[Archived] Hack ideas: for those without the skill but with all the ideas.

[aterraformer]

This has probably been mentioned before but I would really like to see someone make a hack of Circle of the Moon where Hugh Baldwin is playable.  This should have been in the original game to begin with and I cannot imagine being too hard to code.

Secondly, I'd like to bring the idea of getting Super Mario 64 hacks compatible with console.  Great hacks like Star Road have issues with running on console, like older Super Mario World hacks have with music.  I think this is more or a graphical or the way the rom is expanded problem.  Both Higans and BizHawk are accurate emulators for testing if an Everdrive 64 or 64drive is not an option.  I'll put Ocarina of Time hacks here too since Banjo Kazooie and Goldeye hacks to my knowledge work with no problem.

[gustavocomvoce]

I love MK II Hack by Smoke. But..... No Ermac? Please... create a new hack add Ermac and (if possible) Scarlet.

[Zoinkity]

I'd like to bring the idea of getting Super Mario 64 hacks compatible with console.

Their expansion code breaks a bunch of rules, such as rdram alignment, ROM alignment, and proper address masking to name a few.  They don't even run on all emulators, and don't necessarily run the same on all the ones they do run on.  That can be fixed and somewhat easily, but the editor authors aren't exactly enthused in doing it.

Then they started to wildly throw any sense of compatibility out the window with stuff like 32MB of rdram and display lists longer than the original ROM.  Those can never be made to work.

The Zelda editors are now console-compatible, and F-Zero X plus the Rare game editors always have been.  I don't know why Mario64 never has been and has no intention of being console compatible.

Cen64 is the only accurate N64 emulator.  Mupen isn't bad as far as HLE, but even incomplete Cen is vastly more accurate.  Plus, new versions will have an integrated debugger.  Finally can get rid of Nemu ;*)

[Tsukiyomaru0]

Thought of some hack ideas:
- Shin Megami Tensei + Pokémon. We have Touhoumon going around, so why not a SMT + Pokémon hack? Perhaps could even have three endings depending on your choices and the whole skill replacing would kinda make more sense. Also, Mara.

- A hack for Mega Man Zero and maybe ZX series that allows you to "Escape" anytime but without losing anything you found (similar to MMZ1?), removed the need to use lives and replaced normal extra life spawns with 100EC pickups.

[Zoinkity]

Shin Megami Tensei + Pokémon

This would be brilliant!

[KiddoCabbusses]

I don't know why Mario64 never has been and has no intention of being console compatible.

This seems to be an odd complex among Mario hacking scenes on both the SNES and N64. This is entirely speculative, but I'm thinking maybe it's because the size of the scenes led way to an audience that prefers treating ROM hacks as being like "fan games" than technical achievements on consoles, and thus don't care if their stuff would actually work on the setup. Super Mario World's ROM hacking scene had a lot of drama over this for years, even though on a theoretical level it could've been resolved a lot more easily than the Super Mario 64 issues (It was merely a bugged SPC sound editor program.), until recently when people finally moved on from the "if it works on ZSNES, it's good enough" mindset. This left an unfortunate load of Super Mario World ROM hacks that would probably be nice to play on a console if someone merely went back and fixed the buggy SPC code. (If what you say about the Mario 64 hacks is true then they're probably way too far gone to be "fixed" for real hardware, huh?)

Compare/contrast the Sonic fan community, where the "fan game" scene and the "ROM hack" scene were naturally segregated early on. (The fangamers grabbed Clickteam programs, focused entirely on PC platforms and never looked back. The ROM hackers left were avid Genesis hardware fans, thus while some hacks still "broke" on hardware, they would acknowledge it as a flaw to be fixed rather than something they weren't concerned about.)
Also compare the NES Mario ROM hacking scene, which didn't bring in as many of this type of audience presumably due to having more limited engines and not having the ease of hackability that World and 64 had.

Anyway, back to the idea of ROM hack ideas; I've noticed MSU-1 music hacks are starting to get rolling on, but something's bugging me about them; Why is everyone choosing SNES games which already have excellent soundtracks that I wouldn't really want to replace? LttP and Mega Man X are considered SNES masterpieces, even on the audio side.
There are some SNES games which have mediocre, disappointing, or bad SPC soudntracks!
I mean, for crying out loud, something like NINJA GAIDEN TRILOGY should've been first priority! The bad SPCs are a factor that nearly ruin all of the portjobs!
Imagine if you replaced the dinky SNES version of "Ryu's Determination" with the version in the Steel Dragon / Beat Blade doujin album or the Warriors Orochi 3 version?

[CM30]

If anyone wants to fix any of those old SMW Central hacks, I recall reading that they accept the fixes on the site.  It's just that unfortunately, so many old hacks exist that fixing them all would require a significant amount of effort.

Talking of fan game scene overlaps... there probably isn't much difference between the standard SMW hack, the standard Mario platformer on Mario Fan Games Galaxy or the standard Super Mario Bros X episode.  That's not a bad thing by any means (the overlap between resources makes finding things like graphics much, much easier than it'd otherwise be), but I do sometimes wish the SMW ROM hacking scene was a bit more ambitious and went as far in the awesome ASM programming direction as Super Mario Bros 3 hacks like Mario Adventure 3 and Mario 3Mix.

As for MSU1... I like it.  I just wish SMW had it available as a convenient patch or tool.  Cause damn it, I really want to see a Mario hack with super high quality orchestrated music out of the Wii/Wii U era.  Imagine one with all this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23hJeaLotEw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF9j2lWhOz0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRijqmvJAQ4

The potential for that feature is almost endless.  It still makes me depressed that we never saw any (I think) real SNES games use it.

On another note... I still kind of wonder why Mario Galaxy style mechanics are so rare in SMW hacks.  SMB 3 has a few hacks with gravity gimmicks and planet style levels, so why don't we have a SMW hack with full planet style gravity yet?  The foundation was already kind of laid in Yoshi's Island with the moon in the Rapheal the Raven boss battle... and Brutal Mario has some attempts at Launch Stars and appearing trails of blocks from the Space Junk Galaxy...

Super Mario Galaxy 2d... god that'd be awesome.

[KiddoCabbusses]

I still have the Super Mario Odyssey demo. It's unfortunate that nothing else seemed to jump on that.
As for more complex physics, it's likely a side-effect of the things I've mentioned earlier. Since the community is large, the most talented hackers, rather than making their own projects, are making tools to make things easier for the larger community (Since many have the "fangamer" mindset, they may have no coding knowledge whatosever nor any interest in it outside of getting a result done), which would cause the quantity of hacks of a consistent quality to release, but at the expense of projects with more ambitious coding.
If I could note a particular example of my own disappointments in regard to the SMW hacking scene, I recall a recent hack that someone attempted to push around various scenes, and in it there were pre-scripted points where the player character would visually change from Mario into someone else. But the appearance was entirely aesthetic and did nothing to change gameplay, which maybe wouldn't be as big a deal if they didn't try using a character as loaded with preconceived expectations as Sonic the Hedgehog. Quite bluntly, Sonic playing exactly like Mario is just, plain, wrong. But unfortunately it's a struggle for a SMW hack to change the player character in fundamental ways.

[NES Boy]

Are you talking about "The Fourth Sector", part of the Devious Four Chronicles? I've seen screenshots, but I've never played it.

Also, there's an SMW disassembly, but most of it is undocumented.

[Thanatos-Zero]

For Megaman Zero 2
- Make Cut Scenes skipable

- Make the Spinning Slash (Kuuenzan) (Both Air and Ground moves) a move again that needs to be relearned like in Zero 1. Active Form instead increases the damage by +2.
*Double Jump (Kuuenbu) becomes acessable upon relearning the Spinning Slash.
*Spinning Slash can overcome invincibility frames like in Zero 3, 4 and ZX Series.

- Make the EX Moves act, like the ones from Zero 3 and 4 + they can be chained to overcome invincibility like in the sequels.
*when incooperating certain EX Moves in the trible slash combo, the Rising Slash (Shuryuken) can be chained after the third normal Slash or the Electric Blade from Harpuia in place of the third slash. They are also faster executeable.
*Speaking of the Electric Blade it should be faster and have farther reach without chip. With Chip it will look like the Electric Blade from Model OX from Megaman ZX.

- Give the Ultimate Form the best of all forms.
*1/2 Damage
*+2 Damage with anything Zero uses
*Eraser Effect
*Rising Forms Upward Slash by pressing UP+Attack before the third Slash. Rising Slash can never be executed as the third Slash.
*1/2 Charging time

-Make EX Skill of the Chain Rod now rapidly drain health after one second holding on the target.
*Can be used to fill the Sub Tanks.

[Zero Dozer]

For Megaman Zero 2
- Make Cut Scenes skipable

- Make the Spinning Slash (Kuuenzan) (Both Air and Ground moves) a move again that needs to be relearned like in Zero 1. Active Form instead increases the damage by +2.
*Double Jump (Kuuenbu) becomes acessable upon relearning the Spinning Slash.
*Spinning Slash can overcome invincibility frames like in Zero 3, 4 and ZX Series.

- Make the EX Moves act, like the ones from Zero 3 and 4 + they can be chained to overcome invincibility like in the sequels.
*when incooperating certain EX Moves in the trible slash combo, the Rising Slash (Shuryuken) can be chained after the third normal Slash or the Electric Blade from Harpuia in place of the third slash. They are also faster executeable.
*Speaking of the Electric Blade it should be faster and have farther reach without chip. With Chip it will look like the Electric Blade from Model OX from Megaman ZX.

- Give the Ultimate Form the best of all forms.
*1/2 Damage
*+2 Damage with anything Zero uses
*Eraser Effect
*Rising Forms Upward Slash by pressing UP+Attack before the third Slash. Rising Slash can never be executed as the third Slash.
*1/2 Charging time

-Make EX Skill of the Chain Rod now rapidly drain health after one second holding on the target.
*Can be used to fill the Sub Tanks.

I second and third that.

[KiddoCabbusses]

Are you talking about "The Fourth Sector", part of the Devious Four Chronicles? I've seen screenshots, but I've never played it.

D'aw, you nailed it. XD;
The folks behind that series were really pushing to get it recognized outside the regular ROM hacking circle for some reason I'll never fully understand.
I feel it had way too many "fangame-y" issues of sorts to warrant that kind of attention, though - the beef with the player character stuff was actually one of my milder ones.

[zstandig]

I got decided to do some brain storming, basically, "If I could do anything what games would I change/and or make available on PowerPaks/Everdrives?" Then I went further and thought of other stuff I might like. So this will be all over the place.

*Ninja Gaiden (PCE) The background scrolling is really effed up...there has to be a way to keep that background layer still.

*Even though an NTSC version of Elite (NES) exists for some reason it doesn't quite work with the PowerPak, don't know why. It has the same issue as the PAL version. It seems emulators have issues with it too. Supposedly an emulator called iNES can do it right, but in my opinion it isn't proper for only one emulator to be able to play a game correctly.

*Super Turrican (NES) Supposedly an NTSC version exists (but whoever has the proto isn't dumping it anytime soon). I like playing the released European version on my Powerpak...but because it was optimized for PAL, and I use NTSC, the gameplay speed, audio, and pallette is off. The NTSC isn't dumped, but I've seen hacks that have changed PAL games to NTSC before, so I don't know if that's possible. Sure I can change the timing and pallete on an emulator, but I'd like to play it on real hardware.

*Similar to how Star Ocean was decompressed to allow playback on real hardware, supposedly Street Fighter Alpha 2 (SNES) can get the same treatment. But since it's a just a (really well done port considering limitations) I suppose it isn't vital)

*Dezaemon 3D and it's N64 DD expansion have been recently combined into a single ROM image that works on emulators and flash cartridges like ED64 and 64drive. It would be nice if F Zero X and its N64 DD expansion could get a similar treatment.

*Super Mario 64 and Wave Race 64 got special rumble pak version released exclusively in Japan back in 1997, the rest of the world didn't get this. I've played the special Mario 64 on my ED64, The rumble is a nice touch, but all the dialogue is in Japanese....which is somewhat of a problem if you haven't memorized where every single star is. Is there a way to transfer the English script into this Rumble Enabled version?

[KingMike]

I wish I could remember the details of Elite being dumped. But iNES only working with it sounds fishy. (just checking and wow, it's ACTUALLY been updated, and free?)
It was supposedly one of the more demanding games on the NES hardware, but I'm not familiar with the game to know how likely that is truthfully.

[Zoinkity]

It would be nice if F Zero X and its N64 DD expansion could get a similar treatment.

I've been seriously considering doing this, despite 64DD emulation being really really close, but haven't had the time to dedicate to it.

Is there a way to transfer the English script into this Rumble Enabled version?

Looked into Waverace before.  Image formats are indexed in a really esoteric way but that isn't too hard to work out.  The annoying part is that files containing images are followed by files using fixed addresses that other files refer to.  You'd have to change an awful lot of pointers, jumps, and ASM references.
It's not impossible, but really time consuming.

[KiddoCabbusses]

*Ninja Gaiden (PCE) The background scrolling is really effed up...there has to be a way to keep that background layer still.

Speaking of Ninja Gaiden PCE, it was always strange how that version has a completely different soundtrack from the others.

I always wondered how it'd sound with the "original" NG Score, or, conversely, how NES Ninja Gaiden would sound with the PCE score. Food for thought.

[Professor Neo]

I found this on the Spriters' Resource site:

http://www.spriters-resource.com/fullview/31931/



That is the reason I see exactly why Pokemon Puzzle League needs to be hacked, but there are other things too.

If a Pokemon Puzzle League hack were to exist, then these things would be included:

1. First and foremost -- Champion Gary as a playable trainer in 2P mode for both 1P and 2P (his Pokemon are fully evolved)
- Possible code: Simply hold down L+R+Z as you select Gary.

2. The ability to select Pokemon for the Mewtwo stage (Both sides are always forced to play as Pikachu, and after the match, the game does not return to the 2P mode menu -- it immediately starts a new match)
- A custom Pokemon select menu would need to be implemented, and after completion of a full match, the game should return back to the main menu for the selected mode rather than just immediately start a new match.

3. The ability for both 1P and 2P to select the same trainer (would apply to Champion Gary and Mewtwo)
- There is a code that prevents both players from selecting the same trainer. It would have to be removed.

4. Allow a trainer other than Ash to play in the Mewtwo stage
- 1P selects the desired trainer, then inputs the Mewtwo stage code

5. Mewtwo stage reversal (1P plays as Mewtwo, the other plays as Ash/other trainer, and the background would be horizontally flipped)
- Possible code: R+Up+A+Start+A+B+L+Up+B (BULBASAUR code backwards); if 2P desires to play as a trainer other than Ash, then 2P selects the desired trainer, but it works only when the Mewtwo reverse code is used.

6. Mewtwo vs. Mewtwo
- Both players must select Ash and input either Mewtwo code on the Pokemon select screen.

7. Dark blue blocks always on for all difficulty levels of gameplay
- Possible code: B+L+Up+R (input code at main menu). To turn it off, just input A+R+Down+L.

8. Smarter AI for 3D mode in 2P mode

9. 3D mode in 1P vs mode (only if #8 works)

10. Combo icon/garbage block bugs/glitches
- If you throw so much garbage at your opponent, 2P's combo icons at the top left of the screen become buggy and disappear, eventually, you wouldn't be able to throw anything. And when you create a chain of 14 links or more, the corresponding garbage block will be a glitchy block 12 rows high, but would be a normal x12 block when the bottom row is cleared.

11. 3D Puzzles (Another must-have)

[TheCape]

Likely a fairly easy hack, and this can be done on most emulators in some way already, but in Punch Out!! configure the star punches to be A+B instead of Start.

[darkhog]

I wonder, because as an avid DH player, I often get to it and I am pretty much pissed at that glitch that don't let me play even though I want to. It makes me moody.

[Recca]

It would be nice if there was a hack for the Double Dragon games (especially Super Double Dragon/Return of Double Dragon for the SNES) which lets you choose who player 1 and 2 is. There were a lot of times when I wanted to play as Jimmy instead of Billy in single player, but there's no option to select which character you want to play as.

Bust-A-Move: Not a big deal, but shouldn't one of the characters be blue and the other green in single player (arcade mode)? At the intro and ending, it shows the two characters, Bob and Bub (the green and blue dinosaur guys), so shouldn't they both appear in arcade mode and maybe even single player versus the computer?

Fire Emblem games (SNES and GBA): Simply put, not making character deaths permanent. If the main character(s) die, it's game over. Fair enough. But what about making the other regular characters revive at the end of a battle so you can use them again during the next one like in Shining Force? Or having them retreat if they're defeated instead of dying so you can still use them. Wouldn't that be less stressful? Speaking of which, what about recreating the original GENS Shining Force game as a GBA Fire Emblem game with all the characters there? That would be interesting. I'm not talking about the GBA Shining Force remake of course, I liked the original GENS one better. What I mean is romhacking a GBA Fire Emblem game to make it as the first Shining Force GENS game with the characters, levels, story and maybe even the music.