Best Rom Hacks?

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.

quicksilver

Just got around to trying out this rom hack. It recreates the original super mario bros for NES on N64. It runs great on my pi too!

hansolo77

@quicksilver I downloaded the patch but apparently none of my no-intro romsets have a compatible game to patch it to. What is the checksum of the unpatched game you used? I'd really like to try this! :)

quicksilver

@hansolo77 I'll take a look tonight and report back

Edit:
@hansolo77 The checksum is: 48DE9B252C5740A6CA5BABE6B025EA41 and the rom name is Super Mario 64 (U) [!].z64

hansolo77

Ah I see. That little [!] makes me think it's a GoodSet, mine's a No-Intro. And my roms end in .n64 not .z64. I'll have to see if Google can help me out. :) Thanks!

quicksilver

@hansolo77 Yea I think I had to find this Mario 64 rom separately as well for a different Mario 64 romhack. Luckily I still had it floating around on my computer and it worked.

akafox

I have fallen behind on my translations/hacks. I try to keep up with them every month but I have other retropie things i need to finish!

However I do recommend the MSU-1 hacks for many games. Gives CD music to a lot of games. Some are worth it some not so much. Depends on the game. However seeing Legend of Zelda link to the past with a full motion intro on a SNES is awesome to be sure. Chrono Trigger has a VERY in depth hack for that sound track and SEVERAL FMV to go with it. But you have to pay for the soundtrack.

And yes there are many homebrew/remastered games that are really good. Asteroids that looks vector (like it should) on the Atari 2600 is a great conversation topic..as is the voice version of Berzerk (a GREAT arcade port now!) for the same system.

thelostsoul

GB (1)

Mods and Romhacks

Super Mario Land DX based on Super Mario Land
A new colorization of SML is out. There is also an older and different version by "Drakon and Spikeman" floating around, which is based on a buggy colorization. This one is a complete new work from ground up by "toruzz", similar to the SML2 DX colorization and s/he even updates the graphics.

quicksilver

@thelostsoul I'll have to check this out! I literally just played through and beat this game over the weekend. A very short game, can be beaten within an hour or two.

pjft

I am not sure this qualifies as a proper ROM Hack but since it's in the romhacking.net site and it's something I'm enjoying a lot I'll share here (apologies if it's already been shared).

Super Road Blaster is, of all things, a conversion from a laserdisc game to the SNES. It's something that shouldn't really exist (an actual cartridge of such a game would take upwards of 6000 Mbit, whereas the largest commercial SNES cartridge was around 48, I believe), and yet it's probably the most enjoyable way to play this game on RetroPie, since it doesn't work on Daphne, the Sega CD version has terrible graphics and the PSX version controls terribly (same for the Sega CD one).

So yeah. It's a classic FMV game from 1986, published by Data East with animation from Toei. The video has been compressed from the HD iPhone version, and it's a mighty impressive feat for the system, really. And the controls being simple button presses instead of an attempt to simulate an analog steering wheel make the game infinitely more enjoyable and responsive.

It relies heavily on the MSU-1 chip, so it needs an up to date version of lr-snes9x (in the experimental packages section) to run.

Hope this helps someone!

thelostsoul

@pjft well, its a port and I don't know if this is considered homebrew or romhack, that does not matter (for now, I have you in my sight now, ... don't make any sudden moves!).
I had this game on my Sega CD and its the first and only FMV based game I ever owned and played. It looks quite impressive what they achieved with the conversion here. It shows how the SNES addon could have looked like. Besides the video quality, is there any other difference between the Sega CD version? It is the one on my Pi too, alongside with some other FMV games I want to try soon.

@quicksilver I also beat it by accident this year. When I just wanted try to capture a screenshot in the first stage, I ended up in the credits and I don't know what happened there. I wish some of the romhacks with new level design would work with this colorized version.