Category Archives: Gameboy/GBA

Hack Showcase: Castlevania Aria of Sorrow Persephone Hack (GBA)

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Hack Showcases and RPG Hack Showcases are a series where I show off various game and rpg hacks. I try to stick with hacks that improve gameplay or add quality of life features, completely or partially change the plot and characters, along with additional content, dialogue, graphical and sound improvements. Non-rpgs I try to give a full run to, or at least enough for a solid review. Rpgs I will stick with titles that have enough changes in the beginning to show off, and when I can, show parts later in the games where more differences appear. There may be spoilers in the reviews and videos. Some of these I may stream fully in the future or play on my own. Reviews are open to later revisions due to bug and content updates or me playing them and finding anything new I wish to bring up.

Created by Caminopreacher as a spoof hack of Aria of Sorrow, this hack presents Persephone (the ninja maids) as the playable hero, in a plot building off of the bad ending of Aria of Sorrow. She finds herself with her willpower along with familiar faces in Castlevania Olrox and Carmilla and others, and has to explore the castle to find answers. Plays just like Aria of Sorrow but with Persephone’s melee attacks (like Soma using Knuckles) you’ll be changing up how you play fast. Soul collecting is still a thing but all the Souls don’t correspond with the enemies you get them from normally! Souls needed to trigger the Good Ending have also been changed! Players will have a blast with this for a different story, some great laughs and gameplay experience.

Seeing how this was a longplay over multiple streams, there’s 2 gameplay videos for this, combined from their respective streams.

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RPG Hack Showcase: Pokemon Ash Gray and Firered: Rocket Edition (GBA)

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Hack Showcases and RPG Hack Showcases are a series where I show off various game and rpg hacks. I try to stick with hacks that improve gameplay or add quality of life features, completely or partially change the plot and characters, along with additional content, dialogue, graphical and sound improvements. Non-rpgs I try to give a full run to, or at least enough for a solid review. Rpgs I will stick with titles that have enough changes in the beginning to show off, and when I can, show parts later in the games where more differences appear. There may be spoilers in the reviews and videos. Some of these I may stream fully in the future or play on my own. Reviews are open to later revisions due to bug and content updates or me playing them and finding anything new I wish to bring up.

Pokemon Ash Gray by Metapod23 is a hack of Firered letting you travel Ash’s journey as a Pokemon Master through the first season (Kanto) and part of the Orange Islands episodes along with the events of the first 2 Pokemon movies! The game will follow Ash’s journey and you can catch all the Pokemon Ash had during the 1st season, along with many others! Fight and make friends with Brock and Misty and follow content from the episodes like the S.S.A nne and even episode banned from the US including the Porygon episode! Other quality of life additions were added and some new abilities and equipment replace old HM’s from vanilla along with new tiles, graphics and more! Due to the uncompleted nature of the hack, it ends halfway through the Orange Islands adventures (there are other hacks for Orange Islands).

There is an unofficial 4.6 beta made by RevKenHack which fixes a number of small bugs and adds some quality of life features.

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Hack Showcase: Castlevania: Maria of Sorrow (GBA)

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Hack Showcases and RPG Hack Showcases are a series where I show off various game and rpg hacks. I try to stick with hacks that improve gameplay or add quality of life features, completely or partially change the plot and characters, along with additional content, dialogue, graphical and sound improvements. Non-rpgs I try to give a full run to, or at least enough for a solid review. Rpgs I will stick with titles that have enough changes in the beginning to show off, and when I can, show parts later in the games where more differences appear. There may be spoilers in the reviews and videos. Some of these I may stream fully in the future or play on my own. Reviews are open to later revisions due to bug and content updates or me playing them and finding anything new I wish to bring up.

Maria of Sorrow by Kyoski replaces Soma with maria from Rondo of Blood as the main character. The story has been changed so this hack acts as a story taking place between Rondo and SOTN where Maria ends up in 2035 in place of Soma! A lot of other changes were made including:

1.0 What’s been changed:

  • Playable Maria over Soma
  • Enemy/Boss HP x2
  • Enemy/Boss Atk x2
  • Enemy/Boss Def x2
  • New Custom Weapons
  • New Custom Armor
  • New Custom Accessories
  • Drop rates increased
  • Modified HUD/damage numbers
  • Modified pause screen/portraits
  • Modified all red soul limits
  • Some custom sprite edits to fit Maria in
  • Some weapon stats modified
  • Some armor stats modified
  • Some accessory stats modified
  • Some modified soul ability graphics (to suit Maria)
  • Some new item placements throughout the castle
  • Some enemy experience values increased
  • Minor text alterations (to suit Maria)

1.1 more update information in Read-me

  • New armor
  • New accessories
  • New weapons
  • Rebalanced equipment for normal.
  • More souls to fit Maria.
  • Hard mode – Calamity mode
  • Female voice added
  • Mariacula screen added
  • More story changes to suit Maria.
  • Small armor nerfs to Chaos/Julius

1.11 update, more info in read-me

  • “easy mode” patches
  • fixed some weapon stats/animations

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New Super Mario Land SNES v1.5 Homebrew & Review (Updated 6/5/2023)

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Note: I’ve recently learned that there have been updated versions of this homebrew released with graphical and control fixes, along with improved features closer to the Game Boy original Super Mario Land. Latest and last version of this is v1.5.

So I came across this little homebrew completely by accident, a SNES homebrew version of the Gameboy classic Super Mario Land. I had never played SML before or had a giant brick Gameboy save for playing emulators back in the day or borrowing a friend’s (I think that’s how I finished the og Link’s Awakening and Pokemon Red). Finding the rom, I fired it up on my phone emulator and had a blast with it! This project was originally a homebrew of SML as a Christmas gift for the anonymous programmer’s friends. Of course this being 2019 the rom got dumped online and can easily be flashed to a cart, or played on your favorite SNES emulator. I recommend Retroarch, Snes9x or Bsnes.

You can find more information about this amazing project and its history and videos at the below articles. More information can be found here:
RetroRGB Article
NintendoLife Article
Archive.org Download v1.5

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Retrorevisited: Mario Kart (snes, gba, n64)

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Retrorevisited is a stream series where I revisit a game or a game series I haven’t played in over 10 or 20+ years. I’ll go through to try see what I remember until a game over or I run out of continues. In some cases muscle memory may slowly return, in others probably not. This is a chance for me to revisit games of my youth that I still have or had at one point, playing them with and without nostalgia goggles, and do with mini-reviews of them too. If I decide to play any fully later and do a full review, parts of the mini-review would be incorporated into it. Depending on the playstyle or system, games reviewed will either be mini-reviews or one about all games in this session.  

The Mario Kart series has been a long running popular series since the first game was released for the SNES. Since then there’s been a Mario Kart game for every Nintendo system, with various improvements to gameplay, racers, power-ups, tracks and more. Series is so popular it started the “kart racing” genre!

For this edition of Retrorevisited, I started with the SNES Super Mario Kart, then tried out for the first time the GBA edition and finished with the n64 Mario Kart, which is the one i have the most experience with. GameCube was supposed to be a 4th title, but it didn’t work well while streaming so I had to drop it. I played as Luigi (my fav!) and did Mushroom and Flower Cup runs in all 3 games.

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Theme Night: Spider-Man games

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So I’m a big Spider-Man fan from the comics and various movies and cartoon shows. When i came up with the Theme Night ideas, doing one of various Spider-Man games throughout the years was one of my first ideas. I started reading Spider-Man on and off as a teen when the infamous Clone Saga was revving up, and later officially added the book to my comic pull list when the Big Time arc started when Brand New Day was winding down. I think my fav Spider-Man movies are the 2 MCU films, the animated into the Spider-verse (I’m also a big fan of Spider-Gwen), and Spider-Man 2 of the Sam Raimi trilogy. Kinda a tossup between my favorite cartoon series of the Fox Kids 90’s Spider-Man, and Spectacular Spider-Man (a show cut off prematurely in its prime). I’ve enjoyed the later animated series since marvel took over to a point. I like what they’ve done adapting classic stories and making new ones, but some of the animation and gags are really lame. So this is gonna be me trying out 10 various games across systems, including Spider-Man the arcade game.

Games played:
spider-man (arcade)
amazing spider-man (gameboy)
spider-man web of fire (sega 32x)
spider-man vs kingpin (sega cd)
spider-man lethal foes (super famicom, translation patch available)
spider-man return of sinister six (nes)
spider-man the movie (gba)
spider-man & venom: maximum carnage (snes)
ultimate spider-man (gba)
spider-man 2: enter electro (psx)

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My History with the Zelda Series

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The “My History With…” series are my thoughts back when I was a kid to young adult, about when I got games of a series, my initial thoughts about them, and other thoughts about the games. I stick to games I have or had, not one I played for the first time when i discovered emulation or modern system remakes. 

I’ve loved the Zelda games ever since playing the 1st one as a kid! I’ve only played most of the older titles up to the 2 N64 titles, and having recently finished GB Link’s Awakening DX via emulation and needing to finish GBA Minish Cap. I still have my copies of Zelda 1 and 2 for the NES, Ocarina of Time for N64, and Link to the past for SNES! I could never quite get into N64’s Majora’s Mask sadly. I figured for the series 35th birthday this year in 2021, I’d write out my thoughts on those 4 titles I still have, and some thoughts on Link’s Awakening and Majora’s Mask as well! One my next goals is to finally play the Game Boy Oracle series since those are the last of the older games I haven’t sat down with. In the future I may finally give Majora’s Mask another try and try Wind Waker via the Dolphin emulator if my pc can handle it! At the end of this post will be a few snapshot of pages from the Nintendo Power comic trade, and the Hyrule Historia to share.

 

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Castlevania – Aria of Sorrow (GBA) Review

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Aria of Sorrow is the 3rd Castlevania game released for the GBA. Another Metroidvania style game, this one takes place in the future 2035, where Dracula and Castlevania were trapped forever in a solar eclipse in the aftermath of the Demon War of 1999 where the current Belmont, Julius, as a hero of. Soma Cruz finds himself trapped in Castlevania with his childhood friend and discovers he can absorb the souls and abilities of enemies in the castle. Aided by Genya Arikado, Soma discovers the truth behind his abilities and meets others trapped in the castle and one trying to revive Dracula himself. Aria has an amazing soundtrack and graphics and plays like the previous titles, and has a Pokemon aspect to it with collecting souls to gain different defensive and offensive abilities. Finishing the game unlocks Julius mode (who is a total badass!!), a boss rush, and a hard mode.

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Castlevania – Harmony of Dissonance (GBA) Review

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Release in 2002, this is the second of the GBA Castlevania trilogy and another metroidvania style game. Telling the story of Juste Belmont (next Belmont after Simon) who with his friend Maxim, infiltrate Castlevania to save their kidnapped friend Lydie. As the plot moves on, you discover there are 2 castles, one harder than the other that you can switch to via warp rooms. Sporting a great soundtrack and a different style of graphics than the previous game. Juste has access to use all the normal sub-weapons, gaining levels and new abilities, and using magic books based on the elements to augment the power of the sub-weapons. A 2nd mode letting you use Maxim and a boss rush opens up when you finish the game with one of its 3 endings.

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Castlevania – Circle of the Moon (GBA) Review

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Circle of the Moon is the first of the GBA Castlevania games which follow the Metroidvania formula established and popularized in SOTN. Taking place in 1830, Morris Baldwin leads his son Hugh and student Nathan Graves to Castlevania to stop Camilla from reviving Dracula earlier than expected. Morris is captured and Hugh and Nathan are forced to find their way through the castle to fight Dracula. You take the role of Nathan, who carries a whip that can also be spun around and used as a shield against projectiles and kill weaker enemies. Dracula’s castle holds many secrets in its various areas and you need to use all the skills you have to find your way. The DSS cards you find from enemy drops give you different offensive and defensive abilities when used together. Each of the action cards is based on someone from Roman mythology, while the attribute cards take from Greek and Roman names. This castle holds different areas than what other Castlevanias have, including a Battle Arena. This game was eventually taken out of the main Castlevania continuity.

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