Cheats/remakes/source ports that fixed or improved upon games

[BrunoMattei]

This topic comes up very often if you play Boomer Shooters on source ports. On the one hand you have purists that insist you have to play the game the way it was originally designed. That means playing Doom without mouse-look, locked at 35FPS and at 320X200 resolution. I say "fuck that" and I played Doom 2 with just the keyboard back in the day. Never again.

It also comes up with Build Engine games like Blood, Duke Nukem 3D and Shadow Warrior. The Build Engine games did have mouse-look but it was very buggy and had stiff aiming. This was due to a typo in the code that somehow carried over to every single Build Engine game including the Redneck Rampage games. Does that mean using a source port with functional mouse-look somehow invalidates the design philosophy of a coder who fucked up? My response is: who cares? On the topic of Blood, there is a bug in the game where sometimes enemies stay on fire permanently, even if they fall into water, and they can still hurt you. Purists insist that this bug must stay in the game.

It's a he said she said pedantic argument that's more of the concern of coders mostly but then there's other games. I always think of 8 and 16 bit games that were made to be "fuck you" hard just to extend the game and fuck over kids who rented it so they couldn't beat it in a weekend. There's the Wolverine game for the NES that made the bizarre decision to make it so that if you use Wolverine's claws to kill enemies you take damage... Turns out that there's a Game Genie code that removes that bit of nonsense and just allows you to use the claws. It doesn't stop the game from being bullshit hard still but it's at least a little bit more fair. It's still not a very good game.

Then there's Alien 3 on the Genesis. The SNES version is entirely different and gives the players missions whereas the Genesis version has parity with the NES and Commodore 64 versions in that they're just about rescuing hostages under a time limit. The problem is that the time limit is bullshit and requires you to memorize every single level where every hostage is. The screen also isn't wide enough and Aliens spawn just off screen and are very fast. Then on top of that there's an ammo limit so you can't just hold down the fire button to pre-emptively kill the Aliens. Game Genie saves the day again with codes that disable the time limit and give you infinite pulse rifle ammo. Which makes the game more fun but it's still a very mediocre title.

NES Batman is another one. Fantastic game. Masterpiece. One of the best on the system. But it's a hard motherfucker. Problem #1 is that the hit-detection when you punch is very small and can easily lead to getting hit. However, using Turbo input fixes that problem and allows you conserve ammo for your equipment. Problem #2 is that the only way to get health back is to kill enemies. Unlike the Megaman games there are no health drops just placed throughout levels. The problem with killing enemies to get health back is that it's completely random and you only get one unit of health back at a time. I've beaten the game without cheating but it's always a tedious experience just because of this one problem.

I shouldn't have to fucking stand right next to one of these fucking things tapping the fucking attack button and wait almost 5 fucking minutes just to get fucking health back. That's a pile of fuck right there.

Game Genie yet again fixes the problem. There's a code that triples the amount of health you gain back from getting a heart pick up. You still have to farm enemies occasionally but it's not nearly as tedious and in this case the difficulty with gaining back health isn't based on any kind of skill: it's literally just stand near a spot and tap a button until you get your health back.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

Please make an exclusion for bethesda games, there's already multiple threads for that, the topic itself is very interesting.

 

[Judge Dredd]

The timer on Nightmare Creatures on Playstation.

The demos of the game, and the first stage, are good in my opinion. The final version of the game is ruined by adding a time limit that ticks down when you're not in a fight. It's fine at first, but the time limit gets obnoxious the further you progress. There's a cheat for action replay (or whatever the PS1's game genie equivalent was) that removed the time limit.


Resident Evil 2 on N64*.

Not one I've played, and last I tried it didn't play well on emulators. Resident Evil 2 on N64 added a randomizer mode. Years later, randomizers would take off when streaming became popular, including mods for Resident Evil games.

 

[BrunoMattei]

The timer on Nightmare Creatures on Playstation.

The demos of the game, and the first stage, are good in my opinion. The final version of the game is ruined by adding a time limit that ticks down when you're not in a fight. It's fine at first, but the time limit gets obnoxious the further you progress. There's a cheat for action replay (or whatever the PS1's game genie equivalent was) that removed the time limit.


Resident Evil 2 on N64*.

Not one I've played, and last I tried it didn't play well on emulators. Resident Evil 2 on N64 added a randomizer mode. Years later, randomizers would take off when streaming became popular, including mods for Resident Evil games.

The N64 version (which is one of those weird games that doesn't work on most emulators) also has analog movement. Meaning: no tank controls.

 

[MysticLord]

"Purist" == "Autist"

 

[Chaos Theorist]

The N64 version (which is one of those weird games that doesn't work on most emulators) also has analog movement. Meaning: no tank controls.

Analog controls have worked on N64 emulators for years or at least using Bizhawk

 

[Just A Butt]

Batman isn't that hard

 

[modern horrors]

I'll take modern quality of life improvements over 100% accuracy any day. I remember back in the day, before there was a slew of source ports for Blood, my stupid ass dared to mention on /v/ how much fun I had playing BloodCM (total conversion on eduke engine). Turns out I'm a retard for playing it and I, in fact, did not have any fun, because zombie heads weren't bouncing the right way.

 

[Wood]

It also comes up with Build Engine games like Blood, Duke Nukem 3D and Shadow Warrior. The Build Engine games did have mouse-look but it was very buggy and had stiff aiming.

What do you mean??? In Build games you move with the mouse and look with the keyboard, Just Like The Devs Intended.

Spoiler: BLOOD.CFG

[Controls]
MouseAiming = 0
MouseAimingFlipped = 0
MouseButton0 = "Weapon_Fire"
MouseButtonClicked0 = ""
MouseButton1 = "Move_Forward"
MouseButtonClicked1 = "Open"
MouseButton2 = "Weapon_Special_Fire"
MouseButtonClicked2 = ""
MouseAnalogAxes0 = "analog_turning"
MouseAnalogAxes1 = "analog_moving"

 

[Cloaca Rimjob]

Good topic OP will defo keep an eye on this thread,

Gzdoom/zdoom is an obvious one,
black mesa maybe counts for half life?
Eduke for duke nukem 3d
Powerslave ex for exhumed/powerslave
Spearmintquake 3 for quake 3
Kmquake2 for quake 2
Quakespasm for quake

 

[Agent Abe Caprine]

For a long time, there were about three ways to play Devil May Cry 3 on PC without constant stuttering.

1. Emulate the PS2 version
2. Install some mod that kind of fixes things.
3. Delete the music. For some reason, the music causes lots of stuttering. That mod recommends doing this.

Yeah. Delete the awesome soundtrack. Think of it like playing Doom on the Atari Jaguar. Just put on some Nunslaughter or something. Thankfully, the HD collection gave the PC a much more playable port of DMC3.

 

[Calandrino]

EZmode romhacks are gay, the correct use of romhacks is to remove slowdown from games to make them harder, such as this one for Super Ghouls 'n' Ghosts: https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/3473/

SNES shamefully lacked a blast processor but now history's mistakes can be corrected

 

[Grub]

EZmode romhacks are gay, the correct use of romhacks is to remove slowdown from games to make them harder, such as this one for Super Ghouls 'n' Ghosts: https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/3473/

SNES shamefully lacked a blast processor but now history's mistakes can be corrected

The Gradius 3 slowdown removal hack on the SNES is absolutely brutal. That game was hard as fuck as it is.

Played through the Zelda 2 redux patch a while ago

Zelda 2 Redux

Have you always tried to play through Zelda II and finding out it was either excruciatingly difficul

www.romhacking.net

It's kind of an eztype hack, it does make the game a little easier, but not by much, but it improves nearly every little thing about the game. I always loved the original. Played the hell out of it as a kid, but, I really enjoyed this hack.

 

[Mr. Duck]

Do regional differences count?, some games in Japan were easier compared to the US/EU release, like Contra: Hard Corps adding a life bar, Ninja Gaiden 3 having continues, and Battletoads being easier overall.

Fester's Quest's european version is also slightly better than the US release.

I'll take modern quality of life improvements over 100% accuracy any day. I remember back in the day, before there was a slew of source ports for Blood, my stupid ass dared to mention on /v/ how much fun I had playing BloodCM (total conversion on eduke engine). Turns out I'm a retard for playing it and I, in fact, did not have any fun, because zombie heads weren't bouncing the right way.

Ironically, BloodCM is the reason why we have Blood source ports nowadays, the guy who made it ended up doing BloodGDX because he wanted a proper port of the game, and there's so much you can do recreating the mechanics on EDuke32.

 

[BrunoMattei]

The Gradius 3 slowdown removal hack on the SNES is absolutely brutal. That game was hard as fuck as it is.

Played through the Zelda 2 redux patch a while ago

Zelda 2 Redux

Have you always tried to play through Zelda II and finding out it was either excruciatingly difficul

www.romhacking.net

It's kind of an eztype hack, it does make the game a little easier, but not by much, but it improves nearly every little thing about the game. I always loved the original. Played the hell out of it as a kid, but, I really enjoyed this hack.

I just looked up another patched version of Castlevania 2: Simon's Quest that not only fixes the dialog by erasing the Engrish but also just tells the player what to do. This new patch doubles the number of hearts which reduces the grind required to get necessary items.

 

[Dysnomia]

There's a patch for Lufia 2 that fixes the garbled graphics in the Submarine Shrine and the last floor of the Ancient Cave as well as restoring the bunny girls. It also fixes some menu glitches that cause text from one page to stick to the next. That glitch would sometimes result in amusing equipment names.

The garbled graphics oversight is not present in PAL or Japanese releases. Most of the glitches in that game are in the North American version.

I never tried the more extensive patches. Like the one that restores the church crosses. What's amusing is that they missed the crosses in the ruined town tileset. And there's a scene where Maxim and Iris pray at a ruined church for the dead townspeople. They're praying to a cross.

 

[Agent Abe Caprine]

Do regional differences count?, some games in Japan were easier compared to the US/EU release, like Contra: Hard Corps adding a life bar, Ninja Gaiden 3 having continues, and Battletoads being easier overall.

Sometimes the Western version is harder. In Devil May Cry 3's original Western release, unlocking easy mode actually unlocks normal mode. Normal mode is actually hard mode. If this was done to overcompensate for DMC2's kindergarten difficulty, congratulations. Mission accomplished.

 

[Marissa Moira]

Shadow of The Colossus HD was made significantly harder than the original release. Every version used the European release's time trial times which were way lower, and on top of that Wanderer himself has his controls FUBARed and his grab does not stabilize him so you'll be swinging helplessly for most of the fights because your movement is hindered.

The PS4 remake did not have these issues and the controls function the best out of any of the versions including the original.

 

[Pillar of Autism]

I recently played through GTA Vice City using reVC, and I think that's the best way to play it nowadays. It adds features from several mods, including better camera and movement controls, full widescreen support, and SkyGFX (which adds all of the extra graphical effects from the PS2 version). Unfortunately, those faggots at Take Two decided to take it down since it works far better than their new "remaster".

Other than that:

Quakespasm for Quake (though I am starting to warm up to the new Nightdive port that they added to the Steam version)
GZDoom for Doom
eduke32 for Duke Nukem
BloodGDX for Blood.

 

[BrunoMattei]

I recently played through GTA Vice City using reVC, and I think that's the best way to play it nowadays. It adds features from several mods, including better camera and movement controls, full widescreen support, and SkyGFX (which adds all of the extra graphical effects from the PS2 version). Unfortunately, those faggots at Take Two decided to take it down since it works far better than their new "remaster".

Other than that:

Quakespasm for Quake (though I am starting to warm up to the new Nightdive port that they added to the Steam version)
GZDoom for Doom
eduke32 for Duke Nukem
BloodGDX for Blood.

I prefer Fresh Supply for Blood but GDX is good. I swear that the A.I. is a little off in GDX though. Then there's Raze which is getting a lot of progress.