Same Name, Different Game

[Cheebs]

Madness. It's no arcade version, but it was a damned good port.

Good in what way? It got nothing right other than the level layout. The control degrades into how fast you can mash the punch button. There's no variety in the moves since there are no dedicated knock-down moves and no one hit is more powerful than any other hit, aside for the knee smash that can't be done anyway.

[NeoZeedeater]

I'm in the NES DD > SMS DD camp. SMS DD looks much nicer and I like the music as much as the NES version (the Japanese SMS version with FM sound is much nicer than the domestic, though) but the gameplay has some issues. It becomes a bit of a jump kick-fest as enemies can cheaply hit you easier while punching. It was still a cool port at the time for the two-player.

[Othello Harrington]

I nominate the worst arcade port ever!

POW

Cool stuff by Rad Reviews on youtube

Arcade Golden ax vs Genny

[raystorm]

While not a different game the Genesis port of Mercs had an original mode with brand new levels. It was almost like an expansion pack of sorts. The arcade mode port was pretty good from what I remembered though admittedly its been a very long time since I played it.

[Frogacuda]

Shadow Dancer is another interesting one, though that's 16-bit era.

[Othello Harrington]

I thought the focus of the thread was the 8bit/16bit era, after that the systems pretty much rivaled or surpassed the arcades

[GohanX]

Another one that's not listed-Shinobi

The SMS version had similar levels, but the game played completely differently. All the characters were smaller, which made the levels much longer to play. Also the console version had upgradable weapon types that lasted more than one stage, and an actual life bar.

I still prefer the arcade version though, it's simply more fun. The SMS version seemed like a chore at times. The PC Engine also got a good port of the arcade game, but it had some things noticably missing.

[Othello Harrington]

I posted the Shinobi Nes Vs SMS video above.

Both of them suck terribly, at the time they could not even come close to quality that was the arcade version.

[Cheebs]

You're still on crack. SMS Shinobi was 100% awesome.

[Brisco Bold]

You're still on crack. SMS Shinobi was 100% awesome.

I hate this game on principle.

It took my friend and I 10 years of on-and-off casual play to finish it. A "Game Over" screen was our reward.

It was worse than when I finally finished Return to Zork.

Was there an ending to Shinobi in any version?