 else. Hello let's take a look at some more NES ROM hacks that are out there and this time around I want to start working in some improvement patches here and there. Just a reminder ROM hacks create what is essentially an entirely new game while improvement patches just add tweaks to a game while keeping the core gameplay in tact. As a quick refresher, in past videos i've looked at stuff like the Beatles Adventures in Pepperland which is a hack of Super Mario Bros. 2 where you play as each member of the Beatles, as well as stuff like Deadpool, a Ninja Gaiden rom-hack where you play as Deadpool. And I've even covered hacks for games like Guardian Legend and Adventure Island 3, so check out the first two videos in this series if you're curious about those. I'll start by talking about some improvement patches, most notably for Castlevania and Ninja Gaiden. Here are a couple patches that replace the life counter in each game with a death counter, both patches being made by Binary Nova. You get unlimited lives and you start the game with zero deaths, with the idea being to see how few deaths you need to complete the game. These are excellent resources to practice and get better at both of these games without having to bother with save states or trudging your way through the original games. And both Castlevania and Ninja Gaiden are perfect picks to get this sort of treatment, because even all these years later, they're still comically difficult. But at least there's patches like this that help you practice and deal with some of that old NES difficulty. Here's a patch for a bit of a lesser-known game. It's for Battle of Olympus, a side-scrolling adventure game similar to Zelda II. It's a pretty good game, but it definitely shows its age in a few very annoying ways. But this SRAM patch, made by 8-bit fan, really does a lot to add some polish, and to make this one that much more player-friendly. It adds a save function, so the game will save any time you speak to a god, and then pressing start on the password screen will load your save. Also, what's arguably the biggest problem with this game has been addressed, and that's the grinding. Normally, you have to fight the same enemies over and over to get olives, so you can buy stuff, but this patch rebalances everything, so the olive drops are increased, and you only lose one eighth of your olives when you die, instead of half of them. There's also some various updates to the text, so things are a little more coherent. This is one of those patches where, if you want to play Battle of Olympus for NES today, you should really do it with this patch. It really improves the experience tenfold. One more patch I want to point out is for Konami's Adventures of Bayou Billy, a rare misfire from them. It's a neat idea for a game, but it's just stupid hard, to the point that it's up there with games like Silver Surfer as one of the most impossible games on the NES. This patch, made by DVDTranslations, makes a ton of changes and additions to help make this one a more palatable and more fun experience. There's a password system so you can save your progress if you want to play all the way through from the beginning, but there's also level select and stage select options. Just press left or right on the D-pad at the title screen, and you'll be able to play through any level you'd like. You also get infinite continues, as well as the ability to use the practice round bonuses you can earn any time you want, and that really goes a long way making this game not so impossible. Alright, let's get into some ROM hacks. This one is for Contra called Red Falcon War, made by Aztar, which is based on another ROM hack titled Revenge of the Red Falcon. Only Red Falcon War is a lot longer and a lot tougher. The same level themes are all present here. You start out in the jungle, and then go to an over-the-shoulder perspective a bit, then you climb the waterfall, and so forth. But the levels have been redesigned, and the items and enemy placements have been rearranged. The boss fights are all pretty much the same, but jeez, Louise, if you're looking for a bit of an extra challenge when it comes to Contra, you gotta play this one. The difficulty is not too cheap. It's balanced just well enough for it to be frustrating, but still doable. This is one of those patches that honestly feels like DLC for an 8-bit game, so it's really cool to play through this one. Next, we've got a hack for Super Pitfall, made by NES Rocks, and hold your laughter because this hack actually makes the game worth playing. It's called Super Pitfall 30th Anniversary Edition, and it takes almost everything wrong with the original game, and there's a lot, and it fixes it one way or another. There's new graphics, new music, new menu screens, no more annoying hidden items, the warps are actual doors, the controls are refined a bit, and it has a save function. I'm only guessing here, but I get the feeling that the person who made this hack had this game as a kid, and they found the experience so bad that it drove them insane to the point that they had to learn the skills to make this game better. I have no way of actually knowing that, but it's fun to imagine. I always love seeing hacks for games like this, because they're so unexpected, and yeah, it goes without saying that if you play Super Pitfall today, you should play the 30th Anniversary Edition hack instead. Here's a fun one for DuckTales2. It's a hack that supports two-player simultaneous co-op, made by Ty, with the second player being Darkwing Duck. How cool is that? The Darkwing Duck NES game doesn't get nearly enough love, in my opinion, so it's cool to see the character exist in the DuckTales universe, so to speak. Lots of other stuff was fixed with this patch, too, like some of the slowdown being remedied. Darkwing even has his own Pogo Cane bounce like Scrooge, although I guess it's more of just a standard jump, but yeah. Normally, with two-player co-op games like this on NES, you get tons of flickering and slowdown, and that's minimized here, which is really cool. So the game plays surprisingly smoothly. What's interesting is that you can wander around as Scrooge, and Darkwing just kind of hangs out and does his own thing off-screen. There's no tethering here, which can get a little wonky at times, but the game works great. I definitely recommend checking this one out. Earlier, I mentioned a reskin of Ninja Gaiden that allows you to play through the game as Deadpool, complete with new redesigned levels and enemies and all that, and Shadow of the Ninja also got the same treatment, with this game getting a reskin that allows you to play as Batman and Robin, called Shadows of Gotham, made by Magnus Nilsson. It's pretty dang cool, especially since the Batman character lends itself so well to this game. This hack even includes classic Batman villains for boss fights, everyone from the Joker, the Penguin, Riddler, Two-Face, Scarecrow, on and on. There's also unlimited continues here unlike Shadow of the Ninja, so you'll have a better chance of seeing the entire game, which is always nice. And again, normally with two-player co-op on NES, there tends to be a lot of flicker and slow gameplay, but here the performance is just fine. Definitely check this one out. Let's stay on that two-player co-op bent and talk about a hack for a game that was never released outside of Japan. The original game is Layla, where you play as the title character running through eight levels to rescue her friend Iris. In this ROM hack made by Supper, you actually play as Iris, alongside Layla as a second player, which is pretty dang cool. This one has all new levels, including an extra bonus level with some new graphics and music, and in some ways, it plays better than the original. This one's more of a double recommendation. First, play Layla if you haven't. It's really good, and then check out the Iris missions because it's more goodness from the first game, executed in a polished and player-friendly way. Next, here's one for Mega Man 4 or more specifically, Rock Man 4, since that's the ROM you'll have to use to get this one to work. It's called Rock Man 4 Burst Chaser X Air Sliding. Geez, all that title is missing is a versus SNK or an And Knuckles at the end. Still, this one is a blast to play, especially if you've played a ton of NES Mega Man games over the years. This is essentially just Mega Man 4 Turbo. Everything is sped up big time, which makes this game really hard, but a lot of fun once you get the hang of it. Even the boss fights are sped up. This hack combines elements from two different ROM hacks, those being the Turbo element, as well as being able to slide in mid-air, which proves extremely useful in this hack. There's also some modified level designs and new music here as well, but yeah, this one is really hard and probably not for everyone, but it's still a lot of fun to try. People sure do love their randomizers, and I can't say I blame them. They're a fun way to put a fresh spin on an older game. And finally, there's one for the original Legend of Zelda, made by Arnpoly, called Ancient Dungeon. Everything is randomized here, so every playthrough is completely different. And there's no external programs needed to scramble everything. It's all right there in the ROM itself, which is very convenient. This hack uses a lot of common sense, too. Like, for instance, some items like the raft obviously aren't going to be needed in the dungeon, so it's excluded, but some other items have additional uses, like the step ladder, which can potentially unlock even more rooms that you wouldn't be able to otherwise. This is a fun one that you can sync a lot of time into, and if you've played Legend of Zelda to death over the years, then you should definitely check this one out. Finally, let's end with a Zelda II hack called Resurrection of Ganon, made by GTM604, and this is more of a classic ROM hack, so to speak, which takes the same game mechanics and just redesigns everything to make it seem like you're playing Zelda II's second quest, if that makes sense. This one's pretty weird, though, because it's mostly story-driven. At first, the towns are all empty, and you have to track down owls and hint stones to figure out what the heck is going on and how to restore the world back to how it should be. This is one of those hacks where you do kind of have to be pretty familiar with the original game, in terms of hints and locations, so keep that in mind. But yeah, if you really like Zelda II, then you'll find this one a lot of fun. It plays like a real sequel to the original game. All right, that's all for now, and I want to thank you for watching, and I hope you have a great rest of your day.