Satellablog

Luigiblood has been posting these pictures over on #snesfreaks, which show his progression on BS-X Project. Discoveries have been rapid-pace since yesterday.

Nice Boat

This NPC is Dr. Hiroshi, or so it seems.

He sells the shoes!

Nothing’s on the schedule here, but…

Hey, I recognize this screen!
I’ve seen it in this video!

When you download nothing, you delete nothing… doesn’t normally work like this, though.

… this is just plain impossible.

Font changing time!

“For today’s schedule, we have NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNn broadcasting from 9:50 AM to 2:19 PM.”… wait, what?

It’s alive…
IT’S ALIVE! Mwahahahhahahahahaha!

Just to let everyone know that there’s still more to find!

This is all being discussed in the BS Zelda forums.

Expect to see all these and more when the next BS-X Project release is available!

Now, this… THIS I was almost certain I’d NEVER see.
So soon after the previous one, too! This HAS to be here!

BS-X Project is on a roll!

Apologies for the lack of updates! I’ve been swamped with all sorts of different activity going on lately.

I’ll be sure to set up a good amount of updates in a bit! In the meantime, while I was slacking off, Luigiblood accomplished something big;

If you’re wondering why “Disabling the music” is big, then I’ll explain it better: Soundlink Mode. Perhaps soon we’ll be seeing music stream into this!

It’s been a long time since there was a major update in terms of BS Zelda ROM hacking, but over the past few weeks Mottzilla – with the help of my bugtesting abilities – has come out with a highly impressive new version of his “BSZ-Lite”, a BS Zelda hack tailored to those who want to play the game on real hardware, with their Powerpaks, or, in my case, that Neo Myth SFC cart Matthew Callis just gave me a few days back.

Since I don’t normally go out of my way to talk about small updates on The BS Zelda Homepage on the blog, you may be wondering, “What’s so special about this release?”

And so, I’ll tell you!

A new save menu was written, from the ground up, along with new saving code. Both of which were done to make real-hardware operation more accessible.

A 3-character selection screen allows a playable Link without need for an extra patch.

Ohhh, here’s a doozy! Both Map 1 and Map 2 have been combined into a single ROM! It’s almost like having 2 ROM hacks in 1!

The gameplay’s been modified from Mottzilla’s previous release to play more in the style of the “Restoration Project” ROM Hack, with the 4-episode format in the style of the original broadcasts.

And did I mention that I bugtested this? This right here is what I did to all the nasty bugs from all the older BS Zelda hacks! Mwahaha!… Eh-hem. Well, actually, there’s still a few minor things here and there, as the discussion thread over at the BS Zelda forums mentions. Nothing game-breaking, though.

Mottzilla has uploaded the latest version, v.81 here.

And since I know many a Megaupload hater, here’s a mirror right on my webspace!

The .zip file contains the complete v.81 hack.

EDIT: A note about emulator-compatibility;
The ROM has been tested to run on BSNES as well as SNES9X 1.53 (and the GTK version for Linux). It will -not- run on the current ZSNES release, and so I’ve heard, not SNES9X 1.51 either.
Mottzilla will probably not make emulator-specific fixes, so I do suggest updating your SNES9X version to play this.

So, the past few days on #serioushax @ Caffienet on IRC, I’ve been talking to Seru-kun for a bit. He was interested in making a Satellaview homebrew app, and was asking me for help. Typical of me, I had to have an obvious blank spot in my research somewhere, so I wasn’t as helpful as I could’ve been… but eventually he got something out!

“Hello Satellaview!”

The ROM can be downloaded here

This app is most notable for, besides the fact that it’s the first homebrew Satellaview app I’ve seen, filling in info on a blank spot in the Satellaview Header Data that I didn’t know of before. Check the section on “Pointers”. Yes, I kinda didn’t know that before. Seru-kun eventually figured it out on his own. Rather embarrassing. D:

The ROM boots on BSNES. Kinda doubt there’s a way to test it on a actual BS-X cartridge at the moment, and there may not be as long as the only methods would involve destroying old packs… but hey, a man can dream, yes?

In the meantime, Seru-kun and I are talking about the potential benefits and limitations of working homebrew on Satellaview. He may soon release yet another homebrew app that uses the Satellaview-specific registers to some degree. And maybe this time I won’t be missing important information…. nah, I probably will. pft.