How to Make SNES PAR Codes (Part One)
This document was written by:
Tony Hedstrom t.hed@excite.com
In this document, I will explain in detail, how to
make Super Nintendo (SNES) Pro Action Replay (PAR)
codes. Once you see how easy it is to make your own
PAR codes, I'm sure you'll want to make PAR codes for
all of your favorite SNES games.
PAR codes can be made for almost any SNES game. As
far as I can remember, I've been able to find codes
for every single SNES game that I tried. Sometimes
the codes are very easy to find, sometimes there not
so easy. But with a little imagination, you should
have no trouble finding codes for most, if not all
of your SNES games.
To make PAR codes, you only need two things (three if
you count your computer):
1) A SNES emulator called ZSNES. You should get the
newest version you can find (version 0.991 is what
I use in this example). You can get the latest
version here: zophar.net
2) The ROM of the game you want to make codes for.
For this example, I'm going to make a code for a game
called Black Thorne. The main reason that I'm using
this game for an example is because I can show you
two different ways of finding the same code with this
game.
The ZSNES emulator has a built-in cheat searching
program. This cheat finding program uses two types of
searches to find cheats. The first type is called the
"Exact Value Search". Use this method when you know
the exact value (hench the name) of the thing you are
trying to find codes for (ie. lives, money, bullets,
continues, HP, MP etc...). The second type is called
the "Comparitive Search". Use this method when you
don't know the exact value of the thing your trying to
find codes for (ie. health bar, energy, internal
clocks/timers etc...). The "Comparitive Search" method
is also good to use when the "Exact Value Search"
method doesn't find the right code.
OK, lets get started...
In this first example, we are going to use the "Exact
Value Search" method. We will be trying to find a
code to give us infinite health for Black Thorne.
1) Run the ZSNES program.
2) Load the ROM you want codes for (in this case it's
Black Thorne).
3) Start the game. Now lets find out how much health
we have. If you look at the top right hand corner,
you will see the health bar. There are 6 arrow
shaped marks. (Each time that you get hit, one
arrow will disappear.) So we can guess that the
exact number of health that we have is 6.
4) Now press the "Esc" button on your keyboard to
pause the game and bring up the menu screen.
5) Click on the "Cheat" button, then click on "Search".
6) You now have to make a few decisions about what
type of search you want. Number of Bytes: This
number will usually be one or two bytes. In this
case, our number of health is 6, so we will go with
one byte (because the amount we're looking for
(health) most likely will be less than 255). If
the amount your looking for might be greater than
255, than choose 2 bytes, if it's greater than
65,535 then choose 3 bytes. You will hardly ever
need to choose 4 bytes. An example of when you
may need to choose 2 or 3 bytes is when you are
searching for the amount of gold you have. The
amount of gold/money you have can be 999,999 or
higher in some games. Sometimes you will have
to make your best guess at how many bytes you need.
7) The next decision you need to make is which Format
to use. You have two choices: Dec or Hex. 98% of
the time, you should choose Dec (Base 10).
8) Now we need to decide which search method to use.
In this example, we're using the "Exact Value"
method.
9) Now click on the "Start" button.
10) You are now at the "Cheat Search" screen. Right
under where it says "Enter Value:", you will see
a flashing cursor. It is waiting for you to type
in a number. So type in 6 (the amount of health
we have right now).
11) Click on the "Search" button. We have now narrowed
down the possibilities from 131,072 to only 369.
12) Now lets return to the game (just like it says).
To return to the game, all you do is press the
"Esc" button a few times.
13) Now what we need to do is to somehow change the
amount of health we have. That should be easy
enough. Go find an enemy and let him shoot you
once (but only once). Now your health bar should
only have 5 arrows instead of 6. Pause the game
so that you don't get shot again.
14) Press the "Esc" button again to get to the menu
screen.
15) Click on the "Cheat" button, then click on "Search"
16) This time, enter in the new amount of health,
which in this case is 5, and click on the "Search
button.
17) We are now down to only 2 choices for our code!
You can either try both of these codes one at a
time and see which one is right, or you can do
another search cycle to find the right one. In
this case, we only have two so we'll try each one
and if the first one isn't it, then it must be the
second one. If you have more than 3 or 4 choices
left for your code, than you may want to repeat
steps 12 thru 16 to narrow down the number of
choices.
18) Click on the "View" button.
19) Select the first code (which is 7E0FC5) and click
on "Add".
20) Now you will need to pick a value for our code.
Since we're pretty sure that the max health is 6,
then that's the number we will enter. One note
about the value number... the number that you
choose for the value, in some cases, isn't all
that important. But other times, it's very
important. As for this example, the number you
use for the value in the health code, can be any
number between 1 and 255. The reason why this is
is because the PAR constantly replaces the
original value with the new value that you entered.
So if you choose a value of 1, then your health
will always stay at 1 (in other words, infinite
health!).
21) Next, you need to enter a brief description of
what the cheat does (optional).
22) Next, you should write down the PAR code that is
in the "PAR Code Equivalent" box. You should
also write down a desciption of what you think the
PAR code may do. It's a good idea to write the
code down even before you know if it's the right
code or not incase the emulator crashes, you'll
know not to use that code again.
23) Now click on the "Add" button. The code will
automatically be turned on.
24) Press the "Esc" button a few times to get back to
the game and see if the code works. In this case,
no matter how many times we get shot, our health
bar always stays at the full mark! The code works!
25) If the code works, go back to the cheat menu and
click on the "Save" button to save the code. If
the code doesn't work, then either remove the code
that didn't work (or toggle it off) and try the
next code in the same way as before.
I was going to include the second method of finding
codes (Comparitive Search), but I'm tired of typing
for now, so I will make a second document that explains
that method sometime soon. But after reading this
method, you should be able to figure it out with no
problems.
I know it seems like there are a lot of steps in this
example, but once you try it for the first time, you
will see that it is really very easy to do.
By going to my website (unless your already there),
and going to the SNES section, you can see some of the
codes that I made (over 100 I think) using this method.
I also have lots of helpful tips that I have been
writing down over the months which I will put in the
next one of these that I write.
I hope this document helped out some.
Tony Hedstrom t.hed@excite.com
Website (The Code Hut):
http://www.angelfire.com/games2/codehut/
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