Enhancement Romhacks so good they replaced Vanilla

[Bakuma1997]

Some games... haven't aged properly, mercifully we are on the age where we can patch them easly, some of them makes a single but importan change, some are full QOL packs that gives a full Glowup to games, some of those patches ends up so good you can't go back to Vanilla even! it has happened to you? which is your case?

My case must go to a Romhack i've beaten at least twice: Project II of Final Fantasy IV, it reverts the translation of the SNES into something more in line with the rereleases (While keeping the iconic "YOU SPOONY BARD!") and restoring most gutted content of the OG SNES version at the same times it also adds some neato stuff (Cecil and Rydia learn their DS version's spells and Cid has two real commands compared to the useless "Free Libra" of Vanilla), only thing i would prefer was they using modern terminology and while not making it as hard as the Japan version i would prefer some spicier dificulty

 

[SamanthaSamantha's icon]

Link's Awakening DX Redux and Pokemon Crystal Clear are the ones that come to mind first, but I have enjoyed the Romhacking scene a lot precisely because of how much new life they breathe into flawed classics.

 

[Burzuru Burzuru]

i've been looking pokemon cosmic emerald and theta emerald EX for the content and QoL over the original.

 

[Shadowman621]

Link's Awakening DX Redux and Pokemon Crystal Clear are the ones that come to mind first, but I have enjoyed the Romhacking scene a lot precisely because of how much new life they breathe into flawed classics.

Crystal Clear is really good. My only wish for a Crystal hack would be to implement some of the balls from Gen 3 and 4.

Also I heavily agree on why the romhacking scene is so great. It's part of the reason why I like modding PC games these days.

 

[Janunba88]

Definitely Mega Man X5 Tweaks improved the annoying things from the original game so much that it should be in the X games collections. The game is so much better that I almost think it's as good as X4. I wanted to say the same about X6, but even the Tweaks version can't fix the serious problems of that game (I hope Mega Man X: Viral Nightmare does it justice; I feel that X6 could be a good game if it were properly "tweaked").

 

[Tenshishi]

All the Final Fantasy games on GBA feel much better with the color tweaks and music changes (and in the case of I + II, balance changes). They went from being pretty compromised handheld versions to genuinely being one of the best ways to play 1, 2, 4, 5, and 6.

 

[Scotty Scotty]

"The Real Ghostbusters Remastered" gives the terrible NES port of "Ghostbusters" a much needed makeover. Better graphics, refined gameplay and even the "Ghostbusters!!" chant was updated. My only complaint is that they didn't add new music to break up the monotony of hearing the "Ghostbusters" theme song for the whole game.

 

[mortuz]

You'd be surprised how much I keep the evidence of these little things:
Chrono Trigger Plus
Breath of Fire - Definitive Edition
Super Mario RPG: Relocalized
Fire Emblem - Genealogy of the Holy War (Lil' Nordion)
A Link to the Past: Redux (+Retranslation)
Final Fantasy VI: Revised Old Style Edition
MaternalBound Redux

 

[CreameryTed199]

Star Fox 64-Style HUD
It also adds an aiming reticle, along with the option to add the Star Fox 2 portraits.
Originally it only worked with the FastROM enhancement, but now works fine with a stock ROM

 

[Graves Ruinwalker]

I agree. Some older games just had some really rough designs and it needed some fixes here and there while those still had way too much potential to be much huger than they actually archieved . Pokemon Rom-hacks even made the vanilla ones look like unfinished games .

But im not fond of difficulty-changing romhacks . Some games should stay difficult because the older design-philosophy was about overcoming challenges , no matter how unfair it seems , which is more how you approach the levels and not brainlessly go head on with everything thrown to the level . But its still a personal preference not a fact.

Im all in for own Rom-hack projects that go out of the way and become own games overall .

I still think someone should take Laplace demon and romhack it into a pure Call of Cthulhu RPG .

 

[dilsworth]

Breath of Fire IV PSX

With an addition of Dengeki Store and Uncensored, they restored it to be a fully playable game without any cuts!

Optional: Better Descriptions if you want most of the item/skills/equipment simple to read.

 

[ladyerrant]

Arcana: Seal of Rimsala
Tons of QoL updates to the game.

 

[BrawlMan]

Castlevania: The Adventure DX. This mod actually makes the first Game Boy CV game fun, improves the jump, and gets rid of the lose whip upgrade, if get hit mechanic.

Real Double Dragon (NES)

​

 

[shadowsandpixels]

Link's Awakening DX Redux and Pokemon Crystal Clear are the ones that come to mind first, but I have enjoyed the Romhacking scene a lot precisely because of how much new life they breathe into flawed classics.

Same here. That's the reason why I've turned to rom hacks to begin with. It's fun seeing people's creativity go into things I would've never thought of before.

 

[fourmonty]

i hope Mega Man X: Viral Nightmare gets done soon

 

[Felipe]

Any of the phantasy star games with lory's bugfix patches.

 

[drizzes]

adding to pokemon romhacks, Renegade Platinum

 

[Bakuma1997]

Link's Awakening DX Redux and Pokemon Crystal Clear are the ones that come to mind first, but I have enjoyed the Romhacking scene a lot precisely because of how much new life they breathe into flawed classics.

Agreed, Zelda LADX is already a good hack, but having to see the "Its too heavy" message for grazing a pot for the Nth time would make me want to evoke a Persona with an actual gun

 

[Raud]

Breath Of Fire Definitive Edition, that romhack make the game really enjoyable

 

[Pendulum]

Ocarina Of Time Redux and Majora's Mask Redux

 

[Bakuma1997]

Think Metroid 1 has a unique charm that Zero Mission can't replicate but are aware the game has aged like milk in some aspects? FRET NOT!!!

Metroid mOTHER (That's the actual name BTW) adds visual and gameplay enhancements, coming from the mix of many enhancement patches it includes between many other things:

>Stackable Ice and Wide Beam
>Minimap
>Polished but respectful to the classic sprites
>The deal maker for me: SAVE YOUR GAME, granted, it comes at the cost of passwords, so farewell Justin Bailey

 

[Graw]

Seeing as basically every other Zelda Redux hack has been thrown in here I'll toss in the Zelda 2 redux hack. Honestly, I think more than all the other Zelda redux hacks the Zelda 2 one is the way the game should have been made to begin with. It actually manages to make Zelda 2 feel like it fits with the rest of the series and fixes so many things that make the original tedious to play while still keeping it decently challenging. I'd say it's honestly a perfect hack. I can't really think of anything about it I'd change or do differently.

I was less impressed with the Zelda 1 redux hack. I think it changes too much and generally changes the whole way you play through the game. It took a lot of the joys of exploration away and one of those dungeon song remixes is just awful to the point where when I played those dungeons I switched to a rom without the remixed music because I couldn't handle it.

 

[Stardust Queen]

All the Final Fantasy games on GBA feel much better with the color tweaks and music changes (and in the case of I + II, balance changes). They went from being pretty compromised handheld versions to genuinely being one of the best ways to play 1, 2, 4, 5, and 6.

I'd honestly say this with just about any game on GBA that has these, whether they're restoration or just updates:
Mario Kart Super Circuit Freemaster
Sonic Advance 2 SP which tones down the bs a ton
Castlevania - Circle of the Moon
Castlevania - Harmony of Dissonance
Project Ember for FE6, which really mostly targets the game's main issue in balancing.

The Mario Advance series has hacks for colors and music, so usually you want to combine those to get the best end result.
SMA4 is a bit of a difficult case because only the Wii U/Switch ROMs have the extra content, but I don't believe these are compatible with the restoration patches. There's no real definitive version yet as a result.

There's also the Pixel Freemaster of FFV, if FFV is your thing (it sure ain't mine but it is an impressive hack)

There's even one for Terranigma!

Finally, do we count decompilations etc. for this? If so Sonic 3 AIR is the definitively Sonic 3 & Knuckles experience.

 

[Michael Frank]

Mega Man X3: Zero Project (Hack) SNES ROM – The Repo

Mega Man X3: Zero Project (Hack) SNES ROM Languages: English. For the Super NES.

retrogametalk.com

This shit is so good it not only blew vanilla X3 out of the water, it PULVERIZED IT!

 

[BrawlMan]

You can actually have 5 to 6 enemies on screen now. This takes the game from a 5 to 7/10.