GhostbustersHack
Image: BillyTime!Games

When Ghostbusters launched on the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis in 1990, fans were left scratching their heads over the absence of Winston Zeddemore. The character had admittedly turned up kind of late in the original Ghostbusters film, but by this point, he was unmistakenly a pivotal member of the team, appearing in the 1989 sequel, the Kenner toy line, and the animated series The Real Ghostbusters. This made his absence from the game all the more bizarre, with fans speculating what could have caused the character to be given the cold shoulder.

Now, thirty-two years later, romhackers are here to finally correct this mistake giving Winston back his proton pack, inside a new 'definitive edition' of the Mega Drive/Genesis game (as spotted by Ghostbusters News). The team for the project is comprised of BillyTime!Games, Master Linkeui, and days_danilo. And, though it is still a WIP, we now have a few more details about it.

Billy!Time Games tells us:

"I purchased a complete copy of Ghostbusters on Amazon back in 2007. A copy I own to this very day. I was very impressed with how the gameplay felt, the quirky chibi look of the protagonists, and the catchy music, but Winston's absence was a bit of a sore spot, as I always felt he was just as important as the rest of the team. For me, it was all four Ghostbusters or nothing.

"I wrote off the idea as a pipe dream when Master Linkuei first contacted me about a potential project in early 2022, but I learned very quickly to never doubt Master Linkuei after some examination of the game's code."

For those unfamiliar, Ghostbusters for the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis was a platform shooter, where players had to earn money by catching ghosts, and collect four pieces of a stone tablet to summon the final stage. You picked from Ray Stantz, Egon Spengler, and Peter Venkman, with each character having his own abilities. Peter, for instance, was a pretty good all-rounder, whereas Ray was tough and slow, and Egon was fast but not exactly the strongest of the bunch.

According to a recent tweet from Master Linkeui, how Winston will fit in is that he will be stronger than the other Ghostbusters and able to jump much higher. This arguably makes him slightly overpowered, but we like the idea of having a bonus character who is able to breeze through the stages easier than the others.

Something we should also note is that Winston isn't the only change the team is making for this definitive edition either, with BillyTime!Games and his companions adding new custom palettes for the uniforms, such as the khaki from the original Ghostbusters film and the dark blue uniform from Ghostbusters II. It's certainly shaping up to be an interesting hack, with some neat fan service for Ghostbusters aficionados. You can check out a video of it below:

Do you remember playing Ghostbusters on the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis? Are you excited to play as Winston in this new romhack? Let us know your thoughts below!

[source twitter.com, via ghostbustersnews.com]