Without going into the complete BS that I believe the op will degenerate this thread into...

Romhacking has always been "the fix" into tweaking a game that you loved so much and making it better somehow... whether it is by making new levels or creating new challenges or simply making it a little less buggy. Of course some mods/hacks have been incredible to point of making it almost unrecognizable... so that's no real limit (other than those that require more space) and it never really gets old unless one neuters it (for some sort of purpose that isn't very practical or interesting). In most cases, the best hacks would do the original coders proud with the foundation they have provided.... that's what romhacking should aspire to be!

Edit: I'm sure the infamous hack that was to be released is one of things that shouldn't have been shut down, but one can argue that what they did amounts to like writing the next book in the Harry Potter series... when it is supposed to be a fanfic. Once something like that grew into "the next big thing" while potentially eating into profits because of its release... it doesn't appease the creators at all (well, to a limited extent anyways).

In his defense, a lot of gamers these days come off with the impression that Wada is somehow an out of touch douche (why, I read a post stating such early this morning on Eorzeapedia), and more generally that S-E in general is a company comprised wholly of touch douches. I say out of touch is probably fair, but I kind of doubt that they’re all in the business to be douches.

Though, the frothing mindless rage that seems to constitute one end of the “gamer” spectrum is something I am content to distance myself from, and I don’t quite get why RPG fans (of all the genres...) engage in this kind of unenlightened behavior, but they do. That’s how life in the year 2010 is, I suppose.

To come full circle and give a vague answer to a vague question, it’s the little things that count. A minimum of contact with idiots (such as the mentality above; also disdained on my part is the 0-day mentality); an intersection of interests that have to do with low-level programming and Japanese language that also happens to bring about the aforementioned minimum of contact with idiots. That one time my friends were all like “Hey there’s a Mother 3 translation it’s all over the game sites” and I was like “I don’t care to check those but you ought to check that readme my name’s kind of in it” and then I turned blue and keeled over due to a lack of commas.

I wasn’t. But I’m in the readme. For a polite person like Tomato, a simple “thanks” for helping figure out one silly little word that you might have figured out on your own anyway costs nothing and doesn’t hurt. :thumbsup:

(It was quite literally one word. Like I said, little things.)

I've had different feelings about ROM hacking and emulation throughout the years. First the thrill and excitement of playing old games on a PC through emulation was totally awesome. Then seeing others hack ROMs to make their own games or to translate a game to another language was pretty awesome as well. Of course I had to try it and the rest was history.

Then I was kind of paranoid for awhile about being busted hacking ROMs and I had a large collection of them too. A lot of other people seemed to be paranoid and others justifying having a collection by making up various things such as only having a ROM for 24 hours. And another, here is my favorite bullshit made up law.


The original thrill of hacking has worn off and I very rarely get excited about making a hack unless it was a really good one. A lot of times, I almost can't stand playing a game after I'm done working on it because I spent so much time on it. Over-all, I enjoy this hobby very much and that is what I consider it as. Hacking has also gotten me past a lot of hard times when I was depressed and I would hack and not think about anything else while I was having fun.

Sometimes it kind of sucks being a hacker because you hack way more than play a game and the time has to be balanced out between hacking and playing a game for enjoyment. I go from being really excited about hacking and then I just can't manage to even touch a hex editor at all and I've been through all those times. Right now, the excitement is back and I've been hacking straight for many months. I'm kind of excited about some of the stuff that I may release in months to come. It's also fun to give away what you worked on and it's a good feeling when other people enjoy what you have done.

I'm particularly drawn to the NES because it's the platform I first became immersed in during my youth. It was a time when graphics were relatively primitive, so games had to be appealing (for me) on the basis of innovative gameplay and feel. To a disconcertingly large extent, modern games have not made the same strides in gameplay and feel that they have in graphics and sound. In subsequent platforms, I see marginal imagination of gameplay with much more processing power and memory; bad mechanics, and not nearly the depth of familiarity with the controller that the better NES games seemed to demand. I'll take Castlevania 1, 2 and 3 on the NES over all Castlevanias after them.

Because of limitations of the technology, NES games had to settle for rough facsimiles (graphics and sound), which gives them a certain charm and consistency of character. All platforms 16-bit and beyond lost this character, with the possible exceptions of the Sega Genesis and Turbografx 16 sounds.

The NES games were also difficult to a point that required commitment and determination to beat, ideally resulting in a great sense of satisfaction from doing so. More modern games are either too easy, or the higher difficulty setting is cheap (reduced player health), requiring cheap tactics to win, as opposed to greater finesse.

Don't get me wrong - I play much more Xbox 360 than NES (but not much of either ). But when it comes to ROM hacking, I see it as the opportunity to make the perfect sequel to my favorite games. You can keep all the physics and controller mechanics and basic character of the game, but give yourself and others more of it, in the form of new maps, new enemy locations, maybe new enemies, power-ups, etc. In all likelihood, loving an old game probably means you have it memorized and can beat it in 20 minutes while eating a sandwich. So a fresh take on a classic game is exactly what the doctor ordered.