Rom hacks that made completely new GOOD games!!
Like the famous FF7 chinese Rom, it seems the best RPG original rom hacks stem from the FF1 system.
Dragon Omega X 2 .
http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/nes/...creenshot2.gif
Definitely the best ORIGINAL game of the bunch since the casual gamer wouldnt even know it was the FF engine , due to you being in control of one huge rouge character sprite, not 4 anime sprites. (the orignal Dragon Omega used the Dragon Quest 1 engine, got far, but the game was all grind , ugh)
Final Fantasy World of Chaos.
http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/nes/...creenshot1.png
an epic tribute to the 16 and 8 bit Squaresoft days. Entirely new story that takes place immediately after the events of FF1 . Really cool, only downside is the game requires you to import save data from Final Fantasy ++ (a fantastic "remake" itself), if not you will never be able to beat one enemy. So if you have the time to at least play his remake of FF1 to level up to level 10-15 , you can import your characters then and jump right into the true original sequel.
it seems the full scale hacks are only being done on NES so far. These two I can't stress enough how good they are. Feel free to add great recommendations like these to the list!