Vinyl collecting isn't my only hobby. I grew up playing video games and while I still play modern consoles, I continue to have a nostalgic fondness for the 16-bit era of gaming, the Super NES in particular.
I've also been part of the emulation/rom hacking scene for over 20 years. I won't go into THAT MUCH detail about what that is, but basically there's been a long-standing group of folks who make fan-made changes to existing video games. It can be something as simple as replacing Mario in Super Mario Bros. with a poorly pixilated Trent Reznor and calling it Super NIN Bros. Or it can be translating an entire game into a different language, like
translating the Japanese-only Mother 3 role playing game into English.
Speaking of Mother 3, let's talk about its Super NES prequel Mother 2, which you may know by its English name: EarthBound. It was a truly unique Japanese RPG when it was released in the mid-1990s. Instead of being set in a fantasy land where you fight dragons and save the world from supernatural forces of evil, EarthBound takes place in contemporary America where you fight skateboarding punks and hippies, and... ok you still end up saving the world from a supernatural force of evil.
The EarthBound/Mother series has a loving fanbase, which I count myself among. One thing I adored was its score, composed by Keiichi Suzuki, Hirokazu "Hip" Tanaka, and Hiroshi Kanazu, who gave the game an eclectic soundtrack that borrowed (and sampled!) many different genres. It's great and it has indeed been
issued on vinyl thanks to Ship to Shore Phono Co!
The EarthBound soundtrack is not my Album of the Month, but I certainly recommend it if you find a copy at a decent price! No, let's go back to my rom hacking resume. While I love the original music, I always wondered how the game would be if it had an instrumental hip hop soundtrack.
So exactly two years ago this month I released a rom hack of EarthBound that replaces its soundtrack with (mostly) hip hop beats. These are real songs by real artists; I see it almost like a mixtape of sorts. Some of the music is classic, well-known stuff. Other songs are super random and obscure. Here's a video showing the first 20 minutes or so of the game to give you the gist of it:
Is this month's artist featured within this rom hack?????? Am I shilling my own vanity project????? Hell yeah I am.
Download the patch and music files here You're on your own finding the original EarthBound rom, though (hint: look for "no-intro" on Archive.org). This also only works on modern emulators like bsnes or recent versions of Snes9x so don't bother with Zsnes (which you really should have gotten rid of about 10-15 years ago anyways). It also plays great on a real SNES if you have the sd2snes/FX Pak flash cart. Feel free to ask questions here if you need help setting it all up.
The weekend is about to begin, so let's play some video games!
