# Massive hack of FF6, Return of the Dark Sorcerer



## bradzx (Nov 2, 2014)

http://rotds.webs.com/

Any of you who is huge fan of FF6, then it is your chance to get this.  This is biggest hack than other hack FF6 has.  IT change everything.  Even both overworlds.  I did play this for bit and I just curious for intro and guess what?  They put battle in intro without you command them to fight or use magic or their skill.

So here what this person said about this hack.



> Return of the Dark Sorcerer is a Final Fantasy VI mod that's been in development for about 4 years and has had many different hands on to help get it to where it is today.​This mod promises to showcase some of the more challenging aspects of FFVI modding, as well as plenty of fun and exciting new content -- from an all new cast of playable characters with customized movesets, a radically changed story with many new and customized events, new overworld maps, anew soundtrack, and lots of unique sprites.​
> *Features:*
> 
> - New cast of characters with customized move sets.
> ...


 
Have fun to playing this hack.


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## the_randomizer (Nov 2, 2014)

Glad to see this game still being hacked  Will try out on Snes9x for sure


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## Deleted User (Nov 2, 2014)

Lets hope Square doesn't decide to drop the fuck your shit up hammer on this awesome project.


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## FailName (Nov 2, 2014)

Ew, another one of those zsnes only hacks.


			
				Readme said:
			
		

> - Played and tested on zsnes, I highly recommend you do the same - from my short amount of time playing it on Snes9x, it had a lot of mould issues with the monster formations, and music issues also.


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## Hells Malice (Nov 2, 2014)

FailName said:


> Ew, another one of those zsnes only hacks.


 
because it's suuuuper difficult to use zsnes or obtain it.


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## bradzx (Nov 2, 2014)

FailName said:


> Ew, another one of those zsnes only hacks.


I did try out with SNES9X and it look fine to me.  No audio problem with it.


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## the_randomizer (Nov 2, 2014)

Hells Malice said:


> because it's suuuuper difficult to use zsnes or obtain it.


 

Zsnes just sucks, unless you have an old computer, there is no advantage or reason to use a highly inaccurate emulator. It's 2014, it's time people stop relying on eight year-old emulators. I'd be more than willing to do a short audio comparison test to prove just why Zsnes is so bad  Just because Zsnes is more popular, doesn't make it the best  Truly the IE 6 of Snes emulators.


Edit: Yeah, works fine on Snes9x, the whole "only for Zsnes" is BS. I think I'll post a video just to prove that claim wrong.


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## Hells Malice (Nov 2, 2014)

the_randomizer said:


> Zsnes just sucks, unless you have an old computer, there is no advantage or reason to use a highly inaccurate emulator. It's 2014, it's time people stop relying on eight year-old emulators. I'd be more than willing to do a short audio comparison test to prove just why Zsnes is so bad  Just because Zsnes is more popular, doesn't make it the best  Truly the IE 6 of Snes emulators.
> 
> 
> Edit: Yeah, works fine on Snes9x, the whole "only for Zsnes" is BS. I think I'll post a video just to prove that claim wrong.


 
zsnes works fine. Plays games 100% perfectly, and i've never run into a problem. I guess your PC just sucks? Dunno. No idea how you broke it. I don't really care if there are "better" emulators. If something plays games 100% then i'm not going to bother using another one unless it was specifically to play something like this shitty ff6 hack if it were to only work on other emulators.


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## the_randomizer (Nov 2, 2014)

Hells Malice said:


> zsnes works fine. Plays games 100% perfectly, and i've never run into a problem. I guess your PC just sucks? Dunno. No idea how you broke it. I don't really care if there are "better" emulators. If something plays games 100% then i'm not going to bother using another one unless it was specifically to play something like this shitty ff6 hack if it were to only work on other emulators.


 

Try playing Star Fox at it's proper speed,

http://emulation-general.wikia.com/wiki/ZSNES

SPC700/S-SMP emulation? Botched
SuperFX/S-DD1 emulation? Botched

My PC doesn't suck, and please check the edited part, it works fine now, so..... Zsnes sucks ass.
Oh and Earthworm Jim 2? No sound effects on Zsnes due to the inaccurate S-SMP emulation.

Here's a video comparison I made a little while ago:

While that won't convince you per se, it will at least show why Zsnes has problems, skip to 1:40

Blarrg wrote the DSP/S-SMP emulator for Snes9x which is 1:1 to a real console. I can show several comparisons to prove why Zsnes being popular != good. You're only depriving yourself of the full experience on why Snes9x is so much better. Classic GUI be damned. And just because a game runs full speed doesn't mean it's running the way it should be.


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## GHANMI (Nov 2, 2014)

Hells Malice said:


> zsnes works fine. Plays games 100% perfectly, and i've never run into a problem. I guess your PC just sucks? Dunno. No idea how you broke it. I don't really care if there are "better" emulators. If something plays games 100% then i'm not going to bother using another one unless it was specifically to play something like this shitty ff6 hack if it were to only work on other emulators.


 
Even Marvelous Mouhitotsu no Takarajima? Star Ocean? Special SNES homebrew with SNES-SD Video? Tengai Makyou Zero?
At this rate, they must put "Console: ZSNES Emulator" instead of "SNES".


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## the_randomizer (Nov 2, 2014)

GHANMI said:


> Even Marvelous Mouhitotsu no Takarajima? Star Ocean? Special SNES homebrew with SNES-SD Video? Tengai Makyou Zero?
> At this rate, they must put "Console: ZSNES Emulator" instead of "SNES".


 

Check my post above, I made a video show Snes9x vs Zsnes.


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## GHANMI (Nov 2, 2014)

the_randomizer said:


> Check my post above, I made a video show Snes9x vs Zsnes.


I checked it out 
We really need more from these videos - ZSNES absolutely butchers some games, not just sound, even video.
Tengai Makyou Zero has all visuals except text blacked out since the extra chip isn't emulated - more games, even standard ones, have serious visual/sound issues.


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## the_randomizer (Nov 2, 2014)

GHANMI said:


> I checked it out
> We really need more from these videos - ZSNES absolutely butchers some games, not just sound, even video.
> Tengai Makyou Zero has all visuals except text blacked out since the extra chip isn't emulated - more games, even standard ones, have serious visual/sound issues.


 

Oh, I'd be happy to make some video of those right now. Square Enix sounds are way off, Super Mario World, Earthworm Jim 2, etc. People used to it naturally wouldn't notice anything off, and that's normal. I used Zsnes for years and never knew anything was wrong, but now I know. Any recommended video comparisons I should test for sound at the least. Oh and Star Fox is a good one as the SuperFX is clocked wrong. I wonder, if I should make a dedicated thread to Zsnes being dead wrong.


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## RCJayce (Nov 2, 2014)

the_randomizer said:


> Oh, I'd be happy to make some video of those right now. Square Enix sounds are way off, Super Mario World, Earthworm Jim 2, etc. People used to it naturally wouldn't notice anything off, and that's normal. I used Zsnes for years and never knew anything was wrong, but now I know. Any recommended video comparisons I should test for sound at the least. Oh and Star Fox is a good one as the SuperFX is clocked wrong. I wonder, if I should make a dedicated thread to Zsnes being dead wrong.



Yes, make a Znes vs Snes9x comparisons thread. I'd love to see the differences.


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## sarkwalvein (Nov 2, 2014)

the_randomizer said:


> Oh, I'd be happy to make some video of those right now. Square Enix sounds are way off, Super Mario World, Earthworm Jim 2, etc. People used to it naturally wouldn't notice anything off, and that's normal. I used Zsnes for years and never knew anything was wrong, but now I know. Any recommended video comparisons I should test for sound at the least. Oh and Star Fox is a good one as the SuperFX is clocked wrong. I wonder, if I should make a dedicated thread to Zsnes being dead wrong.


 
And if possible make it an article into the front page, perhaps under the title _"Long time deserved service to the GBAtemp community: Snes9x vs ZSNES compatibility comparison or why ZSNES sucks *(with videos)*"_.
It would be an instant hit.


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## the_randomizer (Nov 2, 2014)

sarkwalvein said:


> And if possible make it an article into the front page, perhaps under the title _"Long time deserved service to the GBAtemp community: Snes9x vs ZSNES compatibility comparison or why ZSNES sucks *(with videos)*"_.
> It would be an instant hit.


 

Oh I don't know about that, heck, I don't have the foggiest idea on how to write a good article, much less get it on the front page; I'm sure there are more newsworthy articles that need to go on there 





RCJayce said:


> Yes, make a Znes vs Snes9x comparisons thread. I'd love to see the differences.


 
And I'd be glad to show people the true differences in emulation accuracy   Sound samples, video comparisons, and other examples?


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## GHANMI (Nov 2, 2014)

the_randomizer said:


> Oh, I'd be happy to make some video of those right now. Square Enix sounds are way off, Super Mario World, Earthworm Jim 2, etc. People used to it naturally wouldn't notice anything off, and that's normal. I used Zsnes for years and never knew anything was wrong, but now I know. Any recommended video comparisons I should test for sound at the least. Oh and Star Fox is a good one as the SuperFX is clocked wrong. I wonder, if I should make a dedicated thread to Zsnes being dead wrong.


 

I found some more:
ZSNES sucking big time even compared to the buggy 1.43 Snes9x release


Timing





			
				Emulation General Wikia said:
			
		

> *Games crashing* - Der Langrisser (freezes after 2-3 hours), Super Mario RPG (freezes in many different points of the game), Star Ocean and many other games have freezing and crashing issues.
> *Bad sound emulation* - A ton of games sound terrible on ZSNES; Earthworm Jim 2 has no sound effects.
> Many of the co-processors, which are actually on the cartridges, are emulated in extremely strange ways. For example, Super FX for example is not clocked correctly - Star Fox runs twice as fast as it should.


 
Random Crashes: Chip-enhanced games (Der Langrisser, SRPG, Star Ocean, Marvelous, Tengai Makyou ...) and even regular games
Awful sound emulation: Earthworm Jim 2, Squaresoft/Enix games, Turiccan games, ...
Messed up graphics: Kirby Dreamland 3, Mecarobot Golf, Jurassic Park and any game that uses pseudo hi-res translucency. Clock Tower, Donkey Kong Country 3, ...
Even the ZSNES devs admit it's sub-optimal 

If you're considering doing an article, please put as much games as possible, a couple dozen or something.


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## the_randomizer (Nov 2, 2014)

GHANMI said:


> I found some more:
> ZSNES sucking big time even compared to the buggy 1.43 Snes9x release
> 
> 
> ...






Dayum, I knew it was bad, but this one is the proof in the pudding. Zsnes hasn't been updated since 2006, that's nearly a decade, and Zsnes 2.0 is as good as vaporware. It should not take eight years to port pure ASM to C+/C++ lol. Any ideas for a good thread name? Kinda like the one mentioned above?


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## Sakitoshi (Nov 3, 2014)

who cares about emulators. anyone knows if works on real hardware?? once I got home I'm gonna test with my Super Everdrive and Retroduo.


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## DiscostewSM (Nov 3, 2014)

Gonna give my first impression of this



Spoiler



I've played maybe an hour of it (which includes having to redo the intro with Fast-Forward because the ROM I started with was not correct and froze on the first battle), but unfortunately, I'm just not getting into it. I guess I expected more than just swapping of assets and changing the dialog, which so far seems to be most of what this game represents. Most of the map layouts are still the same, as is the sequence to which scripts and cutscenes follow with added sprite frames. Then it started including Final Fantasy VII characters, which really turned me off. Maybe I just need to push into the game a little more before it turns around, but I don't know.

I guess one good thing came out of this. I stopped using ZSNES.


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## the_randomizer (Nov 3, 2014)

Sakitoshi said:


> who cares about emulators. anyone knows if works on real hardware?? once I got home I'm gonna test with my Super Everdrive and Retroduo.


 

It should, most ROM hacks nowadays are known to work on real hardware. The only potential issue is if the ROM hack was developed with Zsnes in mind, and that right there can really kill a hack.


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## Issac (Nov 3, 2014)

the_randomizer said:


> Dayum, I knew it was bad, but this one is the proof in the pudding. Zsnes hasn't been updated since 2006, that's nearly a decade, and Zsnes 2.0 is as good as vaporware. It should not take eight years to port pure ASM to C+/C++ lol. Any ideas for a good thread name? Kinda like the one mentioned above?


 
To be fair, I have to say I've played through all of Clock Tower and all of Super Mario RPG without any graphical glitches (like in that Clock Tower video) or it crashing. I have to check Earthworm Jim 2 too, because I clearly remember that accordion working  unless I mix it up with something else 

However, RetroArch with bsnes cores is just what I wanted and works perfectly for me  (Now I just want to research how to run it in PAL and NTSC modes, and see if different region roms play differently and such).


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## Jayro (Nov 3, 2014)

Which version of this game would be the easiest to make a romhack out of? I hear the GBA has tons of tools available, but when i try them, they are tailored for asm engineers or some shit. sprites are garbled garbage, and I can only seem to find pokemon gen 3 editors.


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## the_randomizer (Nov 3, 2014)

Issac said:


> To be fair, I have to say I've played through all of Clock Tower and all of Super Mario RPG without any graphical glitches (like in that Clock Tower video) or it crashing. I have to check Earthworm Jim 2 too, because I clearly remember that accordion working  unless I mix it up with something else
> 
> However, RetroArch with bsnes cores is just what I wanted and works perfectly for me  (Now I just want to research how to run it in PAL and NTSC modes, and see if different region roms play differently and such).


 

Nope, it never did work, maybe in older versions, but Zsnes doesn't emulate streaming audio of the SPC700, which that game relies on, Snes9x and Bsnes use Blarrg's S-SMP core, which it cycle-accurate to the real S-SMP (SPC700). Bsnes and RetroArch is the only way I play it, better GUI lol. You're not confusing it at all so no sweat. Zsnes is indeed dead last in terms of compatibility and accuracy, unless people have a potato for a CPU, there's no reason to use it  Games like Der Langrisser will crash after an hour or two, I recommend that link above another fellow user posted on the general emulation wiki, Zsnes is just plain FUBAR and not a good way to enjoy games the way they were meant to be emulated. Snes9x and Bsnes are very close. I really should make a thread about the comparisons.

Right now I'm isolating sound effects from Snes9x and Zsnes.





Jayro said:


> Which version of this game would be the easiest to make a romhack out of? I hear the GBA has tons of tools available, but when i try them, they are tailored for asm engineers or some shit. sprites are garbled garbage, and I can only seem to find pokemon gen 3 editors.


 
I would assume the US 1.0 version, good dumps usually have a [!] in the names. Google is your friend


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## Sakitoshi (Nov 4, 2014)

just tested on real hardware and it works perfectly. I was worried for the size of the rom but uses the biggest official rom size(6291456 Bytes + 512 Bytes of the useless header).
I used a Super Everdrive v1(china version) and a RetroDuo for this test.


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## the_randomizer (Nov 4, 2014)

Sakitoshi said:


> just tested on real hardware and it works perfectly. I was worried for the size of the rom but uses the biggest official rom size(6291456 Bytes + 512 Bytes of the useless header).
> I used a Super Everdrive v1(china version) and a RetroDuo for this test.


 

Awesome, so the hack was indeed optimized to work with better emulators, Bsnes is cycle-accurate so it's definitely good that it can run on real hardware


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## VinsCool (Nov 4, 2014)

Am I the only one who uses Snes-GT? It has excellent sound emulation, and supports most super mario world "zsnes hack only" without any issues.

Back on topic. This hack looks awesome! I definitely give it a go


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## the_randomizer (Nov 4, 2014)

VinsCool said:


> Am I the only one who uses Snes-GT? It has excellent sound emulation, and supports most super mario world "zsnes hack only" without any issues.
> 
> Back on topic. This hack looks awesome! I definitely give it a go


 

I like SnesGT a lot as well, and if I recall, it uses Anomie's (was that his name?) S-SMP core, which is slightly less accurate than Blarrg's S-SMP, very hard to tell a difference actually. Zsnes hacks aren't my thing though personally lol, but this emulator is still a crap load better than Zsnes XD A good test is the Lavos scream from Snes9x on Chrono Trigger, very hard to get right


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## VinsCool (Nov 4, 2014)

the_randomizer said:


> I like SnesGT a lot as well, and if I recall, it uses Anomie's (was that his name?) S-SMP core, which is slightly less accurate than Blarrg's S-SMP, very hard to tell a difference actually. Zsnes hacks aren't my thing though personally lol, but this emulator is still a crap load better than Zsnes XD A good test is the Lavos scream from Snes9x on Chrono Trigger, very hard to get right


 
Actually, I played through Chrono Trigger with this emulator and snes9x 1.53, as far I can tell, sound emulation is almost the same: accurate. Same for earthworm jim 2 and many games having sound problems in zsnes, they all sounds how they should


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## the_randomizer (Nov 4, 2014)

VinsCool said:


> Actually, I played through Chrono Trigger with this emulator and snes9x 1.53, as far I can tell, sound emulation is almost the same: accurate. Same for earthworm jim 2 and many games having sound problems in zsnes, they all sounds how they should


 

Oh definitely, both support SPC700 audio streaming, Zsnes does not. But there is one notable difference in audio cores, the Lavos scream on Chrono Trigger, https://dl-web.dropbox.com/get/Snes...AALajFP0jyi2Oqm2UpmBvW-Kt75-HTvNc44QzwOXKYd7A Snes9x 1.53 actually wins in this regard as it's 1:1 to the real deal  Other than that, not much of a difference, either emulator is far superior.

I isolated that sound, heck, I should do the same to many of the hard-to-emulate games; Square Enix ones are the worst on Zsnes. And then make a blog entry or topic about it.


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## VinsCool (Nov 4, 2014)

Here's my list:

BSnes/Higan > Snes9x 1.53 > SnesGT >>>>>> (far superior) >>> ZSnes


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## the_randomizer (Nov 4, 2014)

VinsCool said:


> Here's my list:
> 
> BSnes/Higan > Snes9x 1.53 > SnesGT >>>>>> (far superior) >>> ZSnes


 

Bsnes and the RetroArch GUI, yeah, I'm truly baffled as to why people still use Zsnes, it only ruins the experience for the hacks due to odd emulation behaviors.  Did you listen to the Lavos scream? It truly pushed the SPC700 to the limit, only two emulators get it right, well, three. Snes9x, Higan, and Nintendo's Virtual Console.


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## VinsCool (Nov 4, 2014)

the_randomizer said:


> Bsnes and the RetroArch GUI, yeah, I'm truly baffled as to why people still use Zsnes, it only ruins the experience for the hacks due to odd emulation behaviors. Did you listen to the Lavos scream? It truly pushed the SPC700 to the limit, only two emulators get it right, well, three. Snes9x, Higan, and Nintendo's Virtual Console.


 
SnesGT sounds good too. Maybe less accurate, but still more close to the real thing than ZSnes


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## the_randomizer (Nov 4, 2014)

VinsCool said:


> SnesGT sounds good too. Maybe less accurate, but still more close to the real thing than ZSnes


 

Oh I know, I have nothing against SnesGT at all, I hope they update it again sometime  I still wish to make a thread, how to present it will be an issue.


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## VinsCool (Nov 4, 2014)

the_randomizer said:


> Oh I know, I have nothing against SnesGT at all, I hope they update it again sometime


 
I won't hide my thoughts, SnesGT is an excellent and underestimated snes emulator. I use this one more than snes9x because of most smw hacks having custom musics not working on snes9x. I'm greatly surprized on how this emulator works well on most games. I did a complete playthrough on SnesGT with Secret of mana, Chrono trigger, terranigma, Clock tower and many many more games. All of them were working perfectly. I also shared SRAM save on snes9xtyl MECM (for psp, based on snes9x 1.39) and I quickly noticed sound or graphic issues compared to the moste recent version (1.53) and snesGT. To me, both emulators are on par in compatibility, but SnesGT wins to me because my SMW hack with cutom music works perfectly on it, even if it is less accurate than snes9x in many points, at least it does the job pretty well.


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## the_randomizer (Nov 4, 2014)

VinsCool said:


> I won't hide my thoughts, SnesGT is an excellent and underestimated snes emulator. I use this one more than snes9x because of most smw hacks having custom musics not working on snes9x. I'm greatly surprized on how this emulator works well on most games. I did a complete playthrough on SnesGT with Secret of mana, Chrono trigger, terranigma, Clock tower and many many more games. All of them were working perfectly. I also shared SRAM save on snes9xtyl MECM (for psp, based on snes9x 1.39) and I quickly noticed sound or graphic issues compared to the moste recent version (1.53) and snesGT. To me, both emulators are on par in compatibility, but SnesGT wins to me because my SMW hack with cutom music works perfectly on it, even if it is less accurate than snes9x in many points, at least it does the job pretty well.


 

And that's fair enough  I never used those SMW hacks to be honest, the problem is that they relied on broken timing and other anomalous quirks, but again, I have my opinions on why I like Snes9x more and to each their own


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## smizzoker123 (Nov 4, 2014)

personally i like snesgx wii homebrew. setting the filter to original on a standard-def tv looks just like me old snes from back in the day, 
i know its easy to hate on zsnes, but back in the day when all you had was a pentium 1 200mhz or a 486dx2, zsnes made those games run smooth as butter, with the power we have now with computers it has made the program obsolete.

also if you go to the rotds website, look in their forum somebody has a post to a mediafire link to the game, if your having problems patching or what not


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## the_randomizer (Nov 4, 2014)

smizzoker123 said:


> personally i like snesgx wii homebrew. setting the filter to original on a standard-def tv looks just like me old snes from back in the day,
> i know its easy to hate on zsnes, but back in the day when all you had was a pentium 1 200mhz or a 486dx2, zsnes made those games run smooth as butter, with the power we have now with computers it has made the program obsolete.
> 
> also if you go to the rotds website, look in their forum somebody has a post to a mediafire link to the game, if your having problems patching or what not


 

Be careful with ROMs, you might want to edit that last part out, just in case, but yeah, Zsnes had its purpose back in ye old Pentium days, but as great as those days were, Snes9x is simply far superior. I was simply pointing out its flaws and why there is no reason to use it, unless someone has an Intel Potato 400 MHz CPU lol


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## FencingFoxFTW (Nov 20, 2014)

So, any reviews of the game? I read it's too random.


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## VinsCool (Nov 20, 2014)

It is. But I like it.


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