Best fan games or community mods that are full games.

video games
63

I've got N64 Zelda brain at the moment and remembered this great romhack from 2020 called Legend of Zelda: The Missing Link. It “aims to fill the gap between the end of Ocarina of Time and the beginning of Majoras Mask.”

[URL=https://i.imgur.com/TCXAHyq.jpeg][IMG]https://i.imgur.com/TCXAHyq.jpeg[/IMG][/URL]

It's a quickie, at around 2-3 hours — there are optional heart piece challenges, too.

The locations are imaginative and well-designed (one in particular might be a favorite in an N64 zelda game) and the soundtrack is spot on in matching the tones of the originals (I like these darker ones: [Deep Woods Theme](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1O325yxobIg&list=PL7QkNhOljf6_jwZek_1TEqaxJVsOP-BZF&index=3) & [Hollow Root Keep Theme](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAqkFDmElbY&list=PL7QkNhOljf6_jwZek_1TEqaxJVsOP-BZF&index=12)). There is even a custom-coded final boss, which is pretty impressive

The release trailer does a great job of setting the mood without spoiling any of the best moments.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNmlYJ5bpl8

1 Like
64

Pokemon hacks have been around as long as romhacking itself, practically. Some of the oldest romhacks I know are Pokemon games.
Usually, over the years in my experience I found a lot of hacks to be not worth my time, aside for ones that preserve the originally intended game experience but add on to it or do very specific things I enjoy. Like Pokemon Crystal Clear, Pokemon Roaming Red, etc.

But in recent years, there have been more and more good ones. Original concepts that have decent writing. Pokemon Coral was the first hack I played that felt high quality enough and true to the original tone of the gen1/2 games.

Then even more recently, there’s been huge developments in reverse engineering generation 3 pokemon games, even decompiling them I think.

This month, I’ve been playing FireRed: Rocket Edition
. It not only delivers the wish fulfillment of playing as your own Team Rocket character, stealing pokemon, with a morality system, but also has great writing. There are one or two things that irked me, but they are very minimal, and do nothing to minimize the fact that right off the top this game made me feel something.

I’ve been meaning to post this for a while. I forgot what thread there was for fan games.
Then today I saw this:

Looks gorgeous.

@safety_lite I gave the missing link a few good hours on my N64, but I couldn’t make much progress, never found a single NPC, even. maybe my version was bugged, or the puzzles just don’t click for me. Still, I think these first big fan games for OoT/Majora’s Mask were really cool and mostly tastefully done, but now that the games have been decompiled, the lid has been blown off, and the floodgates are open, and I’m waiting to see which ones really hit the spot for me.

I think there’s a lot to say about fangames coming out lately. Time to remind everyone this thread exists, and I’ll keep posting here as I find more.

5 Likes
65

I don’t have the time to find proper links but pokemon gba romhacking is so sophisticated now

my favorite hacks of recent memory are probably pokemblem, a romhack of fire emblem gba that turns the entire pokemon fire red map into a fire emblem game. incredible for fans and newcomers to either series really

another romhack i havent played but really want to that i learned of recently is pokemon pure pink which is a very specific (unfinished?) girl game twist on pokemon

2 Likes
66

This team is doing exiting stuff with melee, seems tasteful/ period appropriate, like adding e-reader connectivity:
https://x.com/teamakaneia/status/1907040421286478001?s=46&t=D5GbJtFgfALc-jfy7HgyTA

1 Like