Emulation hacking

[raziel78]

Anyone ever messed with emu hacking? I'm interested to share info on different games and what different memory hacks do to them.. (I've found a lot of...interesting...things you can do with the Legend of Zelda, for NES)

(For those not familiar with the term, I mean using an emulator's cheat function to fiddle around with a game's memory locations.. anything from cheating to making really bizzare (and sometimes really cool) gameplay effects.)

[zektor]

I never really messed with memory allocations to change around the games. I never really even used a game genie on a real console! I'd be interested to mess around with this however emulation wise. Post what you have found...sounds interesting...

[raziel78]

Welp, here goes.. Most all my fooling around has been with Legend of Zelda for NES.. and I use FCE Ultra for my emulator, cuz it's got pretty easy memory editing. Here's a bit of what I found with memory locations in Zelda:

0x0656 Current Item assigned to "B" (0 = boomerang, 1 = bombs, 2 = bow/arrow, etc.)
0x0657 Sword type (0 = none, 1 = wood, 2 = white, 3 = Master)
0x0658 Bombs (0 = No bombs/not in inventory, otherwise MAX BOMBS. (legal in game, 8, 12, 16)
0x0659 Arrow Type (0 = Haven't bought Arrow, 1 = Wood arrow, 2 = Silver arrow)
0x065A Bow (0 = No, 1 = Yes)
0x065B Candle (0 = No candle, 1 = Blue, 2 = Red)
0x065C Flute (0 = No, 1 = Yes)
0x065D Bait (0 = No, 1 = Yes)
0x065E Potion (0 = No potion, 1 = Blue, 2 = Red (You can set higher; colors get REAL f*cked up - whatever you set is how many uses.)
0x065F Wand (0 = No, 1 = Yes)
0x0660 Raft (0 = No, 1 = Yes)
0x0661 Magic Book (0 = No, 1 = Yes)
0x0662 Ring (0 = No Ring, 1 = Blue Ring, 2 = Red Ring. (VAL is bit-position of defense. 1 = 2 hits, 2 = 4 hits, 3 = 8 hits, 4 = 16 hits, et al.)
0x0663 Ladder (0 = No, 1 = Yes)
0x0664 Magic Key (0 = No, 1 = Yes)
0x0665 Power Bracelet (0 = No, 1 = Yes)

Odd thing. I haven't found the memory register for the Boomerang or the 8 triforce pieces yet.. go figure.
Odd thing 2: Sword values are -weird-. The value must be a bit position to increase strength, otherwise it decreases.
(ex. 1, 2, (3), 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, et al. 3 (Magic sword) seems to be the special case.)
A sword value of 4 would be stronger than the magic sword, but 5 would be weaker (FAR weaker, ie, 8 hits to kill an enemy that would normally take 1 wooden sword whack.)
Odd thing 3: Ring values. to calculate defense, use the following: 2^VAL = number of hits you can take to decrease 1/2 heart. (Normal damage) ex. at 4, it takes 2^4, or 16 whacks.

WAY odd thing: At funky values, your sword changes color.. in dungeons it's grey!

I've used the memory locations for cheating in some games that i discovered I lost my touch on.. (Batman being one), but haven't really done much beyond that..

Anyone else have emu hacking stuff to share?

[Jorpho]

As I recall, some old Zelda carts (probably with decaying batteries) can mess themselves up like that all by themselves...

I really only think this sort of thing is useful or interesting if programmers have left stuff behind in the cart, like in Sonic the Hedgehog 2 or Earthbound.
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[kainemaxwell]

What was left in Sonic 2 and Earthbound then?

[Jorpho]

Actually, those are rather bad examples... Sonic 2 has a few leftovers from the levels that were in the Beta version but were taken out, and Earthbound has a debug menu of sorts.

Final Fantasy VII's debug room is much more interesting, now that I think about it.
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