Best Rom Hacks?

[synack]

@hooperre You can look around for "Maybe-Intro" collection that has lots of fan translations and various customizations. Also, the site smwcentral has lots of patches that you can apply (no roms) if you're looking for super mario related game hacks.

[mediamogul]

@hooperre said in Best Rom Hacks?:

Also grabbed an English hack of Star Fox 2 for SNES. Amazing!

'Star Fox 2' is indeed amazing and would easily make the top five for this type of list. A few of my personal favorite hacks in no particular order are:

Castlevania II English Re-translation (NES Translation Hack)
Many are familiar with the previous attempt to retranslate 'Castlevania II: Simon's Quest', and while it does solve all of the issues that make the game unplayable without a walkthrough, there are those who believe it goes too far in the other direction, by hand-holding you through the entire experience without any challenge. In this particular hack, great care was taken to translate the direct meaning of the clues, rather than change them to outright instructions.

Contra: Revenge of the Red Falcon (NES Game Play Hack)
Have you beaten 'Contra' so many times that it no longer presents a challenge? This hack offers up an entirely new "story" and eight level mission that also increases the difficulty without resorting to the type of cheap kills that you find in most other hacks.

Konami Wai Wai World and Wai Wai World 2: SOS from Parsley Castle (NES Translation Hack)
Ever noticed a character named "Konamiman" who pops up occasionally in Konami games? Well, he eventually got his own game in Japan and the joke was that the other main characters from previous Konami games now show up in his game. What's more is that these characters are necessary to progress through certain levels. You might need Mikey from 'The Goonies' to get under low platforms or Simon Belmont to use his whip. These characters must first be liberated from their particular games, so sending King Kong into Dracula's castle is highly entertaining unto itself.

Kung Fu 2 (NES Translation Hack)
In 1985 the black box favorite 'Kung-Fu' was released first to Japan as 'Spartan X' and unbeknownst to most people outside of that territory, 'Spartan X 2' was released six years later. The game is not nearly as iconic as the original, but it's still a good bit of fun and an interesting mix of 'Kung-Fu', 'Double Dragon' and 'Ninja Gaiden'.

Mad City (NES Translation Hack)
AKA 'The Adventures of Bayou Billy', this game is what every kid was excited to get when they read about it in the pages of 'Nintendo Power'. The amazing graphics and proposed game play/zapper compatibility had kids losing there mind on announcement. However, the powers that be felt that translating the game was not enough and decided to raise the difficulty to an almost broken level for anyone outside the land of the rising sun. This hack simply translates the original Japanese game into English, allowing the game to be played without risk of rage quitting after the first five minutes.

Splatterhouse - Wanpaku Graffiti (NES Translation Hack)
Who would have thought a game like 'Splatterhouse' could be cute? Well, Namco took a chance that it could and the whole thing pays off big time. The game is not only adorable, but the control and game play mechanics are tight, responsive and very satisfying. It's also really funny in it's entire presentation.

Sweet Home (NES Translation Hack)
Based on a Japanese horror movie of the same name, this Capcom role playing game is the company's first foray into the survival horror genre that they would eventually become famous for years later with the 'Resident Evil' franchise. I cannot recommend this game highly enough. It's just a fantastic role playing experience from beginning to end and the combat system is just as amazing as the horrifying creatures you encounter along the way.

Pokemon Snakewood (GBA Game Play Hack)
Pokemon Zombie Apocalypse!! That's all that really needs to be said, but if you're still not sold, you get to battle such atrocities as undead Pokemon parts that have been sewn together to create new monsters, as well as gestating pokemonsters that explode out of the dead corpses of other Pokemon. Too cool, too funny!

Ultimate Mortal Kombat Trilogy (Sega Genesis/Megadrive Game Play Hack)
Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words:

There are so many other worthy hacks, but I'm just going to stop here because I'm likely to blather on all day if I don't. In closing, I'd just like to leave everyone with the most horrifyingly adorable image you're likely to see all day:

[hooperre]

@mediamogul Dude this is perfect. Please, in the words of Robert Plant... Ramble On.

[mediamogul]

@hooperre

Hah! As it stands, I've been goofing off on the internet entirely too much today. These planes don't land themselves you know.

[mrbwa1]

Check out GameSack on Youtube. They have a lot of Left in the Arcades and Only in Japan episodes that talk about some of the games the didn't make it to North American consoles. A lot of the beter Japanese games have translations at least. Not so much hacks, but at least they are things us NA gamers didn't get back in the day.

[lostless]

I would say Castlevania, chorus of mysteries for nes is one to play. It's a castlevania 1 hack, but everything has been redone and resembles very little of the original game

[mediamogul]

@lostless

I would say Castlevania, chorus of mysteries for nes is one to play.

That is an amazing hack and has my vote for the best total conversion to 'Castlevania' that anyone has attempted yet. For those interested, more information and the patch file can be found here.

Another quick one is...

Mario Adventure (NES Game Play Hack)
There are a kajillion Mario hacks out there, but if you only ever play one, the most worthwhile by far is this one. Like the Contra hack I mentioned above, this is another example of a polished, well tested hack that is exceedingly challenging without ever being unfairly cheap. There's a great write up on the game here that is worth a read.

[hooperre]

@mediamogul Do you know what this Majora's Mask from GC to N64 Hack is/whether it is superior to playing a direct rip .N64 file?

(Link is to http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/2962/)

[mediamogul]

@hooperre

In the past, Nintendo has re-released previous titles on newer hardware using emulation. Occasionally, while they're at it, they make a few tweaks here and there. The most notable in my mind is when they added the missing cement factory level to the NES version of 'Donkey Kong' when it was released for the Wii Virtual Console. Another and more recent example is that all the ROMs on the 'NES Classic Edition' have been altered graphically to reduce the risk of seizures.

This hack appears to take the altered Majora's Mask ROM and eliminate some additions, such as graphical references to the Gamecube, while leaving other additions in place such as "cosmetic changes" and addtional bug fixes from Nintendo. As to which one you should use; personally, I'd just use the N64 original in this case. The original ROM may have a few remaining graphical and game play bugs that weren't originally caught by Nintendo back in the day, but millions of people have beaten it successfully with nothing but fond memories, so I personally don't think it's much of an issue.

[hooperre]

@mediamogul Ah ok. Thanks for the quick reply, bud. Good luck landing planes today.

Played the shit out of UMKT3 for genesis this weekend. Can't wait to have my brother over and get in a real fight over fake ones. Your responses are greatly appreciated.

[mediamogul]

@hooperre said in Best Rom Hacks?:

Played the shit out of UMKT3 for genesis this weekend.

Nice! It's definitely one of my favorites.

Good luck landing planes today.

Thank you! I'm not actually a pilot, mind you. I'm just the guy who nervously raises his hand when a stewardess rushes into coach and asks if anyone here can land a plane. The hardest part is the waiting... and of course controlling a commercial airliner with nothing more than a Microsoft Flight Sim certification from 1995.

[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.