Game Groups > Enhanced ports / Port differences

This group is for when a port between platforms features some differences from the original version.

An enhanced port is a port of a game to a different platform typically released a year or two after its original release. These ports will sometimes come with an edition subtitle giving notification to the consumer that this isn't just a straight port of the game. Usually enhanced ports will have additional content. Things such as extra game modes, cut-scenes, dungeons, levels, changes to difficulty, quality of life improvements (faster leveling in an RPG for example), etc. are typical enhancements. Ideally the enhancement information will be mentioned in the games description or as a trivia item. If the games enhancements can't be summed up in a a succinct manner it should ideally be kept as a separate entry.

On MobyGames, these games are allowed to be in the same game entry with the original release except under the condition when the enhanced port is also released on the same platform as the original base game was released on. For rating reasons, the games should remain separated.

Games can be released in different ways that may be confused with an enhanced port so contributors to the group should be careful not to confuse it with games released in other ways as the following:

• Special edition: Special editions are releases that contain a base game with additional content, usually released simultaneously along a standard edition of a game.
• Enhanced remakes: Enhanced remakes are versions of a games rebuilt from the ground up and are typically released several years from the original.
• Remastered releases: A remaster takes the original game and improves some aspects of it such as texture size or model complexity that might not have been possible for hardware at the time of initial release.
• Game of the Year (GOTY) releases: Games that not only won the title of game of the year, but were re-released as such with updated or additional content.

Although it may be possible for a game to be an enhanced port and also fall into another group, particularly a remaster or a GOTY release when it's the first release for that platform and the GOTY version wasn't re-released on the original platform(s) it was released on.