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Game hacks

Posted: Mon Aug 11, 2014 2:49 pm
by Smiler


I'm surprised this hasn't happened more often.

Re: Game hacks

Posted: Mon Aug 11, 2014 4:39 pm
by zaratustra
Binding of Isaac Community Remix is a small pack of items and rules changes that can serve as a prelude to Rebirth:

http://code-cast.us/Home/isaac-community-remix/

15+ new items, Chest accessible from Sheol, and some variant gimmes like the half-heart-half-soul heart.

Re: Game hacks

Posted: Mon Aug 11, 2014 11:41 pm
by nosimpleway
Smiler wrote:

I'm surprised this hasn't happened more often.


Please tell me the mod replaces "Hyah! Shah! HAAAhh!" with endless variations of "Waaah!"

Re: Game hacks

Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2014 12:36 am
by Smiler
It's probably just a model replacement.

Re: Game hacks

Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2014 3:18 am
by Lottel
I actually like that model more than the real one.

Re: Game hacks

Posted: Wed Jan 20, 2016 2:41 am
by Mongrel
Has anyone here ever done any FMOD game sound mod stuff with .fev and .fsb files? (these are keyed to older versions of FMOd, by the way - the current one doesn't like them).

I am trying to do something which I figure should be relatively simple, but which is proving to be an intractable problem.

Re: Game hacks

Posted: Tue Aug 30, 2016 11:45 pm
by Thad
SO, since I've preordered an AVS, and am probably going to order an Everdrive (I've already got confirmation that the Everdrive itself works on the AVS but haven't seen much discussion about whether/how well the expansion audio channel works), I've been thinking about shit to load up on it.

Aside from (1) games I already own (just for convenience's sake), (2) games that are too expensive to actually buy used (Tengen's Tetris, the various Capcom Disney games), and (3) games that you can't actually get on a cartridge (Earthbound Zero), I've been thinking about other various translations and hacks I'd be interested in grabbing. I'm thinking specifically of (1) NES games that (2) work on authentic console hardware, but of course this is a general game hacks thread so if anybody else has anything they want to share that doesn't match those criteria then I'm perfectly happy with restarting that conversation.

Anyway, some thoughts:

Castlevania 3 translation: This one's a no-brainer. The Japanese version of the game has the expansion audio and the better balance. Top of the list.

Ninja Gaiden 3 Restored: The US version of Ninja Gaiden 3 is bullshit. And I say that as somebody who's finished the first two games. This patch restores the Japanese version's damage amounts and unlimited continues (and also the password system, but since the Everdrive's got savestates that won't matter much). One commenter notes that it still hasn't completely reverted the game's original balance since the US enemy and item placement is different than in the Japanese version, but it's still the best English-language version of the game there is.

And here are various threads I've found on ROM hacks:

Our Top 5 Favorite Nintendo ROM Hacks (Always Nintendo)
Notable ROM Hacks (SMW Central)
10 Classic Video Game Hacks Everyone Should Play, PC Mag
Best nes rom hacks, /r/nes
List of the best Rom hacks!!!, GBAtemp
5 Fan-Made ROM Hack Games You Should Play, Reaxxion
Best ROM hacks for NES?, NintendoAge
Top 25 Powerpak Killer Apps, Satoshi Matrix
What are the Greatest ROM Hacks?, Serenes Forest

There are some names that keep coming up that I figure I'm going to have to check out:

Mega Man in the Mushroom Kingdom
Rockman No Constancy
Rockman 4 Minus Infinity
Mario Adventure
Super Mario Bros 3mix
Zelda: Outlands
Zelda: The Legend of Link
Castlevania: Chorus of Mysteries

I've seen a lot of mentions of Dragoon X Omega II, but they seem to be more of a case of people really impressed by the technical quality of the total conversion than actually saying the game is any fun to play.

Batman Easy and Batman Simplified have caught my attention too; Batman is definitely one of those games that's fun to play but totally unfair.

The trouble is that a lot of these lists are old and don't have recent or upcoming releases on them. I happened across Metroid: Rogue Dawn, which looks fantastic and apparently is just a couple weeks out from putting out an RC.

I also will probably try the damn Chinese bootleg FF7. I have beer. And while I expect the gameplay to be excruciating, I have to admit I'm pretty impressed by some of the chiptunes.

(EDIT to update lists.)

Re: Game hacks

Posted: Mon Sep 05, 2016 10:59 pm
by Caithness


Released today.

Re: Game hacks

Posted: Tue Sep 06, 2016 10:24 pm
by Spram
Thad wrote: I happened across Metroid: Rogue Dawn, which looks fantastic and apparently is just a couple weeks out from putting out an RC.


That looks really good.

Re: Game hacks

Posted: Wed Sep 21, 2016 10:18 pm
by Thad
Got the Everdrive today. Mario 3mix is indeed pretty great.

Re: Game hacks

Posted: Sat Sep 24, 2016 2:55 pm
by Thad
Looking at Mother 25th Anniversary Edition, which looks to go well beyond the original "easy" patch in terms of rebalancing, and add a complete graphical overhaul.

Somebody's gone and retranslated FF3 to match the DS version's script, too. Though really I'd probably be better off just finishing the DS version, which I never quite got around to doing.

It'll be interesting to test these out, see which ones work on EverDrive/authentic (well, FPGA-simulated "authentic") hardware. Some of them won't for various reasons.

Re: Game hacks

Posted: Sat Sep 24, 2016 6:33 pm
by Thad
Some early reactions to some things:

Megaman in the Mushroom Kingdom: When I started this game my first reaction was "Holy God, people think this is *good*? Does it not have all these bugs if you play it in an emulator?" There were graphical glitches everywhere, horrible slowdown, occasionally a bunch of enemies and items would spawn for no discernible reason, and more than once I fell right through the fucking floor.

After I picked another stage, the game ran much more smoothly. So I guess it may have just been Ice Man's stage that had problems.

And it's not like it's the first time I've just fallen through something and died for no reason on Ice Man's stage.


Rockman no Constancy: This is definitely an impressive hack. The graphics are great (maybe too detailed), and the music is made up of solid demakes of tunes from 16- and 32-bit Mega Man games. I'm not sold on the balance yet; even on the "normal" version there's some bullshit fuck-you enemy placement.


Super Mario Bros 3mix: If the first couple levels are anything to judge by, this game is fantastic. And it should be: these aren't custom levels, they're (as the name implies) it's an assortment of levels from different Mario games. And not just from the NES era, I gather (though so far every level I've played has been from SMB1 or 2j); the start screen theme is from New SMB, the second level's got music from SML2, and there's a "Star Road" option on the menu.

I do have a gripe, and it's with height: the block-to-screen-height ratio in SMB3 isn't the same as in some of the other games whose levels we're looking at here, so there are levels where, in their original context, you could be up on a block and still see the ground, but in this game you can't. I think these levels should have been adjusted a little so that there'd be fewer leaps of faith/less reliance on remembering the level layout from another game.


There are some hacks that don't run on authentic hardware. I think the FF7 one's one of them; haven't tried it. Rockman Minus Infinity and Legend of Link both error out, and Mario Adventure has show-stopping graphical glitches. (I have not tried blowing on the cartridge.) Can always try them on an emulator sometime, I guess.

Re: Game hacks

Posted: Sun Sep 25, 2016 8:47 am
by Smiler
The FF7 game was actually a cart with a new mapper and a 2 megabyte rom. On the flip side, people have already REMASTERED the fucking thing, and made the graphics less insane. https://www.destructoid.com/final-fanta ... 5640.phtml

Re: Game hacks

Posted: Sun Sep 25, 2016 12:18 pm
by Thad
Right; I meant that (as far as I know) the patch is unplayable on Everdrive/Powerpak, not the original (Chinese) ROM.

Re: Game hacks

Posted: Wed Sep 28, 2016 12:22 pm
by zaratustra
You know what might be interesting? A metroidvania-ish hack of Kid Chameleon.

Something like: make the levels less linear and add some 'hub' areas; have only two or three helmets available at first and more unlocked as you clear sets of levels; add save files somehow.

Re: Game hacks

Posted: Thu Sep 29, 2016 1:05 am
by Thad
I never played it, but that sounds maybe a bit like a Shantae game, with the changing into animals?

Re: Game hacks

Posted: Thu Sep 29, 2016 4:48 am
by zaratustra
Haven't played -that-, but possibly? Claymates was probably the closest thing.

Re: Game hacks

Posted: Fri Sep 30, 2016 11:58 pm
by Thad
Fired up DuckTales 2.

Played 1.5 levels.

Ran out of lives.

Discovered you don't get any continues.

Discovered that gamehacking.org has a nice feature where you can download cheat codes (Game Genie etc.) and it'll even convert them to a format that your emulator (or EverDrive) can parse.

Re: Game hacks

Posted: Sun Oct 09, 2016 5:12 pm
by zaratustra
the heck


Re: Game hacks

Posted: Mon Oct 10, 2016 2:06 am
by Esperath
walljump training simulator 2k16