Return of the Romhackeria!

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Let's Play! > Return of the Romhackeria!

Kurui Reiten: Apr 24, 2010

TooMuchAbstraction posted:

Super Metroid chat: Hyper Metroid is what happens when you dial up Samus's movement abilities to the max. Her maximum speed without speedbooster is about as high as it is in vanilla with speedbooster, she can speedboost in morphball form, she can keep speed boost while turning around as long as she turns around in midair, and she can do the damage knockback animation whenever she wants to, which gives her an ersatz backflip ability. Oh, and Spazer and Plasma are compatible with each other, allowing for a ridiculously powerful five-beam combo.

In normal gameplay, these don't affect things too much; most players don't have the skills to really take advantage of the new techniques. But speedruns are a different story. Here's a speedrun of the hack. The quality's a bit muddy, alas, but it's still pretty dang impressive. Alternatively, here's a TAS.

You should LP it so we can all learn more about it.

(also I can confirm it's real good)

# ? Sep 7, 2017 13:44

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# ? Apr 28, 2024 19:52

hanales: Nov 3, 2013

Kurui Reiten posted:

You should LP it so we can all learn more about it.

(also I can confirm it's real good)

This is all fact.

# ? Sep 7, 2017 13:56

TooMuchAbstraction: Oct 14, 2012; I spent four years making
Waves of Steel
Hell yes I'm going to turn my avatar into an ad for it.; Fun Shoe

If I had any ideas for a second Super Metroid LP that I thought had any kind of legs, I'd definitely consider it; Hyper Metroid is one of the best hacks out there (I guess my top 3 would probably be Eris, Hyper, and uhhhh Phazon?).

But I don't. :shrug:

# ? Sep 7, 2017 15:45

hanales: Nov 3, 2013

TooMuchAbstraction posted:

If I had any ideas for a second Super Metroid LP that I thought had any kind of legs, I'd definitely consider it; Hyper Metroid is one of the best hacks out there (I guess my top 3 would probably be Eris, Hyper, and uhhhh Phazon?).

But I don't.

I mean a genericly commentated play through would work for hyper. Doesn't need to be fancy.

# ? Sep 7, 2017 15:49

Heavy Sigh: Nov 13, 2011; They've planted corn everywhere.; Soiled Meat

And we're back to plumb the depths of the earth with all the construction tools we can find!

Rockman 4 Minus Infinity #3: We the Red Miners (Heavy Sigh, jspades, and Great Joe)

And after that, we can enjoy a nice, refreshing dip in the incredibly painful salt water.

Rockman 4 Minus Infinity Hard Mode #3: Commie Kids (Heavy Sigh, Kalonzombie, and Shinryu )

# ? Sep 7, 2017 19:10

liquidypoo: Aug 23, 2006; Chew on that... you overgrown son of a bitch.

FF6 Rando Part 31 - Are We Done Yet :siren:

We finish the Phoenix Cave, murder a dragon that's doing some performance art, and get our fashion on.

# ? Sep 7, 2017 22:56

Aniodia: Feb 23, 2016; Literally who?

Heavy Sigh posted:

I noticed that you got Rush Cannon in both videos here, even though you fought totally different Robot Masters. I can only assume it's just tied to the number of bosses defeated, and not any particular one like most of the other MM games?

And are there more upgrades like this to look forward to?

# ? Sep 8, 2017 03:49

TooMuchAbstraction: Oct 14, 2012; I spent four years making
Waves of Steel
Hell yes I'm going to turn my avatar into an ad for it.; Fun Shoe

Aniodia posted:

I noticed that you got Rush Cannon in both videos here, even though you fought totally different Robot Masters. I can only assume it's just tied to the number of bosses defeated, and not any particular one like most of the other MM games?

And are there more upgrades like this to look forward to?

Yes and yes.

# ? Sep 8, 2017 04:23

get that OUT of my face: Feb 10, 2007

liquidypoo posted:

FF6 Rando Part 31 - Are We Done Yet

We finish the Phoenix Cave, murder a dragon that's doing some performance art, and get our fashion on.

I skipped over all of the Phoenix Cave in this video outside of the White Dragon fight, and I couldn't soldier through the last video. Imagine how tedious it was to play instead of just watching.

# ? Sep 8, 2017 04:35

Heavy Sigh: Nov 13, 2011; They've planted corn everywhere.; Soiled Meat

Aniodia posted:

I noticed that you got Rush Cannon in both videos here, even though you fought totally different Robot Masters. I can only assume it's just tied to the number of bosses defeated, and not any particular one like most of the other MM games?

And are there more upgrades like this to look forward to?

Yeah, it's tied to the amount of robot masters you've fought.

And as for your second question, the answer is as follows: Am I cruel, or just short-sighted?

# ? Sep 10, 2017 00:23

Demerine: Oct 10, 2007

get that OUT of my face posted:

I skipped over all of the Phoenix Cave in this video outside of the White Dragon fight, and I couldn't soldier through the last video. Imagine how tedious it was to play instead of just watching.

It was not great. Phoenix Cave is generally not great in vanilla, either; you split your best four characters two and two and hope you have enough magic to not want to scream at the walls. Or you grind a bunch on the Cave under Figaro and Fanatic's Tower for XP and magic...

Grinding before Kefka's Tower is a real and true thing (until you get your Fixed Dice/Offering on or just have Ultima on enough characters to nuke the place to high heaven - Relm/Strago/Terra/Celes can usually get their magic stat in the upper 50's-low 60's in vanilla without really trying. Relm can get +17 magic from gear and has one of the highest base magic stats, who cares if sketch is a buggy mess and control fails on drat near everything in vanilla? She's healing the party to full and dropping damage capped Ultima casts every turn.).

This was recorded when I had worked nine consecutive days and I apologize for being about 30% dead.

# ? Sep 10, 2017 03:16

TooMuchAbstraction: Oct 14, 2012; I spent four years making
Waves of Steel
Hell yes I'm going to turn my avatar into an ad for it.; Fun Shoe

I do seem to recall that one of the FF6 Let's Plays devolved into Relm doing Ultima-Quick Ultima-Ultima Ultima-Ultima over and over again.

# ? Sep 10, 2017 04:09

Shei-kun: Dec 2, 2011; Screw you, physics!

TooMuchAbstraction posted:

I do seem to recall that one of the FF6 Let's Plays devolved into Relm doing Ultima-Quick Ultima-Ultima Ultima-Ultima over and over again.

That solves just about all problems in the original version and any official re-release, yeah.

# ? Sep 10, 2017 05:06

Heavy Sigh: Nov 13, 2011; They've planted corn everywhere.; Soiled Meat

Now armed with drills, we finally get around to Dust Man and his hodgepodge of weird gimmicks.

Rockman 4 Minus Infinity #4: Talk to me of Recycling (Heavy Sigh, Great Joe, and Jspades)

Meanwhile, in Hard Mode, we get murdered by rocks.

Rockman 4 Minus Infinity Hard Mode #4: Red Militaire (Heavy Sigh, Combat Lobster, Jspades, Shinryu, and Word on the Wind)

# ? Sep 10, 2017 19:04

FPzero: Oct 20, 2008; Game Over
Return of Mido

Wow the rocks in Drill Man Hard are very rude to deal with. Magneto enemies indeed.

# ? Sep 10, 2017 19:42

TooMuchAbstraction: Oct 14, 2012; I spent four years making
Waves of Steel
Hell yes I'm going to turn my avatar into an ad for it.; Fun Shoe

I assume that Crush Man's weakness to Recycle Inhaler is meant to parallel his weakness to Air Shooter in MM2, in that they're both wind-based (kinda) weapons.

# ? Sep 10, 2017 21:18

FPzero: Oct 20, 2008; Game Over
Return of Mido

https://twitter.com/smwcentral/status/907098234698338304

Coming soon, maybe.

# ? Sep 11, 2017 05:32

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

FPzero posted:

https://twitter.com/smwcentral/status/907098234698338304

Coming soon, maybe.

Are we supposed to know why?

# ? Sep 11, 2017 06:48

Tyty: Feb 20, 2012; Night-vision Goggles Equipped!

Tile 1F0 (the weird one we've seen that causes sprites to lose vertical momentum and kinda slide) looks like random fill dirt (tile 03F) by default. This was made YEARS before people started abusing 1F0 as a weird sprite-only solid tile.

FP is hinting that I have a small LP of a romhack recorded that I haven't started editing yet. :v:

# ? Sep 11, 2017 07:42

Tyty: Feb 20, 2012; Night-vision Goggles Equipped!

It's time for a romhacking history lesson friends.

Hacks 101 is a hack from 2010 by Tails_155 which, at the time, was intended to combat the absolutely rampant amounts of bad hacks out there. During this time basically everything was a pile of cement blocks, cutoff dirt, and munchers. Hacks were still kinda rough around the edges, and other than some standout exceptions, most people didn't want to put in the effort to make them great. Now we almost have the opposite problem where things never get finished but, well, that's another issue.

Unfortunately, most of the stuff in here isn't very good from a "how do I make an SMW level" perspective. It's more hints on how to use Lunar Magic and visual advice, more of a "Hack Polish 101" basically. It also, unfortunately, caused some particularly nasty visual design trends to take root for a few years. The hack itself isn't that bad, maybe a bit boring in level design, but while well-meaning it taught the wrong message. FPzero and I decided to take a look at it basically as a history tour.

-------------------------------

-------------------------------

In part 1 here we tackle the first third of the whole thing. It's pretty short honestly.

Tyty fucked around with this message at 02:45 on Feb 9, 2018

# ? Sep 12, 2017 00:27

FPzero: Oct 20, 2008; Game Over
Return of Mido

As we mentioned, That underwater level "Attention to Detail" was submitted to a VLDC one year. Specifically, it was VLDC3, or as it was known at the time SMWCentral Level Design Contest 2010. As it so happened, I was still judging stuff because I was still hosting the contest. So i went back and found my old judge scores + commentary for the level to see what I said.

FPzero, circa 2010 posted:

7. Tails_155 - Subaqua Adventure

Creativity: 8/10
Difficulty: 7/10
Appeal: 9/10
Functionality: 8/10
Fun: 8/10
Overall: 40/50

The level was very visually appealing and complex. I liked the use of the 1 tile wide cave foreground tiles to simulate a coral reef effect and the colors chosen were very soothing. I can tell a lot of time was spent putting the level together. On a side note I loved the choice of Bubble Man's music for the level.

...

Well that wasn't what I expected I said. I guess it goes to show that this style of visuals was not popularized at the time and so seeing something like this was a real novelty, enough to override my sensibilities about the level's actual design. I was actually curious and looked up the other judge scores to see their stuff too and only one of us four judges actually scored it around where I'd put it now.

quote:

------------------------------------------
-SUBAQUA ADVENTURE - Tails_155 -
------------------------------------------

Creativity: 8
Difficulty: 8.5
Appeal: 10
Functionality: 9
FUN: 8.5

COMMENTS: This is a beautiful level, and I can tell you spent time working on every nook and
cranny. Aside from the FG/BG mix though, the level really felt kind of .. empty, in parts.
There were large gaps where I could just swim right without even having to pay attention.

44/50

quote:

Entry #7
Level Name: Subaqua Adventure
Author: Tails_155

Creativity: 8/10
Difficulty: 6/10
Appeal: 10/10
Functionality: 9/10
Fun: 6/10
TOTAL: 39/50

ST's comments: This level was, without a doubt, aesthetically brilliant. The palettes were great
and there was a lot of nice decoration. This being said though, the design itself was disappointing.
It wasn't difficult to get through, and really felt repetitive, with not much variation in the actual
design. The one minor issue I noticed was the Cheep-Cheep flopping at the top of the area to the left
of the entrance. Other than that, it was visually stunning, but overall was brought down by level design
that just wasn't fun.

code:

____________________________________________________
7. Subaqua Adventure by Tails_155
Rubric:        |Score: | Comments:
---------------+-------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Creativity:    | 04/10 | Besides the foreground looking all awesome and crazy, it's a simple level 
---------------+-------+ where you swim from point A to point B.
Difficulty:    | 04/10 | I'm going to be completely honest and say that this level was completely  
---------------+-------+ too easy. There were only about 20-25 enemies in this short level, total. 
Appeal:        | 07/10 | The way this level looked was amazing; I also liked how some tiles would o- 
---------------+-------+ verlap in places.
Functionality: | 10/10 | Nothing broken here.   
---------------+-------+ 
Fun:           | 04/10 | Water levels are fun if created right; however, this one, combined with the
---------------+-------+ fact that there were only 20-or-so enemies provided a dull experience.
Total:         | 29/50 | A level that demonstrates that looks aren't everything, especially game-
---------------+-------/ play.

Our scoring system back then wasn't good. Thankfully it changed over the years. There's no reason we should be saying "well it wasn't fun" and rating it a 40/50 or so. Ah well.

# ? Sep 12, 2017 02:14

Stink Terios: Oct 17, 2012

Tyty posted:

It's time for a romhacking history lesson friends.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCkMVoc39ZY

# ? Sep 12, 2017 02:26

Heavy Sigh: Nov 13, 2011; They've planted corn everywhere.; Soiled Meat

You know what this game needed? DINOSAUR BONES.

Rockman 4 Minus Infinity #5: White Army, Blue Baron (Heavy Sigh, jspades, and Great Joe)

and In today's Hard Mode episode, the runs sync back up, so now you can directly compare what Hard Mode brings to the table, like DOUBLE HELL WHEEL.

Rockman 4 Minus Infinity Hard Mode #5: Skull Island (Heavy Sigh, Combat Lobster, Jspades, Shinryu, and Word on the Wind)

# ? Sep 13, 2017 15:38

Doseku: Nov 9, 2009

Today we step into World 7 and enter the lost woods.
SMW - Hunters Revenge Revised: Episode 14

# ? Sep 16, 2017 17:13

liquidypoo: Aug 23, 2006; Chew on that... you overgrown son of a bitch.

FF6 Rando Part 32 - The Drinking Episode :siren:

Sorry about the late episode! It's time for one of the worst things in the vanilla game, that was then made worse by the author of the randomizer!

# ? Sep 16, 2017 19:57

FeyerbrandX: Oct 9, 2012

A little bit of where the team stands, since we're fast approaching the end. Also stuff from the last video.

# ? Sep 16, 2017 20:06

Shei-kun: Dec 2, 2011; Screw you, physics!

liquidypoo posted:

FF6 Rando Part 32 - The Drinking Episode

Sorry about the late episode! It's time for one of the worst things in the vanilla game, that was then made worse by the author of the randomizer!

I am so glad I ignored you and watched the whole video. It was glorious :allears:

# ? Sep 17, 2017 00:54

Jade Rider: May 11, 2007; All the pages have been censored except for "heck," and she misread that one.

So in one of my randos, one of the Level X0 Magic enemies had innate Runic. That was fun. :shepicide:

# ? Sep 17, 2017 03:46

FeyerbrandX: Oct 9, 2012

Jade Rider posted:

So in one of my randos, one of the Level X0 Magic enemies had innate Runic. That was fun.

Is the Runic Gendo's "Eat loving Ultima" Runic, or normal runic where you can chuck space rocks and ultimas in their face? Did you allow that jerk to just eat every other enemies magic and MP alive until they died, then leave your mimic to mime nothing (which I think means generic fight) until that rear end in a top hat died once every other target was down?

e: and just for those who haven't played the game, and since liquidy didn't show it. YOU CAN'T ESCAPE FROM FIGHTS IN THE TOWER, excluding the Magic Pot encounter

FeyerbrandX fucked around with this message at 04:21 on Sep 17, 2017

# ? Sep 17, 2017 04:17

Demerine: Oct 10, 2007

liquidypoo posted:

FF6 Rando Part 32 - The Drinking Episode

Sorry about the late episode! It's time for one of the worst things in the vanilla game, that was then made worse by the author of the randomizer!

Clearly we were saving up all the funny we didn't have in ep31 for this particular shitstorm.

# ? Sep 17, 2017 04:24

liquidypoo: Aug 23, 2006; Chew on that... you overgrown son of a bitch.

Jade Rider posted:

So in one of my randos, one of the Level X0 Magic enemies had innate Runic. That was fun.

I was considering bringing in Caesar to see if he'd still pull out random blitzes. It's too bad I have no reason to go back to that horrid place whatsoever.

FeyerbrandX posted:

e: and just for those who haven't played the game, and since liquidy didn't show it. YOU CAN'T ESCAPE FROM FIGHTS IN THE TOWER, excluding the Magic Pot encounter

Actually, that may have come up either in the hour of cut footage, or somewhere in the hyper speed up with Spinach Rag playing over it.

# ? Sep 17, 2017 06:55

Heavy Sigh: Nov 13, 2011; They've planted corn everywhere.; Soiled Meat

I always liked the gameboy style of presentation.

Rockman 4 Minus Infinity #6: The Bright Way (Heavy Sigh, jspades, and Great Joe)

YOU GOT BLIND POWER.

Rockman 4 Minus Infinity Hard Mode #6: Bright Chaser (Heavy Sigh, Combat Lobster, Jspades, Shinryu, and Word on the Wind )

# ? Sep 17, 2017 17:58

TooMuchAbstraction: Oct 14, 2012; I spent four years making
Waves of Steel
Hell yes I'm going to turn my avatar into an ad for it.; Fun Shoe

Man, gently caress Bright Man's platforming section, especially if you don't have Wire.

# ? Sep 17, 2017 18:37

FPzero: Oct 20, 2008; Game Over
Return of Mido

Continuing through the Best World, having fun with saws and Layer 2.

Been dreading editing the final episodes of this session and was putting this off for that reason. Let's just get it over with. Beginning of the end, here we come!

# ? Sep 17, 2017 20:27

Bruceski: Aug 21, 2007; The tools of a hero mean nothing without a solid core.

Got a bit Flappy Bird at the end there. Glad it was just a final punctuation mark rather than some endurance thing.

# ? Sep 17, 2017 21:21

Loxbourne: Apr 6, 2011; Tomorrow, doom!
But now, tea.

FPzero posted:

Been dreading editing the final episodes of this session and was putting this off for that reason.

What makes them so horrible to edit?

# ? Sep 17, 2017 22:45

Jade Rider: May 11, 2007; All the pages have been censored except for "heck," and she misread that one.

FeyerbrandX posted:

Is the Runic Gendo's "Eat loving Ultima" Runic, or normal runic where you can chuck space rocks and ultimas in their face? Did you allow that jerk to just eat every other enemies magic and MP alive until they died, then leave your mimic to mime nothing (which I think means generic fight) until that rear end in a top hat died once every other target was down?

It was vanilla runic, thankfully, so I just Quaked them to death.

# ? Sep 18, 2017 00:22

FPzero: Oct 20, 2008; Game Over
Return of Mido

Loxbourne posted:

What makes them so horrible to edit?

There's a running joke that Mario collabs all have postgames and that the postgames are long and often hard, usually culminating with one massive level that overstays its welcome causing us to vow never to do such a thing again in the future. But then we always do.

Guess what happens here.

# ? Sep 18, 2017 01:06

DoubleNegative: Jan 27, 2010; The most virtuous child in the entire world.

Gonna be honest, I'm failing to see how that level made it into the top 10. The first half was completely forgettable, while the second one should have ended at the end of the rising and falling section. The whole thing just looked like a chaotic jumble of ideas instead of a coherent exploration of an idea.

# ? Sep 18, 2017 01:34

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# ? Apr 28, 2024 19:52

Brutal Garcon: Nov 2, 2014

As you mentioned it: what's the Sonic (or Megadrive/Genesis game generally) rom-hacking scene like?

It seems like it would be harder to make good levels, just from a design perspective.

# ? Sep 18, 2017 02:20

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