08-16-2012, 03:20 PM
(This post was last modified: 08-16-2012, 03:22 PM by Yawackhary.)
Ripping Genesis games isn't as easy as some consoles such as say the NES (and sorry that I wasn't around earlier, only just noticed the thread 
). In fact some games require complete knowledge of 68000 assembly/disassembly and compression routines to decompress the data that sadly I don't have.
While saying the genre does help a little, it really does depend on the game whether you get lucky and see all the sprites (rare but slightly more common with Chinese games), some of the sprites (some games), just the playable character (many games) or none at all (compressed, many games). However you might get lucky and find a compressed game that can be decompressed especially if it uses the Nemesis compression. There's a search tool can be found here that does the work for you but you have to unzip the ROM and rename the file to something short for it to work e.g. sonic.bin. Plus it's command line so it needs a tiny bit of knowledge but not too much. I know that there's also Caravan for Shining Force II, NOSE for the EA NHL hockey series, a decompressing tool for Thunder Force III and a couple of others in terms of editors. One of these days, I should really go through as many Mega Drive/Genesis games again to find out which ones are compressed in ROM or not since I forgot.
Oh and in case what tile program I use, I use TileMolester (the version that RaccoonSam did with the extra palettes) since it suppose palettes from Genesis emulator savestates (even though I have to correct the palette slightly using the Gens G/S emulator as a reference afterwards). Even then there's still the assembly of the tiles, some games being a complete nightmare to the point of feeling like giving up.
Also there is a tool similar to vsnes called GSavestate but unlike that tool, you can't remove the sprites. Oh and if you do go for the GensKMod method (for some games it is the easiest/only way), some games won't work and even then some games display a black background both on the tiles on the tile viewer and the background e.g. Adventures of Batman and Robin. Even when I tried hacking that game, it still gives a black background. In case you want to know, many Mega Drive games use black in their sprites so a black background ruins them especially if it uses black on the edge of the sprite.
Also while I don't really use YY-CHR unless it is absoutely needed (e.g. MSX games, some PC Engine games), some versions as in the more later versions don't even recognise the console but selecting 4bpp MSX shows up the sprites if they can be viewed. The reason why I don't use that is because it is better to get a rough palette than it is to have no palette.
). In fact some games require complete knowledge of 68000 assembly/disassembly and compression routines to decompress the data that sadly I don't have.While saying the genre does help a little, it really does depend on the game whether you get lucky and see all the sprites (rare but slightly more common with Chinese games), some of the sprites (some games), just the playable character (many games) or none at all (compressed, many games). However you might get lucky and find a compressed game that can be decompressed especially if it uses the Nemesis compression. There's a search tool can be found here that does the work for you but you have to unzip the ROM and rename the file to something short for it to work e.g. sonic.bin. Plus it's command line so it needs a tiny bit of knowledge but not too much. I know that there's also Caravan for Shining Force II, NOSE for the EA NHL hockey series, a decompressing tool for Thunder Force III and a couple of others in terms of editors. One of these days, I should really go through as many Mega Drive/Genesis games again to find out which ones are compressed in ROM or not since I forgot.
Oh and in case what tile program I use, I use TileMolester (the version that RaccoonSam did with the extra palettes) since it suppose palettes from Genesis emulator savestates (even though I have to correct the palette slightly using the Gens G/S emulator as a reference afterwards). Even then there's still the assembly of the tiles, some games being a complete nightmare to the point of feeling like giving up.
Also there is a tool similar to vsnes called GSavestate but unlike that tool, you can't remove the sprites. Oh and if you do go for the GensKMod method (for some games it is the easiest/only way), some games won't work and even then some games display a black background both on the tiles on the tile viewer and the background e.g. Adventures of Batman and Robin. Even when I tried hacking that game, it still gives a black background. In case you want to know, many Mega Drive games use black in their sprites so a black background ruins them especially if it uses black on the edge of the sprite.
Also while I don't really use YY-CHR unless it is absoutely needed (e.g. MSX games, some PC Engine games), some versions as in the more later versions don't even recognise the console but selecting 4bpp MSX shows up the sprites if they can be viewed. The reason why I don't use that is because it is better to get a rough palette than it is to have no palette.