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Shmup Veteran
This hack improves the colors for the game as well as expands on them - showing detail that was hidden in the game.
Originally, the tile/sprite cells had additional colors that went unused because the palette color entries simply were duplicated in numerous sub-palettes. Some of the colors outright looked incorrect (like a machine translation or build script error) - so this patch attempts to interpret the gradients used and fill in the missing colors and correct the end-target gradient.
No tile or sprite cell graphic data was altered - this is palette only. This put a limitation for what could actually be changed - some tiles shared sub-palettes, so a complete overhaul was not possible without also updating the graphic cells (which this hack does not do).
Additionally, this hack also opens up vertical field-of-view to show more of the stage layout; there is the full 224p view mode which removes all vertical scrolling but requires an emulator or CRT that can show a 240p signal, and alternatively there are also 208px and 216px patches available which have slight vertical scrolling. I’ve included a patch for the original height (197px) which has the most vertical scrolling.. for purists, but it’s not recommended as you can’t fully appreciate the new color improvements in stages like the graveyard and mountain-valley levels. If playing a full-view patched game on an emulator such as MesenCE, GearGrafx, and Mednafen - they can be configured to show the full 240p output.
A tools repo was created for generating your own patched roms, as well as creating your own palette color edits: https://github.com/Turboxray/Parodius_tools
ROM / ISO Information:
- The patches all require a headerless PC-Engine rom of "Parodius Da".