Translations News
English translation patches for Puyo Puyo Sun 64 and Densha de Go! 64 have been updated to support SummerCart64. It also shares the same bonus features as the 64drive; rather handy, since those aren’t being produced any longer.
In addition to some boring bugfixes, Densha de Go now has a gallery feature if you take screenshots with the debugger. Click here for the patch, here for the release video!
Puyo Puyo Sun 64, by comparison, just runs. Click here for the patch, here for the release video!
[ COMMENTS ] Relevant Link
ROM Hacks News
After over four months of solid effort (spread out over 16 months), Mentil has released the Jarvas Redux hack, for the notorious Famicom kusoge ‘Mirai Shinwa Jarvas’. Patches are available for both the original Japanese ROM, as well as ones already patched by Stardust Crusaders’ 1.00 English patch. An action-RPG released in 1987, it was one of the first Famicom RPGs to support battery-backed saves. However, it was beset by numerous bugs, softlocks, difficulty spikes, poor performance, and all-around jank.
Mentil saw it as a challenge to attempt to repair this game’s deficiencies, and so worked to systematically fix its flaws. Aside from an aborted attempt to replace its grating music (playing with sound off is thus recommended), this effort was largely successful. The hack’s author hopes that such results will inspire and encourage other ROM hackers to similarly improve other games, even ones that might otherwise be considered irredeemable.
The most substantial changes included in this hack:
- Collision detection with the background has been completely reworked. You should get hung up on the scenery less often.
- All known softlocks have been resolved. In order to achieve this, some paths have been modified or added so that if you have the means to reach a location, you also have the means to continue or return. Relatedly, an ability that was very difficult to find has been made much easier to come across, and some things have been modified to utilize it when appropriate.
- The framerate has been improved from 20 to 30fps. Speeds/delays have been adjusted accordingly for everything except the player’s movement, which is no longer sluggish.
- Spells now cast from a new MP stat (instead of from XP). Maximum MP is set to 1 + half your level, and can be restored with Drugs. Spell cost is equal to spell rank. Mages now learn spells 5 levels earlier, thus they start with a spell at Level 0.
- Visiting a Wizard hut (aka House of Shoshin) now restores your MP. Inns of Illusion now live up to their name by restoring your HP and playing a little trick on you. They will both no longer warp you across the world, now letting you exit normally.
- Boathouse interiors now look the part, rather than expositing that you’ve entered one. They can now be exited, and there is now a confirmation prior to setting sail.
- Monsters now drop Gold. The difficulty curve has also been smoothed, nerfing some inexplicably-difficult enemies. Purists can disable these via optional patches.
- NPCs in towns now spawn in doorways and other appropriate entry points, when such a point is onscreen.
- Quests no longer need to be accepted in order to be turned in, fixing a notorious early-game softlock. They now give rebalanced rewards specific to the quest, rather than for the area where you turned them in.
- Touching a duelist now only does 2/3 as much damage as the first boss, rather than doing as much as the final boss. Winning duels now grants 5x as much Fame, and some dueling exploits were fixed.
- The stats screen was rearranged. It now shows XP required to level up, current and max MP, and your total Attack and Defense factoring in equipment. (Contrary to popular belief, equipment always did work, but its effectiveness is only equal to about half of your base stat.)
- A Draft will now permanently unlock passage through a gate, from both sides.
The readme details numerous other changes, big and small.
[ COMMENTS ] Relevant Link
Translations News
Atelier Elie GB, the second of two spin offs of the Atelier series released for the Game Boy Color, is now fully playable in English!!
Shortly after graduating, Elie is entrusted with an apprentice fairy and must teach her alchemy. Despite, the almost identical premise to Atelier Marie GB, a good set of characters and NPCs are different, which leads to a different enough experience. As with the main series, this game features multiple endings.
Be sure to check it out and enjoy!
[ COMMENTS ] Relevant Link
Homebrew News
DK Bros. has been released by the developer 10yard. It has been a long time in the making!
DK Bros. is a two player co-op hack of the original Donkey Kong arcade game. It maintains all the original gameplay mechanics. Two players working together simultaneously smashing barrels, collecting items and pulling rivets.
This release comprises of a program wrapper, romhack and a LUA plugin for MAME. It is all bundled into a convenient and ready to play ZIP package. You just need to provide your own “dkong.zip” rom file.
Features
- 2 players are controlled independently in the same game.
- Each player gets their own hammers, and they can be smashed together
- The last player to take a hammer gets barrel control and retains control until the other player takes a hammer. The barrels change colour when P2 has the steering.
- Pulling rivets is fun with 2 players sharing the task. The fireballs spawn in a calculated safe position for both players.
- If one player completes the stage then both players complete the stage together but the player completing the stage gets the bonus points - unless you finish exactly at the same time.
- Both players accrue points independently but there is a combined score displayed in the centre.
- If one player dies then both players die.
- There are 7 lives shared between both players.
Link to project page and download
https://github.com/10yard/dkbros
Teaser video
[ COMMENTS ] Relevant Link - Project Page
ROM Hacks News
Happy Halloween! The Legend of Zelda: Allhallows Eve is an ALttP romhack which was released in 2023 by Letterbomb, Jared_Brian_, Zarby89, Jeimuzu and Scawful and updated to v1.03 around November. They tried to get out v1.10 out around the same time, but they all either got burnt out from the project or had some other projects to attend to first. As time passed, it became October again, and they decided to push theirselves to release this update on Halloween 2024. Lo and behold, v1.10 of Allhallows Eve is here! That said, there may be some things still in need of fixing or improving, but with the v1.10 additions, it should be a much cleaner experience than any of the previous versions.
Thanks for waiting and hope you all enjoy!
[ COMMENTS ] Relevant Link - Project Page
ROM Hacks News
Version 1.3 of Pokémon Solus is released! This update brings some new features, most notably updates to Pokémon learnsets via Gen 2 tradeback learnsets.
Download the latest release here!
Check out the new Solus trailer! It features all changes through v1.3 inclusive.
Notable changes
- Implemented partially forward-patched learnsets via Gen 2 tradeback learnsets (check here for details)
- Added TM51 (Flamethrower), TM52 (Fire Punch), TM53 (Ice Punch), and TM54 (Thunderpunch) to support the newly forward-patched Pokémon learnsets
- Added Bill’s father, a new NPC in Bill’s grandfather’s house in Fuchsia City; he will sell you a Flamethrower TM for 8000p (as he is the Move Tutor in Crystal Version who teaches Flamethrower, he is a good fit for the role)
- Added new Clerk on 2F of Celadon Dept. Store who sells the 3 new elemental punch TMs
- Changed type matchup for GHOST vs. PSYCHIC to 2x effectiveness (Super Effective) instead of 0x effectiveness
- Changed move typing for Karate Chop, Gust, and Sand-Attack to match the Gen 2 updates (now FIGHTING, FLYING, and GROUND respectively)
- Added an animated in-battle EXP bar to the HUD
- Added an in-battle ‘already caught’ indicator to the HUD (the icon is the one used in Gen 2)
Links
[ COMMENTS ] Relevant Link - Project Page
ROM Hacks News
Update for ‘DBZ BT3 DLC Classic to GT’ to ‘DBZ BT3 DLC MOD Classic to GT v1.04′.
It can be even further upgraded to ‘DBZ BT3 DLC MOD EX Classic to GT’, which comes with multiple optional PPF patches.
Please follow the patching instructions that can be found either in the given link or readme_v104 and readme_EX.