Last month, i found some cool romhacks to try out, i was a bit bored and romhacking.net is my go to place for fun rom hacks and translations. So i go there every week to see if any were good. I found some of them i will just shortly explain here and hope you all try them at least.
ROCKMAN CX
The first is called Rockman CX, is a rom hack of Rock Man 2 on Famicom (Or Mega man 2 on NES if you aren't from japan) This rom hack is so unique that it comes with is own rom patcher, but it only works on the japanese rom, not the english. Anyway you are Grey colored rock man fighting other charactes from pop culture like Fire mario, Whispy woods, Air man, Bomberman, Kamen Rider or "The masked rider" from some japanese tv show that is probably older than most of us. Rock man, yes a clone of you, like in the first mega man. Yoshino man who looks like some office cubical guy and CHEAT MAN! Somehow the plot involves Rockman, quick man and gutsman and dr.right (Light if you are not from japan) so dr. right is the main vilian, because the game is in japanese, i dunno what the true story is or if wily is involved so you are on your own with that. I published a review for it if you want to see and need convincing why you should try it.
ROCKMAN CX REVIW
GOD OF WAR II
Another rom hack i played was God of war II, is a rom hack of the first castlevania game on nes. Sadly is a level redesign to alter difficulty and graphic change to look like greek or god of war game, but plays exactly like castlevania, not much to say about it but if you like the reference you should try it.
SONIC THE HEDGEHOG IMPROVEMENT
The third one is the sonic the hedgehog improvement rom hack for nes. This is a rom hack of the maybe not so well known pirated game SOMARI the adventurer. Is basically a unlicensed game that makes mario play like sonic. The original rom is unique as it also has is own level design and is based on the first sonic game for genesis. While not many would play this goofy looking game for fun or seriously and instead as a joke and for curious reasons. The inprovement hack changes mario to sonic, improve the visual sprites of everything, tweaks the levels to make the game easier to work and playable from start to end and recomposed the music to sound better than it has been. It worth checking even if you dislike the original game.
RETROID
Going to the SNES now, is a Super metroid rom hack, is called Retroid. Basically the aim of the rom hack is to make the original nes game in super metroid form. It looks like it, and it feels and plays like it. Because it plays like NES metroid, the whole map and level design tries to match it and you can't do what you usually would in this one, but it does look nice to see a NES metroid get SUPER enhanced graphics and music. I played it and was impressed but i never did like the NES metroid and never beat it so it a mixed thing for me. I still would recommend checking out. But i would either eventually finish the rom hack when i get bored enough to do so or when Metroid Zero mission stops being fun.
SUPER METROID GBA STYLE
Next is another Super metroid rom hack. This one is unique cause instead of changing graphics or level design to alter difficulty, it changes game play to give the impression of playing a new game and challenge. The rom hack called Super Metroid GBA STYLE!, is basically a game play mod that makes most of the game play like Metroid Zero mission. To me this is a genius idea as Super metroid and Metroid Zero mission are both my top two favorite games of the series. You can hold a button to use items like the GBA games instead of select to switch and use like normal, pink doors usually require 5 missles and now only one, but more importan the physics are altered. Is actually a fun hack and i would like others to least try. It offer new challenge to people who are already familiar with it, and can maybe allow new ways to complete the game. The new inclusion is the auto run feature. In the GBA games to use speed booster you would have to hold a direction for 5 seconds without any obstical to achieve it. The patch tries to mimic it well by enable auto run to mimic that same thing. Some other changes are found in the spoiler. So please try it if you are curious.
MEGA MAN X GENERATIONS
Mega man X Generations is a Texture graphic and level layout rom hack of Mega man X on SNES. It also features music from other capcom games on SNES including Super ghouls and ghost and Breath of fire 2. Sadly this seem to be a incomplete game as all upgrades is unobtainable either cause of bad level design or too well hidden, so i had completed it without hadoken. Either way not much else changes so no new upgrade or weapons, bosses still fight the same, no weakness switch, so is not much to see but you should try to explore anyway, see if you can get hadoken, cause i have no clue.
BREATH OF FIRE IMPROVEMENT
And speaking of breath of fire, this rom hack called Breath of fire improvement for GBA. Is basically has a recolored pallet to match the original SNES game, retranslation includes switching the names of some characters to the default japanese original Like Bleu being deis, tyr being myria, name of some items and weapons and text to fit the changes properly. It also says "Changes weapon and the charachers stats to match the other games in the series mainly the Playstation ones." While this "Improvement" seem okay at first i was interested cause i had only found the hack shortly after playing and beating the game. But i was very shocked that this game was hard. The original i found wasn't as hard after a few play throughs, when you finally figure out the secrets and how to get strong quick and early as well as some exploits, this rom hack makes those things useless.The problem with the rom hack is it attempts to rebalance the characters you have against the ones you fight making lots of battles very hard or unfair.
One major flaw is that this game has 2 endings which one being good and bad depending how you defeat the final boss tyr... or myria. The game actually explains how to get the good ending so is not a secret. Your character the hero you name at the start (is default RYU) has the ability to transform into powerful dragons. In order to do that you need to beat specific bosses in a dragon shrine as they call trials to obtain the powers. You have to beat 3 of these trials then find a secret shrine where you get the final form Agni. YOU NEED TO USE THIS IN THE FINAL BATTLE TO GET THE GOOD ENDING. The problem is you need a lot of AP to use it which is like 60 I think. But cause of the "Improvement patch" That rebalance the game, you have a low ammount of AP on even a common level in the original. By the time you get Agni you would have level up enough to have enough ap for a single use. When i tried in this game i didn't have enough. You are foced to grind levels until you can do so which in this game is a nightmare, at least level 60 i think is required for enough, without the patch i was as low as 20 something. That alone is a bad sign how i feel and why "Improvement" is in quotes. Perhaps someone thought the game was easy and needed to be harder, just like the second and third game.
BREATH OF FRESH FIRE
Breath of fresh fire is a rom hack of Breath of fire II on GBA. Unlike the Improvement hack of the previous one, this one aims to make the game a bit easier and fair. Characters and enemies stats are rebalanced to make leveling up less necessary and tedious as well as give some characters magic spells they normally wouldn't have either to give them a edge indepently or to make things less tedious. More characters have the warp spell to reduce back tracking with the ever changing roster requiredc to complete the game, some characters are given more ap to use spells eailer cause like i said before having spells and no ap to use them is a bad sign. Katt who can learn some powerful level 3 magic very early in her level growth phases can't use them cause she gains ap so slowly. Is actually made me play this game again after finishing it and feeling like i didn't ever wanna play it. This game is hard, probably as hard as the third game. To be clear all the games in the series is hard, while the 4th is my favorite (and many will argue that three is best) the second was the hardest and the first was easier as i learned how the games function from top to bottom. Check the spoiler for more details. If you want a difficulty change in these two games, try the hacks out.
I noticed there is a easy mod for the SNES game i didn't really bother with it being that it has no run feature like the GBA games but i may try it just to experience it. I also heard that there is some actual bugs with the game that some item effects don't work properly. Maybe is why that smoke spell never stops random encounters like it should. Anyway if you are curious or want more info about my experience just leave a comment. You can find all the rom hacks at the site i mentioned above before the explanations.
ROCKMAN CX
The first is called Rockman CX, is a rom hack of Rock Man 2 on Famicom (Or Mega man 2 on NES if you aren't from japan) This rom hack is so unique that it comes with is own rom patcher, but it only works on the japanese rom, not the english. Anyway you are Grey colored rock man fighting other charactes from pop culture like Fire mario, Whispy woods, Air man, Bomberman, Kamen Rider or "The masked rider" from some japanese tv show that is probably older than most of us. Rock man, yes a clone of you, like in the first mega man. Yoshino man who looks like some office cubical guy and CHEAT MAN! Somehow the plot involves Rockman, quick man and gutsman and dr.right (Light if you are not from japan) so dr. right is the main vilian, because the game is in japanese, i dunno what the true story is or if wily is involved so you are on your own with that. I published a review for it if you want to see and need convincing why you should try it.
ROCKMAN CX REVIWGOD OF WAR II
Another rom hack i played was God of war II, is a rom hack of the first castlevania game on nes. Sadly is a level redesign to alter difficulty and graphic change to look like greek or god of war game, but plays exactly like castlevania, not much to say about it but if you like the reference you should try it.
SONIC THE HEDGEHOG IMPROVEMENT
The third one is the sonic the hedgehog improvement rom hack for nes. This is a rom hack of the maybe not so well known pirated game SOMARI the adventurer. Is basically a unlicensed game that makes mario play like sonic. The original rom is unique as it also has is own level design and is based on the first sonic game for genesis. While not many would play this goofy looking game for fun or seriously and instead as a joke and for curious reasons. The inprovement hack changes mario to sonic, improve the visual sprites of everything, tweaks the levels to make the game easier to work and playable from start to end and recomposed the music to sound better than it has been. It worth checking even if you dislike the original game.
RETROID
Going to the SNES now, is a Super metroid rom hack, is called Retroid. Basically the aim of the rom hack is to make the original nes game in super metroid form. It looks like it, and it feels and plays like it. Because it plays like NES metroid, the whole map and level design tries to match it and you can't do what you usually would in this one, but it does look nice to see a NES metroid get SUPER enhanced graphics and music. I played it and was impressed but i never did like the NES metroid and never beat it so it a mixed thing for me. I still would recommend checking out. But i would either eventually finish the rom hack when i get bored enough to do so or when Metroid Zero mission stops being fun.
SUPER METROID GBA STYLE
Next is another Super metroid rom hack. This one is unique cause instead of changing graphics or level design to alter difficulty, it changes game play to give the impression of playing a new game and challenge. The rom hack called Super Metroid GBA STYLE!, is basically a game play mod that makes most of the game play like Metroid Zero mission. To me this is a genius idea as Super metroid and Metroid Zero mission are both my top two favorite games of the series. You can hold a button to use items like the GBA games instead of select to switch and use like normal, pink doors usually require 5 missles and now only one, but more importan the physics are altered. Is actually a fun hack and i would like others to least try. It offer new challenge to people who are already familiar with it, and can maybe allow new ways to complete the game. The new inclusion is the auto run feature. In the GBA games to use speed booster you would have to hold a direction for 5 seconds without any obstical to achieve it. The patch tries to mimic it well by enable auto run to mimic that same thing. Some other changes are found in the spoiler. So please try it if you are curious.
Super Metroid: GBA Style! is a hack of Super Metroid which main goal was to be able to combine the Project Base and Control Freak hacks into a single, fully functional hack. Additionally, this hack aims to make the gameplay experience of Super Metroid as closely as possible to that to Metroid Zero Mission and Metroid Fusion in both controls and physics.
The original base hacks for this project were:
The original base hacks for this project were:
- Project Base - 7.2 (Nintendit 1.57), using the Super Metroid (JU) [!] [2015].ips patch for making the patch changes Gameplay-only related:
- Missile doors now require only 1 missile shot to be opened like in Zero Mission / Fusion, instead of the original 5 from Super Metroid.
- Run is now toggleable between Run and Walk.
- Moonwalk has been deleted, and the setting is now used to toggle Auto Run.
- Aim Up is now the only aim button, ‘Aimlock’. Holding it will make Samus aim at a certain angle, and aim higher or lower if you tap up or down.
- Samus also has the ability to run and aim straight up at the same time now by using Aim-Lock + Up, you can go back to diagonal aiming by pressing Down while still holding Aim-Lock.
- Select Item is still used to select missiles, super missiles or the grapple beam. It no longer selects X-ray nor Power Bombs; X-Ray now has its own button and Power Bomb is highlighted automatically when in Morph Ball and pressing Brandish. Beams can still be used at any time, even when missiles and super missiles are selected.
- Item cancel has also been removed, as it now activates the x-ray scope.
- Aim Down has become Brandish, which, when held, will toggle between Beams and the item currently selected. This is somewhat… abusable.
- Powerbomb attacks are also now easy to control, just tap Brandish when you want to trigger them while in Morph Ball.
- Spinjump controls have also been improved a bit - Walljumping should be a bit easier on a d-pad, and Samus will fire in the direction you’re pressing instead of just forward, if you press fire.
- The controls are configurable to ANY combination. Aim is not limited to L and R.
- General movement is less inhibited, with many new tricks made possible
- Heavier physics to closely resemble that of the GBA games
- Faster elevators, doors, room transitions and item-collection sequences
- Bug fixes and polish applied whenever possible
- RESPIN – press jump at any time during a normal fall to resume spinning
- BOMB SKIP – hold down to avoid bomb jumping
- QUICK MORPH – hold X-Ray + press down to instantly morph while in air.
- DEMORPH JUMP – until Spring Ball is equipped, holding run allows spin-jumping straight out of ball form
- SPEED BALL – with Spring Ball equipped, Samus gains the ability to run at full speed as a ball
- SPIN FALL – hold jump as you fall from a ledge to flip automatically
- Beam travelling and firing speeds adjusted, auto-fire speed increased
- Charge beam draws energy and ammo drops from enemies toward you, also charges slightly faster
- Speed Booster has become a major power-up with several huge limitations removed
- Horizontal shinesparks can be exited into a full-speed run when Samus touches a slope
- Space Jump no longer stops working after you’ve fallen too far
- Missiles and super missiles can be fired faster
- Super missiles can be fired straight down while in the air to propel Samus upward
- X-Ray Scope speed increased
- Bomb timer shortened
- Underwater wall jumping and bomb jumping enabled
- Running speed no longer resets after jumping or falling
- New HUD changes: Missiles selected will be highlighted in GREEN. If you press Select, Super Missiles will be in GREEN while normal missiles will appear in grey. Pressing Select again will highlight the Grapple Beam in GREEN. Only when the Brandish button is pressed, the selected item will change its icon to YELLOW.
- New Run code: sylandro made a new Run ASM code to make the Running of Samus much more similar to that of Zero Mission and Fusion. If you have Auto-Run enabled, Samus will now wait some time until she starts gaining up speed into Boost, similar to the following entries on the franchise.
MEGA MAN X GENERATIONS
Mega man X Generations is a Texture graphic and level layout rom hack of Mega man X on SNES. It also features music from other capcom games on SNES including Super ghouls and ghost and Breath of fire 2. Sadly this seem to be a incomplete game as all upgrades is unobtainable either cause of bad level design or too well hidden, so i had completed it without hadoken. Either way not much else changes so no new upgrade or weapons, bosses still fight the same, no weakness switch, so is not much to see but you should try to explore anyway, see if you can get hadoken, cause i have no clue.
BREATH OF FIRE IMPROVEMENT
And speaking of breath of fire, this rom hack called Breath of fire improvement for GBA. Is basically has a recolored pallet to match the original SNES game, retranslation includes switching the names of some characters to the default japanese original Like Bleu being deis, tyr being myria, name of some items and weapons and text to fit the changes properly. It also says "Changes weapon and the charachers stats to match the other games in the series mainly the Playstation ones." While this "Improvement" seem okay at first i was interested cause i had only found the hack shortly after playing and beating the game. But i was very shocked that this game was hard. The original i found wasn't as hard after a few play throughs, when you finally figure out the secrets and how to get strong quick and early as well as some exploits, this rom hack makes those things useless.The problem with the rom hack is it attempts to rebalance the characters you have against the ones you fight making lots of battles very hard or unfair.
One major flaw is that this game has 2 endings which one being good and bad depending how you defeat the final boss tyr... or myria. The game actually explains how to get the good ending so is not a secret. Your character the hero you name at the start (is default RYU) has the ability to transform into powerful dragons. In order to do that you need to beat specific bosses in a dragon shrine as they call trials to obtain the powers. You have to beat 3 of these trials then find a secret shrine where you get the final form Agni. YOU NEED TO USE THIS IN THE FINAL BATTLE TO GET THE GOOD ENDING. The problem is you need a lot of AP to use it which is like 60 I think. But cause of the "Improvement patch" That rebalance the game, you have a low ammount of AP on even a common level in the original. By the time you get Agni you would have level up enough to have enough ap for a single use. When i tried in this game i didn't have enough. You are foced to grind levels until you can do so which in this game is a nightmare, at least level 60 i think is required for enough, without the patch i was as low as 20 something. That alone is a bad sign how i feel and why "Improvement" is in quotes. Perhaps someone thought the game was easy and needed to be harder, just like the second and third game.
This is a major rebalance hack that makes this game play more like the later games in the series, plus a few tweaks.
- Some weapons and all armors have thier att/def and weight altered to the values of their later game counterparts
- Level pacing is greatly altered with stat gains being reduced and levels occurring much more frequently (Max level stats based off of typical endgame stats in this game and a few tweaks based on later games.
- Snes palette restored by ThegreatBen
- more frequent occurrence of good equipment in Flea market
- REMOVED DAMAGE CAP
- contains the text cleanup patch by vivify93.
- Bleu (now renamed Deis) gains spells slower, forcing you to use lower tiered ones until further in the game.
- Gobi buffed slightly
- Version 1.1 fixed a glitch with text
- version 1.2 fixed leveling issues, refined the flea market changes (still gives better equips more often) and removed StarHR (is now a free Mallet)
BREATH OF FRESH FIRE
Breath of fresh fire is a rom hack of Breath of fire II on GBA. Unlike the Improvement hack of the previous one, this one aims to make the game a bit easier and fair. Characters and enemies stats are rebalanced to make leveling up less necessary and tedious as well as give some characters magic spells they normally wouldn't have either to give them a edge indepently or to make things less tedious. More characters have the warp spell to reduce back tracking with the ever changing roster requiredc to complete the game, some characters are given more ap to use spells eailer cause like i said before having spells and no ap to use them is a bad sign. Katt who can learn some powerful level 3 magic very early in her level growth phases can't use them cause she gains ap so slowly. Is actually made me play this game again after finishing it and feeling like i didn't ever wanna play it. This game is hard, probably as hard as the third game. To be clear all the games in the series is hard, while the 4th is my favorite (and many will argue that three is best) the second was the hardest and the first was easier as i learned how the games function from top to bottom. Check the spoiler for more details. If you want a difficulty change in these two games, try the hacks out.
Breath of Fire 2 is another one of the author’s favorite RPGs from the 1990s. The early Breath of Fire games weren’t anything particularly new (character-development-wise), but they were well executed and fun to play, and definite creativity was demonstrated in different character’s abilities. Every character can do something nifty to help out your team, and the party lineup can be organized differently in battle via different attack formations, which have varying affects on the attack/defense/speed of each combatant. The Breath of Fire series catapulted non-humans into central, heroic roles (Breath of Fire was the first game that the author remembers that memorably did this). And lastly, building a new town was an incredible feature, and gave the player a sense that they were really are making their own destiny and affecting the game world.
This modification serves to fine-tune the Player Characters, to provide the player with strong reasons to use any of them. Ryu is also able to use his Dragon powers more liberally (like his ancestor did in Breath of Fire 1), as they do not zero out his AP anymore. Dragon abilities do damage based on Ryu’s level and his Wisdom. There are a few more Shaman combinations, as well.
To peruse a more exhaustive changelog, go to http://jeffludwig.com/bof2/download.php. There’s also information on the characters, shaman combos, weapons, and armor.
This modification serves to fine-tune the Player Characters, to provide the player with strong reasons to use any of them. Ryu is also able to use his Dragon powers more liberally (like his ancestor did in Breath of Fire 1), as they do not zero out his AP anymore. Dragon abilities do damage based on Ryu’s level and his Wisdom. There are a few more Shaman combinations, as well.
To peruse a more exhaustive changelog, go to http://jeffludwig.com/bof2/download.php. There’s also information on the characters, shaman combos, weapons, and armor.
I noticed there is a easy mod for the SNES game i didn't really bother with it being that it has no run feature like the GBA games but i may try it just to experience it. I also heard that there is some actual bugs with the game that some item effects don't work properly. Maybe is why that smoke spell never stops random encounters like it should. Anyway if you are curious or want more info about my experience just leave a comment. You can find all the rom hacks at the site i mentioned above before the explanations.
