Hey, I know some of you guys do ROM hacking was wondering if someone could do a small request.
Megaman 2 for GameBoy is a decent game, but the background music is rather awful - too high pitched and just not well done at all.
I'd like to play the game with the music muted, but not the sound effects. Could someone take a look and please see if it's possible to mute the bgms but not the sound effects? An ips patch that does this would be great, and a GameGenie code that could do the same effect would be even better as I could use it on the real hardware.
Thanks for any help!
I can't offer any help but your post, specifically this part:
SatoshiMatrix wrote:
the background music is rather awful - too high pitched and just not well done at all.
...reminded me of a conversation I once had with a friend about this game/soundtrack. His theory was that something got messed up in the game's music engine, and that the music was intended to be played one octave lower (which wouldn't have sounded nearly as bad). Can anyone who's more familiar with the game and sound engine comment on that?
It's probably more likely it was simply the result of amateur programmers. Megaman II GB (Rockman World 2) was not developed by Capcom, but farmed out to a small developer called Biox (the other four GameBoy Megaman games were developed by Minakuchi Engineering, hence why they are so similar to one another).
Biox would eventually make some pretty decent games on GameBoy Color, but all of their DMG GameBoy efforts were lackluster.
I tried asking about this on Famicom World, but nobody there knows GameBoy hacking or GameBoy GameGenie code creation.
If it helps at all, here's a list of GameGenie codes for Megaman 2 GB:
http://gameboygamegeniecodes.blogspot.c ... -ii-u.html
If you examined the GBS sound rip you might get a better idea of how the sound engine works and be able to disable or ignore commands to play music tracks. You'll definitely need some assembly programming skills for the GB cpu and an emulator like BGB would help for its debugger. Maybe if you were really crafty you might be able to come up with a Game Genie patch to do it.
Yes. That's exactly what I'm seeking - someone who has assembly knowledge enough to develop an ips patch or knows GG enough to disable the music, but not the sound effects.
I'm not sure where I'd find someone with such skills if not on this forum. Anyone know somewhere else I might be able to find someone to help out with what I'm requesting?
SatoshiMatrix wrote:
I'm not sure where I'd find someone with such skills if not on this forum. Anyone know somewhere else I might be able to find someone to help out with what I'm requesting?
romhacking.net has a forum. Have you asked there? If so, can we get a link to the thread?
Be aware not everything can be accomplished using GameGenie codes, even when using combinations of codes. Someone has to reverse-engineer the audio engine and figure out if what you want is possible; once that's done, they have to figure out if one or more GG codes can be used to induce said behaviour. Just be aware it might not be possible with GG codes; a modified ROM, however, would certainly be plausible.
P.S. -- Anything involving reverse-engineering is not a "small request". Just a tip for the future :-)
This effect can and has been done for the NES Megaman games - there are GameGenie codes that exist and work that mute the BGM but keep the sound effects intact. I asked about Megaman 2 GB, and was told they don't know the GameBoy GameGenie structure.
I would be perfectly okay with a .ips patch rather than a GG code if that's easier.
SatoshiMatrix wrote:
I asked about Megaman 2 GB, and was told they don't know the GameBoy GameGenie structure.
Weird... looking up the format of GameGenie codes should be the simple part, reverse engineering the sound engine of a game should be the hard part, unless someone has already done it.
For the record, here's the NES GG codes to remove the music but not the sound effects
Megaman 1 & 2:
ATKAGASZ
Megaman 3, 4, 5 and 6:
ATVEYPXZ
http://www.devrs.com/gb/files/gg.htmlThe DMG Game Genie has almost none of the the NES's obfuscation.
I think he meant that he don't know the Game Boy hardware or game structure, not just the Game Genie.
Anyway if it's possible to do with Game Genie or not, depends on how the game's sound engine is designed. It might be totally different from the Nes Megaman games.
I'm not fixated on a GG code if the same effect can be done with rom hacking and an .ips patch.
I just need someone to take a look at the rom.
I don't know GB assembly enough to look at the ROM, but there's a possibility this could work:
get the GBS rip
get the music play routine, disassemble it to find out if it's a code stub added by the ripper (for the init it probably is, so get the real address from this code)
replace all the calls to that address with NOPs
If removing play doesn't work, try the same thing with the init address instead.
But if that same address initializes/plays sound effects too, or is otherwise still needed, then it's going to be significantly more complicated.
Wow, that sounds like a promising lead.
The Megaman 2 GBS file can be found here:
https://ocremix.org/chip/342and the original rom for disassembly purposes can be found through a simple google search.
Hopefully there is someone out there with the knowledge to do what you suggested with these files. Disassembly is far beyond me.