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GameShark is how I first stumbled on to the internet. I was looking up "the codes". I was really upset when GameShark's UBB instance went dark. Years later, I r
by kanzure 13y ago
GameShark is how I first stumbled on to the internet. I was looking up "the codes". I was really upset when GameShark's UBB instance went dark. Years later, I returned to look at some favorites and found that I could easily use all these programming skills I've developed to directly hack games.
https://github.com/kanzure/pokecrystal https://github.com/kanzure/pokecrystal
So things like "beat the Elite Four 16,383 times" turn out to be definitely false. Also "mash A to increase the chances of catching" is also unfortunately wrong.
But at least you can just directly look at the WRAM file to see where actual values are stored:
https://github.com/kanzure/pokecrystal/blob/master/wram.asm https://github.com/kanzure/pokecrystal/blob/master/wram.asm
These can easily be converted into the old school GB/GBC gameshark codes by prepending 01, then a two-digit hex value , then a little indian (reverse) two-byte address.
So if you wanted to hack level 80 with a GameShark code you would look up and find this:
PartyMon1Level: ; dcfe
ds 1 ; just one byte
to come up with:
0150FEDC
(0x50 because 0x50 == 80)
The GameShark was a really educational device. At first I didn't know what I was looking at, but then I realized it was giving me memory dumps and byte/address search tools. And then for some reason all of the subsequent devices after N64/GBC were just terrible, and I couldn't get an address searcher without a modchip?? No clue.
- eli_gottlieb 13y agoHa! Back in the day I had to exchange my Gameshark 64 four damn times. Ended up getting an off-brand device called the Xplorer/Xploder (one of those, depended on whether you were NTSC or PAL) 64 that worked a lot better. Ah, the wonders of throwing Zelda: Majora's Mask into debug mode and L-Button Moon Jumping everywhere while dressed as Fierce Deity Link outside boss rooms.
- sesqu 13y ago> Also "mash A to increase the chances of catching" is also unfortunately wrong. I remember playing the game, thinking about this. I was wondering whether I had heard it somewhere or come up with it myself, how unlikely it was to be true, and how I still found myself doing it occasionally. A small existential crisis over confirmation bias and clever design.
- ceol 13y agoI still do it with the DS versions of the games. It's gotten to the point of catharsis.
- sublimit 13y agoI'm intrigued by ROM hacking (and low-level computing in general). So far I've been limited to reading memory dumps on emulators while only making little sense of it, but I'll have to give it a better shot. Using Gameshark and checking your links is probably a good start, thanks for those.