6 - ROM Hack
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At the dawn of emulation and the World Wide Web, a group of fans discovered the Nintendo and Super Nintendo games that never made it over from Japan. One of them decided to hack into a few of these and translate them, unofficially, with help from some friends -- starting with Final Fantasy II for the NES.
Featuring quotes from Steve Demeter, founder of one of the first fan translation groups, Demiforce, who was the driving force behind three high-profile ROM hacks -- the Final Fantasy II and Radical Dreamers translation projects, and the Earthbound Zero prototype release.
Relevant links:
- romhacking.net
- Final Fantasy II Demiforce translation patch
- Radical Dreamers Demiforce translation patch
- Spotlight: Earthbound on Lost Levels
- Drymouth
- If you're looking to try out console game emulation, I recommend OpenEmu (Mac-only) or RetroArch. ROMs are easy enough to find, although I should note that downloading ROMs of commercial games is probably illegal in your jurisdiction.
Music Credits:
- Main Theme and Castle Pandemonium from Final Fantasy II (composed by Nobuo Uematsu)
- 'Requiem ~ dream shore' and 'Far Promise ~ Dream Shore' from Radical Dreamers (composed by Yasunori Mitsuda)
- Scars of Time from Chrono Cross (composed by Yasunori Mitsuda)
- Seeker by Kai Engel
- And a bunch of my own stuff
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