The ancient rom editing program Tile M*lester has an icky name but offers a very easy to use interface.

If you’re modifying old console games and copying game assets like pixel images (aka ”sprite graphics”), it might be the easiest approach because it has a fully graphical workflow.

And if you have a rom that has bugs or is mysteriously corrupted and you want to pull graphics out of it into a ‘clean’ copy, this is also another reason to use this app.

How To Copy / Paste Game Sprites in .smc & .sfc files

1. Open a rom file. Find the image tiles in the rom. (Look up where they are using a rom map.)

Example: Final Fantasy 4 (II in the US) has the character battle images stored in a sequence that starts at the address $0D0000.

1. There’s a GoTo feature (Ctrl + G) you can use to move directly to an address.

1. Open another copy of the rom, so you can paste the images across.

2. Move to the same spot in the second rom.

1. Adjust the new display windows so they show the tiles in the exact same way. Use these Size Buttons to control the Rows and Columns you can see in the windows. The windows start at 16 tiles (columns) across, which is good for many games. (And it works ideally for the game in this example.)

1. Use the Select Box tool to drag a box over the tiles in the first rom that you want to copy. Then press (Ctrl + C).

1. Click over to the second rom. Press (Ctrl + V) and then reposition the pasted tiles if you need to.