🔦SPOTLIGHT!
THE GOLDENEYE ROMHACK
A QUICK breakdown of how we created Goldeneye 64 title sequence for Nirvanna the Band the Show.
by Luca Tarantini | August 22, 2024
An alternate and extended version of the Goldeneye intro, captured on an N64 emulator via a custom romhack.
Nirvanna the Band the Show's title sequences are famous for their brilliant pop-culture parodies that reflect the story of each episode.
When it came time to create the intro for the Goldeneye episode, I knew we had to do something special. The animation had to match the look and feel of the original game as closely as possible, and 'close enough' wouldn't cut it. Being a big nerd I landed on the very technical (and fun!) process of ROM hacking.
ROM hacking is the process of modifying a game's ROM (a digital backup of the game) to alter the game's graphics, dialogue, levels, gameplay, and/or other elements. This technique was used to create the title sequence for S2E2 "The Boost".
The modified textures that we injected into the rom.
Thankfully, the ROM hacking community is incredibly vibrant and mature, and we sourced some of the tools they created to make their own modifications to classic N64 games. The one we used for this intro was created by SubDrag, an active modder who actually took the time to answer some of my questions about how their tool worked.
Over a long overnight session in April 2017, me and kindred tinkerer Jared Raab extracted the original game textures, edited them in Photoshop and re-injected them into the ROM. It took a few tries to get right, but the results speak for themselves.
Voila - an original model from the game with our new custom skin (I think the donor model was Mishkin)
When you boot up Goldeneye 64, it jumps into the intro sequence of all the characters posing with randomized animations and weapon sets, so after recording multiple "takes" we cut together a sequence with the sections we liked best. And of course, the actors automatically kept all of their great original animations but inherited their new modified skins.
And if this all sounds too incredible to be true, try the ROM yourself! Below is an embedded N64 emulator that will launch the modded ROM. You can also download the ROM with the link below and run it on your own emulator, or if you have an Everdrive you can run it on original N64 hardware!
It even works in multiplayer!
Jay replaces Bond, and Matt replaces Natalya. So by default you can play the campaign as Jay with some missions featuring Matt. Does this mean they share a kiss at the end of the game? I... I think so.
Controls:
A = x
B = s
Z = tab
Start = enter
Stick = t, f, g, h
🐒 Buy me something to drink while romhacking 🔽 (download is still free)