/vr/ - Retro Games

>>887445
I wish I was, I would love to translate a game for people. There are games that should be in portuguese.

>>887445

Well, Portuguese is seriously underrepresented. Some platforms are pretty easy to translate for. What games did you have in mind?

>>887476
Anything that people might want, I suppose. I looked a bit into GBA rom hacking (not retro) and couldn't really wrap my head around it. Codes...letters...ugh.

I don't think I'll be getting into it. My Portuguese is slightly above basic, so I would probably need a bit of help with that too. I just want to be helpful ;-;

Any good resources for someone wanting to get into romhacking?

>>887482

Well, if you want to start with tools, there's always Zophar.net

Other than that, get familiar with base 16 (hexadecimal) and look up a guide on how to find and make cheats. Given enough time, shit will start making sense.

>>887482
There is ONE good site.

Romhacking.net

I've actually been working on taking apart Castlevania, trying to figure out where everything is. I've already gotten everything chopped up into the 8 banks of the PRG ROM, but the graphical data... First I had to chop 8 bytes off the header for the graphics to look correct in graphical editors, now I'm finding out that the referenced graphics tiles for the TSA or whatever it's called are NOT as they appear. Instead every level uses about 143 unique tiles, and the rest of the 255 are all taken from the same two chunks of data, which is where all the GUI and power-up data is stored. I guess back then they didn't use the split-screen trick for GUI's, so all the graphical data for that had to be included in the loaded level data. Doesn't help that the graphical data isn't exactly stored in order on the ROM, with sprite data for enemies being sandwiched between parts of level data. I still can't seem to find where the game specifies the layout of the screens, or where the layout of the levels is(which is un-editable in Stake). That last part is really important, since without that every Castlevania hack out there is forced to use the default layout for levels.

Found some interesting bits here and there, including how to alter the jump physics.

Once I finally get everything figured out I plan on making an editor more full featured and easy to use than Stake. Don't get me wrong, I love the guy's work, but Stake isn't complete enough for serious hacks.

>>887840
This.

Here is the titlescreen from the Starflight MegaDrive hack I'm working on at the moment. Slow progress, but slowly making changes

>>888076

Derp, forgot pic

I've started working on my Megaman 5 romhack again using Mega Fle X 0.701 level editor.

I feel like MM5 is the weakest of the NES series : it got plenty of cool ideas and gimmicks but barely even used, lot's of unused potential because the level design is too simple. So my goal is to keep the original assets and come up with interesting level design. I've already re-made 10 stages so there are 4 stages left + 2 small ones (the ones before Proto and Wily bosses which are only a few screens short).

Once I'm done with the levels I'll try to make my own musics too since I'm a musician/composer. However I know this will be a hard task, but at least it will get my hack noticed since there are plenty of hacks out there I'm afraid nobody will care about mine unless it does something more such as brand new musics.

>>887445
How the hell were games even programmed back then, written entirely in hexadecimal? HOW DOES THAT EVEN MAKE SENSE? HOW CAN YOU READ IT?

>>888086
You might wanna do that with flash or something. Mega Man ROM Hacks never get any attention.

I have also made user maps for Duke Nukem 3D. Screenshots, download and description in the links :

3 levels in this episode
http://www.moddb.com/mods/metropolitan-mayhem/downloads/metropolitan-mayhem

2 standalone single player maps
http://www.moddb.com/members/nesfag/addons/galbadia
http://www.moddb.com/members/nesfag/addons/sin-center

2 deathmatch maps :
http://www.moddb.com/members/nesfag/addons/atomic-bunker
http://www.moddb.com/members/nesfag/addons/canyon-bunker

>>888089
Too late. Not gonna start from scracth. And that's why I want to make my own musics, to attract attention.

Plus I want to want cartridge versions of it once it's done to play on original hardware.

Any MM romhacks still get a few hundred downloads and that's enough by me.

>>888087

Thats the joy of assembly! It doesnt make a lot of sense, but with tinme and a reference, you can work out what it's doing.

>>888101
Even though it won't help with programming the music, I would suggest you use Famitracker to help you "give an idea" of what the song is supposed to be like, then try to program the song.

>>888104
Is that why a lot of games were made by the Japanese?

I found this the other day and.... actually I'm surprised no one did exactly this before now: http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/1156/

Basically it binds vanilla FireRed and LeafGreen together to make the best port of RBY. Also they put Hoenn mons in a place removed from the region, a seriously good idea because why use those in vanilla FRLG?

>>888106

>Japanese are better at computers
Not necessarily. Plus, most consoles got compilers in the end

>>888089
>Mega Man ROM Hacks never get any attention.
Tell that to minus infinity and the endless hacks. The former at least used to be mentioned everywhere on /vr/.

I don't know how to do it myself, but the concept presented by this fanmade mock game make me want to learn how to do this kind of stuff.

Alternatively, are there any Zelda 2 hacks? Maybe something to clean the game up a bit (ie. fix translation bugs or add new continue points) or even an expanded game?

Has anyone ever made or considered making a ROM hack that combined the NES and FDS versions of both the original Zelda and Zelda II? I'm talking like getting the FDS versions, and adding any changes or improvements made to them when they ported them to NES.

>>888164
Novel concept, kind of like the Metroid hack that adds the save system in from the FDS game?

If nothing else, I would dig a text box mod to make them flow more smoothly (in Zelda 2). Another cool addition could be new graphics for each dungeon, but that would require a bit more work and would be less of a 'vanilla+' mod.

>>888171
Basically, what I'm thinking of would be going through these:

http://tcrf.net/The_Legend_of_Zelda#Version_Differences

http://tcrf.net/Zelda_II:_The_Adventure_of_Link#Regional_differences

And combining the best aspects of both.

For Zelda II, this would basically amount to keeping most of the FDS audio tracks and sound effects, the moving water tiles in the overworld, and a few other things, but adding all of the additions and improvements from the NES version. The original would have a healthier mix of elements from both versions, I'd imagine.

>>888137
There are dozens and dozens of MM hacks. Most of them remain rather unnoticed except from romhack fanatics, only the most technical ones or the ones that change the most stuff so that it looks like a new game get a lot of attention like Minus Infinity or Endless

>>888164
Personally I would like for there to be a hack of SMB3 that adds a save function. Or maybe adding a password system to Blaster Master and Bionic Commando, since those were really long (and great) games that had to be played in one setting.

In SMB3's case, all it needs to keep track of would be:

>world
>did you beat the midboss? if so, the shortcut is opened
>items collected

Any other tracking would be needless.

The Mario 64 Star Road rom hack is really impressive.

http://youtu.be/_JBdxcnyxeQ

Star Road 2 is looking good also

http://youtu.be/haWDxT2QG34

tfw no Ocarina of Time or Majora's Mask romhacks

>>888219
did SMB3 not have a save system? It saved after every [mid] castle

>>888196
>http://tcrf.net/Zelda_II:_The_Adventure_of_Link#Regional_differences
>The princess in Zelda 2 is a different princess from the princess zelda in the first game

Well shit. What's up with that?

Also, I never noticed the changes in graphics in Z2 while playing, at least not all of them. Apparently the FDS version was even worse about repeating sprites.

>>888217
I couldn't get this to emulate correctly last time I tried, could you recommend an emulator to run it on?

>>888219
Why not play All-Stars?

>>888229
In All Stars, yes. The NES game was a single playthrough. Essentially, we would replicate All Star's saving system.

>>888230
>playing the inferior remakes
>playing as Mexican Mario
>playing the original version of trumpetshit
>playing WONKED OUT PHYSICS

Shit, I had another idea. Has anyone considered remaking SMB1 using SMB2J's new graphics, physics, and sounds? I reckon this would be the ultimate version of SMB1, m8. Does SMB2J have any level editor tools?

>>888240
Wouldn't SMB1 be a bit weird with the new bounce physics? It would be neat anyway I guess.

>>888234
The only inferior remake in that cart is of SMB1 if you ask me.

>>888253
But it'd look good, and you get to play as top tier LUIG. Also that sliding sound.

trying to get ancient cave to work. both snes9x and zsnes refuse to load the save state after i rename them accordingly. anyone feel like giving me a step by step? also which emulator should i be using? the newest version on snes9x wont work for some reason...

>>888291
that is the final fantasy v ancient cave hack for anyone that might not have caught on..

>>88826

>tfw it's Zelda's Birthday

>>888291
any help would be great. been trying to play for a while now.

>>888291
>save state

Um...have you patched the ROM? Why would you need to load a save state to get a hack to work? Seriously, so many questions.

>>888317
i have the prepatched rom where it is said in a note that you must load the savestate to start at the part in the game where the ancient cave is or it might fuck up everything. if i patch it myself will the game just start where it needs to be?

>>888347
I would try patching it yourself (with LIPS) and then loading the state.

Also, make sure the state's not compressed. If it was generated with Mednafen or anything that uses similar compression, it won't work in Snes9x/ZSNES

>>888079
starflight is great. are you trying to turn it into a megadrive version of mass effect?

>>888347
I see, I don't see anything like that for the english patch I see online. Get a fresh FF5J ROM, get the patch from the Super TT Bros Wiki, and patch it following the instructions on the site. I can't vouch for any patch claiming you need to load a savestate for it to work.

>>888350
cool, trying this real quick

>>888368

Yes. No real gameplay changes, just starflight but with a mass effect skin, basically.

>>888350
>>888364
it just starts me at a new game. am i supposed to play through the game til i get to the combined worlds?

>>888398

If the readme says to use a savestate included in the download, I'd use it. Seems like a lazy way to make a hack, but meh.

>>888429
zsnes is unable to open state. anyone give it a go for me and tell me where i am fucking this up?

>>888226
I know of 2. One that actually changes stuff, and another that's a hack for the Master Quest debug rom that turns it into a boss-rush game.

I'm a little bit programming-minded, but I suck at rom hacking. I occasionally do save hacking work when I'm bored because it's easy. I've attempted hacking for a translation but I kinda got confused by the time I was working with assembly and pointers, but I could probably get it now.

This would be a good place to start with learning any assembly:
http://www.tutorialspoint.com/assembly_programming/assembly_introduction.htm

It wasn't as confusing to read it as a lot of tutorials are.

>>888436
how am i supposed to load the srm file? i know a lot of people here have played this hack

>>888134
I'm guessing the proprietary compilers are kept under wraps, but given how much hacking and disassembly occurs for the snes, is there no user friendly programming language that will get written to ASM for snes roms? Like, what if I wanted to make a shitty game from scratch?

>>888505
>>888505
5/10 nice try.

>>888559
ok obviously i am an idiot and this is where my problem is. link me to something so i can not be so stupid anymore

>>888436
Not to start THAT war again, but isn't ZSNES incompatible with states and saves from every other emulator in existence?

>>888545

I don't know about SNES, but for Genesis/MD there is a basic compiler (called something like basigeaxorz or something)

>>887445
There was a mega.co.nz page that was up for a while that had a huge ass list of hacked roms from NES to even Playstation. Does anyone happen to have the link for that?

>.nsf

>>888151
Damn, the game over sound from the Japanese version sounds more like an 8-bit airhorn!

Ys 5

I'm right now playing through The Secret of the 7 Golden Statues- an SMW romhack. It's not perfect but I like how it adds a lot of cool moves like wall jumping and ground pounding.

Where's that /vr/ romhacks link? There are some decent ones there.

>>888087
Compilers. Herp.

>>888087
Dude. You program in one language that's easier for you to read. You run it through a compiler that converts it into the basic code that the machine uses. Hence Machine Code.

>>890239
>>890283
Although there were lots of things written by amateurs directly in machine code (IOW, they assembled it by hand). I doubt any console game was written that way, though; I know Atari had assemblers running on VAXen, and macro assemblers were widespread after that. Still, no one used a compiler in the more common sense of the word for videogames until really the fifth generation.

Assembly language is actually very easy to learn, because the operations the machine does are each very simple. If y'all want to learn more, here's a good modern intro to 6502 asm:
http://skilldrick.github.io/easy6502/

Something I've been working on a bit lately is a dream-diary style game for the GBC.

>>890371
Marble Madness was programmed in C using a compiler.

I have made a lot of patches for the Commander keen games.
>>888087
They were written in assembly language.


Assembly language is more or less human-readable machine code.

Does anybody have any good resources for Romhacking tools or tutorials? I'm new to this but I had a stroke of inspiration today that's probably never gonna go anywhere but I'd like to try.

>>890726

As said everywhere, www.romhacking.net

>>888641
Who are you quoting?

Also I don't see why it's even necessary to use [SCREAMS EXTERNALLY] aside from a shout out to "The best internet meme in existence".

 

>>890726
On top of what
>>890846
said, I highly recommend HxD for your Hex Editor needs. Fully functional, free, and the only hex editor I've ever used that let me copy and paste the hex directly into notepad without the hex getting converted all screwy.

Tile Layer Pro is my preferred graphic editing program. You will need to copy the palette's from the game to see what things will look like in-game, and you might need to chop of part of the ROM header file for some graphics to appear properly since it has issues doing offsets, but it's still easier to use and work with than most other ROM graphics programs.

Of course, it all depends on what level of involvement you want. If you want to create some truly crazy memorable hacks, you need to learn all you can about the system and game you are dealing with, learn the proper ASM, and get experienced with disassembly and debugging.

If you just wanna mess around with level creation and graphics and whatnot, then find a ROM with good tools available for it of the type of game you want to make.

Tecmo Super Bowl still has regular roster updates. It's my favorite romhack.

>>888604
Yeah. There was a big folder on mega.co.nz.
I actually had it bookmarked but it looks like it ended up getting deleted or something.

>>887445
one day, I'll finish mapping down the script variables for Madou Monogatari Saturn. Other than that, no projects for now.

>>888079
>derp
get out

>>893365
Well, the best we can do for now is make a new mega folder and rebuild with all the files we have.

>>893402

No, you should leave

http://www.mediafire.com/?k8vhk1o6dlww84u
http://www.mediafire.com/?ya6nprtqs15ar4s

It's not as extensive as that one guy's set, but I uploaded these packs a while ago in one of these threads. It's better than nothing.

So I started working on my Megaman V romhack again.

A few romhack threads ago somebody link to a megaman-only hacking forum, does anybody still have the link? that would be really useful. thanks

I'm considering making romhacks of every game with a difficulty setting, just changing the hardest difficulty to "Running a KFC in Hyrule"

what are the most up-to-date romsets that contain all known hacks?

>used to just getting the shitty nogood set, then getting the most recent translated rom set, then the Goodset

I just want the fucking hacks I already have NTSC rom sets for the consoles that matter.


I am aware that a complete NES set is something like 3GB zipped where a NES usa rom set is like 250mb zipped.

>>893434
>>893365
>>893537
>>893537
Got the link everyone!
https://mega.co.nz/#F!R8RCnZZY!Zxyqoynu9GVWIwFHCISK2Q
Make sure to circulate and save this around before this thread 404s.

If you ever do forget it, go where I went: http://archive.foolz.us/vr/search/text/romhacking%20mega.co.nz/

>>895357

I just finished Super Metroid Revolution EX. It was a decent romhack, although it had lots of annoying bits.

I wish more Super Metroid romhacks made it easier to find stuff and not get lost, sigh