When it comes to console ports of Western-style RPGs, it's pretty clear that there are three main eras:
* The classic era, where said ports were typically done by Japanese developers, and were sometimes quite different from the originals (examples include Ultima, Wizardry, Might & Magic)
* An in-between era where such ports just didn't happen (Baldur's Gate series, Arena/Daggerfall, Wizardry 8 (only Wizardry to never have a console release to my understanding, and certainly the only Sir-Tech Wizardry to not have one) (Wizardry 6 and 7 saw console release in Japan)
* The modern era, where console ports are largely identical, gameplay-wise, to their PC counterparts

This topic is about the first era, the one I'm calling the "classic" era.

For example, we have the following:
* Wizardry 1 NES, which is very similar to the original, but with music and updated graphics. One difference is that you need a certain item to enter the dark zone from the front; another is that levels 5-8, which most experienced players ignore, are completely different.
* Ultima 4 NES, which is *very* different from the original (ranged attacks can hit any enemy, ignoring walls; characters can equip both a melee weapon and a bow at the same time, random invisible encounters that can happen even while standing still, simplified dialog), but which still manages to be good (and certainly worth playing); completely different music
* Ultima 4 SMS, which is actually a faithful port, albeit with an adjusted (but not really simplified) dialog system and no first person view in dungeons; music is a port of the original music
* Might and Magic 3 SNES, which plays like the original, but sluggish and an annoying bug that makes it impossible to increase a specific stat
* Ultima 6 SNES, which is simplified compared to the original, but otherwise a pretty good port; the music is intact and actually well done in this version

On the other hand, we have some poor ports:
* Might and Magic 2 SNES (European): Seems like they tried to be faithful to the original, but unfortunately riddled with bugs that make the game borderline unplayable, easily exploitable, and can prevent you from loading a save. This was planned for US release, but I have a feeling they couldn't get it past Nintendo of America's QA. Japan got a very different version of this game, which isn't faithful to the original, but which I suspect is at least playable (haven't tried it myself).
* Ultima 5 NES: Here, they tried to use an engine similar to Ultima 6. Unfortunately, this didn't work out well, and the game has numerous issues that make the game nearly unplayable, like ignoring input for 5 frames per second (game runs at 60 FPS, but it doesn't look like it), only being able to recover MP when you die and are revived, and having the same repetitive music track for the entire game. It's so bad that I consider it kusoge, and put it on the same tier of other notoriously bad games, like Big Rigs, Action 52, and ET. This game is so bad that it turned me off from trying the PC version, which is *way* better (it's at the very least decent).

So, any thoughts? Have you played any of these old console ports, and what do you think of them?

Anyone here?

Ya, I played one or two of these but never got to far into them as they clearly were scaled back compared to the PC originals (played the Wizardry I and II on NES and Wizardry V on SNES)

There were a number of ports that are quite surprising in other genres though like the NES port of King's Quest V which, in all honesty, should not have been done due to how much work they had to do to scale it to fit the hardware which left a very brown and muddy looking game, In comparison the original King's Quest was ported to the Master System but that worked since the game could better fit the hardware with only the parser being replaced by a word selection system.

chap going by the name of W>J

I have the Japanese remakes of Wizardry 1-3 for the PS1. Its the only version I have played and they are excellent, though the lack of new gear through much of the game is disappointing.

I have Wizardry 5 on my SNES classic, its probably my favorite Wizardry game. I would like to get the Japanese PS1 remake of that too. The added music, the gorgeous dungeons, and the nice looking painted creatures are all a treat.

I also have the Ultima 6 and 7 SNES ports on my classic, but havent really played them.

Oh yeah, the Ultima 7 port was very tuned down if I remember right from my brief look.

Ultima 5 NES also has a muddy look, but that game has other major issues. Was King's Quest V NES at least playable? (Or at least good enough to not fit the kusoge category?)

On the other hand, Ultima 4 NES has a much brighter and clearer look. I think that, had they used that engine (with perhaps some upgrades) for the Ultima 5 NES version, it would have actually been a decent game, and would not have turned me off to the game the way the NES version did.

In any case, I think the choice between bright and muddy colors is in part a stylistic difference, but it could have evolved due to the technical limitations of the NES. It looks like the NES can realistically display 25 simultaneous colors, with each sprite/tile limited to 3; with that limited a selection, one needs to choose the colors carefully, and one shouldn't waste them on similar shades of the same color. It looks like King's Quest 5 used VGA, so depending on the graphics mode it had 256 colors, allowing more use of similar shades while still allowing room for contrast.

It does look like Ultima 5 PC would have had to be scaled back to fit the NES (game is on 4 360k disks, and it looks like NES cartridges only went up to 1 megabyte), but I think it could have been done, and the RAM issues that led to the Comodore 64 version not having music except on a Commodore 128 are less of a problem for the NES because the cartridge can be mapped directly into the address space. (To put it another way, a computer with a floppy disk has to copy data into RAM before it can be used; on a cartridge-based system, the data is already there (although only some may be visible without bank switching) and can be used directly without having to be copied to RAM.) I've played this, and while it's a pretty good port, there are still some differences, like MAKANITO not ignoring magic resistance (so it doesn't work well on Poison Giants) and range being ignored (so you can easily attack back row enemies). One thing I like, however, is that saving is manual; the obnoxious autosave of other versions is absent here.

The Sega Saturn version has a bonus dungeon, which is interesting. I tried it and stopped once I reached a floor that, as far as I could tell, consisted entirely of single-square rooms with doors (you know what I mean if you've played enough of these sorts of games). (If I had MALOR, I believe I could have just skipped the floor.) (It's too bad the Sega Saturn is harder to emulate than other consoles of its era.)

There's also New Age of Llylgamyn for the PS1, which has two versions of Wizardry 4 (Arrange and Classic) as well as one of Wizardry 5. Scenario #4 Arrange doesn't have full English (and this is not a game I'd recommend playing in Japanese), and Scenario #5 has a bug where BACORTU doesn't work at all, so the main attraction of this version is Scenario #4 Classic, which is my preferred way to play Wizardry 4. (Note that this game did not see a Sega Saturn version.)

By the way, there is one other quirk: If you use textured walls, teleporters do not teleport light, which is an inaccuracy; this is not the case of you use the retro line wall graphics. While this is an inaccuracy, there's one part of Wizardry 4 that I think works better that way.