Mega Man: Dimensions

[AlexAR]

Dr. Wily has finally done it! He has perfected his TransDimensional Ray Mark 2.  His first version reeked havoc in the Mushroom Kingdom. Mega Man was forced to travel to Mario's old playgrounds and stop Wily's evil robot army. This time around, Wily has invaded not only the Mushroom Kingdom, but various NES Dimensions. Again, Mega Man is called upon to enter these strange new lands, and rid them of Wily's destructive minions, all the while defending himself from the indigenous enemies.




This is a Mega Man 3 hack I am working on. I am using MegaFlex .42 This is a sort of sequel to my Mega Man in the Mushroom Kingdom romhack. You Tube Video Here

I will be including  Kirby, Zelda and Ninja Gaiden themed levels as well. If I can get Sonic the Hedgehog to display properly in yy-chr, I will add a Sonic themed level too. I will be happy to answer any questions/comments.

EDIT: 8/19/07
Official level theme list: SMB3, Metroid, Castlevania 3, Kirby's Adventure, Zelda 2, Ninja Gaiden, Sonic the Hedgehog, Kid Icarus

[Kitsune Sniper]

Did you know there's a couple of pirate Sonic games for the NES? Maybe you can steal - uh, borrow graphics from there.

[Celice]

Stealing from pirating is wrong though

I love novelties like these.  It's sorta refreshing to see the old games in a new light, even if they're still in another old game ^^;;  I'll be sure to download this once it's finished.

[Nosuch]

Are you planning to try any music hacking in it?  I mean, I wouldn't complain if it still had the original MM3 songs (it was always one of my favorite game soundtracks), but I think it'd be cool to be able to play the new levels with songs from their respective games, if that's possible.

Beyond that, I'm just curious what other level themes you have in mind.  You've already mentioned six (maybe seven if the Sonic level works out), but what are you considering for the other level?  What about the Wily castle levels?

[AlexAR]

Those are very good questions Nosuch. I haven't looked at the Nes Sonic games yet, but I feel confident I will be able to rip the GFX from  either the Genesis, Master System or some other version. Hell, I will draw em my self if need be. I never expected the Sonic GFX to be 100% pixel perfect.

So thats 7 themes pretty much confirmed.  Leaving 1 full level and the Wily levels. The 6 Wily levels share tile data which will complicate things. I think I will be able to throw in 2 separate themes between the 6 Wily stages.

If there are not enough tiles total to give the Wily levels a proper theme, I may consider just mixing all available themes. Kinda like a Dimensional collapse thingy where bits of previous Universes are melding together. That would probably be easier.

But technically, I have 3 themes left to choose. I am completely open to suggestions. People have already suggested, Ducktales, The Krion Quest, Darkwing Duck, Yo Noid! and Little Mermaid. Googie is working on a Darkwing Duck/Mega Man hack already, so I will not use that one.  I was thinking maybe Strider, Adventure Island, Battletoads, Bionic Commando.

If anyone likes one of these themes or has a suggestion of their own, please by all means.

[Space King]

Kid Icarus?

[z01]

On the topic of pirated games for NES...
I think there's a couple of Earthworm Jim ports. EWJ gives +10 awesome points to anything

[Jigglysaint]

Try Blaster Master.  From there you have 8 areas to choose from, and depending on which level gets which theme, one may be better than another.  Like if the level is a water level, stage 5 is better, or six for an ice world.

You could also just mess arround big time and use tiles from a game like Superman for the NES.  Also, the simplier the tileset is, the liklihood you can put more themes into Dr. Wily's stages.

[AlexAR]

Kid Icarus and Blaster Master are good options I completely forgot about.  I should have mentioned before, or maybe it goes without saying..that, I am going for recognizability in my themes.  You see those ? turn blocks..Boom you think SMB.   You see a Chozo Statue..Boom thats Metroid. I can't think of an "iconic" block from Kid Icarus or blaster Master..or most of the games I previously mentioned for that matter..lol  So I guess they're as good as options as any.

I want people to instantly recognize what level the theme came from the second Mega Man appears in the first screen. I guess that's mostly up to my ripping and level building skills. Nevertheless, an obscure game is an obscure game. I should do a search on the most popular/recognizable NES games.

ANYWAYS...

Check this out.  It almost seems like I just copy/ pasted Mega Man in there...well 2 hours of cutting and gluing together this scene in MegaFLEX says otherwise..









Minor palette tweaks aside...this looks damn good if I do say so myself.  And no, I'm not gonna copy the entire original level layout. I just wanted to see if I could do this..turns out I can.

[Shadowsithe]

Zelda II? Those statue things come to mind as recognizeable.

[StarBeamAlpha]

This is great, can't wait to play this Alex!

[Jedi QuestMaster]

Looks promising. As for the music hacking there's this doc:

http://www.romhacking.net/docs/274/

[AlexAR]

I just realized I kinda ignored some older replies. Celice, thanks for the kind words. For one reason or another, I just have a fascination with taking the classics (or at least what I consider classic) and melding them together. Its as if I want the games to acknowledge each others grandness...wow..that really makes me sound insane. GAMES HAVE SOULS I SAY!.....

I just hope my "novelties" relieve some daily grind stress for some folk. Making em sure does relieve stress for me.

Nosuch, I completely ignored your "are you hacking the music" question.  I probably erased that question the second after I read it because I have absolutely zero knowledge on music hacking..that is I HAD zero. Jedi QuestMaster's little link sure does look tasty..although..it may as well be written in German. But I give you my word, I will read the document, and...well thats it,  cuze unless I get outside help, changing the music to the specific themes from their respective games ain't happening.

Also, making that Kirby scene inspired me to go ahead and ....   ( I am aware of the curtain and flame weirdness)




Yeah, you get my drift. Expect every level's initial screen to be a near perfect representation of the original games..initial and or iconic scene.  Thinking ahead though..what scene would I copy from SMB3.  Level 1-1's initial screen does not scream out..AWESOME!  I was thinking maybe the title screen screen with the checkered floor. But I already  did that for Mega Man in Mushroom Kingdom, plus it would be weird to transition from  that..to a regular looking level (No red curtain or checkered floor)


(EDIT) OK I just read that music hacking document couple dozen times.  It doesn't look unbelievably complicated at all. Unfortunately, I cant quite find where the music data begins in the rom file. Can someone explain it to me bit.  The wording in that document is a tinsy bit sketchy. I can tell the author's first language is not English/ and or is very prone to grammatical errors/and or wrote it very very fast without proof reading it.

I understand where the sound banks start..they are listed right there  in the document ($2C010). But how can I calculate the address of the currently playing song? I know I look in the memory? And then use that to find it in the rom file?

[Garoth Moulinoski]

Hmmm... If it's going to be a Megaman with other NES games' themes... Does this mean it will be a not-as-hard Megaman? DX I truly am the worst Megaman player ever (until we get to the semi-RPG one... Netbattle?) but I still like Megaman! (Kinda like me and Kid Icarus and Samurai Shodown).

How hard do you think you're going to make this?

[Tweaker]

Looks promising. As for the music hacking there's this doc:

http://www.romhacking.net/docs/274/

That looks pretty simple, actually. Maybe I should dab into music hacking on NES a bit. =P