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StarTropics (Music Fix)

Original game : StarTropics

Platform : NES

Author : rainwarrior

Release date : 19 November 2014

Category : Bug Fix

Patch version : 1.0

Modifications : S

Downloads : 3541

ROM Information

Startropics (U).nes
CRC32 a02323b3
MD5 f7033465443b9c21cdc128d281b14af5
SHA-1 ce4daff535a847e5b47aff49381f3b0e76eb3295
SHA-256 dbdde8f9c73188fadaf6482111b085cfc91aa22f61a71e844fbf1fc99466a11a
-
Startropics (Europe).nes
CRC32 3fc29044
MD5 fcd4c76357c780a01093a9e199d94089
SHA-1 7f78375d7ecf05e9c177b33e36e34addd3daed44
SHA-256 3a48ffe57f8a7501a8f4cd4efdb8070c8cec39d91dfaa9c468d7c2b9f0e1ebc9

Hack description

Two of the music tracks in StarTropics are slightly broken, the island map music, and one of the ending tunes. This patch fixes them both.

I've also created a fully labelled disassembly, and complete description of the StarTropics music format. For anyone looking to hack new music into StarTropics, this will be a good guide.



Some emulators, notably Nestopia, do not support modifications to the StarTropics ROM due to a conflation of the MMC3 and MMC6 mappers as iNES mapper 4. If the emulator has to use a CRC check to select MMC6, it may have problems running the patched ROM (e.g. audio will be silent, and name registration will fail). Newer emulators may instead support or require updated ROM headers for Startropics. To fix this, you can try one of these two patches (but not both):

Screenshots

Contributions

ContributorType of contributionDescription
rainwarriorHacking

Reviews

Thanks for thisLeviathan Mist2024-05-04Version 1.0

I noticed the background track going out of sync with the foreground track a long time ago, and it was on my list of things to fix. Looks like it's already been done. I also didn't know about the second glitched track, since I never actually beat this game. Nice work.

The way the game was supposed to be releasedgothic2512023-09-11Version 1.0

This is monumental as far as small fixes go. To hear the Island music not messed up is a huge change, that initial music in such an influential game is wonderful and is so much better now. But the addition of the fix to the Ending music makes the track much more emotional (and complete, considering the bass channel wasn't in the original track at all due to the error that was fixed). Wonderful work, absolutely the only way I'll be playing my first ever 'Favorite game ever'.

Great, even with Nestopialastdual2018-02-03Version 1.0

This is a great little fix that does just what it says, and incidentally *does* work fine with Nestopia, provided that you use soft-patching.

To get Nestopia to play nice with this hack (and others such as the Ganbare Goemon 2 translation, for example), simply navigate to OPTIONS, then PATHS, and finally click the checkbox for "Auto patch" under the Patches subsection. Make sure your IPS file and the original, unpatched rom both share the same name and are in the same directory, and you should be good to go!

The music as it should have beenmadness flame2016-07-12Version 1.0

This hack currently doesn't have a review, but it definitely deserve one. This hack does what it says, yes, it fix the music of the game. The game should have been released like this. The description says that not all emulator support the modification, like Nestopia. Well, I would simply recommend you to take fceux, which i think is the best emulator. And this music fix hack works perfectly with fceux. You'll hear the difference as soon as you enter the first town. Usually, the small musical instrument in the background of the music doesn't follow the rhythm of the main track, sometime it even disappear and you no longer hear it for a while. But with this patch, the song is perfect. I have not reached yet the end of the game, but it also fix a track at the end, the bass line of the music was completely missing. As a bonus, you can also take the .NSF file which is also fixed.

As I already said to the author of this hack, thanks for this hack, it made me discover the game, and it's an amazing patch. I recommend it.