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by zamadatix 547 days ago
Decompilations and recompilations have been really interesting lately. They seem largely driven by fans interested in replaying old content in ways the original sources haven't provided. E.g. rather than "run normal N64 Mario and Zelda on your switch" you can run them at 4k120 FPS widescreen with all sorts of QoL improvements, modifications, or new gameplay modes. Even extremely classic titles like Super Mario Bros. 3 or The Legend of Zelda a Link to the Past get widescreen hacks.

Of course there are other benefits too that some use for playing the originals as they were. Some just want to more easily read through the games code to figure out how it works, hunt for new glitches, figure out why that odd thing in a speedrun happens. Others want to mine for cut/missing content.

I personally hope https://zeldaret.github.io/tww/ gets completed this decade. Nintendo has at least made an actual remake of this game, adding a certain level of the improvements and enhancements, but there are still more which would be nice (more than 30 FPS anyone?) and I can only imagine what kinds of customizations would be made feasible.
2 comments
emchammer 547 days ago
Is recompilation the right word for this? Reprogramming? I am not even into video games, and I am still so impressed by the efforts I have seen. I saw a ray-traced version of Mario 64 that looks incredible. There are also some retranslation groups who also get an A+, for far more literate translations with the sex and world mythology than the original translations that were softened for the American audience. I believe that one group was called DeJap Translations and they were obviously well-educated.
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zamadatix 547 days ago
Recompilations are a separate methodology/category from the decompilations e.g. on the N64 there is this parent project https://github.com/N64Recomp/N64Recomp
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thejazzman 547 days ago
it is AWE-MAZING playing things like Ocarina of Time in 4K with upgraded textures blah blah blah blah. and that it comes from the likes of these efforts instead of Nintendo just selling us the damn thing is all the more awe-inspiring from me.

I've been waiting and waiting for Majora's Mask to catch up. I got the recompilation and all, but no textures and other bells and whistles YET.

Glad their Switch legislation hasn't killed this yet.

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