Decompiled Pc Ports
Juanjo Pollreisz
Despite its 1996 release, the Nintendo 64's original hardware and games have both remained relatively hot-button in enthusiast circles here into 2024. Now, the next frontier of high-end N64 gameplay may be through recompiled PC ports instead of emulation, courtesy of Mr-Wiseguy on GitHub. Wiseguy is responsible for the release of both N64Recomp and Zelda64Recomp, a project that ports The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask to PC with N64Recomp's graphical and QoL improvements, as screenshotted above and highlighted by YouTuber Nerrel below.
So, what makes crazy graphical improvements like real ray-tracing, uncapped FPS, and proper ultrawide support possible for N64 games? If you've been in the Nintendo 64 enthusiast scene for a long time, you may recall the waves made when a completely decompiled Super Mario 64 PC Port dropped in 2020 and allowed for features like real ray-tracing, full model replacements, and so on. It still gets mods to this day.
Recompiled ports aren't quite the same as decompiled ports like the SM64 PC port in this context, but both will run natively on PC and thus be able to truly maximize performance and effect accuracy to the original hardware while still providing the PC-expected enhancements that come with emulation. N64Recomp is basically the best of both worlds, and since manually decompiling N64 games takes years of labor from one or more people, a tool to more efficiently recompile them into a quickly playable-on-PC state is a godsend for preservationists everywhere.
A tool like this also ensures that old classics that aren't currently receiving the attention of big mainstream hits remain playable well into the future in an ideal state. A Twitter post by Dario, who makes the RT64 plugin leveraged by N64Recomp and some N64 emulators, highlights this.
Even as we speak, advancements like this aren't the only huge boons we're seeing for fans of the Nintendo 64's library or even original hardware. The open-source SummerCart64 recently dropped and is basically the definitive flash cart for the old console since it also implements full 64DD support. Several real hardware-compatible homebrew N64 games and ROM hacks also keep releasing, including highlights like the 30-fighter Smash Remix and Mario 64 engine rewrite, Peach's Fury.
Christopher Harper has been a successful freelance tech writer specializing in PC hardware and gaming since 2015, and ghostwrote for various B2B clients in High School before that. Outside of work, Christopher is best known to friends and rivals as an active competitive player in various eSports (particularly fighting games and arena shooters) and a purveyor of music ranging from Jimi Hendrix to Killer Mike to the Sonic Adventure 2 soundtrack."}), " -0-10/js/authorBio.js"); } else console.error('%c FTE ','background: #9306F9; color: #ffffff','no lazy slice hydration function available'); Christopher HarperSocial Links NavigationContributing WriterChristopher Harper has been a successful freelance tech writer specializing in PC hardware and gaming since 2015, and ghostwrote for various B2B clients in High School before that. Outside of work, Christopher is best known to friends and rivals as an active competitive player in various eSports (particularly fighting games and arena shooters) and a purveyor of music ranging from Jimi Hendrix to Killer Mike to the Sonic Adventure 2 soundtrack.
When I went to revisit my favorite games more than two decades later, my nostalgia goggles were absolutely shattered. The controller is even more dogshit than I remembered, and to make matters worse, N64 emulator performance paled in comparison to other retro platforms.
Decomps have been around for a very long time, but for more difficult platforms like the N64, it typically takes several years for a single game to be decompiled. However, the results are heads and tails above anything an emulator can produce. For example, Super Mario 64 was fully decompiled in 2020, leading to support for widescreen output, improved framerates, and even ray tracing on the nearly 28-year-old game.
At this point, Wiseguy expects the process to work for nearly the entire N64 library and already has working ports for many games. Even Superman 64 has a port if you want to relive one of the worst games ever made.
It first released in March 2022 for Windows, four months after Ocarina of Time's source code was decompiled and released. Since then, Ship of Harkinian has received ports to Linux and macOS, and homebrew ports to Wii U and Nintendo Switch.
In November 2021, after 21 months of development, the Zelda Reverse Engineering Team (ZRET) successfully decompiled the executable to The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time into human-readable code. While the decompilation project was principally carried out for the sake of documenting the game's creation and backend functionality, it also made possible the potential creation of source ports of Ocarina of Time, which would allow the game to be recompiled and run on platforms it wasn't originally developed for. Speaking to Ars Technica, ZRET member Rozlette stated that source ports were "outside the scope of what we do".[2]
In June 2020, developers Jack Walker and Kenix discussed the potential of a PC port of Ocarina of Time based on the ZRET decompilation project's work; at the time, Ocarina of Time's decompilation was only 17% complete. Development on what would later become Ship of Harkinian began in November 2021, coinciding with the decompilation project reaching completion.[3]
In January 2022, a group of community developers named Harbour Masters released footage and screenshots of Ocarina of Time running natively on Microsoft Windows, in a widescreen aspect ratio not supported by the original Nintendo 64 release. The project was titled "Ship of Harkinian", a reference to Zelda: Wand of Gamelon. Speaking to Video Games Chronicle, Kenix, now part of Harbour Masters, estimated the project was "approximately 90%" complete.[4]
In May 2022, Harbour Masters announced the release of a Linux port of Ship of Harkinian via "Ship of Harkinian Direct", an online video parody presentation of Nintendo Direct. Additional features noted in this Direct include save states, an integrated cheat menu, accessibility options, and support for running the game at 60 frames per second.[7]
Two months later, in July 2022, an additional Ship of Harkinian Direct was released, announcing the release of Ship of Harkinian for macOS and Wii U. Additional features promoted in this Direct include a graphic interface for rebinding controls, a "randomizer" which randomizes various elements of the game to enhance replayability, and the ability to set an arbitrary framerate (up to 250FPS).[8]
In April 2023, a new Ship of Harkinian Direct was released, announcing custom texture and model support. Multiplayer functionality was added to the port; a second player can take control of Ivan the Fairy, described as a fairy "who likes to play tricks", whose abilities can either help or hinder the main player.[10]
In November 2023, Harbours Masters revealed that they had fully decompiled Majora's Mask, and are currently working on a PC port provisionally called 2Ship2Harkinian,[12] with its first version being released on 26 May 2024.
Ship of Harkinian has been favorably compared against the Nintendo Switch Online version of Ocarina of Time. Nick Rodriguez of Screen Rant deemed Ship of Harkinian "significantly better than the current Switch version in almost every regard",[13] with The Verge's Derek Hill expressing similar sentiment: "As long as Nintendo is content putting out alarmingly low-quality versions of their classic games for shockingly high prices, Ship of Harkinian is proof that the unofficial option is sometimes the best option."[3]
Some outlets expressed apprehension over Ship of Harkinian, fearing that Nintendo's perceived litigiousness could jeopardize the project. In discussing Ship of Harkinian's long-term prospects, GameSpot writer Jenny Zheng remarked that that Ship of Harkinian's "odds aren't great", while characterizing Nintendo as "notoriously copyright-lawsuit-happy".[14] Luke Plunkett of Kotaku referred to Ship of Harkinian's legality as "murky", but noted that other projects built off of reverse engineering efforts were still active as of writing.[15] In a statement to GamesRadar+, Harbour Masters contributor Kenix defended the legality of Ship of Harkinian: "The [Ocarina of Time] assets will be ripped from a user's own ROM that they must provide and then be exported into an archive compatible with the Ship of Harkinian. None of Nintendo's own property is involved in the process."[16] Harbour Masters encouraged users to support official releases of Ocarina of Time, and offered a unique role on their Discord server to those who can provide proof of ownership.[17]
It's a sad reality among retro emulation enthusiasts: You often spend far more time crafting your perfect setup than playing the games. You get your controller, linear filtering, sound engine, and everything else just right, and then you discover that your favorite game of yesteryear is far slower and more annoying than you remember.
What resulted was a version of one of the foundational games of my childhood that I'm far more likely to play again. The game fits my modern high-resolution monitor and has options for alternate higher-fidelity music (via drop-in MSU files). It looks mostly the same, though it plays far more quickly and smoothly, without the frame-rate drops and long scene transitions I remember. I've enabled several quality-of-life upgrades: fast item switching, breaking pots with a sword, turning off the low-health beep, and some other small fixes. You can go further by messing with all kinds of settings in an .ini file.
For me, this represents an agreeable compromise between nostalgia and modern realities. You can play A Link to the Past with nothing but support for your modern system and screen. Or you can tweak many little things that might irk you and swap out Link's sprite for Zelda, Hello Kitty, or others. Either way, you're playing the original game, freed from the limitations of its original hardware but not significantly altered in any real way.
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