VS Balloon Fight -> NES project

I wanted to see if it was possible getting VS Balloon Fight to play on a standard NES (at least in 1-player mode). Here's how far I've come:
* The game "boots". Press START to insert coins and SELECT to start the game
* Currently converted to MMC1, horizontal mirroring.
* Palette is currently not correctly patched, w.i.p.
However, I can't get control of the player. I've patched all $4016 & $4017 writes and adapted them for the NES but can't still get the player to move, and I've tried alot of things.
Some kind of guess is that it might be IRQ-related since there's no second CPU to trigger these, but it's a wild guess. Or it might be some other obvious bug I currently can't see.
So, if there's any skilled ROM-hackers here, feel free to check this out. If you've got any ideas about how to get things working, feel free to share ideas, credit will be given.

I've attached the IPS below, use it to patch a ROM with CRC32: ff89eddd

This would be awesome

Apologies for the necrobump, but I think this would be pretty great to have on real NES hardware, considering it's upcoming Switch release and the history of it being developed by a different team than Satoru Iwata's.

I've put this project on hold (temporary?) but it would be nice with some help..

VS Mach Rider would be pretty cool as well, considering it has a few extras over the NES original

Any update on this oRBIT? This would be awesome to have working. Do you think the control issue is due to the player 1 and player 2 cpu not being able to communicate? Maybe find where that is and disable it?

I hope you do not give up on this! Love your work!

Haven't checked it out for awhile.. I suspect there's something to do with that there's only one CPU but I am not sure..

I have an idea but it's pretty stupid/maybe. I wonder if you could somehow make the game think the second player is connected and doing exactly what the first is doing so the 2 cpu's communicate. ( IIRC that is how the game worked) Sorry if that does not make sense, but i think you get the idea.