Hack Ninja Gaiden Arcade (original 1988) for MAME

[Fran]

Hello,
I wanted to learn how to hack the Ninja Gaiden Arcade game (the original from 1988) for MAME.
My intention is to modify the graphics of the game.
Could someone help me to know what "specific" programs I need and how to do it?
I am trying with Tile Molester and I have managed to visualize some sprites but not complete ones.
Is there a way to see the full sprites?
On the other hand, the palette looks bad. I have seen in some tutorial how from the Palette> Import from> This File option, the Displacement and Size options make the color palette look good.
I have downloaded the gaiden.cpp file, which I attached:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eBF8w5nDjWeoLhrXhiYqP7dVQw5yLLLj/view?usp=sharing
In this file you can see a lot of information about the game. For instance:
PALETTE (config, m_palette) .set_format (palette_device :: xBGR_444, 4096);
I do not know if that information can be useful to have a good vision of the color palette.
I have no knowledge of how to hack a rom.
Thanks.

[halifax]

Welcome to the community and thanks for posing your question. 

The games that get hacked here are sports games for sega genesis and snes. (mostly hockey)

While it possible there may be someone here who can help, I would think it's highly unlikely based on your request. 

I don't have any legitimate suggestions of where you should go for this info. 

Maybe try here? -> https://www.nintendoforums.com/forums/nes.29/

 

 

[UltraMagnus]

Given what your trying to do, the best route would be to do some research on the web. As for Ninja Gaiden NES has alot of options via Romhacking.net - Games - Ninja Gaiden. 

If your set on MAME, likely will have to learn everything from scratch. A few programs that might help at yy-chr, Tile Molestar and Hive Editor (Change colors)

yy-chr20120407_en.zip

HivePal Editor.zip