Best Rom Hacks?

gold64

If anyone's into sports games, this update of NHL '94 for Sega Genesis is pretty great...updated rosters, jerseys, centre ice logos, etc. Love this!

cyperghost

@mediamogul Hehe... The Mortal Kombat MOD is (deep voice) outstanding

mediamogul

@cyperghost said in Best Rom Hacks?:

(deep voice) outstanding

(deep voice) Well Done.

It's really amazing, isn't it? I've been systematically learning the characters moves for a while now and directly afterward, memorizing that character's morph with Shang Tsung. My goal is to be able to jump in and out of all the characters at a moments notice during a fight. I did this with 'Ultimate Mortal Kombat' back in the day and it never failed to both impress and frustrate an adversary. Of course there was a lot less to remember then.

cyperghost

@mediamogul That would be crazy :)
But the whole series got a bit lack... the original Genesis controller got 3 button layout. I think later later (at the near end of this great console) the controller got 6 button layout. So how to play Mortal Kombat with the old controller? (deep voice) FINISH IT

mediamogul

@cyperghost

I've always been partial to the PSX layout for 'Mortal Kombat Trilogy', so I just map my Rumblepad 2 accordingly. To make the extra three buttons mappable, you just enable the six button controller from the core options in the rgui. If you're actually using an old three button genesis controller, I believe the game used hotkey combinations to allow the extra input. I've personally never played it that way, so I'm not sure.

tekn0

The Legend Of Link:

works great with the nes core at 2x so there is no slowdown.

mediamogul

@tekn0

That looks like a great hack. I've played 'Zelda Challenge: Outlands' before, but was unaware of this one.

mediamogul

Metroid - Rogue Dawn (Game Play/Total Conversion Hack)

OK, this particular hack is only four days old, but it's been in development for almost three years and might very well be the best total conversion I've ever seen for a game outside of 'Mario Adventure'. Rogue Dawn tells the preceding story to the original 'Metroid' that is only briefly referenced in the game's manual, where a dangerous unidentified life form is discovered by scientists and subsequently stolen by pirates to fulfill a hidden agenda. You play as the rogue human agent, tasked by the pirates to retrieve the life form code-named Metroid.

This hack is really quite an achievement. The graphics are almost in the neighborhood SNES territory and although I've only been playing it a short time, I can already say that the level design and basic game play are on par with and even exceed any commercial platformer of it's kind for the NES. Below is a video to help illustrate what I'm raving on about.

mediamogul

See Comment 26

I sat down to play 'Mario Adventure' this evening and discovered that none of the three emulators in RetroPie will currently load it by default. After looking around for a fix, I saw it mentioned that loading an empty save file would allow the game to run, but it still took a bit of experimenting to get this to happen. First, you need to create a blank file that shares the name of the ROM, only with the .srm extension. This can be done from the command line with:

touch /path/to/game/rom/exact_rom_name.srm

~~From there, the game must be launched from lr-nestopia for the first time at least. It will then format the save file properly and you can launch the game afterwards from whichever emulator you wish.~~

dudleydes

@mediamogul Mario Adventure works for me in lr-fceumm without issue.

As I built my collection of rom hacks, I started to check the Read Me file for the version of the rom that would work before I applied the patch. For Mario Adventure patch available from Rom Hacking, there are patches for the Super Mario Bros. 3 (PRG 0) U.nes and Super Mario Bros. 3 (PRG 1) U.nes roms.

I guess I was lucky as the rom I have in my collection is the first one though I had no way of knowing of being certain. I tried the second patch on my rom and the hack didn't work.

In short, if a patch doesn't work, get a new rom.

mediamogul

@dudleydes

Very good to know. Thank you!

cyperghost

@dudleydes

In short, if a patch doesn't work, get a new rom.

No get the ROM from the description. I think it's a good idea to share always MD5 checksum (or something similar) of the ROM file in this thread. But as you already mentioned it's also a good idea to read file description.

The XDelta Patcher (used to patch the Mortal Kombat ROM) works right because it compares byte data from original file and patch data :)

tekn0

@mediamogul

This looks awesome. I played through the entire metroid save/map hack as well. It was great.
http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/1186/

mediamogul

Well, I just tried patching Super Mario Bros. 3 (PRG 0) U.nes as well as Super Mario Bros. 3 (PRG 1) U.nes, and both loaded in lr-fceumm and lr-nestopia without any additional steps. It could be that my existing save file was just corrupted in some way.

hooperre

I wish all these games could be scraped! I even made a (very lightly) hacked version of Forgotten Worlds with some cheat codes added in that I never play without. More of a Life Hack than a game hack, but I had fun with it.

Also cut out the turn limit in Master of Monsters (super underrated game).

Thanks for encouraging me in some of these hacks. This might be my favorite thing about my Pi thus far. New games!

mediamogul

@hooperre said in Best Rom Hacks?:

This might be my favorite thing about my Pi thus far. New games!

It is quite remarkable when you think about it. I remember looking at the early lackluster hacks such as 'Nude Punch-Out!!' and thinking, "Who would want to play these"? Flash forward almost two decades and we now have fully converted, brand new entries into our favorite franchises that in some occasions equal or even surpass the originals. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go play some 'Nude Rad Racer'.

cyperghost

@mediamogul said in Best Rom Hacks?:

@hooperre said in Best Rom Hacks?:

This might be my favorite thing about my Pi thus far. New games!

....I remember looking at the early lackluster hacks such as 'Nude Punch-Out!!' and thinking, "Who would want to play these"? ..

Easy answer: desperates and enthusiasts

blackshadow

im an RPG guy myself so my list will mostly be them a few i can reccommend if you havnt already played them is

Secret of Mana 2/Seiken densetsu 3
Pretty much 100% translated has a few extra hacks you can find for it aswell such as a 3 player mod(did this with 2 friends pretty fun in combat but a tad boring between)

Tales of Phantasia
Love this so sue me you have a choice with this one theres the snes version i linked but also a psx translation aswell i personaly use the psx one so cant speak for the snes release plus it has the odd extra in it i believe id also recommend a translated star ocean but that game is glitchy as hell which is a shame

Bahamut Lagoon
has the odd glitch this one but nothing game breaking usually one tile will graphicly glitch once in a while but i think it depends on the emulator being used has some pretty sweet gfx and a interesting combat system

if you can find it (cant post a link since it was C&D'd by square but i can reccommend chrono trigger flames of eternity aswell though for that youll need to use zsnes unless snes9x has stopped crashing with it

another to look up if platformers are your thing is Sonic Megamix its a pretty exaustive revamp of the first game with tons of new features and different characters witth differant abilities (Sonic, Shadow, Mighty and in a beta tails and knuckles aswell)

@mediamogul
nice mention of UMKT there that game is beast agree with the starfox 2 comment aswell grabbed that one the day it was first released personally with MK i used to piss people off with the chameleon code on the PSX version people would hate me for unleashing hell with massive combos and teleports on that game since i more or less memorized his moveset

mediamogul

@blackshadow said in Best Rom Hacks?:

people would hate me for unleashing hell with massive combos and teleports

Why are people always so jealous of the skills which pay the bills?

Those look to be great RPGs. 'Tales of Phantasia' is especially gorgeous. For several years now, due to an ever increasingly busy schedule, I find myself shying away from RPGs in favor of quick pick up and play action titles that can easily be put down when necessary. However, I can't tell you how much I've missed this type of game play. I might try to turn my habits around with one of your recommendations.

Darksavior

I'm mostly into translations of existing US games or ones that I never heard of from Japan. Sorting these roms out over the past few years, I've found a few good ones:

Castlevania 3 Re-translation using the uncensored japanese version with the extra sound channels and crosses/religious stuff. The music sounds even better.

Actraiser Re-translation using the uncensored japanese version that's much harder. It's a more accurate translation with the religious stuff put back in like being referred to as Lord and Holy, and your main enemy called Satan.

Ganpuru: Gunman's Proof A translated game that's basically a cowboy version of Zelda: A Link To The Past.
alt text

Holy Diver A translation. I recently found out about this game. It's a game similar to castlevania and metroid with a lot of metal references. The name of the game, the main character called Randy (Rhoads) and his father called Ronnie (James Dio)
alt text

I hope someone eventually translates the SNES Goemon games. They look really fun but I feel like I'll lose a bunch of the fun by not being able to read the text.