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There was a period of time between 1988 and 1994\h
where systems like the Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum,\h\h

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NES and Master System were coming to the end of\h
their lives, but they were still popular enough\h\h

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(depending on what region you look at), to warrant\h
contemporary arcade games being ported across.\h\h

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Great, you might say. Home ports are great.\h
They allow an arcade experience in the home!

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But this is an era of juxtaposition. It was also\h
a time of fighting games. Games like Final Fight,\h\h

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Pit Fighter, Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat.

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Chunky sprites. Detailed backgrounds.\h
Fast Movement and spot on effects. This\h\h

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resulted in a visceral sensation of actually\h
being a part of the fight, and it was great.

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But this was also an era of god being\h
in the graphics. If a home port looked\h\h

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like the arcade port, if the screen shots\h
on the back of the box sealed the deal,\h\h

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then it was near as dammit, the arcade game.

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The problem was. NONE of this translated well\h
to these 8 bit platforms. Fast fighting action,\h\h

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detailed graphics, chunky sprites, and so looking\h
like it wasn’t always beneficial to the player.

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And so, we got this.

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This is Final Fight on the ZX Spectrum, trying\h\h

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so incredibly hard to be Final Fight on\h
the ZX Spectrum, and for that very reason,\h\h

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it is as far removed from Final Fight\h
on the ZX Spectrum as you could get.

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I mean, given the hardware constraints, it\h
certainly looks the part, but because of that,\h\h

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it lacks the speed and fluidity that\h
made Final Fight so fun in the first\h\h

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place. It’s such an overwhelming\h
ordeal for the poor little Speccy,\h\h

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that it doesn’t even register key\h
presses or collisions half the time.

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Run it on a modern day emulator and 3x the\h
speed, and it’s actually very commendable. But\h\h

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running at the Speccy’s 4MHz clock speed was not\h
commendable, and base clock speed was all we had.

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It coped with earlier beat ’em ups like Renegade\h
and Double Dragon a little better. But not much.

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The alternative option was to\h
release a paired down take on a game,\h\h

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more fitting for the 8 bit hardware. That’s\h
what Capcom did with Mighty Final Fight on the\h\h

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NES, featuring smaller chibi style sprites.\h
Consequentially, it’s faster, and more playable,\h\h

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but of course, doesn’t have\h
that arcade box art pull.

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But maybe scrolling beat ’em\h
ups is being a bit unfair. These\h\h

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poor micros never stood a chance. So\h
let’s look at more static fighters;

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Just like these incredible collectible\h
Street Fighter figurines from FanHome.

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Detailed and hand painted, they\h
are the perfect size to hold\h\h

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for real life fighting… OR you can just\h
display them and amaze your friends…\h\h

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and if you don’t have friends, maybe\h
these will help you get friends.

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Every month you can build your collection with\h
characters from all the Street Fighter games.

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You’ll also receive a huge poster and these\h
incredible magazines. Every single month.

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Packed with backstory and details\h
about the fighters, the game as\h\h

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well as a hefty dose of history and insight\h
into the arcade world they were born from.

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Just head to the link below to\h
set up your personal subscription\h\h

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and join the incredible world of\h
FanHome’s STREET FIGHTER COLLECTION.

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Street Fighter (1987)

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Ok, so the original Street Fighter isn’t the\h
greatest arcade experience. But it arrived\h\h

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at the perfect time for 8 bit micros whose\h
selection of fighters, apart from Barbarian\h\h

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and a few karate based games like The Way\h
of the Exploding Fist and IK+, wasn’t great.

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So Street Fighter shook up the scene, if a\h
little less vigorously than it’s sequel, and\h\h

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even with 1987 arcade hardware, it’s on the very\h
limits of what an 8 bit micro could replicate.\h\h

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For that reason we’ll use it as a\h
benchmark for the horror shows to come,\h\h

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because actually, this works reasonably well.

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The ZX Spectrum version programmed by Tiertex,\h
although lacking colour, has large, defined\h\h

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sprites that move at an almost reasonable pace.\h
I mean, there are very few frames of animation,\h\h

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but you can make out that Ryu is\h
Ryu and they get the job done.\h\h

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The gameplay is pretty dull and cumbersome, and\h
the AI is akin to fighting a slug. But it almost\h\h

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holds together as a playable game. You know, if\h
you really wanted to, you could get through it.

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I’ll be honest though that’s the best version. The\h
Amiga and Atari ST versions are somehow worse, in\h\h

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almost every way… and the Commodore 64 version?..\h
Well, there are two versions for the C64;\h\h

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one developed for North America, the other\h
for Europe. But they’re both so dreadful\h\h

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that US Gold included them both on the same\h
cassette, to try and appease buyers somewhat.

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Pit Fighter (1990)

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When Pit Fighter burst on the scene in 1990,\h
it blew most of the competition away. Being\h\h

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one of the first to use actual digitised\h
fighters and a zooming camera action,\h\h

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it was technically miles ahead of anything else.

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Gameplay wise, things were a bit more\h
simple. Much like Renegade and Double Dragon,\h\h

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your moves were mainly limited to jump, punch\h
and kick. But being able to interact with\h\h

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your environment was an added bonus that gave the\h
gameplay enough variety to keep you entertained.

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So then, for the home ports, it was clearly\h
imperative to keep as much of the impressive\h\h

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technical elements as possible…. and you can\h
imagine how that turned out on the ZX Spectrum.

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I mean you can tell it’s Pit\h
Fighter. So that goal has been\h\h

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well and truly met. But holy hell, this\h
is like wading through a thick syrup of\h\h

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excrement. To coin a more successful\h
YouTuber. What WERE THEY THINKING?

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Teque Software Development Ltd, otherwise\h
known as Krisalis Software the brains behind\h\h

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the coding weren’t exactly slouches.\h
They created games like Laser Squad,\h\h

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Bad Lands and Castle Master.\h
But yet, here we are in 1991\h\h

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with a game as accessible as American Football.\h
The thing is, it goes back to those graphics.

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Crash Magazine said “Every spite seems to have\h
been defined really small and blown up to fill\h\h

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the screen. I know the Spectrum doesn’t have\h
the graphic capabilities of 16-bit machines,\h\h

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but it’s games don’t have to\h
be this bad”. Awarding it 24%.

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You see, to get such large sprites\h
to move at any reasonable speed,\h\h

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they were indeed stretched out, and created in\h
very low fidelity. Unfortunately the outcome is\h\h

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stretched spites still moving at an unreasonable\h
speed, and a game that’s very hard to play indeed.

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To get the other side of the coin, The Kremlin\h\h

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(the developers, not the Russian government), did\h
the opposite on the Sega Master System. Shrinking\h\h

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everything down to a scale where it didn’t even\h
resemble Pit Fighter in the slightest. The result\h\h

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is a slightly more playable game, but one\h
that didn’t sell from the box art alone.

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Street Fighter II (1991)

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It’s amazing what a few years can do.\h
Street Fighter II was not only years,\h\h

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but also worlds apart from it’s prequal.\h
This new onslaught of colour, speed and\h\h

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combos blasted onto the scene in\h
early 1991, and didn’t look back.

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The problem of course, was the game had now\h
advanced way past the original in terms of\h\h

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colours, graphics, sound, speed, playable\h
characters, moves, basic gameplay, and\h\h

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given Tiertex had a hard enough time packing the\h
first one in, this was surely an impossible task.

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Well, for starters it took another 2 years, with\h
the ZX Spectrum release not available until 1993,\h\h

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and by that point, you have to ask, why bother?\h
The system was very much in its dying days,\h\h

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and not even THIS could resurrect in. In fact,\h
I’m sure this helped lay it to rest even quicker.

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BUT, this simple fact also meant that\h
the last remaining Spectrum magazines\h\h

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commended any new games, especially big names\h
like this, like it was better than sliced\h\h

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bread. Your Sinclair, issue 87 said “Staggering\h
graphics and speed and a huge range of moves.\h\h

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It’s one of the best two-player games on the good\h
ol’Speccy” gifting it 67%. With Sinclair User\h\h

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going even more out awarded it a whopping 89%.

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The Spectrum version was developed, again, by\h
Tiertex, but other home ports, including Amiga,\h\h

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ST and DOS were developed by Creative\h
Materials, and even though, those platforms\h\h

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aren’t exactly inappropriate for the\h
game. They’re still pretty bad examples.

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The Commodore 64 version is undoubtedly the\h
worst. I’ve even made a dedicated video about it.\h\h

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It’s not helped by the C64’s lower resolution, but\h
that could be forgiven if gameplay was any good.\h\h

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Unfortunately, it’s not, it plays\h
about as well as a badly chopped onion.

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You only have to look at the Gameboy\h
version developed by Sun L, to realise\h\h

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that cramming a fighter of this nature,\h
is indeed possible on limited hardware,\h\h

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you just have to made sacrifices.\h
In this case, with only two buttons,\h\h

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strength is determined by how long you hold\h
down the trigger for, rather than complex\h\h

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combinations. It’s fully paired down for\h
the hardware, and because of that, it works.

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The Famicom (the Japanese NES) would receive an\h
unlicenced version in 1992, developed by Hummer\h\h

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Team and published by Cony Soft which is pretty\h
abysmal, and you can understand why Nintendo\h\h

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wouldn’t want it on their platform given\h
how spectacular the SNES version was.

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BUT Tec Toy would actually release\h
their own Brazil exclusive version\h\h

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in 1997 for the Master System. Here,\h
the game has been paired down to remove\h\h

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moves and is only single player, arguably\h
removing the most fun element. But those\h\h

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sacrifices mean it still plays well and\h
for an 8 bit console, it looks phenomenal.

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Mortal Kombat (1992)

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Which brings us to my favourite fighter of the\h
90s. It just stood out for all the right (or wrong\h\h

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if you’re that way inclined reasons).\h
The fact that is sparked a series of\h\h

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court cases regarding it’s violent\h
content may seem laughable today,\h\h

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but back then it paved the way for\h
game age ratings around the world.

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Of course, I doubt the uproar would have been\h
the same had only the Master System version\h\h

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been released. Which is a shame, because\h
it’s a port which tries so very very hard\h\h

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to be like it’s Mega Drive counter part,\h
but just lacks the grace and finesse needed\h\h

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to mould a fun, seamless playable experience.

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Plus, if you’re the type\h
who craves a 6 button pad,\h\h

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remember, the Master System has just\h
two buttons, meaning special moves\h\h

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require some pretty finicky directional manoeuvres\h
to pull off, and even then you’re quite limited.

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Even so, here we get a game\h
that looks like Mortal Kombat.\h\h

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It has two player mode, and it just about\h
achieves what an 8 bit console shouldn’t.

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Which is definitely more than we can say for\h
most of these struggling 8 bit conversions.

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Of course, it’s always down to\h
homebrew developers to rectify past\h\h

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issues. In 2018, Mighty Final Fight was\h
developed by a group of Russian coders,\h\h

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and it looks and plays incredibly well.\h
There’s also a visual version of Mortal\h\h

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Kombat for the Spectrum that looks the part, but\h
was limited by the machine’s memory constraints.

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Still, I look back on this time with incredibly\h
fond memories. These machines may not have had\h\h

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the brute power to run games of this nature,\h
especially with chunky sprites and fast movement,\h\h

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but the developers damn well tried to\h
create something as faithful as possible.

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We can’t blame them for their shortcomings….\h
well, ok, sometimes we can. But it was more our\h\h

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uncontrollable unsated craving to have an arcade\h
experience in the home that kept them coming…\h\h

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and sure, it might have been disappointing,\h
but just having a tiny slice of that arcade\h\h

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experience on your trusty underdog\h
of a machine was good enough.

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That’ll do boy. That’ll do.