I recently purchased an Ez-Flash IV. I'm struggling a bit with it (less games work on it than I expected), but that's not really what this thread is about. Instead, I'm looking for a specific version of Sonic Advance that I'm pretty sure I got from here many, many, many years ago. Somebody was fed up at the poor sound quality of the Gameboy Advance and Sonic Advance's "realistic" instrument samples and hacked the game to replace them all with what they defined as "high quality studio synths". It was kind of cool, and I hung on to it for a long time, but in the decade or more since downloading it I appear to no longer have it, and it was apparently never archived on the wiki or anywhere else. Does anyone even remotely know what I'm talking about?
I was intrigued by this and had some spare time, so I ran an extensive search, including in the "achieve's E&RE" subforum, and this "E&RE" subforum for threads with the name (or undername) of "Advance". from 2003 onwards, and found nothing related to a sound hack that you described. I also checked your post content just in case you happened to have posted in a thread related to it, but it could only show me content from 2008 minimum. I'm assuming you never posted before then, or the search system has a limit on how far or how much it can search back by. I did however find this: http://forums.sonicretro.org/index.php?showtopic=29892 But I think that's simply MIDI extraction (correct me if I'm wrong). Do you have any other info?
No, I don't remember the username or anything. I'm pretty sure they don't post here anymore. And then there's the simple fact that maybe my memory is lying, and it didn't actually even come from Sonic Retro (but I don't know where else anyone would've been able to post a pre-patched hacked rom so freely, and I know it came from within the community). The thread you linked is indeed about MIDI extraction. This was... I'm pretty sure this was before anything about Sonic Advance was even documented, I think it was just a known thing that you could open a GBA rom in a sound editor like Goldwave or whatever and listen to raw PCM wav sounds, so this guy isolated all of Sonic Advance's instrument samples and replaced them all with like... high-quality square wave sounds. I know enough about how hacking works that it probably shouldn't have worked (pointers and all) so maybe he knew some hacking, because the game functioned just fine with his new instrument samples. The only other thing I know is that it was definitely before 2008. It was probably around 2002-2004 or 2005.
I forgot to ask, do you remember if you posted inside the topic? If you have, that'll at least narrow the search down to somewhere from your join date onwards (thus narrowing it down to somewhere around 2005). Not that I have much of a clue of where to look mind, I've already exhausted places I assumed for it to exist in.
The first time I saw this thread, I thought I hadn't heard of what you were talking about. After reading the replies, I decided to check my old GBA folder just to make sure. As it turns out, I do have a copy of this. You probably won't find it here, the files I have are dated October 2002 and the readme file has a link to SSRG on Emulationzone.org -Link deleted, since the official download is linked below- Enjoy.
I know exactly what you're talking about; sonicblur is right on the money on it being dated to 2002. It's a hack by Dioxaz and the link (to an IPS patch! How we've progressed as a community) is his signature. I distinctly remember this as I accidentally found this years ago when searching the internet for sprites and stuff, and by chance I just managed to find this hack. It's nice to know that it's still in circulation! It's certainly a neat little thing. I'd also recommend checking out the stuff on Dioxaz's YouTube channel, some of the FM arranges he's made, particularly his Ice Mountain are gorgeous.
That's definitely the file, thanks! Though it would appear that Sonic Advance has some sort of anti-flashcart protection, given that it's refusing to show that I've cleared any levels past Angel Island Zone. Oh well!
If I recall correctly Sonic Advance doesn't use SRAM, you'll need to patch it so it'll work with the EZ-Flash IV's SRAM. I have an EZ-Flash 3in1 and I use GBATA to SRAM patch my roms.
Oh no, I did all that. I only just found out about GBATA yesterday. But if I JUST use GBATA, then none of the games save at all. What I have to do is use the EzClient to move them to the MicroSD card, then patch them with GBATA once they're there... except even when I uncheck both the "SRAM Patch" and "Reset" checkboxes in EzClient, when it copies them to the MicroSD card it still does something to them. Like it trims the file, screws up the header, puts in a hook for their Saver tool, something. Once the EzClient touches them, GBATA tells me that they're "BAD", whatever that means. Presumably Sonic Advance runs some sort of CRC check and once it detects an incorrect CRC, it refuses to let the save file progress past Angel Island Zone. I can still beat the game and everything, it just won't ever be reflected in the save file.
Oh, my mistake. I'm really only familiar with the workings of the 3in1 paired with a slot 1 DS card, but I thought the process would be similar. Never used EzClient or anything like that.
Just started playing this after it the download link was put up a few posts ago. It definitely all sounds clearer, but the OST feels like it lost a chunk of it's personality. Notably in how the organ's gone and how the accompanying melodies often seem louder than the main melodies. Still a neat hack though!
