Got schooled by my neighbor's kid about ROM hacks

I was bragging to my neighbor's 14-year-old about finding a cheap copy of Chrono Trigger at a garage sale for $3, and he just laughed and showed me how he plays the entire game for free on his phone with a translation patch. Turns out there's a whole world of free fan translations and romhacks for old JRPGs that I never even knew existed (and most of them fix bugs or add quality of life stuff). Anyone else feel kinda dumb for spending years hunting physical copies when there's so much accessible for nothing online?

3 comments

3 Comments

paulperry12d ago

Feel you there man. I spent like five years tracking down a physical copy of Seiken Densetsu 3 thinking I was some big shot collector, only to find out a fan translation patch has been out since the early 2000s. Now I just keep my cartridges on a shelf and play everything through emulation on my laptop. It hurts a little but the convenience and the fixes are hard to beat.

spencerl3212d ago

My uncle spent 40 years collecting vinyl records and just last week his teenage grandson showed him a spotify playlist with every single song he owns for free. It's wild how the physical collector mindset just totally missed the digital revolution that happened right under our noses. I mean, I still like having the actual cartridges for display but paying a premium for them feels kind of silly now.

the_wyatt12d ago

spencerl32 sounds like a tough crowd, but let's be real, who cares if his collection is on Spotify now.