Happy Holidays and Great 2022! It's time for a small 2021 restropective.

Hi! 2021 was a great year... and challenging too. I think the first semester was completely amazing. We got Super R-Type & Race Drivin' SA-1 patches which shown what amazing things you can do with the SA-1 chip. We also got many FastROM patches, with the ones made by me being Axelay, F-Zero and U.N. Squadron (Area 88)! And finally, the first SNES widescreen mod game, Super Mario World with a even more powerful gameplay enhancement patch, SA-1 Pack v1.41.

What went well

• Super R-Type SA-1 shown that the chip is very effective with 2D shmup games and should be the choice for such games. I can't wait to make more SA-1 shmup patches and optimize the existing ones for zero slowdown glory.
• Race Drivin' SA-1 was a great surprise and allowed the development of dynamic frame rate SNES patches, which allows making SNES games run faster graphically but without accelerating the gameplay. Race Drivin' patch had two versions - (1) one with my personal speed adjust and (2) another that makes the game run on the same speed as the original one but with smooth gameplay.
• F-Zero FastROM shown that SlowROM games can get the benefits of the faster CPU speed with a faster development time and it's effective when slowdown occurs occasionally. It's also an interesting option for the ROM hacking community.
• Super Mario World Widescreen shown new possibilities for playing SNES games. I was honestly very surprised with the good reception and that was only possible thanks for the coordination between software mod <-> hardware mod integration. Although it doesn't work on real hardware correctly, It's a way to "remaster" games without losing the SNES feeling on PC and some console platforms.
• I got the rare SA-1 cartridge from a really cool person which just shows how amazing the community is. I found out a lot of cool things from the SA-1 cartridge which will be cool even for the 3D Super FX games, since the demo does some things that I never thought it was possible before!

What could go better

• FastROM mods such as Axelay and Area 88 shown good potential for eliminating slowdown but weren't enough for completely removing it. They need either the SA-1 chip or some good degree of handmade optimization for getting perfect frame rate.
• It's hard to troubleshoot games. I could not figure out a way to fix the random hardware bugs from Contra III without considering rewriting the way I did the SA-1 patch. Race Drivin' SA-1 has a visual bug where it happens on MiSTer and real hardware which I still could not reproduce on my PC locally, making it harder to figure out why.
• I still could not finish Super Metroid SA-1. The bigger the game, the bigger the complexity. In fact, Super Metroid is six times bigger than Gradius III and I suspect the time dedicated so far on Super Metroid I could have also done Gradius III six times. Or alternatively Gradius III (512 KB) + Contra III (512 KB) + Axelay (1 MB) + Area 88 (1 MB) which equals Super Metroid in size (3 MB). But I think it's being worth the effort, I'm sure the result will be impressive.
• Widescreen games does not work on real hardware and it's unlikely to happen, unfortunately. In addition, Super Mario World Widescreen required a level of dedication and knowledge that probably would make it impracticable if it wasn't for my over ten years of SMW hacking experience. Hope I can be proven wrong on my next widescreen project.

Sad words

I think it's a sensitive subject but I feel obligated to point out that we lost Near, our beloved bsnes, higan, ares developer and researcher. I can't stop thinking on Near whenever it comes the SNES on my mind, some days I feel extremely sad that I could not do anything about... Whenever you are right now Near, I sincerely hope you are feeling good and you are with wonderful people that loves you and recognize the incredible talent you have. I know you told me to not worry about you and to move forward and I'm aware of the legacy I have from you. You helped me many times directly and indirectly, either with tools, knowledge or fun moments.

I will make sure to show the worlds the amazing ideas and projects you had in mind. Some day, we will be able to play Star Fox in Full HD like how you wanted and at same time get the perfect PPU and SA-1 chip emulation so we pretty much have cycle and pixel perfect emulator...

What to expect in 2022

The focus in 2022 will be on SA-1 and Super FX projects. Along Super Metroid for SA-1, I have good expectations for Super FX games.

I have two Super FX cartridges, one made by qwertymodo (you can read more about qwertymodo's cartridge here) and another made by The Real Phoenix.

The Real Phoenix's Super FX cartridge features a 21/27 MHz overclock switch which he made it to me for free (along the cartridge and the ROM chips, which one you can see on the screenshot) which will let me test the possibility of overclocking Super FX games in real hardware for acquire a higher frame rate without accelerating the game. It's gonna be useful, specially for Star Fox, Stunt Race FX and DOOM.

I would also make more SA-1 and widescreen mods, which I didn't have a chance yet. Before thinking on the next game, I will make sure to finish Super Metroid SA-1 so I can focus on improving the development processes, which shown that I will have trouble with games larger than 1 MB.

Everything I do here, for free, is thanks to the wonderful community and the support from you all from Patreon. I know I have not done any noteworth release for the past months, but you all will see that the support was worth it when you see the results of Super Metroid SA-1 and the incoming Super FX games. I'm always open for feedback and suggestions, either here or at Discord and hope 2022 will be the year of the SNES ROM hacks.

See ya soon!