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ROM Hacking Discussion / Re: Hack ideas: for those without the skill but with all the ideas.

« on: November 21, 2014, 12:18:47 am »

I think I recall seeing certain mods done to N64 games so that they could have better textures, so I was wondering if it would be possible to do the same to certain GameCube games.  There also is a hack for Melee that turns it into true 16:9, however certain assets were designed for use in 4:3 mode.  I just wonder if replacing graphics files would be feasible for GameCube games.

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ROM Hacking Discussion / Re: Hack ideas: for those without the skill but with all the ideas.

« on: October 11, 2014, 12:57:41 am »

LJN never developed a thing, they only published games that Nintendo didn't want to.

HOLD IT!

LJN was just a publisher, plain and simple.  Nintendo only gave them the license to publish games, and it was not Nintendo's responsibility to publish and market games for third parties.  That's just Iwata's Nintendo showing their equivalent of white guilt for what they did 30 years ago in hopes of getting back third party support.  It's not working.

That said, a 'bad' game is purely subjective.  Most of LJN's games were playable and could be completed.  Were they good games?  It depends on the game and on the person playing them.  However, the aptly named Uncanny X-Men is what I'd call a terrible game.

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ROM Hacking Discussion / Re: Hack ideas: for those without the skill but with all the ideas.

« on: October 04, 2014, 02:39:42 am »

I've been inspired by CyberFox's ideas, so let me ask someone to hack Wrath of the Black Manta to replicate the now infamous opening scene from The Dark Knight Rises.  The ninja would be turned into the CIA agent, while the first boss would be turned into a version of Bane who has a much bigger head than usual.  All the cutscenes from the game will be imitations of various shots from that plane scene.

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ROM Hacking Discussion / Re: Pokemon Yellow NES Translation Project

« on: September 25, 2014, 02:41:29 am »

Sorry for the bump, but I have an acquaintance by the name of Dr. Floppy who seems quite adept at converting mappers.  No telling if he could modify a proprietary Chinese mapper.

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ROM Hacking Discussion / Re: Hack ideas: for those without the skill but with all the ideas.

« on: September 25, 2014, 02:31:53 am »

@Fast:  Thunder & Lightning only has 6 songs, three of which are "proper" songs that loop.  The third song is the only one that can be interrupted by sound effects, and the only song that plays in-game.  That said, what I meant by the NES complicating things more than they have any right to be is akin to make something as simple as a sparkplug change require the user to disassemble the entire motor, and not just pull off the cap that covers said sparkplug.

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ROM Hacking Discussion / Re: Hack ideas: for those without the skill but with all the ideas.

« on: September 23, 2014, 10:04:14 pm »

In Thunder & Lightning for the NES, they annoyingly swapped the sound channels around.  Most games use Square 1 for the main melody and Square 2 for the backing melody, but this does the opposite.  This wouldn't be a problem if it wasn't for the fact that the sound effects play using Square 2, making the music entirely lopsided and quiet because the backing channel is playing.  So you'd either need to swap the music channels around, or swap the sound effect channels.  If I knew how, I could probably do it myself.  But seeing as it's an NES game, something as simple like that might need work akin to reprogramming the entire sound system from scratch.  Why is doing anything for the NES almost prohibitively difficult?

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ROM Hacking Discussion / Re: Hack ideas: for those without the skill but with all the ideas.

« on: September 07, 2014, 12:47:47 am »

This is a more technical hack, but I've been playing Doki Doki Yuuenchi for the Famicom.  It's a good game, though I am not a fan of how non-player objects move.  Your player moves smoothly, while the enemies appear to be simply redrawn at a different position, which looks quite choppy at times.  It becomes especially obvious when they 'jump'.  Kick Master, also by KID, has a similar issue.  Why did they make the enemies move in such an bizarre way?  Is there a technical reason for that?

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ROM Hacking Discussion / Re: Hack ideas: for those without the skill but with all the ideas.

« on: August 08, 2014, 04:03:36 pm »

Didn't a lot of GBA games use chiptunes (Game Boy + samples) as well as a sample system like the SNES?  The most prominent example would be Phoenix Wright, since it was originally a GBA game.  Was PW's music recorded and then played back for the DS, or did it use the GBA hardware to render it?  That said, I'd like to imagine that GBA games with chiptunes were really just a continuation of the standard, and they were much more used to the GB's system than the GBA's sample system.  'retro' didn't really become a thing until the mid 2000s, when hardware generated music was finally phased out.

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ROM Hacking Discussion / Re: Pokemon Yellow NES Translation Project

« on: July 31, 2014, 03:53:47 pm »

I can't wait until this is finished, I kinda wish I could hack it "back" with the GameBoy Pokemon games.  Then again, I reckon it'd be easier to make an all new game than it would be to extensively hack one game, just because it has a similar engine that's mostly implemented...

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ROM Hacking Discussion / Re: Pokemon Yellow NES Translation Project

« on: July 22, 2014, 02:28:10 am »

No, because these games use proprietary memory addressing hardware developed by the Chinese, and each Chinese developer has their own system.  Most Chinese bootlegs such as Somari or Aladdin had to be hacked to use MMC3 in order to make reproductions.

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ROM Hacking Discussion / Re: Custom grapics Nes: Mario Luigi Wario Peach Sonic Contra megaman etc

« on: June 20, 2014, 10:15:55 pm »

I saw Contra in the title of the thread, and I was disappointed there weren't any Contra sprite edits.     Which is funny since the back of the Contra box had sprites that looked much different than the final release, see here.

http://pics.mobygames.com/images/covers/large/1085474307-00.jpg

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ROM Hacking Discussion / Re: Hack ideas: for those without the skill but with all the ideas.

« on: June 20, 2014, 10:08:11 pm »

Here's a stupid idea akin to a certain poster asking for random games to be reworked into random properties. 

Someone should hack Mendel Palace and call it "Mandel Palace", as in Howie Mandel.  All the stages an stuff would be references to the things he's known for, such as Bobby's World, being a germaphobe, and Deal or No Deal.  But I don't the NES would be capable of replicating his perfectly bald head, though...

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ROM Hacking Discussion / Re: Hack ideas: for those without the skill but with all the ideas.

« on: June 11, 2014, 02:28:51 am »

I'm honestly surprised there hasn't been a hack of Wario's Woods where Wario is colored normally and not wear a purple hat.  For example, the big image of Wario that flashes for about two seconds in the intro, it would be a simple job to re-assign the attributes of his hat to use the same palette as his sleeves do.  I'm not sure if his other sprites can be edited to look more accurate, though, but this game gives me the impression that Nintendo just didn't care enough, ironic given it's the last game released on their most influential console.

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Personal Projects / Re: Koopa Kingdom Escape (formerly MA3)

« on: May 23, 2014, 02:40:47 pm »

Sorry for the post to an old thread, but I want to say this looks good.  Of course this is your project, but I personally think "Koopa Kingdom Escape" is a kinda clunky name.  What about something like "Escape from the Koopa Kingdom", as a sort of homage to the "Escape from ..." movies?

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ROM Hacking Discussion / Re: Hack ideas: for those without the skill but with all the ideas.

« on: May 23, 2014, 02:38:59 pm »

There were actually three Star Wars games for the NES, two by JVC, one by Namco.

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ROM Hacking Discussion / Re: Hack ideas: for those without the skill but with all the ideas.

« on: April 15, 2014, 09:56:59 pm »

It is possible to make homebrew games and make money off them, though the profit margin would be very slim, much slimmer than that of your average faux-retro game that capitalizes on Nintendo's only era of relevance.  However, I had an idea for a model that combines both, where a programmer makes an NES game and releases a "mass market" version elsewhere, which will be cheaper yet bring the money in.  The NGDEV guys have a similar idea, except they make their games for the Neo Geo and Dreamcast instead.

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ROM Hacking Discussion / Re: Hack ideas: for those without the skill but with all the ideas.

« on: April 15, 2014, 01:43:33 pm »

I sure hope Infidelity finishes what he's working on, and possibly release his work documentation as well.  This will be the closest to getting Link's Awakening on the NES, but the biggest barrier would be the dungeon screen sizes; the NES displays 256x224, while the GameBoy only does 160x144.

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ROM Hacking Discussion / Re: Hack ideas: for those without the skill but with all the ideas.

« on: April 13, 2014, 01:18:58 pm »

I like the ideas Johnny, but I think it'd be easier if you used assets from Link's Awakening and drew whatever didn't exist in LA with a similar style.  I don't think Link will have more than three colors unless you want to see flicker everywhere, so everyone will have few colors like they did in LA.

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ROM Hacking Discussion / Re: Hack ideas: for those without the skill but with all the ideas.

« on: April 12, 2014, 10:23:17 pm »

I say convert that B-I to use MMC5 and turn it into Link's Awakening.

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ROM Hacking Discussion / Re: Hack ideas: for those without the skill but with all the ideas.

« on: April 11, 2014, 02:25:20 pm »

Would a hack of Salamander where one combines the title screens of the American and Japanese versions be feasible?  For example, we hack the Japanese one which had the animated flare and star field:



And change the Japanese into "Life Force" from the American one.



That would effectively call the game "Life Force Salamander", like the European release, but I was just curious if it's at all possible.