[Drakon]

Playthrough video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wErLSJX4kbo&feature=youtu.be

What this hack features:

Sram saving, no more passwords, it saves everything I felt is important even what loop you're in.  I did the lazy version and just replaced the "password" jump with a jump to my loading code and renamed it "continue".  I set the cursor to default to continue so you have to press "select" to erase your data making it difficult to erase your game by accident.  It saves when you start a new stage, when you enter a new substage (going through one of those mid-stage doors) and right after you die, all automatically.

All stages are played in sequence giving you the full experience.  No more choosing routes, now you get to play every stage in the game!  Don't have time to do it all in one sitting?  Worry not! Because there's sram saving so you can turn it off and come back to it whenever you feel.

I changed most of the game palette data, I wanted to get rid of that whole cartoon feel and give it a more realistic look.

Alucard is now the main character with the freeze attack and mr belmont is the backup character that you start your new game with.  Both characters always have fully powered up weapons no more need to pickup weapon upgrades (I had to disable it due to a bug with alucard).  Since you play every stage you can pick up any side character you want, yes you can have two alucards if you want.  Whenever you pass through a substage door or start a new stage / die, alucard's weapon reverts back to the freeze attack so don't worry if you pick up the clock weapon.

I changed which song is played at which point of the game, this is merely a preference thing.

I changed the title screen from a bunch of japanese kanji into what I think is a nicer set of tiles (see above screenshot).  Again, preference.

This indeed runs on real hardware, this playthrough was recorded from an av famicom with a converted madara vrc6 famicom cartridge.

The debugger used to locate ram addresses, locate code I want to change, and check my inserted code was fceux debug build.  ReVamp was used for most of the palette changes but still a lot of palette changes I had to do manually.  yy-chr was used for the tile changes of the title screen.  Winhex was used for ending credit and title screen text changes.  All programming changes I just typed myself in hex in notepad and inserted using a hex editor.

Will I release the ips?  No, I don't feel like giving out this much work freely.  But for anyone who's interested in hacking away at castlevania 3j here's my hacking notes so you can make your own awesome hack! (I want to inspire more people to learn how to do this):

https://www.mediafire.com/?zdik4tf5iw3ng77

[Vanya]

Pretty damn cool. I'd definitely like to give this a try.
SRAM is always a great addition to any NES game. How complex is it? Are you just saving the password and loading it automatically?
I'd love to see a more fleshed out version of it some day with say multiple save slots, an interface and skipping the intro scene. If it hasn't been done by the time I finish my Megaman project I might just tackle it.
Also, is it compatible with the translation?
And are you going to release the SRAM, Long Version, And Alucard hacks separately?

[tomaitheous]

Nice! Very nice! I hope you keep at the ASM hacking. So many doors and possibilities open up when you ASM hack.

[Morinis]

Now that is very nice to see!  Currently almost done watching it all the way through and liking of what was done so far.

Though I deeply enjoy the original I am liking the fact that all stages can be played through without any choices of routes to take!  Looking at this more as I'm at the 58 minute mark I'm already seeing tons of possibilities to add onto this hack like more music tracks instead of the same ones, new bosses along with new boss mechanics to dodge the repeats and new abilities for the heroes to undertake new obstacles.

So many possibilities it's awesome 

My hat goes off to you sir and am definitely keeping an eye on this hack's progress to see on what comes up next!

[Drakon]

*old first post*

I spent a lot of this past weekend learning how the nes / vrc6 handles bankswitching, sram stuff and picking apart the castlevania 3j rom.  Firstly I expanded the length of the game so instead of choosing between 3 different routes you get to play every stage of the game in order:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXWePJbC2eM

Too many cool stages so why should you have to choose between the stages you play when you could play them all and get a better overall experience.

Since the length of the game was greatly increased I decided to learn how to program in SRAM saving.  Learning this was difficult but fun at the same time.  I really learned a lot about nes assembly messing around with this.  As complicated as fceux is (it's really not beginner friendly) it truly is a powerful and wonderful rom hacking tool.  Also having lots of great nes mapper programming documentation on nesdev is the reason this sort of things happened.  Here's a video of the SRAM hack working on a real cartridge (converted madara vrc6 famicom cart):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1i7-XYTm7RM

Like my other hack this hack also includes changes from previous hacks like having the music tracks changed on stages and having you start with alucard with the freeze attack as the main character and mr belmont as the second character.  I also fixed a lot of bugs from previous hacks.  The sram hack is identical to the long version hack just with sram saving replacing the password screen which is why I just recorded a quick demo instead of re-recording an entire playthrough.

Both of these recordings are made from a real NES (av famicom with a nesrgb kit installed) using a real vrc6 cartridge with a socketed prg rom.

Like a lot of my hacks this didn't start with any clear sense of direction or ideas of what I wanted to do.  I just approached this with the mentality of "let's poke around the ram whenever I have free time and document what is what".  I did know that I love this game so it was definitely worth sitting down and picking it apart whenever I found free time.

I want to credit spikeman for really helping me understand a lot of fundamentals of assembly language, system memory maps, how old console programming works and romhacking in general.  Even though spikeman had nothing to do with this specific project, working with spikeman in the past really made it easier for me to learn how to pick this game apart.  Having the general foundation really helps me figure things out on my own faster.  Another person to give credit to is Tiido.  Tiido is another great person who helps me with assembly language / hardware related questions when he has time as long as the questions show I've done my homework and the answer is short and not too time consuming.  I contacted snarfblam asking for suggestions on how to go about adding SRAM and he's the one who suggested the easiest (and best) way to do it is hijacking the password option in the main menu and just have a single save slot.

Now that is very nice to see!  Currently almost done watching it all the way through and liking of what was done so far.

Though I deeply enjoy the original I am liking the fact that all stages can be played through without any choices of routes to take!  Looking at this more as I'm at the 58 minute mark I'm already seeing tons of possibilities to add onto this hack like more music tracks instead of the same ones, new bosses along with new boss mechanics to dodge the repeats and new abilities for the heroes to undertake new obstacles.

So many possibilities it's awesome 

My hat goes off to you sir and am definitely keeping an eye on this hack's progress to see on what comes up next!

Adding so many more things may be difficult.  The max prg size of the vrc6 is 256k and this game uses almost all of it.  I had to code in bankswitches to get at more free space to insert new code.  I actually had to optimize a lot of my code just to get everything to fit.  Fitting in the bankswitches was the hardest part.  My code could be further optimized but it works as is so smeh.  Adding music is more doable because you could just overwrite songs that are no longer used.

You probably won't see much other progress on this.  I've pretty much done everything that I feel makes the game better.  To me this is as perfect of an experience as I could make.

Pretty damn cool. I'd definitely like to give this a try.
SRAM is always a great addition to any NES game. How complex is it? Are you just saving the password and loading it automatically?
I'd love to see a more fleshed out version of it some day with say multiple save slots, an interface and skipping the intro scene. If it hasn't been done by the time I finish my Megaman project I might just tackle it.
Also, is it compatible with the translation?
And are you going to release the SRAM, Long Version, And Alucard hacks separately?

I'm not saving the password I tracked down where in the ram all information I want to save it kept.  I'm sure I saved some information that the password system doesn't keep track of.  What it saved is who your main guy is, what his weapon is, who the second guy is, what his weapon is, current number of lives, current stage, current substage, and if you've looped the game or not.  I wrote a block of code that transfers those ram locations into the sram area and vice versa depending on if you choose "new" or "continue" in the main menu.  I completely bypassed the password system and added my own code.  Since this is one save slot I made the cursor default to "continue" so you have to hit select to start a new game making it hard to erase your data by accident.  I don't know if it's compatible with the translation but it should be.  I added new code in usused rom areas (fuill of ff ff ff) and then just replaced a 3-4 hex command with a jump command to my code.  If this gets released I'm releasing everything in one big hack.

Something I forgot to mention in the first post you need to start a new game before you continue or it will crash.  I didn't bother writing any code to check if the sram has data or not, I could add that I just can't be bothered right now.

Nice! Very nice! I hope you keep at the ASM hacking. So many doors and possibilities open up when you ASM hack.

Thanks.  I agree.  After doing something like this I'm starting to feel like I can do just about anything to a game if I spend enough time at it.  ASM hacking may be the hardest type of romhacking but it's certainly the most powerful way to do things as you can make changes to the actual game engine.

I'm only releasing the actual rom to certain people.  I don't want to make a public release with this.  If anything I want to use this as a way to "show people what can be accomplished by learning asm".  What I will release are my hacking notes used to make this hack.  I want people to take my notes and use them to learn assembly and make their own hacks.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/m869hm395xjbv1k/Drakon+Castlevania+3+J+hacking+notes.txt

Yes the notes are messy and confusing but it's a lot better than starting with nothing.

[Clippit]

Awesome!! I really love the idea of playing thru all of the stages without missing anything. But... I really don't like the idea of having Alucard unlocked from the beginning. You think you could make an alternate patch to only remove the routes? Also, I'm not a fan of music changes either. Don't get me wrong, it all looks really well done, but I'd like to simply have the original game extended without all the extra stuff. Wouldn't one be able to use multiple patches in the same ROM, anyway? Why include all of your hacks together?

[Satoshi_Matrix]

I agree. Please make an vanilla hack that keeps all of the music where it's suppose to be. I don't mind Alucard being unlocked, but please make a version that keeps the music cues where they should be.

[Morinis]

Adding so many more things may be difficult.  The max prg size of the vrc6 is 256k and this game uses almost all of it.  I had to code in bankswitches to get at more free space to insert new code.  I actually had to optimize a lot of my code just to get everything to fit.  Fitting in the bankswitches was the hardest part.  My code could be further optimized but it works as is so smeh.  Adding music is more doable because you could just overwrite songs that are no longer used.

You probably won't see much other progress on this.  I've pretty much done everything that I feel makes the game better.  To me this is as perfect of an experience as I could make.

Oh I see.  I was aware of the 256k limit on ROM's but my word, didn't know it was THAT big!

Yeah, would be interesting to add/edit songs as I myself is still trying to figure out how both the U.S and Japan ROM's tick for music since I want to do music hacks for certain projects that I have planned for Castlevania III and/or Akumajou Densetsu (want to aim at Akumajou more since I have found an English hack for it).  People have told me how to do such music hacks but since I don't have much experience on in-depth hacking and most 'tutorials' that I've read on ASM Programming and 6502 Assembly doesn't help me out much since there's not much there unless I've found some poorly explained ones.  So for now I'm just messing around creating custom character designs to place into the character sprite areas while still continuing to find info that will help me in editing Castlevania III's music or someone that is willing to volunteer their spare time when they desire to in order to help me out in editing/adding music for the projects.  I might have to release a project beforehand before anyone takes me seriously about helping me out in my quest for hacking the music lol 

[Drakon]

Awesome!! I really love the idea of playing thru all of the stages without missing anything. But... I really don't like the idea of having Alucard unlocked from the beginning. You think you could make an alternate patch to only remove the routes? Also, I'm not a fan of music changes either. Don't get me wrong, it all looks really well done, but I'd like to simply have the original game extended without all the extra stuff. Wouldn't one be able to use multiple patches in the same ROM, anyway? Why include all of your hacks together?

Yeah it's easy to make a version with only some of the changes.

I found some interesting bugs today.  For some reason when you die mid stage it saves with the number of lives you had before you died.  When you die during a boss fight it resets to the main menu instead of returning to the stage, and it seems to give you an extra life heh.

Oh I see.  I was aware of the 256k limit on ROM's but my word, didn't know it was THAT big!

Yeah, would be interesting to add/edit songs as I myself is still trying to figure out how both the U.S and Japan ROM's tick for music since I want to do music hacks for certain projects that I have planned for Castlevania III and/or Akumajou Densetsu (want to aim at Akumajou more since I have found an English hack for it).  People have told me how to do such music hacks but since I don't have much experience on in-depth hacking and most 'tutorials' that I've read on ASM Programming and 6502 Assembly doesn't help me out much since there's not much there unless I've found some poorly explained ones.  So for now I'm just messing around creating custom character designs to place into the character sprite areas while still continuing to find info that will help me in editing Castlevania III's music or someone that is willing to volunteer their spare time when they desire to in order to help me out in editing/adding music for the projects.  I might have to release a project beforehand before anyone takes me seriously about helping me out in my quest for hacking the music lol 

The information is out there, you just need to learn it.

[Morinis]

Heh, yeah.  Patience is becoming my virtue.

[Vanya]

I'm not saving the password I tracked down where in the ram all information I want to save it kept.  I'm sure I saved some information that the password system doesn't keep track of.  What it saved is who your main guy is, what his weapon is, who the second guy is, what his weapon is, current number of lives, current stage, current substage, and if you've looped the game or not.  I wrote a block of code that transfers those ram locations into the sram area and vice versa depending on if you choose "new" or "continue" in the main menu.  I completely bypassed the password system and added my own code.  Since this is one save slot I made the cursor default to "continue" so you have to hit select to start a new game making it hard to erase your data by accident.  I don't know if it's compatible with the translation but it should be.  I added new code in usused rom areas (fuill of ff ff ff) and then just replaced a 3-4 hex command with a jump command to my code.  If this gets released I'm releasing everything in one big hack.

So that means that the password code can be gutted, right?
Ideally what I would want to do with this is try to add in some of the features from the US version like Grant's dagger, add some more music tracks to eliminate duplicates, and clean up the map screens some.
Beyond that there is a project that I've had brewing in the back of my head for a while that I'd like to try in the future, but it's in a bit of a different direction from yours.

[Drakon]

Yes the password system code could certainly be gutted.  I'm fine with projects that go in different directions that's what makes romhacking so great is having all this diversity.  I try to encourage people to learn how to actually asm hack and not rely on "utilities" to give you true freedom over your hack.  I really hope my hacking notes are are helpful start for your project.

As for those bugs I mentioned above I fixed them both.  Interestingly enough fixing them fixed something else that I didn't even realize was a bug.  Before I fixed those bugs changing side character erased the second character weapon for some reason, it no longer does that.  I simply fixed some jump commands to use proper bankswitching.  I was still learning nes asm and vrc6 bankswitching while coding this.

I further adjusted the saving routine so it also saves whenever you die, this eliminates the possibility of hitting reset to regain your lost life.  It also now auto saves whenever you go through one of those mid-stage doors.

[Morinis]

Hey Dekon, how much room do you have left on the ROM itself until it reaches the maximum limit?  I recently brainstormed up an idea of how this hack could be turned into something else though depending on that open space that is left and what could be done.

Since you eliminated the path routes in the game and could change certain aspects of the attacks and all with/to different characters, why not take away the side heroes (Alucard, Grant and Sypha) and use some of their abilities on the main hero?  Minus the wall climbing and bat ability of course.  One could turn the hack into an actual NES remake of the original Castlevania and call it Super Castlevania?  The 'super' title would be justified enough to give it!

Of the Super Castlevania concept, one could redo all of the graphics along with the layout of the rooms (if reVamped accepts the hack for editing) or implement Castlevania I's graphics onto Castlevania III?  Would be one hell of a big castle 


I got quite a few more ideas to throw into the pot for this hack but just wanted to share this small bit with ya, sir!

[Satoshi_Matrix]

the idea phase is pretty easy, its actual implantation that is the real challenge. Level editing of Akumajou Densetsu would be pretty difficult without a level editor, and considering that it's a VRC6 game, I don't think putting a level editor together would be simple.

I have no idea how neat Konami was with their code, but Capcom sure was a mess with their games, literally building one on top of the other with all sorts of unused leftovers. Importing the tilesets from Castlevania 1 would be awesome I agree, but adding more stages to the already long version seems kind of unnecessary. Maybe As a second project where the CV1 stages replace the CV3 ones, but grouped all as a single game without a stage select? I'm not so sure.

[Morinis]

I just tried to look at Akumajou Densetsu on reVamp and it didn't like it so only the U.S version is allowed on it.  My bad as I couldn't remember if it accepted it or not!  There really needs to be a level editor for Akumajou Densetsu along with a feature to add new tunes to replace the current, existing ones.  Kinda like of what one editor for Metroid has...and I can't remember of what it's called...not sure if it was Editroid or something else.  If I knew how to make a program such as this idea I would be whipping my fingers into action on creating it day in and day out until completion lol 


Oh my word no!  Not to add stages as that wouldn't be proper since everything was 'combined' back to back in Dekon's hack so really no need to do such a thing but just convert stuff to look like Castlevania I so it has that added stages feeling to it.  For me I like the feeling of just go all out and do the graphics from scratch to have it in it's own stand-alone recipe of a hack after everything else was finalized before doing so.  Of what Vanya said "to add new music tracks so there wouldn't be no repeats" is definitely agreeable as I'd love to pitch in some track ideas for them to consider!

Could add new stuff to the bosses that are used a couple of times over so it can seem like a different version but more deadly like how the Skull Knight is used in Warakiya Village then again in the 2nd part of Alucard's Cave with the bone throwing bit around the screen.

I agree to you as well sir as everyone is to each their own in their thoughts!

[Drakon]

Hey Dekon, how much room do you have left on the ROM itself until it reaches the maximum limit?  I recently brainstormed up an idea of how this hack could be turned into something else though depending on that open space that is left and what could be done.

Since you eliminated the path routes in the game and could change certain aspects of the attacks and all with/to different characters, why not take away the side heroes (Alucard, Grant and Sypha) and use some of their abilities on the main hero?  Minus the wall climbing and bat ability of course.  One could turn the hack into an actual NES remake of the original Castlevania and call it Super Castlevania?  The 'super' title would be justified enough to give it!

Of the Super Castlevania concept, one could redo all of the graphics along with the layout of the rooms (if reVamped accepts the hack for editing) or implement Castlevania I's graphics onto Castlevania III?  Would be one hell of a big castle 


I got quite a few more ideas to throw into the pot for this hack but just wanted to share this small bit with ya, sir!

I personally have no interest in doing these things which is why I won't bother.  I don't know how much space would be freed up by removing the password system because I haven't had time to gut it out.  Most likely if you wanted to add something you'd need to remove something else to make space for it.  If you want to make these changes then why not do them yourself?

Two of my favourite things about this game are the side characters and the graphics so you won't see me changing either of those.  The graphics add atmosphere to the game and the side characters add depth to the experience.

the idea phase is pretty easy, its actual implantation that is the real challenge. Level editing of Akumajou Densetsu would be pretty difficult without a level editor, and considering that it's a VRC6 game, I don't think putting a level editor together would be simple.

I have no idea how neat Konami was with their code, but Capcom sure was a mess with their games, literally building one on top of the other with all sorts of unused leftovers. Importing the tilesets from Castlevania 1 would be awesome I agree, but adding more stages to the already long version seems kind of unnecessary. Maybe As a second project where the CV1 stages replace the CV3 ones, but grouped all as a single game without a stage select? I'm not so sure.

Correct about the implementation which is why I'm suggesting that he tries it.  Also what's with you and stage select?

I just tried to look at Akumajou Densetsu on reVamp and it didn't like it so only the U.S version is allowed on it.  My bad as I couldn't remember if it accepted it or not!  There really needs to be a level editor for Akumajou Densetsu along with a feature to add new tunes to replace the current, existing ones.  Kinda like of what one editor for Metroid has...and I can't remember of what it's called...not sure if it was Editroid or something else.  If I knew how to make a program such as this idea I would be whipping my fingers into action on creating it day in and day out until completion lol 


Oh my word no!  Not to add stages as that wouldn't be proper since everything was 'combined' back to back in Dekon's hack so really no need to do such a thing but just convert stuff to look like Castlevania I so it has that added stages feeling to it.  For me I like the feeling of just go all out and do the graphics from scratch to have it in it's own stand-alone recipe of a hack after everything else was finalized before doing so.  Of what Vanya said "to add new music tracks so there wouldn't be no repeats" is definitely agreeable as I'd love to pitch in some track ideas for them to consider!

Could add new stuff to the bosses that are used a couple of times over so it can seem like a different version but more deadly like how the Skull Knight is used in Warakiya Village then again in the 2nd part of Alucard's Cave with the bone throwing bit around the screen.

I agree to you as well sir as everyone is to each their own in their thoughts!

The people who "know how to make a program such as this idea" didn't always know how to do it, they spent time learning how to do it.  I'm sure if you spent enough time on google researching how to program software you could figure it out.  I often read people saying "I'd be doing this if I knew how to do it", you know how to research to learn these things so why not start some researching on the subject.  The internet today is saturated with a wealth of information on learning how to program software yourself you just need to spend the time learning it.

And yes the metroid editor is called editroid made by the brilliant snarfblam.

Another thing to note I just downloaded the "reVamp editor" and loaded the latest version of my hacked rom into it and it seems to have loaded just fine.  Right now I'm looking at the first stage in the level editor.

[Vanya]

Level editing in CV games beyond changing tiles and TSA seems to be a notorious pain in the butt.

[Morinis]

Another thing to note I just downloaded the "reVamp editor" and loaded the latest version of my hacked rom into it and it seems to have loaded just fine.  Right now I'm looking at the first stage in the level editor.

...really now?  I wonder if the translation hack that I have doesn't work in it then.  All this time I never bothered to try the original Japanese one as I was just editing bits and pieces in the English hack that I found by accident.  I can't believe I didn't go that route...gonna put a bag over my head and sit in the corner for the time being on this one

I personally have no interest in doing these things which is why I won't bother.  I don't know how much space would be freed up by removing the password system because I haven't had time to gut it out.  Most likely if you wanted to add something you'd need to remove something else to make space for it.  If you want to make these changes then why not do them yourself?

I'll most likely do such a thing in time once I gain more experience in the ASM Programming bit.  Was always use to my old partner doing all of the programming while I just re-edited the sprites and all.  Reason why I've been kinda 'outstretched' in some of my earlier posts and messages on here as I was still carrying a chip on my shoulder at that time from me and my partner parting ways on bad terms.  I've recently accepted the fact that I'll have to do everything myself unless someone offers to help out but still no excuse as I NEED to learn all of this.  I know the info is out there, just gotta get it all sorted out to see which is better in explaining the assembly process.

Level editing in CV games beyond changing tiles and TSA seems to be a notorious pain in the butt.

Do you  mean by hand as to program it all by scratch or by the level editors?

[Vanya]

Do you  mean by hand as to program it all by scratch or by the level editors?

By hand. The editors don't let you do anything beyond tiles, TSA, and objects. In other words you're stuck with the room progression of the original rooms. This is rather limiting when compared, for example to the complete control most Megaman editors give.

[Morinis]

By hand. The editors don't let you do anything beyond tiles, TSA, and objects. In other words you're stuck with the room progression of the original rooms. This is rather limiting when compared, for example to the complete control most Megaman editors give.

Oh I see.  I always did feel limited while using reVamp for C3's rooms and all that, especially when you can't edit the opening scene with Trevor before Area 1...