Top 10 WORST Handheld Ports

Man, it's not hard to see why the “Medal of Honor” series went under when EA treats the series like this. The original PlayStation release was a great action game, complete with an intriguing storyline, a fantastic main character, and your typical bombastic war-based gameplay. Well, it was bombastic at the time. Two years later, the GBA version was released, and it tarnished the “Underground” name forever. It had legitimately terrible graphics to the point where you couldn't even tell what you were looking at, bad frame rate problems, and a horrible disconnect between pressing buttons and character action on screen which eliminated any sense of immersion you might have had (if you really used your imagination).

“Hyrule Warriors” is one of the Wii U’s most sold titles, and when “Legends” was officially revealed, they declared that the game would come equipped with all DLC, the ability to change characters, and two new chapters, fans were psyched. Until it was released. It wasn't a complete disaster, but it's painfully obvious that the Original 3DS just isn’t up for the task; textures look terrible, the framerate hovers around 20 fps, enemy numbers were significantly reduced, and there is pop-in everywhere. Fortunately if you had the “New” 3DS, the game runs fine, but for the tens of millions of people with the older tech; this was unacceptable. Seriously why wasn’t this game a New 3DS exclusive?

The Vita release of “Minecraft” was definitely a financial success. It boosted sales of the game by 79% and became the biggest “Minecraft” launch on a PlayStation console. However, it was definitely not the preferred way of playing the game. Players experienced significant frame rate drops and crashes upon launch, and the world size was much smaller than the one featured in the PC or even other consoles. While some could handle these imperfections, the most detrimental factor was a save corruption bug, which would delete your progress if you manually saved the game while it was quick saving. While it's a fun little handheld edition, this was a serious bug that severely hurt the response of the Vita release.

The “Jak and Daxter” platformers are some of the greatest games on the PS2, so when a handheld version was announced, it gave old and new players alike the chance to experience the magic. And by magic, we of course mean terrible frame rate drops, really awkward controls, simplified textures, and sound glitches. If you've played these games on the PS2, then you'll known that fluid controls, a stable frame rate, and gorgeous graphics are all part of the experience, as these games were technical marvels for their times. Unfortunately, inferior performances in all of these aspects significantly hinders the games and their beauty, making this Vita release a real stinker.

“BioShock” was one of the best games of the last generation, and while it's iOS release wasn't a total failure, it was VERY disappointing. The controls were absolutely miserable, which significantly dampened the experience. The game’s graphics were also terribly downgraded to the point where all atmospheric immersion was lost. Think of the iconic scene when you see Rapture for the first time, and you're instantly transported to another world; the magic is completely lost on iOS due to the grey and blurry textures. If that wasn't all, the game was eventually pulled from the app store due to performance issues after numerous iOS upgrades. You need to experience this game, but certainly not on a phone.

Despite being released seven years after the original SNES & Genesis versions, the Game Boy Advance port of “Earthworm Jim” was significantly worse, which is just embarrassing for all involved. Despite the handheld’s extra power, it still ran incredibly poorly, complete with terribly dated graphics, poor animation, horrific sound effects and broken physics. Furthermore, developer Game Titan didn’t reduce the size of the sprites to compensate for the GBA’s lower resolution, resulting in the camera zoomed in way too close to the characters, that means on numerous occasions when jumping over a pit, you couldn’t see the other side. Fail!

It was Sony’s last ditch effort to try and save the system by launching it alongside the Vita Slim model, and boy did that backfire. The Vita release was significantly hindered by numerous performance issues, most notably being a very bad frame rate, downgraded graphics, and frequent crashes. The frame rate dropped so much at certain times that fans found it almost unplayable, and the game would constantly crash, giving players who soldiered through the molasses-like gameplay no incentive to continue. The co-op was also reduced to two players rather than the original four, taking out a large swath of what made the console versions so fun and inviting.

Mortal Kombat has been ported to numerous handhelds over the years, and their quality due to the weak hardware is about as good as you’d expect, but weak hardware isn’t an excuse this train wreck can fall back on. Infamous for being one of the worst ports ever, this game was unplayable from the beginning due to broken hit-boxes and ludicrous AI. Combatants was either extremely stupid or frustratingly difficult and cheap, pulling off stunts and moves you would never dream of and wiping the floor with you in the process. Even if you could get fight your way through the game, look at how pathetic these fatalities are, were you guys even trying?

Myst was a revolutionary PC game in the 90’s thanks to its groundbreaking visuals at the time and open ended exploration. The DS version was remastered using brand new code written specifically for the system yet; it was a disaster in every conceivable way. Issues ranged from Poor sound quality, terrible visual compression, text that was hard to read, and without a visible mouse cursor it was impossible to figure out what was and wasn't clickable. This version was later ported over to the 3DS but it only made things worse: It featured an auto-centering cursor mapped to the circle pad, but it’s so imprecise that it makes clicking on the objects difficult. Which for a Point & Click game is a pretty big problem.


Before we reveal our #1 pick, lets take a look at these dishonourable mentions.

“Final Fantasy V & VI” (2013/14)

“Final Fantasy VI” (2014) [iOS version]

“Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater 3D” (2012)

“Street Fighter II: The World Warrior” (1995)

Honestly, how could Sega mess up so bad? Fans were excited for this port because of the GBA’s superior power, it had fifteen years worth of technological advancement behind it, and added Sonic’s Spin Dash which wasn’t available in the original. Unfortunately, it was a travesty in every way. The graphics and sound design are equally abysmal, and the controls are wonky. Worst of all is the game's performance. The game constantly lags, and seeing how this is a Sonic game, and the whole point of Sonic is to go FAST, you can see how this would upset fans. It was a physical, auditory, and performative mess, and it is truly the worst port of all time.