Romhacking has many facets, from unofficial translations of games released in only one region, new levels and/or character modifications, to quality of life improvements to the original titles, amongst many, many other types of romhacks as a whole.
Some intuitive romhackers see the tools and knowledge to make entirely new stories out of the original games as a base, sometimes creating a new scenario of said game in a brand new light and tone. This is the case for one such project from the talented romhacker and modder BigSharkZ, who worked on an entirely new story based on a "what if" scenario if EarthBound had a bad ending of sorts.
The original project was showcased in a video named "BuzzBound: Cursed EarthBound Prequel" from July, 2022 by Lumpy Touch, in collaboration with BigSharkZ , which was an early version that had many scrapped ideas, according to BigSharkZ, which he wanted to touch upon and expand in a much bigger fashion, with more detail and expertise, all with the permission of Lumpy Touch.
Since then, BigSharkZ has put in almost 80-100+ hours of his own spare time and worked on continuing the project to what he had envisioned 2 years ago, expanding on the overall concept of the original BuzzBound project, and also applying all of the gained knowledge he obtained on romhacking since then to be able to depict the vast majority of the project as a romhack, while still relying on some video editing to help realize the full project.
"BuzzBound: Shadows of Giygas" is the final outcome of this huge project, with the final video being almost 44 minutes long. This brand new "what if" scenario for EarthBound follows Buzz Buzz arriving too late to a decimated and desolated Earth, with Giygas taking over the entirety of the planet, in a completely eerie and dreadful scenery, full of horrific mutated creatures, an unsettling soundtrack, and an adventure to try to figure out what could have gone wrong given Buzz Buzz' late arrival on Earth, and the whereabouts of the child of prophecy, Ness.
BigSharkZ's video description said:New footage of the highly cursed EarthBound prequel called BuzzBound was recently shown by a collector who mysteriously vanished soon after. This new prototype dates back to October 1994, just months after EarthBound's release. Dive into exclusive gameplay footage and discover the unsettling experiences tied to BuzzBound... Viewer discretion is advised!
*ahem*
It's been a while since my last EarthBound video, especially a spooky one! So this one is for the followers of my channel who enjoy seeing more EarthBound content, as well as all EarthBound fans out there and those who love spooky stories.
The original BuzzBound video was made in collaboration with Lumpy Touch. While working on it with him, there were many ideas that I came up which did not end up being in the final video. Lumpy agreed that I should make my own video with all the scrapped ideas, putting them all together into an alternate bad ending of the project. I had so much fun with it that I also elaborated more on the story!
I've dedicated countless hours to this project since 2022, with a solid 80-100+ hours put in over recent weeks and I'm thrilled it's finally done. I hope you enjoy it!
BigSharkZ has also worked on other romhacking and modding projects. For those interested in checking his other work, they can be seen on his YouTube channel, with the latest one before BuzzBound being his Winds of Time project, where Shark tries to recreate Ocarina of Time in a Wind Waker style, complete with custom 3D character models, stages and even custom music.
BigSharkZ's YouTube Channel
