The paper doors criticism by Gamespot might be the weirdest, silliest non-issue I've seen in a review. Difficult to fathom the thought process that led to those words being typed back in the day.
@LowDefAl They were blocking translations of adult games?
That's bad. Extremely bad. Some of those adult Japanese computer titles are genuinely quite excellent as actual "games". Sengoku Rance springs to mind, as a complex and deep strategy title - it's for PC not PC-98, but if anyone wants to know a good erotic game, that's one. Got a fan-translation, and then years later an official licensed and localised release.
But my point is: it's very adult in nature, but it's also a solid (lol) game in its own right, and there are many others across the platforms. No one should gatekeep the translations of these.
(Sengoku Rance is so complicated, your first playthrough will likely fail and should be considered an extended tutorial.)
I don't quite understand the... Seeming animosity to providing pre-patched games.
Have you tried patching anything above the 16-bit era?
PS1, PS2, GC, DC, are all ludicrously convoluted. Demanding byte perfect data rips, bizarre framework installations within Windows, and sometimes command line interfaces. It's 2024, there is zero reason not to have a graphical user interface.
I hope CD Romance continues doing what it does, because CBA on the mess that is manually patching CD and DVD games.
@gingerbeardman Apart from his games, yes. A wonderful, decent human being.
It was one of the earlier interviews in my career, and I was new to the whole thing. But he went in the loft, dug out materials, sent scans, gave me access to the IT server at his company to root around in their art assets (take whatever you need), answered all my questions and still chatted on the phone.
I thought: wow, this writing gig is going to be easy!
They're not all like that.
But it's one reason I've continued to champion his legacy. When he was ill his family had a charity drive to raise funds. I had no idea, otherwise I would have contributed.
Everyone who worked with him had only the best to say.
@gingerbeardman Sorry, perhaps the wording should have been clearer. Dale grew up, lived, and worked in California, where BTR was made (1984), and Bill moved to California to work on it. Dale's developing of games continued there (in California) until 1987, when he moved to Boston.
I see why it's unclear. I reference games made on the West coast (Cali), then move to the Eastern side, then I swap back to the West.
Essentially I want to give a brief overview of his career leading up to the Boston move, so you had a general picture of what happened before and after BTR, and then once that broad picture was conveyed, go back to a specific short period of development in California.
I will keep this feedback in mind for the future to make sure the chronology flows more smoothly.
I feel genuinely nauseas thinking about all the archive content that's been deleted. So much knowledge now lost, and you're hoping that the Wayback Machine managed to grab it before it was gone.
This reminds me of when 1UP was shut down and all those interviews were lost.
Utterly disgusting of management.
Some people are going to cover for them with bootlicking statements like: "well bandwidth costs money" etc.
No. If you start something, like an online store for games, or a news website, or anything of this nature, you are taking on the responsibility of maintaining it and, if you decide to shut it down, giving fair warning so it can be preserved. By starting such an endeavour, you have agreed to an unsigned moral contract, a gentleman's agreement, an obligation, to not destroy it overnight.
Microsoft for example gave ample warning about the Xbox 360 store closure. This is the right way.
It enrages me that a company would create a large portfolio of material, developer interviews, as a business, to pursue profit, but then simply delete it to pursue further profit. It speaks to the fact they never respected what they made in the first place.
@Chocoburger Thank you for finding this! I was justing browsing my collection, and thought I should find this to link to, but you saved me the trouble. My thanks.
The question now is, which Nights related material ran this image?
Found it! EGM 91, page 154. Sega's marketing material for Nights. Flipped controller, normal logo. EGM staff express surprise at it. Claim to have contacted Sega - apparently a layout error.
@KitsuneNight Indeed, the conclusion of the mag staff and readers (and myself), was the image was a result of someone in marketing mirroring it, seeing the logo backwards, and fixing it after.
I think it was EGM or GFan. Will have another peruse.
Blood hell that tweet is cryptic! Desp want to know more now. So Danny raised a grievance with HR at Sega, and a bullying colleague continues to ruin their life?
@samuelvictor Regarding the mirrored pad, I thought it was a sly, cheeky reference to a very bizarre piece of Sega marketing material, from years ago, that showed a mirrored controller like this, but with the logo shown correctly.
I wish I had it to hand to cite as a reference.
I just recall reading in a mag readers and the editor speculating on how this happened.
I can't even recall the mag... EGM? GameFan? Sega Saturn mag?
It might not be a reference to this. But it's a heck of a coincidence if not.
I'd say that the above Zelda guide has 3 diff types of hack, of increasing difficulty. The first, bypassing the guards, should be easy enough for anyone to do - you just type one number in after moving Link up and down. The next two are harder for different reasons.
But if nothing else, I hope everyone has a go at messing about with the X and Y axis position of game characters. You can find some funky things when you!
Now that you can explore the land unhindered, you'll discover weird stuff like no enemies, except indoors, lots of rain, and puzzle obstacles such as at the desert dungeon not existing. Pop over to the dungeon in the south west - you can waltz right on in no problem. Kinda spooky huh? What else can you find in Hyrule?
Except you don't have a sword. Well, with the above skills, it might be possible to hack it back in. We didn't actually bother trying this one, but if we did, we'd start by making a quick save right before and right after getting it. Then with the memory viewer open we'd quick load the one save, and then the other, over and over, to see what changes in WRAM.
Our guess? The sword is probably controlled by a single value, 00 for no sword, and 01 for the sword. Probably. Maybe? We could be wrong, but that's the fun of hacking. This might be a chance for you to fool around and discover something. Or just explore lonely, rainy Hyrule with no enemies.
We hope this tutorial encourages everyone to have a little fun with the code of their favourite game.
(Addendum - I actually went and checked this after writing the guide: the sword relies on TWO values, changing from 0 to 1. The first value enables the sword attack animation, the second value adds it to your inventory. Bit weird, I know. Finding this required using the search function, to find values that were zero, getting the sword, and then refiltering those results for any that had a value of 1 - several pop up, and you just need to activate the two correct ones. Happy hunting)
16) We tried various things, mostly putting NOP at anything related to the countdown timers, but this always caused weird glitches. The timers are clearly needed for the game to function. Our eureka moment was looking at the line immediately after the DEC instruction. It's BPL, which means Branch if Positive. So let's think about that - we have a timer counting down to zero. There's a line which subtracts one each time. Immediately after that line is another line, which says basically, if the number is positive, or above 00, then branch off to a whole other bit of code. What does this mean? When the timer hits 00 (which causes the message to appear), that BPL is going to stop working because it only works when the number is positive.
17) We spent a lot of time trying to figure this out, always with the assumption we needed to change the timer itself. But remember how we asked you to hover your mouse over other instructions? There's a BRA instruction a little further down (you, in the back, stop giggling, this is a serious tutorial). Mesen tells us this instruction means Branch Always. Can you guess what happens next?
18) We have no prior experience with assembly, but if there's a timer counting to zero, and an instruction right after this timer which does stuff only when a number is not zero, and then there's this other instruction which says to always do something... What if we swap BPL for BRA? It can't hurt. If it messes up and crashes we can just reload and start over... Lo and behold, it works as we hoped - the help message is disabled! Now it doesn't matter when the timer hits zero. Because that BRA instruction is always active (for goodness sake, stop laughing!). Whereas the BPL instruction was only active when the timer was a positive value.
Let's reflect on this. Discovering how to do this required observing the WRAM memory table. Spotting the timer. Right clicking to add a breakpoint, so we could see it in the debugger. Then this required some trial and error, but was helped simply by hovering the mouse. By placing the mouse over various other instructions we were able to see what they did. Most were not relevant to us - but! As luck would have it, just seven lines down from the timer, there was the instruction we needed.
If you're super keen you could get a book on assembly, or read a tutorial online, but in this case, it simply required using Mesen to explain things, and then a little creative thinking.
12) We quickly spotted two timers, side by side, that froze when the message appears: $2CD and $2CE. The left is the faster of the two, every time it hits 00 its big brother to the right goes down by one. We've highlighted it in the image. You can have a quick test by quick loading the game, watching how the message appears when both hit 00, and then quick loading again and typing a big number in when it gets close to zero. Notice how when you bump the number up, preventing them hitting 00, the message does not come up? You've found your culprit. Right click the number and give it a name - we called ours Countdown2 and Countdown.
13) Now that you know what causes the message, let's attempt a challenging hack. Right click $2CD and in the menu select the breakpoint option - it has a red circle. We are going to tell Mesen to pause emulation every time this value is referenced in the game code. Now, it's a timer which constantly goes down, so you know that Mesen is going to be pausing literally every time you unpause it. But that's OK, all we want is to have a look at the assembly code.
14) Here's the most difficult part of this hack. Mainly because we don't know assembly and it required some guess work. We figured this out not by looking it up online, but just using the built-in help files. For example: hover your mouse over DEC. Mesen will tell you that this subtracts one from $02D. Which makes sense, right? It's a timer, and this instruction makes it go down by one. But how to stop this?
15) You might be thinking we could put NOP (no operation) there. Make it so there is no timer? We thought so too, but this caused glitches. OK, so let's look at the next line. In fact, hover your mouse over all the instructions for the next eight lines or so and read what the description is for each one.
08) Even though you've escaped the guards, Zelda will regularly remind you to help her. Here's how to disable that, and we've got two different methods.
09) The first is wait for the message to appear, hit Esc to freeze the emulator, then clicking Debug and opening the Debugger. Then at the top there are buttons to go back one PPU cycle, one scanline, and one frame. You can click back one frame and watch the letters vanish in reverse, until the message is gone, and then try to figure out what part of the assembly code is making it appear. We tried this, but found it so slow and irritating we abandoned it. Let's find an easier way, shall we?
10) This message must run on a timer. It keeps popping up. We just need to find the timer, which is either going up or down. We guessed down, because timers count down (we were correct), but another programmer might have it count up.
11) Open the Memory Viewer again, have it in WRAM mode, and then go over the numbers looking for those that count up or down constantly. Not the ones that jump between two or three different numbers, only those that change constantly across the range. As you'll see, there are quite a few timers. Which controls the message? A aimple way is to just watch until the message pops up. The one we want freezes while the message plays, while the others keep running. Again, this isn't a difficult thing, it's just kinda laborious sitting and watching. There is no special skill here other than patience to sit, watch, wait, and reload each time the message comes up. You just need basic counting skills to spot numbers going up or down.
06) OK, now that you've found the number governing Link's position you can start hacking. Use your mouse to highlight the two digits in that box and type a new number in. Link will automatically move. You want him below the guards, so you want a bigger number. 00 is at the top of the screen, and FF at the bottom, so it's a little different to maths at school, where on a piece of graph paper 0 was at the bottom. But never mind that...
07) Here's an anomaly, but it highlights the nature of hacking. When we were experimenting to test this tutorial, naturally we made some mistakes. But eventually we hit on EE for the value and it worked. Link appeared below the guards, the dialogue started, we click out and walked down in the next field, all normal. On subsequent tests this resulted in the screen auto-scrolling rapidly, forcing a quick load. What caused this? Who knows! Welcome to hacking. Just try again and it might work. Possibly it might be related to the random message the guards say. We also had better luck by initiating dialogue by touching the guards, then putting EE in to move Link down, then clicking out of dialogue. Once on the next screen the WRAM reverts - basically you've temporarily "hacked" a single value in WRAM to bypass something.
A major aspect of hacking is repeating the same baby steps, over and over, to see if the results are consistently repeatable. The above method can be interchanged with any game in order to move characters, alter lives, ammo, timers, and so on. You just sit and observe what changes.
If you don't feel like looking at a grid of numbers, click "Debug" in Mesen, then click "Memory Search", and you can have the emulator search for values that change after doing things. So if you wanted more lives, you'd do a search, lose one life, then do another search for any value that recently decreased by one. We find this slow and tedious, and actually prefer the "Where's Wally" method of seeing what changes, but you need to find a method that suits you.
01) Get set up with Mesen. Move Link outside his house and talk to the guards once. Then position him vertically above the guards. We're going to do a quick and dirty hack into WRAM to move him below the guards and into the next screen. Quick save here. Quick save often, because in case you mess up you can just go back.
02) Click "Debug" at the top menu. Click "Memory Viewer". Position the new window somewhere comfortable to view it at the same time as the game screen. Click the drop down box at the top saying CPU Memory and click on Work RAM. Make sure you're in Work RAM.
03) Do nothing. See all those numbers changing? If you want to find the vertical position of Link, and he's standing still, his vertical number will not be moving. All those moving numbers are junk related to the music, rain animation, etc. It's important to decide what your goal is (in this case hacking the vertical position), and ignoring stuff unrelated. If Link is not moving, neither is the number you want.
04) Move him up and down and see what changes. This is what most hacking is going to be. Doing stuff in game and see what changes in the WRAM or the assembly debugger. It's pretty tedious. Just walk up and down and look for numbers that move when you do. In the image we've put green circles around three numbers that do this.
05) How do we know which is the right number? We don't. No one does, apart from the original programmer. Most hacking is going to be finding a possible result, and then going through them. One by one, to see what changes. Start at the top and work down. As luck would have it, $20, the first one, is the one we want.
@RetroGames We're not running the hack tutorial as a site piece, so it was suggested I paste the guide into the comments. There are 5 images, which I will put on a host shortly. I also need to post this in a few parts.
HEAD: A simple hacking tutorial
SUB: We never thought we'd be giving BRA instructions to retro fans
TEXT: After our article on hacking Buster Busts Loose on SNES, several readers expressed an interest in a straightforward tutorial. What follows are two very basic hacks for Zelda: Link to the Past on SNES, using Mesen. Different emulators have different tools and UI, and there are also bespoke utilities for hacking games on different systems. But our goal is to show that by doing something very simple, such as changing just one number, big things can happen.
You don't need to create whole new levels or anything. The point is to have fun and explore games in a different way. We are amateurs and new to this, but if you can play Zelda, you can hack Zelda. Both involve puzzle solving. The only "tricky" bit is maybe getting your head around hexadecimal. All those numbers you see are likely to be hexadecimal (0-F) rather than decimal (0-9). All you need to know is that after 09 is 0A, up to 0F. Most of the time you'll be hacking 00 to 01, or vice versa, but here's a chart to cheat just in case: https://tkcomputerservice.com/hexadecimal-conversion-chart.htm
The biggest advice is to ignore things which are not relevant to your specific goal at that moment. Hacking isn't like the Matrix. It's not glamorous or fancy, really. It's more like a slow police stakeout. You'll be sitting observing most of the time, waiting to see if anything changes.
@GeneJacket It does sound basically just like Duke 3D reskinned as BTILC. But we'll never know. If the team loved the film, they might have really put the effort in to make it good?
The IP exists. They made a licensed board game.
It's quite feasible that a dev or publisher would license it today and make something decent. maybe angle it as a sequel to the movie. Maybe make it in the style of games from back then, or modern games.
First played this in 2001. Visited Japan. Bought a Duo R abd this in Akihabara. Back at my hotel room I unplugged the aircon to plug this in, hooked up to the hotel CRT TV.
Didn't go to bed until after midnight. Just sat playing while eating sushi, totally blown away by how good it was.
Excellent feature - good work documenting the unknown!
I, for one, loved Hotel Mario. Putting aside the Mario name, and the CDi troubles, it is a fantastic single-screen arcade-style platformer. Donkey Kong, Manic Miner, whatever your favourites are - this is another fantastic example in that genre. Using a wired controller it's very responsive, the level themes are inventive, the gameplay evolves with each new hotel, adding fun new gimmicks. For me, this comes fairly close to capturing that Nintendo magic. It's better than the single screen Mario Bros. with POW block - that was just boring. This is fun!
So, I'm assuming there will be a follow up feature interviewing her husband, Michael Ahn, about the Philips? Please? I don't know about anyone else, but I need more Philips / Nintendo articles in my life.
Now, to be fair, these are decompile projects. Not recompile like the above Goemon one. But once you've decompiled it, not long until you can then recompile it. (I think.)
There's a guy on Twitter building a list of already recompiled projects, along with how well they function.
@KitsuneNight I have always hated them, and was angry that initially you couldn't disable them on PS3. I'd be playing a nice game, chilling, relaxing, kicking back, and suddenly an air raid klaxon goes off and the screen is invaded and tainted by these hideous ghoulish little medallions for - as you say - literally nothing. Took me right out of the flow / zone. Was so glad when Sony allowed them to be disabled.
Having said all that, I did intentionally Platinum Demons' Souls.
@sdelfin Bankbank cooked up an IPS patch to remove dashing via double tap in Cybernator. I'm not sure if we should upload it to rhdn or just email it to you. I need to do some testing first.
@RetroGames Wrote a step by step tutorial for two fun hacks in Zelda for everyone to try (18 steps so everything is covered). They teach a method which can be done in other games too. Will update you when it's up.
The RHDN submission was rejected due to the supplied screenshots being "too pixelated". They've tightened up their process, and it's a PITA to get approval. I could resubmit with cleaner screens. Or you know what? Just get it on Romhacks. No fuss there. It's not like RHDN pays anyone, their submission process should be easier than this.
@marc_max
Interesting. I wonder if they actually deleted the code for passwords, or left it in but put a shunt in so you can't access it. If the latter, it might be as simple as NOP'ing whatever line dismisses it.
@MysticX
Same. Skyblazer on SNES was finished in two days, but it was so much fun I kept it for years and would replay my favourite levels just for the pleasure of it. Excessively tough games were dropped pretty quick. I finished Earthworm Jim once and never went back.
@GhaleonUnlimited
I'm flattered, but I think there are at least 101 other better hacks that better represent this. Fixing Contra and CVIII for example. Good luck with you presentation.
@BulkSlash
We have a veteran here! These all sound quite excellent. Are you uploading online? Good luck with the F-Zero endings.
@sdelfin
This Cybernator hack sounds very simple given it won't even need save states. I'll have a peek if time permits. It should be as simple as starting on the first level, having the debugger open, and then repeatedly doing it to see where the branch is. Then possibly just putting NOP there. It depends how the double tap is read by the loop. I would not want to accidentally disable the dash for all control methods.
@DestructoDisk @Mario500
Thank you for the feedback. It was an off the cuff remark reflecting my deep annoyance at Konami's attitude, but you're right, it is not essential to the tone of the piece and if younger readers enjoy the site I will endeavour to encourage this by refraining from such language in future. (I just freelance, given it was asked.)
@RetroGames
OK, so I've been thinking about what kind of specific simple tutorial one could give that's easier than this Buster hack, but also fun, and I've just tested it: Link to the Past, those guards at the start? You can mess with Link's vertical position to bypass them and explore the rest of Hyrule in the rain. It's weird and cool! No enemies, except in caves and dungeons. I'm busy today but hope to write up a set of instructions for this tomoz. (I used SNES9X which is a bit more newcomer friendly, but if I can I'd like to give a tutorial on doing this same thing in both emulators - every emu has a slightly different GUI and style of tools.) If not Sunday then Monday. Or Tuesday at the latest!
I think this is a fun primer for anyone who hasn't tried it before. You're only hacking just one value - Link's vertical position. But it allows you to access the map in a non-normal alternate state, with spooky stuff going on. If one can crack this, you'll have the knowledge to do similar in other games.
Princess Zelda's "help me" message keeps popping up, so I might also look at NOP'ing that.
@RetroGames
There are two options that I used in this instance. Debugger, which shows you the game loop as it runs (you'll need to hit Esc to pause it). And then WRAM, which will look like a list of numbers in a grid. Which is slightly less intuitive, but hacking a number in RAM is simpler than hacking assembly.
If you're wanting a gentler introduction, SNES9X (I use the Xbox port) has a cheat search to look for specific values. Probably an easier less intimidating start.
But Mesen, in that massive screen of options, should allow you to have it check for single value changes (not at my PC otherwise I'd type a mini walkthrough).
Mario is good. Once you find the option to search / track values and changes, you can search for lives. Lose one and see what goes down by 1.
Warning: some games assign the internal value 00 to something onscreen which says "1".
If you fail to get anywhere, I will sit down and type a simple tutorial for you (and others), over the weekend at some point. Just a basic step by step to dip your toe in the water.
EDIT: sitting here trying to describe it without the emulator in front of me, from memory, makes me realise how frustrating it can be for a newcomer.
@RetroGames If you feel insulted then I wish to apologise. My intention was only, sincerely, to encourage others to prod at games with the available tools.
I don't think one needs any special abilities beyond being able to play games and hold a controller, and basic literacy.
If your immediate belief is that this is out of touch, then I've fallen short of my intended goal.
I am not good at maths, and I found assembly prior to this intimidating. But allow me to share a simpler example or two:
A lot of emulators allow you to search for a single number value. The first time you do this, it will check every possible value. Too many to be useful.
But after this, if you lose 1 life, you can ask it to search that list again, for anything that went down by 1. The result? It will show you where the game keeps track of lives.
You can also use this method to move to the right. Then ask it to search for any number that went up by any ammount. Probably a few things went up. But you can keep repeating to narrow list. Go left and ask it to search numbers that decreased.
Eventually you will find the value tracking your onscreen position. So you can change it to go outside walls.
These are just two simple number searches. But that's still hacking. And it's fun putting your character beyond barriers.
Anyone who can play games and navigate game menus can fiddle around like this.
I don't expect anyone to do feats of Rainman style genius. But if you use emulators, pop open that debugger or cheat search, and see if you can find and change just one number.
Maybe it's lives first. Maybe you play around more and try other stuff.
My desire is not to imply I have superhuman abilities, but to encourage everyone to use the powerful tools now commonplace to play around.
Even if it goes wrong, so what? All you've lost is some time spent playing. Of course if try it and find it boring or frustrating, then fair enough. At least you gave it a go.
@gingerbeardman Yes! Nasir. In interviews he said Square knew him already from his Apple II games. So that was a good avenue in. I would rank that alongside Henk Rogers as a fascinating example of gaijin doing well in JP during those times.
@Diogmites Cool reply. I didn't think highly of Perry either. He basically rocked up with cannons blazing and demanded entry. Galapagos Syndrome is a fascinating rabbit hole to go down. I like to apply it to the Japanese FPS, was doing its own funky thing in isolation while the rest of the world was building up to Doom.
@Diogmites Thanks! That statement needed expanding really, since both before and after WWII there were different scenarios.
After the Admiral Perry incident the country did open up. And send delegates abroad to study how foreign countries operated. There was even consideration to adopting English. And they were part of the League of Nations, etc.
But when you look at all the sources for the last 200 years, there is a recurring feeling of otherness.
Random example: the term "Galapagos Syndrome" originates from Japan. It applies to phones and computers. JP phones and PCs were wholly unlike any others until later standardisation. Take computers for example. Americans, Brits, French, East Bloc, there was to a degree common overlap. A Yugoslavian could move to the UK and do well coding Speccy games (it happened). Japan? That's a whole other ballgame with different rules and set-up.
I don't want any of this to sound negative or xenophobic. The Japanese are very warm and kind to foreigners. They're a wonderful and creative nation I'm enamoured with. But being successful there, in business, having come from outside the culture, requires special fortitude.
For concrete specific examples I'd cite interviews with: Jeremy Blaustein, Victor Ireland, Ted Woolsey, Joseph Redon, Henk Rogers, Jez San. Game Over by David Sheff. Possibly Kalinsky of Sega, in terms of how US/JP staff handle things - though Sega is kinda odd, given the huge infighting between depts.
@gingerbeardman
A valid statement. However, for me, it's interesting because of how the Japanese do business. There's a lot of etiquette and expectations unique to Japan, which foreigners can struggle with. Certainly with Henk Rogers he described a mild resistance to foreigners.
Japan was very insular; during the Tokugawa period; pre-WWII (even post WWII; English language signs for tourists were only added post Millennium with the world cup; seeing another gaijin was rare generally). It was also a mono-ethnic nation. You rarely saw foreigners if at all. Other East Asian nations like China and Korea also have a troubled history with Japan, so you didn't see them overtly.
I'm generalising, obviously. Based on personal observation, interviews, and what I recall ftom my Understanding Japan module from uni.
But broadly - Japan was very much for the Japanese. They exported or imported, sure, but modified to suit their tastes.
Random aside: JP doctors used to tell patients not to buy medicine abroad because JP medicine was specially catered to JP bodies.
You read interviews about Yamauchi, and he was mildly hostile to foreigners. Rogers earned his respect playing Igo.
Obviously foreigners were able to start companies in Japan, but they faced a set of unique local challenges in gaining acceptance from Japanese colleagues and consumers.
This is less to do with the games industry and more business in general.
For one thing, can you imagine starting a company and having to know Japanese or use a hotshot interpretor because so few JP businessmen spoke English? It's different to a foreigner going to America, where the language of business is English and everyone learns it.
I find foreigners staking a claim in Japan and succeeding to be unusual and fascinating (at least up until after the Millennium).
I take it that the chip emits some sort of electromagnetic field (RF? EMF?), which triggers the phone?
Don't quote me on this, but isn't that why old consoles had metal shielding in them? To comply with RF / EMF regulations about electrical appliances not affecting each other? I definitely remember reading a very dry document stipulating how an appliance must not affect, or allow itself to be affected by another. Or something.
I have a top end low-frequency and high-frequency scanner (this was great at finding some forgotten faulty wiring in my bathroom). The thing is, every single electrical appliance gives off some sort of field. You turn your console on and even the wired controllers give off something, even if you need to put the scanner up close. Put it near a live AC adapter and it goes off like a fire alarm.
I find myself deeply intrigued by the claim the JP version is producing some sort of uber field that interferes with other appliances.
Comments 552
Re: The Making Of: Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon, Konami's Underrated N64 Classic
So the English recompilation of this dropped recently.
I tried to use it one three different computers (Win7 and Win10), and I'm getting Kernal32 errors, or it just crashes on start-up.
Has anyone tried it? Can anyone get it to work? What sort of sorcery is needed?
I did all the online suggested nonsense: update Windows, check SSD isn't dead, scan for viruses. Nothing helped.
Re: The Making Of: Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon, Konami's Underrated N64 Classic
The paper doors criticism by Gamespot might be the weirdest, silliest non-issue I've seen in a review. Difficult to fathom the thought process that led to those words being typed back in the day.
Re: Man Sets Record For Most Gaming Consoles Connected To A Single TV
Man has all the classic gaming systems.
Does not use a CRT or PVM.
Re: RHDO Changes Ownership, Rebrands As RomHack Plaza
@LowDefAl
They were blocking translations of adult games?
That's bad. Extremely bad. Some of those adult Japanese computer titles are genuinely quite excellent as actual "games". Sengoku Rance springs to mind, as a complex and deep strategy title - it's for PC not PC-98, but if anyone wants to know a good erotic game, that's one. Got a fan-translation, and then years later an official licensed and localised release.
But my point is: it's very adult in nature, but it's also a solid (lol) game in its own right, and there are many others across the platforms. No one should gatekeep the translations of these.
(Sengoku Rance is so complicated, your first playthrough will likely fail and should be considered an extended tutorial.)
Re: RHDO Changes Ownership, Rebrands As RomHack Plaza
I don't quite understand the... Seeming animosity to providing pre-patched games.
Have you tried patching anything above the 16-bit era?
PS1, PS2, GC, DC, are all ludicrously convoluted. Demanding byte perfect data rips, bizarre framework installations within Windows, and sometimes command line interfaces. It's 2024, there is zero reason not to have a graphical user interface.
I hope CD Romance continues doing what it does, because CBA on the mess that is manually patching CD and DVD games.
Re: The Ill-Fated Philips CD-i Is Getting Its Own MiSTer FPGA Core
Will it replicate the Digital Video Cartridge? Several of the better games require the DVC to run (like the FPS, Atlantis: Last Resort).
Re: New Genesis Patch Brings A Bunch Of Improvements To Jurassic Park: Rampage Edition
I rage quit Rampage Edition once I realise it scrapped the passwords from the previous game. I might go back to this with SRAM.
Re: The Making Of: Below The Root, The 1984 Metroidvania Masterpiece That Predates Metroid And Castlevania
@gingerbeardman
Apart from his games, yes. A wonderful, decent human being.
It was one of the earlier interviews in my career, and I was new to the whole thing. But he went in the loft, dug out materials, sent scans, gave me access to the IT server at his company to root around in their art assets (take whatever you need), answered all my questions and still chatted on the phone.
I thought: wow, this writing gig is going to be easy!
They're not all like that.
But it's one reason I've continued to champion his legacy. When he was ill his family had a charity drive to raise funds. I had no idea, otherwise I would have contributed.
Everyone who worked with him had only the best to say.
Re: The Making Of: Below The Root, The 1984 Metroidvania Masterpiece That Predates Metroid And Castlevania
@gingerbeardman
Sorry, perhaps the wording should have been clearer. Dale grew up, lived, and worked in California, where BTR was made (1984), and Bill moved to California to work on it. Dale's developing of games continued there (in California) until 1987, when he moved to Boston.
I see why it's unclear. I reference games made on the West coast (Cali), then move to the Eastern side, then I swap back to the West.
Essentially I want to give a brief overview of his career leading up to the Boston move, so you had a general picture of what happened before and after BTR, and then once that broad picture was conveyed, go back to a specific short period of development in California.
I will keep this feedback in mind for the future to make sure the chronology flows more smoothly.
Re: Game Informer Staff Tweet "Genuine Goodbye" Before Account Gets Deleted By GameStop
I feel genuinely nauseas thinking about all the archive content that's been deleted. So much knowledge now lost, and you're hoping that the Wayback Machine managed to grab it before it was gone.
This reminds me of when 1UP was shut down and all those interviews were lost.
Utterly disgusting of management.
Some people are going to cover for them with bootlicking statements like: "well bandwidth costs money" etc.
No. If you start something, like an online store for games, or a news website, or anything of this nature, you are taking on the responsibility of maintaining it and, if you decide to shut it down, giving fair warning so it can be preserved. By starting such an endeavour, you have agreed to an unsigned moral contract, a gentleman's agreement, an obligation, to not destroy it overnight.
Microsoft for example gave ample warning about the Xbox 360 store closure. This is the right way.
It enrages me that a company would create a large portfolio of material, developer interviews, as a business, to pursue profit, but then simply delete it to pursue further profit. It speaks to the fact they never respected what they made in the first place.
Re: Dragon Quest SNES Prototype Worth $50,000 "Lost For Good"
I just want to put this out there:
If I ever win the lottery I am going to pay good money to buy every single one of these rare games.
And then I'm going to pull a K Foundation. Because I love whimsical mischief.
If you know, you know.
Re: Sega Forever, Sega's Dedicated Retro Channel, Appears To Be Dead
@Chocoburger
Thank you for finding this!
I was justing browsing my collection, and thought I should find this to link to, but you saved me the trouble. My thanks.
The question now is, which Nights related material ran this image?
Such an interesting oddity.
Re: Sega Forever, Sega's Dedicated Retro Channel, Appears To Be Dead
@samuelvictor
@KitsuneNight
Found it! EGM 91, page 154. Sega's marketing material for Nights. Flipped controller, normal logo. EGM staff express surprise at it. Claim to have contacted Sega - apparently a layout error.
Re: Sega Forever, Sega's Dedicated Retro Channel, Appears To Be Dead
@KitsuneNight
I don't have a full set, but I have issue 63, October 1994, and on page 170 is a three page feature with interview.
If you check magazine archives for that issue, take a look at 64, 65, etc., They might have done a follow up.
No clue about GamePro.
GameFan had some good coverage too, again starting in the October 94 issue. Might it have been GF?
Can you describe the feature / number of pages?
Re: Sega Forever, Sega's Dedicated Retro Channel, Appears To Be Dead
@KitsuneNight
Indeed, the conclusion of the mag staff and readers (and myself), was the image was a result of someone in marketing mirroring it, seeing the logo backwards, and fixing it after.
I think it was EGM or GFan. Will have another peruse.
Re: Sega Forever, Sega's Dedicated Retro Channel, Appears To Be Dead
@samuelvictor
Ok, so I went googling and found nothing. Mostly garbage news about Retro Bit.
So then I browsed marketing materials and nothing.
But I swear - I saw it - official marketing material depicting a Saturn controller, layout inverted, but the correct logo.
Sadly I have around 300 magazines and really don't want to go through them just for this.
Has anyone else seen this?
Re: Sega Forever, Sega's Dedicated Retro Channel, Appears To Be Dead
Blood hell that tweet is cryptic! Desp want to know more now. So Danny raised a grievance with HR at Sega, and a bullying colleague continues to ruin their life?
@samuelvictor
Regarding the mirrored pad, I thought it was a sly, cheeky reference to a very bizarre piece of Sega marketing material, from years ago, that showed a mirrored controller like this, but with the logo shown correctly.
I wish I had it to hand to cite as a reference.
I just recall reading in a mag readers and the editor speculating on how this happened.
I can't even recall the mag... EGM? GameFan? Sega Saturn mag?
It might not be a reference to this. But it's a heck of a coincidence if not.
Re: ROMHacking.net Is Winding Down After Almost 20 Years
I've loved RHDN since discovering it in 2005. This is just depressing.
I fear I will now miss out on swathes of cool hacks and translations.
Here's an archive of interviews from the early days:
https://www.gamingalexandria.com/wp/2023/07/fan-translations-and-rom-hacking-interviews-by-john-szczepaniak/
Re: SNK Vs. Capcom's Promotional Artwork Has Been Censored To Cover Mai's Modesty
A sad reflection of the era we find ourselves in.
I feel like in 2010 they wouldn't have done this. The X360 storefront had Otomedius Excellent on the US store, full of cleavage.
What changed between then and now?
I for one will always support an artist's original vision - ergo the uncensored version.
Re: Konami Butchered This SNES Classic, So We Fixed It
I'd say that the above Zelda guide has 3 diff types of hack, of increasing difficulty. The first, bypassing the guards, should be easy enough for anyone to do - you just type one number in after moving Link up and down. The next two are harder for different reasons.
But if nothing else, I hope everyone has a go at messing about with the X and Y axis position of game characters. You can find some funky things when you!
Re: Konami Butchered This SNES Classic, So We Fixed It
@RetroGames
Gallery of images to go alongside the tutorial:
https://postimg.cc/gallery/0bSD3Y2
Re: Konami Butchered This SNES Classic, So We Fixed It
XHEAD: Getting your sword
Now that you can explore the land unhindered, you'll discover weird stuff like no enemies, except indoors, lots of rain, and puzzle obstacles such as at the desert dungeon not existing. Pop over to the dungeon in the south west - you can waltz right on in no problem. Kinda spooky huh? What else can you find in Hyrule?
Except you don't have a sword. Well, with the above skills, it might be possible to hack it back in. We didn't actually bother trying this one, but if we did, we'd start by making a quick save right before and right after getting it. Then with the memory viewer open we'd quick load the one save, and then the other, over and over, to see what changes in WRAM.
Our guess? The sword is probably controlled by a single value, 00 for no sword, and 01 for the sword. Probably. Maybe? We could be wrong, but that's the fun of hacking. This might be a chance for you to fool around and discover something. Or just explore lonely, rainy Hyrule with no enemies.
We hope this tutorial encourages everyone to have a little fun with the code of their favourite game.
(Addendum - I actually went and checked this after writing the guide: the sword relies on TWO values, changing from 0 to 1. The first value enables the sword attack animation, the second value adds it to your inventory. Bit weird, I know. Finding this required using the search function, to find values that were zero, getting the sword, and then refiltering those results for any that had a value of 1 - several pop up, and you just need to activate the two correct ones. Happy hunting)
Re: Konami Butchered This SNES Classic, So We Fixed It
16) We tried various things, mostly putting NOP at anything related to the countdown timers, but this always caused weird glitches. The timers are clearly needed for the game to function. Our eureka moment was looking at the line immediately after the DEC instruction. It's BPL, which means Branch if Positive. So let's think about that - we have a timer counting down to zero. There's a line which subtracts one each time. Immediately after that line is another line, which says basically, if the number is positive, or above 00, then branch off to a whole other bit of code. What does this mean? When the timer hits 00 (which causes the message to appear), that BPL is going to stop working because it only works when the number is positive.
17) We spent a lot of time trying to figure this out, always with the assumption we needed to change the timer itself. But remember how we asked you to hover your mouse over other instructions? There's a BRA instruction a little further down (you, in the back, stop giggling, this is a serious tutorial). Mesen tells us this instruction means Branch Always. Can you guess what happens next?
18) We have no prior experience with assembly, but if there's a timer counting to zero, and an instruction right after this timer which does stuff only when a number is not zero, and then there's this other instruction which says to always do something... What if we swap BPL for BRA? It can't hurt. If it messes up and crashes we can just reload and start over... Lo and behold, it works as we hoped - the help message is disabled! Now it doesn't matter when the timer hits zero. Because that BRA instruction is always active (for goodness sake, stop laughing!). Whereas the BPL instruction was only active when the timer was a positive value.
Let's reflect on this. Discovering how to do this required observing the WRAM memory table. Spotting the timer. Right clicking to add a breakpoint, so we could see it in the debugger. Then this required some trial and error, but was helped simply by hovering the mouse. By placing the mouse over various other instructions we were able to see what they did. Most were not relevant to us - but! As luck would have it, just seven lines down from the timer, there was the instruction we needed.
If you're super keen you could get a book on assembly, or read a tutorial online, but in this case, it simply required using Mesen to explain things, and then a little creative thinking.
Re: Konami Butchered This SNES Classic, So We Fixed It
12) We quickly spotted two timers, side by side, that froze when the message appears: $2CD and $2CE. The left is the faster of the two, every time it hits 00 its big brother to the right goes down by one. We've highlighted it in the image. You can have a quick test by quick loading the game, watching how the message appears when both hit 00, and then quick loading again and typing a big number in when it gets close to zero. Notice how when you bump the number up, preventing them hitting 00, the message does not come up? You've found your culprit. Right click the number and give it a name - we called ours Countdown2 and Countdown.
13) Now that you know what causes the message, let's attempt a challenging hack. Right click $2CD and in the menu select the breakpoint option - it has a red circle. We are going to tell Mesen to pause emulation every time this value is referenced in the game code. Now, it's a timer which constantly goes down, so you know that Mesen is going to be pausing literally every time you unpause it. But that's OK, all we want is to have a look at the assembly code.
14) Here's the most difficult part of this hack. Mainly because we don't know assembly and it required some guess work. We figured this out not by looking it up online, but just using the built-in help files. For example: hover your mouse over DEC. Mesen will tell you that this subtracts one from $02D. Which makes sense, right? It's a timer, and this instruction makes it go down by one. But how to stop this?
15) You might be thinking we could put NOP (no operation) there. Make it so there is no timer? We thought so too, but this caused glitches. OK, so let's look at the next line. In fact, hover your mouse over all the instructions for the next eight lines or so and read what the description is for each one.
Re: Konami Butchered This SNES Classic, So We Fixed It
XHEAD: Stopping the "Help Me" message
08) Even though you've escaped the guards, Zelda will regularly remind you to help her. Here's how to disable that, and we've got two different methods.
09) The first is wait for the message to appear, hit Esc to freeze the emulator, then clicking Debug and opening the Debugger. Then at the top there are buttons to go back one PPU cycle, one scanline, and one frame. You can click back one frame and watch the letters vanish in reverse, until the message is gone, and then try to figure out what part of the assembly code is making it appear. We tried this, but found it so slow and irritating we abandoned it. Let's find an easier way, shall we?
10) This message must run on a timer. It keeps popping up. We just need to find the timer, which is either going up or down. We guessed down, because timers count down (we were correct), but another programmer might have it count up.
11) Open the Memory Viewer again, have it in WRAM mode, and then go over the numbers looking for those that count up or down constantly. Not the ones that jump between two or three different numbers, only those that change constantly across the range. As you'll see, there are quite a few timers. Which controls the message? A aimple way is to just watch until the message pops up. The one we want freezes while the message plays, while the others keep running. Again, this isn't a difficult thing, it's just kinda laborious sitting and watching. There is no special skill here other than patience to sit, watch, wait, and reload each time the message comes up. You just need basic counting skills to spot numbers going up or down.
Re: Konami Butchered This SNES Classic, So We Fixed It
06) OK, now that you've found the number governing Link's position you can start hacking. Use your mouse to highlight the two digits in that box and type a new number in. Link will automatically move. You want him below the guards, so you want a bigger number. 00 is at the top of the screen, and FF at the bottom, so it's a little different to maths at school, where on a piece of graph paper 0 was at the bottom. But never mind that...
07) Here's an anomaly, but it highlights the nature of hacking. When we were experimenting to test this tutorial, naturally we made some mistakes. But eventually we hit on EE for the value and it worked. Link appeared below the guards, the dialogue started, we click out and walked down in the next field, all normal. On subsequent tests this resulted in the screen auto-scrolling rapidly, forcing a quick load. What caused this? Who knows! Welcome to hacking. Just try again and it might work. Possibly it might be related to the random message the guards say. We also had better luck by initiating dialogue by touching the guards, then putting EE in to move Link down, then clicking out of dialogue. Once on the next screen the WRAM reverts - basically you've temporarily "hacked" a single value in WRAM to bypass something.
A major aspect of hacking is repeating the same baby steps, over and over, to see if the results are consistently repeatable. The above method can be interchanged with any game in order to move characters, alter lives, ammo, timers, and so on. You just sit and observe what changes.
If you don't feel like looking at a grid of numbers, click "Debug" in Mesen, then click "Memory Search", and you can have the emulator search for values that change after doing things. So if you wanted more lives, you'd do a search, lose one life, then do another search for any value that recently decreased by one. We find this slow and tedious, and actually prefer the "Where's Wally" method of seeing what changes, but you need to find a method that suits you.
Re: Konami Butchered This SNES Classic, So We Fixed It
XHEAD: Escape the Guards!
01) Get set up with Mesen. Move Link outside his house and talk to the guards once. Then position him vertically above the guards. We're going to do a quick and dirty hack into WRAM to move him below the guards and into the next screen. Quick save here. Quick save often, because in case you mess up you can just go back.
02) Click "Debug" at the top menu. Click "Memory Viewer". Position the new window somewhere comfortable to view it at the same time as the game screen. Click the drop down box at the top saying CPU Memory and click on Work RAM. Make sure you're in Work RAM.
03) Do nothing. See all those numbers changing? If you want to find the vertical position of Link, and he's standing still, his vertical number will not be moving. All those moving numbers are junk related to the music, rain animation, etc. It's important to decide what your goal is (in this case hacking the vertical position), and ignoring stuff unrelated. If Link is not moving, neither is the number you want.
04) Move him up and down and see what changes. This is what most hacking is going to be. Doing stuff in game and see what changes in the WRAM or the assembly debugger. It's pretty tedious. Just walk up and down and look for numbers that move when you do. In the image we've put green circles around three numbers that do this.
05) How do we know which is the right number? We don't. No one does, apart from the original programmer. Most hacking is going to be finding a possible result, and then going through them. One by one, to see what changes. Start at the top and work down. As luck would have it, $20, the first one, is the one we want.
Re: Konami Butchered This SNES Classic, So We Fixed It
@RetroGames We're not running the hack tutorial as a site piece, so it was suggested I paste the guide into the comments. There are 5 images, which I will put on a host shortly. I also need to post this in a few parts.
HEAD: A simple hacking tutorial
SUB: We never thought we'd be giving BRA instructions to retro fans
TEXT:
After our article on hacking Buster Busts Loose on SNES, several readers expressed an interest in a straightforward tutorial. What follows are two very basic hacks for Zelda: Link to the Past on SNES, using Mesen. Different emulators have different tools and UI, and there are also bespoke utilities for hacking games on different systems. But our goal is to show that by doing something very simple, such as changing just one number, big things can happen.
You don't need to create whole new levels or anything. The point is to have fun and explore games in a different way. We are amateurs and new to this, but if you can play Zelda, you can hack Zelda. Both involve puzzle solving. The only "tricky" bit is maybe getting your head around hexadecimal. All those numbers you see are likely to be hexadecimal (0-F) rather than decimal (0-9). All you need to know is that after 09 is 0A, up to 0F. Most of the time you'll be hacking 00 to 01, or vice versa, but here's a chart to cheat just in case:
https://tkcomputerservice.com/hexadecimal-conversion-chart.htm
The biggest advice is to ignore things which are not relevant to your specific goal at that moment. Hacking isn't like the Matrix. It's not glamorous or fancy, really. It's more like a slow police stakeout. You'll be sitting observing most of the time, waiting to see if anything changes.
Re: EverDrive Maker Krikzz Releases $40 Genesis / Mega Drive ROM Cart, Open-ED
I have the fancy Everdrive with Mega CD support. AMA.
Re: Duke Nukem's Co-Creator Reveals Old Pitch For 'Big Trouble In Little China' Game
@GeneJacket It does sound basically just like Duke 3D reskinned as BTILC. But we'll never know. If the team loved the film, they might have really put the effort in to make it good?
The IP exists. They made a licensed board game.
It's quite feasible that a dev or publisher would license it today and make something decent. maybe angle it as a sequel to the movie. Maybe make it in the style of games from back then, or modern games.
I guess I'm just very optimistic.
Re: Duke Nukem's Co-Creator Reveals Old Pitch For 'Big Trouble In Little China' Game
Genuinely my #1 film.
I wonder about the possibilities if they'd made a good game for the NES or SNES. Something as good as Alien 3 on the SNES for example.
Re: Anniversary: Castlevania Classic Dracula X: Rondo Of Blood Is 30 Today
First played this in 2001. Visited Japan. Bought a Duo R abd this in Akihabara. Back at my hotel room I unplugged the aircon to plug this in, hooked up to the hotel CRT TV.
Didn't go to bed until after midnight. Just sat playing while eating sushi, totally blown away by how good it was.
Incredible experience.
Re: Has Your SNES Pad Seen Better Days? Don't Worry, A Fix Is Coming
@KitsuneNight
Funky how?
Surely start/select match up.
L/R to L/R.
Y, B, A to ABC on 3DO?
X is null...
No?
Bit concerned now...
Re: Has Your SNES Pad Seen Better Days? Don't Worry, A Fix Is Coming
@KitsuneNight You have one of the fabled SNES TO 3DO adapters?
Lucky! I'm waiting for a restock.
Re: Has Your SNES Pad Seen Better Days? Don't Worry, A Fix Is Coming
It's why I'll happily buy junk or non-working first party controllers for any system.
If a cable or circuit board is dead, the membranes might still be good for salvage! Fixed a few pads like this over the years.
Re: Interview: Say Hello To Jocelyn Benford, The First Person To Give Princess Peach A Voice
@samuelrclaesson
I'd love to read it. I just found your Radosh interview too! Thanks for pointing it out.
Re: Interview: Say Hello To Jocelyn Benford, The First Person To Give Princess Peach A Voice
Excellent feature - good work documenting the unknown!
I, for one, loved Hotel Mario. Putting aside the Mario name, and the CDi troubles, it is a fantastic single-screen arcade-style platformer. Donkey Kong, Manic Miner, whatever your favourites are - this is another fantastic example in that genre. Using a wired controller it's very responsive, the level themes are inventive, the gameplay evolves with each new hotel, adding fun new gimmicks. For me, this comes fairly close to capturing that Nintendo magic. It's better than the single screen Mario Bros. with POW block - that was just boring. This is fun!
So, I'm assuming there will be a follow up feature interviewing her husband, Michael Ahn, about the Philips? Please? I don't know about anyone else, but I need more Philips / Nintendo articles in my life.
Re: Can You Match These Consoles With Their Controller Ports?
I own that 3DO model! How did I get that wrong.
The rest were Atari systems - clearly topic I need to study more.
Re: N64 Classic Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon Gets Fanmade PC Recompilation Project
@Futureshark
Reddit thread:
https://www.reddit.com/r/n64/comments/ssas1b/every_n64_decompilation_project_2_microcode/
Now, to be fair, these are decompile projects. Not recompile like the above Goemon one. But once you've decompiled it, not long until you can then recompile it. (I think.)
There's a guy on Twitter building a list of already recompiled projects, along with how well they function.
Re: N64 Classic Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon Gets Fanmade PC Recompilation Project
You are correct - it is indeed one of the best games on N64. I always felt it never got the praise it deserved back in the day.
I've been waiting for this one for a while now (there's a bunch of N64 recompile projects in the works).
But why oh why is it JP only? A big part of the fun is the wacky (and excellent!) localisation into English.
Is it just a case of waiting until implemented, or did they give a very specific reason why?
Re: GameCube Gets Achievements Thanks To The Dolphin Emulator
@KitsuneNight I have always hated them, and was angry that initially you couldn't disable them on PS3. I'd be playing a nice game, chilling, relaxing, kicking back, and suddenly an air raid klaxon goes off and the screen is invaded and tainted by these hideous ghoulish little medallions for - as you say - literally nothing. Took me right out of the flow / zone. Was so glad when Sony allowed them to be disabled.
Having said all that, I did intentionally Platinum Demons' Souls.
Re: Konami Butchered This SNES Classic, So We Fixed It
@sdelfin
Bankbank cooked up an IPS patch to remove dashing via double tap in Cybernator. I'm not sure if we should upload it to rhdn or just email it to you. I need to do some testing first.
@RetroGames
Wrote a step by step tutorial for two fun hacks in Zelda for everyone to try (18 steps so everything is covered). They teach a method which can be done in other games too. Will update you when it's up.
Re: Konami Butchered This SNES Classic, So We Fixed It
The RHDN submission was rejected due to the supplied screenshots being "too pixelated". They've tightened up their process, and it's a PITA to get approval. I could resubmit with cleaner screens. Or you know what? Just get it on Romhacks. No fuss there. It's not like RHDN pays anyone, their submission process should be easier than this.
@marc_max
Interesting. I wonder if they actually deleted the code for passwords, or left it in but put a shunt in so you can't access it. If the latter, it might be as simple as NOP'ing whatever line dismisses it.
@MysticX
Same. Skyblazer on SNES was finished in two days, but it was so much fun I kept it for years and would replay my favourite levels just for the pleasure of it. Excessively tough games were dropped pretty quick. I finished Earthworm Jim once and never went back.
@GhaleonUnlimited
I'm flattered, but I think there are at least 101 other better hacks that better represent this. Fixing Contra and CVIII for example. Good luck with you presentation.
@BulkSlash
We have a veteran here! These all sound quite excellent. Are you uploading online? Good luck with the F-Zero endings.
@sdelfin
This Cybernator hack sounds very simple given it won't even need save states. I'll have a peek if time permits. It should be as simple as starting on the first level, having the debugger open, and then repeatedly doing it to see where the branch is. Then possibly just putting NOP there. It depends how the double tap is read by the loop. I would not want to accidentally disable the dash for all control methods.
@DestructoDisk @Mario500
Thank you for the feedback. It was an off the cuff remark reflecting my deep annoyance at Konami's attitude, but you're right, it is not essential to the tone of the piece and if younger readers enjoy the site I will endeavour to encourage this by refraining from such language in future. (I just freelance, given it was asked.)
@RetroGames
OK, so I've been thinking about what kind of specific simple tutorial one could give that's easier than this Buster hack, but also fun, and I've just tested it: Link to the Past, those guards at the start? You can mess with Link's vertical position to bypass them and explore the rest of Hyrule in the rain. It's weird and cool! No enemies, except in caves and dungeons. I'm busy today but hope to write up a set of instructions for this tomoz. (I used SNES9X which is a bit more newcomer friendly, but if I can I'd like to give a tutorial on doing this same thing in both emulators - every emu has a slightly different GUI and style of tools.) If not Sunday then Monday. Or Tuesday at the latest!
I think this is a fun primer for anyone who hasn't tried it before. You're only hacking just one value - Link's vertical position. But it allows you to access the map in a non-normal alternate state, with spooky stuff going on. If one can crack this, you'll have the knowledge to do similar in other games.
Princess Zelda's "help me" message keeps popping up, so I might also look at NOP'ing that.
Re: Konami Butchered This SNES Classic, So We Fixed It
@RetroGames
There are two options that I used in this instance. Debugger, which shows you the game loop as it runs (you'll need to hit Esc to pause it). And then WRAM, which will look like a list of numbers in a grid. Which is slightly less intuitive, but hacking a number in RAM is simpler than hacking assembly.
If you're wanting a gentler introduction, SNES9X (I use the Xbox port) has a cheat search to look for specific values. Probably an easier less intimidating start.
But Mesen, in that massive screen of options, should allow you to have it check for single value changes (not at my PC otherwise I'd type a mini walkthrough).
Mario is good. Once you find the option to search / track values and changes, you can search for lives. Lose one and see what goes down by 1.
Warning: some games assign the internal value 00 to something onscreen which says "1".
If you fail to get anywhere, I will sit down and type a simple tutorial for you (and others), over the weekend at some point. Just a basic step by step to dip your toe in the water.
EDIT: sitting here trying to describe it without the emulator in front of me, from memory, makes me realise how frustrating it can be for a newcomer.
Re: Konami Butchered This SNES Classic, So We Fixed It
@RetroGames
If you feel insulted then I wish to apologise. My intention was only, sincerely, to encourage others to prod at games with the available tools.
I don't think one needs any special abilities beyond being able to play games and hold a controller, and basic literacy.
If your immediate belief is that this is out of touch, then I've fallen short of my intended goal.
I am not good at maths, and I found assembly prior to this intimidating. But allow me to share a simpler example or two:
A lot of emulators allow you to search for a single number value. The first time you do this, it will check every possible value. Too many to be useful.
But after this, if you lose 1 life, you can ask it to search that list again, for anything that went down by 1. The result? It will show you where the game keeps track of lives.
You can also use this method to move to the right. Then ask it to search for any number that went up by any ammount. Probably a few things went up. But you can keep repeating to narrow list. Go left and ask it to search numbers that decreased.
Eventually you will find the value tracking your onscreen position. So you can change it to go outside walls.
These are just two simple number searches. But that's still hacking. And it's fun putting your character beyond barriers.
Anyone who can play games and navigate game menus can fiddle around like this.
I don't expect anyone to do feats of Rainman style genius. But if you use emulators, pop open that debugger or cheat search, and see if you can find and change just one number.
Maybe it's lives first. Maybe you play around more and try other stuff.
My desire is not to imply I have superhuman abilities, but to encourage everyone to use the powerful tools now commonplace to play around.
Even if it goes wrong, so what? All you've lost is some time spent playing. Of course if try it and find it boring or frustrating, then fair enough. At least you gave it a go.
Re: Wii And GameCube Emulator Dolphin Gets A Version Number Overhaul
Anyone else read up to the word "gets" then have a mild panic attack as their brain filled in the words "shut down"?
No one? Just me then?
Re: The Forgotten Legacy Of Taito Of Brazil
@gingerbeardman
Yes! Nasir. In interviews he said Square knew him already from his Apple II games. So that was a good avenue in. I would rank that alongside Henk Rogers as a fascinating example of gaijin doing well in JP during those times.
@Diogmites
Cool reply. I didn't think highly of Perry either. He basically rocked up with cannons blazing and demanded entry. Galapagos Syndrome is a fascinating rabbit hole to go down. I like to apply it to the Japanese FPS, was doing its own funky thing in isolation while the rest of the world was building up to Doom.
Re: The Forgotten Legacy Of Taito Of Brazil
@Diogmites
Thanks! That statement needed expanding really, since both before and after WWII there were different scenarios.
After the Admiral Perry incident the country did open up. And send delegates abroad to study how foreign countries operated. There was even consideration to adopting English. And they were part of the League of Nations, etc.
But when you look at all the sources for the last 200 years, there is a recurring feeling of otherness.
Random example: the term "Galapagos Syndrome" originates from Japan. It applies to phones and computers. JP phones and PCs were wholly unlike any others until later standardisation. Take computers for example. Americans, Brits, French, East Bloc, there was to a degree common overlap. A Yugoslavian could move to the UK and do well coding Speccy games (it happened). Japan? That's a whole other ballgame with different rules and set-up.
I don't want any of this to sound negative or xenophobic. The Japanese are very warm and kind to foreigners. They're a wonderful and creative nation I'm enamoured with. But being successful there, in business, having come from outside the culture, requires special fortitude.
For concrete specific examples I'd cite interviews with: Jeremy Blaustein, Victor Ireland, Ted Woolsey, Joseph Redon, Henk Rogers, Jez San. Game Over by David Sheff. Possibly Kalinsky of Sega, in terms of how US/JP staff handle things - though Sega is kinda odd, given the huge infighting between depts.
Re: The Forgotten Legacy Of Taito Of Brazil
@gingerbeardman
A valid statement. However, for me, it's interesting because of how the Japanese do business. There's a lot of etiquette and expectations unique to Japan, which foreigners can struggle with. Certainly with Henk Rogers he described a mild resistance to foreigners.
Japan was very insular; during the Tokugawa period; pre-WWII (even post WWII; English language signs for tourists were only added post Millennium with the world cup; seeing another gaijin was rare generally). It was also a mono-ethnic nation. You rarely saw foreigners if at all. Other East Asian nations like China and Korea also have a troubled history with Japan, so you didn't see them overtly.
I'm generalising, obviously. Based on personal observation, interviews, and what I recall ftom my Understanding Japan module from uni.
But broadly - Japan was very much for the Japanese. They exported or imported, sure, but modified to suit their tastes.
Random aside: JP doctors used to tell patients not to buy medicine abroad because JP medicine was specially catered to JP bodies.
You read interviews about Yamauchi, and he was mildly hostile to foreigners. Rogers earned his respect playing Igo.
Obviously foreigners were able to start companies in Japan, but they faced a set of unique local challenges in gaining acceptance from Japanese colleagues and consumers.
This is less to do with the games industry and more business in general.
For one thing, can you imagine starting a company and having to know Japanese or use a hotshot interpretor because so few JP businessmen spoke English? It's different to a foreigner going to America, where the language of business is English and everyone learns it.
I find foreigners staking a claim in Japan and succeeding to be unusual and fascinating (at least up until after the Millennium).
Re: Flashback: Remember When Virtua Racing Caused Prank Phone Calls?
I take it that the chip emits some sort of electromagnetic field (RF? EMF?), which triggers the phone?
Don't quote me on this, but isn't that why old consoles had metal shielding in them? To comply with RF / EMF regulations about electrical appliances not affecting each other? I definitely remember reading a very dry document stipulating how an appliance must not affect, or allow itself to be affected by another. Or something.
I have a top end low-frequency and high-frequency scanner (this was great at finding some forgotten faulty wiring in my bathroom). The thing is, every single electrical appliance gives off some sort of field. You turn your console on and even the wired controllers give off something, even if you need to put the scanner up close. Put it near a live AC adapter and it goes off like a fire alarm.
I find myself deeply intrigued by the claim the JP version is producing some sort of uber field that interferes with other appliances.