Best Rom Hacks?

[thelostsoul]

Today, I only have a single entry. Most of the mods and romhacks are included already, so there is not much left. And this one is relatively (1 month old, but got some updates till then) new.

SNES (1)

Mods and Romhacks

• Super Mario Bros. 1X based on Super Mario World
  This one starts and looks like Super Mario Bros. 1. Later levels have game mechanics and styles and themes from Super Mario Bros. 2 and 3 and Super Mario Land 1 too. This is a well designed and outputted romhack.

[thelostsoul]

NES (1)

Mods and Romhacks

• Metroid + Saving based on Metroid 1
  This makes the game how it should be originally! It replaces the ridiculous password system with a battery save system, where the health bar also is saved (normally health starts low each time you use password). It also adds a useful map!

SNES (1)

Mods and Romhacks

• Level Zero based on Chrono Trigger
  Removes the level up system and rebalances the whole games stats, items, enemies, heroes, shops and more. The game now becomes a bit harder than usual, but not very hard. This is for people who played the game and want a new challenge.

[Clyde]

@thelostsoul said in Best Rom Hacks?:

• Level Zero based on Chrono Trigger
  Removes the level up system

What's wrong with it? I'm asking because I began playing the original not long ago.

[thelostsoul]

@clyde It is nothing wrong, just for a different experience. The level system in ANY rpg makes it easy to grind and beat the game easily, its bosses and enemies. Having a strict system like this without leveling up, you are forced to do some strategies and the whole item system becomes immensely important. This just changes the games experience and challenge and I recommend you playing the original as it was intended. So, no worries here. ;-)

[mediamogul]

It was only a matter of time, but the first of undoubtedly many Bowsette ROM hacks were released today. Mark my words, with the insane and inexplicable popularity of this character, Nintendo will end up incorporating her in some official capacity. Rather than it actually be Bowser, a more appropriate narrative would be to have him seek out his own koopa bride after the events of Odyssey. Having her look so much like Peach could be relegated to him simply having "a type". Anyway, love it or hate it, the madness will likely continue.

http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/4163/
http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/4164/

[thelostsoul]

@mediamogul The internet would be nothing without memes and hypes. Ok, not exactly true.
Now you posted it, I want to play as Bowsette in Super Mario Bros. 2.

[mediamogul]

@thelostsoul

Never send a man-turtle to do a female-man-turtle's job.

[thelostsoul]

N64 (1)

Mods and Romhacks

• F-Zero X Climax based on F-Zero X
  The only romhack I could get to run on the N64. The tracks are all changed and a variation from the GBA versions. There are also changes in graphic, but not too heavy.

SNES (1)

Mods and Romhacks

• ZAMN - The Sequel based on Zombies Ate My Neighbors
  This isn't the first romhack for this game, but a very recent and a mature one (mature in terms of development). All levels are new and it got some features.

[Clyde]

@thelostsoul said in Best Rom Hacks?:

• ZAMN - The Sequel based on Zombies Ate My Neighbors

That's great, as I don't like the inofficial sequel Ghoul Patrol because of the spongy character movement. I would very much like to see a hack that fixes that.

[thelostsoul]

@clyde I played Ghoul Patrol back in the days and didn't even know that Zombies Ate My Neighors existed. Can't say if its a good or bad game, was fun, but I have no comparison. While the original Zombies game was really hyped in the US, nobody talked about it here in Germany.

Btw, there are more mods for this game. An old one named "Oh No! More Zombies Ate My Neighors!" is quite famous in the romhacks scene. Here you can see a list: https://www.romhacking.net/games/812/

[Clyde]

@thelostsoul I didn't know both games until I (re-)entered the emulation scene almost two years ago. Since then, I played both games with a friend and we had to abort Ghoul Patrol because of the horrible movement. While the characters move and stop immediately in ZAMN, they skid around in GP like they are moving on ice. You can see it quite clearly in videos of both games:

The characters are much slower in GP, too. Alas, there doesn't seem a movement hack for GP out there. At least I couldn't find one.

Thanks for the ZAMN links, however. :)

[hansolo77]

Hey all! Bringing up an old topic to go a little "off" topic... how are you guys scraping these into EmulationStation game lists? Are you doing anything special? I've been using UXS but all I've been able to scrape are the original details/art/videos. Is this what you guys are dealing with or is there something I'm missing?

[EctoOne]

@hansolo77 I also used UXS to get a basic entry for each Rom Hack. Then I edited the xml afterwards manually and replaced the graphics.

[thelostsoul]

@hansolo77 I use the builtin Steven Selph's Scraper for every system. Some of the romhacks/mods and unofficial versions aren't listed there and so I have to do it manually. I have an additional XML file (in example named "mods.xml") in the same data structure as the main file. After scraping the systems main data, I head over to this file with the additions and just copy it to bottom (before closing tag). Doing this manually, you should understand how XML works, otherwise it is easy to make errors. In example, there are some characters in XML which need to be parsed, as they could cause problems.

For the graphics and text information, I search the web and copy what I find. As I also include video preview, I have to record some gamplay stuff (30s to 1 or 2 mins), especially for romhacks and mods. Before I was able to do this, I searched YouTube for appropriate stuff.

[Clyde]

@hansolo77 Like @thelostsoul, I usually try at first if Selph's Scraper can find it on screenscraper.fr. If it can't find the hacked rom, I also edit the gamelist.xml manually.

The first time the scraper found a hacked rom, I was baffled, as I didn't expect the hacked roms to be included in online databases like screenscraper.fr. It's great that some (many?) of them are.

As for the topic of this thread, I recently found these two hacks for Super Mario Kart on SNES (the first one was already mentioned in the opening post, but without a video):

Mario Kart R

Hyper Street Kart

Both can be scraped by Selph's Scraper from screenscraper.fr.

I can't wait to test them with a friend on her hacked SNES Classic Mini. 😊

[thelostsoul]

@Clyde screenscraper.fr is my main source too. Sometimes I use Google to find specific entries with domain filter, in example: Super Mario Kart snes site:screenscraper.fr
Those romhacks (+translations) only have specific vesions. If your romhack does not have the exact same checksum, it might not find it in the database. I assume it works like this, not entirely sure. It could be that only an old version is listed, while you have a never one. And everyone can participate to the database I suppose (I never did).

I hope those Mario Kart mods you have will work on the SNES classic. Is your friend using a different emulator on it or the default one "Canoe"? I also have those two mods, they are great.

[Clyde]

@thelostsoul Haha, I also use domain filters in my web searches, but with startpage.com as a privacy filter for Goole. 😊

I actually did submit one addition to Screenscraper's database. The SNES game "Putty Squad" was listed as 1P, whereas it's actually 2P. Since I have an account there now, chances are good that I will submit other information I find missing or inaccurate.

My friend uses the default emulator, because she doesn't need other systems on it, and she can do without the few games that are not compatible. She's mostly interested in all the 2P co-op games for the SNES which were not included in the Classic Mini ex works.

[thelostsoul]

Offtopic, but I couldn't resist:

@Clyde said in Best Rom Hacks?:

@thelostsoul Haha, I also use domain filters in my web searches, but with startpage.com as a privacy filter for Goole. 😊

I switched my main search engine to https://duckduckgo.com/.
http://www.goole.com/ exists!

[Clyde]

@thelostsoul said in Best Rom Hacks?:

I switched my main search engine to https://duckduckgo.com/.

I prefer SP, because DDG is located in the Land of the Free Patriot Act, which severely limits its privacy capabilities. In contrast, SP is based in Europe and can be configured to only use European servers.

http://www.goole.com/ exists!

Hilarious! 😄

[Triquick]

Found a rom hack that just came out that people really should give a chance:

Mega Man 4 Voyage
https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/4268/

A Rom Hack of Mega Man 4 that completely changes level layout/Robot Master AI and interactions for a fun and challenging little game. And the best part is that its not ball busting hard like most Mega Man Rom Hacks! The author actually does the smart thing and starts off small with each stages gimmick (usually a simple room that demo what it is) before ramping the different scenarios. The Robot Master AI and gimmicks are greatly improved to create interesting fights without going overboard and overwhelming. I haven't completed the whole game yet but its worth your time to give it a chance if you enjoy Mega Man games.