Some time ago was released an interesting Rockman 4 (J) hack. Just recently it was also published on romhacking.net (http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/910/) (but only the MMC5 version). I have downloaded the original patcher from authors website (http://www4.atpages.jp/borokobo/neo/download.html#ROCK4) and made both IPS patches (MMC3 and MMC5) here for download:
http://jpx72.detailne.sk/rockman4_mi_MMC3.ips
http://jpx72.detailne.sk/rockman4_mi_MMC5.ips
(all rights and copyright for this hack goes to the author, not sure of his name, check the web link provided).
Anyway his hack doesn't want to run in Nestopia (use FCEU), and I am wondering about real hardware compatibility. Unfortunatelly I cannot test it, because it's programmed to have only PRG and in 1024kB size. ExROM board does have the ability to support this PRG size, but all produced ExROM boards have both PRG and CHR.
Okay so first I wanted to ask for a PowerPak test, by somebody who has it, and post the gameplay results.
I think this hack would be very nice to be reproduced, check it out yourself.
Hint: the IPS on romhacking is exactly the same as the MMC5 version uploaded on my site (build using the author's patcher and separated from the hacked rom by LunarIPS), I compared the files in hexeditor.
I tried both patches MMC3 & MMC5 on the powerpak and neither would work.
I used Lunar ips to patch the rom.The powerpak would load the game but it was just a black screen.
Anyone else want to give it a try????
Quote from: punkpolitical on April 15, 2012, 05:10:24 pm
I tried both patches MMC3 & MMC5 on the powerpak and neither would work.
Thank you so much for the test, I expected this behavior, because Nestopia behaves very close to the real thing. So it's not worth trying to repro it just yet. Now I have to find somebody or contact the author to get help with the game programming itself...
The reason it doesn't work on the powerpak is because the PRG is a friggin megabyte. The Powerpak can only handle up to 512 KB of either PRG or CHR.
It's too bad, but its understandable - This rom hack is INSANE.The hacker took advantage of all the empty space in the Rockman 4 source code and expanded the game with elements from as as I've observed so far: NES 1, 2, 3, GB 3, GB 4 and tons of original stuff too. The game is also nearly impossible - the recovery time after you get hit is half of what it normally is, so you can be hit multiple times in a row from the same enemy if you make contact with them or a projectile. The enemies are much tougher, as are the stages, and the bosses are just from hell.. Fight Pharaoh Man to see what I mean.
i'm all for extremely high caliber Megaman ROM hacks that push the envelope, but this one is WAY too hard for its own good.
is it me or are all the good rockman / megaman hacks too hard to be bothered with? atleast the ones I tried...
Most ROM hacks are made to increase the difficulty of the original game and give off different challenges. It's nothing unique to the Megaman games - just look at Super Mario hacks both for the NES and SNES. The majority of all Super Mario World rom hacks I've ever played have made the original game look like child's play.
This is likely because the kind of person who would make a rom hack to begin with is an expert at the given game they choose, and probably don't have much experience in game design so balance in the favor of beginner players isn't even considered.
I'm planning on writing an article on my blog about Megaman rom hacks as there certainly are a lot of them.
Dug out this topic because there is a final release out!
http://www4.atpages.jp/borokobo/neo/download.html
As far as i translated correctly, it's recommended to use MMC5 version and it's not recommended to make IPS patches from the patched file afterwards.
how to: you have to get a dump of rockman4, rename it rockman4.nes and run the do.bat
(http://jpx72.detailne.sk/Rocky.jpg)
I was finaly able to reproduce the famous Rockman 4 Minus Infinity hack on a cartridge and I have a problem. It's nothing hardware related I'm afraid, but the hack itself is flawed.
Although it is not occuring very often, the "weapons menu" which is usually activated by pressing Start button, is popping up from time to time.
I'd say it's a random occurence when pressing other buttons, but as 3gengames from NA said "it's probably corrupting controller writes from some DPCM samples" .
So my question is simple - can this be repaired? By someone here?
Author of this hack is puresabe, he's japanese, and it might be worth a shot to contact him directly (in his mother-tongue) and let him know about this effort and compatibility issues. If I have translated his readme.txt correctly, he knows about issues in Nestopia emulator, because primarily he used FCEUX. And since Nestopia is closer to the real hardware, the issues occur on the real thing too.
(you can reproduce this flaw when you play the hack in Nestopia)
Author's website: http://borokobo.web.fc2.com http://www4.atpages.jp/borokobo
Any ideas and help-out is appreciated!
I want this hack to get more attention since it's the best bloody Rockman hack out there!
PS: Thank you RainLink for the awesome label!
Dang, that is one sexy lookin' cart.
Looks great, only the wrong/weird "Japanese" irks me somehow. :-[
Which ROM IC went for PRG and CHR? Complete part number, please.
PRG: ST M27C801
CHR ROM was replaced by 8KB SRAM: GM76C88AL-15
Notice the same glitch occurs both in Nestopia and real hardware.
Quote from: manuel on September 12, 2012, 05:03:39 am
Looks great, only the wrong/weird "Japanese" irks me somehow. :-[
How is it weird? mistranslated katakana or something? I expect there is a kanji solution to "minus infinity", right?
[
EDIT] - stupid me not even seeing that there is kanji in there...
I just looked it up and it is actually a mathematical term.
"Negative infinity"...
So I guess it's correct after all. It just looks so weird to me... Can't explain it. :-[
Maybe it's because personally I'd have gone with a katakana transcription.
Quote from: jpx72 on September 12, 2012, 05:17:49 am
PRG: ST M27C801
CHR ROM was replaced by 8KB SRAM: GM76C88AL-15
Notice the same glitch occurs both in Nestopia and real hardware.
What about timing of PRG chip?
I'm with
manuel - usually foreign words written in katakana.
Wow jrx72 I'm touched that you actually printed that out! Your method looks flawless and I'm happy you got some use out of my work. THANK YOU! :D
If anybody wants to submit a better rewording of the Japanese, I can quickly go in and edit the words- it shouldn't take more than a few minutes at most.
This is a shame this romhack doesn't work 100% correctly, I had hopped to play this on actual hardware :/
I guess it's just personal preference, so all's good. :)
I know there are issues with RAM chips on other repros, but I thought 150ns is a good one... I have it from a pirate cart.
About the PRG '080, I never had any issues with these on other repros.
Can't really say more, only thing I now is that it runs OK in FCEUX.
Oh and thanks everybody for comments :D
jpx72....
Why does your repro look like the Gold Punch-Out cartridge, but black?
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE tell me, you didn't destroy a Punch-Out Special to make this!
There are some really cheap KOEI games you can use as donors.
Quote from: Aukensider on September 16, 2012, 05:24:09 am
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE tell me, you didn't destroy a Punch-Out Special to make this!
don't worry I used one of the KOEI titles, a japanese strategy, the name was really hard to remember.
Anyway got an answer from the author himself, let me quote it as did
kuja killer on romhacking for me:
Quote from: kuja killer on September 14, 2012, 04:22:13 pm
Hi, Kujakiller.
Thank you for your information about the project.
To tell the truth, I had given up to run 4mi on real NES machine because I don't have NES hardware knowledge at all.
But I hear the probability of real machine working, I was much surprised.
And I must try to fix the DPCM/controller problem.
Regards,
Puresabe
Yes, I know... but maybe he will look at it one day.
I can do a video (later today), but it's easier when you get the rom and play it a bit in Nestopia, because it will be hard to notice correctly from the video. It's nothing too serious, it only looks like you accidentally press "start" from time to time (so the "weapons-selection-menu" pops out). Sometimes it's not disturbing, but there are places where you can throw your famicom out of the window because of that.... :fire:
(Anyway I have read that this rom hack is using second controller to change weapons or something...)
GOOD NEWS EVERYONE!(https://encrypted-tbn1.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSK_Vqss5xDaYM4uRVQRNVOupKbRL7EORVN8_ZxlwjBcRv7dPNleA)
Puresabe (the author of the Rockman MI hack) actually did a PATCH to repair the faulty controller behavior! Let me quote
kuja killer, without his help this would never be possible:
Quote from: kuja killer on September 18, 2012, 02:11:54 pm
Sorry that im a few days late..
Okay, apparently i was kind of wrong. i didn't think he'd make a fix, but he actually did though matter of fact. :)
He even updated his site 2 times (in japanese only).. and even went as far as completing translating your whole entire post (the first post of this topic), from english to japanese, for his japanese viewers.
That's pretty cool!! :)
http://borokobo.web.fc2.com/neo/index.html
the 9-15-12, and 9-16-12 updates.
He explained in alot of in-depth detail about the whole situation.
And then posted a small IPS patch that you should apply to the 0.01 MMC5 version release.
Anyway we need some testing (in Nestopia / real hardware only) to see if his patch works!
For everyone lost in Puresabe's page, here's the direct link to the patch: http://borokobo.web.fc2.com/neo/h_src/12091601.zip
And if anyone is speaking Japanese, you can try to translate the most interesting things from
Puresabe's website and put them here for english speakers! Thanks!
EDIT: Wow almost 7 hours since I posted this and no amazed burstingly happy reaction from anyone? Am I the only one so excited about running this hack on real hardware? Come on, everyone who hasn't tried it so far should try it! Seriously!
That's awesome! i want to play it
Hardware testing after patch: Everything works perfect!!!! No more glitched controlls!
jpx72 this is wonderful news!! I can't wait to give this a try :)
this hack is absolutely crazy ! ;D even capcom did not manage to make that great game, with those visual effects and cool ideas :o! they should make game like this , instead of Street Fighter X Mega Man. ::)
and great job with the cartridge! :redcart: :star: did you consider to make and sell cartridges :redcart: :redcart: :redcart: :coin: :coin: :coin: :-[ I am interested of buying one :D
BUMPing this old topic for anyone interested:
the author - puresabe - released a finalized version of the hack v. 1.00 (on 6.12.2014 :bub:):
http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/910/
Title screen is totally awesome!. Just tested on real hardware - works perfectly!
BTW RainLink, did you know all of the repro making websites use your cover design? You did an awesome job there!
Does it work with the diagram you sent me a while ago?
Well I only exchanged the eprom contents on my old repro so...yes.
We've already said it doesn't work with powerpak, but would it maybe work with everdrive n8?
Everdrive N8 has the same problem, only 512KB of PRG.
I had my first taste of this today, and I loved it. It's so awesome seeing enemies from all the Mega Man games all thrown together like this. Even though I've only seen two of the stages so far, I'm already in love. The mini-boss of Shadow Man riding a giant robot frog in Toad Man's stage was really cool. And Shadow Man's "ninja" escape after destroying his frog mount was pretty clever.
I know that this Topic is old. But I don't why People like this Game. Its Hard as Hell. I think the man that did this game was under Drugs or Something else to make a shit game like this. This is not a game that makes fun, because I have try to play it, but Its to hard as hell. I Think some People don't know how to make a Game they think that all People like to play games Hard as Hell. A game must be normal not difficult as hell that you don't can beat.
These kind of hacks are often hard as hell. I guess they are often done by people that played the games so much already that they aren't that challenging anymore, and wants more of the same game.
I'm sure the game was intended for an audience that thought the difficulty of other rockman games was too low. Nonetheless everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Perhaps you should check out theintro thread in off topic and introduce yourself.
In Aliexpress they are selling an MMC3 version of this game, uses a PocketGames boards, and supports a lot of memory...
aliexpress.com/item/New-arrival-8-bit-60-pinsTV-game-card-Megaman-Minus-World-with-battery-memory/32624901562.html
It's out of stock. :'(