NES Powerpak Review

[arfink]

The PowerPak is designed to emulate an NES cartridge perfectly.  The only thing I can think of that would stop the PowerPak from not being able to play a game is usually a strange mapper, but so far the only game I've seen with that problem is the JY 45-in-1, which hasn't been reproduced at all.  If they can get it to work on a regular NES cartridge, they had to get the mapper from somewhere, right?

Perhaps that is so, but Mario Adventure isn't capable of running on a normal cart. AFAIK, the hack is relatively extensive, and requires more than just a rewire or remap, but actually re-clocking or separately driving certain address lines etc. The ROM hack was pretty crazy, and as you probably know, only works on inaccurate NES emulators because it relies on inaccurate timings. The mapper the game uses is supported- the wacky timings are not, and AFAIK cannot be properly supported by the PowerPak without hardware modification.

[Jedi Master Baiter]

That's how I'll probably play the Ganbare Goemon games.

Now the only concern is with the quality of the translation hacks.

I've come across questionable ones before... not necessarily the translations themselves, but quality issues.

It's not an easy process by any means, but most of the translations that claim to be finished don't cause any issues.  It's when you start running the ones that were started and never finished that you often have your game crash on you (I assume this is what you mean by quality issues)

Alls I knows is that Nadia has extensive problems on an actual NES, & its bad enough on FCE Ultra (graphics get glitchy sometimes).

And now I have that on my list of games to translate myself.

As for the list of games for PowerPak...

-Almana no Kiseki
-Neotoxin
-New New New New Mario Bros

[punkpolitical]

I've already got a short list of:

Rockman 5 Endless (hack)
Metroid 23rd anniversary graphics (enhancement hack)
Sweet Home (translation)
D-Pad Hero (homebrew)
Earthbound (abandonware)

Looking for about 20 more suggestions.

THE ADVENTURE OF ERROR!!!

[crade]

The PowerPak is designed to emulate an NES cartridge perfectly.  

just because it is "designed" to emulate a nes cartridge perfectly, doesn't mean it does

The only thing I can think of that would stop the PowerPak from not being able to play a game is usually a strange mapper, but so far the only game I've seen with that problem is the JY 45-in-1, which hasn't been reproduced at all.  If they can get it to work on a regular NES cartridge, they had to get the mapper from somewhere, right?

Not a "strange" mapper, but an unsupported one.  There are several, including MMC5 which is basically all the KOEI games.
There is a list of what mappers are supported, buggy or planned for future here:
http://www.retrousb.com/product_info.php?cPath=24&products_id=34

Perhaps that is so, but Mario Adventure isn't capable of running on a normal cart. AFAIK, the hack is relatively extensive, and requires more than just a rewire or remap, but actually re-clocking or separately driving certain address lines etc. The ROM hack was pretty crazy, and as you probably know, only works on inaccurate NES emulators because it relies on inaccurate timings. The mapper the game uses is supported- the wacky timings are not, and AFAIK cannot be properly supported by the PowerPak without hardware modification.

"Hacked hardware" = custom mapper / custom board.
Edit: This game claims to use MMC3 mapper, but what it actually does is use a custom mapper that is similar enough to a real MMC3 board to fool the emulators, but not similar enough to fool the NES.

This doesn't neccessarily mean it is impossible for it to ever run on the powerpak but I wouldn't hold your breath.  The powerpak has the "potential" to run some custom mappers.  You can write custom mapper emulators for it, but it is genereally a ton of work to write them, and for just one game, someone would have to be really devoted to that game I guess

[satoshi_matrix]

-Almana no Kiseki
-Neotoxin
-New New New New Mario Bros
[/quote]

can you provide more info and download links to the patches? That's what I plan to do for each entry on the list.

[crade]

All this talk has convinced me it's a good idea to write a follow up article detailing the top picks for first time powerpak owners to check out.

Can I get some suggestions guys?

Here is some of the ones I played.  I haven't played fire emblem gaiden, but I will when I can get my hands on a cart of it.

- destiny of an emperor 2 (translation)
- Famicom Wars (translation)
- Maze of Galious (translation)
- Fire Emblem Gaiden (translation)
- Zelda Outlands (hack)