Developer Infidelity has just publicly released his latest NES to SNES conversion, this time for the first three Ninja Gaiden games – Note that this has nothing to do with the original SNES Trilogy, but are the NES originals manually ported to the SNES’ hardware, combined into one SNES ROM called the “Ninja Gaiden Trilogy”. As with his previous conversions, these eliminate slowdown, reduce sprite flicker and allow for SNES-related enhancements that aren’t possible on NES hardware. This (as with all his other releases) are freely available to download, however please consider supporting on Patreon, to fund further conversions! More info after the links:
Support Here: http://patreon.com/infidelity_nes
Download: https://mega.nz/file/pz1SWbwR#8uC3cfsBouAX12a0ftD5Bzf2io3uODqpRUfETw9JnAE
Pressing left and right at the boot menu allows you to select which of the three games you’d like to play, then select which audio format you’d like to use: Each of the three games offer the ability to play the original audio soundtracks, using Membler’s 2A03 sound emulator to convert it to the SNES’ audio chips, with a sound very close to the original. If you have the ability to utilize MSU-1 audio via the FXPak Pro, MiSTer or software emulation, each game also offers a CD-quality soundtrack. Infidelity also added a second MSU-1 option to the first Ninja Gaiden game that allows you to use the soundtrack from the PCE-exclusive version.
Overall, this is an excellent way for fans of the games to experience them! If you’d like more details as to why these NES -> SNES ports are such a big deal, I already covered this in a previous post and discussed it during Weekly Roundup #361 at the 12min mark: https://youtu.be/rviGb9gS_CA?t=721 I didn’t want to repeat everything here, so I thought it was just best to link to the other explanation.
Also, here’s a list of features and changes made to each game:
All Three Games:
- Exit gameplay back to game select menu: During gameplay, press the start button to pause the game, then press UP+B to exit
- Switch CGRAM (Color Palette): During gameplay, press the select button to bring up a menu and hit left/right on the dpad to cycle through many different palette choices.
Ninja Gaiden specific
- Drew in lower legs/feet for ninjas standing in tall grass, during intro cutscene after graymask flashing
- Fixed all immediate gameplay to cutscene transitions, in stages 4-1/5-3/6-3
- When you reach THE END, game will reset itself back to “TECMO PRESENTS 1989” after a few seconds, you will no longer be stuck in a decremented loop for several minutes
Ninja Gaiden II specific
- Observation: Why does stage 7-2 have random music, and not a set track? In the original rom at $1D0F7, there is a routine that will check the stage ID in ram register $7E, to see if it’s 28-2C. If the value is within that range, then the game reads against the nmi frame counter at ram register $C1, then performs an AND #$03 against it, resulting in either 00-03 in A, it is then sent to Y to be used as an index value, to load from a separate/dedicated bgm track table located at $1D10F, (values are 04 05 06 19) and written to ram addresses $D1 & $700. Values manually written to $700, will result in bgm/sfx activation
- When you reach THE END, press the start button to go back to the “TECMO PRESENTS 1990” screen. You will no longer be stuck in an infinite loop
Ninja Gaiden III specific
- When you reach THE END, press the start button to go back to the first cutscene in the game of Irene. You will no longer be stuck in an infinite loop
