Porting a game from one platform to another generally carries a lot of preconceptions, and not entirely without reason. These days, gamers are accustomed to seeing poor porting jobs done by lazy developers looking to make a quick buck without taking the time to iron out the issues with the new versions.
In the case of emulators, the entire console itself is essentially ported to another platform. While emulation usually introduces problems of its own (such as requiring the host system to be several times more powerful than the original), it can also improve upon the performance of the original console's hardware. For consoles that originally used optical media, the use of virtual drives can reduce load times dramatically. Modern GPUs can easily outperform those of the Nintendo 64 and PlayStation, which means that emulation for their games can be rendered in much higher resolutions than the original consoles were capable of while elimating texture warping and geometry issues prevalent on those consoles. Save states can even be used to bypass Save-Game Limits. The issue of battery life for handheld systems can also be circumvented by playing them on a home system. Of course, emulation itself (barring official examples such as the Virtual Console and PlayStation Classics) is a pretty controversial subject, and while emulators themselves are perfectly legal, the ownership and use of downloaded ROMs, ISO files, BIOSes, etc. are a rather murky gray area.
Compare and contrast, of course, Porting Disaster, which is sadly much more common. See also Updated Re-release, which can be a Polished Port. If a port of an arcade game to another system matches the original one-to-one, you have an Arcade-Perfect Port.Examples:
Action-Adventure
- The Legend of Zelda:
- Though the original Japanese version of Zelda II: The Adventure of Link had animated overworld map tiles thanks to being on the Famicom Disk System, when it came time to port it to the Nintendo Entertainment System for North America and Europe, it got a lot of quality of life improvements. Some of the more obnoxious sound effects were addressed like Barba's constant roaring was removed and the shrill sound of the text was swapped with a soft typewriter sound, the boss battle music was extended to a longer loop, the rematch with Jermafenser was replaced with a new boss Gooma, the cruel mechanic of dropping all your stats to match your lowest one on a Game Overnote For example, if you had 5 attack, 4 magic, and 3 life, on Game Over all of your stats would be dropped to 3 was outright removed, a better Game Over screen was added, a lot of sprites were tweaked to look better, items could be picked up by simply touching them rather than striking them with the sword, and extra NPC sprites were added to give more variety to towns.
- The Legend of Zelda also got a large boost when it was ported from the Famicom Disk System to the NES. The move from disk to cartridge eliminated the need for load times and disk swapping, resulting in a smoother gameplay experience all around. This conversion, made possible by advancements in cartridge technology, was so well-done that it essentially spelled the beginning of the end for the Famicom Disk System; it was even ported back to Japan as a standard Famicom game after the Disk System was discontinued.
- Nintendo could've phoned it in with their inevitable remake of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past to the GBA. A good game on its own merit with controls modified to make up for the lack of two buttons. What did we get? Additional sounds, the ability to continue from the area you saved or died in, Four Swords multi-player mode and an extra quest and dungeon that are connected to said multi-player mode. Giving you the option to play with the original SNES palette was good too (in contrast to the brightened graphics ports and/or remakes to the GBA often use to compensate for the original model's unlit screen). The only downsides are the lower music quality due to the GBA's inferior sound chip, and for some people, Link now having a voice (which can get annoying, as Link now does a Kiai every single time he swings his sword).
- The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was ported to the GameCube as part of the Master Quest bonus disc for pre-ordering The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker and was also a part of the Collector's Edition compilation Nintendo gave away at various times (such as to people who had registered a system and games on Nintendo's website or to Nintendo Power subscribers). The visuals remained largely unchanged, but most of the textures were made slightly sharper and the game's references to button inputs were changed to match the GameCube controller.
- The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, already a gorgeous game for GameCube, was further revamped for Wii U with refined visuals, as well as major improvements over some time-consuming parts, such as the sea travel, the Triforce hunt and the Nintendo Gallery, plus the addition of Miiverse features, increased wallet sizes, a harder Hero Mode difficulty setting (which can be accessed immediately and turned off at any time), and a refined soundtrack. The only drawback is the removal of the Tingle Tuner.
- The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, originally a Multi-Platform release for GCN and Wii, was ported in 2016 for the Wii U which, in addition to featuring updated HD graphics that fix much of the Real Is Brown complaints about the original version, includes a new item that aids in the annoying ghost-hunting sidequest, amiibo and Miiverse support, a button to instantly transform between Link's human and wolf forms without having to talk to Midna, increased wallet sizes, and an optional "Hero Mode" setting that substantially ups the difficulty. Also, the regular difficulty uses the GameCube orientation while Hero Mode is mirrored, la the Wii version.
- Asterix & Obelix XXL 2: Mission: Las Vegum came out on the PSP a year after the original PlayStation 2 and PC releases. While the visuals got a downgrade (the scenery is less detailed), it makes up with some extras that are exemplified by its new subtitle, Mission: Wifix: thanks to the Wi-Fi capabilities of the system, a second player can join the main game mode (in the original version you can only switch between the two Gauls and one stays always CPU-controlled), and several mini-games for up to four players have been added.
- Asterix at the Olympic Games was initially released on Wii, PlayStation 2 and PC, with the latter version being marginally better because, at least, it could enjoy a better frame-rate and higher resolutions. The Xbox 360 port was released almost a year later and they made good use of that time: beside the advantages of the higher system specs over the previous console releases, it's got textures of much better quality than the ones in the PC version, making this the definitive version of the game (for what it's worth).
- The Dreamcast version of Soul Reaver was released a fair bit after the PC and PlayStation versions, and the benefits of fancier hardware with redrawn higher-res textures and more complex character models make it the version to play.
- Dust: An Elysian Tail was ported from the Xbox 360 to Windows by the developer himself. Dean designed the port with PC gamers in mind, being one himself, and put forth the effort of making a port that PC gamers would be happy with, and succeeded. The PC version hosts multiple of visual options and tweaks, crisper graphics, and the option of using higher-quality character portraits during dialogue. The game also works remarkably well with keyboard and mouse for a console-to-PC conversion, and you can switch back and forth between keyboard to controller on the fly.
- Shadow Complex received an HD remastered version for PC, macOS, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4, featuring some improved high-resolution textures and models, 60 FPS presentation, adds new takedown maneuvers Jason can perform, and an expanded Proving Grounds with new tutorials and challenges. The PC version also has the added benefit of keyboard and mouse controls, which can help with shooting enemies in the 2.5D backgrounds. A later patch also added ten save slots, allowing players to make multiple playthroughs without deleting their existing save files possible compared to the original Xbox 360 version.
- Released at a time when the Xbox 360 was celebrating its tenth year, Rise of the Tomb Raider pulls off a stellar port with textures and effects comparable to that of the Xbox One version. In 2015, the Xbox 360 was largely being cast to the wayside (evidenced by Activision's half-hearted "port" of Call of Duty: Black Ops III that didn't even include the single-player campaign and dropped the normally-smooth Call of Duty gameplay to a sluggish 30 FPS) so the level of love and effort put into Rise is pretty phenomenal (and on top of that, they even managed to somehow get such an impressive product onto a single DVD disc when games even older than it were having to ship on two for the Xbox 360).
- LEGO Star Wars the Complete Saga. On top of containing both the prior games and all their content, with free rein to mix and match, it also adds the improvements of the second game to the original, including better vehicle levels and every character being able to build.
- Cave Story has received numerous ports between different home consoles, PC, and handheld systems that are comparable to Lunar: The Silver Star, with each port capitalizing and expanding upon the last. The 2010 WiiWare port of the game features optional remastered graphics, bumps the game's frame-rate from 50 FPS to 60, new Easy and Hard difficulty levels, adds Curly Brace as a playable character, and in the European version get an additional soundtrack.note Later the North American version would later have its debatable soundtrack replaced with the European soundtrack after a patch. The WiiWare version would later serve as the basis for updated Windows, MacOS, and Linux re-release as Cave Story+ with the addition of of new challenge modes and a new Wind Fortress area. The 3DS would receive two versions of Cave Story: Cave Story 3D, available through retail and digitally via the 3DS eShop in 2011 featuring 2D graphics but is missing most of the challenge modes from the previous PC port, and an eShop-exclusive version of Cave Story in 2012 that offers the ability to play in 5:3 widescreen or the original 4:3 aspect-ratio and retains most of the PC version's challenge modes; both versions on 3DS also feature the ability to play in stereoscopic 3D. The Switch would receive a remastered version of Cave Story+ in 2017, adding many of the enhancements from the previous releases with 16:9 widescreen presentation, animated dialogue portraits, subtle yet gorgeous lighting effects, a new "Famitracks" soundtrack, a new Sand Pit challenge, implements some quality-of-life tweaks, and, after an update, added an extra "Ridiculon" soundtrack from the composer behind Super Meat Boy and The Binding of Isaac with local co-op along with other visual touch-ups.
- The original NieR is regarded as a Cult Classic whose gameplay was considered overall average. The next-gen port, NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139..., takes inspiration from the game's successor, NieR: Automata, by improving the combat to make it more fast-paced and fluid, as well as making quality-of-life improvements to the game's world and reintroducing content that was originally Dummied Out. In addition, the game marks the release of the game's Replicant version outside of Japan, due to the west originally only receiving the Gestalt version.
- The first three Tomb Raider games from the Core Design era were ported to modern systems in February 2024 as a remaster with many upgrades, improvements, and other additions:
- The games run in native widescreen and also runs in 60 FPS on consoles while the PC version has its framerate matching the monitor's. The games can also run on modern PC hardware without the need of mods or other tools to get the games running smoothly.
- Controls can be switched between classic tank controls and modern controls that are based on the Tomb Raider: Legend line of games. Likewise, the graphics can be switched on the fly between the new modern graphics and the retro graphics.
- The expansion packs were made available to play on console for the very first time.
- Some of Lara's moves were updated and retrofitted; Lara's ability to pull a 180 flip while jumping forward or backward was added to the first game. Lara's ability to jump out of tight crawlspaces going forwards was an ability she had in Tomb Raider Chronicles, which was added to the remastered version of the third game.
- Players can save whenever they want and can make multiple save files just like the PC versions had in the past. The number of save slots were also greatly increased.
- UI elements like the health bar and the text will stay the same size no matter what your screen's resolution is in, unlike the original PC versions where the UI would greatly shrink down if played on a high resolution screen. Subtitles were also added.
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