The Spriters Resource/Hard to Rip Games

There are some games out there that are hard to rip from whether it is unknown compression, stored in a nightmare fashion in the ROM, the tile viewer does not show the sprites/show them correctly, hard to capture from or even the emulator does not boot up the game. As for why hard to rip than impossible to rip? It is due to that there might be a passionate ripper somewhere who is knowledgeable or even a programmer who figured out how to rip the sprites.

Please note do not request these games to be ripped, the chances of these getting ripped are low and it would not help anyone.

Arcade

Many Sega Games

Sega liked to do things differently than many companies of the time when it comes to storing sprites. They spread the sprites onto various files with bytes at a time, usually one but sometimes 2 bytes at a time (the term is interleaving). Very few of their games work with MAME's tile viewer and if they do, they are a pre-1985 game.

Thankfully thanks to Ragey some of these games are ripped such as SegaSonic the Hedgehog, Power Drift and Bonanza Bros. however he has only selectively ripped those games and has not shared much information on how. There is a sprite viewer for Out Run and some of the arcade games (e.g. Super Hang-On, After Burner) made by the person who did CannonBall that is an Out Run based engine. Apart from Out Run, there are no palettes to the sprites, it is command-line based and requires knowing which sprite banks are used so not easy to use.

Note that this excludes System E games as they ran on Master System hardware and the sprites can be viewed via Tile Molester but may have compression. Also the Fantasy Zone games were ported to or were originally on the Master System and would be easier to rip those versions.

Amstrad CPC

By the nature of the home computer, there are bound to be some games that use impressive programming skills or really badly programmed games that makes ripping some games really tricky. Some of these also happen to be highly regarded games that are well liked and some of the best on the system. Since many of the games have the same issues, it is categoried by issue than what game has the issue unless it is unique.

This excludes games that have the wrong palette in the tile viewer as they can be corrected (e.g. games programmed by DJL Software) unless they have an extra issue included.

Asterix et la potion magique (Asterix and the Magic Potion)

Not to be confused with Asterix and the Magic Cauldron that itself is one of more easier to rip games. It is unique as the game uses a framebuffer only displaying one sprite at a time so every time a sprite changes, the old one gets dropped making it annoying to rip.

Same Colour Background as the sprites

Some games use the same colours for their background as their sprites, usually black but green and others have been used. This is mainly a Mode 0 issue however a few Mode 1 games suffer from this too such as Match Point. Unlike some examples, the palette can not be hacked because either the palette registers do not match the ROM or no changes happen. While not as hard as others on the list, without this issue they are some of the more easier to rip games because the tiles are stored without any problems or a few problems.

If a reliable solution is found regarding the palette then apart from Match Point, most games will be removed from the list.

Auf Wiedersehen Monty (some sprites also have the wrong palette however the sprites are stored in a tidy fashion)
Elevator Action
Emilio Butragueno Futbol
Match Point
World Series Baseball (While most of the ripping is simple, this affects the cheerleader sprites who uses the same color as the field)

Compressed in the tile viewer

These games are either completely or partly compressed meaning that ripping these games can not be done via the tile viewer at all or almost useless to rip from since only a segment is uncompressed. Also in the case of By Fair Means or Foul because it uses overlapping sprites meaning that the game is almost impossible to rip from unless someone figures out the compression routine.

Adidas Championship Football
Alien Storm
Bad Dudes vs Dragon Ninja
By Fair Means... or Foul
California Games
Double Dragon (Richard Aplin version)
Double Dragon II: The Revenge (Richard Aplin version)
Prehistorik
Pro Tennis Tour
RoboCop
Thing on a Spring (Only Thing itself is compressed, the enemies are not compressed and are rippable)
Turbo Out Run

Footballer of the Year

Similar to but not quite the same issue as Asterix. This game uses a framebuffer to display whatever is on screen and changes sprites dropping the old ones. What makes this slightly different is that more than 1 pose is stored due to the player and the goalkeeper plus it is in Mode 1 rather than Mode 0.

Grange Hill

This game uses 2 layers for the sprites and since it is a Mode 1 game with its limited 4 colour palette meaning that not only that it needs extra assembly but the layer information is gone since one layer with the detail is black and the other is just white. While Buggy Boy does have a second layer, it is a Mode 0 game and not needed for ripping.

Italy 90

Just looking at the tile viewer makes you groan... The sprites use a combination of layers (head + arms on one with the body on another) and messed up in the tile viewer on the body sprites all at the same time. Maybe also a touch of compression as well?

To make matters worse, the game crashes when the ball is off the pitch and reboots back to the Amstrad CPC boot up screen. It is unknown whether this happens on real hardware.

Interleaving sprites

It might not be correct terminology however this affects a few games. Basically there is a checkered background on the sprites and the characters have lines through them.

Glider Rider
Space Harrier (Only Harrier can be ripped in this game anyway because the rest use vector graphics)

John Brandwood Games

Both Gryzor (aka Contra) and Renegade when released were considered games that pushed the system with its impressive graphics due to the work of Mark Jones and the programmer John Brandwood. The tile viewer does not work on these games and capturing might be difficult due to using the same colours for the background since the system had a 16 colour palette. With Renegade even when capturing, you get a high chance of overlapping sprites because of the nature of beat em ups and because of the palette limitations. The backgrounds however are easier to rip from.

According to information on the CPCWiki, the sprites are also stored upside down that is a common trait with some developers.

Messed up on the tile viewer

At first glance, they might look rippable but then you notice that the character does not resemble what is on screen having lines that face the other direction in the tile viewer and changing it to reverse doesn't fix the sprites. Looking at Crystal Kingdom Dizzy, it might be either an endian issue or slightly compressed. Match Day and Track and Field have the same issue since they are done by the same developers.

Arkanoid 2: Revenge of Doh (The Vanus Spaceship and some of the sprites are messed up however the blocks and powerups aren't)
Commando
Crystal Kingdom Dizzy
Dynamite Dux
Ghosts 'n Goblins
Match Day
Track and Field

Professional BMX Simulator

While the sprites have been ripped, it is worth mentioning the problems regarding ripping the game. The game uses a black background for the sprites in the tile viewer that also used on another part of the sprite and the complete sprite of the bike itself (that is still dubious whether it is correct or not due to the problems). If the palette is hacked or any changes done, the game crashes and reboots back to the Amstrad CPC boot up screen. Even when capturing, a lot of the courses use black as well. How it was done was using a fill bucket on the tile viewer to remove as much of the black background as possible with a different colour (it doesn't completely remove all the other black either or accidentally removes a bit of a sprite) then checked the poses via gameplay at a spot that didn't use black, usually the starting position.

The Oliver Twins who programmed the game did their sprites upside down and it was harder to notice unlike some of their games such as the Dizzy series.

No sprites in the tile viewer

Some games just do not use sprites at all so they don't appear in the tile viewer. This also makes Target Renegade hard to rip because of overlapping characters of the nature of the beat em up genre. These exclude games that use vector graphics, raycasting, text based adventure games or other non-raster graphics games e.g. Star Wars or Hard Drivin'.

Football Manager
International Karate + (IK+)
Rally 2/Grand Prix Rally
Target Renegade
Wonder Boy

Genesis

While a lot of the Genesis library have already been ripped excluding many of the sports games, there are some high profile games that have problems ripping. A few of these are on the site but not all.

Adventures of Batman & Robin

Being a late Genesis game, it uses various programming tricks and is considered one of the most technically impressive games on the console. The ROM is compressed. All of these makes it a challenge to rip the game and it does not help that the game is hard too.

Comix Zone

A Sega 1st party game done by Sega Technical Institute and is a late Genesis game pushing some limits. What makes this hard to rip is that the ROM is completely compressed and ripping from the game is hard. Why? The characters have many poses, some that are situational and timing on certain poses is also tricky to trigger. When captured via screenshots, the sprites leave a shadow that is not part of the sprite and may have another sprite overlapping. When tile ripped using a tile viewer in an emulator, they are not easy to assemble either and only load one pose at a time. A few have tried to rip from this game however the sheets are either incomplete or just stopped progress.

The game apparently uses a form of LZSS compression however this is undocumented and no one so far as figured it out.

Dave Perry Games

Dave Perry was a programmer who was with Virgin but then moved on to Shiny. The games in question are Mick and Mack: Global Gladiators, Aladdin, Earthworm Jim 1 and 2, RoboCop vs The Terminator and The Jungle Book. Due to Dave Perry's programming, the sprites are stored in a nightmare fashion in the ROM with pieces being all over the place and also hard to assemble so you would have to capture them via an emulator. Some of these games also have a lot of poses depending on which character you are ripping.

Some of these have been ripped though mainly because of dedication of the rippers and ripping projects.

Desert Strike/Jungle Strike/Urban Strike

These are all grouped together as they are part of the same series and all 3 games use a similar engine. The ROM is even worse than the Dave Perry games since at least you can make out something that resembles a character rather than a complete mess so tile ripping is almost impossible. There are also a lot of poses for the helicopter and the enemies due to the various directions that you can go.

Please note that these affect the original versions done by EA (as well as High Score Productions and Foley Hi-Tech) and not the other versions of the game that are on other consoles that might have different art styles. There is also the Super Strike Trilogy on the Sega CD that might have extra sprites however chances are that it has the same problems as the cartridge version.

SNES

Clay Fighter and Clay Fighter 2

While most SNES games aren't compressed, these two games are one of the few exceptions so a tile viewer can't be used for this game. It uses an unknown compression format. The game is also a fighter, a genre known for many animations to be used. Some emulators also have problems displaying the game too. It might be possible with vSNES using savestates however it would require patience.

Unstable Games

Sometimes even capturing sprites can be problematic if the game is known to be crash prone. While it is common for 6/7th generation games onwards to crash due to various factors, older games are more stable even though sometimes bad/rushed programming can affect the stability of the game. Please note that this references gameplay rather than doing tricks to purposely crash the game and also does not list games that can crash on some emulators (e.g. Thunder Force IV crashing at the end of Stage 1 Boss).