Games where an emulated console version outclasses the PC port?
Games where an emulated console version outclasses the PC port?
I’m putting a lot of my old games on my steam deck by buying their PC ports whenever they go on sale.
It got me wondering, is anyone aware of games where it’s actually better to run the console version through an emulator than play the native PC version?
The original port of devil may cry 3 was a disaster. The only way a lot of people could get it to run at over 5fps was by deleting all music from the folder.
The port of the devil may cry hd edition (dmc 1-3) also had its issues. Especially for dmc 1, where quite a few visual and audio effects werent implemented correctly, or sometimes at all
My beloved childhood game Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 is much better on the PS2 compared to PC, due to being developed by a different team; having grown up with the PC version, the first time I played the PS2 version it felt like I was playing a remake because it's almost a completely different game.
Oh that's why it felt completely different when I tried it out recently.
Personally, I'd say anything with RetroAchievements support. Why buy new when the classic is still just as good as it was back then? I don't care much about graphics, though, so remakes don't typically offer much I care about. I don't want changes to game mechanics or content, I just want to be able to play it without needing specialized hardware I have to attach to my TV.
Final Fantasy XIII is an odd case because the emulator is Xbox Backwards Compatibility. It’s apparently better than the PC port.
A lot of ubisoft and ea single player games since they don't need uplay
Case in point Assassins Creed Black flag which requires a login at the start of search session, runs flawlessly on CEMU
I always preferred the SNES version of SimCity to the original PC version. The graphics and music are way better and the gameplay is exactly the same.
Last I heard, Capcom was retroactively adding DRM to their games which could severely impact compatibility. I don't get why Mega Man 2 would need to be protected with spyware, but that's a big corp for you. So yeah, I'd say Capcom games might qualify.
Someone joined a street fighter tournament with a nude Chun Li mod and that made capcom go into full lockdown mode
Final Fantasy VII. The PC port is kinda bad and PSX emulators are very very good.
I’ll add FFVIII since the controls are better on PSX. If I remember correctly they lost the source code. In PC you can only move the character in 4 directions or maybe 8, but on psx they can move in full 360 degrees.
VIII's especially egregious. They should remake it instead of IX purely because it's the PSX version or a bad port.
Sonic Adventure and Sonic Adventure 2 (and their console remasters, DX and Battle).
Mods fix them up and make them better than emulation though.
Spider-Man 2 (the Sam Rami movie one) is almost a totally different game.
There is also a ton of between-consoles differences from the SNES/Genesis generation, where games with the same title are sometimes radically different. Jurassic Park, Star Trek TNG, and the Power Rangers brawler come to mind.
Both Tales of Symphonia and Chrono Cross got abysmal PC ports.
Playing the originals in an emulator is definitely a much better experience
Yeah I fell for that Symphonia port. Big sadge.
It's apparently gotten better with updates, but I've not tried it in awhile and I'd rather just emulate it.
Chrono cross had a PC port?!
Looks like there is a recent port on steam.
A number of Tactics Ogre fans will tell you that the PSP version, whether vanilla or with the One Vision mod, is superior to the recent Reborn PC release. Each version has its pluses and minuses, so it's largely a matter of taste. The port itself was fine on release, despite the recent trend of SQEX PC ports that were messy on release but were fixed later (like Chrono Trigger and Cross).
I bought Rayman 2 on GOG a few years ago, and it had a hard time recognizing controllers. I even tried launching it through Steam, which usually fixes all controller problems, but it still didn't work. The Dreamcast version still looks good enough, and your controller will definitely work.
Due to licensing issues, Crazy Taxi 2 has a different soundtrack on the PC from the original Dreamcast version. The Dreamcast version is the one with The Offspring.
Sonic 3 has also had music licensing issues, so the version included in Sonic Origins has a different soundtrack. Sonic Origins was also buggy at launch, but I hear that's fixed now. Sonic Origins also adds a bunch of new features though, so this one may be a tossup.
Question for y'all: did anyone buy the recent PC port of Metal Gear Solid 2? It seems to have both a lot of praise and a lot of complaints.
Mega Man X.
Extreme G 2 on pc loses the analog steering from N64, which turns out is a big deal. Throwback Entertainment made a port-of-a-port and introduced a speed hack in the launcher menu where you can slow down the game a bit, which helps, but doesn't fix the issue.
In some other cases like Hexen, there were alterations on console that I find generally more appealing, like an ost remaster or lighting effects.
The Genesis game Zero Tolerance and Dreamcast version of Expendable are games I prefer on console simply because of the control schemes on pc.
Giants: Citizen Kabuto. I love the PC version, but the PS2 version--despite looking a lot worse--feels more like a finished game. There are things like elevators that don't exist in the PC version, cutscenes don't cut off dialog before it's finished, and the UI is overall more polished.
Holy shit, I have not heard that name in many years. Definitely a +1 for reminding me of all the fun I used to have in this title
Oh man, I loved this game. I didn't know this about the PS2 version.
Persona 3 Portable
The older Silent Hill games had awful PC versions.
Esp 2. Playing them on a emulator is the way to go.
i would recon this is true more often than not for attempts at 1:1 ports. glitches are more often introduced than fixed in the porting process, so if it isn't deliberately a remaster or offers extra content, you're probably better off with the original in an emulator. if you're interested in mods, it's also worth thinking about where the reverse engineering efforts have been focused- a lot of native PC ports have been picked apart and put back together with bugfixes and new content after the fact
sonic adventure is an example of all of the above. if you want the absolute worst version possible, just buy it off steam. if you want the best version possible, buy it off steam and mod the shit out of it. fan efforts to fix an abysmal port of a port ended up creating an experience that arguably surpasses the original before even getting into all the extra bells and whistles you can mod in
fan ports are also increasingly becoming a thing, so i guess the moral of the story is this: as far as official offerings go, emulation is probably going to be better than a native port, but if a game has enough enthusiastic hackers, then they may have frankensteined something even better together
i vaguely recall the retail box version of silent hill 2 or 3 for PC being not all that amazing, and later emulating the Ps2 version was a better option, not to mention the easiest option since both games for PC are not common finds. then again the PC I played Silent hill 2 on wasn’t all that beefy at the time.
maybe any games that originally were for console ported to PC with Denuvo hit this criteria. interesting question!
Silent Hill 2 is a special case. They lost the source code and original asset library for the game, so it's a remake using assets ripped from the PS2 release copy.
A very, very poorly done and buggy remake that was also underfunded and rushed out the door.
Thanks for jogging my memory! I completely forgot about that core fact 😓.
How has nobody mentioned Sonic Colors yet?
Sometimes the controls are just better on the Emulators at least on older PC ports as they would do dumb stuff like require a mouse / keyboard for menus etc.
On the steam deck in particular when getting steam versions of games with lower steam deck compatibility ratings it often comes down to odd menu issues or controller support.
Since I prefer controller over mouse and keyboard, it’s a lot of games pre-Xbox One era for me. But that is subjective because a lot of people prefer mouse and keyboard.
Games like Oblivion never had a proper way of getting a controller to work with them on the PC release and any tries to get it to work flat out suck. I’ve tried Steam’s button mapping and even that doesn’t work for a lot of these games. But working through an emulator helps translate my controller to the game with almost no issues.
Considering how the Steam Deck plays and you’re usually using it as a controller unless docked, this would be nearly any game from this time period.
The console and PC versions of Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter are entirely different games, and personally I think the console version is more fun. It emulatable.