61 Frames Per Second : rom hacks

In Super Smashing Pumpkin Bros. Shy Guys Are Part Of Your Siamese Dream

Derrick Sanskrit — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 16:00:00 GMT

I've known plenty of fine folks who've wasted many late nights reskinning ROMs of their favorite old NES games to resemble their favorite pop culture characters or make philosophical statements in self indulgent ways. This, however, is something I'm shocked to have not seen before, considering the ROMs are about a decade old now. Steven and David Pukin reskinned Super Mario Bros 1 and 3 with Billy Corgan and various Smashing Pumpkins related ephemera to create Super Smashing Pumpkin Bros 1 and 2. Then, Macbee reskinned Super Mario Bros 2 with the whole band to make Super Smashing Pumpkin Bros 3. From the attire, I'd guess the third game is set during the Adore era. Billy's always bald and dressed in all black, so it's all gotta be Infinte Sadness or later, right?

See below for a trailer of all three games and then a link to download the ROMs yourself like I just did.

Click here to find all three ROM files. You'll need an NES emulator, of course, and the internet is full of them, so I'll leave that up to you. My personal favorite, though, is Nestopia for Mac OS X.

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The Mother GBA Translation: Tomato is a Crazy Mofo

Bob Mackey — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 16:00:00 GMT

No, not that Mother translation. I'm talking about the first Mother: released in Japan in 1989, translated by Nintendo of America, abandoned, discovered, and re-released by the ROM hacking community in 1998 as Earthbound Zero. Mother was also ported to the Game Boy Advance along with its sequel (AKA Earthbound) in 2003; unfortunately, this game fell victim to Nintendo's policy of Earthbound fans not having nice things. Fortunately we have dudes like Tomato, whose amazing hacking/translating skills will one day give us the privilege of playing the first Mother on the go. Here's a video of his progress so far:

Of course, this isn't quite as monumental as the Mother 3 translation--after all, an English script for this game already exists--but Tomato plans on making quite a few interesting changes this time around. And here they are, taken right from this blog post:

Some of the things you can expect from this retranslation:

* A retranslated script. The EB0 ROM has a good number of changes and mistakes/issues with plot details. The EB0 script is also very dry, because of limited resources. This retranslation can allow for a lot more text, and censoring/changes won’t need to be done.

* Expanded text boxes, allowing for more dialog text at one time, meaning the text will be nicer and easier to read.

* Expanded battle text boxes, allowing for more text than before. I still need to actually edit the text to use the new space though.

* I added an “Easy Ring” to Ninten’s basement, for those who don’t like to grind for experience and money. The item, when equipped, doubles the exp and money you get from enemies. It makes the game much less of a chore.

* Things like the status screen are a little fancier and more verbose.

* You can use the L Button in this game much like you can in EarthBound. It makes talking to things/checking things a little quicker.

* I plan to make a few changes with the font and the window borders to be more like EarthBound.

* Many of the little EarthBound / MOTHER 3 connections will be left intact in this translation, so fans of the series will surely enjoy that. The EB0 translation changed a lot of things, which broke some of these connections.

* Translations into other languages will be incredibly easy to do.

Mother isn't exactly the most modern game, but I'm considering playing through it again aftering seeing the changes Tomato plans on making. This is a project that's definitely worth keeping an eye on.

Related Links:

The Reason Why Mother 3 Never Came to America
Earthbound and Back Again
THE MOTHER 3 TRANSLATION IS OUT

WTFriday: Mario Versus Air Man

Bob Mackey — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 18:00:00 GMT

Note to readers: WTFriday is a weekly feature where I find something stupid about video games and get you to laugh until it goes away. Please try to forget this is what I normally do every day of the week.

Today's WTFriday is more strange than stupid, but it's worth looking at nonetheless. Listen, I'm only human and sometimes I reach my capacity for hate. That being said, ROM hacks usually are stupid; they either make your playable character naked/demonic/into feces, or they're "remixes" which are unplayably hard for everyone except the hacker himself. The ROM hack I'm about to show you is unplayably hard, but it's also undeniably cool; and you also have the benefit of watching a YouTube video of said hack instead of having to suffer through it yourself. Believe it or not, this is an extremely modified hack of the original Super Mario Brothers:

Going to the page for this video will give you a ROM download link, but I urge you to not take advantage of this kind offer, lest you rob this hack of its magic. Plus, I'm pretty sure it was made with voodoo, or one of the dark arts. You don't want that stuff in your computer.

Related Links:

WTFriday: Atlus Takes on Third Wave Feminism
WTFriday: The Star Fox 64 Promo Video
WTFriday: Mega Man A Cappella

Our Emulation Habits

Bob Mackey — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 22:30:00 GMT

A long, long time ago (actually, it was just this past Friday) fellow blogger and 61FPS boss-man pined over his inability to emulate. I'm afraid that I'm a bit less romantic than John, even though my feelings about emulation have changed slightly over the years. But when I first started emulating--man oh man--it was like some sort of amazing technology I dreamed about but never thought would exist. As is the case with most people who caught onto emulation, I got hooked on NESticle back in 1997, and spent the copious amounts of free time I had (I was a dork in high school, after all) downloading all the games from my past I was dying to play again.

If I'm not mistaken, I think this was also the year that SNES emulators--a baffling proposition at the time--first started to support sound. I remember downloading a .wav file of the Chrono Trigger opening song as played through the soon-to-be released SNES9X and sitting there completely awestruck. Yes, even then I realized how nerdy I was.

Really, the late 90s-early 00s were a very fruitful time for emulation, and during this short span of years we saw some of the most notable translations: Final Fantasy V, Seiken Densetsu 3, and even a ROM dump of Nintendo's own aborted attempt at releasing the first Mother game. If emulation has served me any good, it's come from being able to play games I would've never been able to play otherwise. The translation scene is much quieter these days, but every once in a while there's a huge release, like the PSX version of Tales of Phantasia or Mother 3, which we can't stop blogging about.

Really, the inauthenticity of emulation really doesn't get to me, because the differences from the real hardware are--in my eyes--imperceptible; and I'd rather play something great with minor imperfections than not play anything at all. The only trap I've ever fallen into has been the dreaded "emulation fatigue," which happens when you have a lot of ROMs but not a lot of patience. It's easy to judge and dismiss a game in moments when you've got hundreds more sitting on your hard drive; most people suffering from this disorder try out games for roughly eight seconds before deciding to never play them again. But I've found that if I actually pay money for emulation, usually via the Wii's Virtual Console, this problem disappears entirely. I still have a bunch of games I've never finished sitting on my Wii, but I feel compelled to go back to them because they actually have a dollar value. Not sure if that makes me a hypocrite, but that's my typical behavior.

So I'm going to go ahead and say "Huzzah for emulation!" as long as it isn't hurting anyone. I honestly don't see the point in ethical hand-wringing over games we'll probably never see on any platform again; sure, Capcom may not see a dime from you downloading a DuckTales ROM, but the great money chain for that game was broken about 18 years ago. That doesn't make you entitled to play it, but in the end, who the hell cares?

Related Links:

Question of the Day: Why Can’t I Emulate?
THE MOTHER 3 TRANSLATION IS OUT
The End of Time and the Beginning of Fan Drama

THE MOTHER 3 TRANSLATION IS OUT

Bob Mackey — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 16:00:00 GMT

I have to apologize for posting about the Mother 3 translation project twice in one week, but this post contains actual news, as opposed to just speculation. Today--right now--you can finally grab the Mother 3 translation patch; though how you choose to use it is entirely up to you (Note: it cannot possibly be used for evil). Here's the newest trailer, in case you still need convincing:

I can't think of a better way to end this post than with project lead Tomato's comments about this project finally wrapping up:

After more than 13 years of waiting, the sequel to EarthBound is now in English! I hope fans of the series, new and old, will find MOTHER 3 to be just as unique and interesting as its predecessors. We tried our very best to make a worthy translation, and I think we came close to hitting that mark. With any luck, the translation will seem just as "strange, funny, and heartrending" as the original Japanese version.

MOTHER 3 is filled with secrets and rarities. Characters say new things after even the tiniest of events. Take your time to explore the game's intriguing world - you won't be disappointed! And when you're done, be sure to come back here, because we've prepared many more goodies for fans to check out and enjoy post-game!

Enjoy your time in the world of MOTHER 3!

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to waste a significant portion of my Friday. Go and grab the patch HERE if you didn't do so immediately.

Related Links:

Earthbound and Back Again
Earthbound Saga Pt. 4
Persona 2: Innocent Sin Translation Complete

Persona 2: Innocent Sin Translation Complete

Bob Mackey — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 16:30:00 GMT

With the Mother 3 translation looming on the horizon that is Friday (or Saturday), this is looking to be a great week for the fan translation scene. But Mother 3 isn't the only Japanese game to receive obsessive attention from devoted fans; yesterday marked the release of the translation patch for Persona 2: Innocent Sin. Due to their general size and complexity, very few PSX games are fan-translated (the most notable one being Tales of Phantasia), so this is quite a feat. But I'll let the trailer say more than my words ever could:

The story behind Persona 2 is an interesting one; we actually got one of the Persona 2 games, Eternal Punishment, in the States back in 2000. For whatever reason--probably the low profits involved in localizing a niche RPG on a dying system--Atlus opted to bring out the second Persona 2 game, leaving Innocent Sin to the same fate as the last two chapters in the Shining Force 3 trilogy. Now, thanks to the work of a few devoted fans, we'll finally get to play one of the missing chapters in a series that's really picked up steam in the US since Persona 2's release.

I gotta say, if you love video games, hobbyist translators are possibly the best people in the world. It's strange; the translation scene doesn't feel nearly as large or productive as it did back in the late 90s/early 00s, but every so often there's a huge release that proves they aren't going away anytime soon. And if they're taking requests for any future projects, might I recommend Marvelous: Another Treasure Island? Something about not getting to play a Nintendo-developed SNES RPG directed by Eiji Aonuma (who's basically been head honcho of Zelda since Ocarina of Time) makes the world seem much more horrible.

Related Links:

The End of Time and the Beginning of Fan Drama
TVTropes' "Woolseyisms"
The Mother 3 Translation is Coming (For Real This Time)!

The Mother 3 Translation is Coming (For Real This Time)!

Bob Mackey — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 15:30:00 GMT

It may be hard to believe; and yes, I know I've posted about it before. But the Mother 3 (AKA the sequel to Earthbound) translation is actually coming out at the end of this week! Could this news possibly be correct? After all the heartbreaking delays by the dedicated Mother 3 Translation Project, how do I know that they're just not yanking my chain, as so many Earthbound-based promises have yanked it before?

Rest assured that the evidence is stacked in our favor. A simple message, posted yesterday on the translation team's blog, says a lot in just a handful of words:

The patch will be out at the end of this week.

I can barely contain myself, and you should honestly feel the same way; if you're an Earthbound fan like me, then you've probably been eternally dicked over. Not only did we have to wait eleven years for a true sequel, we also had to suffer the anguish of knowing a game that we wanted to play existed in a language most of us were too lazy to achieve complete fluency in. Now, thanks to the kind folks in the translation scene--the same subculture that wrangled an officially-translated prototype of the first Mother over a decade ago--our dreams will finally come true. All that's left is to wait just a few more agonizing days. I think we can make it.

Related Links:

The Mother 3 Translation: We're Not Worthy!
Earthbound 2/Mother 3 Fan Translation Nears Completion
Whatcha Listening To: The Earthbound Soundtrack

Whatcha (Trying To) Play: Legend of Zelda: Parallel Worlds

Nadia Oxford — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 22:10:00 GMT

Blessed are the fan translators. Without them we would never be able to experience the wonder of games like Seiken Densetsu 3, Mother 3 (it's coming!) or Final Fantasy V years before it recieved an awful translation on the Playstation.

Less blessed are the ROM hackers. I know we all went through our childhood tormented by questions like, "What if Mario had a gigantic penis to trip him up while he tried to rescue the Princess?" and, "Gee, Sonic the Hedgehog is great, but it would be really great if someone replaced Mobius' clouds with Swastikas!" but ultimately the answers to these questions turn out to be nothing but messy self-indulgence.

But even my jaded heart can recognise a great piece of fan work when I see it. The Legend of Zelda: Parallel Worlds is a great piece of fanwork. It's also near unplayable for pussies who embody the type of girly gamer who should slink back to her copy of Barbie's Horse Adventures (hint: Me).

The Legend of Zelda: Parallel Worlds is actually a patch that fits snugly over a Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past ROM (Look, ma! I resisted an obvious condom metaphor!). When you think of patches, you think of translations, bug fixes and other "smaller" changes, but Parallel Worlds differs from A Link to the Past in almost every way. There's an entirely new overworld and dungeons, the character sprites have been touched-up, especially Link (who is not Link, shhh) and the whole world you were familiar with has generally been turned on its head.

But the game is also insanely hard, as it's meant to be. You begin the game with your uncle--er, your friend--telling you to meet him at the Guardhouse for some treasure hunting shennanigans. Pretty straightforward fare for any video game, but getting to the "X" marked on the map is not a gentle tutorial about picking up bushes and reading signs. Enemies are out to get you from the start, and you're unarmed; you'd better become good at throwing weeds at guards (weed whacking?). The path isn't straightforward, either. You need a lamp, and let's just say it's not at the foot of your bed this time around.

I'm currently going through the first dungeon, the Guardhouse, and I'm still unarmed. You might be startled to learn that Guardhouses are full of guards. I'll say this much: my first run isn't going to be a perfect affair.

I keep dying...but I keep re-trying. Either I've turned into a masochist or deep down I really like something about Parallel Worlds.

Related Links:

Whatcha Playing: BS Zelda
Many Colors in the Hardcore Rainbow
Faster, Link! Kill! Kill!