Well, I just beat the hack...with heavy savestate abuse, of course.

This hack is fun if you go in knowing that it is basically the Megaman equivalent of Kaizo Mario World, otherwise you'll be in for a very rude awakening. There are a LOT of cheap enemy placements, low-ceiling jumps, tight jumps around spikes, guessing games where if you screen transition down the wrong path there are spikes waiting to kill you instantly, impossible to dodge boss AI edits, and fake floors (the fake floors were manageable, though).

That being said, I still enjoyed it because I went in expecting the worst. If it will help you design better hacks in the future, I could do a playthrough of the game, put it on Youtube, and point out everything that is cheap and unfair.

If you need advice now, though, all you need to do is create a game that feels less about luck and more about skill. This game requires a lot of luck to pass any given stage without death. In my opinion, a good game (and by extension, a good hack) will be challenging enough to be enjoyable, but an adequately skilled player should be able to conquer it without a plethora of game overs and deaths. As it stands, the level design is presented in such a manner that the player will die many times regardless of skill, and that is something you'll want to avoid unless you yourself enjoy savestate-filled challenges such as these.

EDIT: I don't know what in the world you did to Hard Knuckle, but for the love of all things holy...change it back. It is extremely unwieldy and to make it the only weapon that works on the second form of the Wily stage 5 boss is downright satanic.

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I did appreciate that you made most of the weapons more powerful than their vanilla counterparts. Especially Magnet Missile and Shadow Blade; those are lifesavers! I think vanilla Hard Knuckle is debilitating enough, though. The current version isn't so much awkward as it is unpredictable.

If you want to keep Hard Knuckle the way it is, you could at least lower Wily Machine form 2's resistance to it. 14 hits with a 28 ammo weapon that will more than likely miss is insane, even for this hack.

I'm really not sure what "kaizo" means (I've heard "hacked," "asshole," and "hard"), but the point is that that game was designed with killing/infuriating the player in mind and your hack is built in a similar fashion.

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The only weapon that I think is "too good" is Magnet Missile, but that's not saying a whole lot. I don't think any of your weapons need a nerf; most are fine as they are.

Now that I think of it, though...the new Gemini Laser definitely acts a bit strange when it's bouncing around. Any comments on that?

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Aww, no more posts? I am saddened.



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Wow, thank you, Xeruss.

No, I don't have a completed hack. I really wish I did, but stuff happens.

Don't get terribly excited about the music as it's not a part of the actual hack. I only added it to spice up the video. Before I release the actual IPS, though, I will be sure to add something equally as epic.

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Posted by Praetarius

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My comment on that is... that i only changed its graphic tiles. And no idea what you mean, for me it acts still the same as vanilla.

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Oh, it still bounces around. The thing is that it sometimes changes direction in mid-air...or at least it does in the few boss rooms that I tried it out in. Maybe I'm just crazy.

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You guys need to post screens or something!



Behold, the first fortress of my hack! Think of it like the fortresses in SMB3 and the towers in NSMB/Wii.

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Haz: Oh, I didn't mean you specifically. I was just referring to how dead this thread seemed to be lately.

Nintendude: Your hack looks like fun, but I have a couple of graphical concerns...particularly some of the bad palette clash in your levels. The outline colors are very inconsistent: some things will have dark or black outlines while others will have very light ones that are only a few shades darker than the darkest color on that object. It's all right to have light OR dark outlines, but having both isn't so easy on the eyes.

There's also some cut-off here and there, and I didn't even notice it until GreyMario pointed it out, but your hills are totally bacon.

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Posted by Nintendude88

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Thanks for the comments GreyMario & Mineyl. By the way, in which video does it show a bad palette clash? Also, I didn't know what "bacon" meant but I guess it means that the hills are bland. Correct me if I'm wrong.

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Well, if you take a look at the hills...every time the ground raises, you've got a bunch of 1-tile width blocks on either side forming "steps" of sorts. While that's not a bad thing, do it enough and people will notice.

As for the palette clash, just watch the first video you posted (just as an example). The question blocks, dino torches, dino rhinos, turret on the ship in the intro, pokeys, that ^^ block at 1:34, and blue pipe at 1:44 all have outlines much brighter than the other things in the environment with them. Those grassy green hills and trees could probably stand to have their greens desaturated to match the dirty ground a bit more, too.

Posted by Haz

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*lots of text*

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I certainly see what you're talking about, but there's no reason to be so hard on yourself. You should see some of my first attempts at hacking. Everyone starts somewhere! Seriously, though, if you're still interested in making anything at all, you've gotta' get those negative thoughts out of your head. If you accept defeat before you've even or barely begun, then you're doomed to failure from the start.

I noticed you use a lot of rips from other games. While that can work out great, you'll obviously want to try to keep from getting the graphics to clash...but even if you pull that off, good graphics do not equate to a good game. While people may "ooh" and "aah" at a beautiful still-frame screenshot, what really counts is how fun it is to play, and that's why I would suggest to anyone to start with vanilla and/or simply lurk and study other peoples' works to find out what it is that makes the herd ogle about stuff.

Above all, though, just try to have fun. Make something that YOU will enjoy, and if someone else happens to make a breakthrough that puts your own work to shame...instead of hitting a pillow, LEARN from it.

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Posted by Haz

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Honestly, if I took time and finished something then I could judge my skill.

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That's the spirit!

Posted by GreyMario

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That's in your overworld btw.

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Wow, I was way off... I think what I said is still valid, though. :o

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Yet another video of my hack. This'll probably be the last one for a while, as this effectively makes half the world 1 levels on public display.



If I post anything else between now and somewhere in world 2, it'll be screenshots. :3

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Posted by GreyMario

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Okay, if that music is actually in the game I will flip the fuck out. Is that from Tile World from Super Paper Mario?

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I wish, and no, it's Petal Meadows from Paper Mario: TTYD. You were close, though!

Posted by GreyMario

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Otherwise, holy shit what the hell happened. It's like the god of earth was drunk. Good level but jesus christ how the hell does that place even work. My brain hurts just trying to figure out how the terrain got that bent.

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Hey, it's Mario. If it made sense, it just wouldn't be any fun. This has nothing on kaizo.

If the "god of earth" were drunk when he made this place, then I can't even imagine what he'd have to be on to make the final world.

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Posted by boingboingsplat

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That's the trend with vanilla SMW levels these days.

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And truth be told, I really wish that it weren't. I wish the focus could have remained on intuitive platforming fun, but with a game as easy to hack as SMW, you just know someone would eventually come in and set the bar way too high for their own good by adding some extraneous feature into every other tile.

Honestly, though, after reading GreyMario's comment, I'm probably going to go back and make things look less mangled just because.

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I've been playing Dragon Quest IX and Super Mario Galaxy 2 lately. I've already beaten both and am (slowly and lazily) doing their post-game content. I plan to stop SMG2 at 120 stars and go back to the original SMG to finish the Luigi game.

I also cleared the original Legend of Zelda today...not that that isn't the fourth time this year (just bought the cartridge a few months ago...feels awesome to play it on the NES instead of an emulator. xD).

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Posted by Jeffrey

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Because MM7 is Unhackable Atm

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A gift to you: http://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php?topic=8390.0

I remembered reading about this some time ago, so thought I'd link you to it. I'll need to read the thread again myself, though.

EDIT: Wow, that was a small thread, but I hope that it can assist you in some way.

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Nothing terribly special. Just me screwing around with the original Legend of Zelda.

At least it's not Mario or Megaman, right? xD

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Posted by blackhole89

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Which reminds me... have any attempts been undertaken to hack the BS-X Zelda? (Are there any similarities in how levels and what-not are stored?)

I mean, it's fundamentally the same base game (engine-wise, at least), just with a more powerful console below it.

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I really have no idea, but I will say that altering the original game is a pain. I would seriously hope that Nintendo learned their lesson and used the larger amount of space in SNES games to create a screen format that actually makes sense. The original game uses this weird vertical strip system, and while neat, it is a royal pain when it comes to trying to be creative with editing layouts.

If it were within my capabilities, I'd love to blow the game wide open with additional garbage and extra dungeons and whatnot.

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Nostalgia is made of win. I'm glad I could help.

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Wow, Boingboing...those graphics are looking very sexy. NSMB-ish, but with a certain unique flavor sprinkled onto them. I love it.

EDIT: Wee, 200th post. Didn't even realize.

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Seriously, you guys? I was just messing around with the editors to see if I could make anything interesting.

If you all like it that much, then I could try to take it further...

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