in games like Super Mario Bros. probably amazed people at the time and helped propel the machine to success.

Finally, a Street Fighter game with voices so bad that the Genesis can't butcher them!! I couldn't resist, and I know the scratchy voices in Special Champion Edition didn't have to be scratchy and the system has done much better sample playback. In fact, the voices never bothered me and I've always liked that version.

That's great. And, from what I've read, it sounds like Mad Stalker is one of those games with a small, but cult-like fan base. I'm part of that now. It's definitely not going to appeal to everyone. Many will consider it just okay. When I first tried it, I thought it was almost good. But, strangely, the game called me back to it for a second chance and I ended up loving it. The music is great(all versions, which are all different) which is a big part of it. I was lucky as I stumbled onto the announcement of the Mega Drive version back in 2020 basically right when it happened, so I followed the news of that as info came out and bought it right away. It feels right that they would include this one for the X68000 Z.

Congrats to Samurai Shodown, and its 30 years of misspelling! Even now, I have to sometimes remind myself to remove a W. And it was arguably the game(if not the first, then the second one) that really showed SNK as a real competitor to Capcom in the fighting space while doing something very different with a weapon's-based fighter.

@AJB83 I'm glad to see that others are very excited about these too. Yeah, it is just about perfect for SNES, unless someone doesn't quite like the angle of the buttons. I think most people should be able to adapt quite well. Like you, I have other controllers that can do the job well, especially with those two Ultimate Cs I just got, but the idea of that stick really appeals to me the same way. I've noticed what a huge difference the controller makes for fighting games and I have high hopes for these to be ideal for that. And those limited controllers do look tempting, and KOF 97 was a big game for me so I'm considering that as well. And, yes, the purple flames look cool.

What a cool surprise, though not a huge surprise since 8bitdo has already done a PC Engine/TurboGrafx 16 controller. Neo Geo CD was probably the next logical step, though with more effort on their end having to figure out how to do that stick right as opposed to the typical membrane D-pad. And I love my 8bitdo controllers and just picked up two of their Ultimate C wired pads which were quite a good deal. The D-pad on my SN30 Pro Plus has been fantastic(mostly), coming extremely close to the usability of the Saturn controller's D-pad. The only downside to it, and I don't know if it affects the never controllers since they seem to use a different membrane, is that the rubber of the membrane is weak and will tear, which means some maintenance is required. I still have to test the Ultimate C controllers to see if the D-pad and its positioning match up to the SN30 Pro Plus. Back to this Neo Geo CD pad, this could be excellent provided the feel of it works for me, but I'm very excited for this one. And it looks like it will be easily serviceable too. The shoulder buttons will be handy as well. I'll want to check reviews when they're available, but 8bitdo has a great track record and my own experiences have been positive, so I suspect the question won't be if I get one, but how many.

Always cool to see something new come to the Neo Geo, not that I'm in the market for that. But Final Vendetta looks especially suited to the Neo Geo, especially with the sprite work looking like it was most influenced by SNK, specifically Fatal Fury series and King of Fighters.

I strongly disagree with that blurb from the NintendoLife review. I'm not opposed to "getting good" at the likes of Cuphead or Metal Slug(despite the ability to credit feed), but a single credit limit in a beat-em-up, in my opinion, drags things down as it forces a more rigid approach. I felt compelled, because I love the game, to 1CC the original Golden Axe, which isn't especially hard. While that was fun to do many times, I enjoy the game more when I'm not exploiting every single aspect I can. That's just me, and it's also moot since a casual mode has been added to Final Vendetta, but I would have to give extra scrutiny to that reviewer, who I suspect is a lovely person, when it comes to beat-em-ups.

I didn't know this one, but I also had no need to know as I never felt compelled to look at how that was assembled. I was very happy with my stock Gamecube. The thing about the spindle, that I noticed right away.

I wasn't really gaming when this game came out and wasn't aware of Wayforward. When I did learn of them a couple of years later, I was able to pick this up along with Contra 4, and Thor: God of Thunder. Thor is surprisingly good if you like the type of game that it is. It was perfect timing because I got all three brand new for very little money. I know they got more expensive not too long after. I had a really good time with Infestation. I could tell they enjoyed making the game. I was happy to learn that Wayforward's reputation was well earned as I became a fan of their stuff.

So funny to see Gunsmoke and Bonanza referenced. I love both shows. Been a while since I've been the type of young person they're talking about, but I did discover Bonanza when I was 10, long after is had ended its run. I've seen most of the episodes far more than is reasonable, and seen all 431 at least twice. But I agree, westerns were popular, but fell out of favor due to how ubiquitous they were along with cultural shifts. The interesting thing about westerns was how they allowed many liberties to be taken with the historical presentation. I think that's partly why these historically-based concepts work so well in other cultures, because there's a lot in there that's interesting, but writers can take far more liberties since they're not bound by that history. For example, you can start with a samurai or medieval setting, and add in fantasy elements. You can do that if you're from that culture, but I think it's harder to do. But all those things have something in common, and it's also why sci-fi works so well too, in that they allow human stories without having to worry about rules that shows with a contemporary setting would have. For example, some of my favorite American TV shows are westerns and private-investigator shows, but I hate police procedurals and lawyer shows.

@SpeedRunRocks I agree about Gunsmoke and Festus. I love Festus. Bonanza is one of my favorite shows ever, and that was way before my time.

Sony did a great job expanding the game market with the PS1. The PS2 is one case of a follow-up console being a sure hit, which is surprisingly uncommon. The Dreamcast may have been a victim of bad timing in a way. When it was designed, it was a big leap over the PS1, Saturn, and N64. The extra time Sony had before launching allowed it to benefit from advancements graphics processing, mostly in terms of polygon number, while the Dreamcast seemed to have better image quality in practice. But the PS2 was a good combination of power, marketing, and versatility thanks to the DVD drive, which was a great move and a big part of its early success.

The PS2 may be my favorite console redesign with the slim model which I always found appealing. I thought Sony did a nice job with the PSOne as well.

It's amazing what the mind can do, but it can sometimes work against us. Sheer force of will can lead to good results, but it can also override good sense and lead to injury. In this case, ignorance also played a part because, frankly, it wasn't especially well known that there was such a risk from drinking too much water. Of course, those who organized the contest should have done their due diligence, and then should have heeded the warning as it came in. What a sad situation for that young woman and her family.

That's a cool little novelty for what is one of my favorite game concepts ever. I remember when the game was new and just being wowed at the idea and the presentation in a time when you didn't see that kind of creativity very often and the trendy thing to do was to pad the length of games.

On a separate note, today's batch of stories and features on the site was probably my favorite combination as I had a strong interest in nearly everything that went up today, from this, to the Langrisser piece, the lag article, and the Grimace game to name a few. What a great day here on Time Extension.

A lot of the complaining about lag is terribly exaggerated. I've seen some people say that some games are unplayable on setups that are known to work very well. However, there are lots of variables with different setups. I think that's where a lot of misconceptions come from. I only have a problem with hyperbolic claims people make. I am always in favor of further lag reduction like with something like this. I do appreciate the testing done here as that list of controllers with their lag results is very handy to have available. It also shows that many controllers are rather good, though some are surprisingly bad, even wired. That list is definitely a good reference when looking for new controllers. Looks like I've chosen pretty well so far.

The line of USB PD cables is also a good idea. I know some such cables already exist, but more options for more systems is nice.

So nice to read this. I was drawn to Langrisser 4 from the art and managed to play a good bit of it on my Saturn with a partial translation that was available at the time which I printed out. I really enjoyed the way it played. It was my introduction to strategy games. While I'm not a huge fan of the genre as a whole, I do still look at the likes of Langrisser and Shining Force fondly. Fire Emblem came later to the GBA and I also liked what they did with those. I also managed to find Warsong in the late '90s which I enjoyed on my Nomad. I also remember when the Der Langrisser translation was in its early days and it sounded so cool. I have always really liked the series despite the language barrier making it difficult to enjoy much of it.

The visual style is very nice. Gameplay looks interesting. I want to offer what I hope is constructive criticism. I'm very sensitive to screen shake and I know plenty of others are. I prefer to be able to completely turn off screen shake, and many games now offer that as an option as it has been an issue for many. The screen shake looks to be excessive in this one. Without an option for that, I will not even be able to consider playing this. I might check the demo to see if such an option already exists.

Exact's games seem to be among the best on the system. Nice to see those games come back around. I would hope such games will see release on modern digital platforms eventually. But good to see some kind of release for those. I also wouldn't mind trying out Phalanx and Genocide on the X68000. I don't intend to get the system though.

Sega was a mess in terms of their operation for years. Their different regional divisions were notorious for not really getting along, and being antagonistic in some cases. From SoJ's perspective, I can understand why they might be particularly distrustful of SoA and Moore. Moore was hired by bernie stolar, who sowed that additional distrust. He made a huge PR blunder by undercutting the Saturn in 1997. Based on reporting and statements at the time, I think he did that as a ploy suspecting SoJ had next-gen hardware ready to go(they didn't), or to force them to fast track it. Saturn was already not a market success, but what stolar did caused further brand damage, to tie it into Moore's story. And then stolar went rogue and priced the Dreamcast $50 lower than what SoJ determined it should be(and still $50 lower than the PS1 launch price). This was at a time when Sega couldn't afford those extra losses for too long. I can only speculate, but I think the Dreamcast launch would have been a success with the system priced at $250. stolar was sacked pretty abruptly from that, which is how Moore got the spot.

A lot of Croc coverage this week. Perhaps 2023 is the year of Croc. I got the game for Saturn way back in 1997. Sad to say, I hated the camera so much. However, I decided to give the PS1 version a try a few years back after finding out it was considered better than the Saturn version, particularly with the camera being just a bit further back. That made a real difference and I had a really good time with it.

I didn't remember that this was on PS1. I picked it up for the Saturn back in the day on a whim. I already knew it got mixed reviews, but I thought it looked good. As I recall, the animated cutscenes taken from the film were pretty good for the Saturn. PS1 tended to have better video quality, though. And I enjoyed it. Cool to see this getting translated this way. As I said, the reviews are mixed, so it's not going to impress some people who might be interested.

I'm going to get the silly guesses out of the way first. If it's Konami, it could be the long-awaited sequel to Double Dribble. They can call it Triple Dribble. And since they said "massive", perhaps they're working on Super Mario Bros. 3 Part II.

Okay, now to be more serious. Castlevania is an obvious one, and is of course the major focus of this piece. It seems to fit well with the Dead Cells style. Within Konami's catalog, there's also Contra. A lot of games were massive in their time or on their specific platform, so it's tough to say. One series that was massive for a lot of Sega players would be Shinobi, and Sega is willing to let outside studios update old IPs, so it's realistic from that perspective. Golden Axe is another game that some people seem to want to see revived and beat-em-ups have been getting some love in recent years. I'm sure there are plenty of other good ideas, but Konami and Sega seem more likely than other companies to reach out like that rather than doing it internally.

Interesting to read about this. I got Croc when it was new for the Saturn and I ended up not liking it after a little bit. The camera was always a struggle. Back in 2019 I wanted to try the game again, partly because I wanted to play a 3D game that didn't use an analog controller. That time I played the PS1 version. To get right to the point, I liked it and had a lot of fun with it. I didn't mind the tank controls as they were what I was looking for. The PS1 version didn't have the same major camera issues as the Saturn version as the PS1 game is a bit more zoomed out making it easier to see what's going on. There are still some camera issues, but so did every 3D game at the time. I found Mario 64's camera super annoying, for example. But revisiting Croc was a pleasant surprise for me and I'm glad I did that.

There could be a number of reasons that the Croc character didn't endure beyond the sequel. I wonder if one of them is that the character's name is quite generic for the sort of character it is.

@Hexapus that's a fair criticism, though that's probably how things are with puppets. I don't mind them hamming it up a bit for something like that. I did look into it, and I see those referred to as animatronic puppets. You may be right in the sense that they may be operated by a person inside, but what is visible seems to be a puppet of some sort. Still, it seems like a crazy amount of production for such a game.

I never got into Wing Commander, so I didn't really know what to expect there. It's a fairly impressive production considering it's a video game, and not one that was a big mainstream smash hit. There are several well-known actors involved and puppets!!! And not just puppets, but good puppets. It seems like a lot of work went into that game.

I instantly recognized this from the included image. I had one of these but did not remember what it was called. In some ways, it's even harder digitally. I had a slip of my trackpad while doing obstacle two and lost the ball. I wouldn't mind some save states or similar to practice without having to do the early obstacles over and over. Pro tip: close obstacle three before starting.

@-wc- I like your answer, "no". At least you may have some reference if you know whether your SNES was made before 1995. I got mine in 1994. It's worth mentioning, at least in my experience, that the SNES had pretty good picture quality regardless of the revisions and improvements. Even the blurry ones looked pretty good on a CRT. As much as I love the Mega Drive/Genesis, one of the worst things about that system was inconsistent picture quality and visual noise. There are differences in the revisions and even within the same revisions depending on the video encoder chip. The SNES was way more consistent in that regard and generally looked better over RF or composite.

I can understand why they would consider it. Since it came out in 1998, the 3D rendered look was likely still somewhat trendy when they started development on the game. The rendered look was fine for things like Donkey Kong Country, but many of the copycats couldn't get it to look right. I remember Killer Instinct did not look appealing to me when it came out. It reminds me of the trend of digitized human characters after Mortal Kombat. Mortal Kombat did it well, but so many of games that used the same technique didn't do it nearly as well. I think it's because of the level of animation required to make it look good. Same thing happened for the Street Fighter 2 HD update. In the end, I think it worked out perfectly. They still had their visual gimmick, which was higher resolution 2D than what Capcom and SNK offered, with very stylish 2D art. It still didn't require the same level of animation that I mentioned to look good and the whole look ended up being timeless.

Wow! First blast processing, and now everlasting freshness.

@-wc- yeah, it was always weird how people often default to extreme positions. If the Saturn is better at 2D, then the PS1 has to be bad at it. It's silly. PS1 could do some good 2D, especially good looking ports of arcade fighters and original stuff designed for it like SotN, which is a fantastic game. But as you point out, the big restriction was memory, especially for the CD-based systems. And memory was expensive back in the day. So it was quite an advantage for Sega to have some expandability. I suspect that the PS1 could have managed some respectable versions of tag fighters like X-Men vs. Street Fighter if it also had RAM expansions. I've often wondered what that would have been like. Those watered-down Capcom ports of their tag fighters didn't show the system in a good light. But for traditional one-on-one fighters like Street Fighter Alpha or Darkstalkers, the PS1 seemed to be able to do pretty well.

@-wc- There are quite a few examples. Fire Pro Wrestling(PS1 had added features as it came later, but was downgraded in performance), Shienryu(Sat)/Gekoioh(PS1), Wolf Fang, Asuka 120%, and some others. Those are the ones I can remember or find right now. There are likely many more examples, but I'd have to refer to lists. I'm leaving out RAM cart games to keep it fair. I'm also not mentioning Capcom since you already mentioned Street Fighter. Typically, when there was a difference, it wasn't huge because the PS1 could do 2D well, and the differences came down to load times and performance.

On the flip side, PS1 could more easily pull off transparency effects and such, like in SotN which definitely was not optimized for the Saturn port. And I recall that DonPachi and In the Hunt also turned out better on the PS1.

@KingMike I think in this case, it mostly comes down to the conversion process and the fact the optimisation that was mentioned was likely not done beyond getting it running. It reminds me of the Bomberman games. Bomberman '94 got a port to the Genesis/Mega Drive as Mega Bomberman and it had slowdown. There's no question that the system runs much more complex games than that, so it's definitely an optimisation thing there, which is why I think that is the case here. It also reminds me of the PS1 vs. Saturn for 2D. There's no question the Saturn is better at 2D games(PS1 could do very well, though), but some 2D games ended up better on the PS1.

Sega Lord does good work and he said he plans a follow up soon with more games which I look forward to. What I'm most interested in are exclusives like Aquales and other games developed by Exact, and stuff like Mad Stalker which is not easily available elsewhere(I did buy the Mega Drive version in 2020....which was never released back in the day) and where the X68000 version is arguably the best, though all the ports of that game seem very good.

Speaking of Mad Stalker, the one version I have not played thoroughly is for the FM Towns, and I would love to see a modern mini version of that computer as well, even though most of its best games are also available elsewhere.

I never played any Rolling Thunder games until around 2015. They just passed me by and I only rarely heard about them. I've seen "best games" lists for the Genesis leave them off for vastly inferior games. Playing Rolling Thunder 2 on the Genesis was such a genuine surprise as the game was far better than I expected. I prefer the Genesis version to the arcade for changes made to the stage design, but the arcade version is good too. I'm not a game collector, but I did love this one so much that I did have to pick up a copy.