Video: Digital Foundry Takes A Look At Zelda 64 Recompiled: Majora's Mask

I'd love it if Nintendo themselves used techniques like recompilation to port their library to modern consoles. Obviously not feasible for a large library such as games in their NSO service, but certainly possible for individual games.

“…mentioning how it can't wait to see what's next.”

A DMCA most likely.

Huh...interesting watch. I'd like to see how this stands with the 3DS remake.

Incredible work. As Nintendo have no interest in honoring their own history pre GCN, with a seemingly loathing of it, they should leave retro games in the hands of their fans.

@locky-mavo It doesn't include the game, making this program legal.

@Toastmaster Stuff like that gets said all the time and Nintendo end up doing it anyway. Look at Garry’s Mod.

Exciting times, can't wait to play this with rtx shaders when it comes out!

Nintendo should consider hiring them. Excellent solution to remaster retro games with modern features.

One game I'd like to see get this "upgrade" is Mystical Ninja.

On a N64 and CRT it doesn't look as good as it does when emulated. They built it on whatever they did back then, then when transferred to the console they must had thought, yuck.

With this, you'll see enemies from a distance, not when you get close enough they just appear. The towns could have a little more going on, better weather effects, leaves falling around, etc...

My big question is if this allows for mods and stuff. I like taking games I've already played to death, and finding new user generated content for them.

@locky-mavo Nah. Garry’s Mod situation and emulation/recompiling is apple and oranges, Nintendo can’t do anything here and there’s nothing illegal.

@locky-mavo Nintendo are mainly going after the ones who earn money on their stuff. It's hard to shut down free things.

Garry's Mod cost money.
Yuzu + Citra developers earned lots of money.

@locky-mavo I think this is like the third/fourth pc port of nintendo 64 games. Mario 64 and Zelda Ocarina of time were ported years ago and the devs seem to be doing fine.

This would be useful back when I was a tweenager playing OoT at 10 FPS. Nowadays with how effortless N64 emulation is, it does not matter anymore.

@Toastmaster I think most of emulators have patreon, Nintendo was only able to sue Yuzu because the devs were using leaked games to improve the emulator(Citra was just caught in the crossfire)

A DMCA is waiting the team. That's how Nintendo rolls.

@Mariotag I believe this is mentioned in the video, but yes, this makes it a lot easier to create mods. This quick recomp method isn't as good as a full decompilation like Ocarina of Time already has, however, but it does allow for changes, and is a lot easier than poking at addresses in RAM or ROM!

@BrazilRules N64 emulation is great, but there are limits to the enhancements and other mods that can be made.

OoT never had a proper 60fps mod until it was decompiled, as it was too complicated to change all of the timings and such without access to the source code. (Note that many N64 games can run at 60fps just by changing a number, but Zelda had a lot of glitches using that method.)

That's what makes recompilation so exciting: it opens the door to more extensive mods that wouldn't be possible with ROMs in an emulator!

Please stop reporting on this stuff. It's like you want Nintendo to ruin nice things for everybody.

@eltomo I'm playing through Mystical Ninja 64 right now, on a PC emulator. At 60fps and 4x the standard resolution, it is beautiful; my favorite part is calling the dragon to travel from town to town, that really stands out!

@liveswired (looks at the NSO selection of NES, SNES and N64 classics available…) Loathing? Doesn’t look like they’re seething with every upload that’s available. As far as I can see there’s all the classics with a smattering of obscurity thrown in. Obviously some of the old titles are lost forever in licensing hell. I might be blind to it but can you pinpoint the hate please?

@liveswired Loathing? Nintendo loves to make money off their NES / SNES / GB(A) / N64 libraries. In the last decade we have: all of those platforms on NSO, the NES/SNES minis, that NES championship game, multiple X99 revisions of NES / SNES games, the Links Awakening remake, Advance Wars 1+2, and Let's Go Pikachu/Eevee. If anything, they rely on that era too heavily.

@liveswired What are you even on about?

@Lone_Beagle Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon? That's only 30fps, even on an emulator... but if you have a working 60fps Game Shark code, let me know!

@locky-mavo Rumours are Garry's Mod was DMCA trolls (actual scum btw) just like that site that had to remove Ninty roms

It's a game changer. Seeing it in 4K at 240fps is how the original looked in my younlinKs eyes back in the early 2000's.

@demacho It's a stretch to think Nintendo reads Nintendo Life but has no access to thousands of videos on YouTube of this that are already out there.

That’s phenomenal. Whoever created this, as a fan effort, he should be salaried with Nintendo or something. This should be the standard emulation process for N64 games on NSO because I don’t think I can go back to the crummy emulation efforts after seeing this.

Me: when will we have save states?
Them: You can finally use your ultra wide monitor!!!11!

I recently finished playing Majorca’s Mask for the first time (it’s great!!) and was thinking the whole time—this game at higher resolution, frame rate and widescreen would be incredible. And here it is, plus impressive lighting. Really cool to see!

My brother has this installed on steam deck and I tried it out and I have to say it is very impressive, makes you wonder why Nintendo can't put that kind of effort in to a remaster.

Although, I will admit the 3DS remaster is pretty good but once you can add the 3DS textures to this version this will be the definitive way to play.

Looks incredible.

Now Nintendo needs to do this with their first party line up of N64 games. Widescreen 60fps Wave Race 64 and Star Fox 64? Yes please.

But of course they won't.

@fenlix Yeah, they were dumb enough to promote the Zelda leak.
Promoting a pirated version of one of the 3 biggest games of the year on any system with a emulator, 1-2 weeks before it released is not smart.

@SBandy1 It's about time they make a modern Wave Race instead. It's not like there is much competition anywhere else either.

The Crew 2 is perhaps the only modern water racer.

@locky-mavo That's because N is a company so large it operates outside of what is legal. They use bullying and lawyer scare tactics to overstep their reach. It's all very illegal, but in a corporate run planet, it is what it is.

@nocdaes I think save states have been around for a few decades.

@Mew For the NES. Not for the SNES or 64 if you're using Mister or the like.

@Toastmaster

100%

Probably just because it isn't what I'm used to seeing all my life but this stuff runs uncanny valley for me. N64 graphics aren't supposed to move that way. A true remake I'd be down for. Or at least porting that 3ds remake while fixing what that version bungled.

Pirates becoming an unofficial research and development team for Nintendo.

@nocdaes It's.. it's not like this project runs on an actual n64 anyways so I'm not sure how this is related at all

@Mew lol this is true