Break Final Fantasy IV (II in US) on SNES With Newest Patch
One of the most fun things to do in the 16-bit era of JRPGs – although not exclusive to this time period – is break the basic system and do all kinds of ridiculous overpowered feats. Of those, Final Fantasy IV (Final Fantasy II in the US on SNES) had a featured known as the “break damage limit” that forced the game to allow you to dole no more than 9999 points of damage (sounds like a lot of you aren’t a consistent re-player of the game) regardless of combos, leveling, and parties. ROM hacker “chillyfeez” found a hexidecimal code in Final Fantasy II (specifically the North American ROM) that allowed the cap to be raised to 16383 damage. While this is probably no big deal to many of us, Final Fantasy hardcore fans are probably overjoyed with the ability to increase damage and possibly even result in faster speedruns of the game. Either way, if you want the ROM hack, which will work on any emulated or flash cart copy of the original untouched ROM, you can download it here. Thank you Retro Collect for the story.
Someone Made A Mario Timeline
Mario has never had the most complex tale. With the majority of the games involving Princess Peach being captured and Mario having to go on a obligatory expedition to rescue her. Well if you ever wondered how could all those Mario titles possibly link together then fear not a hard working YouTuber has placed the majority of the Mario series (including some spin offs) into a rather convincing chronological order. Who knows maybe Nintendo will take note of this effort and allow another official historia like Zelda. It’s just a shame they didn’t go one step beyond and include some of the more uncommon Japanese titles. Still, this is a fantastic video worth watching for any fan of the Mario games. Let’s face it guys there is a couple of games in this video you know you love.
Dying Light Review
Wait, what? A modern review?!? Yes, it’s true, we will from time to time be reviewing new games. It’s not because we got review copies, because we didn’t in this case, and it’s not because we’re changing focus from retro gaming either. We just wanted an outlet to write reviews on the modern games that we play and frankly, some of the games that were releasing when GH101 started might now be considered retro. Keep in mind that the site, articles, podcast, and videos will remain focused largely on retro gaming.
Zombies. Of all the enemy types out there I’m pretty sick of zombies, but if a game can be compelling enough in its gameplay, I guess I don’t care what the enemy type is. Parkour. Now you’re talking, I love parkour. Not since 2007’s Mirror’s Edge has a game even attempted true first person parkour and despite that title nailing the feel, it did so in very confined linear paths. Dying Light attempts to blend the gameplay that developer Techland premiered in the Dead Island series with a day/night cycle that drastically changes gameplay and basing the whole traversal system on parkour, and it nails it. That’s not to say that Dying Light is a perfect game by any means, because the story, side missions, and combat leave much to be desired, but there’s no denying that this world is great to run around in.
Mario’s Side Gig
Of all the mascots that exist in video game history, Nintendo’s classic plumber Mario definitely has the most robust and best quality spin-off titles around. If you’re imagining sports games on the Wii, this is not that episode, instead we’re discussing the great ways in which Mario was utilized to introduce us to everything from go kart racing to basic paint and music creation programs.
Someone Got Netflix Running on an NES
Hackers these days don’t necessarily do things because they should, they just see if they can. That’s definitely the case in this post on Gamespot where a handful of hackers got the Netflix streaming service running on an NES via a specialized cart but on an unmodified NES. You can watch House of Cards running on it in the video below in all its streaming text and 256 color glory. Netflix on NES, now I’ve seen it all.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yn-rNdYZAY]Dino Crisis Was Going to be on Gameboy Color
According to the incredible web site Unseen 64, which is dedicated to revealing and discussing unreleased, canceled, and beta titles, Dino Crisis, much like other Capcom PS1 title Resident Evil, was going to be ported to the Gameboy Color. You can see in the posting that there were some impressive screenshots but I fear that much like the playable Resident Evil game, it falls quite short in terms of gameplay. Still very interesting, follow the link to check it out.
F-Zero Races onto the Genesis/Mega Drive in New Homebrew
Huzero, F-Zero on the Turbografx-16
F-Zero‘s unofficial port for the Turbografx-16 is called HuZero and it is quite an impressive port as the screenshot above hints to. Well potentially the larger feat is getting the completely incapable of mode 7 graphics Sega Genesis/Mega Drive to play the same game. Aptly named G-Zero, the homebrew port of this popular SNES racer is an equally impressive playable tech demo in its current state. You can download the ROM here and thanks to the boys and girls at Retro Collect for the story.
Jam is Going to Play Blackpool, Are You?
Fresh on the cusp of Fred attending the Midwest Gaming Classic in Milwaukee, WI on April 11-12 (and having a panel), Jam is also attending a retro gaming convention across the pond in the UK, Play Blackpool. It will be at the beginning of May in Norbreck Castle in Blackpool and he even created a handy video to introduce it. Check it out and hit up Jam if you are planning to attend.
Jam’s Mystery Unboxing and March Game Club Promo
Our main man Jamalais has been busy at work this week with some videos for the GH101 community. The first is an unboxing video of the mystery package he received from the Awesome Games Done Quick (AGDQ) speerunning marathon and yetee.com:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xu0srWByWXo
The second is a promo video for the two great games we are featuring for the March Game Club, Alien Trilogy and Die Hard Trilogy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eGrJfroNU8
Check them out!
Alien Trilogy Quick Look
This month’s game club is Die Hard Trilogy and Alien Trilogy, two short “trilogy” titles released by Fox Interactive in the 32-bit era. We have already looked at one of the games, Die Hard Trilogy, and here for you is the quick look of Alien Trilogy
Gaming History 101 