von Ozbourne

Sorry. Just realized that I do have something to add. Congrats on the nice review man. That was pretty awesome.

I have nothing more to add other than this reminds me of how you could follow the readme instructions to the letter, but still not be able to get your Sound Blaster drivers to work properly because of some esoteric unknown compatibility issue with your SDR RAM not being friends with your brand new VGA graphics card.

Interesting. If I may interject. I wasn't having issues with the ROM when playing the playoffs, but I use Gens. I will note that the Anaheim vs Anaheim thing sounds exactly like a side effect of one of the old Player Card freeze bug fixes. The one that resulted in preventing the player card data from crashing the game because no data was being saved. But this ROM doesn't use that method. [you can tell because the player names are on the second line on the main menu roll call] I wonder if there is a glitch somewhere with the way Kega Fusion is dealing with the save data. [in Gens it's a .srm file, I am not familiar with Kega to know if it uses the same format]

I mean, there is a “Dr.Hook” McCracken joke in there somewhere, but I'm more interested in seeing how this workin' progresses.

You're just too close man. You can't see the Lorentz for the Reaves.

Well at least that way when the refs make a bogus call, you can blame it on him getting a "little cross-eyed" during the game.

Hey @BRCbruce I think I figured it out? The patch seemed to have done a real number on the tile layout, but I was able to clean it up and combine a few redundant tiles to avoid messing with the three-star logo and get that back up goalie looking like a human again. I also gave the away Crown team some red ...sticks. For consistency. Hope you don't mind. NHL94 CRLatest3 v2.bin

I could probably adapt the rink. Question is, if it could be a straight asset swap or if the dimension would necessitate a redraw in the "94 style". The other question is of course, if the player sprites can be easily edited to match '94 sprites. That might be an errand for fools and loonies.

Yeah, you have a couple weird things going on there. I can take a quick look to see what happened and how easy a fix it is. I noticed that your Crown team is sporting some gin blossoms. Guess that was a fun side effect of needing red for the center ice logo eh.

Yeah I would like to adapt some NES tunes if I could, but I haven't really figured out how to do that. So I settled for switching up the instrumentation and changing the intermission music to NHLPA93's.

I just randomly remembered some other interesting mistakes/omissions/overlooked bits[?] that are a bit interesting. After a completed '95 season, you are treated to an award ceremony, but you might notice a couple things. One, there are a couple of longer delays in the presentation. This is likely due to the fact that the trophy sprites include images for the Calder, Adams and Lady Byng, but these trophies are not presented in the game. I'm guessing that they probably put all of the trophies in there before they may have even known what they were for and how they would even calculate how to chose a winner. [especially in the case of the coach of the year] And while the game is not displaying the trophy or finalists, but is still scrolling through the data, causing the slight delay. Also, more obviously, they got the wrong "Lester" trophy in there. The description is for the Pearson, but the image is of the Patrick. They fixed this for '96 in that they removed these trophies that couldn't be calculated, and they got the right Lester trophy this time. Although it is interesting that the Conn Smythe winner is calculated by the player that gets the most points in the playoffs, but it will always show up in the winning team photo. I found this out when Jaromir Jagr was awarded the Smythe in the ceremony, despite the Penguins not even making the Finals in my play through, and the trophy still showed up in my Stanley Cup Champs team photo. There was also this oversight though where they accidentally used the previous season's logo for the playoffs. Forgot to note that I changed that is this edit. '98 [and I think '97 but I didn't look] changed some of this again, as well as adding the Calder, but I don't know how they calculate for the winner as there really doesn't seem to be any way to differentiate a "first year" player unless they only included player created players. They also for some reason tripled up in the MVP awards by having the Hart, the Pearson and an "EA Sports Trophy" that still awarded to the "League MVP", but uses an image of the old design of the Pearson that had been retired a few seasons prior. This feels like an odd addition since the calculation for all of these awards seems to literally just go to whichever player wins the Art Ross. That said, I have no idea how the game programming my be complicated to test for some other way to pick different winners.

I noted some of the Left/Right stuff back in the day myself, although I can't really remember any specific players anymore. Having the tools to dig into the rosters now, I do wonder if it had anything to do with how the games are set up. I only realized this after setting up spreadsheets for each game and finding some stats weren't going to work without messing with my formulas, but just looking at the hex codes for each game, it seems that while in NHL Hockey ['92] and NHLPA'93, they started with 0=Right and 1=Left. [they also use a 0-15 player rating scale] However, the programming was flipped for NHL'94 so 0=Left and 1=Right. [in addition to switching to a 0-6 scale] But then it was flipped back for '95 so 0=Right again, only to switch again in '96 through '98 to 0=Left again. This makes me wonder if the programmer in charge of compiling the player stats may have been working off a lot of recycled information from the previous season which would inadvertently make those righties and lefties switch back and forth depending on how the stats may have been intended vs how the game was configured. The players and numbers probably ended up falling into different trap in that the games needed to be programmed in advance of the season, and the rosters were probably set well in advance of any summer trades and signings. As someone who recently had a lot of fun trying to interpret some old media guides that were written in the age before the internet, I'm imagining that there were a lot of "best guesses" made when it came to player data that wasn't readily available, and no way to double check if something was accurate when you did have a list to go on. It's also easy to forget that '95 wasn't released just prior to the season starting like most years, because the actual season didn't start like most years. So in addition to having an 84 game schedule instead of transposing those numbers, it would be about three months after the game was released before we found out just what the rosters would actually look like. Admittedly for this '96 edit, I only used the player data from '97 to reflect the "playoff" rosters. I didn't go through and double check that every player had the correct real life data in the process. If that was a thing you were looking to edit though, I would probably recommend downloading NOSE from the tools section on here since it's easier to look through the rosters that way. At least it is on a Windows machine. I don't recall what sort of processes you might need to do to run it on a Mac. On the plus side though. All of the player data is found in a simple hex code string immediately after each players' name. So it you're only option is a hex editor, at least it's not in some esoteric impenetrably compressed location.

This is a weird one. Beyond the changing of the team art and this last update where Colorado is in the correct conference, I didn't touch anything else. I'd also simmed a few seasons and "played" a couple as well. [Mostly just 2-player with the frame rate jacked to 800% in order to make sure Colorado made and won the playoffs] Didn't notice any issues, but I'm just using Gens on a Windows machine hooked up to a TV, and I've found that this emulator is a bit more forgiving when it comes to ignoring certain errors. Curious if you had to start a new season and if the glitch repeated itself.

Just woke up with a thought, [maybe I need help if I'm dreaming about this stuff] and figured I might as well purge this from my brain so I can get on with my day. My two cents. Going to historical guys that I'm more familiar with, Phil Esposito and Teemu Selanne both scored a career high of 76 goals. Given that he was called the "Finnish Flash", it's not surprising that Selanne was one of the fastest guys in the league in his prime. But Espo was a different story. Not at all that fast, but he was a big body that parked himself in front of the net and couldn't be moved, getting a sizable chunk of his goals from tips and rebounds. Now it would make sense that Selanne would have a speed of 6 and Esposito is more like a 2, but to advocate for the devil, the game isn't the same as real hockey and you're guy could have a 96% shot accuracy rating, but it doesn't do any good if he can't push his way through the defence to get a clear shot. If it sounds like I'm arguing both sides, sorry, my brain just does that. But to defend my partner's choices, I've always liked the adaptability required when dealing with lower stats in games and not relying on "More numbers = more better". That said, sometimes a game wasn't designed with that nuance in mind and you're just handcuffing yourself. As mentioned, this would be where the play testing comes in. Better data does help make better decisions, so if the general consensus supports it, we can try to consider that and plan updates accordingly.

Thanks eh. It was a fun experiment. Don't normally make covers for my ROMs, but my brother wouldn't stop bugging me about this one so I figured I'd slap something together with all the period correct assets. Since I have it, might as well include it here too. Not in print resolution, but at least I won't have to worry about seeing the "physical release" on some online store some day.

Geez... I was literally typing in the updates... <insert George Carlin-esc perfectly worded, but completely indignant comment of mom/wife nagging you to do a thing while not noticing that you are currently in the middle of doing that thing.>

Thanks to a few recent discussions and some breakthroughs on things that I was thinking I'd like to have done from the start, I figured it was time to put this out. This update includes a few major and minor changes, [thanks @AdamCatalyst and @chaos] of both the over and under the hood variety. Most obvious being: Filling up the screen for even more action-packed mayhem. Jessie and Vince get a little animated during their discussions. A goalie and a fan share a moment. Hot and cold streaks are given a little more impact and ratings got a bit of an attitude adjustment. Full list of updates and ROM in the original post. I think the only thing that I'd like to do, but haven't yet, I convert some Nintendo NSF chip tunes of wrestler theme songs into in-game organ music, but I haven't the time or drive required to be able to wrap my head around that one yet. If anyone wants to help me out on that, that would be the best. WWF-SSShoot-Out v3.0.bin

Well, hopefully this was worth the wait. Version 3.0, Trade Deadline Edition is now in the main post. Features included in this version: New lines! Rosters pre-loaded to reflect lineups following the trade deadline. Since many teams' lines will probably be thrown into the blender come playoff time when they don't need to milk that LTIR. All new player ratings! Every player rating has been recalculated from the ground up to reflect changes in performance of this season. New player photos! For some regulars and the couple dozen new players. Puck collision reverted to more old-school feel, so net scoring area is bigger than in V2. Some overlays are modified to work with some longer names better because we kndv lyk vwls n nms. This version is still using the "All Players, All Positions" mod. Standard screen width. [some testing has been done with wide screen mods, but due to some preferences in formatting, this will need to be done by individual assets] I think that's everything, but I'm literally starting to fall asleep in my chair here so this will have to do. Let me know if I missed something eh. NHL 2025 - Retro 94 Edition v3.0.bin

Just adding this here so all the information is in one place mainly for myself and anyone else interested. After @AdamCatalyst found the code to adjust the glass smashing trigger area I played around with it and noted that it was using the second crowd used colour palette for much of the animation. I wanted to make it share the first palette as used by the main rink so after getting pointed to the section with the goal light animation overlay, I was able to find a small group of numbers that had 2000s in it. Changed those 2's to 0's and it turned out to be it. Glass Breaking Animation Offset 0x0A3058 Code with Original Crowd Shared Colours: 200D 0002 FFE9 19C9 2008 0000 FFF1 19CC 200D 0000 0001 19D4 2008 0000 FFF1 19D7 200D 0007 0001 19DF 2004 FFFF 0005 19E1 2008 0004 0012 19E4 0004 0000 FFF1 19E6 200D 0008 0006 19EE 2004 0000 000E 19F0 0009 0018 0016 19F6 0000 FFFE 0016 19F7 000C 0000 FFF1 19E6 200D FFFE FFE5 19FB Edited to Use Rink Colours: 000D 0002 FFE9 19C9 0008 0000 FFF1 19CC 000D 0000 0001 19D4 0008 0000 FFF1 19D7 000D 0007 0001 19DF 0004 FFFF 0005 19E1 0008 0004 0012 19E4 0004 0000 FFF1 19E6 000D 0008 0006 19EE 0004 0000 000E 19F0 0009 0018 0016 19F6 0000 FFFE 0016 19F7 000C 0000 FFF1 19E6 000D FFFE FFE5 19FB

Damn. I'd been hoping this would be cracked some day. Annoyingly though, I tried to test this on a ROM where I'd already bumped up the AI aggression. Made the sweet spot the entire area of the broken section, but took four minutes just to get a shot off that wasn't blocked by the goalie, a defenceman, prevented entirely after getting crunched into the boards...

Heh, this reminds me of the colour data. Usually a palette directly follows the graphics tiles, but in some cases, that's just for show. I think in one case the background colours for '95 were located in something like 30 or 40 places, and 75% of the assets referenced the same offset, and the rest shared another, except for one, which must have been an only child because it had its own and didn't share with anyone. At least they can usually be recognized visually by a tile with a series of stripes.

I can say that there is an update in the works. But we have been a bit busy as of late so I don't want to give out a specific release date that we won't be able to meet. Soon-ish we hope though.

Actually that hadn't crossed my mind, but just last week I came across some old posts about season mode games and also some old notes I made regarding the divisional alignments that I'd apparently forgotten about. The thing with that type of team exchange is that [apart from taking some time to do] the team ratings, as far as simulated games go, are linked to where in the order a team falls and nothing to do with the team rankings or the player skill ratings. So the drawback to this would be that real-life-eventual-champs Colorado would be a playoffs bubble team, while we're-in-a-down-period Toronto would make the finals 50% of the time in a straight simulated season. Besides, I double checked and Toronto actually didn't move to the East until 1998 when Nashville joined. I was however reminded that I could realign the teams in less time than it took me to type this message, by simply relocating Colorado's team number in the section of code that sets the division and conference setting. And changing the numbers that set the division and conference set up. So Colorado is still in the "Q" spot in the team selection menu, but apart from that it works. So goodbye N.East Hello Pacific. updated in the original post

As one of the very few people on here who has dug into all ten of the Genesis/MegaDrive variants of EA's NHL games, I get that sometimes it's interesting to look into those other games and it doesn't need to be a "this or that" situation when a "this and that" scenario is perfectly acceptable. But, as one of those people, I also get that while the 96-98 games aren't bad, they do show how EA was starting their way to getting overly complex and they lack the balance of skill and simplicity that made '94 so much fun. I might also mention that, having spent some time editing each game, while '93, '94 and '95 have been cracked open and have expanded editable ROMs that are pretty easy to edit with the help of all the tutorials and resources on this site, the fact is that modding '96, '97 and '98 is limited to the original ROM making them not quite as versatile. Another drawback is that like '95 based mods, there is a season mode option, but it only works for the first 26 teams. However unlike the modified 34-team NHL'95 ROM, NHL'98 only has 26 regular teams and five All-Star teams. So any modern mods will mean omitting one current NHL team. I will say that there are the EA/THQ "secret teams" but the only hack I know about those is how to make them take the place of the default East/West All-Star teams. Maybe it might be possible to hack that part and have all 33 pre-loaded teams be accessible at the same time, but I'm just an art guy and that stuff's above my pay grade. Anyway, don't mean to get too far into it, but add in that the information on these games is not quite as robust and that, in its current state, any hacks are simply more labourious out of the gate, it's not really making one feel incentivized to put in the effort for a game that will be even more niche than your typical NHL'94 based mod.

Well shucks. I guess to your point @kooties8 I had done a series of mods and mentioned that I was trying to figure this out, but I suppose being based on '96-'98, it didn't garner as much interest. Or perhaps I should have taken your tact and posted a separate question. It actually annoys me that I had the right idea, but was searching for the ratings in the wrong listing order [looking vertically instead of horizontally I might call it] I am still curious though if these numbers will have any relation to a team's performance in a simulated season mode. Just to keep this in the same place, I was able to use slapshot's pattern to figure out where '96 keeps its team ranking data. NHL 96 00012016 - EVEN STRENGTH 00012046 - POWER PLAY 00012076 - PENALTY KILLING 000120A6 - GOALTENDING 000120D6 - OVERALL and the Swedish PAL port Elitserien 96 0000FDF6 - EVEN STRENGTH 0000FE24 - POWER PLAY 0000FE52 - PENALTY KILLING 0000FE80 - GOALTENDING 0000FEAE - OVERALL