Your favourite rom hacks

[Weasel]

I've been playing The Rat Race quite a lot more yesterday and I forgot how many other little things are changed - it's like Earthbound of Earth 2, or [insert other comic alternate universe analogy here]. Just all kinds of weird stuff is different for no real reason...

- Everybody's primary weapon types are switched around. Paula wields whips and riding crops instead of frying pans, Ness uses tennis rackets.
- Pokey is now "Mikey Obesephalus" and wears different clothes, including a newsboy cap and glasses, which somehow succeeds in making him look like even more of an asshole.
- A bunch of other names are changed; they're in the same spirit but it does give the game a "bizarro" feeling. For example: Happy Happyism -> Bluerism, Carpainter -> Dr. Krohm...
- Though the more things change, the more things I'm surprised were not changed, for example the Insane Cultists still have the little white pompoms on their hoods instead of the "HH" insignia, the crosses on the hospitals are still gone, etc.

While I'm posting in here (again), I should mention I've also restarted a playthrough of the Final Fantasy V Spoof. Okay, spoof hacks usually suck and are full of unfunny swearing and immature jokes, but FFV Spoof was (purportedly) designed to skirt around that sort of thing. It's a text-only hack, so the game itself is unchanged, but clearly some actual thought went into altering the text in the game to not only parody the actual proceedings of FFV (Boco, instead of giving you a Job System tutorial, whines about how you left him in front of a cave within ten minutes of the game's intro), but JRPG stuff in general (save points, unnecessary cutscenes, and all the alterations to the Job descriptions).

[pseudo3d]

Mar 18, 2013 11:46:29 GMT -5 Weasel said:

Paula wields whips and riding crops instead of frying pans

well this has taken a rather deranged twist

[r0ck3rz]

Mar 18, 2013 2:43:53 GMT -5 AfroRyan said:

I mean, on one hand it may show that players want/expect different characters to play differently from one another (regardless of gender), but on the other, it also shows how lazy/[faux] sexist rom hackers are to not bother doing some fairly simple sprite hacks.

Honestly, I think rom hacking has generally been more interested in creating new adventures, than caring about who/what the playable characters are.

[Pixel_Crusher]

Do PC game mods count?

[Narushima]

Well, since they're not rom hacks at all, no.

[redrum]

i've played a lot of hacks, and one of my favourites would have to be super mario R by dahrkdaiz
the R stands for random, as everything is randomized - enemy placement, colour palette, what level you go to next, pretty much everything besides graphic & level design.
super metroid - justin bailey was another good hack.  purely a graphical change, but a nice reason to run through the game again.

i've done a few hacks myself back in the day, mostly graphical but a few that were more involved.
check em out on my site if you'd like - inverteddungeon.com/redrum

[strizzuth]

Awful Fantasy 3

[tenfresh]

Great topic.

There's a hack of Final Fight called "Street Smart" that let's you play as many of the bad guys as well! I believe the rom is ffightjh.

Also a hack out there for Warriors of Fate that does the same.

There are hacks out there of many SNK fighters that make the bosses or hidden characters playable from the get-go, I know I've seen these for Last Blade 2, SNK vs Capcom, SamSho 2.

One of my favorites is a hack of Sengoku 3 that let's you play the two additional characters that become available midway through the game on the beginning levels.

I tried to get through the Metal Slug 3 hack called Metal Slug 6, but it was too wonky to hold my interest past the first level. Fun to get to tear sh*t up with the thundercloud though!

[gamersmith]

Thanks for sharing it with me. I was looking for it across the internet and finally came across this forum. Thanks man. Also try using super bomberman for snes  for rom download. It's useful for gamers.

[psygnosis8]

Some wack job named koko made a few rom hacks in the early 2000s. My favorite is an NES Willow hack called “Mr. T Ate My Balls”, which is amazing. He altered the story to include the kool-aid man and the Quaker Oats guy, and it’s loaded with inappropriate humor so juvenile and offensive that I don’t care to go into it much. But if you’re a 9 year old degenerate at heart, like I am, there’s plenty to love here.

Edit-tenfresh: Metal Slug 6 is a real game too, lol. It’s on the atomiswave hardware.

[ommadawnyawn2]

I like Hyper Metroid and Super Mario 3mix a lot, pretty creative and tightly designed without any big "this was quickly thrown together or needed new assets to work" moments.

My own hacks:
minirevver.weebly.com/my-rom-hacks.html

[KGRAMR]

One of my favorite N64 hacks has to be this one. You can play it on real hardware via Everdrive too!

[windfisch]

This music hack for the second Game Boy Mega Man has just been released. It remedies my only gripe with that game, namely the high-pitched, off-sounding music. It's still not as good as the first game music-wise, but it sounds a lot better now and some compositions are actually quite catchy with those alterations applied. The core game has always been solid, imo. Again not the best of the GB titles, but a fun playthrough nonetheless.