Way back in 1987 Capcom released a game called Black Tiger in arcades. Fans are actively working on porting Black Tiger to the Sega Genesis using the Scorpion Engine. Interestingly, they are using the arcade original sprites and artwork for this port meaning this is going to be visually impressive and likely play well.
For whatever reason, Black Tiger was never ported to the Sega Genesis, either by Sega who were keen on Capcom arcade games on Genesis, nor by Capcom themselves later. Likely Capcom passed on a port because by the time they were a 3rd party licensee on Genesis, that did not happen until around 1993. By then Black Tiger was probably considered “old” or at least too old for a costly port.
According to Indie Retro News that did not stop companies from porting Black Tiger to computers such as the Commodore Amiga, Atari ST, etc. It seems the Atari ST version is the one to avoid out of the computer ports.
It was not all that common in 1987 for arcade games to offer shops and things. Those were often relegated to home gaming on computers or consoles. Black Tiger features other home gaming niceties such as sprawling levels, again, most arcade games of the time were more focused on moving to the right and attack till you lose all your lives and pay up with more quarters.
Games that featured large levels to explore meant more playtime per quarter and that is simply not the business model of arcades of the time. Turnover and getting quarters was the name of the arcade game.
Check out Black Tiger and if it is in your wheelhouse, get ready for the first 16-Bit home console port. For me, it looks interesting and I enjoy this style of game quite a bit so I will definitely be covering it as it continues development.
