And here’s the screenshot for the C64 version:
Even crazier, the C64 version was only distributed in North America, ignoring the majority of potential buyers. And it apparently runs OK on PAL machines without modification.
One of the big draws of the game was all the detail in the backgrounds, and the little touches of animation. The C64 version being disk-only allows it to retain a surprising amount of this. As a tape game, the already long inter-level load times would’ve blown out and ruined the game.
I don’t think that an NES or Master System port could’ve covered the game even as well as the C64 version. But I agree that it is strange that there was no Mega Drive or SNES version. The SNES in particular could’ve replicated a lot of the arcade’s scaling effects with a minimum of trickery.
How is nobody talking about the fact that
What is this title?
It’s very similar to a clickbait article. I mean, it worked because I clicked on it to see what people said, but man, that title is super corporate.
No, a super corporate title would be “Analyzing the Platform Disparity: The Unconventional Release Trajectory of The Simpsons Arcade Game Across Home and Console Systems”
Which you’d probably find less clickbait but would be absolutely perfect for aligning synergies.
If your critique is that I tried to write an interesting title, guilty as charged. But who doesn’t try to be interesting?
Thing is, this being Lemmy, there’s no incentive to click. Clickbait literally implies a reason to click. The pertinent thing worth seeing is already in your feed.
Not that guy but you have to admit it’s a bit silly, nobody’s talking about it because it’s pretty clearly obscure knowledge for an old videogame on a system that not many people played.
Good post content tho.
A lot of people did play this, though. It’s a pretty major arcade game—I remember it being everywhere.
To me, the oddness isn’t just that the only home ports were for computer systems but that it was published by Konami.
It’s not unreasonable that a few arcade games would be computer-only, but it’s wild that the releases were computer-only on Western computer systems. Specifically for the North American market, not European.
The ports were not farmed off to a Western developer but developed and published by Konami—which was atypical for them. The DOS and C64 ports of Castlevania, for example, were not made by Konami.
Keep in mind the arcade game was released in Japan, so there could have been a port for PC-98 or Sharp X68000.
I wonder if it was a rights issue. Konami made the arcade game while all of the Simpsons games on the NES/SNES/Genesis/Game Boy/Game Gear were published by Acclaim.
The story just broke on corporate news networks, I heard the president of video games is going to make an address
I know this is not a popular take, but in my opinion The Simpsons Arcade wasn’t a very good game. I believe it’s purely a novelty product, it falls short when compared to almost any other well known beat’em up from the era.
I would disagree. I think it really improved upon the gameplay that we saw in the first TMNT arcade game. You got combo attacks with the different characters, and you could pick up various items and weapons. It also had some really huge bosses that were kind of impressive at the time, and had some mini games between stages. There were also a lot of interesting things that happened within the stages.
I wonder how Konami decided which of their licensed beat-'em-ups did or didn’t get console ports. In order of release, they go …
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1989 arcade, 1990 NES)
- The Simpsons (1991 arcade)
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time (1991 arcade, 1992 SNES)
- X-Men (1992 arcade)
- Asterix (1992 arcade)
Maybe the answer is just “TMNT was a juggernaut”? The Simpsons was extremely early in its run (mid-season 2) when the game launched. The X-Men cartoon hadn’t even started yet. Asterix is just aggressively European. The games probably all did well, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the TMNT titles eclipsed them in earnings.
I don’t think it’s a hardware capability thing, or we wouldn’t have console versions of the TMNT games, either. While the SNES hardware is obviously less capable than the original arcade cab, many consider the SNES port of Turtles in Time to be definitive. There’s no reason Simpsons couldn’t have been similar.
Who wants to feel old?
spoiler
More time has passed since the 360/PS3 release than had passed between the arcade release and the 360/PS3 release.
Fantastic game. Spent many afternoons playing it.
I think either PS1/Saturn/N64 or PS2/Dreamcast/Gamecube would be the first time I’d trust a console to run the game authentically.
An NES version would be so stripped down it would feel disappointing.
Absolutely. My disappointment is owning a NES and buying a game based on me playing it at the arcade.
True, but the C64 version definitely wasn’t authentic. 😅
Fuck them… I’d have loved this game back when I had my Mega Drive…
I remember reading in a gaming magazine that Konami was bringing the Simpsons to the SNES. I just knew it was going to be the arcade game, and I was so hyped for months just waiting and waiting for it. And then I got Barts Nightmare.
