Most SNES ROM hackers probably have realized how limiting the SNES sometimes can be. You can only have 8 (H)DMA channels, the amount of OAM tiles on the screen is limited (think of the 33’s Range Over and 35’s Time Over limitations), the VRAM sometimes is small when you have a level with many varying graphics, etc. I guess that is understandable. Consoles didn’t have that much processing power back in the days due to limited technology, which was possibly also expensive.
Limited ROM space is also a major downer. Nintendo fit an entire game into a 512kB ROM – Super Mario World – using various tricks. They used LC_LZ2 compression, Reduced graphics from 4bpp to 3bpp, they used RLE compression, etc. They could only afford so much ROM space. As time passed, ROMs got bigger and bigger but the ROMs were still small enough to not unlock the extreme potential of the SNES (like allowing movie sequences and/or making quick time-event games).
The PPU registers are also pretty limiting. Certain registers can only be written to during V-blanks (like writing new graphical data). Write too much and you risk flashing scanlines at the top of the screen.
Sometimes, certain SNES limitations could be bypassed. There were enhancement chips which allow bankswitching for more ROM space for example, or chips which allow you to write bitmap data directly like the SuperFX. However, even with the enhancement chips, some limitations just don’t change. You can’t increase the amount of audio channels, you can’t increase the amount of layers, you can’t increase the amount of sprites shown on-screen, etc.
Finally, coding for the SNES has always been a pain to begin with. You code in ASM (Assembly). You write a bunch of LDAs and STAs and hope things work out. It’s very unreadable.
A question I had in mind for a long time is “How do I overcome the SNES limitations?” Of course, there are multiple answers for that, ranged from something as simple as “just don’t attempt it” to “even if you overcome it, it’ll have limited practical use”. So I decided to look at it from another point of view – emulators.
It should be possible to modify emulators to include less limitations, but the concept of “ROM hacking” wouldn’t remain the same anymore. Sure, you can allow 512 or more layers, but obviously this won’t run on the actual SNES. It’ll pretty much be like building your own game engine, and you’re still limited to ASM of course.
This idea gave me another idea. How about building a game engine based on the SNES’ hardware, but with its limits gone? You’d have infinite graphics space. You’d have infinite layers. You’d have infinite music channels. Infinite palettes, etc. You can have as many HDMA channels as you want affecting layers, brightness registers, and so on. You won’t have to allocate RAM for variables manually (because declaring variables in a high-level language just picks a free RAM address for you). You can display as many sprite/OAM tiles as you want to display as long as your graphics card can handle it. And so on.
For example, want a level with very neat parallax scrolling? Pick 5 layers with 4bpp graphics. Or pick 5 layers with 8bpp graphics with one set of palettes for each 8bpp layer. Or you could have a mode 7 background while you have a fully playable level.
Only question is, how would this be built? Take bits and pieces from emulators and make your own engine, or start completely from scratch? Personally I’d attempt the former, but I wouldn’t even know in what language to start. Oh well.