The Real Ghostbusters Remastered (GB1, NES)

[nesrocks]

I have made the boss fight so smooth (frame rate and controls) that it feels like the game is running on another engine. I'll try to fix some of the bugs that make this fight so bad (taking unexplained damage, shots coming out of nowhere, etc).

Here's some more goodness. I was thinking of something to use on the outside of the building on the lower screen and Macbee gave the idea to use the city background in the new ghostbusters 2 baby cutscene. I adapted it a bit and I like the result. This is a really tall building with 22 floors and all

And hey, you get to play as egon and winston on the final fight, so there's that.


Comparison (click to enlarge):





I got rid of the map. It was ugly and redundant. It would make sense to display it at the top screen (and it wasn't hard to make that work), but I just removed it for rom space instead.

[ShadowOne333]

Damn this game is getting quite the revamp and overhaul altogether.
I might actually give this hack a try once it is out, I am loving the progress that has been shown so far

[Da_GPer]

Im amazed by how good Stay Puff looks. Delicious.

[Midna]

Mr. Stay-Puft is looking puffier than ever.

[FCandChill]

@FCandChill: that'd be nice, but I want to try and do it myself, as training for my pc game (in which I'm using nsf files). In fact, for ghostbusters Macbee already found a nsf someone made that maybe I could use as reference. I haven't looked into the music format in the game yet, but I know the addresses.

I think it could be replaced with a nicer one instead, and either expand the rom or get space from the music which occupies 3100 bytes by itself (that's 3x more than the pitfall 2 theme on the super pitfall hack). The music engine could be improved to be modular and accept looped sections. As it is, there are many repeated parts copied over and over. But that is just too much for me, I'm going to stick to graphics and easy to implement gameplay improvements.

I know you said you didn't need help, but could you release the notes you have for the music? We could work together to figure out the sounds engine ... like we did for Super Pitfall II. I just need a couple of offsets for the music data, and I can deduce information with the help of a NSF (hopefully). Famitracker has a text export function. I could code a script that reads the text file and converts it to the game's code. This time, you don't have to transcribe every note in hex. The music in the game plays two of the same notes on the square channels at the same time. Removing the extra notes will make the music sound nicer and will give you more room. After all, this game has far less free space, unlike Super Pitfall II. You could use the extra room. ... However, if you don't want to change the music, I understand.

[nesrocks]

@FC I'm still not sure what I'll do with the music. I haven't really touched that yet. So much to do on this hack. When the time comes I'll see if you can help, if needed.

I've worked some more on the hack. as is the case with changing things, some people may prefer the old version. But I changed the city to a not so dark theme. It required writing a lot of assembly code to draw those road tiles, as the original was simply a repeated blank one.


Added someone to the lyrics screen (so many calls, she's bored):

With this I hope I have covered every relevant character from the movie.

I'm working on the game's ending. So spoiler ahead:

Sorry but you are not allowed to view spoiler contents.

Also, not sure I've mentioned this already, but I expanded the ROM (2 extra PRG banks) and now I'm using a crystal clear "Ghostbusters!" shout. Credits for that go to NewRisingSun. I wanted to have two versions of the hack, one not expanded without the shout and one expanded, but this was complicating things and was one of the reasons I stopped hacking this game. So I decided to just go with the best version.

Other than these, I've been fixing some more bugs. Still no release date in sight.

[ShadyRounds]

This is still a massive improvement on a game that everyone remembers but mostly as a game that originally feels like a chore to play (most the NES library come to mind).

[Da_GPer]

@FC I'm still not sure what I'll do with the music. I haven't really touched that yet. So much to do on this hack. When the time comes I'll see if you can help, if needed.

I've worked some more on the hack. as is the case with changing things, some people may prefer the old version. But I changed the city to a not so dark theme. It required writing a lot of assembly code to draw those road tiles, as the original was simply a repeated blank one.


Added someone to the lyrics screen (so many calls, she's bored):

With this I hope I have covered every relevant character from the movie.

I'm working on the game's ending. So spoiler ahead:

Sorry but you are not allowed to view spoiler contents.

Also, not sure I've mentioned this already, but I expanded the ROM (2 extra PRG banks) and now I'm using a crystal clear "Ghostbusters!" shout. Credits for that go to NewRisingSun. I wanted to have two versions of the hack, one not expanded without the shout and one expanded, but this was complicating things and was one of the reasons I stopped hacking this game. So I decided to just go with the best version.

Other than these, I've been fixing some more bugs. Still no release date in sight.

Wouldn't it be better if instead of the Ghostbusters theme being written, why not just have a message saying something like having the mayor or, if you want it to be like the C64 version, the bank call Janine and tell her that they need the Ghostbusters to rid the city of ghosts and then enter Zuul to close the gate and save the city? You can make it like a phone call you would see in the movies, including her answering with, "Ghostbusters. What do you want?" Just a thought.

[duiz]

nesrocks, you quickly become probably my favorite romhacker. I love the Super Pitfall project you did and what you are doing with Ghostbusters. Always a great idea to improve the games that didn't quite live up to the promise they made, or should have made.

Anyway, take your time and I will enjoy this remaster whenever you finish it!

[Da_GPer]

I'm very sorry for necroposting, but I was just wondering what the current status of this game is at. Can we get some new info please?

[nesrocks]

The status is I'm not sure what to do with the game design of it. I wish I could make it a fun game, but so far it's just the same game with new graphics and a few quality of life improvements. Maybe that's enough? Graphically I think it's only missing something on the ending. And maybe it could use an improved song but I can't do that.

[duiz]

Considering that the game across all platforms is pretty similar (with the best being either C64 or Sega Master System), I think keeping the core game the same but improving the most criticized areas such as a the staircase and the driving sections to be a bit easier is as good as you can get it in regards to the game engine.

[Vanya]

Yeah. I say finish up the graphics that remain and consider it done for now.
There is a lot to be said for QoL improvements for these more obscure games.

[The1-uptriforce]

Moving left and right with the D-pad on the staircase and maybe not having to hear the theme song through out or making it sound better so you would wanna hear it the whole game would be nice

[nesrocks]

Ok then I guess I'll get to finishing this up. I have a few balancing ideas that could better use the game's already implemented features, which is basically to adjust the prices and money bonuses so that the game has three pseudo-phases:
Phase 1 - catch ghosts on the streets
Phase 2 - catch ghosts on buildings
Phase 3 - Zuul building and final showdown

Of course this isn't this well defined, but it will happen naturally because of the order of magnitude in the bonuses and prices.

[SimplyDanny]

You know what? This looks fantastic, and miles above the original version's blocky, basic, and just uninteresting style. Almost reminds me of Batman a bit. It helps that you didn't just rip off the SMS version because this style is better than that game's too. And while it's still the same game, the quality of life choices do tend to help the overall experience. Maybe you could help make the rest of the game less monotonous by fleshing out more the parts of the game that already exist, to make them more interesting. But so far, this is damn fine.

[Vanya]

I have a suggestion for the overworld map.
With the slimers floating around the green is a bit overpowering with the buildings also being shades of green. Maybe try some different palettes for the buildings.

[nesrocks]

I tried that, but I can't use reds/oranges/pinks because they are too close to the blinking color from the alarm. Grays look depressing and blues are too saturated...

[SimplyDanny]

I tried that, but I can't use reds/oranges/pinks because they are too close to the blinking color from the alarm. Grays look depressing and blues are too saturated...

Maybe try a mix of colors like purple with light blues and pinks, or something like that. Color combinations that contrast enough to allow them to stick out a bit more but not too radical so that it doesn't hurt the eyes.

Also, another suggestion: change the name of the central building. It's really weird how it's just half-haphazardly named after one of the side villains (probably because it fit in more than Gozer on the 4x4 building square). I know Zuul's supposedly the gatekeeper and all, but it's still a weird detail.

Still some great work! I give you many conglaturation for prooving the justice of our NES culture! (I'm wholeheartedly sorry for that sentence.)

[Vanya]

Here's another little one, some item name edits.
As the original film had a fair amount of science-y techno-babble, Ghost Vacuum and Ghost Food sound a bit too goofy.
Actually, many of the items could stand to be renamed to bring things more in-line with the movies and the later games.

Ghost Vacuum ------> Super-slammer
Sound Generator ---> Dark Matter Generator
Capture Beam ------> Capture Stream
Hyper Beam --------> Hyper Stream
Ghost Food --------> Ghost Lure
Ghost Alarm -------> PKE-Meter
Anti-Ghost Suit ---> Ecto-Suit
Capture Trap ------> Ghost Trap
Super Trap --------> *SAME*

These would take up the same amount of bytes I think.