3 reasons why you should be paying attention to ROM hacking.

The potential of ROM hacking has barely been scratched in the world of gaming, probably due to the reason that the average person doesn't have the time or patience to be compatible with the art of programming. However, there are many individuals out there savvy enough with things like hex-editing and C++ to go so far as to make tools and guides for those of us who want to see a little more out of our games, fleshed out exactly in the way that you daydreamed them up. Today, I give you a few good reasons that should make you pay attention to ROM hacking.

1. Translation:

This may seem like it was more applicable in the past when people were translating games like Seiken Densentsu 3, but if you think about the amount of DS games that don't make it to the states, or how in some cases a game will come out all of 6 months to a year later, translations don't really seem like all that bad of an idea anymore, now do they? I would say that this is best left up to a team of people in the case of something like RPGs, but other games may only need a quick menu translation to be fully enjoyable.

2. Rebalancing:

I touched on this a bit in a previous post. If you can mess with every little aspect of the game, you can take a game that's already well known and loved, and try to take the little gripes out of it. While there really isn't a way to please everyone, doing things like taking the Archer class in Final Fantasy Tactics and giving it more options as far as equipment and base stats go can do wonders as far as changing the way that the game is played. Sometimes a small tweak here and there can leave a whole new world of options to be explored.

3. Remaking:

If you've wanted to create your own spiritual sequel to something, you have your tools at hand through ROM hacking. You can do literally anything that you want to to to a game if you know what you're doing well enough. And depending on the game you're attempting to hack, or trying to play a remade version of there are several communities out there a Google search away. Sometimes you can get one of the best experiences out of a game that you've played when it's been completely rearranged.

You haven't experienced the classics until you've tried them remixed.