New Super NES “Improvement Patches” Allow You to Experience Mega Man in New Ways

One YouTube channel I like to watch frequently is “SNES drunk” (who also covers non-SNES games), and one recent video really caught my eye.

In the second edition of “Best Super Nintendo Improvement Patches,” or “quality of life patches,” which looks at patches for games for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System that are distinguished here from typical ROM hacks by noting that these do not essentially create new games out of existing content, but simply tweak things to improve the user-end experience in some way. One instance given from the previous video is the SA-1 patch, which removes the copious amounts of slowdown from Gradius III, or a scrolling fix for Secret of Mana that keeps you closer to the center of the screen, avoiding accidental collisions with enemies as you roam around.

The two most relevant patches found here for the purposes of this article are the “Zero Project” hack for Mega Man X3, which allows you to play as the crimson Maverick Hunter throughout the entirety of the game. There have been some glitchy cheats which allow this before, but this functions more smoothly as Zero takes command of Ride Armors, fights bosses, and even gains a few extra moves like a double jump.

Then there’s one for Rockman & Forte, which allows you to swap between the two titular characters at almost any time by pressing Select while jumping. As some areas of the game are geared more towards one character or the other, this arguably keeps things a little more balanced throughout.

If you’re fortunate enough to have a copy of either (or both) of these games, then — unless I’m mistaken — I believe there are some reproduction consoles on the market now which can use an SD Card to apply the patch to your copies of the game, but anything else is beyond my expertise (such as it is). For further details on where to get the patches for these two games (along with the rest of the list), check out the description here.

Perhaps with any luck, if a third Mega Man Legacy Collection comes along, whoever develops it will include a similar feature as some sort of bonus.

LBD "Nytetrayn"

David Oxford, or “LBD ‘Nytetrayn’,” as he is sometimes also known, is a freelance writer of many varied interests who resides in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. If you’re interested in hiring him, please drop him a line at david.oxford (at) nyteworks.net.

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