Ultima: Quest of the Avatar on the NES/Famicom was developed by FCI and published by Pony Canyon in 1990. It is the most different Ultima IV port available – in relation to the original – and has been altered to play more like a classic JRPG. Which is not a bad thing. In fact: some may even prefer this over the original.
Tag Archives: console
Ultima: Exodus, NES/Famicom
There is an NES/Famicom version of Ultima III: Exodus – called just “Ultima: Exodus” – that was developed by Newtopia Planning and first published by Pony Canyon in 1988. It has some major differences to the original, but essentially it’s the same game. The graphics are cuter but do suffer from some hideous tearing when a number of sprites are on the same horizontal line, which is a common technical fault on the NES.
Asteroids, Atari 2600
Asteroids on the Atari 2600 is a conversion of the classic 1979 arcade game, written by Bradley G. Stewart of Atari, Inc. and first published by Sears, Roebuck and Co. in 1981.
Star Fox EX, Super Nintendo
Star Fox EX is a recently-released ROM hack for the Super Nintendo classic, Star Fox, that takes ROM-hacking to another level. It was created by “kandowontu” (and a team of other contributors) and was first released in November 2022. The “EX” means “Exploration Showcase“.
Defender 2000, Atari Jaguar
Developed by Jeff Minter of Llamasoft and published by Atari Corporation in 1995, Defender 2000 is a re-imagining of the classic Williams Electronics arcade game from 1981, but with more ‘realistic’ graphics. It was an Atari Jaguar exclusive and only appeared on Atari‘s ill-fated console, in cartridge form. It was released as a companion title to Tempest 2000 – also by Llamasoft – and which is arguably the better game of the two. Both are decent games, though.
Planet of the Apes, PlayStation
The PlayStation version of Planet of the Apes was developed by French company Visiware and published by Ubisoft via Fox Interactive in 2002. The game was also released for Windows, and that version was released the previous year in 2001. It was actually the first video game ever to be based on the Planet of the Apes franchise. Although it is part of the same family of releases as the Game Boy Advance and Game Boy Color versions, it is a third-person 3D game and not a 2D platform game, like the handheld versions.
Ristar, Megadrive/Genesis
Ristar is a cute and colourful scrolling 2D platform game developed and published by Sega in 1995. It first came out for the Megadrive/Genesis and was later ported to the Game Gear, but it was only ever initially released on Sega console hardware.
Dropzone, NES/Famicom
Archer MacLean‘s classic side-scrolling shooter, Dropzone, was converted to the NES/Famicom by Eurocom Developments and it is an excellent adaptation of this fast-moving Defender derivative.
Silent Hill: Origins, PlayStation 2
Silent Hill: Origins – the fifth part of the Silent Hill series – was developed by British company Climax Action (with the help of some outsourcing), and not Konami, so was the first Silent Hill game not developed in Japan. It was initially released for the PlayStation Portable in 2007 and this PlayStation 2 port followed later, in 2008.
Silent Hill 4: The Room, PlayStation 2
Silent Hill 4: The Room was once again developed by Team Silent (an internal dev team at Konami Tokyo), and was first published by Konami in 2004. The word on the street is that Silent Hill 4 initially began life as a concept outside of the Silent Hill series and was later made canon when the devs decided to incorporate it. It plays differently to the previous three Silent Hill games, but does have the same DNA, mixing first-person exploration with the familiar third-person survival horror gameplay.
The King of Grabs 