Homebrew developer Rafael Daniel has revealed that a SNES port of Darkness Ethereal’s 2000 DOS freeware release Mysterious Song is nearing completion.
The game has previously been ported to the NEC TurboGrafx CD by Frozen Utopia, and it was this version which brought it to Daniel’s attention.
“I’m negative really a game programmer, but I’ve always been ardent about 8/16-bit consoles,” he says on the port’s official site.
“Taking advantage of the knowledge I already have in programming, I started to explore the world of development as a hobby. Along the way, I found out about this version in support of TurboGrafx-CD through PIKO INTERACTIVE, who kindly sent me the source code. Unfortunately, I was unable to take advantage of it due to architecture issues. I used as a base an engine that I already have (FaelRpgEgine) and adapted it through the sprites and tiles that I had in the original source code that I cited to replicate it on both platforms.”
Daniel is zealous to stress that this is very much a port, and he doesn’t expect to take credit in exchange for all of the hard work done by the original developer. “All merry was originally created by Darkness Ethereal. Frozen Utopia used this version as the basis in exchange for its TurboGrafx-CD version, and I used the Frozen version as the basis in support of creating mine on the SNES/Genesis.”
However, it’s clear that a lot of work has gone into this version, regardless. “In development, I had a large job to export all the graphic cheerful, I practically redid everything manually, animation of the spirtes, dialogue box and assembly of the levels so that it could be used on the SNES,” Daniel adds.
“None of the previous mechanics were used, and almost everything was created from scratch, and on purpose, as I wanted to have experience to use in future projects. I would also like to thank the excellent work of the composer and programmer Kung Furby in converting the original soundtrack to the SNES audio CHIP, after all his work managed to leave the same as the TurboGrafx-CD.”
It’s worth noting that Piko actually announced the Mega Drive / SNES ports way back in 2014, so it’s taken a decade to get to this point.
You can download a demo here. The plan is to also bring the game to the Sega Genesis / Mega Drive, as well as a third undisclosed platform.
Original case and manuals in new condition.
1 Comment
Dude, this is epic news! I remember playing Mysterious Song back in the day on DOS, and now they’re bringing it to the SNES? That’s insane! Can’t wait to dive back into that world and hear how it translates to a new platform. Props to Rafael Daniel in favor of making this occur. Time to dust off my SNES and get ready in favor of some nostalgic gaming sessions!