[thepirategamerboy12]

So, there were four T&E Soft golf games released for the Megadrive.  They are Pebble Beach Golf Links, Harukanaru Augusta, Devil's Course, and Waialae no Kiseki.  One of the biggest draws to these games is the, imo, really good music.

Pebble Beach was the only one released outside of Japan, and it had a number of changes to it.  Most notably, the course is no longer rendered using dithered colors and the swinging was made a bit easier because once it reaches maximum it rolls back down to minimum instead of it immediately going to minimum.

Pebble Beach (EN):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBkWmYxDHk0

Devil's Course (JP):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18dIjiP_0gw

What I would like to figure out first, mainly for Waialae, is how I could make the course colors like the US version of Pebble Beach.  I'm a total noob at console game hacking.  Is this something I could do somewhat easily with a hex editor?  I'd appreciate any advice, thanks.

[Whipon]

Hello:

While I never did graphics or palette hacks, I do have some experience doing Sega Genesis asm hacks.
I use the MESS / MAME debugger for it.

First you will need to find some RAM addresses related to the colors you want to hack.
Then you use these addresses in the debugger. Some 68k asm understanding is needed.

When you find the related instruction or values that need to be changed, its the time to open the ROM with your favourite hex editor to modify it.

Sorry if I cannot help you further, as I said I never did graphics hacks.

I wish you good luck with this project.

Regards .

[thepirategamerboy12]

Thanks for the reply.  One thing, I did look at the game in a savestate editor comparing the US and JP versions of Pebble Beach and both versions use the exact same palette in-game, I guess with the colors just placed in different spots.  If I simply edit the palette, it'll mess up things like the trees.

[Whipon]

Thanks for the reply.  One thing, I did look at the game in a savestate editor comparing the US and JP versions of Pebble Beach and both versions use the exact same palette in-game, I guess with the colors just placed in different spots.  If I simply edit the palette, it'll mess up things like the trees.

You can try comparing both save states with a hex editor.
Then you copy some parts of one of them in the other one.
Load the save state and see if there's any changes.
With patience you can find the RAM addresses you're looking for.

If you are using Kega, or any Gens version, its save state format (GS*) has a usefull trick.

Any address you find by comparing both save states can be converted to a RAM address by adding 0xFEDB88 to it.

Good luck .

Have a nice week.

[thepirategamerboy12]

I may be onto something.  I compared both save states in a hex editor, and at parts of the US save state there were a bunch of blocks containing 11 11 repeated in hex, where in the JP version in similar spots there are blocks of 92 2C instead.  I replaced all instances of 11 11 in the US save state with 92 2C and there was now a corrupted pattern showing up on part of the course in the US version.  So perhaps these dither patterns are embedded in the course data?  I just tried the reverse on the JP state, and it modifies the pattern but doesn't totally remove it.

[Whipon]

You can try other values until you find the correct one.

Graphics hacks are not my thing .