Talking about romhacks!

[SilentSnake]

Hey, we have a thread devoted to kaizo Mario, but there's more to the world of romhacking than that, so I figured this would be a good place to talk about them! I've dabbled in some recently, and there's some good stuff to be had if you know where to look.

Rockman 4 Minus Infinity is the go to example I always give people, as it immediately became my favorite Mega Man game after I finished playing it. It basically takes what you think you know about the Mega Man formula and broadens it to places you wouldn't think would be possible. Infinitely inventive, this is the hack I recommend to everyone.

Of Jumps and Platforms is not a kaizo hack, but it's still a really challenging Super Mario World hack that focuses on pure platforming skill. It's a little overloaded with autoscroller sections, but I've not played anything that captures the spirit of the original Super Mario Bros. quite like this hack.

Eris, in comparison to the previous hacks on this list, feels the most amateurly made. Inscrutable progression and hacked together sprites make you appreciate how well crafted the original Super Metroid is, but there's something to be said for the jankiness of this game. It's almost outsider art in places. I don't know if I'd necessarily recommend playing it, but it's an interesting exercise in antagonistic atmosphere.

Hyper 6 is, uh, rather infamous. I haven't played it, and I don't think I ever will, but I'm getting great enjoyment out of watching the pain of someone else playing it.

So how about it? Any romhacks you all have been playing/enjoying?

 

[Lokii]

Oh man I've been playing Mega Man hacks for Megamas. The one I've enjoyed the most recently is Rockman 7 EP, the new game from the guy who made Minus Infinity! Here's what I wrote in the MM thread:

Spoiler

Discovered today that PureSabe, the hacker behind Rockman 4 Minus Infinity, released a new hack on Halloween this year called Rockman 7 EP. If you're familiar with Minus Infinity you know it's one of the Goats of the MM hacking scene and EP is just as technically impressive and creatively rich. Highlights:

• If you collect life or weapon powerups when at your max it will overflow into secondary bars that slowly drain. Little bonus energy that feels good to have.

• Ridable vehicles! About half the stages have something you jump in and ride around on.

• Turbo Man's weapon, Self Burning. By overheating Mega Man turns the tables and deals contact damage to enemies. Trade off is you're still vulnerable to projectiles and can't fire while it's active. Feels like it belongs in the pantheon of great shield weapons. Also it heats water to boiling and damages any enemies in that pool. That's a neat bit of programing.

• The game does a lot of neat stuff with water mechanics in fact. There are several different types of water with different effects like some green goo in Shade Man's stage that slowly turns Mega Man into a zombie.

• Extended homages to Castlevania and Gradius. Capcom and Konami are basically the same company after all.

• Spring Man's stage is wonderfully clever.

• Extended visit to the Robot Museum.

• In that mode, the refights are in a set order with no breaks in between. Think of Actraiser's boss rush. Very frantic!

• Who know Mega Man's friends were such badass once they join the fray?

• Showstopper Wily stages, but very difficult. This is to a point as the game gives out E-Tanks like candy, but tracks how many you use. Each one used costs Dr. Light something like a hundred thousand yen and at the end you get to see how much your antics cost him. EP is an easy game to tank through and see the sights, but is designed for low score runs. Additionally it tracks your time in each stage. How courteous to speedrunners!

• Capsule is a crazy idea that I feel people will either will love or hate. I thought it was a great idea but also something of a puzzler and also what some might call "excessive."

We all have our excessess I suppose. I don't intended when starting these posts to go on for so long, I just find these games so interesting to think about. Mega Man as score run type of game, whoda'thunk? I think it's Neat.

 

[Becksworth]

The level of dedication here to what is basically a giant insider shitpost.

 

[Becksworth]

So this popped up in my YouTube feed and I thought people might be interested in this rom hack. Let’s start with the obvious thing of Peach’s plus sized sprite work. I’m not entirely sure if this was an attempt at body positivity, a spoof on Peach’s relatively wide hipped SMB1 sprite taken to an extreme for comedic purposes, or just the rom hack creator’s fetish (or some combination of all three). I think it works well within the context to the rom hack from what I’ve seen, but not being a heavy set women myself I’m not sure how they would feel about it.

Aside from that, this looks like an all around competently made World rom hack with a complete graphic re haul to look like an expanded version of the already expanded upon Mario Maker style SMB1 graphics, with plenty of mods to give it it’s own unique feel, seemingly good level design/difficulty balance, and tons of secrets.

 

[RT-55J]

Eris, in comparison to the previous hacks on this list, feels the most amateurly made. Inscrutable progression and hacked together sprites make you appreciate how well crafted the original Super Metroid is, but there's something to be said for the jankiness of this game. It's almost outsider art in places. I don't know if I'd necessarily recommend playing it, but it's an interesting exercise in antagonistic atmosphere.

imho, the sort of raw, mashed together, collage-like look of Digital Mantra's tilework is the number one reason to play (or watch) his Super Metroid hacks. It's mesmerizing.

His first hack of note, Cliffhanger, was very much an early example of a kaizo/challenge-type hack, with a long list of advanced techniques required to beat the game. Even with the updated version of the hack (which adds save stations lol), I've never managed to make significant headway into it. Also, compared to his other hacks, it feels rather vanilla in terms of visual design and overall layout. I personally don't recommend it.

Eris, on the other hand, is much more approachable in comparison, with the toughest advanced techniques required being wall-jumping and underwater traversal. Most of the difficulty comes from the obscure progression paths and the inclusion of late-game enemies early on (which hit like trucks). The result is that the hardest parts are mostly frontloaded, and that it gets notably easier as you progress (once you get power bombs you're past the worst of it). Planet Eris itself is a lot more visually distinct than Cliffhanger's planet, with much bolder color choices and much more textured, rougher tilework (it's a lot to look at, but I love it), and with areas sort of jammed together almost like a self-made exquisite corpse. Overall, I would recommend it to skilled veterans, with some caveats. (If you find the hack too difficult, you could cheat and give yourself the Varia or Gravity suit imho.)

DMan's newest hack, Vitality, is by far his best and most approachable hack. The art and world design feel more confident and mature than his previous outings, and the environmental storytelling is more refined. Also, he had his girlfriend playtest the thing, which means the difficulty has been sanded down to "manageable by most people" and that wall-jumping is not required (the only advanced tech that is required is the rising mid-air morph, which is as easy as it gets imho). I highly recommend it myself, with only a couple caveats: (a) make sure you find at least one energy tank before heading to the second area, and (b) there's a reason the hack says it's "Rated R" (beyond the title screen and death animation) --- it's a tonal promise that the hack pays off by the end, and I know not everybody would like it.

I have a couple other Super Metroid hacks that I'd recommend, but I'll save those for another post.

EDIT: Added links

 

[SpoonyBard]

Let’s start with the obvious thing of Peach’s plus sized sprite work. I’m not entirely sure if this was an attempt at body positivity, a spoof on Peach’s relatively wide hipped SMB1 sprite taken to an extreme for comedic purposes, or just the rom hack creator’s fetish (or some combination of all three). I think it works well within the context to the rom hack from what I’ve seen, but not being a heavy set women myself I’m not sure how they would feel about it.

I couldn't find a definitive answer, but from a quick scan of the author's social media it just seems to be their style. If it's their fetish it isn't obvious, and it certainly doesn't seem to be done for 'comedy', it seems to be genuine.

The hack looks to be thoughtfully designed as well, so a nice surprise overall.

Oh and here's a link to the hack on SMW Central.

 

[Kzinssie]

I know we have a bunch of SaGa fans around here, and for those who know Japanese I've probably put hours into the various Romancing SaGa 3 hacks, the most notable being bokuno (ぼくのかいぞうしたさいきょう/ぼくのパッチ) and aabeta (ああベータ). Both are crossover hacks with other SaGa games - the former is still in active development and has more capital-C Content such as quests and bosses, while the latter stopped development several years ago but focuses much more on gameplay changes such as new magic schools and a Frontier-style combo system. Either way, they have the energy of if one of those fake secret FAQs for FF6 were real, and they're a ton of fun.

 

[Lokii]

Not a hack, but kinda like a hack. Way past cool never the less.

PC fan port of early Sonic games lets you zoom the camera way, way out

This is quite literally Sonic like you’ve never seen him before.

arstechnica.com

 

[Phantoon]

That looks like a nightmare to play and I must try it immediately

 

[lincolnic]

So this popped up in my YouTube feed and I thought people might be interested in this rom hack. Let’s start with the obvious thing of Peach’s plus sized sprite work. I’m not entirely sure if this was an attempt at body positivity, a spoof on Peach’s relatively wide hipped SMB1 sprite taken to an extreme for comedic purposes, or just the rom hack creator’s fetish (or some combination of all three). I think it works well within the context to the rom hack from what I’ve seen, but not being a heavy set women myself I’m not sure how they would feel about it.

I couldn't find a definitive answer, but from a quick scan of the author's social media it just seems to be their style. If it's their fetish it isn't obvious, and it certainly doesn't seem to be done for 'comedy', it seems to be genuine.

The hack looks to be thoughtfully designed as well, so a nice surprise overall.

Oh and here's a link to the hack on SMW Central.

I happened to catch someone playing this on Twitch today with the creator in the chat, and he asked them about this -- they said it was "just my take on her SMB1 sprite, with a poofier dress". That was about as far as the conversation went, but from what I can tell it doesn't seem like it was meant to be mean-spirited in any way. The hack itself looks pretty fun and very cute. I might play it if/when I need a break from kaizo!

 

[Phantoon]

They've hacked Race Drivin' to use the SA-1 chip. The results are... spectacular:

I really wish we'd seen more games that pushed this thing, it seems to have been a beast of a chip.

 

[lincolnic]

Wow, that is really incredible.

 

[MCBanjoMike]

I wonder if there's any way to apply that magic to StarFox? There's a game that would actually be fun to play if it could manage a solid 30 FPS.

 

[Kazin]

I wonder if there's any way to apply that magic to StarFox? There's a game that would actually be fun to play if it could manage a solid 30 FPS.

I was thinking the same thing.

That's really cool.

 

[Phantoon]

I wonder if there's any way to apply that magic to StarFox? There's a game that would actually be fun to play if it could manage a solid 30 FPS.

I don't think so - the Super FX is also a beast of a chip and it's designed to run 3D games - the SA-1 is basically a higher clocked SNES processor on a chip, designed to run 2D games. So anything the SNES can run, the SA-1 can run faster. The SNES couldn't run Star Fox.

It is possible to overclock the Super FX, the slight issue is that the game runs faster than intended. Ideally you'd want the faster frame rate without the faster speed.

 

[MCBanjoMike]

Interesting, those SA-1 carts must have been super expensive. How many games actually had that processor in them?

 

[RT-55J]

imho, porting Star Fox from the SFX1 to the SA1 might net a minor performance boost, but switching it over to the SFX2 would guarantee a substantial performance boost. In one case you'd have to convert the entire rendering engine from one assembly language to another while also converting all the game logic to use delta-time. In the other case, you'd only have to focus on the latter, as both FX chips run the same code.

 

[RT-55J]

Interesting, those SA-1 carts must have been super expensive. How many games actually had that processor in them?

There were apparently 34 games that used the SA-1 chip, though aside from Kirby and SMRPG, the vast majority of them were Japan exclusive.

In comparison, there were 8 Super FX games released, with at least 4 more having been cancelled.

 

[MCBanjoMike]

I didn't even know there was a second version of the Super FX chip! Is that what gave us the travesty that is Stunt Race FX?

(Never mind, I looked it up and the SFX2 was what powered Yoshi's Island, DOOM, and something called Winter Gold)

 

[dosboot]

We need a speed improvement hack for King Arthur's World and Ogre Battle.

 

[Phantoon]

the travesty that is Stunt Race FX

How very dare you, Stunt Race FX is amazing

The frame rate is abysmal by today's standards, but I still love playing it

 

[Lokii]

Stunt Race FX brought me a wonderful rental weekend that has always remained in my memory, it did what it needed to do.

 

[Phantoon]

I've started playing some romhacks and I think they're well worth their own topic for discussions. There are little ones (like making the translation of Terranigma 60 Hz), more significant ones like bugfixing Final Fantasy so that the magic system actually works, or huge ones like making whole new games out of existing ones. There's some really great stuff out there (terrible stuff too), so it'd be good to draw attention to some of the better stuff.

Currently I'm playing Pokemon Gold and SIlver 97 Reforged. At Spaceworld in 97 they unveiled Pocket Monsters 2: Gold and Silver. Then the games disappeared from the public eye and reappeared as the Gold and Silver we know. The Spaceworld demo got leaked, and it turned out a surprising amount of the game was in it - the world map (completely different), the new Pokemon (many completely different) and hints to the story (also completely different). This hack of Crystal imagines what that game would have been, had it released. And it feels like a real Pokemon game, just one from the other leg of the trousers of time. Better still, it seems to work on original hardware (tested on a MiSter, anyway).

What other hacks have you played? What's good, what isn't?

 

[Beowulf]

This is a can of worms for me, since I've been using romhacks and randomizers to justify replaying games when I have so may new ones I haven't touched. Do you want the full reviews or just a couple sentences on each?

 

[Phantoon]

Whatever you want! I'm amazed by some of the stuff that romhacks can achieve.

 

[Beowulf]

Breath of Fire Improved Hack (GBA, Replayed on ReGBA on RG350)

Generations ago, the Light Dragon Clan used the Goddess Keys to seal away Myria, the Goddess of Destruction. Now, the Dark Dragon Emperor Zog is trying to gather those keys to release the goddess and use her power to conquer the world. And foolishly, he started with an attack against the last of the Light Dragons, inspiring their last empowered son to strike out on a quest to save the world.

Spoiler

This is the GBA version of the game (ported from the SNES original), with the Improved hack applied. This changes the color palettes to match the SNES version (the GBA port was lightened to compensate for the non-backlit screen), includes a Text Cleanup patch and some additional edits (changing Tyr to Myria and Bleu to Deis; fixing some dialogue; updating the item and spell names to match later conventions), and adjusts some of the equipment stats and the level curve. The intent is to be much closer to a “definitive” version of the game.

Oddly, the GPSP emulator had a lot of trouble with Breath of Fire—jumpy music, laggy graphics, jerky scene changes. I swapped in to use a max money cheat code, then jumped back to ReGBA, which plays it beautifully.

There’s a weapon upgrade for Bow hidden in a wall in Agua that I just blundered into; I have no recollection of it in the original game but it seems a very odd thing to add. (I think a few of the purchasable gear upgrades were rebalanced, too.) Between knowing where I was going and that I could use the E.Key for free attack magic, I cruised merrily along merrily until the boss of the Stone Robot, who was a nasty wake-up call. His second wind attack could kill anyone except Ryu in two hits, and it took five tries, all the Meat I could hunt, and every attack item I’d accumulated thus far to beat him. The solo battle with Ryu at the dragon shrine was comparatively boring—it took forever, but I just used a bunch of Vitamins and won on the first try.

(Upon reflection, it’s never been 100% clear to me if the KngKey that activates the Stone Robot is one of the Goddess Keys or not. The game claims there are six keys, but there’s a seventh unnamed one in Scande right before you lose them all. It’s the only key with different descriptive text. Then again, the E.Key is the only one you can use in battle…I wonder if the others were supposed to have those functions too?)

That turned out to be the first big difficulty spike in the game: The L&D Cave monsters can hit Bo really hard (I remember him as a glass cannon, but not quite to this degree) and the Bully enemies in particular have a massively powerful lightning spell that can wipe you in one round. After I reached Arad, I ended up spending an hour grinding out levels on the gold slimes around Bleak to catch myself up. (Oddly, Nina’s level gain really took off at this point. When I got back to Auria, she was up in the 40s, more than ten levels ahead of everyone else. Karn was in the teens! But then she hit level 46 and just stopped. She gained one last level in Pagoda, the second-to-last dungeon.) The Krypt is the longest dungeon for a while; you definitely need to be prepared. (And it helps to know you should wait to get Karn before you open trapped chests.) I then lessened the difficulty for myself again by warping to Agua: The pillars in front of the shrine at the top hide the IcyDr for Karn and the LifeAR for Ryu, two top-level items well beyond what you’re supposed to have at that point.

Then there are some short events, smaller dungeons and bosses (that took less time in total than the Krypt) and you get to the Gobi solo segment, which is the worst. You can wander into a battle right after getting through the sailing sequence and get killed easily. The Prima guide recommends using Mrlb3s (the “no random battles item”, relocalized here as Smoke).

Bleu is renamed Deis (to better match later games, as noted before), starts at a measly level 18, and has only mid-level magic when she joins. She leveled up fairly slowly and didn’t actually have the best spells when I beat the game.

I had remembered that having Gobi set up shop was a way to get certain high-level weapons; though I’d remembered it as a weapon for Ox and maybe one for Nina. I got nothing of value in Prima, but setting up shop in Tunlan got me a Sleeper spear, a PowerRP for Nina, and a DwarfBW for Bow, all significantly better than what I had. An FAQ I checked noted that the flea market upgrades after you get the Sphere and again once you get adult Nina; I’m guessing the hack rearranged the sale tables.

I believe the Rod5 was renamed the Rod4 (probably because there was not Rod3 in the original). I also found a Rod3 where I think a Rod4 used to reside. I kinda wish they’d gone with WeakRod, MedRod, GoodRod and WellRod instead of keeping the numbering. (Especially since the only purpose of Rod5 aka Rod4 is to fish at wells for Dragon equipment.)

Mogu’s dream is the next big difficulty spike; the gas fields are absolute murder because there are enemies with strong hit-all spells and also enemies with the instakill Shock spell. I kinda forgot about using weapons as items in battle for a while, which may have contributed to some difficulty. While the FlameRP is useful against single targets and the Cane is okay against undead, the next real prize is the Trident found in Mote’s Dream. That hits all enemies with lightning for 95 damage. Carmen and Tock were noticeably easier because of this.

After I got adult Nina, I tried to do the third Dragon Trial, but despite having some of the best equipment available, Ryu got murdered in three hits. I was able to get a powerful DarkDR for Karn at the Flea Market at this point, though. I went back to the flea market later and got the Mallet, too.

I think this is the first time I’ve managed to get the Puka spell for Karn before he actually had enough MP to cast it! (I’m guessing Karn’s MP total and level curve was changed for the hack.) I ended up grinding for a while around Scande (I tried fighting the giant golden slimes, but their appearance rate was too low) to get Karn enough levels to cast Puka and open the doors. Then I got Ryu through the third Dragon trial by alternating Vitamins and Focus and hoping the boss didn't get a Slam attack (it was definitely made harder). Then I turned around and hit the Healing Water cave to learn the last dragon spell; I cast Rudra (rendered as Kaiser) exactly once.

I burned through a lot of items in the final dungeon, but using Infinity (an appropriate relocalization of Agni) made the boss battles tedious instead of difficult. Oddly, though the damage cap was removed for most attacks (I had Puka hit random enemies for 2000+ damage), Infinity is limited to exactly 999 with every strike. That implies to me that an un-merged team could actually beat Myria faster…except for the troublesome level curve that kept my party stuck in the 40s. The level curve for everybody was weird; I don't think the hacker did a great job with it.

Overall: Though it’s a standard and rather formulaic 16-bit jrpg in a lot of ways, this game has a lot of charm and I appreciate the updates to the localization the hacker put in. That said, the new level curve is a mess and that keeps this from being a really good “definitive” version of the game.

 

[Beowulf]

Secret of Mana (Collection of Mana - Switch) and Secret of Mana Reborn (SNES Emulator)

Spoiler

I think the Collection version of Secret of Mana is glitchier than the original: We had the game freeze the first time we beat Spiky Tiger, and Blue Spike went into his death animation briefly when he still had a third of his health left. There are also some wonky graphical issues, but those I vaguely remember. And pulling up the world map on Flammie is a draggy, laggy and unpleasant affair.

We twice found invisible chests randomly in dungeons that provided us with weapon orbs that we’d missed elsewhere. Given the number of times I’ve played this game, I actually find it rather shocking how many weapon orbs I apparently miss with some regularity. Actually, I think there are several that I NEVER knew where they were, despite owning a strategy guide and the full Nintendo Power coverage (all of which ARR devoured while we were playing). He got a little tired of it as time went on (and Beowife never liked the battle system but tolerated it for my sake), but had a good time and there’s potential to go back and play Trials of Mana together.

To Beowife’s credit, the system isn’t actually that great. The timing/charged hits system is weird (they didn’t want you spamming attacks, but there’s a reason later games didn’t mimic it) and the statistics-based dodge/block/miss chance is confusing when you’re also trying to aim for the sometimes-wonky hitboxes. Also, the whip has better range than the bow and neither is always easy to aim with. They use roadblocks that require certain weapons (whip posts and axe rocks, mostly), but that mostly just forces you to change weapons periodically rather than requiring much thinking. And the plot massively condenses after you leave the Empire; it feels like there should be much more to the Dark/Light/Moon/Tascina/Joch sequence given the pacing of the game before that. I love this for nostalgia, but kinda wish that when they remade the game they did more than just update the graphics.

This month, the “Reborn” hack came out, and apparently this year is all about replaying games I’ve loved for decades. To be fair, having recently replayed the original made it easier to see the differences. “Reborn” is primarily a retranslation of the original SNES game that crams in a lot more text.

Especially in the early game, the retranslations are often clunky and jump between overly literal and overly poetic—it feels like they made decisions line by line without reading the whole for flow and coherence. Dyluck foreshadows a lot more about his mysterious power in your first meeting. Luka speaks in a weird Ye Olde Englishe manner. (They also occasionally refer to her as “Rusa Luka” vs. “Sage Luka” other times.)

Gnome has a terrible Scots accent. An entire flashback scene was added after you touch the Earth Seed and the Sprite gets their memory back. Jema has far longer expository speeches, including the origin of the Evil Wall. There’s a new cutscene of Luka talking to Serin’s ghost (revealing that Serin is the boy’s father) when you blast off to the Upper Land. There’s more dialogue from the sprite elder, and the trio has a conversation after you rescue Flammie.

The conversations in the Empire are generally extended a bit, but I didn’t see anything new. I did notice they use the “kukuku” or “fufufu” laughing style that’s popular with “direct translations” from Japanese but doesn’t really make sense to English audiences.

Shade gets a big speech about Mavolia and how humans might sell their souls for power. He also gets a bizarre new accent full of apostrophes.

I’m certain some of the weapon orbs were rearranged for this hack: There were axe and spear orbs in chests in the Light Palace that I have no memory of every being there before.

Blue Spike (here renamed “Biochimera” did the “death animation before he actually dies” glitch here, too. Karon the ferryman was, oddly, not renamed “Charon” or anything else. Sheex also mentions the deal with Mavolia when you fight him at the Tree Palace. After the continent rises, there’s a conversation suggesting you check in on Luka. She’s in the dungeon of the Water Palace, and she suggests visiting gramps. Gramps just says he sensed troops coming and hid in the woods. (This smells like a sidequest they weren’t really able to implement.)

I’m fairly certain there are a few more bonus treasure chests in the sunken continent. I had a momentary freakout because it seemed like the Neko after you finish the sunken continent sold the same equipment available in Auria City! Except, then I accidentally reset the game and restarted from a nearby save state, and it apparently was a glitch. The Vestguards were back where they belonged.

Since I played Reborn with cheat codes anyway, I put in one that makes every enemy drop chests for the Mana Holy Land and the Mana Fortress. There are only two helmets and one bracelet in the Holy Land that I found, but at least two armors, three bracelets and one more helmet in the Mana Fortress plus four more weapon orbs that dropped from random enemies. (I’d heard about those, but don’t think I’d ever seen them before.) The equipment is only slightly better than the stuff you buy from Neko, so it’s not worth grinding for, but it’s cool that it exists.

The conversation with the Tree sheds more light on the fate of Serin: He fought the Emperor to mortal blows 15 years earlier; Serin made it to the falls outside Potos but couldn’t draw the sword and the Emperor was revived by evil magic through the deal he made with Mavolia. The final scene with Thanatos similarly provides backstory: He was an ancient sorcerer who sold his soul to Mavolia so he could body-hop, and Dyluck was born with a dark power that makes him an ideal host (but gives him a strong sense of justice).

As much as I appreciate Mavolia replacing “the dark world” to better tie into the series mythos, it doesn’t actually jive with the Mavolia that Sword of Mana references, which is the home of monsters and magic but not necessarily evil in any way, and certainly not a source of corruption.

Overall: The game holds up only moderately, and is really helped by nostalgia value. The system isn’t great, there are a number of glitches, there’s too much grinding, and the plot is oddly condensed. But playing it as three-player couch co-op was perfect for this year, and playing a retranslation with cheats while the original was still fresh in my mind worked out well.

 

[Beowulf]

Final Fantasy II - A Threat from Within (SNES Emulator)

This is a hack with a new story set 40 years after the original (but seemingly ignoring the events of The After Years). Following the moon’s departure, the crystals lost their power, making magic unreliable and airships fail. In Eblan, Edge’s son, Furio has completed his ninja training and is sent off to Agart on a mission. When he gets there, monsters appear and chaos reigns.

Spoiler

It’s a very ambitious hack, not least of which being that it’s “Part 1 of 4”. They also added limit breaks, the ability (and necessity) to hire a mercenary, the need to “hunt” chocobos rather than finding chocobo forests, and “epic choices” that apparently affect the storyline. They also (and this was very nice) overhauled the item descriptions to make them much more useful, and the equipment screen to make it clearer what swapping gear got you.

I had a hell of a time finding the right rom to patch—one seemed to work for the opening sequence, but then spawned a chocobo instead of Edge in the first battle and hanged. When I finally got it up and running, I got to Agart, met a cockatrice, and was killed by petrification two tries in a row. (The stores aren’t available, so if you didn’t stock up and one character gets petrified, you need to hope for lucky random drops from enemies. Lovely.) So, I took my usual route and plugged in some Game Genie codes. I’m giving the hacker points for adventurousness, but taking some away for balance and playability.

In Agart, you need to fight four summoned monsters to retrieve four keys, and then put them into locks in order of the game the character’s name on them came from. The boss is Jinn, who has gone crazy on orders of “him” and is trying to wipe out humanity.

Furio returns home with the reward, and is sent to Mysidia to investigate the strange weather that’s been coming from Mt. Ordeals. Elders Palom and Porom send him on his way. The mountain is full is low-level undead and several map-screen events. At the top, Furio overhears Shiva talking to Indra about their plan to wipe out Mysidia at the orders of The Master, and that Rydia’s life is in danger. Furio seems to have the option to confront them or run away. I opted to fight Indra, which gave a scene where a shadowly figure decided to send “his” bodyguard after my party. When Furio returns to Mysidia, Palom and Porom chew him out, refuse to pay, but agree to accompany him to explain their decisions. (They are inexplicably fucking level 20.) The ship is attacked by a Tentacle on the way back, which is the only battle you have the twins for.

They explain everything to Edge, then Furio is sent off to Baron, Mist and Damcyan to check in with kings and recruit Rydia. In Baron, Prince Ceo prevents you from seeing Cecil and is generally a dick. Furio has the option of trying to convince Ceo to let him see Cecil, or trying Rydia instead.

I opted to travel through the Misty Cave and talk to Rydia. She’s grown old due to time in the Feymarch. They ask her about negotiating with the rampaging eidolens. Her adopted daughter Cuore (apparently rescued during a crisis twenty years prior) joins the conversation. Rydia agrees to go with us, which Cuore thinks is dumb. She joins at level 50 with a good suite of black magic (and a Plead ability I don’t know how to use), which is much more appropriate. On the way back, we’re attacked by a very strong Mist Dragon; I was able to steal a Dragon Claw from it.

Back in Baron, you get an immediate audience with Cecil, who reveals Kain is gone and Rosa is dead. Between this and the origin of Cuore, it seems to indicate that The After Years did happen, just that Ceo didn’t mature at all in twenty years, among other things. Cecil sends Ceo to help investigate what’s going on in Damcyan, which you need to cross the “Highwind Pass” to reach. Ceo has Dark and also White magic and uses knight equipment. You can also swap your recruited ninja or mage for a dragoon in Baron but I opted not to. The pass is a new dungeon based around “jump points” that locks your magic for the duration. Partway through, you can fight Shiva to lift the magic block. Shortly after, you meet a mysterious Dragoon (emphatically not Kain) who kills everyone but Ceo and forces you into a dual battle. He warns Ceo not to continue, but Rydia insists they should anyway.

In Kaipo, there’s a bard school, a man suffering from “Nectar Blues”, and a sidequest where you can grind Cactuar nectar and sell it for prizes. Then head through the Watery Pass, complete with a stop to rest and a cutscene of Titan talking to a mysterious figure. Octomamm is redone with physical and magical tentacles you need to kill individually or the main body will counter everything with White Wind. I also stole a Jack Knife from it.

In Damcyan, Titan attacks and Edward is injured and put to bed. You can walk to the Antlion Cave, which includes a monster chest with the Antlion (you can steal a Sandruby, and it guards the Slumber sword). When you beat Titan, he reveals that the eidolens are answering to an ancient spirit from beneath the earth that recently awoke from a long slumber; but Ceo throws a temper tantrum and kills Titan before getting any other useful information. Ceo then leaves in a huff when the party calls him on this.

There’s a cutscene of “the boss” giving Leviatan one last chance to stop the party, then you’re prompted to save, then the game cuts to credits. I’m guessing the hacker is setting up some way to import your save from Part 1 to his next part.

Overall: This is crazy-ambitious and I’m not sure the hacker can actually pay it off, but I’m very impressed with what they managed to put together. Whenever Part 2 appears, I suspect I’ll find out!

 

[Beowulf]

Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance – NGP Hack (GBA, Replayed on ReGBA on RG350)

This game doesn’t offer a New Game Plus…unless you use the hack that provides it. It rearranges a bunch of items so you get the best equipment and most of the mobility relics early, opening up more of the game and dropping the difficulty for most of it.

Spoiler

Because I had pretty much all of the mobility items so early but it’s been a decade since I played this, I lost track of the second teleporter that returns you to Castle A…and accidentally cleared out the entire eastern half of Castle B way before I was supposed to. By the time I figured out my mistake and found the teleporter back, I had defeated the Shadow and seen enough Maxim scenes that he just gave me his ring on my first visit to that room. This also meant I didn’t have the split map when this happened and was edging on 100% map completion before I’d even visited most of Castle A. (The plot got kinda confused, is what I’m saying.) And the Lure Key and Skull Key ended up being two of the last things I found because of the weird order I did everything in, so there were locked doors thwarting me right up to the end, and I never managed to use a teleporter in a helpful way.

As I noted when I reviewed this the last time I played it, this game neither points you in the right direction enough nor really allows you enough freedom, so you end up backtracking a lot. You can’t access any of the additional warps between castles or any of the “overlap” early areas until you’ve followed the plot to the right point. The locked doors then force you to circle the map a lot more than really feels fair. If I’d followed a walkthrough and done this in the “correct” order (besides grabbing hidden items you’re supposed to backtrack for when I first pass by), I probably could have cut my play time in half.

(Odd quirk: My personal log of my playtime showed 7 hours. The in-game clock showed 5, and I only died and lost time twice. The game didn’t seem to be slowed down; I’m wondering if in-game clocks are just messed up on the RG350.)

A noteworthy thing about the NoGlo and Palette Fix hacks included as part of this is that they make Maxim sometimes become invisible during the final battle, which is an issue. (I decided I didn’t feel like grinding to get enough levels and potions to handle Dracula; I fought Maxim and took the lesser ending.)

Overall: Like any New Game Plus, this was a fun way to replay the game, though it also broke it open enough to make the flaws more evident.

 

[Beowulf]

Soul Blazer - Retranslation Hack (SNES, Replayed on PocketSNES on RG350)

King Magridd made a deal with the demon Deathtoll to trade all the souls in his kingdom for gold. When the kingdom stood empty, the Master sent down an angel to destroy the monsters that sealed the souls: A Soul Blazer.

Spoiler

The hack I played Soul Blazer Retrans By Steppolo was intended to correct the poor English translation done in the original release. So…when you make a hack specifically to be a retranslation, to make a game better and more readable and more understandable, wouldn’t you want to, I don’t know, run a spellcheck?

Whether the game has been “decensored” or the names of items are better than the original translations I can’t really say, but I can say that the quality of the writing hasn’t been improved: It’s full of typos and misspellings. The grammar is still often awful. Capitalization is inconsistent. The text boxes sometimes glitch from where the words are crammed in. The retranslation of some items is inconsistent, sometimes within the same text box (the brown stone aka the quartz is a good example; the mayor’s speech uses both terms when he gives it to you). The Master is referred to as the Maker, and Blazer is referred to as “Angel”; and in a lot of cases that looks like a global replace on the script (including a lot of extra spaces after Maker where the sixth letter would be.)

The fact that the first weapon is the “Pure Dagger” makes me skeptical of all the renamings: Blazer’s sword is as tall as he is. You cannot use the word dagger to describe a greatsword. (Also, he renamed the Zantetsu Sword the “Cutting Iron”, which is so close to being a better translation, except that “Iron Cutter” is right there and actually correct!)

There were only a few changes in plot or dialogue that I noticed: Instead of asking you to be one of her children, the mayor’s wife asks you to be her husband. I don’t know if this was in the Japanese version, but it’s weird and inappropriate and I’m glad the US release took it out. The animal restaurant in Greenwood says the special today is “Bugs” instead of “You” which isn’t as funny. The people in the mountain are constantly called Gnomei, but relatively little is changed in past that beyond a few more grammar changes and a bunch more misspellings.

Overall: I quite enjoy this game, both on a gameplay level and as part of the greater Quintet canon. It is not improved by, “You took away there lives YOU SOULLES DEMON!”