Sonic Rom Hacks
Just what you need when you finish the SEGA Genesis Sonic trilogy!
Summary
Sonic Rom Hacks is a library of showcases that shine a spotlight on various Sonic Rom Hacks from different years of the Sonic Hacking Contest which is an annual event where programmers, artists, musicians, and more come together to create their own rom hack of one of the many Sonic games that are out there ranging from Sonic the Hedgehog 2 all the way to Sonic Adventure 2 and beyond. While the SEGA Genesis Sonic games were the most prominent in the rom hacking scene well over a decade ago, other games from the Adventure Era and Modern Era have gained a sizable presence in the SHC space as well. The showcases presented within this project are primarily of SEGA Genesis rom hacks since that is the medium of hacks that I primarily grew up with and one of the rom hack projects that I personally contributed to was a SEGA Genesis one. All of the components of this project can be viewed through the Sonic Rom Hacks YouTube Playlist where Arcmaevotix is home to the original versions and Nehrpsyznet is home to the remade versions.
Process
The creation of each showcase was relatively simple as it required just capturing community shared rom files with the appropriate encoding settings for the sharpest scaling quality (nearest neighbor in this case for capturing sprite art) and audio quality (which was FLAC converted from WAV). Rom hacks were selected based on graded quality or order of appearance in their original uploads. This project was primarily done during the Sonic Hacking Contest of 2022 on the original AmzroSevca channel (now Arcmaevotix), but was remade with some newer versions of those rom hacks for Nehrpsyznet. The only component of the project that broke the mold of record and refine in post was the demonstration for Sonic 1 The Next Level that featured a double mirrored crystal letterbox display frame which added to the futuristic and fantastical nature of the rom hack.
Reflection
This project was a natural extension of the Sonic 1 Complete Collection project where I was becoming more familiar with capturing digital media, editing it, and organizing it. Learning which emulators worked best for what purposes and titles was also an interesting journey and one that has continued up until this very day. The work for both Sonic 1 Complete Collection and Sonic Rom Hacks has been in production for years on end, dating back to some of my oldest projects in the late 2000s and early 2010s when I was still trying to figure out what netplay was and how to capture Super Mario 64 gameplay with an unregistered copy of HyperCam 2. In-between its date of origin and now, I have gained plenty of experience in video production and capturing field footage (whether that’s in a real field or recording a digital viewport) which has allowed me to do as much as I can do now.