 S.U.E.N.! That's drunk! Hello, as I continue to look at ROM hacks and improvement patches for Super Nintendo games, I also want to keep tabs on what NES ROM hacks are out there. And there are some damn good ones. I've already covered stuff like Castlevania Holy Relics, Super Mario Bros. 3 mix, Rockman 4 minus Infinity, and a to-player hack for DuckTales II, just to name a few. Here's ten more that are well worth checking out, starting with... Kirby's Halloween Adventure, made by Kerbstar. This is a hack of Kirby's Adventure, which in my opinion is a top 5 game on the NES. And this hack is a great example of why I seek these games out and do these videos. Here we've got tons of new enemy sprites, modified mini bosses, 6 brand new level tile sets, so there's all sorts of new settings, and some great level design that complements the original game really well. Plus, I really dig the Halloween motif for Kirby. I don't keep up with modern Kirby games, but I don't remember ever seeing Kirby in a kind of scary Halloween-type setting, so I really like the vibe here, between cutesy, cuddly-looking Kirby taking on flying skulls and bonefish in weird creepy environments. This one is a great time and a solid playthrough, and you'll especially dig it come Halloween time. It wouldn't be a proper video about ROM hacks without at least one Mario hack, and Super Mario Ultimate is one of the best Mario 3 hacks out there. This one has 8 new worlds, over 90 new levels, new enemies, a save function, as well as some new graphics. This one does a really nice job starting out easy and approachable, but the levels gradually get more complex, like how this Lakitu here tosses out these indestructible bowling ball things that are essentially bouncing blocks you can use to reach certain places. Bear in mind, this one does get comically difficult toward the end, but still, there is a lot of good ideas here, and it does a great job keeping the Mario 3 vibe, so to speak, so kudos to Silas for making this one. There's also plenty of hacks out there for Super Mario Bros. 2, and this one is just plain odd. Each of the four Mario universe characters have been switched out for members of the Beatles. Yes, that's right, it's Beatles Adventures in Pepperland, and it's loosely based on the film Yellow Submarine, featuring Paul, John, George, and Ringo, all as playable characters, all wearing their Sergeant Pepper Lonely Hearts Club band uniforms. This isn't just a sprite swap, though. This is an entirely new playthrough with new levels and everything. You even fight blue meanies. I get a huge kick out of this one. It's incredible to me how accurate they made the sprites. I mean, that is totally George Harrison in 8-bit NES form, something I never thought I'd see, thanks to NESDRAG for this one. Let's move on to Zelda. Here's one for the original Legend of Zelda called Perils of Darkness, made by the three dude. This guy has made a bunch of Zelda hacks in the past. You may have heard of Link's Shadow or Trial of Courage, but this one is arguably the best, because it's one of the most refined hacks you'll find for any game. It's all new dungeons, and you can complete them in any order, and the clues to find them are all intuitively laid out in a clever way that I really dig. There's even a second quest here after you complete the first nine dungeons, which makes the game a bit tougher, so that's really cool. If you're a fan of the original Zelda, you'd do well to check this one out. Zelda 2 also has a good number of hacks. This one is called End of Day, made by Skyflare. If you'd rather play a hack that's true to the original game, this one is your cup of tea. There's new town and dungeon layouts, but they're all true to the original, and done in a consistent way that feels familiar. It's got the same mechanics and feel of the controls, the same graphics and music, just with new dungeons and puzzles and all that. Yes, this hack can be difficult, but that's on par with the original game in my opinion. There are a couple spots where you have to jump while ducking, which I admit can be a pain, but there are at least plenty of fairies you can come across, so you do get a little bit of a reprieve from all the random battles. I've really come to like Zelda 2 over the years, and how every fight with an enemy is its own little one-on-one battle, almost like a fighting game, so if you're just looking for more as Zelda 2, then you've got to play this one. It would have been pretty cool if comic book heroes like Deadpool had gotten their own NES game back in the day, but to make up for lost time and missed opportunities, Techmoon led a team effort to create a refitted version of Ninja Gaiden that replaces Ryu Hayabusa with Wade Wilson. No, not that Wade Wilson. This is one of those hacks that's pretty much an entirely new game, and it's just using Ninja Gaiden as a foundation, so to speak. And yes, there's even cutscenes here done Ninja Gaiden style, which is really cool. There's a ton of improvements to the Ninja Gaiden core as well, like parallax scrolling, animated backgrounds, as well as more stages, enemies, and weapons. There are some truly overpowered special weapons in this one that make it really fun to just crank through enemies without too much trouble, and that goes a long way in helping curb the difficulty a bit. This one is as close to a quote-unquote new NES game as a ROMHack can get. It's great. Of course, Mega Man has a ton of ROM hacks too, specifically Mega Man 2, or more specifically, Rockman 2. That's the ROM you'll need to make this one work. It's called Rockman No Constancy made by IKA. This is one that's been around for many, many years, and again, this is essentially a new game made with new level layouts, graphics, and music and such, but it's been refined over the years to include a hard mode, and that's where this one really shines. The regular difficulty in this hack is perfect for players at all skill levels, although I admit it's probably too easy if you're overly familiar with NES Mega Man games. The hard mode that was added in 2019 just barely toes the line between challenging and frustrating. It's balanced really well. I love when hacks have varying degrees of difficulty like this. It allows you to see the entire hack, and once you get your feet wet, you can crank up the challenge and really dive into it. It's a great time. Alright, I've got a confession to make. A few years ago, I did a video about the game Mother, otherwise known as Earthbound Beginnings or Earthbound Zero, and while I had a generally favorable impression of the game, it kind of broke me a little bit. It's so freaking grind heavy to the point that it's made me extremely wary of getting into another NES RPG. Well, here we've got the 25th anniversary edition patch made by Dragon Dip Platino, and it goes a long way toward making in Mother a much more digestible game by today's standards. The overworld has been adjusted, so battles are way less repetitive, and the map has been reshaped a bit so you don't get lost as easily. Everything has also been rebalanced, so you get slightly more experience points for enemies you defeat, so there's less incentive to grind in addition to dialing back the encounter rate. Really, in my opinion, this is by far the best way to play this game today, especially since it works in an English translation patch from the GBA version of this game that's been adapted for the NES. Let's get into some games that are slightly off people's radar when it comes to ROM hacks like Adventure Island 3. This was made by Aether Knight, and it's another one that's been around for years. It was originally made back in 2008, but it's been refined a bit since. This is another quote-unquote classic ROM hack if that can be such a thing, and it doesn't create any new graphics or new enemies or anything. It's just more Adventure Island 3, with alterations being made to each of the eight levels in eight worlds with only a couple exceptions. What's kind of cool about this one is that every level can be beat without using any power-ups, not that you wouldn't want to, but it's just a nice way to control the difficulty yourself without needing to adhere to any other requirements that the game throws at you. I've always liked the Adventure Island series, so I appreciated the work done on this hack. Finally, there's Guardian Legend, which in my opinion is a top 20 game on the NES, and this is Secret Edition made by Optimon, and this one is through and through a difficulty hack. If you're one of those people out there that's put a million hours into Guardian Legend, then this hack is for you. There's completely new maps, new boss fights, and even a brand new final boss fight, but otherwise this is very much like the original Guardian Legend, just a much, much tougher challenge. You sometimes get mini bosses that just show up to ruin your day, but thankfully you can find some really powerful weapons in this one even early on in the game, which helps balance things out a bit. As much as I like seeing hacks for stuff like Mario, Zelda, Mega Man, and whatever, getting to play hacks like this for slightly lesser known games like Guardian Legend is always such a welcome experience. Alright, I want to thank you for watching and I hope you have a great rest of your day.