I figured this would be one of the best places to ask about this. There are a whole bunch of ROMs of Super Mario Bros 2 J floating around out there, most of them are incomplete or otherwise messed up somehow. It's an absolute shitshow for someone trying to load a bunch of ROMs onto a flash cart!
The ROM that I originally came across was called "Super Mario Bros 2 (Lost Levels) (Unl).nes". At a glance it looks like a common pirate version - The title screen is removed, but after 10 minutes of playing, you won't notice much difference. However, I tried selecting Luigi, and it's just a palette swap of Mario - Even the name still says Mario above the score, there are no higher jumps like Luigi is supposed to have.
Luckily I found an IPS patch for this particular ROM here:
http://www.lngn.net/stuff/ It seems to fix most of the issues and bring back proper functionality with Luigi, the wind physics and several other things. It even adds the ability to select world/level on the title screen by pressing A and B. Very useful considering how difficult this game is! There's just one flaw, it's acceptable, but still annoying: The Score/Lives/Timer part of the screen are slightly garbled. Still legible, but the graphics are constantly sort of moving and glitching around in a somewhat distracting way..
I turns out, the only proper patched version of SMB2 was edited by a guy named Loopy, and can be found here:
https://3dscapture.com/NES/ This is as close as you can possibly get to a 1:1 recreation of the FDS version, just in NES format. However, this one lacks the wonderful little level select feature! (as it should, considering it aims to be a faithful NES port of the FDS original.)
The point of this ramble is that I would love a version that has everything working right in NES format (as loopy's edited version does) but also incorporates the level select feature, which allows you to select worlds 9, A, B, C and D.
Can anyone lead me to any IPS patches or otherwise that implement this change into loopy's version? Everything I find when I attempt to search for it has to do with Game Genie codes and whatnot.
This is basically just me being picky and wanting a version of SMB2 J that works 100% perfectly in NES format but also has that level select feature and
doesn't have those irritating garbled graphics at the top. It appears RetroUSB used to sell a reproduction cart that is exactly what I describe, but it hasn't been sold or produced for quite some time. I actually have an awesome SMB2 J repro for my NES, fully functional, well built, very satisfied with it as a standalone cart but again this is unfortunately the version without the built-in level select.
I have already devoted far too many hours to trying to dig up what I describe, and hell, it may not exist. To muddy the waters even further, in the patched version
with the level select, the garbled graphics do not show up in FCEUX, just on my EverDrive cart. The ROM refuses to even load in Nestopia. I know the EverDrive cart can't be the problem, as loopy's 1:1 version works flawlessly in the same cart.
If you guys have any tips for me, that would be swell.
