Posts Tagged super sonic
ROM Hack Goodness
Posted by The Management in games on April 11, 2010
The practice of editing ROM images has been around for a while, and it’s probably best known for inserting crude sexual jokes or making games much more difficult.
Of course that’s not its full gamut.
There have been plenty of ROM hacks that tweak games in various interesting ways. Some are even complete overhauls, clearly resembling the originals but providing lots of new content.
I find all of these quite interesting as they represent additions and alterations that the games’ fans clearly desired. There’s quite a few of them too, so here are just a few that caught my eye:
Rockman 3 Endless.
Rockman 3 Endless
Something of a backport, this hack brings Mega Man 9′s Endless Attack mode to Mega Man 3. It’s a standalone patch, not just a small modifier, and it’s a good example of a feature/mechanic of a sequel that the fans wanted to bring back to an earlier incarnation of the series.
Mortal Kombat II Unlimited
Mortal Kombat II Unlimited
It took ages of EGM posting certain spoofed rumours to convince developers of fighting games that implementing some playable hidden characters in their titles was a good idea. Eventually this became quite common, but not before Mortal Kombat II was released. To make things right, this hack not only allows the player to take control of the secret characters, but also to play as the bosses.
Chrono Trigger Coliseum
Chrono Trigger Coliseum
New worlds, quests, enemies, spells, etc., are always longed for with beloved RPGs, but realizing a fan-fiction piece in-game is quite a lofty task. Instead, this hack concentrates on providing a varied gameplay experience by creating an arena where the player (and optionally his party) can compete against numerous enemies for prizes.
Like I mentioned above, these are just scratching the surface, so what are some of your favourite ROM hacks?
The Greatest Collectible of All Time
Posted by The Management in design on February 16, 2009
One of the famous coin arrows in Super Mario World.
In-game collectibles are a staple of platformers and play a big part in various videogame genres. They help to fill out maps, provide points bonuses and aid the player in overcoming the game’s challenges. They also flesh out the setting, sometimes even being used as part of its architecture, e.g., the coin-arrows in the various Super Mario games.
Apparently all clocks in Final Fantasy VI are secretly powered by elixirs.
Collectibles seem to speak to the kleptomaniac side of our personality, encouraging us to take all that we see. In console RPGs, it’s common to break into people’s homes, rummage through their belongings, and generally pillage the entire world that you’re trying to save.
And why not, really? After all, as players we want to be rewarded for exploring. It’d be awfully dull going from one empty room to another, so letting us interact with the game as if it were an episode of Supermarket Sweep might not be such a bad idea.
About
Hi, my name’s Radek Koncewicz, and I'm the Creative Lead of Incubator Games, a small development studio I started with a few former coworkers.
I think a lot about videogames, and when I find the time, I post those thoughts here on this blog.
