What are some interesting Arcade vs Console comparisons that you'd like to see?

Game Sack has been a part of my Sundays for over 6 years. Just wanted to thank you Joe for doing what you do. Game Sack is my first show on my playlist for years. Retro Gaming Sundays. Even though I miss Dave like everyone else does, you held it down for a long time. I definitely appreciate the work you have put in. Thank you.

In the 80's and 90's, we would go to the arcades to see the bleeding edge gaming technology. Today we go to the arcades to see how games were in 80's and 90's.

I've been watching Game Sack since the very early days of the show when you used to advertise new episodes on Racketboy. The show continues to go from strength to strength and every episode feels like a much watch. Thanks for continuin to make one of the best gaming shows on KZfaq Joe!

I just discovered game sack two weeks ago and I can safely say it's the best channel on youtube

During times of uncertainty I'm thankful Game Sack never disappoints.

I'll never understand why people forget to mention the fatalities in Sega Genesis Samurai Shodown. They actually look really cool and can either cleave people in half or cut their artery and watch them bleed out.

I was happy you shouted out retrocore.....he has been doing videos for a long long time...infact even before KZfaq was really a thing

Aww, CGR shout out! I’m getting misty eyed! “TRUXTON!!!!!!!”

Joe is a treasure. That Skitchin' skit had me in tears.

The strange dots in the Genesis version of Samurai Shodown are a side effect of switching the palette during horizontal blank to display more colors than are normally allowed.

The Mega Drive versions of arcade games never cease to amaze me. They look great despite the Mega Drive having quite a few limitations compared to the Arcade cabinets or even the other consoles like the Super Nintendo. They also often play better than the original.

I really like seeing comparisons to different home ports, because it helps narrow down the selection of games when looking for roms. Thanks to this video, I've ended up settling with Truxton on the Sega Genesis, King of the Monsters 2 on Neo Geo and Chiki Chiki Boys on the Sega Genesis.

Awesome Mark from Retrocore contributed to the episode. Love his battle of the ports.

The MVS version of Samurai Shodown also has the white blood, it is an option in softdip, just so happens "blood" is on by default in the MVS version, and the softdip settings are not accessable on the first game for AES. If you play the home cart on a Japan AES the blood is red by default, the AES and MVS carts use 100% identical ROM chips. Put an AES US or Euro BIOS chip into an MVS (or use a UniBIOS and set the MVS machine onto AES and either US or Euro region) and the blood will be white. Samurai Shodown 2 had an option screen on the AES mode, so you could set the game to Japan region in order to have the red blood, instead of the green blood you got with the blood softdip option turned off.

[Editors note: AES and MVS carts contain identical data. Since the Neo Geo Home console and the arcade MVS board feature an identical chipset, there is nothing to port.] Also the Mega Drive port of SS decompresses its assets on the fly, which might explain the weird pixel artefacts on screen. Might be DMA related.

Hooray for the Retro Core mention! That guy's been making gaming videos since before KZfaq even existed! He's always so blunt with when he doesn't like a game, I consider him the true original AVGN, lol

“No I’m not gonna say it” I was expecting a huge tate mode there haha, well done. Also please can someone make a tate mode compilation?

Nice video, thank you. Juste one thing : Samurai Shodown on the AES « technically » has blood. Like many others games, it is the console region that determine this. If you play with a japanese Neo Geo and japanese text, whatever the cartridge version is, you will always get blood (and also some violent finish move like cutting your opponent in half). This explain why some conversions that you showed have blood. Also you can still play with blood and a non japanese Neo-Geo, but for this, you will need to modify the console by adding the Universe Bios that allowed the console to emulate different regions.

"No, I'm not gonna say it." Suddenly, I love you, Joe.

One thing I love about the SNES port of Samurai Shodown is the use of the shoulder buttons for strong attacks, it just works so well and is much more natural than trying to hit both buttons for slash/kick at once. Still keeps me coming back to it even with access to the PC and Arcade versions.

ending skit is hilarious lol

Speaking of Classic Game Room,it's kinda sucks that he will never review Truxton 2

everytime i see a new game sack episode pop up i stop everything im doing and watch it!

Shout out to my man old CGR from back in the day!

I have been trying to spend Less time on KZfaq. It turns out that the only thing that I really strongly mess is game sack. iTunes back in from time to time to catch up. Thank you for what you do, Joe!

I got the worst blisters ever playing King of Monsters 2 for SNES lol. That rubbing the d-pad back and forth was pure torture.

"No, I'm not going to say it" Inside joke reward for long time fans of the series. Love it.

I've been told the SCD can only handle scaling in 16 colours, so that would explain why it wasn't used in Samurai Shodown. As soon as you said "Because of Classic Game Room", I had Mark's voice in my head saying "Truxton!" ^^ A 352-pixel wide mode on the PC Engine? Wow! I wonder why we don't see more of it. Please do Final Fight... Once the new Gen/MD version is out! :p

As a fan of Samurai Showdown i was psyched that you started off with this classic!

Its now 100th episode since Dave left Game Sack. I missed Dave….

I had the Atari ST version of Mega Twins when I was really young. The importance of weird arcade platformers to the European microcomputer market shouldn't be overlooked.

That Truxton shade! Haha... Mark from CGR will be pissed. Oh wait its not 2009 any more :( Looking forward the next left in the arcade episode too

Cracking tf up at the Grand Canyon/Mount Rushmore thing lolol 26:34

Game Sack bingo card: "Extremely" "Honestly" "For some reason" "For the most part"

I’ve always been impressed with Chiki Chiki Boys on the Genesis. The color palette produces a very SNES-esque look. It’s a great example of what good art direction is.

I was not aware of Truxton until Classic Game Room. When I tried it, it really resonated with me and I ended up loving it for its gameplay and presentation. There's definitely something special about it for me. I agree, the arcade version is way too hard for me. One of the things I love about the home ports, the MD/Genesis more since it came first, is they solidified the iconic image of the skull bomb. Shockingly, in the arcade, the skull is only on screen for a brief moment. I can barely see it in that version. It's a case where the limitations of the home systems led to a big improvement in presentation. As for the two home versions, each one has pros and cons. PCE version's sound effect for the green laser is a bit shrill. For the Sega version, bullets can be hard to see on the final stage. I play both versions on easy and it's still plenty hard. On easy, the PCE version starts off harder, but ramps up more slowly. The Sega version starts easier, but the difficulty picks up a lot more. By stages four and five, the difficulty feels very close. I like them both.

Love you Joe! Thanks for all your hard work! Also, Skitchen has the BEST SOUNDTRACK from almost any 16 bit video game!

good to see a fresh sack!

Do all the "star wars arcade" ports - I was amazed on how many platforms a basically unreproducible vector arcade game with unique controls actually appeared on ! Also marble madness.

I love how he critiques for a living yet feels the need to snap back when people critique him.

31:20 This has to be the best Game Sack mini skit I've seen so far.

Version / port comparisons are some of the most interesting videos. I don't know which ones I want to see, that's your job to go through the pile and decide what I want to see.

As a wise man once said, “With spaceships red blue and green, you can hear the ladies scream ‘We want Truxton!’” Good times.

I was obsessed with examining snes and genesis arcade ports to the point of madness, so these episodes speak right to my soul. The Takara ports of Neo Geo arcades were a neverending mine for that. As always, thank you Joe for making Sunday better.

This was the most I’ve laughed at any of your post-credits sketches so far. Thank you!!!

Bizarrely wholesome that I remember Truxton specifically from CGR videos I watched like 14y ago and now it's practically a meme

Still the greatest gaming youtube channel.

It’s SACK time !!

I can't unsee the flickering shadows on Samurai Shodown, EVEN the arcade, now. I remember really liking the SNES one.

TRUXTON... Mark from Classic Game Room shall always be missed.

Joe, hearing you whisper "secret menu" really did it for me.

As time goes on, I become even more fascinated with old home ports of arcade games. It’s always interesting to see what choices devs made to work in the limitations of each console (or sometimes due to incompetence, lol.) And Joe, I always appreciate your emphasis on technical aspects of games, especially audio. I’m an audio guy and I feel across the board when it comes to anything with video, audio gets overlooked.

This comparisons are wonderful. Thank you very much! If there's one thing to love in this times is the "luxury" to be able to compare and have different versions and ports of games, that back in the day was almost impossible, or very expensive. I love that emulation nowadays, and "the real thing" for collectors, allows this great side by sides.

You should've asked Dave to do this one with you. Just because he's not in Game Sack doesn't mean he can't show up and be a cool dude.

Sunday morning in the UK with Game Sack. Like Saturday morning cartoons but as a grown up....... On a Sunday........ Lol

Can't blame ya for loving the Tatsujin PC Engine soundtrack above the other versions. Gotta love that amazing PC Engine sound chip, has such a unique sound to it.

The AES version does have red blood if played on a japanese AES or with universe BIOS region change.

I miss CGR. 😢

Looking back, the 16-bit Neo Geo ports were actually pretty impressive. Considering the specs of the Neo Geo carts and consoles vs the Genesis and SNES the fact that the ports were generally serviceable and not complete hot garbage I think says a lot about the developers who did the ports.

I love comparing ports between systems from the 80s and 90s! It's so interesting to see the differences in music, graphics, or level layouts required due to hardware differences. It's not as interesting nowadays cause it's usually just a difference in framerate or resolution.

Random references to Garry Kitchen, this is why I watch Game Sack

Man I love you Joe. Creator of super cool content for years and years.

He's finally talking about Chiki Chiki Boys! I've waited years for this!

Joe - did you know you are missing a part on how you play King of the monsters. You know you power up? first hold down a button *can't remember which - and a horn will grow out of the godzilla character; which you can throw. When you power up you can hold punch or one of the other buttons and he will do something else. On the third power up the last button does something else again. You have to hold them down for about 5 secs The gorilla robot seems to have the best power up - he chops in half on the third power up and flies around smashing up stuff whilst invincible. (Mega drive clip shows this) Try it!! This makes the game much easier but you can't get hit whilst powering up. That's why they put power down icons in the game to take away your moves.

Love that T-shirt. I heard that more times than I care to remember, back in the day.

Zero Gunner 2 is probably the greatest shmup ever made.

Right when late night can't sleep debating about jumping out the window depression sets in. Boom! Game sack be like calm down.

Another great video from Game Sack. I appreciate all that you do, Joe! Thanks for all the great content.

im so glad you got SKITCHIN' now you can be bad ass in the 90s

50% of my Sega RPi set-up consists in arcade ports. Sega consoles were explicitally designed to bring the arcade home, from the Master System to the Dreamcast, and that is exactly what they have delivered.

love your props to classic game room with truxton. i so miss mark's game reviews of early youtube days

This is one of the best retro gaming channels ever! You guys rock. In regard to comparisons I think Cadash could be a fun one to look at across all releases.

I've never commented but I've always enjoyed the hell out of your skits man they always give me a good laugh. Thanks for the years of entertainment.

I love the mention of "classic game room" .. *sigh* (sings) MEMORIES 😢

I really like the re-drawn cute gameboy sprites for Samurai Spirits

“No I’m not gonna say it” c'mon, you know we love it.

Arcade perfect ports were technically impossible on 16bit due to massive hardware inferiority to Arcades at that time. Faithful arcade ports trend began with Sega Saturn because the console is specifically designed to produce arcade like 2D graphics.

This episode was 30 minutes and yet breezed, great video. I would love to see Thunderfox, Growl, Ninja Warriors, Art of Fighting, Russian Attack, and Ikari Warriors

Used to love playing most of these games at the skating ring arcade.

SNK's vision of the Grand Canyon is just following in the footsteps of Sega's Racing Hero which features New York City inside of the Grand Canyon.

I eagerly await the Game Sack episode on the FM Towns, coming 2028.

There was also a port of Samurai Showdown for the PlayStation in Japan (as well as the second game, in a collection called the Fencing Pack). There were rumors of a Saturn version that never came out.

That Skitchin' bit is gold.

Really entertaining episode, Joe! Comparing the various ports of a game like this is interesting to me, and since you enjoy making these episodes, I'm definitely looking forward to seeing more!

Mega Twins/Chiki Chiki Boys is a Mega Man game, change my mind. First "Mega" Twins, the guys are blue and red, the 2nd red with 3 white bits on his helmet like Protoman

Samurai Shodown was also ported to the PS1, in a Japan-only release along with Samurai Shodown 2. It's the "Samurai Spirits Kenkaku Shinan Pack". The Gameboy port is somewhat notable for adding a couple more playable characters (through codes), Kuroko (the referee) and Hikyaku (the delivery guy). It may also be worth mentioned Neo Geo CD ports, as there can be minor differences from the cart, though it is mostly just using an arranged soundtrack. (I believe the NeoCD version of Samurai Shodown uses the Arranged soundtrack, which some feel doesn't quite fit the fighting game as well.)

First video sunday morning and the ''Mount Rushmore in The Grand Canyon'' picture... Man tell you what lifted my mood ten fold for the day!

Ports of arcades were always mixed bag. That being said the really good ones stand out for sure.

Man Chiki Chiki Boys gives strong Wonderboy vibes, a lot of the sprite work is almost identical

loved the skit at the end, I could even say you are really good at skitting

You kind of read my mind! What I had in mind was 8 bit versions vs 16 bit versions. The idea came to when KZfaq suggested a full play through of Batman The Revenge of Joker for snes. I compared it to the nes version simultaneously to the snes which the nes version blew it away. Please do this episode asap!!

Late night game sack videos are the Best

Seeing that Dolby Surround logo made me go down a rabbit hole of learning more about it since I was quite confused as to how the hell the SNES had Dolby Surround.

A lot of the sound design in arcade games focused on the fact that they were usually in noisy environments along with other games, so a lot of them sound pretty grating when played alone in a quiet place.

it's wild to see how different ideas of quality can be

Nice shout out to Mark….👏

Dolby Surround for that time is actually stereo, stereo audio was once considered surround sound.

Wonder Boy III: Monster Lair ports between the Mega Drive and Turbografx CD is absolutely night and day in the video and audio departments. Great video as always Joe.

I relive my childhood every time you put out a new vid