Retro Gaming Australia

Inspired by the Pauline and Mario switcheroo in Donkey Kong by Mike Mika, animator Kenna W. and her video game programmer boyfriend decided that a similar thing could be implemented in The Legend of Zelda.

Together they produced a ROM hack they’ve dubbed Zelda Starring Zelda, with Zelda now taking over the role of the main protagonist, complete with new sprites to match.

You can read all about the development of the project and get the ROM from Kenna’s blog.

Hot off the heels of Mike Mika’s Pauline hack for Donkey Kong, ROMHacking.net’s Kishi has released a similar effort for Super Mario Bros., which puts players in the shoes of Princess Peach, who has to rescue Mario from Bowser’s clutches.

While put together relatively quickly, Kishi’s hack, entitled Super Mario Bros: Peach Edition, is actually quite competent. Sprites have been redrawn too, so they’re not as ghastly as the original Peach sprite, and the animation is quite impressive for a quick project.

You can get the patch here.

What’s Resident Evil 1.5 you say? Well, the story goes that about 70-80% through development, the producers of Resident Evil 2, Shinji Mikami and Hideki Kamiya, decided the game was too action oriented and not up to the high standard of the original game. So they started again.

That original version of Resident Evil 2, dubbed Resident Evil 1.5 by fans, has been the most wanted prototype on the PlayStation. Many have teased that they have a copy of the prototype, but aside from a couple of screenshots and videos, nobody has released a playable version.

Until now. The Resident Evil 1.5 restoration project is a rag tag group that managed to get a copy of the prototype and has since spent considerable time restoring it to a point where it can be enjoyed by all. Today they released a playable demo version marking the first time the public will get a taste of this mythical beta.

Of course, the project still continues – apparently the in-development version is quite a bit further along than this demo. The demo release was prompted by someone attempting to sell the team’s work to date on eBay; originally the team had intended only to release their work once it was completed.

You can get the demo here.

Witness the result below.

Youtube user 2010clarky has modified a Nintendo 64 controller to feature two analog sticks, and it looks pretty slick.

Some Nintendo 64 games allow the player to use two separate N64 controllers to utilise both analog sticks, so the clever modder has housed both analog sticks in one big ol’ merged controller titled the “El Quadinaros.” It still works as a single controller too! (continue reading…)

Revival Studios’ latest homebrew effort Mage: The Enchanted Crystals has now been released. 100 copies have been made available at a cost of 39 Euros each. A plastic case can be purchased alongside the game for an additional 5 Euros.

The game is something of a dungeon crawler with an original story, which the website elaborates on: “While working on a powerful spell, Wizzy’s father was being watched by others. As a precaution he captured the spell inside a crystal and divided it into 4 pieces, which he buried inside the mines, just south of your village. It is now up to you to collect these pieces and bring them together inside the enchanted chest to ensure the spell doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.”

You can get the game here.

Via RetroCollect

Cast your mind back to 2004, and you might remember that LucasArts rushed Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II – The Sith Lords out for the US holiday season, resulting in one hell of a buggy mess with a nearly incoherent story.

Many people were pissed about the state the game was released in, but when it was publicised just how much content was cut from the game, and how much of said content was merely blocked off rather than completely removed, a group of dedicated fans started The Sith Lords restoration project – an effort to restore much of that content and fix the myriad of bugs plaguing the title.

You can find the latest version of the mod here, along with some release notes.

The Sonic fan game sphere has been known to generate some pretty impressive stuff. One particular game with quite the following is Sonic: Before the Sequel, (which you can check out here) an adventure set between Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic the Hedgehog 2 which boasted over 50 levels and had some really cool boss fights.

A sequel, Sonic: After the Sequel has been in development since the end of last year, with many Sonic fans eagerly anticipating its release. While the full game isn’t finish just yet, the team behind the game have released a demo to give everyone a taste of their next ambitious project. Among the new additions to the sequel are cutscenes and run-along battles like those featured in the first levels of Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and Sonic & Knuckles.

Angry Birds is basically everywhere you look nowadays, and it has even made its way to the Sega Mega Drive – well, on an emulator anyway.

The fan demake, created by a Chinese developer going by the screen name zhengyaxin_8bit, gives the super popular Angry Birds a 16-bit makeover, and overcomes the lack of a touch based control scheme with a simple press and drag on the keyboard instead.

You can download the ROM for Angry Birds on Sega Mega Drive here – it is free and available now.

Source: Retro Collect

Homebrew developers The Removers have successfully ported the classic action/adventure game Another World to the Atari Jaguar, one of the few formats of the era to not get its own copy of the game.

The Jaguar version takes advantage of being late to the party by incorporating all of the enhancements from the 15th anniversary edition of the game. The project even has the blessing of Eric Chahi, the man behind the original game.

The Removers are ramping up plans to produce a physical release of the cartridge, though numbers of cartridges produced will be based on the number of responses they receive to a survery they are conducting on their website.