This is a patch which replaces the PSG music in Vampire Killer with SCC music.
Here are the steps to apply the patch:
- Save this rom as vkiller.rom:
- Akumajyo Drakyula. Vampire Killer (1986)(Konami)[a][RC-744] http://www.planetemu.net/roms/msx-msx2-various-rom
- Save this rom as nemesis3.rom:
- Gofer no Yabou Episode II. Nemesis 3 - The Eve of Destruction (1988)(Konami)[a][RC-764] http://www.planetemu.net/roms/msx-various-rom?page=G
- Download the Vampire Killer TurboFix patch and apply it to vkiller.rom:
- http://frs.badcoffee.info/patches.html
- Download SJASMPlus:
- https://sourceforge.net/projects/sjasmplus
- Install Python if you don't have it already:
- http://python.org
- And then run:
- python patch.py
This should produce a new file: vkiller_scc.rom which is the patched version of Vampire Killer with SCC music.
This patch is applied on top of the Vampire Killer 'TurboFix' patch by FRS, which means it has improved controls (N key for jumping), has support for the R800, and fixes the flickering sprites problem. Unfortunately the TurboFix patch removes Game Master support, however you can use Game Master 2 to select the stage and lives. To do this, put the Game Master in slot 1 and the game in slot 2. For more information about the TurboFix patch, see turbofix_readme.txt.
This patch includes some cheats to make sure everyone can play through the game and enjoy the new music. The cheats are as follows:
Press 'G' to GIVE all weapons and items and restore your health The screen won't update immediately, so it might seem as if it's doesn't do anything, but it does.
Press 'I' for INVINCIBILITY. This will temporarily make you glow red. It's the same effect as picking up an invincibility ring.
Apart from producing a patched ROM, patch.py also produces vkiller_scc.kss, which is a KSS version of the new SCC Vampire Killer soundtrack. You can use this together with the provided .m3u playlist file to listen to the new SCC Vampire Killer soundtrack (for example in Winamp).
All the songs in this new version of Vampire Killer have been re-arranged to take advantage of the extra SCC channels and the different SCC sounds. So it's much more than a simple "PSG to SCC" conversion. The SCC music is played on the Nemesis 3 SCC player code, which has been integrated into Vampire Killer. All sounds effects are still played using Vampire Killer's own PSG music player.
The new SCC music has been written in a MML-style language (see mml/vkiller_scc.mml) and then compiled into the Konami music format and written into the ROM.
First I reverse engineered the Konami sound format. I wrote some code that can decode the sound format to MIDI files. I have this working for many Konamis including Solid Snake and SD Snatcher. It's fascinating to see how the file format changed from game to game, what all the different commands are that the music composers had access to, and how they used it to make their music. I intend to release more information about this in the future, and I also will release the tools I wrote to decompile Konami music.
To generate the new music I decompiled the Vampire Killer music into MIDI, and then loaded them up into Ableton Live where I added extra harmonies and chords. I then converted the MIDI to a text representation of Konami's SCC music data format. This text file format is similar to MML. I then edited the MML, adding instruments and commands (volume, envelope, tremolo) and then converted that back into konami SCC music format which is then written into the ROM.