Don’t think this is gonna be a 100% Gold Remake, it’ll have its differences. Extra battles (some’ll be optionals, tough but rewarding), Hoenn Pokemon (in every area, and hard to find) New areas, Remapped some dungeons (so your old guides wont work) , Extra recurring characters (some’ll hate you, some’ll help you)
Note that the hack is incomplete but feel free to enjoy the hack as-is.
SWITCHBLADE II - CONTINUE Hack by Psyklax v1.0 (20180124) CONTENTS 1. Intro 2. ROM Information 3. Background 4. Final Thoughts INTRO This is a hack for Switchblade II on the Atari Lynx. It allows the player to continue the game from the level on which they died, rather than starting from the beginning, but also starts the game with one life. This makes the gameplay more similar to modern platformers. There is a small bug in that when the game is completed, the game begins from the last level, but this is fixed by turning the Lynx off and on again. In addition to the author's changes to the ROM, the patch includes Harry Dodgson's loader that skips the checksum checking that the Lynx employs, allowing the ROM to be hacked. The loader is (c) Harry Dodgson, 2001. ROM INFORMATION GoodLynx name: Switchblade II (1992).lnx CRC32: 63144491 BACKGROUND Switchblade II was released in 1991 for the Atari ST and Commodore Amiga, and ported to the Atari Lynx in 1992. It is the sequel to Switchblade, also released on home computer formats in 1989. Like most games of the time, the player is given three lives and expected to complete the entire game with that, as there are no passwords or save games. Nowadays it is more common for the challenge to come from completing individual levels with an unlimited amount of tries, so this patch attempts to do this. The Lynx port is smaller than the 16-bit computer versions, but retains the playability, and given it uses two buttons rather than one, it's actually somewhat easier to control than the computer releases. FINAL THOUGHTS As far as I can see, at time of writing, I can't find any hacks for the Atari Lynx at all. There are a couple of complicating factors: first, the Lynx has a checksum checking routine that won't allow it to play hacked ROMs; and second, there is (currently) no Lynx emulator that incorporates a debugger with breakpoints or traces, making hacking more difficult. Nevertheless, I'm very familiar with the 6502 CPU used in the NES, and the Lynx uses one based on it. So for such a relatively simple hack as this, I was able to use BizHawk's RAM search function to get started, with the rest relying on my ability to search the ROM and recognise the 6502 opcodes used. Thankfully, a bit of internet searching also solved the other problem: how to hack Lynx ROMs and still play them. Harry Dodgson wrote a routine back in 2001, and by pasting it into the ROM, the game runs fine. Full credit goes to him but I have used it without his permission - ideally I'd like to track him down and get his blessing. Given the lack of tools at my disposal, I'm very pleased with the result. It only required a few bytes changed here and there, but having experience hacking the 6502 really helped. Sometimes I could just read the opcodes and know exactly what was going on. Anyway, the game isn't so long or difficult that you COULD beat it without my hack (in fact, I beat it legit while testing this patch), but I think this makes it somewhat more accessible. Go for it! Tools I used for this translation: BizHawk (the best I can do for Lynx emulation) HxD (general hex editing) addcode.c - (c) Harry Dodgson, 2001 Psyklax http://s346165667.websitehome.co.uk/psyktrans/
