A Look at EVERY Capcom Arcade Port to the ZX Spectrum | Kim Justice

From the huge hit Commando to the ambitions of Street Fighter II and Final Fight, the Speccy is full of Capcom Arcade Games. Some of them are good, and a lot of them are by U.S. Gold and Tiertex. Here's all of them! Enjoy!
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0:00 Intro
1:54 Commando (Elite, 1985)
5:07 Ghosts ‘n’ Goblins (Elite, 1986)
8:31 1942 (Elite, 1986)
10:14 Gun.Smoke (U.S. Gold, 1987)
11:49 Trojan (Durell, Unreleased)
13:25 Side Arms (U.S.Gold/Probe, 1988)
14:44 Bionic Commando (U.S.Gold/Software Creations, 1988)
15:52 Street Fighter (U.S. Gold/Tiertex, 1988)
18:59 1943 (U.S. Gold/Tiertex, 1988)
19:45 Tiger Road (U.S. Gold/Probe, 1989)
20:41 LED Storm (U.S. Gold/Software Creations, 1989)
21:56 Last Duel (U.S. Gold/Tiertex, 1989)
23:10 Forgotten Worlds (U.S. Gold/Arc, 1989)
24:16 Strider (U.S. Gold/Tiertex, 1989)
26:37 Cabal (Ocean, 1990)
28:09 Ghouls ‘n’ Ghosts (U.S. Gold/Software Creations, 1989)
29:09 Black Tiger (U.S. Gold/Tiertex, 1990)
30:11 Dynasty Wars (U.S. Gold/Tiertex, 1990)
31:12 Pang! (Ocean, 1990)
32:23 U.N. Squadron (U.S. Gold/Tiertex, 1990)
33:44 Mercs (U.S. Gold/Tiertex, 1991)
34:40 Final Fight (U.S. Gold/Creative Materials, 1991)
37:40 Mega Twins (U.S. Gold, Unreleased)
39:20 Street Fighter II (U.S. Gold/Creative Materials, 1993)
42:41 Outro and Credits
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#kimjustice #retrogaming #zxspectrum #capcomarcades #streetfighterii

[@Kim_Justice]

Hopefully some of your fav Capcom games are here, although maybe not as you know them...

[@SuperMookles]

Thanks for enlivening the day, Kim! As always, a fantastic vid.

[@orderofmagnitude-TPATP]

In those days it was like buying a "souvenir" of the arcade experience of whatever game it was.

[@tryalbyfun4744]

Amazing a home brew review would be amazing!

[@TheTenthArt]

@29:10 When comparing Dinamic's Satan with Black Dragon the Capcom's shame turns even bigger!

[@TheWarmotor]

Awesome video, sir :) As someone who grew up in the states, I find the Speccy to be a fascinating creature. We didn't really have a micro at this price point, not a successful one, anyway.

[@deanshepherd2039]

Absolutely fantastic video Kim.As a 50 year old gamer I love these informative vids of times gone past.I can’t help but think that arcade conversations were the downfall of the 8-bit computers.Lots of talent used to copy games instead of designing new games that could better utilise the hardware of the legendary 8-but computers.

[@kevinscripps4240]

Surprising what you can get out of the old 8-bits. Sometimes I wish all this was new again and having that WOW feeling. Great video as always.

[@ericanerny1771]

Fantastic video ! Regarding Elite and Beyond the Ice Palace/Thundercats, I was the graphics developer for Thundercats (working at Gargoyle). One teeny tiny correction if I may... Thundercats wasn't anything to do with Samurai Dawn... this seems to be an internet myth that's sprung up from somewhere. Samurai Dawn was just a title; we never developed a single pixel of it. One of the magazines at the time ran a screenshot and simply 'guessed' that it was going to be called "Samurai Dawn" if I remember. That basically summed up gaming journalism at the time. Thundercats was in fact based on a game we'd only just started developing, with a working title of Wolf. We took the walking man animation from Tir Na Nog, and played around with it to get it running and swinging a sword. We'd seen that Rygar in the arcades was popular, so we started making a similar game to that, when Elite came to us in a panic just before Christmas, and the rest is history. Brilliant video though, thanks for making it. Stu.

[@VaterOrlaag]

Thank you for your work, I have fond memories of playing Thundercats. BTW, I'll take "gaming journalism at the time" over gaming journalism today, any day.

[@ericanerny1771]

@@VaterOrlaag You're very welcome :) And yes I agree, journalism back then was much better than now. We got to know a lot of them quite well.

[@steuph1976]

I actually remember playing Thundercats on the Amstrad CPC and thinking it was so much better than the terrible CPC version of Rygar.

[@sambagogo777]

I, too, read that same book on US Gold. I noted Geoff Brown having repeatedly scoffed at Elite Systems having been located over a fish and chip shop in Walsall. However, said company offices were in actual fact located over a Chinese (or maybe it was Cantonese) takeaway in the town of Aldridge which is within the borough of Walsall.

[@eldebo99]

Oh wow, seeing the U.N. Squadron port was an eye-opening surprise!

[@-abacchus]

Ya just can't beat the Speccy for games that may not resemble the arcade counterparts in sound and vision, but *do* have the feeling and heart of the original games.

[@arcadely]

I will say, the game might not be up to much, but the parallax scrolling in LED Storm is absolutely amazing for the Spectrum. Incredibly smooth and fast.

[@Larry]

Ha, cheers for the shoutout! One curious thing about the unreleased Trojan... the music for the game ended up on Rampage on the Amstrad. So, Midway's Rampage, released on another computer, and published not by Elite, but by Activision. Bizarre!!!

[@c5liveuk]

Fantastic video :D There were some genuinely brilliant ports for the Speccy back in the day! :D Can't praise the legend that is Jim Bagley highly enough!

[@tolindaniel]

That little dive into the workings of Tiertex was great, maybe a teaser for a future project...? I also love the mention of Matt's HKM video!

[@ABeeken]

That Capcom Collection box hit me right in the nostalgias! I had that on Amiga and played all the games (apart from the awful Strider 2) to death!

[@markderham6488]

Great vid. Ghouls n ghosts was amazing on the speccy one of my faves. Played alot of these back in the day. Happy memories

[@robintst]

Tim Follin music shows up when you least it expect it sometimes. It's like he's a mercy composer, giving mediocre or crap games ridiculously great music to compensate. When I first heard he did the crazy good music for Pictionary on the NES, I laughed my head off. It's like "Tim, calm down, it's only Pictionary!" Gotta be honest about that Ghosts 'n' Goblins port too... the sprites are kind of adorable with their single color doofy proportions. 😅

[@mamehaze]

as I mentioned on Twitter, Capcom changed the name from "Bionic Commandos" to "Bionic Commando" pretty late on, some of the cabinet art still showed Commandos, as did the most of the flyers, including the Electrocoin UK one. I don't think you can blame those porting it, they were probably supplied with the same materials.

[@mamehaze]

It's also kinda interesting that LED Storm was also a port of what is considered a prototype version of a Capcom arcade , LED Storm Rally 2011, which is very different to the final release more commonly known as Mad Gear. This suggests that Software Creations had access to an arcade where Capcom games were being tested, and possibly even played the version of Bionic Commando where it still had the Bionic Commandos title.

[@mamehaze]

LED Storm Rally 2011 also feels like a halfway point between Last Duel, and the final LED Storm Release, there are even earlier versions of LED Storm 2011 which feel closer to Last Duel, it's one of the most interesting points in Capcom's History.

[@mirmis]

It's really time for you to do the story of Mastertronic, arguably the most important software house in the 8 bit era.

[@pigsymagic4741]

I had a few on the atari 800 xl or xe cant remember!

[@Dr.Quarex]

I immediately hear the absolute banger theme from NINJA on the Atari whenever I see the name Mastertronic, haha. Where I lived there was no conceptualization of budget publishers since basically every game cost about the same at the stores, so I was surprised as an adult to learn Mastertronic had been seen as a lesser company. Definitely created a lot of good times in my childhood!

[@orderofmagnitude-TPATP]

Oh jeez yeah... pocket money heroes

[@SpadajSpadaj]

I agree completely about the Bionic Commando - a great game in its own right and a superb conversion to a speccy.

[@daveangel2991]

OMG! Gunsmoke! That was one of two arcade machines in the Spanish hotel on our first family holiday abroad in the mid-80s. I shoved a lot of pesetas into that thing!

[@kupokinzyt]

I have been binging your videos for the past week. What I love most, in the absolute depth you put into them and long long they are. You deserve SO MANY more subscribers and if I can find out how, I am joining your patreon. It's crazy the amount of content you have!

[@willrobinson7599]

I was a c64 owner in the day but still enjoyed the whole video. Tiertex name brought tears to ya eyes when u read up that they were gonna butcher your fav capcom game on all systems.

[@Ice-Climber]

You'd be surprised how many home computer ports of Strider there were back in the day. I came across a video once that was footage from all the versions of the game that exist and it was about 35 minutes long.

[@matthewlane518]

Love your vids! Your voice is so perfect for this type of documentary! In someway soothing like the voice of your best friend while late at night during a sleepover!

[@Peter-MH]

Yet another outstanding and thoroughly enjoyable documentary! Nice work!!

[@mumfnah]

Strider and Forgotten Worlds. Couple of my favourite arcade games, and ports to Megadrive also excellent. Forgotten Worlds I pretty much only play my moded xbox arcade port nowadays though, as has the rotary controls I like on the analogue sticks. UN Squadron is another favourite on arcade, though I don't recall even playing or loving it on arcade until after I'd played it on my SNES. But as you say, some of the arcade favourites, on Speccy are not as you remember them. Certainly would like to see some remakes done on the ZX Next though with a bit more polish to them

[@glenaitken9403]

Excellent vid! Speccy +2 was my very first computer. Lots of great memories in your Speccy vids. Amiga too. Ta!

[@andrewk2996]

I wonder how some of these games released by US Gold would have played if designed by either Elite or Ocean. I always felt a lot of US Gold games were rushed and poorly designed, maybe to reach deadlines. I tended to avoid their games in general same as Go! who released dross like Wizard Wars and Bravestarr. Nice insight into Capcom games, Kim as always you obviously do a lot of research

[@alexshadowfax1119]

It's very interesting watching these, I have no experience whatsoever with computer gaming in the 80's and 90's especially from a UK perspective, yet I still love watching your videos, thanks for making them.

[@callme_Sweetpea]

As someone who's never touched a Spectrum game (I grew up with C64 and Amiga 500), Commando looks like a brilliant port! I need to start looking into the Speccy!

[@jonahabenhaim1223]

the problem I have is the questionable color scheme can hurt my eyes or make it hard to see my character. this makes me appreciate the Nes, sega master system even more.

[@pedroschurmann3345]

I was not aware the desperado got a gunsmoke proper release, desperado tape image is hard to find those days. Nice compilation 👍

[@christschin3708]

Always loved the art on those compilation boxes as a kid.

[@mattw8332]

I owned a copy of LED Storm, really enjoyed playing it. Managed to complete it too. Those monochrome background graphics used to play tricks on my eyes when driving the car fast. I think I was playing this around the time I upgraded from my secondhand 48k+ to a new 128k+2 and as mentioned, I discovered the music on the menu screen, which is superb. I also had Ghouls and Ghosts which was great and another of a minority of Speccy games I managed to complete. Shame I never bought 1943 or Cabal as I think I would have enjoyed those.

[@MikeRox83]

I look forward to the 17 hour "A look at EVERY U.S. Gold title on the ZX Spectrum" compilation vid ;)

[@pda1799]

I loved LED Storm on my C64, the music was so awesome (so was BCommando’s)!!! Too bad it was so hard - could never finish it, always running out of fuel.

[@napalmjam]

Another excellent video Kim !

[@Rockysbeats]

amazing little retro history video you made here thanks! :)

[@Specter227]

All these Tiertex games make me want a documentary on them. Such a bizarre company.

[@Yesterzine]

I'm glad to find out there's a disk hack for Speccy SF2, I've never been able to face actually trying to play the bugger even off emulated tape.

[@manicpanic4486]

Superb work as always ☺☺ love your work

[@nickthelick]

Must say, even as a 6/7yr old (when I first got a Speccy in 1985), I was a massive fan of the text adventures! Quest For The Golden Eggcup! Even Lord Of The Rings! "Gandalf Use Filigreed Key on Oak Door" I really don't know why I was such a fan at such a young age?!? 🤔

[@timeslip1974]

the Amiga conversion of Black Tiger was really good! (So my rose tinted glasses tell me)

[@orderofmagnitude-TPATP]

Oof.... the days of when "arcade perfect" was pretty much impossible. Unless you bought a neogeo or arcade itself! For the equivalent of a couple of grand in todays money.... At least back then- this is why you went to the arcade; because your home version was pretty much a 'souvenir' of that arcade game.

[@Matthew6248]

Amazed that the Spectrum did okay to good ports of the CPS1 games (except for a couple of games) hopefully we'll get a Namco and Williams/Bally/Midway Spectrum ports vids in the future

[@nickthelick]

Sorry about all the different comments! Man, I remember Dynasty Wars... As something that I didn't care for. I also remember Pang! both in the arcades AND ported to the Speccy and Amiga... Though it was a game that had amazing reviews and legions of fans, I was nonplussed with it! Didn't really take with me to be honest... I'd have to say that the first arcade game that taught me how much lesser of a beast a computer conversion could be, was Chase HQ on the Speccy... It was OK, but it certainly taught young me how much less an arcade game could be. Conversely, an arcade game that could absolutely RULE over the computers too, was Bubble Bobble!!! 😊 Totally awesome on everything I played it on. Mainly the Speccy. Rainbow Islands came close too, though I'd moved onto the Amiga by then. And to be honest, I found Rainbow Islands pretty frustrating a lot of the time. Good game, but would rage quit fairly often! 😊

[@miketate3445]

I don't know why, but I love how you say "arcades" as a short form for "arcade games". Anyway, keep up the great work. I'm always happy to see a video from you.

[@desoft8b]

Thanks for the subtitles, I am from Spain and by translating them I can understand all the information.

[@worldofretrogameplay6963]

US Gold was pissed about Commando being ported to the ZX Spectrum by another 3rd party? US Gold would have screwed it up if they did the port themselves. Lol

[@marasmusine]

Best thing about Commando was the 16-way fire. That features should've been used in more games.

[@Chimpdonger]

The Black Country is an area of the West Midlands in the United Kingdom covering most of the Metropolitan Boroughs of Dudley & Sandwell,

[@theflyingninja1]

The cover of Cabal is taken straight from some Vietnam film I saw once. It even has the star of the film, Sam J. Jones on the cover.

[@SameNameDifferentGame]

This was wonderful for me, having known basically nothing about any of these ports.

[@DobbyDoo24]

Another fantastic video Kim, love these Speccy conversion stories. Great to see UN Squadron getting a mention too - one of my fave games

[@AcornElectron]

Cheers up a wet Wednesday! Nice one Kim!

[@ninjapants7688]

Geez my dude, I was just trying to go to sleep and then you drop this.

[@melasnexperience]

I think 39:31 may be the most amazing example of CYA I've ever seen.

[@billybollockhead5628]

I know the artist who worked on SF2, they asked to have their names removed from it.. Alan Smithie style.. funny as hell back in day to see it on his resume when interviewing him

[@captaincorleone7088]

That's interesting! Did he go into detail about the behind-the-scenes story?

[@Mr_Wheez]

I guess this is your Commando game play footage and I guess I‘m impressed! ☺️

[@TheMarkxray]

Thanks Kim. Great Vid!!

[@PittPenguin]

Your videos are absolutely EPIC!!!

[@TheRoboG]

Woo! Can't wait to finish work, pour me a drink and get stuck into this :-)

[@brentchayka4093]

You do good work!

[@dave1the1deer1hunter]

I had the big boxed version of street fighter 2, I only played it a couple of times, my friend had it on the A500 so I was a little embarrased when I tried to show him the z128 version.

[@PrimevalDemon]

Holy shit Black Tiger?! I think that is where capcom got the name for the spider in resident evil!

[@middle-agedclimber]

Commando... I can't be the only one who prefers ZX version to any other. C64 has got nothing on it! Fast, aggressive, non stop action. I teach my kids how hard the games used to be using this as an example.

[@jeremygregorio7472]

I so wanted the commodore 64 version of last duel back in the day but could never find it. Back then mail order was difficult and expensive and took months

[@angeldiazmoral1656]

Ghouls 'n' Ghost. I love It. Maybe my favourite Speccy game

[@captaincorleone7088]

@42:05 The Amiga version actually had two button functionality for punches and kicks. It was still crap though but that needed to be noted. 😁

[@michaeltsung9741]

Great Vid Kim......

[@pal-of-pals]

Damn, Mighty Final Fight looks really pretty on the Speccy

[@PrimevalDemon]

During the intro you showed Street Fighter 2 artwork of blanka and chun li while mentioning it was at the end of the consoles lifespan. I don't know if it was intentional or not but it felt apropos as the artist Mick McGinty just passed away this past September.

[@billybollockhead5628]

Woah! I had final fight, I totally don’t remember it being. THAT slow..

[@MrKlawUK]

Having a C64 I was simultaneously not interested in the Speccy as the C64 could chuck things around and scroll smoothly. But also jealous at how ‘hi res’ everything looked - operation wolf jumps into my brain for some reason as perhaps suiting the ‘high res mono’ look of the spectrum

[@sambas9257]

There were pratically identical versions in both Speccy and C64 in many genres like isometrical games or the Manic Miner/Jet Set Willy/Dizzy clones . Spectrum had 256x192p res only while C64 used mostly the socalled "multi-color' LoRes, 160x200 with 4 colors per character, 16 max and a 2x1px area (pixel fatter) but it had lot more other resolutions rarely used like the hi-res mode 320*200px that was the one for the ZX spectrum pixel perfect port experience. There were identical but for the pastel color palette of the c64. C64 could replicate all the ZX Spectrum versions..but the C64 users preferred more colors than better resolution.I had a ZX Spectrum and i liked more the ZX Spectrum games (for me the graphic of the Sabreman saga was simply mindblowing) even if the c64 had better sound and rich palette.For me ZX Spectrum and C64 weren't comparable because they had really different exclusives and different strong points. Today the ZX Spectrum graphic aged better in the retro-feel design while the C64 fat blocky pixels aren't so trendy

[@joedent3323]

Cheers Kim. That was fun. Thanks mate, "LiL'JpD."

[@big_ry82]

Just noticed Mercs steals the Arnie pose from the cover of Raw Deal, looks like him too. Was that in the Mega drive version? @33:55

[@chase36chase]

this channel is gold

[@mr.a8315]

❤️

[@RetroDel]

I Love these videos, it would be great if you could do these with the Amstrad CPC464 in mind

[@sargieboi9315]

Slight bit of Midlands pedantry here but U.S. Gold were from Birmingham and Elite were from Aldridge so Elite were from the Black Country, not U.S. Gold.

[@markwhatever256]

So sorry to hear about Sofia, heard it from mamemeister, my deepest condolances.

[@-Steven-]

If you play sf2 on an emulator and over clocked the z80 I wonder if would become playable, I actually do this with one of the Amstrad CPC emulators and a lot of games do become playable even if it does mess up the sound some times.

[@jesusnuclear]

About Trojan cancelled port: Topo Soft (the Desperado/Gun.Smoke clone guys, again) published a Trojan-like game called Metropolis (1989)

[@andyhodgson7692]

Yes commando is superb on the Speccy. All 8 levels too unless I'm mistaken. C64 has 3.

[@paolocapitinipoweredbyauto4774]

Grazie kim 👍🤜🤛

[@FreddieFraggs]

I loved Capcom back in the day. Great upload of my favourite machine even to this day! One more thing. Why do a lot of English youtubers say Anywho and not anyway? (The English way of saying it) 🤔

[@Holammer]

Speccy version of Ghost'n Goblins is the best one? I'mma need a fact check on that one. The C64 was very convincing for the time and the second level felt pitch perfect. Everything looked right and moved right. In the speccy version everything behaves WRONG, how zombies get out of the ground, how the red demon & bosses move. Arthur's jump is all weird. Nostalgia blinded you on that one.

[@willmistretta]

Still trying to wrap my brain around a British outfit called U.S. Gold that specialized in ports of Japanese titles.

[@captaincorleone7088]

Originally they specialised in releasing U.S. stuff and promoted their titles as "All American Software." I remember that on my C64 tapes. Obviously that changed over time but they never revised the company name.

[@6581punk]

Yeah, I don't think you can call Aldridge the black country. Where Centresoft isn't either, that's just around the corner from Aston. But the definition of the area is a bit hazy at best.

[@Gollumfili]

Your content is amazing. That's all.

[@fayezfawzi3255]

a great idea!

[@AmbersKnight]

Those first 2 just shows the breadth of opinions when it comes to Speccy games. Commando I think is one of the best arcade conversions ever. I liked the 48K version on the Speccy but love the hack which adds the AY music to the game, making it even better. Ghosts & Goblins on the other hand I think is terrible. I might have cut it some slack if there had been a version taking advantage of the AY sound to add some music and some decent spot fx but nstead I just find the game as released to be too damned hard and visually and sonically unimpressive. Yes it has scrolling but the price to pay for that for me was much too high. But I also know I am probably in the minority on this. Great video as always though.

[@axeoseilez3207]

Gotta say before I started watching more uk youtubers I've never heard of these system before the c64 which weirdly enough I owned as a kid. My dad was a traveler. Anyways I'm an american guy and seeing these games definitely piqued my interest I definitely get game and watch vibes. But I gotta admit these ports are interesting especially seeing indirect sequels to capcom classics.

[@brendansheehy8124]

Kim you should check out the C64 port of LED Storm. Way better than the Speccie port. The soundtrack is a rendition of Smoke on the Water by Deep Purple which sounds great with the futuristic racing action.

[@MrABCLynch]

I like the Speccy version of Commando more than any other. Might be nostalgia. Might not! :D

[@KingofCrusher]

Ultra thumbs up for the algorithm.

[@orderofmagnitude-TPATP]

Tiertex- best company ever! Strider for the master system is just... 💋

[@PrimevalDemon]

Is that ending theme puff the magic dragon

[@roywilson4514]

Loved Commando

[@jcaseyjones2829]

Why does the color on the spectrum look like vectrex tv overlays

[@matthewlane518]

Last Duel is a good game, it's kinda been forgotten but it was not bad!

[@akalyx]

i forgot to watch this on patreon the ghosts and goblins one looked amazing (american here)

[@PrimevalDemon]

Oh shit you even talked about McGinty!

[@steuph1976]

I remember buying Street Fighter on the Amstrad CPC, which is really the same version as this but even worse. And at the time I knew of the arcade game but I had never played it, only seen screenshots and it looked so great. So I bought it and got home and it was just terrible. And years later I played the arcade on MAME and realised it really wasn't that much better so that's one Tiertex somehow nailed.