Well, Nintendo aren't going to be happy about this one are they. A developer going by Mr-Wiseguy released an open source tool for bringing Nintendo 64 titles to any platform, and released a PC port of Zelda: Majora's Mask.
The tool is called N64: Recompiled available under the MIT license on GitHub:
N64: Recompiled is a tool to statically recompile N64 binaries into C code that can be compiled for any platform. This can be used for ports or tools as well as for simulating behaviors significantly faster than interpreters or dynamic recompilation can. More widely, it can be used in any context where you want to run some part of an N64 binary in a standalone environment.
Using the tool they've made Zelda 64: Recompiled, which brings Majora's Mask (and soon Ocarina of Time) to PC with Linux and Windows versions available. This also makes use of another open source project called RT64, which is a Modern N64 renderer built on Vulkan and Direct3D 12. It of course doesn't supply the assets needed to play the game, you need to buy a copy of Majora's Mask yourself.
Zelda 64: Recompiled trailer:
Direct Link
Amazing stuff for game preservation. Exciting!
... Now I'm wondering how well the excellent and criminally-overlooked Bomberman 64: The Second Attack! (whose story-director was Naoki Yoshida/"Yoshi-P", who's at Square-Enix these days) would fare...
QuoteIt of course doesn't supply the assets needed to play the game, you need to buy a copy of Majora's Mask yourself.Right, "buy". ((nudge nudge wink wink))
and dont need decompile rom (usa version in my case), only need in uncompressed format
Nintendo: going mad
QuoteWell, Nintendo aren't going to be happy about this one are they.
When has Nintendo ever been happy about any of this stuff? This is no different than any other fan project and funny thing is that this developer does a better job at making older N64 titles look great with these enhancements than Nintendo. They would rather lazily put out N64 games as is and continue to rake in the money from those poor souls that pay to play these games with their crappy subscriptions.
Anyways, the project does look cool and it would be interesting how far it'll stay up before it vanishes due to the obvious reasons
Last edited by ToddL on 14 May 2024 at 1:18 pm UTC
Quoting: ToddLThey would rather lazily put out N64 games as is and continue to rake in the money from those poor souls that pay to play these games with their crappy subscriptions.They don't even emulate those correctly! The N64 has a pretty distinct look*, and they do it a disservice on that subscription library of theirs. You can upscale these games and retain hardware-accurate filtering - it's just that Nintendo themselves, who are often all about leaning on nostalgia, don't seem to be bothered about getting it right on this occasion.
*I'm quite fond of that look in spite of it not being one of my favourite consoles by a long shot, and seeing N64 games rendered by the company who released the hardware looking all jagged and with incorrect colours (presumably they used 4-point bilinear filtering, instead of 3-point as the original hardware did, which typically makes these games look "off"), really bugs me.
Last edited by Pengling on 14 May 2024 at 1:42 pm UTC
Quoting: Penglinginstead of 3-point as the original hardware did, which typically makes these games look "off"
And this is what it looks like.
Quoting: Talon1024And this is what it looks like.Yep! I bloody love it. I've got Mupen64Plus-Next set up on my Steam Deck with correct filtering and anti-aliasing, but upscaled, and it looks wonderful - authentic, but freshened up a little for the higher-resolution display.
See more from me