@GhaleonUnlimited
Thanks for pointing this out. I used it only in response to a previous comment which used it - I don't like the term personally, since it's a euphamism (puritan, prude, sanctimonious, militant conservative, reactive narcissist, are all better more precise turns of phrase, without the baggage). However, when addressing a specific point directed at me I like to adopt the terms used, within reason, to show that I genuinely read and tried to understand.
@Whatareyouonabout
I feel like we might actually be in agreement, based on what you typed.
Perhaps I explained myself poorly.
My belief: Someone in management at the company, the publisher, wishing to boost their DEI score, instructed the changes be made.
This has happened a lot in recent years. In a faux pretence to seem more "inclusive" game publishers have pandered to the "snowflakes" as you put it. More clothing on Tifa. An adjustment to a main character here. A removal of perceived offensiveness there. (Persona / Atlus games seem to generate ire, for example, and then the devs bend the knee.)
I didn't believe it initially. When a friend pointed it all out.
But then I looked into it. And large corporations (Google them) are attributing DEI scores to various companies and awarding money if they lick boot hard enough. If a game publisher meets certain criteria, they get money. So they lick boot for the guilders.
This whole Type A/B nonsense. Adding more clothes. Changing the original dev's visions. Removing things from old games because they're deemed "problematic". Everything said by Horii and co. Is reflective of shifting cultural norms in the year 2024. Well I draw a line in the sand. I refuse to bend the knee to these socio-political cultural changes we're living through.
No creative person should ever pander to the wailing banshees.
This is all DEI related - the meaning of the acronym is meant to make you think it's a "good" thing, but like Torishima says, DEI is evil disguised as good.
For the last few years I've seen it being used to censor, alter, meddle, change, or in some way butcher the original intentions of artistic creators, because achieving a higher DEI score at your company results in monetary rewards by a cabal of shady shadowy corporations.
It's insidious.
This is yet another example.
And there can be only one reaction: absolute resistance through not spending your money. Allowing this sanctimonious nonsense to govern creative decisions means a loss of creative freedom. It doesn't matter how small, or unimportant - the only solution is a zero tolerance policy, and to allow original creators absolute freedom to succeed or fail based on their own artistic intentions.
Do not be deceived by the implication DEI somehow furthers societal morals or helps human beings. It is simply a monetary means to control creative people, coupled with the fact publishers have been hijacked by people who buy into the deception.
I feel nauseas. This reminds me of those times during the early internet where someone would say: hey click on this horrifying awful link!
And you would.
And you'd see something that made you queasy, like you'd poisoned your mind a little and couldn't undo the damage.
I'd like to remind everyone that the permanent fabric of your consciousness now has this AI filth embedded in it forever. You have been tainted and made unclean, and you will never be able to remove it. Sort of like teflon particles or microplastics in your bloodstream.
I love it. Sega making questionable decisions is such a classic Sega thing to do. It's like the 90s never ended. Looking back over 40 years, the company is a weird vortex of insane schizofrenic behaviour.
This fills me with existential dread. Not just this specific EA example, but the fact this reflects the entire wider world.
In 1999 the internet was fun an exciting. Today it's a wasteland filled with cheap and nasty AI art and text, selling cheap and nasty knock-off products that don't work. I find it depressing to be online.
And now games, my escape from the ills of the real world, are heading in the same way.
I don't want it. Nobody wants it. Can we not, I dunno, just not do the thing that nobody wants to do?
On the plus side, I have more retro games than I can finish in my lifetime. I just hope my CRTs outlive me.
@RetroGames
Sadly, while pretty much everyone knows of, witnessed, or worked on unreleased games - a prevailing attitude is that if it didn't reach market it doesn't have value.
Not everyone of course. And some unreleased games do get a new lease of life and official release, on things like Evercade.
But then are interviews I've read where someone says something like: "Yeah, we got to 70% and then scrapped it because it wasn't working. Why do you care - why don't you play one of our ganes that did reach the market!"
I wince every time I read stuff got deleted. I think it's part of tech culture. Constantly iterating, being on the cutting edge. Lots of stories of 16-bit stuff abandoned for the PS1.
At least JG hangs on to everything. I sent him a link to this piece. We shall see.
@Shinobo Thank you for the inside perspective and clarification.
This discussion also reminded me of something which I feel needs to be more widely considered.
Japan, as a nation, has existed since the end of WWII with the US as a yoke around its neck, influencing every aspect of it - including pop culture and general public thinking.
Some argue that the US acted as a protector of Japan, and Japan not being allowed a military meant it didn't need to spend money on a defence budget and could invest domestically. But the US did this to have a foothold in East Asia, which it promptly exploited during various wars.
The Japanese public don't like the US bases everywhere. They cause a whole slew of problems. As a nation they've been unnofficially "occupied" since WWII. (This is just my personal take.)
This has had a direct influence on creativity across the mediums. From various themes in the Akira manga, to the fact some JP devs I spoke with made reference to nearby military bases, etc. Sega existed to provide coin-op entertainment to military bases.
The proliferation of imported Apple II computers in Japan was to cater to US servicemen, but this in turn influenced devs like Yuji Horri, Ryuichi Nishizawa, Yoshio Kiya, et al, who all bought one.
I've never felt that US / JP geo-political relations have been warm and mutually cordial. Sure all the politicians smile and shake hands for the cameras. But there's always been a subtle friction and rivalry (economically at least), and dare I suggest it, animosity beneath the surface.
It took a few years to come this realisation, and this little debate on SFII reminded me of it again, but so much of Japan's post-WWII creative output was in the shadow of US military occupation.
@HammerKirby
I should have posted it, but I was lazy.
So I discovered VG&CE last year, and initially thought it was amazing! Then I began to notice a definite thread of... Not racism, but isolationist POVs. The editor in his columns would say stuff like: other mags cover imports, but do you really want that? We cover games in America for Americans!
The bulk lot of issues I bought was just prior to the SNES launch and there was this weird begrudging attitude that conveyed a sense of: "it's not out in America so do you even care?"
Well, yes, your readers obviously will care about the next gen of hardware FFS!
I was an EGM and GameFan reader back then, and I loved the import coverage. So this mag's entire shtick rubs me the wring way. They also trash talked my beloved GameFan by reviewing it in their fanzine section.
(I love GameFan so much.)
Anyways the issues you want are January 1991, with John Madden on the cover, page 114 onwards. Katz also references his prior month's column - which I don't own, but I read on the Internet Archive. So after reading Jan 91, look up December 1990. Sometimes these don't always match up, so look up November too. Should all be on the internet archive.
Katz plays a delicate game with his words. He says stuff like some Euro devs put out stuff better than Americans - but then he also just overwhelmingly implies that Japan and Europe just plain suck. It's wild and the kind of crap you could only write before the internet.
I've absolutely noticed this overt anti-JP rivalry in some US magazines circa 90/91. Notably columns by Arnie Katz in Videogames and Computer Entertainment magazine, where he aggressively argues JP and EU games should not be sold in America. (It's utterly deranged.)
The question is if this friction was present from the JP side, or the team behind SFII.
I'm unsure. But there's plenty of interviews with the team to discern sentiments.
(Unsubstantiated gut feeling: this rivalry might appear to be the case from an American POV, based on general cultural feeling at the time; whereas in Japan they were just having fun watching American films and copying stuff.)
Best ask the devs to see what they say.
I've met Rachael Hutchinson at academic events and her work is well researched and interesting - a nice person too. I would caution against passing judgement based on a quick TV news clip, possibly unprepared, versus her thorough written papers filled with detailed citations. Her paper on the nuclear discourse in FF7 is a personal favourite.
@GhaleonUnlimited I feel the exact same when I see effort, energy, and resources put into translations that don't it. Especially for some games where the English exists elsewhere anyway.
Undoubtedly one of the most powerful golden era gaming experiences of my life.
There was a 9.9.99 issue of EGM which I'd take to school to read.
I worked a month over summer holidays, in a pork chop factory, to go all out buying a DC, gun, fishing rod, VMUs, rumble packs, controllers, SCART, and games.
For the first time I was happy to buy PAL, because games had a 60hz option!
The DC was the first console to offer a 60hz option in PAL games.
@LowDefAl Absolutely this. Worst designed most fragile controllers I've ever used. The Jag controller sucked, but at least it wasn't manufactured from biscuits.
I once spoke with a mid-profile industry vet (no names), who swore he'd used his N64 controller super heavily and could not understand my complaints of it turning to literal dust in my hands.
He had a JP unit. I've never researched this, but I've wondered if certain JP models used better plastic than what shipped to America and Europe? Or maybe said veteran just got lucky, or never played as much as he said.
I'm quite happy to use the word steal when describing AI. It is radioactive toxic poison of the worst possible kind. Absolutely despise it.
The only people who defend AI, and will be opposed to use of the word steal, are AI loving techbros who want to make quick and easy money off it, at the expense of everyone else.
AI generated images are theft. AI generated text is theft. AI itself is digital poison. Just waiting for it to become self-aware so I can join a human resistance cell.
The first thing I thought was: sneaking up behind friends or family, silently, without their knowing, and making sure your head and eyes are visible to the camera, thus confusing it due to there being two sets of eyes / heads.
Then standing there silently waiting to see how long it takes before the user realises what's causing the problem.
@Cyber_Akuma
Hello! Yes, I was using the v.0.0.2 version, which supports the English.
It brought up a Kernel32.dll error: the procedure entry point SetThreadDescription could not be located in dynamic link library Kernel32.dll.
Which is weird, because I def have that DLL file.
This was on my Win7 laptop and Win7 gaming rig.
So I figured: maybe it's Win7. Let me swap to my Win10 desktop. That one didn't even bring up the error it just immediately shut down. And a guy on YT had the same Win10 problem.
In the above 3 examples it was the 0.2 English version.
Afterwards I dug out the link for the Japanese version, just in case maybe that worked. Same errors.
The guy programming this is doing something wrong. Three of my systems refuse to run it.
Is this maybe only compatible with Windows 11? There's something seriously broken here.
My Win10 rig is up to date.
There's also no documentation on this and the author is an invisible ghost impossible to contact.
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.
Comments 425
Re: Dragon Quest Vets Claim Comments On Censorship Were "Mistranslated"
@GhaleonUnlimited
Thanks for pointing this out. I used it only in response to a previous comment which used it - I don't like the term personally, since it's a euphamism (puritan, prude, sanctimonious, militant conservative, reactive narcissist, are all better more precise turns of phrase, without the baggage). However, when addressing a specific point directed at me I like to adopt the terms used, within reason, to show that I genuinely read and tried to understand.
I will adjust slightly.
Re: "An Evil Disguised As Good" - Dragon Quest Vets Rail Against Censorship In Candid Interview
@Whatareyouonabout
I feel like we might actually be in agreement, based on what you typed.
Perhaps I explained myself poorly.
My belief: Someone in management at the company, the publisher, wishing to boost their DEI score, instructed the changes be made.
This has happened a lot in recent years. In a faux pretence to seem more "inclusive" game publishers have pandered to the "snowflakes" as you put it. More clothing on Tifa. An adjustment to a main character here. A removal of perceived offensiveness there. (Persona / Atlus games seem to generate ire, for example, and then the devs bend the knee.)
I didn't believe it initially. When a friend pointed it all out.
But then I looked into it. And large corporations (Google them) are attributing DEI scores to various companies and awarding money if they lick boot hard enough. If a game publisher meets certain criteria, they get money. So they lick boot for the guilders.
This whole Type A/B nonsense. Adding more clothes. Changing the original dev's visions. Removing things from old games because they're deemed "problematic". Everything said by Horii and co. Is reflective of shifting cultural norms in the year 2024. Well I draw a line in the sand. I refuse to bend the knee to these socio-political cultural changes we're living through.
No creative person should ever pander to the wailing banshees.
Re: "An Evil Disguised As Good" - Dragon Quest Vets Rail Against Censorship In Candid Interview
This is all DEI related - the meaning of the acronym is meant to make you think it's a "good" thing, but like Torishima says, DEI is evil disguised as good.
For the last few years I've seen it being used to censor, alter, meddle, change, or in some way butcher the original intentions of artistic creators, because achieving a higher DEI score at your company results in monetary rewards by a cabal of shady shadowy corporations.
It's insidious.
This is yet another example.
And there can be only one reaction: absolute resistance through not spending your money. Allowing this sanctimonious nonsense to govern creative decisions means a loss of creative freedom. It doesn't matter how small, or unimportant - the only solution is a zero tolerance policy, and to allow original creators absolute freedom to succeed or fail based on their own artistic intentions.
Do not be deceived by the implication DEI somehow furthers societal morals or helps human beings. It is simply a monetary means to control creative people, coupled with the fact publishers have been hijacked by people who buy into the deception.
Re: New Storefront Law Tells Us What We All Should Know: We Don't Own Digital Games
@Zuljaras
Well, shiver me timbers, tis a fine news item to be readin' while at sea. More grog, anyone?
Re: Like Zombies Ate My Neighbors? Then Check Out New Sega Genesis Shooter Lethal Wedding
It's 2024 and we still have ambidextrous sprites that swap weapon hands.
Am I the only one annoyed by this for the last 30 years?
Super Metroid had accurate and correct gun hands in 1994.
Re: AI, Please Leave Our Favourite Video Games Alone
I feel nauseas. This reminds me of those times during the early internet where someone would say: hey click on this horrifying awful link!
And you would.
And you'd see something that made you queasy, like you'd poisoned your mind a little and couldn't undo the damage.
I'd like to remind everyone that the permanent fabric of your consciousness now has this AI filth embedded in it forever. You have been tainted and made unclean, and you will never be able to remove it. Sort of like teflon particles or microplastics in your bloodstream.
Re: Sega's Rent-A-Hero Is Making A Comeback With The Addition Of Web3 Nonsense
I love it. Sega making questionable decisions is such a classic Sega thing to do. It's like the 90s never ended. Looking back over 40 years, the company is a weird vortex of insane schizofrenic behaviour.
Re: Opinion: Electronic Arts Used To Empower Developers; Now It Looks To Replace Them With AI
This fills me with existential dread. Not just this specific EA example, but the fact this reflects the entire wider world.
In 1999 the internet was fun an exciting. Today it's a wasteland filled with cheap and nasty AI art and text, selling cheap and nasty knock-off products that don't work. I find it depressing to be online.
And now games, my escape from the ills of the real world, are heading in the same way.
I don't want it. Nobody wants it. Can we not, I dunno, just not do the thing that nobody wants to do?
On the plus side, I have more retro games than I can finish in my lifetime. I just hope my CRTs outlive me.
Re: Hudson Soft Almost Created A Castlevania-Style Dungeons & Dragons Game For SNES
@RetroGames
Sadly, while pretty much everyone knows of, witnessed, or worked on unreleased games - a prevailing attitude is that if it didn't reach market it doesn't have value.
Not everyone of course. And some unreleased games do get a new lease of life and official release, on things like Evercade.
But then are interviews I've read where someone says something like: "Yeah, we got to 70% and then scrapped it because it wasn't working. Why do you care - why don't you play one of our ganes that did reach the market!"
I wince every time I read stuff got deleted. I think it's part of tech culture. Constantly iterating, being on the cutting edge. Lots of stories of 16-bit stuff abandoned for the PS1.
At least JG hangs on to everything. I sent him a link to this piece. We shall see.
Re: Hudson Soft Almost Created A Castlevania-Style Dungeons & Dragons Game For SNES
@RetroGames
I did try. I got the feeling the soccer code was more easily found - whereas this would need some digging.
I wanted to get, if not a screenshot of the tech demo, then a screen of the code, or tools, or file folder. Anything to illustrate the text.
I got the distinct feeling, and perhaps it's obvious from the text, that he thought it was a bit odd anyone would care.
So... This piece actually had partially ulterior motives. I can now point out the multiple comments and see if that pursuades him.
Re: Game Researcher Says Street Fighter II Was "USA Vs. Japan" And Japanese People Aren't Happy
@Shinobo
Thank you for the inside perspective and clarification.
This discussion also reminded me of something which I feel needs to be more widely considered.
Japan, as a nation, has existed since the end of WWII with the US as a yoke around its neck, influencing every aspect of it - including pop culture and general public thinking.
Some argue that the US acted as a protector of Japan, and Japan not being allowed a military meant it didn't need to spend money on a defence budget and could invest domestically. But the US did this to have a foothold in East Asia, which it promptly exploited during various wars.
The Japanese public don't like the US bases everywhere. They cause a whole slew of problems. As a nation they've been unnofficially "occupied" since WWII. (This is just my personal take.)
This has had a direct influence on creativity across the mediums. From various themes in the Akira manga, to the fact some JP devs I spoke with made reference to nearby military bases, etc. Sega existed to provide coin-op entertainment to military bases.
The proliferation of imported Apple II computers in Japan was to cater to US servicemen, but this in turn influenced devs like Yuji Horri, Ryuichi Nishizawa, Yoshio Kiya, et al, who all bought one.
I've never felt that US / JP geo-political relations have been warm and mutually cordial. Sure all the politicians smile and shake hands for the cameras. But there's always been a subtle friction and rivalry (economically at least), and dare I suggest it, animosity beneath the surface.
It took a few years to come this realisation, and this little debate on SFII reminded me of it again, but so much of Japan's post-WWII creative output was in the shadow of US military occupation.
Re: Game Researcher Says Street Fighter II Was "USA Vs. Japan" And Japanese People Aren't Happy
@HammerKirby
I should have posted it, but I was lazy.
So I discovered VG&CE last year, and initially thought it was amazing! Then I began to notice a definite thread of... Not racism, but isolationist POVs. The editor in his columns would say stuff like: other mags cover imports, but do you really want that? We cover games in America for Americans!
The bulk lot of issues I bought was just prior to the SNES launch and there was this weird begrudging attitude that conveyed a sense of: "it's not out in America so do you even care?"
Well, yes, your readers obviously will care about the next gen of hardware FFS!
I was an EGM and GameFan reader back then, and I loved the import coverage. So this mag's entire shtick rubs me the wring way. They also trash talked my beloved GameFan by reviewing it in their fanzine section.
(I love GameFan so much.)
Anyways the issues you want are January 1991, with John Madden on the cover, page 114 onwards. Katz also references his prior month's column - which I don't own, but I read on the Internet Archive. So after reading Jan 91, look up December 1990. Sometimes these don't always match up, so look up November too. Should all be on the internet archive.
Katz plays a delicate game with his words. He says stuff like some Euro devs put out stuff better than Americans - but then he also just overwhelmingly implies that Japan and Europe just plain suck. It's wild and the kind of crap you could only write before the internet.
Re: Game Researcher Says Street Fighter II Was "USA Vs. Japan" And Japanese People Aren't Happy
@gojiguy
Good comment.
I've absolutely noticed this overt anti-JP rivalry in some US magazines circa 90/91. Notably columns by Arnie Katz in Videogames and Computer Entertainment magazine, where he aggressively argues JP and EU games should not be sold in America. (It's utterly deranged.)
The question is if this friction was present from the JP side, or the team behind SFII.
I'm unsure. But there's plenty of interviews with the team to discern sentiments.
(Unsubstantiated gut feeling: this rivalry might appear to be the case from an American POV, based on general cultural feeling at the time; whereas in Japan they were just having fun watching American films and copying stuff.)
Best ask the devs to see what they say.
I've met Rachael Hutchinson at academic events and her work is well researched and interesting - a nice person too. I would caution against passing judgement based on a quick TV news clip, possibly unprepared, versus her thorough written papers filled with detailed citations. Her paper on the nuclear discourse in FF7 is a personal favourite.
Re: The Director Behind Cult Dreamcast RPG SEGAGAGA Wants To Translate It Into English
@GhaleonUnlimited
I feel the exact same when I see effort, energy, and resources put into translations that don't it. Especially for some games where the English exists elsewhere anyway.
Segagaga is in my top 10 wanted
Re: Anniversary: It's Been 25 Years Since The Dreamcast's North American "9.9.99" Launch
Undoubtedly one of the most powerful golden era gaming experiences of my life.
There was a 9.9.99 issue of EGM which I'd take to school to read.
I worked a month over summer holidays, in a pork chop factory, to go all out buying a DC, gun, fishing rod, VMUs, rumble packs, controllers, SCART, and games.
For the first time I was happy to buy PAL, because games had a 60hz option!
The DC was the first console to offer a 60hz option in PAL games.
Re: Take-Two Shuts Down $2 PS4 Game That Ripped Off GTA: Vice City's Worst Mission
This and the remote control toy plane missions in VC were two of my favourites. Always felt a little sad knowing everyone hated them.
Now I seriously wish I'd known about this and had bought it. This is totally my jam. Now I will never know it... T_T
They're not thaaat hard. If you want hard play the Japan exclusive Petit Copter on Xbox! XD
Re: This Tiny Piece Of Plastic Could Save Your N64's Analogue Stick
@LowDefAl
Absolutely this. Worst designed most fragile controllers I've ever used. The Jag controller sucked, but at least it wasn't manufactured from biscuits.
I once spoke with a mid-profile industry vet (no names), who swore he'd used his N64 controller super heavily and could not understand my complaints of it turning to literal dust in my hands.
He had a JP unit. I've never researched this, but I've wondered if certain JP models used better plastic than what shipped to America and Europe? Or maybe said veteran just got lucky, or never played as much as he said.
Re: GameStop Announces Launch Of New "Retro GameStop" Stores
@JDCII
I've often thought this. Look at prices for complete mint Link to the Past on SNES with map, box, and tips leaflet.
I've wondered why Nintendo doesn't manufacture more. Selling for £100 mint is still far less than eBay.
Re: Sonic CD Has Been Ported To The Sega Genesis
Who are these heathens claiming the Mega CD isn't worth a look?
My Mega Everdrive ODE SD card overflows with fantastic CD games!
Re: Google's Gemini AI Assistant Is Pretty Awful At Video Game History
I'm quite happy to use the word steal when describing AI. It is radioactive toxic poison of the worst possible kind. Absolutely despise it.
The only people who defend AI, and will be opposed to use of the word steal, are AI loving techbros who want to make quick and easy money off it, at the expense of everyone else.
AI generated images are theft. AI generated text is theft. AI itself is digital poison. Just waiting for it to become self-aware so I can join a human resistance cell.
Re: Samsung's New Odyssey 3D Monitor Might Be The Ultimate Way To Emulate Nintendo 3DS
The first thing I thought was:
sneaking up behind friends or family, silently, without their knowing, and making sure your head and eyes are visible to the camera, thus confusing it due to there being two sets of eyes / heads.
Then standing there silently waiting to see how long it takes before the user realises what's causing the problem.
Re: N64 Classic Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon Gets Fanmade PC Recompilation Project
@Cyber_Akuma
Hello! Yes, I was using the v.0.0.2 version, which supports the English.
It brought up a Kernel32.dll error: the procedure entry point SetThreadDescription could not be located in dynamic link library Kernel32.dll.
Which is weird, because I def have that DLL file.
This was on my Win7 laptop and Win7 gaming rig.
So I figured: maybe it's Win7. Let me swap to my Win10 desktop. That one didn't even bring up the error it just immediately shut down. And a guy on YT had the same Win10 problem.
In the above 3 examples it was the 0.2 English version.
Afterwards I dug out the link for the Japanese version, just in case maybe that worked. Same errors.
The guy programming this is doing something wrong. Three of my systems refuse to run it.
Is this maybe only compatible with Windows 11? There's something seriously broken here.
My Win10 rig is up to date.
There's also no documentation on this and the author is an invisible ghost impossible to contact.
Frustrating.
Re: N64 Classic Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon Gets Fanmade PC Recompilation Project
Anyone get the English version to work? I've tried three diff computers - two bring up Kernal32 errors, one just crashes outright
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.