Slot-2 Patch

Original game : Mega Man ZX

Platform : NDS

Author : Prof. 9

Release date : 19 August 2019

Category : Improvement

Patch version : 1.0

Modifications : L

Downloads : 3495

ROM Information

Database match: Mega Man ZX (USA)
Database: No-Intro: DS (all) (v. 20180806-120027)
File/ROM SHA-1: 5DAFBD6FF4C22A009A56166A40021E81A1653E23
File/ROM CRC32: B4AC7C0B
Database match: Mega Man ZX (Europe) (En,Ja,Fr,De,Es,It)
Database: No-Intro: DS (all) (v. 20180806-120027)
File/ROM SHA-1: 8D588AAAF35DEC880D1F14CE83D2E4B0B382BE58
File/ROM CRC32: 7A37B5FC
Database match: Rockman ZX (Japan)
Database: No-Intro: DS (all) (v. 20180806-120027)
File/ROM SHA-1: B4EEE084BC16BF67C5EB43733549C26A747D94A9
File/ROM CRC32: B577BBE0

Hack description

Mega Man ZX had a bonus feature where if you had Mega Man Zero 3 or Zero 4 inserted into Slot-2 of your Nintendo DS, you could fight four extra bosses from that game. ZX actually loads all of the sprite and object data for these bosses from the GBA Game Pak, and converts it to the newer format on-the-fly.

This was presumably done because the Japanese ROM for Mega Man ZX, due to having full voiceovers, is very close to being 64 MiB. Adding in the Zero boss data would have pushed it over the limit, meaning they would have had to produce the game on more expensive 128 MiB Game Cards; so instead, the data is loaded from the GBA Game Pak instead.

Unfortunately, this also makes it impossible to fight the bosses on a Nintendo DSi, even when using cheats to get into the Zero boss rooms, because the sprite data for those bosses just isn't on the DS Game Card. That's where this patch comes in: it makes it so that the Zero boss data is now loaded from the Mega Man ZX ROM itself, eliminating the need for a GBA cartridge to be inserted. A nice side effect is that you can now also enter both the Zero 3 and Zero 4 boss rooms without needing to restart the game.

Source code for this patch is available in the included src.zip archive, or
online at: https://github.com/Prof9/MMZX-Slot2-Patch

Contributions

Contributor	Type of contribution	Description

Reviews

An objective improvement	ZeroSbr	2019-11-26	Version 1.0-US
It works as advertised. You no longer have to carry two GBA carts around just so you can fight bosses from MMZ3 and 4. This is one of the few romhacks that results in real world convenience.

Perfection	PowerPanda	2019-08-20	Version 1.0 - US
Back in the day, I sold my copies of MMZ3 and MMZ4 in order to have enough money for MMZX. Imagine my disappointment when I found out that I needed those 2 carts in order to unlock all of the MMZX content. I re-bought MMZ3/4 as part of the Zero Collection, but still had no option to play these extra battles. Prof. 9 has made a dream of mine come true with this hack. I played through all 8 bosses and noticed no glitches or strange behavior. I did note that the patch actually dropped the file size of the rom by ~20 MB, so I don't know if there would be any issues putting it on a physical cart. It ran fine both in DeSmuME and on my R4 Gold flash card. Thank you, Prof. 9!

It's perfect, just a little suggestion	Herpuia	2019-08-20	Version 1.0
It's weird that nobody has done it in almost 10 years, it's amazing :D. Anyway, I suggest to make a standalone patch for the undub version, because with this the game feels complete.

Replay value extended.	RealGaea	2019-08-20	Version 1.0-EU
When I tried this on no$gba, I knew something was missing. Now I have the chance to clear the game at 120%! Thank you, Prof 9, for including all regions.

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