Other: Castlevania 30th anniversary

[AxlRocks]

You could make a standalone thread for this. Use Dropbox to store and share files.

BTW nice work. Would be nice to play that today (Dec 17) 

Probably in the Personal Projects forum? I hesitated doing that being it's not actually hacking of anything, but then again, this thread was for a front page News article so I guess it's a welcome subject.

Thanks, glad you like it! I'll post a thread in a bit.

[SourMesen]

I finally got around to converting this to the HD Pack format that Mesen supports.
You can grab it here: https://gofile.io/?c=Z1mJLo

You need to place the contents of the zip file into the HdPacks\[CastlevaniaRomName]\ folder (e.g "HdPacks\Castlevania\" if you are loading "Castlevania.nes") and enable HD packs in Mesen for it to load properly.  This should work on both the standalone version of Mesen and the libretro port as well.

Many thanks to kya for his work on the original Nestopia hack and for his invaluable help when I was writing the script that I used to convert most of his Castlevania skin automatically.

[kya]

Ignoring Heraclitus I'm stepping into the same river twice and releasing once again a facelift patch for Castlevania. The rules are the same - the NES version of the game is updated with KONAMI-authored graphics. But this time most of the graphics are taken from the third generation of Castlevania for mobile phones.

The patch is available here:
https://yadi.sk/d/XXkso2kp3U7sjz?lang=en

As in the previous patch some of the graphics come from Vampire Killer for MSX to honor that great game which started  it all for me 30 years ago in 1988.

This time the patch does not come as a hacked Nestopia. Instead it is in a form of an "HDPack" for the excellent Mesen NES emulator. Many thanks go to its author Sour! Without his support this pack would've never existed.

Using his emulator allowed me to replace not just the graphics, but also the music of the game. The tracks are taken from various sources indicated in respective ogg tags. If you do not like these exact tracks, you may replace them with your own.

In order to use this patch you have to download the latest Mesen emulator (0.9.5 and up) from

http://www.mesen.ca

Then you should unzip and run it. Mesen will greet you with a configuration window. Pay attention what folder will be specified there as a "Data Storage Location". You need to place the contents of this HDPack zip file into the
[Data Storage Location]\HdPacks\[CastlevaniaRomName]\ folder
(e.g "HdPacks\Castlevania (USA)\" if you are loading "Castlevania (USA).nes")

Please note that unlike my previous patch which was compatible with any Castlevania or Akumajou Dracula ROM (and even with some custom level hack ROMs) this patch requires exactly the Castlevania (USA) ROM (SHA1 a31b8bd5b370a9103343c866f3c2b2998e889341)! Even Rev.A won't work.

After extracting the HDPack you should enable HDPacks in Mesen. Tick the box at
Options->Video->Enable HDNes HD Packs.

Now load the ROM into Mesen. If the game retains the original look, something went wrong. Check the location of the pack. Check the version of your ROM.

Note that you have to run the pack on a more or less powerful modern PC or laptop. Don't try it on your Celeron or Atom. If you have got a modern quad core CPU, I recommend enabling VSync for a silky smooth scrolling (Options->Video->Enable vertical sync).

P.S.
Please drop me a line on kya199 at yandex.ru, if you ever stuble upon a part 2 or 3 of the mobile phone Castlevania generation II:

http://www.vgmuseum.com/mrp/NewCV/screen-cvcphone2.htm

[Psycho Fox]

^
This update looks lovely.  I wonder, is it possible to make version that's compatible with or contains the "improved controls" patch?  I'd love to play the game looking like this but with less stiff controls and no fecking backwards knock!

[kya]

^
This update looks lovely.  I wonder, is it possible to make version that's compatible with or contains the "improved controls" patch?  I'd love to play the game looking like this but with less stiff controls and no fecking backwards knock!

Yes it's possible. Grab this patch:
https://yadi.sk/d/bYezcx3-3U8yoZ

and put it into an HDPack folder overwriting the old one.

[GeneralFailer]

The original X68000 version (not the classic mode on chronicles) is much easier. Almost everything does only 1 damage.

Who told you that? Longplays don't show any difference and even TCRF doesn't list any substantial balance tweaks. I don't think Konami has fought Western rentals much since PlayStation days.

[Whipon]

Hello Kya!.
I'm playing your hack and it looks great.
Congratulations!
However for some reason, the music of the game is the classic one, and not your new ogg files.
I tried searching an option to enable alternate audio in Mesen, but could'n find anything.
Do you know how I can fix it?.
I'm running Mesen 0.9.5 under Win 10 x64.
Thanks a lot.

EDIT: It seems I had a wrong version of the ROM. I just fixed it. Thanks again.

[Psycho Fox]

Thank you, kya, for replying - and with a great answer.

[Aclectico]

Great work on the patch Kya!

I especially like the sprite work on Simon Belmont. Are you open to any friendly suggestions? If so, I made a slightly altered version with a new title screen and entrance screen. The entrance does have a minor bug where the Simon sprite arrives half a second before the background. I couldn't figure out how to avoid this without removing the cloud animation or causing a more noticeable glitch at the end of the screen. Since I like the cloud animation, I decided to leave it. If you are aware of a fix, I'd be interested to know. In any case, feel free to use anything from this version in your main repository if you like. Again, great work. I hope more are to come!

Link to alternate CastlevaniaHD patch:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1f7G6I9QubWV7o090iyuLCYwj9Ofl-TSK/view?usp=sharing

Low resolution screenshots:

https://imgur.com/a/7lExY

[Aclectico]

Thank you Kya for all your help on the alternate patch I posted a few days ago. With your assistance, the cloud animation has been improved and the glitch at the beginning of the gate scene is gone. I also adjusted the animation a bit to resolve the "hiccup" issue you mentioned to me earlier. In my opinion, the result is much smoother. For anyone interested in the Castlevania HD pack with a new title screen and entry screen, feel free to use the link below:

https://yadi.sk/d/0zE50gqu3ZECcj

Happy Gaming!

[mkwong98]

I made a new version of the prologue which matches the length of the scene and vampire killer which loops smoothly:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Jzt1SZXuhkXZeaSJedQhP0-iGpWWCPdd