Do you want to play an older game but want it to feel new and modern? Try out a Rom Hack!
But what is a Rom Hack? A Rom Hack is a modification of a game created by fans to add new content. The earliest ones date back to the late 80s and they are still being made today. These may be adding new characters, translations in other languages, new levels, or entirely changing up the gameplay. Some examples are the Custom Track Grand Prix Revolution (CTGP) in many Mario Kart games that adds over 6x the amount of cups and tracks from other games and plenty of new original courses. In the Wii version the original has 32 tracks but the CTGP has 218! If you want to play older mario kart games in a new way as new characters from alternate colored characters to new characters like Pikachu or Peter Griffin, this is your best bet.
Many of the old NES Mario games have hacks that add entirely new worlds, levels, characters, mechanics and power-ups! Some just recolor elements to make it “new” but many really do add elements to make it fully new.
Some of the original Gameboy hacks create “DX” versions that add color that the originals never had and new quality-of-life features. “Tetris Rosy Retrospection DX” adds color to the classic and plenty of new features like being able to hold pieces, hard drop, and showing piece shadows like in the newer versions of Tetris. It adds so many new things that make it nearly on par with newer Tetris titles. There are many other DX versions for games like Mario Land 1-3, Kirby’s Dreamland 1-2, and forgotten games like Alleyway.
The legality of some of these are somewhat questionable, some may not be as high-quality as others, and some have straight up terrible level design, but if you find a good one it can practically replace the original for you.
