The Beta version of the Metroid port to SNES is now out

[Kirk_Johnston]

 

[+Biff Burgertime]

Is there a point to these NES ports to SNES from the player's point of view? If the programmer's doing this to challenge himself and explore what's possible with regard to NES ports that's cool, but I'm a bit puzzled beyond that.

[Tanooki]

3 hours ago, Biff Burgertime said:

Is there a point to these NES ports to SNES from the player's point of view? If the programmer's doing this to challenge himself and explore what's possible with regard to NES ports that's cool, but I'm a bit puzzled beyond that.

I think that's basically it from all the stuff I've seen.  It's the 2020s version of the 2000s NES2PCE conversions because that hardware was quite similar too.  The games with a little work carried over great other than the audio being off key just a little.  A number of games were converted but nothing on the end of more complex stuff if I remember right.

There's a small piece of it on bootleg games wiki but only shows off SMB1

https://bootleggames.fandom.com/wiki/Super_Mario_Bros._(PC_Engine)

 

It was thrown together on a multicard (hucard) back in 1993.

 

 

[TrekkiesUnite118]

1 hour ago, Tanooki said:

I think that's basically it from all the stuff I've seen.  It's the 2020s version of the 2000s NES2PCE conversions because that hardware was quite similar too.  The games with a little work carried over great other than the audio being off key just a little.  A number of games were converted but nothing on the end of more complex stuff if I remember right.

There's a small piece of it on bootleg games wiki but only shows off SMB1

https://bootleggames.fandom.com/wiki/Super_Mario_Bros._(PC_Engine)

 

It was thrown together on a multicard (hucard) back in 1993.

 

 

@turboxray's stuff actually did a much better job at it:

 

[+Biff Burgertime]

4 minutes ago, TrekkiesUnite118 said:

@turboxray's stuff actually did a much better job at it:

 

Shit, I remember those. Interesting to know that was his doing.

 

Kirk's infamous list is a real all-star team.

[Atariboy]

Infidelity's NES to SNES ports are excellent. Slow-down is gone, sprite flicker is gone, quality of life features are present, optional MSU-1 audio, etc. Heck, you can even cycle through different NES palettes.

 

For an example with Metroid, you can know hold down the right shoulder button to fire missiles. You can still switch with select if you're a purist, but it's now taking advantage of the extra buttons of the SNES controller. And you can now save your game instead of writing down a password like we had to with the original NES release in the west. And just like with missiles, you can still use the password system if you insist.

 

About the one thing not present here is the enhanced Famicom Disk System audio in Zelda and Metroid. 

[+Biff Burgertime]

33 minutes ago, Atariboy said:

Infidelity's NES to SNES ports are excellent. Slow-down is gone, sprite flicker is gone, quality of life features are present, optional MSU-1 audio, etc. Heck, you can even cycle through different NES palettes.

 

For an example with Metroid, you can know hold down the right shoulder button to fire missiles. You can still switch with select if you're a purist, but it's now taking advantage of the extra buttons of the SNES controller. And you can now save your game instead of writing down a password like we had to with the original NES release in the west. And just like with missiles, you can still use the password system if you insist.

 

About the one thing not present here is the enhanced Famicom Disk System audio in Zelda and Metroid. 

Thanks for the additional info.

 

Personally, Metoid is one of the very few games I grew up with that I didn't go back and beat as an adult. I mean, I tried... but given the lack of a map and so many looong similar-looking hallways, I eventually decided it wasn't worth it & called it quits. This was when I still had a decent amount of patience for games too, by now I've become very impatient. Back then I didn't mind exploration, side-quests, or backtracking  - but it still wasn't enough. It bored me to death.

 

I'd say "add in a proper in-game map to the SNES port and now we're talking," by at that point I might as well just play the GBA remake.

 

(Again, not slagging on the programmer here - I think the fact he figured out how to do these is awesome. Just vocalizing the lack of appeal to me personally as a gamer.)

[Atariboy]

It wouldn't shock me if he adds a map. This is just the initial public beta so it's going to be seeing further improvements and bug fixes in the weeks and months ahead.

[Tanooki]

Oooh fun, I had no idea that we have an ever growing list of so called idiots Kirky blocked that really do know their shit at multiple levels of the industry in some manner or another.  The more this is fleshed out, I'd even dare say list it in the open, it ruins any level of credibility someone who hasn't caught up the speed might have.  Just point back to the topic, give fair warning, and move along.

 

That work on the PCE NES stuff I had no idea that was him, hell of an upgrade as it is.  The old stuff I linked I remembered was fairly new in the later 90s when Magic Engine took off and I could run a bunch of hucards my Duo (US) wouldn't have anything to do with.  I knew the audio was off, not quite bad, but off, but it was interesting and I remembered it.

 

 

It is true that Infidelty there is a real treasure.  Both his QOL upgrades from NES to SNES, but also that stellar demaking he has done too such as my one off of his Mario Allstars super mmc5 hack for NES which is insane and has QOL fixes too that make it more of a preferred release as well.  I do agree though it's a shame the added audio from the FDS being left out, even as an option, seems like a sad oversight given the SNES isn't limited by the NES vs FC wiring for expansion sound.

 

Like Biff I just can not go back to that one, not easily.  The exception I made was the FDS release, well the GBA port since that doesn't have an obtuse set of hurdles to overcome to get there.  I stumbled across a fairly cheap (vs average) copy of and went for it.  Zelda while the audio at places is nicer the other things Metroid FDS had set a better bar to want to give it a shot.  Yet, even then I still would rather do the GBA quality of life upgrade Zero Mission as it feels like they just smashed Metroid 1+3 together taking all the nice pieces of both into one.   I do feel he's right though, given the format and space, why not hack a map into it, even a static one you can trigger say with the L button or something?  Castlevania II is easy to get lost in, someone pixel drew the map off NP magazine, MMC1 hacked the cart, and added it in to help navigate around the area and it's a big help.  Why not just have a static map thrown in, doesn't need to be active like in later titles.  Same reason I can't do Metroid II anymore without having a guide book out. Even Nintendo knew it was a pain in the ass decades ago as they've repeatedly re-printed the NES metroid floor plan for people to use.  Sometimes they know they slip up and do stuff, like the full on guide for sketchy Earthbound in the box and later the full expensive guide as a beautifully scanned PDF on the classic edition page.

[turboxray]

 

Infidelity stuff is pretty great - and really high quality extensive hacks of NES games into basically as all new games. His Legend of Zelda hack is just amazing on NES.

 

 His approach of bring NES games over to SNES is just like that Finnish group that did it for PCE back in the early-mid 90s - all that stuff is converted over to native console. Pretty much just the original game logic code is left intact (as much as it can be), but all new replacement tile/sprite/audio/etc routines written to replace the originals. The SNES has a lot of video features that are as extension of the NES (the way tilemaps work as sections, 8x8 sprite size, etc), but it still has to be all converted over. The SNES also doesn't have any memory mapping unit that can mimic the NES, so that's work to repurpose it into SNES banks. That means potentially running into issues his approach (the early games are small enough that he can duplicate code). So it's a lot of work.. and a per game basis. But Infidelity is definitely up for the task. In my opinion, the novelty wears off pretty quickly as just original ports. So, there isn't much appeal to me playing these on other consoles. That is until you add upgrades! I think that's the real value. Once these roms are made, anyone can hack them like a native SNES game (via debugger/etc). There're already MSU-1 audio upgrades for the Duck Tales games. 

 

16 hours ago, TrekkiesUnite118 said:

@turboxray's stuff actually did a much better job at it:

 

 

The NES2PCE stuff I did for the PCE started back in 2007. It really did start out as a joke to see how far I could get Dragon Warrior could run on the PCE. I just wanted to see how far I could get the game to run on the PCE. I looked at the Finnish examples roms and decided I did NOT want to replace all graphic/sound routines by hand for each game. This is how Infidelity is doing it (same as the Finnish group). NES2PCE runs ALL video/hardware/mapping/IO/etc through an emulation/simulation package in real time. The original 6502 code just runs as is on the PCE, but I patch all load and store instructions that touch the hardware, to JSR to my emulation backend. The PCE video is NOTHING like the NES, so it has to jump through a lot of hoops to get things contorted and converted.. in real-time.. to PCE hardware. But since the PCE processor runs roughly 3-4x the NES, the emulation overhead doesn't impact speed. Matter of fact, slowdown is still eliminated (noticeable in Megaman games which have slowdown on the NES. But Jackal is more difficult without the slowdown hahah.. it's also two players on the NES2PCE port). Unfortunately, PCE doesn't have the tiny 8x8 sprites of the NES, so it uses 16x16 sprites for those 8x8 sprites.. and can still run into flicker. If the game uses 8x16 mode, then less flicker. I actually added "NES+" video emulation registers to my emulation backend, so that anyone could hack the "NES" roms running on PCE to use 4bpp color, extended palettes, larger sprites sizes, etc - simply by using additional "hardware registers". I even added a "DMA" to transfer graphics, etc. But back then, debuggers were crappy for PCE, and no-one really did any hacking or coding for it. That was my real intent on the NES2PCE stuff - upgrade the games sound and graphics (Megaman 1 upgrade  WIP actually had graphic updates and new sprite sizes, 6 button support, fast weapon changing, etc). But no one took interest. And then that Tobias guy sold my early Megaman beta build as a real "prototype" PCE game (re-pressing CDs).

 

 That's when I dropped all the NES2PCE projects I had in the works. I didn't want other people selling them. I think I had about 10 NES games running. I was working on improving the audio emulation at that point (even adding stereo separation for "NES" channels). Metroid and Zelda were in the works. But to honest, looking back now - those games are pretty simple. There's nothing stopping someone from writing a proper game engine, even open source, for whatever system (SNES, PCE, MD, etc) for these kinds of games. There's also NES "HD packs" support now - if you want upgraded NES games. It's just that Infidelity has a track record of delivering on these products - so might as well let him have at it hahah. 

 

 Anyways, I'm waiting for him to port his Zelda hack to SNES. 

[bikerspade]

 

[Cris1997XX]

I think he actually DID add a map to the final release! Biff, you're a frickin' psychic!

[Kirk_Johnston]