DOWNGRADED: Gradius (Konami, 1985-1986)

Gradius for NES. This game has haunted me for most of my life. It was the first SNES game I owned (and it still works just fine!) and when Gradius V came out on PS2 I tried, I really tried to beat that bastard. Once it gets to the point that I'm truly screwed if I lose a life (all powerups you gain are lost upon death, making you nearly defenseless late in the game) I have to concede defeat. Now let's take a look at the arcade and NES versions of the original Gradius and make fun of it.

Or maybe not! Your ship can only have two Options (multiples) instead of the usual four and vertical scrolling was eliminated, but graphically it's quite faithful to the arcade original. Let's have a look at the damage.

The Vic Viper (AKA "Warp Rattler" if you're reading the US instruction manual) didn't suffer too much--the size of the ship is the same though the propulsion in the back shrunk down a bit. They even gave it 5 colors instead of the usual three through the use of multiple sprites.

The "EASTER ISLAND GUYS" as I always called them didn't lose any size either, though the color limits made them take a hard hit in definition. I think putting some highlights on the rock clusters using the main body color of the Moai might've helped a lot.

"YOU TRIED"

Now we're talking: the Big Core enemy isn't quite so big in the NES version! However, it's nice and colorful thanks to the aforementioned multiple sprites. Overall a good effort.

I was going to take Konami to task for this on account of the romhack that improves the graphics such that they rival the arcade version, thinking that surely they could have done this themselves back in the day. However, the hack expands the rom well past its original size and uses some Assembly hacks to increase the Option number back to four, so I'll assume that given the hardware they had to work with Konami did the best they could.

The Tower of Druaga and Fix It Felix Jr. connection

Here's something fun while we're on the subject of Wreck-It Ralph. The filmmakers had an obvious love for 80's arcade culture and incorporated all sorts of fun references into the different game worlds. Similarities between Fix It Felix Jr. and Donkey Kong are especially evident(a working man hero climbs a tall structure to defeat a big oaf), Turbo Time was heavily influenced by Namco's Rally X, Sugar Rush is reminiscent of Mario Kart, etc. However, I noticed another more subtle reference in the promotional flash game on Disney's website. My keen famicom memory kicked in right away--this is the title music from Namco's Tower of Druaga! Have a listen to the Felix theme below first.



Now compare with the title theme for The Tower of Druaga:


Just something of mild interest for people curious about some of the movie's many video game references. I've seen some discussion online making other comparisons between music in the movie and other old games, though I didn't catch them personally. Gilgamesh should've shown up in the movie! I honestly can't stand the original Druaga, though I liked the roguelike PS2 installment "Nightmare of Druaga" a hell of a lot. Once the movie comes out on DVD/Bluray I'm sure there'll be a deluge of newly discovered in-jokes.

DOWNGRADED: Popeye (Nintendo, 1982-1983)

I thought it would be fun to showcase the occasional little examination of video game ports that had to make sacrifices to fit on home hardware.




I was playing Popeye tonight at Pinballz arcade and not only is it much more difficult than the NES version, Nintendo used an interesting method of creating high-res character sprites on low-res backgrounds. While this results in character detail that honestly amazed me for such an old game, it made porting the game to consoles tricky. So, how did the NES version handle it?

"YOU TRIED"

To be fair, the NES port is very faithful to the arcade, gameplay-wise. This was in the era of Donkey Kong and the original Mario Bros. as well, when cartridge space was tight...how tight? A hefty 8 kilobytes of "character" (graphics) data to work with. Well blow me down.