Why did the Amiga get such a crap version of Battletoads ?

[dougal]

Seriously, I mean OK it looks good but the controls are garbage (couldn't they have included 2 button support ?), you can't have music and sound together (WTF??) and they left out the Turbo Tunnel level (That is a huge sin in itself).

Even the Gameboy version is better than the crappy Amiga version, at least it has music/sfx and has the turbo tunnel level and decent controls. How could they cock it up so badly ? And Mindscape did have a couple of decent games.

What I never understood is why most Amiga conversions were always done by software houses and not by the original developers. Why didn't Rare develop Battletoads for Amiga. Why didn't Capcom do Street Fighter II for the Amiga ? Instead we got a garbage inferior SF2 from US Gold. The 8 bit PC Engine Street Fighter II is 10 times better than the Amiga version. This is why a lot (Not all) Amiga conversions were crap. Because they were ported to the Amiga in a rush and not developed by the original developers. Fine we had some great Amiga conversions like Pang and Toki and more but then games like Battletoads, Bionic Commando, Street Fighter II etc where just rubbish.

More then a question I'm just ranting. There should have been much tighter controls on games quality. Rare should never have allowed the Amiga version of Battletoads to be released. Same as Capcom etc

 

[slk486]

Ha ha, I just played this the other day. Controls are bloody awful

 

[Trapshot]

Various reasons why conversions were a mix of quality. Sometimes it was deliberate so that home platform editions didn't impact on arcade revenues at the time. An example of this is Outrun on the amiga, by USGold, which in no way resembles the arcade version. There is an article on these types of games that I read some years back stating that the conversion companies weren't allowed to make the home versions as good as the arcade versions as it would have impacted arcade revenues. The amiga version of Outrun could easily have matched the arcade for example.

meanwhile, conversions for platforms that couldn't match the arcade experience were actually usually more accurate. Again using Outrun as the example, the Spectrum version is far more accurate in the graphics for example, the car and the tracks, which were very close to the arcade.

of course, no one would ever have worried about people rushing out to buy the spectrum version of Outrun (what with the loading times and lack of platform capability), and then never visiting the arcade again... but the Amiga version? Maybe.

another reason was that some of the companies favoured certain platforms, so they made other versions poorer to ensure platform bias.

its a different world now... arcades hardly exist and everyone wants cross-platform gaming, so game conversions are far more consistent across platforms.

 

[Kingstonlj]

It's really bad because the developer didn't have a clue. :tantrum:

Amiga Power gave it a rating of 9%.

The Amiga should have had a really nice port of the game with attractive graphics, big sprites, and music & sound effects. Instead, it's a complete disaster: small sprites, bad animation, broken controls, severely lacking sound. It really is amazing that a developer could do such a bad job. :-x

 

[Bazzy]

Because Mindscape, with a few rare exceptions was a perfect example of what was wrong with many Amiga game publishers in early 90's.