The Real Ghostbusters Remastered (GB1, NES)

[Vanya]

I don't think many people would miss the yell if it means having a larger variety of music.
I agree that if the main tune has that much variation to it then it shouldn't be cut.

[Da_GPer]

I also wouldnt mind if all the voices were removed to make space. Its not like its 100% needed to hear "Gherst Bersters" every few seconds. Also, freeing that space for other use can give us stuff that the Commodore 64 version has or even something new. I say for the game to lose the voices.

[ShadowOne333]

I have to agree.
The "Gherst Bersters" voice could be ditched altogether, I feel like a proper 8-bit rendition of the Main theme would suffice for the title screen instead of something that sounds out of the Intellivoice:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Wu_gMucHYE

[KirkyMonster]

Gorgeous sprite work, I love how each Buster is a different color during the stairs segment. Speaking of the stairs segment what you accomplished is incredible.

[FCandChill]

I can create a utility that allows you to insert songs into the game from a famitracker file. I can also put your documentation on DataCrystal. Although, you seem to want to independent at this point ... so just know that the offer is open.

I was searching for other Ghostbuster hacks, and only one other exist. Someone linked to this thread with an interesting post...

The S Flag he's talking about is a powerup that appears on the lower screen of the final boss. It heals you if it's in the upper half. It knocks the Puft down and resets his climbing speed if it's near the ledge. I don't know if it appears in the upper screen, but I was randomly healed in the middle-right section.

The boss has 16 HP, and it heals 1 HP each time you go to the bottom screen and return.

There's 3 sets of graphics for a third trap (one above in this screenshot). One set for the shop, one for the main screen and one for the building scene. The second trap isn't used in the building scene as it was probably supposed to be replaced when you buy the second one.f you edit the beam you fire during the final boss, this is the game crashing line of pixels. They can still be edited if you're careful with them.

The crashing sprite is most likely responsible for sprite 0 split.

[nesrocks]

Post reedited for readability.

@FCandChill Yeah, I had noticed the bigger trap. As for the second trap, it's in my plans to use the correct graphic on the building scene, according to which one the player has.
I still haven't editted the beams, but it's interesting to know. Was this post done by pacnsacdave? I wonder who else would have such in-depth knowledge about this game.

I already figured how to change that tile to anything I want. Just change the value at 0x3C01 to whatever byte value is at 0xC275 after the tile editting. Not sure yet if this causes side effects, but it seems to be booting up ok.

I have figured out the flag... Wow... If you hit 16 ghosts without missing a shot the S Flag appears. The weird thing is it counts ghosts on the upper screen too (as long as you don't miss or hit gozer, it keeps counting), but it is useless because 1: unlike in the lower screen it doesn't do anything, and 2: it resets to zero as soon as you go to the lower screen.
But there is more to it... There are two types of s flags. The game picks one randomly and gives it a random X coordinate when hitting the 16th ghost:


The red one restores health, and the yellow one makes the Puft retreat all the way to the bottom (but this does not reset his climbing speed).

When the flag appears a timer is set, and when it is over it will make the flag disappear. But it will also reset your ghost killing count (in case you started killing ghosts immediately after the flag appeared). The problem is this timer is set when you reach the boss scene, so once at the start when you go to the bottom screen for the first time it is useless to kill ghosts for 6 seconds, as it resets the counter at that mark.
About the Puft speed being reset, apparently there is no way to do that. He gets faster each time you shoot him, but he can never become slower, I think.

It turns out some of those graphics I said that were unused are used, aside from the s flag:



It is just difficult to see these, especially the "P" and that other thingy, because they appear for only 1 frame (a bug) and because there are ghostbusters right in front of them at the door. What is that thing anyway, a robot? The P gives 1 health, and the robot gives 3.
I think these tiles assemble like this, but I don't know what they're supposed to be (it's on the staircase level):



The lower part looks like cables. Upper part could be a switch or a key hole? Don't know.

[Midna]

Thing on the left is a ghost. The letter P is obvious. I have no idea what the thing on the right is. Maybe it is some kind of big-headed robot dude with beady cartoon eyes. These graphics are messy and terrible.

[Vanya]

It's Winston come back from the grave to haunt the other Ghostbusters for being left out of the game.

[MegaManJuno]

The lower part looks like cables. Upper part could be a switch or a key hole? Don't know.

I'm guessing this is supposed to be one of the traps as seen overhead..?

(For example: https://www.therpf.com/showthread.php?t=106398)

[Chronosplit]

...Sperm ghost?  R.O.B.?  A power switch of some kind?

I'm thinking MegaManJuno is on the right track though.  What is it used in exactly?

[nesrocks]

As far as I know that thing is unused. About the overhead view of the trap, I can see that. The problem is it's with the staircase graphics, and that is a side view scene (not to mean that it couldn't be a really old leftover graphic). But it is sitting next to those 3 door content sprites, so I think there's a chance this was supposed to appear at some point in the level. Unlike the door content tiles though, this one has 4 tiles instead of 2, so it can't appear on the door as is, unless it removes the door completely to appear in its place.

[Tater Bear]

Is it the ghost food? I never played the NES version, but in the SMS version you can lay down ghost food to attract the ghosts during the staircase level. I suspect the ghostbusters famicom manual has the information telling us what all these graphics are suppose to be.

[nesrocks]

Nah, the ghost food is used and it looks like a pie of sorts.

[Vanya]

Do those graphics have ANY associated object code at all? Are there any unused items in the game with glitched graphics?

[nesrocks]

The only unused graphic is the last one (the one with the cables). My question was more about what they are meant to represent (especially the robot). Since the graphics are next to each other I tried to force it to show the cable thing when opening a door (by logic it should be the ghost -4), but it didn't do anything.

[Vanya]

Then I would ignore that last one.
There really isn't any way to know what it might have been intended to be.

[Tomato]

The first thing that came to mind for me was that it's the containment unit from the movie or the power switch that gets flipped and causes the containment unit to shut off.

[retroverse]

I suspect the ghostbusters famicom manual has the information telling us what all these graphics are suppose to be.

I tried looking up the NES manual, but no luck - it barely even mentioned that you could open the doors.  My only other theory was similar to Tomato - I thought it might be some kind of on-screen icon to show if the sound generator was activated or not (with the top half flipped to show two different positions), but the sound generator doesn't need to be turned on.  Not a single clue about the robot/workbench/thing behind the door.

While I'm posting - I'd agree with what others were saying about it not being the end of the world to lose the 'ghurstbursters' speech at the beginning, if it meant more sound variety elsewhere.  (A version of the 'Arrival at the Library' song might work well for the shop/calmer moments?) 

Mildly off-topic, there's one thing about the game that never did make sense to me - why do you need $10,000 to enter the presence of Zuul?  Is Gozer standing in front of the building in a ticket booth? 

[MarksmanBrett]

How's progress on this going?

[nesrocks]

It is currently on halt. I am focusing on my PC game for the time being, and I got interested in developing a homebrew for the NES, so it won't be until a few months from now that I can work on this.