Hacks & Homebrew 💻

A knight is trying to shake off the soldiers behind him. Yuna is calling for her mother, and the queen is trying to keep her calm. That flying chase is one of the first scenes you can now follow in English in Albert Odyssey 2: Jashin no Taidou (Sign of the Devil). Sunsoft released this tactical RPG for the Super Famicom in Japan on December 22, 1994. Originally titled アルバートオデッセイ2 邪神の胎動, it… Read more

A passenger ship crashes by an apartment building, and 50 aliens scatter. You arrive with a camera, but the passengers are invisible. In UFO: A Day in the Life, you choose a room and an hour, watch the residents go about their day, and take a picture when something seems off. Back aboard the UFO, Mother examines the photo to see who you caught. Love-de-Lic built the search around a full day… Read more

Shingo Yabuki has been practicing Kyo’s moves. When he finally asks Kyo to take him on as a pupil, you can tell him to get lost. Shingo, naturally, refuses to go anywhere. That exchange tells you more about The King of Fighters: Kyo than a screenshot of its life bars ever could. SNK released this PlayStation spin-off in Japan in 1998, and it never received an official U.S. release. You play as… Read more

The train pulls into a mountain village, and Grandpa is supposed to be waiting outside. First you have to find your ticket. Then you have to find Grandpa. By the time you meet a girl in a purple yukata near the river, your first summer trip on your own has already gone a little sideways. Famicom Bunko: Hajimari no Mori is a storybook adventure built around looking, talking, and deciding where to… Read more

Asako and Mayuko come to carry some records. There’s a stone figure in the room, and Mayuko thinks it looks almost alive. She’s right. Soon Ushio has his spear pointed at the Stone Eater, and Tora is complaining that the statue is trying to eat someone he called dibs on. That argument is one of the scenes you can now follow in English in Ushio to Tora, Yutaka’s 1993 Super Famicom action… Read more

The sailors on the Titanic already think something’s off about your group. They have a point. In Gainax’s 1998 PlayStation adventure Silent Möbius: Case: Titanic, Katsumi and the A.M.P. investigate the ship deck by deck. The grand old liner looks familiar until you see the red moon hanging over it. It’s an adventure game about talking to people and poking around the ship. You move from room to room through menus, and… Read more

Snow covers the mountains, but down in the valley it’s warm enough for spring. The villagers say a golden statue keeps the cold away. There’s a dragon nearby, and it has plans for the statue. That’s one of ten adventures Sega created for the 1990 Mega Drive version of Sorcerian, Falcom’s side-scrolling action RPG. You start in Pentawa, where you can build a party of up to four and visit the shops… Read more

Beat Larry at the end of Outrageous and Shade Man steps in for the next fight. Get through him and Noise Crush is yours. Mega Man in Super Mario World is available as a public beta, created by dmb062082 of Retro-Replay.com. Watch the trailer, grab the patch, and let me know how it plays. Download the beta and open the browser patcher · Report bugs in the tester thread You will recognize… Read more

I was trying to upload a homebrew game to ROMhacking.net. As best I remember, I submitted it as a ROM hack by mistake. My account was banned, and more than a decade of comments, reviews, and other contributions I'd made disappeared from view. I spoke with two or three admins and pleaded to come back. Picture me, a 43-year-old man, begging to get back into a ROM hacking website. Anyone who knows… Read more

Colorful villages, expressive character portraits, and gold trim absolutely everywhere. Vain Dream II is the kind of JRPG that makes you wonder how it passed you by. Unless you've explored the FM Towns library, there's a good chance you've never played it, or even heard its name. Now you can meet Warlick, hear Rauny's warning about enormous crows, and discover it for yourself: Retro Replay's English translation alpha is available! Alpha 0.4… Read more

Kat is searching a haunted mansion for her father, and a little ghost is watching her. That early photo scene in the Japanese Casper now has an English caption, along with the introduction and other picture-based scenes left unfinished in tashi's translation. Our Casper English Translation Continuation is available now as version 1.0-beta1. This is the 1997 Japanese Super Famicom adventure, a different game from the Casper released in North America in… Read more

Mario walks across Peach’s checkerboard floor, heads outside and wanders into Bob-omb Battlefield. Familiar enough, until you remember this is supposed to be an Atari Jaguar. Developer Budfolk has rebuilt parts of Super Mario 64 for Atari’s console, using what he describes as a new engine written from scratch in assembly. It looks rough in places, but seeing that castle on a Jaguar is a fine reason to stop scrolling. Four areas… Read more

Legendary Wings NES to PC Beta 1 is available now. This first public Windows release brings refreshed artwork to the opening level while keeping the original game presentation a keypress away. The project comes from dmb062082, modded by retro-replay.com. Visit the Legendary Wings NES to PC GitHub repository for the project, instructions and feedback. You can also download the Windows Beta 1 release here. You will need to supply your own compatible,… Read more

Christmas dinner may need to make room for a few grudge matches this year. Super Mario Kart Deluxe is targeting December 25, 2026, bringing a huge fan-made expansion to the SNES racer that started it all. For anyone who spent afternoons trading shells, missing shortcuts, and demanding one more race, this is a very tempting reason to pick up the controller again. The date appears in the new teaser shared by ScouBsmk… Read more

Retro Replay: Pixel Panic has officially made the jump from the Nintendo Entertainment System to the Sega Genesis, and this new 16-bit version is a much bigger, louder, faster, and more complete version of the original homebrew idea. What started as a small NES homebrew experiment has now grown into a full Sega Genesis homebrew release with 50 unique levels, new sprites, updated gameplay ideas, new sound effects, music, breakable walls, bombs,… Read more

Retro Replay: Pixel Panic is now playable as a work-in-progress Nintendo Entertainment System homebrew release. Built from Shiru’s open-source Chase demo, the project has grown into a fast-paced arcade maze game starring the Retro Replay skull mascot in a chaotic digital world filled with enemies, glowing pickups, power-ups, and score-chasing action. Heads up: this game has been ported to the Sega Genesis and that is where I update the game. In Retro… Read more

What if Super Mario Kart got the sequel we always dreamed of on the SNES? Horizons delivers 20 new tracks, new music, and pure nostalgia. From grassy plains to abandoned mines, Super Mario Kart – Horizons takes the SNES classic to new places. It feels like Mario Kart 2.0… and you can play it today! Super Mario Kart – Horizons: The Romhack That Feels Like a True Sequel. Watch the video or… Read more

When people talk about the greatest ROM hacks ever made, Super Mario Bros. 3Mix almost always comes up. Created by Southbird, this hack was more than just a simple remix of Nintendo’s NES classic... it became a sprawling tribute to Mario’s entire history. 3Mix included new mechanics like gravity flips, Yoshi integration, secret star coins, alternate exits, and even bosses and themes inspired by later entries such as Super Mario World and… Read more

The Super Mario World hacking scene is filled with passion projects, but few creators have managed to balance accessibility, creativity, and ambition quite like xMANGRAVYx, the driving force behind LetsTalkGames. I first came across his work through Castlemania II, a gothic and atmospheric sequel that brought Castlevania inspired storytelling into the Mario universe. That game opened my eyes to how far a ROM hack could push the SMW engine. The final boss… Read more

When it comes to ambitious ROM hacks, few projects can match the scale and polish of Super Mario Bros. 3Mix, created by the talented developer Southbird. Released more than a decade ago (2014), 3Mix is not simply a reworking of Super Mario Bros. 3 but a complete overhaul that pays tribute to Mario’s past, present, and even future. The hack introduces new mechanics, new worlds, and a staggering amount of secrets while… Read more

Pacnsac Games, the prolific ROM hacker known as pacnsacdave, has built a name for transforming beloved NES titles into something wholly new while staying true to the spirit of retro gaming. In March 2020 he released The Crow, a complete hack of Sunsoft’s Batman: The Video Game. Rather than a simple cosmetic swap, this project reimagines the 1994 cult film starring Brandon Lee as if it had received its own 8 bit… Read more

The ROM hacking community has produced countless creative projects, but few figures are as consistent and ambitious as pacnsacdave of Pacnsac Games. His library of NES hacks and homebrews stretches across genres, often transforming familiar titles into something entirely new. Dave has done A LOT! I first encountered his work through Mr. Gimmick 2, a fan-made sequel to Sunsoft’s cult platformer. You can read my full review of the game here, where… Read more

A Tribute to Mario’s Origins with a Twist Super Mario Bros. For Lost Players is a standout ROM hack of Super Mario World that reimagines the platforming roots of Nintendo’s mascot while injecting fresh ideas, unexpected mechanics, and nostalgic homages. Developed by Adam, Truxton, beasteye89, lolyoshi, and rextep, the project debuted in 2021 as part of the SMW Central Hackjam contest. What started as a so-called “terrible experiment,” according to its creator,… Read more

The ROM hacking community has a new standout release to celebrate with Celeste Mario’s Zap & Dash DELUXE!, an ambitious NES hack that fuses the familiar platforming of Super Mario Bros. with the style and challenge of Celeste. Created by the legendary developer w7n, this project is more than a simple modification. It expands the original Celeste Mario hack with eleven brand new mini games, a heartfelt farewell course, upgraded graphics, and… Read more

For decades, the cult following of Nintendo’s quirky RPG series has kept alive the dream of seeing the original Mother (localized as EarthBound Beginnings) fully reimagined for modern audiences. That dream has not only survived but evolved into one of the most ambitious ROM hack projects ever attempted: a complete rebuild of Mother inside the EarthBound engine. What started as a scattered dream among individual fans has now matured into a coordinated,… Read more