Re:So, you want to be a ROMhacker? (2006)
by milesvp on Thursday February 25, 2021 @05:07PM
(#26268942)
Yeah, while I agree with the parent about taking the time to disassemble a rom for larger projects, I feel he may be ignoring how low a barrier to entry it is to just modify some hex values and see them effect the rom you’re playing. It used to be a common first thing budding programmers did was write trainers for games, which often amounted to little more than changing a hex value from 0x03 to 0xff. Now you have 255 lives instead of the stock 3! Very heady stuff for someone in grade school, especially if those 3 lives cost a quarter in the arcade. There are a lot of people out there with little computer chops who would get a real thrill just replacing some of the sprites in their favorite game too.
You don't need full knowledge of assembly or your target system's architecture to open a rom in a hex editor and play with some values.
The skills and tools needed to dissassemble a rom, reprogram it and recompile it are a bit more involved.
Saying, nobody should bother hacking roms unless they have the skills to dissassemble and recompile the game is going to discount a lot of the people that have brought the state of rom hacking and modification to what it is today.