Super Game Boy: Enable Palette and Controller Settings

The Super Game Boy is a game accessory that plays original monochrome Game Boy games as well as black Game Boy Color games using the SNES console as an input interface with audio and video output display to the TV. The focal point was allowing players finally being able to play Game Boy games on a more accessible bigger screen, as well as having the ability to assign all 4 of the monochrome palettes to a 15-BIT value.

Games could also be developed to take advantage of the additional functions of the SNES, though they were almost completely wasted in games. Most developers just opted to throw up a border and palettes that were often incomplete and weren't very good, as well as often locking out the player from changing palettes and or controller settings. Games could allow up to 4 players to play limited modes by plugging in a SNES Multitap accessory allowing Bomberman deathmatches, Street Fighter 2 tournaments and even the more obscure turn-based board games would be setup to work without passing a single controller to other players.

A small number of games offered alternate soundtracks using the SGB sound driver, games even uploaded their custom own sound samples and that was much less common. Only one game, Space Invaders actually uploaded an early version of the game running in the SGB's RAM. The ability to write custom hooks in both RAM and ROM were also possible though never actually used in any meaningful way.

A relatively large amount of games will in most cases, arbitrarily block out the player from being able to select from the preset 32 palettes or creating their own. Wario Land II and Donkey Kong Land II and III are the most widely known games. Other games will also, mostly in conjunction with the former prevent the player from choosing between the two controller schemes form the menu and will revert back to B-TYPE. One game (or two; dpending on whether or not you count different versions. Tokimeki Memorial Pocket - Culture Hen - Komorebi no Melody and Tokimeki Memorial Pocket - Sport Hen - Koutei no Photograph) will only disable controller selection. It is unknown why this function was given to deleopers because it is not very useful in any real game scenario, unless to prevent the player from cheating by rapidly hitting two A buttons, and that is still a moot reason. No games disable border selection and is not normally possible because a function for it does not exist.

By applying this patch it is possible to enable the ability to change palettes and controller settings with every game.

Known issues and or limitations (due to hardware limitations)
-Certain games situations that prevent the player from changing palettes would be useful to the player in order to actually see the game. Uno 2 - Small World is probably the best example where players would need to see the cards and think quickly.
-Games that were designed to disable palette selection now may display inverted palettes or show garbage graphics when transitioning to new screens or areas. This method was partially used to hide the display of new graphics or assets being loading into memory.
-The Enable OBJ_TRN Mode patches will also work with all games but they will have the same limitations of the unused and unfinished mode by default.
-Several games will actually swap back to the game's enhanced palette if they change because PAL_PRI 01 was not disabled in this patch and may be included in either a seperate patch or incuded with this one at a later date.

The Super Game Boy is a game accessory that plays original monochrome Game Boy games as well as black Game Boy Color games using the SNES console as an input interface with audio and video output display to the TV. The focal point was allowing players finally being able to play Game Boy games on a more accessible bigger screen, as well as having the ability to assign all 4 of the monochrome palettes to a 15-BIT value.

Games could also be developed to take advantage of the additional functions of the SNES, though they were almost completely wasted in games. Most developers just opted to throw up a border and palettes that were often incomplete and weren't very good, as well as often locking out the player from changing palettes and or controller settings. Games could allow up to 4 players to play limited modes by plugging in a SNES Multitap accessory allowing Bomberman deathmatches, Street Fighter 2 tournaments and even the more obscure turn-based board games would be setup to work without passing a single controller to other players.

A small number of games offered alternate soundtracks using the SGB sound driver, games even uploaded their custom own sound samples and that was much less common. Only one game, Space Invaders actually uploaded an early version of the game running in the SGB's RAM. The ability to write custom hooks in both RAM and ROM were also possible though never actually used in any meaningful way.

A relatively large amount of games will in most cases, arbitrarily block out the player from being able to select from the preset 32 palettes or creating their own. Wario Land II and Donkey Kong Land II and III are the most widely known games. Other games will also, mostly in conjunction with the former prevent the player from choosing between the two controller schemes form the menu and will revert back to B-TYPE. One game (or two; dpending on whether or not you count different versions. Tokimeki Memorial Pocket - Culture Hen - Komorebi no Melody and Tokimeki Memorial Pocket - Sport Hen - Koutei no Photograph) will only disable controller selection. It is unknown why this function was given to deleopers because it is not very useful in any real game scenario, unless to prevent the player from cheating by rapidly hitting two A buttons, and that is still a moot reason. No games disable border selection and is not normally possible because a function for it does not exist.

By applying this patch it is possible to enable the ability to change palettes and controller settings with every game.

Known issues and or limitations (due to hardware limitations)
-Certain games situations that prevent the player from changing palettes would be useful to the player in order to actually see the game. Uno 2 - Small World is probably the best example where players would need to see the cards and think quickly.
-Games that were designed to disable palette selection now may display inverted palettes or show garbage graphics when transitioning to new screens or areas. This method was partially used to hide the display of new graphics or assets being loading into memory.
-The Enable OBJ_TRN Mode patches will also work with all games but they will have the same limitations of the unused and unfinished mode by default.
-Several games will actually swap back to the game's enhanced palette if they change because PAL_PRI 01 was not disabled in this patch and may be included in either a seperate patch or incuded with this one at a later date.

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Stay tuned for several more game modifications. :)

eof


Database match: Super Game Boy (Japan)
Database: No-Intro: Super Nintendo Entertainment System (v. 20180813-062835)
File/ROM SHA-1: 6ED55C4368333B57F6A2F8BBD70CCD87ED48058E
File/ROM CRC32: 2E35EDBB