Rom hacks worth playing?

[Nyukki]

FYI, not sure if anyone's mentioned this, but the guys at RHDN finished the Final Fantasy 7 famicom improvement hack

[Ziggy]

Yeah, I saw that. It's really cool, but what sucks is that both Retro Zone's PowerPak and the Everdrive N8 only have 512KB for PRG and 512KB for CHR. The FF7 ROM is 2MB, so it's impossible to play on a flash cart.

[fastbilly1]

Ziggy, I saw that and was wondering if you could modify a cart to hold it. My guess is technically possible, but no.

[AppleQueso]

I think you could do it with an MMC5. IIRC it supports up to 1024kb for CHR and 1024kb for PRG.

...but that would only work if the original game uses MMC5, which probably isn't the case.

EDIT: the game uses a special mapper created by the company that made the original hack.
http://wiki.nesdev.com/w/index.php/INES_Mapper_163

Only way I could think of to make a repro would be to get your hands on an original cart version of the hack and swap the chips out with this new version. Even then, that might not work.

I want to say I've seen some places selling repros though, so maybe there's a way to do it...

[fastbilly1]

Not worth the cost then. Thanks AQ.

[Nyukki]

They mention it runs in FCEUX, I'm hoping it will run in FCEUX for Wii, then I can at least play it on Nintendo hardware using an NES controller with Mayflash adaptor.

Obviously would be great to do the whole "as-it-was-meant-to-be-played" thing, but these days my life has too many interruptions to play RPGs without save states.

[Ziggy]

Ziggy, I saw that and was wondering if you could modify a cart to hold it. My guess is technically possible, but no.

Yeah, you'd have to get a real (using the word loosely ) FF7 cart. I've talked about it on this forum before. The cart has a single flash memory to store game data, a 29LV160. It's not like legit carts that use mask ROMs that you can't erase and reprogram. It's a standard flash memory chip. You can remove it, reflash it, then resolder it on.

Of course, I'm making it sound easy. The 29LV160 a TSOP, which isn't exactly easy to solder in, let alone desolder. Unless you know what you're doing, you're most likely gonna break pins off trying to desolder it, and if not then break pins while trying to solder it back on. You pretty much have to be a boarder line expert. Then of course you need the hardware to flash such a chip. But for some one like me, it's relatively easy to do.

What would be easier, and not too expensive actually, is to make actual reproductions of the carts. As in, get the PCB made up and install all new components. There's not many components on that cart, and they're all relatively cheap. I was looking into this, but the road block for me was the FF7 PCB has two glop tops and there's no way for me to figure out what they are. They're most likely off-the-shelf ICs, but I have no way of figuring out what they are. I'm pretty sure some one with the right equipment and know-how could though.

edit: And in the case of making reproductions of the FF7 cart... if that's what you were doing you could make them as Famicom carts and/or NES carts. What's more, it'd be even easier to make them as NES carts since you can buy the cart shells from Retro Zone and then wouldn't have to steel one from a real NES game (that's what most people would do since getting the plastic made up is an expensive buy in).

[Nyukki]

^ If you like I can get in touch with Nanjing and try and find out what's under the glopbs on the PCB. Just provide me with as much detail as possible in a question as I'm not a very technical person, but I speak Chinese.

For a donor cart, the FF7 famicom carts were for a while readily available on Taobao.com, now they seem harder to find. I used to actually have a bunch of them but sold them. Njargh....

[Anapan]

About FFVII NES; That is awesome. I've been following the progress since almost the start of the project. I played a bit of it on my phone earlier at work and it's really fun.
About the Repro cart. I read that the only flash cart that will play it on original hardware is the Everdrive N8. It's only $110 so I'm going to buy one. I wonder if it's be possible to have the cart autoboot a single rom? Getting a custom shell/label made would be a piece of cake vs trying to make a full repro board by reverse engineering...

[Ziggy]

^ If you like I can get in touch with Nanjing and try and find out what's under the glopbs on the PCB. Just provide me with as much detail as possible in a question as I'm not a very technical person, but I speak Chinese.

I wouldn't have to provide you with any info, he would need the actual cart in hand to figure out what the glop tops are.

But it hardly matters. It would be a fun project, but these days I really don't have the time. That and to get better costs you would have to make a decent amount of them up, which highers the cost of the project, and requires you to try and sell them. Some one like the guy from Retro Zone would have an easier time doing it. I could make one up just for myself, if I was to inclined, but I'm not. It'd be easier for me just to hunt down a FF7 cart.

I think it's the Nintendo Age forums that the guy from Retro Zone talks on most often. Maybe some one could suggest it to him there, if not email him directly. I'm not sure how much demand there would be for it, which would determine if it'd be worth it for him, but he already makes and sells NES repros so this could just be another one that he stocks.

But now that I think of it, he IS coming out with an updated PowerPak, so let's see what kind of hardware it has. I doubt that it would have memory large enough for FF7 though. I'm not too up with NES games, but I don't think many (if any) are as large as the FF7 ROM.

For a donor cart, the FF7 famicom carts were for a while readily available on Taobao.com, now they seem harder to find. I used to actually have a bunch of them but sold them. Njargh....

Yeah, I remember some one on the forum here selling a bunch of copies. A year or two ago, when I realized that you couldn't play it on a flash cart, I was thinking about getting my hands on the cart, which is why I looked into it. But it's not a game that I REALLY wanna play, it's more of a curiosity.