The ROM hacking scene has been on a tear as always, and this latest batch hits just about every flavor of obsession: more Marvel brawlers, lost PC‑Engine oddities, Mega Man deep cuts, and Sega’s most self‑aware RPG finally cracking English.
Let’s start with the punch‑ups. Streets of Rage 2 – Maximum Carnage Edition 1.2 turns Sega’s all‑timer into a Marvel fever dream, replacing Max and Axel with Venom and Spider‑Man while dropping Carnage in as a boss. The new update cleans up Venom’s knocked‑down sprite, fixes Skate’s misaligned hitboxes, and even tweaks Blaze and Skate into their Streets of Rage 3 looks, plus all four characters can now run diagonally. Over on the Genesis too, Battletoads x Double Dragon PLUS aims to be a definitive “director’s cut” of the crossover, tightening difficulty, smoothing jank, and generally making it a little less of a rental‑bait pain festival without losing the chaos.
If you want your violence a little more precise, Super Contra NES to SNES is another wild Infidelity port that lifts the NES game wholesale onto SNES hardware. You still get the original look and level design, but with Super Nintendo muscle: no flicker, less slowdown, MSU‑1 audio options, and all the little touches that make it feel like the Contra cartridge in your memories.
On the translation/preservation side, it’s been a dumb good month. The PC‑Engine CD version of Popful Mail now has an English dub patch, making the game partially playable in English for the first time on that platform. Meanwhile, the long‑cursed Dreamcast meta‑RPG Segagaga finally has a full English fan patch too, complete with installer guides and project notes. It lands just in time for the game’s 25th anniversary.
The PS2 horror deep cut Tairyou Jigoku, a budget, Alice in Wonderland‑inspired nightmare, is now fully playable in English as well, rescuing another weirdo from the pile. Speaking of weirdos, Saturn fans got Lupin the Third, finally letting you follow the actual capers instead of guessing what the gang’s arguing about between heists.
Rockman ABnormality (Revival) is a Mega Man 2 ROM hack that leans into kaizo‑adjacent stage design and remixed boss patterns, turning familiar robot master routes into nasty new gauntlets. On the spin‑off side, the mobile‑era Rockman Tennis, a 2007 Japan‑only i‑mode title, now has a full English patch, complete with redrawn image‑based text, localized title screen, and all seven playable characters’ dialog (including an unlockable X) fully translated.
If X‑era is more your thing, the X3 Zero Project Relocalization for SNES cleans up language, restores and clarifies story details, and folds in Zero‑focused tweaks from older hacks into a more cohesive, modern script.
In Nintendo news, Super Mario World Advance is a Game Boy Advance hack that cleans up the color palette to be closer to its Super Nintendo roots. Meanwhile, Smash Remix 2.0.1 continues its absolute takeover of Nintendo 64 Smash, adding a new Tug of War mode on top of its already enormous roster and stage list. It’s basically a sequel at this point.
Finally, the Pokémon crowd is cooking something: upcoming Black and White 2 ROM hacks are teasing “expressive backgrounds” that add more reactive, animated detail to battles, pushing the DS originals a step closer to the dynamic presentation people now expect from modern monster battlers. No full release yet, but the early teases already look like the kind of thing you’ll never want to go back from once you’ve patched your ROM.
Did I miss anything in this romhack roundup? Let me know in the comments below!
