Let’s set the scene. It’s Christmas morning, you’ve opened your gifts and one of them is a new handheld. You’re beyond excited to play some games you remember from your childhood, but you also want something new. You want something that’s familiar, but maybe with slight tweaks and differences to make it feel like a breath of fresh winter air.
That’s where ROM hacks come in. Here are some great ones; ones worth playing while the snow melts outside as you stay warm inside. They aren’t necessarily honing in on wintery, seasonal themes, but they do offer a nice “gaming backdrop” while the holiday takes control.
Pokémon Picross (GBC)
Game made by Jupiter Corp, translated by LeonarthCG
Pokemon Picross was a game that was ultimately canceled in 1999. However, a “prototype” with a full ending and credits was leaked in 2020. A short time later, a full English translation with custom graphics and a few bug fixes were released in the aforementioned prototype.
Picross is a game that works on a grid, with each row and column having a predetermined number of consecutively filled boxes. It’s your goal, as you play, to use the information given to find out where those spaces are and ultimately solve the puzzle and complete the image.
Seeing a canceled game get leaked is usually enough for tons of fanfare. But here, it’s even more than that — it’s Pokemon Picross. Pokemon has obviously become a household name and Picross, well, it’s Picross. The merge of the two, but years before the game of the same name on the 3DS (made by the same developer), with such gorgeous pixel art… it’s a thing of beauty.
Pokemon Picross GBC – ENG Translation
Pokémon Emerald Seaglass (GBA)
ROM Hack made by Nemo622
This game follows a pretty simple concept. It’s Pokemon Emerald, story-wise, but a whole new adventure visually.
The game is the epitome of cozy on the GBA, at least, in my opinion. It’s not a farming simulator nor is it a life sim, but it plays and feels as relaxing as one. Emerald is heralded as the strongest of the three-generation 3 mainline games (atop both Ruby and Sapphire), but Seaglass’s art style slices off a bit of its edge and injects even more charm than would be expected of a Pokemon title.
The game uses assets found in the generation 2 games (Gold, Silver, Crystal) and some from the GBA games to create potentially the most visually appealing Pokemon ROM hack available. The characters, Pokemon, shops, environment, all of it, look reminiscent of sticker art, but also defined by its pixels.
Despite Pokemon Emerald already being a 2D game, I would argue that Seaglass draws a lot of its visual inspiration from games like Paper Mario and its approach to what it means to be 2D.
Super Mario Bros. Merry Mountain Christmas Adventure (SNES)
As a lifelong super fan of platformers, seeing Super Mario World ROM hacks still continually push the bounds of what we’re used to is enough to bring a tear to my eye.
This ROM hack is primarily focused on being a Christmas story within the Mario universe. It’s not simple palette swaps or changes to its base game, it’s a new game. It serves as a “sequel” to the previous Super Mario Bros. Christmas edition made by Nowieso, and it definitely keeps the mood light, and gameplay tight. If any of these hacks emphasize the Christmas spirit, it’s this one.
Merry Mountain Christmas Adventure
Fire Emblem Vision Quest (GBA)
ROM Hack made by Pandan and friends
RPGs are some of the coziest games worth playing when it comes to giving the season some much-needed oomph. Fire Emblem, just as a series, doesn’t necessarily embody that same ideal. It features war, family strife, and the death tangled between the two, but Vision Quest’s theme is the essence of wintery aesthetics.
Vision Quest is a full game with its own story, themes, and refinements to the default Fire Emblem gameplay style. Admittedly, the game doesn’t center itself on Christmas or winter, but it uses a ton of snow, light, and moody design choices that — to me — encapsulate the general wintery season aura. It’s a fun game, some would even consider it better than a lot of mainline games.
Fire Emblem is notorious for having a robust cast of characters and plot lines that are interwoven between them all, but Vision Quest takes the typical Fire Emblem style and remixes it into a style of its own. It’s booming with original content too — over 41 individual chapters and over 60 playable characters. It’s one of those ROM hacks that make you wonder what more could be done if this were given the same light as an original title.
Mother 3 (GBA)
I very clearly saved the best for last. This one is a ROM hack purely on a technicality. If you’re reading this and don’t know Japanese, you’ll have to use the translation patch, and boom, now it’s a ROM hack. If you’ve ever dabbled into GBA RPGs, you’ve at the very least heard of this one. Maybe played it, but if not, why not dive head-first into maybe the best RPG the GBA has to offer?
Mother 3 is absolutely not a joyous or happy game once you progress into the later stages. It ends its first chapter with maybe the most tear-jerking moment from the GBA era, but beneath it all, and why I play it each year, it emphasizes the bond between family. Even in its climax, the game captures how meaningful different people in our lives may be. How choices we make may impact them beyond understanding, and how perception may sit behind it all.
The game floats in and out of varying different regions and seasons, people and places, and only a bit are snowy and wintery. However, if a game based around family is something that reminds you of what you have at home, or what you aspire to have, this game is a love letter to you.
Regardless of the device you got over the holidays, so long as it’s not one of the multimillion Famiclones, you should have no problem playing any of the above games. Be it the TrimUI Brick, the Retroid Pocket 5, or even something as futuristic as the Powkiddy RGB20 Pro, they can all play the above games with ease.
You will need to source the base game ROMs on your own (we will not help you do this) but once you have those, you can apply the ROM hacks by following the steps in our guide. It’s easy, trust me.
The holiday season can be great and filled with fun, but sometimes the best moments within it are the ones filled with peace and silence. For some, the best way to mellow out is to load up a game and allow yourself to get lost in the world it creates. ROM hacks do that and then some.
Hopefully, this list at least gives you a starting point about where to go to look for games that at least let you escape to something different, but still remind you of the world around you. Most were RPGs, but even platformers and puzzle games can provide some much-needed serenity amongst the chaos the holidays have a tendency to bring out.
What did you think of this article? Did you get any new handhelds this year? Looking forward to any new and upcoming ROM hacks? Let us know in the comments below, and chat with us in our Discord!
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