Fatal Fury Romhack

[city41]

Name suggestion: "Fatal Fury: Slightly Wider Edition"

 

[Arcade-TV]

I thought this last screen in the game never really made a good ending..


So I'm about to add my own:

 

[Arcade-TV]

I'm struggeling with the replacement of the highrise and ending-rock tilemaps because hacking these requires a way deeper understanding of how the game writes data to ram just for a v-interrupt-subroutine to pick it up and write sprites from it. There's a setup-table in between that seems simple enough but there are so many ram locations needed to track, it's really complicated - but I'll figure it out eventually.

Anyways, I urgently needed a rest from that so I took on the bad-looking low-contrast palette used by the staff roll and even added a consistent gradient to the font.



In the end, when the final SNK logo appears, I always felt the position was wrong, and I was right.
Already fixed.

 

[Evan]

Really excited for this to come out, overall nice improvements.

 

[Hazard_747]

I can tell you have a lot of passion for this project. I have a lot of respect for ROM Hackers.

 

[Arcade-TV]

Well, that was a tough week with very little progress and major frustration over not being able to understand the complex logic of the game's routines.
In the end, after hijacking several routines and tables I decided to create a virtual switch to deactivate the game's logic to render sprites completely and wrote my own subroutines instead.
Speaking of the end - I corrected the typo for congratulation(s), changed the palette to match the staff roll and forced the logo screen to display 4 instead of just 1 second - feels much better.
I have also attached a video for the curious ones.



The sprites are still haunting me, but I'm still confident to being able to make the last couple of changes before a beta version release ^^

 

[city41]

Well, that was a tough week with very little progress and major frustration over not being able to understand the complex logic of the game's routines.

Been there many, many times... ROM hacking is sometimes totally brutal.

 

[Arcade-TV]

I've made good progress integrating my custom intro into the rom's program flow and gained very good flexibility for what I wanted to add. I injected the graphics I found usable and wrote a crude story that I wanted to tell before the original intro starts.
I can say I'm not comfortable with this first version, but before I tell you why I'd like your own opinion first.
Pls note, I haven't added fade-outs or cared about text-flow at this moment, because overall it needs quite a good amount of tweeking before it's really fitting. I'm looking forward for your feedback to improve (or toss) it.

[Image: South Town]

South Town, a city in the shadows
of drugs, gambling, and crime.

Once a year, martial artists from
all over the world gather here.

[Image: KOF Arena]

They come to fight in the fierce
"King of Fighters" tournament,

a sinister festival held by the
ruthless head of the most powerful

criminal organisation to promote
his strongest henchmen.

[BLACK]

Here, the world-renowned martial
artist Jeff Bogard stood up

against the syndicate leader,
Geese Howard.

[Image: Cemetery]

Jeff’s defiance cost him his life,
as he was struck down by Geese’s

thugs in a cold-blooded act.
He died right before the eyes of

his two sons, Terry and Andy
who witnessed the murder.

[No Image, Black BG]

The brothers vowed revenge, left
South Town and spent 10 years
perfecting their fighting style,
when their friend and rival
Joe Higashi told them, the
King of Fighters tournament
was held by Geese Howard.

[Image: Geese]

To bring justice to their father’s
death, the Bogards joined forces

with Joe to participate in the
"King of Fighters", knowing they

had to defeat the current champion
Billy Kane for a chance to face

Geese Howard in South Town.
The battle of destiny begins...

 

[city41]

I think it looks really cool. I agree the wording and some of the timing could be improved, but eh it's a rough draft. I really like it.

This will end up being a super deluxe version of a game that, uh, plays rather poorly that will be an interesting contrast.

 

[Neo Alec]

Any chance of an option to play as all the characters? There are ram codes that unlock them on emulators. Glitchy as hell, but seems like it should be possible with a rom hack.

Fatal Fury - King of Fighters / Garou Densetsu - shukumei no tatakai - NEO-GEO RAM Codes

web.archive.org

 

[Arcade-TV]

Any chance of an option to play as all the characters? There are ram codes that unlock them on emulators. Glitchy as hell, but seems like it should be possible with a rom hack.

Fatal Fury - King of Fighters / Garou Densetsu - shukumei no tatakai - NEO-GEO RAM Codes

web.archive.org

That's an impossible task for me. It would depend on adding proper functionality to control every character. Basically it requires the complete fighting mechanism to be disassembled and understood. Sorry, but I'm not able to do that within the time I have to spare.

 

[Arcade-TV]

Still fishing for your opinions and feedback.
Your thoughts on this are very much appreciated!

 

[Neo Alec]

That's an impossible task for me. It would depend on adding proper functionality to control every character. Basically it requires the complete fighting mechanism to be disassembled and understood. Sorry, but I'm not able to do that within the time I have to spare.

The code to control the characters is already there. Like I said, these ram hacks already work in mame. The other characters can be played by simply updating some addresses in memory. I would love it if it worked on a real Neo Geo.

 

[Arcade-TV]

The code to control the characters is already there. Like I said, these ram hacks already work in mame. The other characters can be played by simply updating some addresses in memory. I would love it if it worked on a real Neo Geo.

It' s not that simple. Changing the currently-playing-character-flag to change your player to a npc causes hangs and glitches everywhere the game checks it, e.g. in bonus rounds to play the special move showcase sequences. Input-controls by a human also seems not to be intended, so all other characters play much worse than the 3 protagonists. Missing endings not to mention. To iron that all out and produce a rom where all these aspects are corrected requires a much deeper understanding of the routines than just injecting a different number into the flag-location in ram. I wouldn't even try to tinker with all that.

 

[Neo Alec]

It' s not that simple. Changing the currently-playing-character-flag to change your player to a npc causes hangs and glitches everywhere the game checks it, e.g. in bonus rounds to play the special move showcase sequences. Input-controls by a human also seems not to be intended, so all other characters play much worse than the 3 protagonists. Missing endings not to mention. To iron that all out and produce a rom where all these aspects are corrected requires a much deeper understanding of the routines than just injecting a different number into the flag-location in ram. I wouldn't even try to tinker with all that.

Yeah, it would be full of crashes and glitches. I just would like the option to do the same cheats on a real Neo Geo, and not just emulators. That's why I would propose a separate hack to the original game that just has an option to enable the other characters. @city41 , you already have experience editing character select screens. It could be your calling.

 

[HellioN]

I've made good progress integrating my custom intro into the rom's program flow and gained very good flexibility for what I wanted to add. I injected the graphics I found usable and wrote a crude story that I wanted to tell before the original intro starts.
I can say I'm not comfortable with this first version, but before I tell you why I'd like your own opinion first.
Pls note, I haven't added fade-outs or cared about text-flow at this moment, because overall it needs quite a good amount of tweeking before it's really fitting. I'm looking forward for your feedback to improve (or toss) it.

I like it.
It feels long though.

 

[Arcade-TV]

I like it.
It feels long though.

Thank You!
Yes, I think it's much too long, too.
I'm not a writer, or a native english speaking person, so I dunno where to start cutting it down to an acceptable level.
That's where I'd start asking for help.