The beleaguered 3DO port of id Software‘s classic Doom is often referred to as “the worst port of Doom” by fans of the game, but it’s actually not a bad conversion at all. Yes: it is relatively slow, compared to other Doom ports, and yes: the game runs in a reduced-size window, but it still plays pretty well and does have its plus points.
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Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss, FM Towns
Origin/Blue Sky Productions‘ classic MS-DOS RPG, Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss, was released for the FM Towns in 1993 by Electronic Arts Victor, Inc.*
*= Electronic Arts Victor was a joint venture between Electronic Arts and the Victor Musical Industries subsidiary of JVC, established in September 1992 in Tokyo. Electronic Arts Victor‘s mission was to translate Electronic Arts‘ library of games to Japanese language and to distribute them in Japan, as well as to create original titles for the Japanese market.
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Chaos Strikes Back, FM Towns
Chaos Strikes Back is a continuation of the classic Role-Playing Game, Dungeon Master. It’s a sequel – but not the sequel – to the first game, and was originally released as a stand-alone expansion disk on the Atari ST. On the FM Towns it was published on CD-ROM by Victor Musical Industries in 1990, and there’s a bit of faffing around to do before you can actually start the game*. Thankfully you can at least do this in English as there’s an option to play in that language.
*= Before you can play Chaos Strikes Back you must either create a new party (by entering the prison and choosing from the available portraits), and then save it to a new 720Kb floppy disk; or load a set of characters from a pre-existing FM Towns Dungeon Master save. You then need to enter the CSB portrait editor utility program and then click on ‘Make New Adventure’ to activate and save a new Chaos Strikes Back file to the disk. Only then will you be able to load and start the game…
Dungeon Master, FM Towns
The FM Towns version of the classic Dungeon Master was ported by FTL Games (the game’s original developer) and published by Fujitsu in 1989 (two years after the original Atari ST version, and three years before the DOS version came out). This was a Japan-only release, on CD-ROM, but the game is playable in both English and Japanese, which is great.
Doom, Sega Saturn
The Sega Saturn port of Doom was developed by Rage Software and distributed by GT Interactive in 1997. Like the PlayStation version (on which this port is based) it contains both Ultimate Doom and Doom II, but is a little disappointing in terms of performance and presentation.
Doom, Sega 32X
The Sega 32X port of id Software‘s Doom was developed and published by Sega of America in 1994. While the game doesn’t run in a full window (there’s a permanent border around the screen, probably to keep the frame rate up, which is unfortunate), it is an otherwise very good conversion, with smooth movement and decent controls.
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Sega Saturn
Konami‘s brilliant PlayStation game, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, was released for the Sega Saturn in 1998, but it was only ever released in Japan (under the title “Akumajou Dracula X: Gekka no Yasoukyoku“). Thankfully, an English translation patch is available to make the game playable to those who can’t read Japanese. The patch – created by ‘Knight of Dragon’ – also features numerous bug fixes and improvements.
For those who’ve never played Symphony of the Night before: it is a direct sequel to Rondo of Blood and is rightly regarded as one of the best Castlevania games in the long-running series (if not THE best).
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Doom II, Game Boy Advance
The Game Boy Advance port of id Software‘s classic first-person shooter sequel, Doom II, was developed by Torus Games and first published by Activision in 2002. Unlike the first Doom on the GBA this port doesn’t use the original Doom engine, but instead uses the Southpaw Engine, that was designed for native use on the GBA and has been used in a number of other games. Torus Games had to therefore recreate all the levels from scratch for this port, and I have to say that they did a great job.
Doom, Game Boy Advance
The Game Boy Advance version of Doom was developed by David A. Palmer Productions and published by Activision in 2001. It is a playable and enjoyable version of id Software‘s shooter classic on Nintendo‘s capable handheld.
Doom, Atari Jaguar
The Atari Jaguar conversion of id Software‘s classic Doom is actually pretty good. It’s a lot better than the Super Nintendo port, which should be expected. It was first released in November 1994 by Atari Corporation. id‘s John Carmack programmed the bulk of the engine, with Dave Taylor handling multiplayer code, and with Atari‘s help on the production and testing side of things.
The King of Grabs 