Unreleased Sunsoft NES Game: SUNMAN

[TheRedEye]

Lost Levels (http://www.lostlevels.org) loves you. But I don't.

GRATE!

[Bratwurst]

Hey, this is actually pretty good. Better than California Raisins was, at least. I couldn't play any further than the point where you're supposed to rapidly tap the buttons to drill down in the cave, my thumb just can't handle that without a turbo option. :P

Thanks!

[hades]

Most excellent. Thanks Lostlevels.

[Oobgarm]

Wow, this is sweet.

TheRedEye = nice person.

[TheRedEye]

Any thoughts on the Superman conspiracy?

Also, Sunman is not to be confused with Superhero Sunman (http://www.superherosunman.com/).

[Bratwurst]

Any thoughts on the Superman conspiracy?

Also, Sunman is not to be confused with Superhero Sunman (http://www.superherosunman.com/).

What's there to expound upon that already hasn't been? The flight, laser eyes and general aesthetics convince me enough. The guy running and 'splitting' into Sunman at the start of each level is a shoe-in for Clark Kent. Enough of these elements persist that if Sunman were released as a spoof (or knockoff) instead DC would have enough reason to sue Sunsoft over it.

[Raccoon Lad]

Graphically speaking, I'm not sure if they could have made Sunman into Superman. Sunman has 3 colors; flesh/highlight, red, dark red. Superman would need flesh, red, blue, and probably another color to keep him from looking too flat. So unless there's pallettes that are always used by enemies, or perhaps one that's unused that could provide the extra colors needed to make a decent looking superman sprite, superman would look really flat.

I guess you could check the pallette usage, and if there's pallettes that have flesh,red, black/ flesh, blue, black or perhaps flesh, red, dark red/ flesh, blue, dark blue always available throughout the game, then it would definitely support the Superman theory.

[TheRedEye]

Now that's the kinda thinking I want to see! I'll get a tech guy on that.

[Bratwurst]

New colors could easily be hacked in (and even replace colors used by other elements, enemies, objects that shared the palette of Sunman) as an afterthought. If I could do it with a hex editor today there's no doubt a Sunsoft coder could do the same.. as for the need of a fourth color, that could be done with an additional sprite overlay in some points (like the flesh bits, look at Megaman, his face and body are seperate sprite sets) or just simply keep the 3 color rule and edit the graphics a little. Gremlins 2 from Sunsoft has the main player character a 3 color (really 4 color, one transparent) set. So does Batman.

[Raccoon Lad]

Even so, if the original Superman sprite used a secondary pallette to get it's extra colors, due to there being only 4 sprite pallettes avaliable at any given time, it's likely that Superman's second pallette was shared by an enemy or powerup or something, and even after changing Superman into Sunman, the pallette was left alone.

[TheRedEye]

If either of you guys know how/want to check that out, don't let me stop you. I'm really not sure how.

[Bratwurst]

I was more under the impression Sunman was made with the intent to convert it into Superman if the deal went through.

I'll take a look at its tile set for any possible hidden Superman logos though.

[Raccoon Lad]

I'm pretty sure Nesticle (if it supports this ROM), can show tiles and pallettes.

[Bratwurst]

I used Tile Layer Pro.. it lets you shape up a grid so it displays the information in an order as it might appear in the game. Here's the helicopter, for example:

http://www.angelfire.com/apes/madmeat/tiles.txt

I didn't see any really identifying Superman stuff though.

[TheRedEye]

Yeah, I looked in Tile Layer Pro a longass time ago. I think I searched for the word "Super" using Chris Covell's byte-shifting program too, and didn't find anything. Nesticle is a fine idea. I haven't had that program in about four years, should be fun to go back and laugh at it.

[ManekiNeko]

I use Translhexion and ShowGFX for all my text-findin', ROM-hackin' needs. If the word "Super" is at all hidden in the game ROM Translhexion should be able to locate it.
As for Sunman's relationship with Superman, it wouldn't be a huge surprise, considering that the publicly released Journey to Silius was once intended as a game based on the film Terminator.

JR

[oesiii]

Thanks for releasing the game, now someone has to hack it and give that poor Sunman a gun, a whip, or something. Those fists are puny :(

[Ed Oscuro]

Awesome game, actually. I'd love to get a copy for me library of NES games, even though that won't happen.

And + TheRedEye.net and Lostlevels.org to the Links page, if they're not there yet. :rocker:

[Ballz]

Nice. What took you guys so long? :P

[KlarthAilerion]

As for Sunman's relationship with Superman, it wouldn't be a huge surprise, considering that the publicly released Journey to Silius was once intended as a game based on the film Terminator.

This does bring up an interesting question. Journey to Silius was originally intended to be based on The Terminator, Sunman may have been intended to be based on Superman... so, what other Sunsoft games (released and unreleased) may have been intended to be based on big licenses like these?

[sniperCCJVQ]

Talk about and interesting unknow prototype that never being in the news anywhere. :)

The screenshoots seem to tell that was on the way to be a port from the Super man arcade game.

[Ballz]

Klarth, your avatar is fantastic.

[KlarthAilerion]

Klarth, your avatar is fantastic.

Thanks Ballz, I picked it off of the list on this very site. ;)

[Ballz]

<img src=http://www.newgrounds.com/ads/adult/fairy_bounce07.gif>

I like brunettes better.

[pimpbot1976]

I like real women. ;)

[MarioAllStar2600]

I thought that game was pretty fun. Decently hard to.