List of games deserving a Color Hack

[retrospiel]

Post games you think deserve a color hack.

Games currently being worked on:
Kid Chameleon (LinkueiBR Link)
Contra (LinkueiBR, Link)
Pitfall (Barone, Link)
Battletoads in Double Dragon (LinkueiBR)
Dragonball Z (LinkueiBR)
Lotus II (LinkueiBR)
Chakan (LinkueiBR)
Darius II (Pyron)
Punisher (Pyron: Link)
Ghouls 'n Ghosts (Pyron: Link)


Games deserving a color hack:
-Alien Storm (one of the most underrated games on the MD. A color hack should aim for bright pastel colors like in Quackshot or Bonanza Bros. so the game looks closer to the System 16 arcade original)
-V-V aka Grind Stormer (same as above)
-Rainbow Islands Extra (for some reason the Original Mode in this has a black sky instead of a blue sky! it needs a hack that replaces the black with blue, and the grey clouds with white)
-New Zealand Story (colors are rather washed out, even the Master System version looks more vibrant, you can tell it was Taito's first MD game)
-Marvel Land
-Raiden Trad
-Flink
-Hook
-Tiny Toon Adventures (stages, sprites are already perfect)
-CRYING (aka "Bio-Hazard Battle" in the West, early CG game similar to Donkey Kong Country, color choices for the backgrounds are a bit weak at times, sprites and projectiles however are perfect)
-Power Instinct (probably a lost cause)
-Phantom 2040
-Fatal Fury 1

[LinkueiBR]

LOL
This reminded me that i started a LOT of palette hacks, but still need to polish them all and release!

Battletoads and Double Dragon: Almost Finished, need a little revision to improve more




Chakan: Only the Air levels, Menu and the Chakan Sprite (with the game gear palette) recolored. I will finish it, not today or tommorrow, but someday...



Dragon Ball Z Buyu Retsuden: Almost Finished, need a revision to fix a lot of wrong colors





Golden Axe: All the sprites recolored with the most accurate colors to the arcade possible. Background not finished



Golden Axe II: Finished





LOTUS II RECS: All the Cars and Backgrounds colors remade, need only some fixes










Moonwalker: Almost Finished
Arcade logo style:

[Black_Tiger]

Darius II
Crusader of Centy
Flink

[Vludi]

-Rainbow Islands (for some reason this has a black sky instead of a blue sky! it needs a hack that replaces the black with blue, and the grey clouds with white)

It's a port of Rainbow Islands EXTRA, the genesis port has faithful colors to the arcade.


However, the MD port also includes the original Rainbow Island stages (in Options), and those indeed have unfaithful colors reusing the same color scheme from EXTRA. So the best thing you can do here is leave Rainbow Island Extra intact (colors are accurate enough to the arcade), but make a color hack for the original Rainbow Island stages, if that is possible.

LOL
This reminded me that i started a LOT of palette hacks, but still need to polish them all and release!

Loving those DBZ and Chakan hacks, nice job!

[Pyron]

Darius II

Agree, optminzing this for long time...

[retrospiel]

This reminded me that i started a LOT of palette hacks, but still need to polish them all and release!

Battletoads and Double Dragon: Almost Finished, need a little revision to improve more

That looks freakin' great!!!! Fantastic job! LOVE the color choices and composition ! It's just perfect!!! I really can't wait for this to be released!!

The MD port also includes the original Rainbow Island stages (in Options), and those indeed have unfaithful colors reusing the same color scheme from EXTRA. So the best thing you can do here is leave Rainbow Island Extra intact (colors are accurate enough to the arcade), but make a color hack for the original Rainbow Island stages, if that is possible.

Exactly. That is what I was referring to.

Darius II
Crusader of Centy
Flink

Darius II is one of my favorite games on MD. It didn't even occur to me that it could profit from a color hack.

Now if only someone could add 2P support....

As for Crusader of Centy: Isn't that already one of the best looking games on MD?

Agree, optminzing this for long time...
http://i.imgur.com/NYGSomz.jpg

Amazing!

[Alianger]

Phantom 2040 could be improved here and there I think.
Screenshot gallery of both versions (bad quality I know): https://plus.google.com/photos/11050...Mzlj-GSxf2u4gE

[Sik]

Tiny Toons Adventure? Isn't that absurdly vibrant as it is already?

[tryphon]

However, the MD port also includes the original Rainbow Island stages (in Options), and those indeed have unfaithful colors reusing the same color scheme from EXTRA. So the best thing you can do here is leave Rainbow Island Extra intact (colors are accurate enough to the arcade), but make a color hack for the original Rainbow Island stages, if that is possible.

It is possible but likely requires some small asm hacking.

[Tor Landeel]

Hook is in desperate need of a color hack..

[NeoVamp]

I want to say Fatal Fury (the first one) because its so fucking DARK, Fatal Fury was never as dark as the Genesis version is.
But color hacking that game is pointless, unless you're skilled enough to add back all the cut fighters/backgrounds.

[LinkueiBR]

I want to say Fatal Fury (the first one) because its so fucking DARK, Fatal Fury was never as dark as the Genesis version is.
But color hacking that game is pointless, unless you're skilled enough to add back all the cut fighters/backgrounds.

We could improve this version recoloring the sprites, but the backgrounds...

[retrospiel]

^I assume it's only an example but the background is missing two colors (dark blue in the sky and dark gray in the buildings) plus one of the skin tones is too close (see the color in the woman's belly).

I would agree that the focus on the sprites should do the job - with some minor changes to a couple of colors in the backgrounds (i.e. the sand in the example above).

[LinkueiBR]

^I assume it's only an example but the background is missing two colors (dark blue in the sky and dark gray in the buildings) plus one of the skin tones is too close (see the color in the woman's belly).

I would agree that the focus on the sprites should do the job - with some minor changes to a couple of colors in the backgrounds (i.e. the sand in the example above).

Yeah, i know LOL
I made a really quick color swap. The 2 color palettes for the backgrounds is very bad shared

[Black_Tiger]

Darius II is one of my favorite games on MD. It didn't even occur to me that it could profit from a color hack.

Now if only someone could add 2P support....

It's a good game, but not only should the resized assets have better pixel art (even though it still looks nice as-is), the color isn't very efficient for what is possible on Genesis. Too many elements which don't appear to share color with others have poorly transitioning shades and many elements have different colors mixed in another color's gradient/shading. Like the noticeable grays in the middle of other colors:

As for Crusader of Centy: Isn't that already one of the best looking games on MD?

It has lots of nice art with lots of detail and shading, but the color filling that out isn't balanced well and most things look washed out. A good color hack has the potential to make everything pop and push it to the peak of 16-bit gen visuals.

Most of the background elements in this scene are mixing 2 or more different colors. The boxes for example, go from dark to light using different variations of the same set of clashing colors:






Using the same set of colors in different orders on the same object may limit the potential of a color fix, but it might still look better with a consistent set of colors. So even if a simple color hack couldn't breathe new life into it, the developer could have done so much better color-wise.

I think that good games which are looking, but have color flaws, are the best candidates for color hacks. Certainly much more so that games that don't look nearly as nice in the first place or aren't as enjoyable to play.