A fan group known as 'Zelda Reverse Engineering Team' has reportedly been able to successfully reverse-engineer "100%" of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time code. Essentially what it does is "open the doors" to mods, hacks, and even ports of the Nintendo 64 classic.
While there's the possibility of this in the future, the same group stresses its own decompilation is "not a port" and mentions how it won't be involved in any work to adapt the game's code to new platforms. The group is also planning to decompile other builds of the game, like the Master Quest Debug version.
A fully functioning PC port of Super Mario 64 took roughly nine months to get up and running after fans' decompilation efforts - adding support for higher resolutions, new graphics, and even ray-tracing. It means something similar could potentially happen with Link's N64 outing.
VGC's story has also explained the legalities of ZRET's project, in case you were wondering:
"The kind of reverse engineering ZRET do is made legal because the fans involved did not use any leaked content. Instead, they painstakingly recreated the game from scratch using modern coding languages. The project also does not use any of Nintendo’s original copyrighted assets such as graphics or sound."
Beyond a potential PC port, this decompilation project can also be used to possibly assist with the historical preservation of Ocarina of Time. Here's what the team had to say about its efforts:
“It’s been a wild ride. We’ve been able to create c code that, when compiled, reproduces the original game. We call this ‘matching’ decompilation.
“Last night, Fig, who is a notable community member as well as a project lead, matched the last-remaining function in the project. This means that all compiled code in the game has been turned into human-readable C code.
“We thought for a time that we may never be able to match every function completely, so this is an incredibly exciting accomplishment. Dozens of people helped work on this project, and together we were able to achieve something amazing.”
[source videogameschronicle.com]
Comments 102
With all the idiosyncrasies of OoT, it was probably hard to recreate some of the stranger bugs!
Now do the 3DS remake.
Lol when I first saw that screenshot, I thought it was Luigi staring at link from the side of the bridge and now I want someone to mod that in.
Now it should be easy to do the same with Majora's Mask and therefore better ports for both games may exist in the future.
Public domain needs to be a thing again.
Copyright laws are important so people and companies can profit from their creations and make more stuff, but once the creator dies, the creation must become free for everyone to use, and since companies can last centuries, their creations must become public someday, if copyright worked like it should, by now, many classic videogames would be free to share the roms and also share those mods.
Copyright laws are from a time there was no internet, we need more free content for today's reality, but they also are from a time companies weren't so reliant on sequels, franchises and merchandise, we didn't have Star Wars making more money from toys than the actual movies.
As much as I am for preservation, let's hope this doesn't go down the GTA3 road now that Nintendo has seen what tools they can use to shut down this, which is no doubt what they would prefer.
Really surprised it took this long but i suppose this became a thing because Nintendo can't seem to make a good emulator, i guess off the back of Nintendo's inability to provide the goods, someone did this just in case.
If games are art, then isn't this forgery?
@GrailUK Idk. I have met gamers who under some silly belief that they are the rightful owners of an IP just because they purchased a game.
@WaffleRaptor01 I'll put my hands up and say this whole emulation / mod business confuses me ethically. So overall, I take a no harm no foul approach.
This is fantastic.
Even if this game was rebuilt from scratch, using modern code and assets, I would not be surprised if Nintendo tried to shut it down, anyway.
After all, even if the code and assets aren't theirs, the original story, music, world, characters, and concepts belong to Nintendo, no matter what.
And given how strict they are with their IP, Nintendo will pursue every avenue they can to shut this down, I guarantee it.
Will they be able to make it better than the 3d version ?
Nintendo will shut this down in 3...2...
@victordamazio I feel like I've seen you (and maybe some others) make this argument numerous times on this site.
I'm not saying that to be confrontational or trying to pick a fight. But just trying to understand, for the regular Joe like myself, how would Mickey Mouse (cause he's the example I see brought u in this argument a lot) going into the public domain benefit the average person or I guess entertainment in general. I guess I'm under the impression that a content creator (and whomever they legally choose to make decisions once they're no longer in the picture) should choose how their work is used.
@UmbreonsPapa I could be wrong, but I read somewhere that companies fight hard to keep their IP because once in public domain said IP could fall into unsavory territory.
@AstroTheGamosian you need to provide the assets yourself
I'd love to see "sequels" to OOT made with the code they found. I think it would be similar to the Mario romhacks we see. We could also see Eggman or King K Rool or Mega Man in Zelda romhack lol
Bubsy? No.
I hate this. It seems like it's blatant theft.
@UmbreonsPapa Well everything does eventually. It just means that someone in 400 years time doesn't have the right to earn royalties because their great grandfather once did something.
On the other hand I don't think this has anything to do with source code, which is essentially what this article is about, and which may well not exist anymore.
@Hordak Copyright infringement is not theft, if I steal something you made, it's gone, you don't have it anymore, but if I make a copy of what you made, you still have the original, nothing was stolen.
@UmbreonsPapa Because ideas can't be owned, copyright is not even owning your idea, it's just putting some restrictions to it.
Sure, it sounds unfair that other people will take your idea and ruin it, but there are always people who get other people's ideas and make them better, and that person will have the copyright to that specific, improved version.
@Vexx234 Internet already make sure everything will have a lot of porn, and everything that is cute and friendly will get corrupted with a lot of blood, gore and lewdness, even things that aren't made for the internet can get away with it as long as it counts as a parody.
It's about keeping the rights to derivative works, which are what keeps all the popular media franchises working, copyright laws are from a time we didn't have so many sequels, adaptations, remakes and reboots, and from a time we didn't have companies making so much money from toys and other licensed products.
@victordamazio if I write an article/column/essay/song/review/etc., then someone else copies it and submits it elsewhere as something they did, it is plagiarism/theft. The code for a game is written thus I consider breaking down the coding and copying it theft.
@GrailUK Copying an artwork is not forgery, unless it is sold with the claim to be the original. If they can build N64 cartridges that run on original hardware and sell them, then it is forgery. IMHO
@Hordak True… But my understanding from the article was not that they copied the code but actually recreated the game with all new code. So using your article analogy it would be like reading your article and then saying the same thing only using different words.
That’s why I was a bit confused by the term reverse engineered. My understanding of that term was that they somehow figured out how all the original code works, not just made it again in a new code.
@victordamazio I don't understand why you think people shouldn't be paid for maintaining an old intellectual property.
@Nitwit13 Only, you just described plagiarism, which has more strict guidelines than other mediums.
@r0mer0 Forgery only occurs when the intent is to defraud. To defraud means you are trying to alter something on a factual basis. That COULD be done to profit unfairly, but it could also simply be to deceive, as would be the case in forging signatures to gain access to a restricted area, for example.
@r0mer0 I'm just asking the question And I see your point It does sound like it's going to get distributed i.e readily available. Hmm...dunno.
Game preservation, right more like trying to justify piracy
Oh boy! More Zelda ports.
@sanderev Fans have been doing this since the 90s, creating preservation of the code of games like Super Mario Bros. and Pokemon.
I'm betting Nintendo themselves have benefitted from their work.
@GrailUK @BloodNinja Recreating a digital work of art, especially an interactive story, is a very interesting problem, not only legally but also morally. I haven't made up my mind if it's right or wrong. When the brother's Grimm wrote down fairy tales that had been told to them orally, they had a claim on the rights to their specific wording, but not the content. If someone records a reading of a fairytale, he can claim the right to its reproduction. (I don't really know where to go with this ...) I think some iconic video games have achieved cultural heritage status and copyright law needs to be changed to reflect those cases. When generations remember a virtual experience as part of their life, the rights holder should be encouraged (to say the least) to make that part of history accessible. For example, release it into public domain. Port it to every generation, as is. Repair original hardware, at cost of course. Oh, now I know where I'm going with this: as long as the original source is a trade secret, the reverse engineered code is the best we have to keep a historic record!
phew... =)
Nintendo has been comfortable releasing shoddy emulated versions for years. If they won't port their old games so we can play them perfectly then the community will.
@r0mer0 Makes sense to me
I'll say this first. If Nintendo ever gets around to releasing HD ports of Ocarina of Time 3D and Majora's Mask 3D (hopefully on one cart?), I'm all over both of them.
As for the decompilation...I am beyond excited to read this news. I haven't gone back to any iteration of Mario 64 since the PC port came out, and I also have more appreciation for it as a whole. Getting a chance to have an improved version of a game I already had a deep appreciation for is going to be a big deal for me. OOT with tighter controls, camera controls, maybe new animations...I really can't wait.
@T317 If Nintendo didn't have such hostile relationship with emulation, we would have had such thing as a true remaster. instead we get games like Super Mario 3D All-Stars. A half hearted port of three flagship titles.
Now, I’d like a PC port. It’s inevitable.
@BloodNinja People should be paid, I am not against copyright, it needs to exist to make sure artists and companies who create stuff, can get money from their creations, but copyright cannot last forever, it needs to expire to allow things like these, people taking something that is already good, and making it even better, especially since the companies that made it don't care.
Nintendo made a good job with Super Mario 64, Sunshine and Galaxy, but a terrible job with the All-Stars collection, Rockstar made a good job with the GTA Trilogy, but a terrible job with the Definitive Edition, and fans did much better remasters than them, this is why copyright needs to expire, allowing fans to do things like this legally.
Give credit to zel
@victordamazio I mean I guess it depends on which property we are talking about. Some old emulated games where the company no longer exists should be open source or whatever. But a big company like Nintendo should be able to keep something like Zelda as long as they want.
This will be great for Ocarina of Time, just like the SM64 PC port was. This opens up a way to play OoT with second stick camera controls, a visual overhaul, a fast way to put on the Iron Boots, and improved framerates... all not tied to an awful 240p screen. Nintendo might have the rights to OoT and still provide work to the people who made it in the first place, but this group of people worked on this and those who will create mods for it have done more for the game than Nintendo has in about 20 years.
considering how overwhelmingly popular misplacing the source of older games seems to be for these companies this feels like a net win
"It's also great news for video game preservation"
Umm, you know Nintendo most likely has the code on their servers right? These games are preserved, just not available to the public. All this does is allow piracy and illegal modification. Nobody cares about game preservation. It's just a throw away quote people use to justify pirating software. Just be honest with everyone.
@BloodNinja Nope, because ideas can't be owned, and they shouldn't be owned, copyright is just a restriction for companies to profit from what they make, but you can't allow the protection to last forever.
Patents also expire, when someone invents a machine or a medicine, the patent lasts around 20 years, so the inventor can be rewarded for the invention, but also allow human progress to be available for everyone after the inventor is already rich, copyright, which covers things related to art, like books, music, movies and videogames, last much more since they aren't things that are vital, it's 70 years after the creator dies, and in USA, if it's a company, it lasts 95 years after release, but it's too long, art is also part of human progress.
Companies already have too much power, the media industry in USA is mostly owned by 5 companies: Disney, WarnerMedia, ViacomCBS, NBCUniversal and Sony, and you want to give them even more power, it's time for copyright to be lowered to take away power from them.
@BloodNinja One thing that I could accept is the trademark loophole, trademarks last forever, they are used to make sure people will recognize your business, foods and drinks can't be copyrighted or patented, but you can trademark their names, meaning competitors will have to sell it under a different name, things like the "Coca-Cola" name for the company and the product, and the Nike logo, are trademarked, they will only expire if the companies stop using them.
The idea is that a character like Mickey for the Disney Company, or Mario for Nintendo, they are mascots, these characters are so important for the companies that they can own them forever, however, that only applies to derivative works like new games or merchandise, older Mario games could enter the public domain, allowing us to share and even sell the ROMs as long as we don't modify them much, there are a few Mickey cartoons in the public domain even though the character isn't.
However, I won't support the trademark loophole because companies will try to trademark all their characters, even the ones they don't use for anything.
@Trikeboy Not all companies are like Nintendo, many companies went bankrupt and lost the source code, and even companies that are still on business lose source code, Square-Enix lost the source code for the first Kingdom Hearts and they had to remake the game from scratch, it's even worse when you look at the final product, cartridges and discs won't last forever, dumping the ROMs and ISOs on the internet is the only way to make sure the compiled code won't be lost as well.
Unfortunately, piracy is a necessary evil to preserve media, again, this is why we need shorter copyright laws, or at least force companies to keep distributing their products or else they will lose them sooner.
It's not using the intellectual property because this is the entire game recoded in a different language. It's perfectly legal because it doesn't steal Nintendo's code. It's a recreation of it.
What's NOT legal is the use of designs that directly mimic intellectual property of Nintendo. After speaking with a certain actor, I pretty much learned that Nintendo monitors the use of their intellectual property to the point of LIKENESS, with the only odd exception being DK apparently.
Warning: Wall of text
Why public domain is a fair law:
@SomeBitTripFan The randomiser already has fast Iron and Hover boots shortcuts! It just maps them to the D-Pad as it’s not used anyway.
@ModdedInkling It's likely that the original code for OoT was written in C (C was the go-to language for N64 development to my understanding, e.g. SM64 was written in C). But, because cartridge doesn't contain that C code, only the compiled machine code, their work was translating the machine code back into the logic of C code and assigning names to the functions, variables, and constants so that someone understands the purpose of that code at a glance.
As for the people who seriously believe that people would dedicate likely hundreds of hours on this decompiling project to play the game for free... they already had to have some copy of the ROM, legal or illegal, to do this. To do this they'd already have all the resources they'd need to emulate the game and could have bought dozens of copies if they'd spent the time they did on this project working a job instead.
"Copyright was created to encourage creativity, but with copyright lasting so long, it's holding back creativity, companies like Disney, Warner, Universal and Viacom own so many things that they don't need to create anything new, that's why Hollywood no longer invests in films with original ideas and only makes adaptations, sequels, remakes and reboots."
What does this have to do with copyright? Studios make these because they sell well. If the copyright didn't exist, then other studios would make them. Also, how is using someone else's idea considered "creative"?
@LzWinky We get so many sequels and reboots because it's much easier to exploit a fanbase that already exists than create something new that needs to create a new fanbase from scratch, but if companies like Disney and Warner lost much of their library to the public domain, they would be forced to create new franchises to replace the ones they lost, while they can still use old movies and shows they made, so can everyone else.
And a huge part of the creative process, is taking something that already exists, and making it different, and even better, everything needs to be based on something that already exists, you can't create something 100% original.
Imagine if id Software patented FPS games after releasing Doom in 1993? We wouldn't have Duke Nukem 3D, GoldenEye, Half-Life, Unreal, Halo, Call of Duty, Battlefield, Bioshock...
Imagine if Chuck Berry patented Rock and Roll? We wouldn't have Elvis, The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith, AC/DC, Queen, Deep Purple...
Oh yes a proper PC Port would be so great.
The Mario 64 PC Port also runs better than emulated
@GrailUK lmao bad take
Another thing, one thing people often point, is that Disney, the main reason why copyright laws became so restrictive to prevent Mickey Mouse from becoming public domain, wouldn't be what they are today without public domain, since most of their classic movies are adapted from public domain stories and characters like Snow White, Pinocchio, Sleeping Beauty and The Little Mermaid.
While most of Nintendo's classic games and characters are their own original creations, Nintendo did use a lot of public domain material, mostly music, many of Nintendo's games use public domain tracks, the classic Tetris Theme A is one example.
I am so happy about this, OoT is one of the greatest games ever made, and to have it conserved to this degree makes me happy.
@Kitoro It's not a take, it was a question
@BlueOcean https://zelda64.dev/progress.html
@victordamazio Dude its entertainment and in grand scheme of life its pointless fluff we use to keep ourselves busy until we die. You sound very entitled on this thread and like a pirate trying to justify what they do, end of the day a Zelda game or Mickey Mouse is really not important to people like us because we just play Zelda and watch MM to keep ourselves from growing bored, yeah it sucks when the likes of Take Two and Nintendo go after Mods but again does it matter? I feel you just want a free ride to be honest.
@victordamazio They have to protect their trademarks, even if they aren’t currently in use, lest they lose them. Imagine F Zero, that hasn’t had a new game in many years. If they didn’t maintain the trademark or copyright and lost the rights to public domain, that would disappoint a lot of people who are yearning for a new official F Zero.
@victordamazio Most products begin as ideas, and in the world of Zen Buddhism and other sects of spirituality, nothing is owned. However, in capitalist societies, there is 100% a concept of ownership. You can’t have it both ways. If you seek to abandon ownership, join a monastery. Otherwise, it’s much more responsible and completely reasonable to respect rights of ownership while participating in a capitalist society.
Eh.. Them thinking this is legal is wishful thinking. Transpiled code is protected under copyright laws. This will get taken down.
@Trikeboy again, I wouldn't be so sure, a fair amount of articles on remasters/rereleases of old games (even popular old games) are about how they just threw the source code away/lost it; see: https://www.vg247.com/isnt-ps4-xbox-switch-port-final-fantasy-8-preservation-may-answer
@WallyWest Nope, because copyright is way more than just cartoons and videogames, it covers fine literature, classical music and even scientific articles, a lot of copyrighted material also has historical value, and I mean real historical value, not videogame history, human history.
Patents are different than copyrights, but they are tied and they cover very important stuff like medicine that can cure diseases.
It's not about getting free stuff, it's about creativity.
@BloodNinja One thing is ownership of physical and tangible things, like money, houses, cars, land, another thing is ownership of ideas, ideas can't be owned and shouldn't be owned.
I support copyright, but copyright should not last forever because it's about a cycle of allowing people to profit on their creations, then allowing other people to improve those creations.
@GrailUK It doesn't just matter if it's redistributed. For example, say I paint a copy of the Mona Lisa. My friend likes it enough that they ask to buy it from me. I sell it to them.
No forgery occurred, since the buyer knew that they weren't getting the original product, but a reproduction.
@BloodNinja If the copyright + trademark on the F-Zero franchise expired thanks to lack of use from Nintendo, fans would be allowed to make their own F-Zero games since Nintendo refuses to make one.
"Just make a similar game like Wipeout or Fast Racing."
We don't want a similar game, we want a F-Zero game, with Captain Falcon and the Mute City theme.
@BlueOcean easy? You sir have no idea what you are talking about.
Also please note that this is not OG Ocarina. It’s the Master Quest debug rom
@victordamazio Doesn't matter what you want. Either create something better or grow old and bitter about it. It is what it is. Unless you have enough cash to persuade Nintendo to give up the IP, then nothing is going to be done.
This is no more legal, than Sony recreating Mario or Link, and including them in their games. It can't be done because of copyright, which is there for a good reason.
If they want to write their own "engine" which enables a game like Zelda that's fine - but the second they make it compatible with the asset formats "exactly" used by Nintendo, then that's bad - because it facilitates copyright fraud and piracy.
If it wasn't based around Zelda, there would be no publicity and none of this would matter.
Sigh.
@link3710 Great example. Unfortunately Da Vinci isn't with us anymore so it's difficult to say if he would have said 'oi! stop that!' (but in Italian)
Because of all games, this is the one that desperately needs to be preserved. /s
@victordamazio - " because ideas can't be owned, and they shouldn't be owned"
Why not? Why shouldn't we get to keep the thing we created, especially if it's a full-blown IP? What possible problem could there be in simply allowing an individual to keep the idea they created?
"copyright should not last forever because it's about a cycle of allowing people to profit on their creations,"
That's only half of it, the other half is so they can maintain ownership of the IP, so they can continue to actually use it. Without Copyright, no-one has any ownership over their ideas, at which point it becomes pointless to even bother creating them (seriously, what's the point in say, writing a story, if every idiot on the street is allowed to just metaphorically write all over it to the point where you can't even see the original idea?)
"We don't want a similar game, we want a F-Zero game, with Captain Falcon and the Mute City theme."
No offence mate, but so what? If it were a particular type of game, you might have more of a case, but just the IP? Just the F-Zero skin? That just sounds petty, I mean take a look at it this way:
"Person 1: I want a new F-Zero game.
Person 2: How about this? It's almost the same, just with different characters?
Person 1: No, I want F-Zero! I want it now!"
You see how these words sound? Not that it's wrong to want particular IPs (for example, I still tend to prefer Castlevania games over the similar Bloodstained series because I personally prefer the former IP), but to disregard ownership and steal it, even if perfectly serviceable alternatives exist (admittedly, not so much in this case, but still)? That's something else entirely.
I mean seriously, I'd like a new F-Zero game as much as anyone, but does that give me the right to appropriate the IP? No. To think so would be wrong, pure and simple. To think I even deserve the IP (let alone think I could improve on it) would also be incredibly arrogant and ignorant of me. Just because I know what I want, doesn't mean I know what's best for the IP, nor does it give me the right to decide that.
@victordamazio
I'm afraid you won't make much headway in these comments. The people don't understand the issue well enough to present a substantial argument one way or the other. For the record, I agree with what you've said, but you'll find that most have accepted a reality that heavily benefits businesses across the spectrum, particularly in the US, where the government does the bidding of those with the most capital.
Remember, in USA, copyright lasts 70 years after the creator dies, and 95 years if it's a company that hired a creator.
If you release a game now, only in the year 2114 that game will lose the copyright, allowing anyone to share it and download it for free, and also adapt it to create a similar game with the same characters, why do you care? By that time you will be dead, and if you have children, they will probably be old as well and already got enough retirement money from the game.
Mario was created in 1981, meaning only in January 1st, 2077 he is becoming a public domain character that anyone can use for free, but:
Sure it sounds terrible to live in a world where Mickey is no longer owned by Disney, Batman is no longer owned by DC, Mario is no longer owned by Nintendo, but it's a small price to pay to allow creativity to flourish, stop defending companies all the time, innovation cannot be owned and locked by them forever.
Another thing, public domain is even less theft than copyright infringement, because when you get copyright on something you made, you are pretty much making a deal with government to make sure they will protect your creation, however, that deal always stated they won't do it forever, government gave something to you, but they stated since the beginning that they will take it away later because it's like a rent, nothing was stolen.
In USA, perpetual copyright is forbidden by the constitution.
@FullMetalWesker Speaking of Castlevania, Dracula is in that game, he is a public domain character, if Bram Stoker's family still owned Dracula, we wouldn't have Dracula in Castlevania, we might not even have Castlevania at all, "Konami should just pay to use Dracula" is a terrible excuse, it would be just like the TMNT games that Konami made and own, but can't properly control.
Many public domain stories, characters and music are from a time copyright laws didn't exist, and in many times, we don't know who the creator is, but Bram Stoker did have a copyright on his novel, allowing him to earn a lot of money, and when he died, his family kept protecting his creation, but eventually the book entered the public domain and now anyone can use Dracula any way they want.
Sure, this leads to a lot of pathetic versions of Dracula that Bram Stoker would probably dislike, but also a lot of great works of fiction that respect the original vision, Bram Stoker would probably love the Castlevania games.
Why corporations deserve special treatment just because they can live longer than people? The Castlevania games alongside characters like Simon Belmont need to become public domain someday so the cycle can continue.
Good. Games need to be preserved. This is comeuppance for their shoddy emulation on NSO.
@victordamazio I'm pretty sure if you ran a corporation your views would be different my privileged friend.
Speaking as someone who works as a programmer/computer scientist and has a real interest in compilation and decompilation, this is absolutely beautiful. From an academic standpoint the idea that we can get close to reading the original source code for one of the greatest games of all time is unbelievable. Looking at this I'm in awe of the skills of the original developers as well as the people who worked on the reverse engineering in terms of their understanding of the N64 hardware.
As for all the carping about what's ethical and what isn't in these comments: I'm fine with Nintendo protecting their copyrights and trademarks, because I know I would do the same if I were in charge of something so valuable. I'm also fine with fans testing Nintendo's patience from time to time if they're doing it out of love for their products and regard for their cultural significance, because it's the fans who made these properties so valuable.
There's always been a tension between the two, and always will be. The cosmic ballet goes on.
@Rosalinho I agree with you. I met some folks in my life who had some of the ideas many people here seem to have only to be on opposite ends once they had their own IP.
One of the main contributors wasn’t credited, so take this achievement with a grain of salt: https://twitter.com/zel640/status/1464640096389455879?s=21
@DaniPooo So are you telling me that this research doesn't help in Majora's Mask?
@BloodNinja Well, no. Plagiarism is copying something word for word. What I was trying to make an analogy of is like if you write an article on how Ocarina of Time has been reverse engineered. I read the article and then wrote my own article using my own and different words to report the same thing. From what I understood in this article the people here recreated the game using a different code; maybe a different coding language even?
If a book is translated into a different language I don’t think that’s considered plagiarism by law or rule (though I’m not certain on that). That’s why they need to hire a translator who basically recreates the whole work with different words. I’m not sure of the legality of say an unsanctioned or unofficial translation of a book.
@Nitwit13 Plagiarism can occur if you copy words from a published work, and then change words. It’s also if copied word for word. Still doesn’t support what some people are claiming about public domain, though.
@KingMike This has nothing to do with presevation, and everything with piracy. And I will celebrate the day Nintendo shuts this down.
And I have already reported this to Nintendo, so they know about it.
@sanderev What exactly is being pirated? I recall from the Super Mario 64 HD installer, it required the user to give it a SM64 ROM they have already obtained on their own.
There are devices to dump one's own N64 cart to get a legitimate ROM. And if one does resort to a shady source to get it, oh no. How exactly would I be stealing a game I already paid for at least five times over for, if I did go that means?
I just don't understand why fans feel the need to be the Fun Police for a huge corporation that is already paying enough people (called lawyers) to do that for them.
@KingMike considering someone else in this very thread said something to the effect of "this facilitates piracy and copyright infringement," ignoring the fact that if that argument was viable then emulators would not be legal, i don't really know if anyone like this really cares about the reality rather than playing Randall Weems the Second
OH so this is like OpenMW? Where you need to own an actual copy of the game to be able to actually play the game, but its code has been replicated from the ground up so that modern tools can break the game and improve it (like OpenMW allows for new heightmaps so that mods could actually make Red Mountain the height it should be - around the same height as the Throat of the World in Skyrim). Of course, Bethesda/Microsoft has a friendly relationship with Mods, and the game came with a creation tool kit for modding the game. There's a reason that Tamriel Rebuilt and OpenMW still exist. But there was a hot water moment when Bethesda thought OpenMW was distributing their IP for free and tried to shut OpenMW down. They're "good" now because the projects explained their actual purpose. You can even play OpenMW on Mac!
I imagine Nintendo would have a more antagonistic approach with these projects just because their code is just as important to them as the narratives and game play and IP of their games. But I doubt they can shut it down directly.
There IS a legal conundrum about what you can do with a rom you own a copy of. Nintendo's lawyers HAVE argued in court that you can dump it only for the sake of reloading it back onto a new N64 cart, not that you can play it in a 3rd-party app. To my knowledge, the law in this particular grey area isn't entirely settled yet, but be aware that you're playing with fire even if you own a copy of the ROM.
@GrailUK then the answer is no. its not even remotely close
I would personally like to thank Nintendolife for bringing this out in the open.
Game preservation, game preservation, game preservation. There now I have said it lots, now it must be true!
love to see when an article has an entire section devoted to how the project is legal that the comments still end up being "ah. Must be illegal"
@BlueOcean sure it might help a bit. But it doesn’t seem to make it easy. If you check their progress page https://zelda64.dev/progress.html
The Majoras Mask decompilation GitHub has been around since 2018. This kind of work takes time. They still have to manually reverse everything (which takes time). But yes I believe they it will help a bit having OOT decompiled. But I would not expect it to be easy work
Sorry, but their argument over copyright is rubbish. Just because they didn't use the original assets doesn't mean they haven't copied the game. If I type out a book by hand instead of scanning it I've still broken copyright.
@DaniPooo Thank you for your reply. What I mean is that once the code is decompiled it should be easy to make a port but I know it's very difficult to decompile a N64 game because the architecture and the code is extremely complex. Majora's Mask uses extra tricks on top of Ocarina of Time and the N64 Expansion Pak.
If you pay taxes, you pay for your government's enforcement of copyright law. Every time a large company sues for copyright infringement, taxpayer money goes towards defending this. That is fine and good for a period of time in order to promote innovation and for the original author to be fairly compensated but this arrangement should not go on forever.
The public used to be compensated for this--the original works would become public domain--but mega corporations in the US such as Disney have lobbied Congress to extend the time for copyright protection to outrageously long terms. What used to be a mutually beneficial arrangement now benefits only the copyright holder (who increasingly is one of only a handful of companies that purchase just about every notable IP).
Here is a brief excerpt from the following article that shows where copyright started in the US. The article goes on to show where it stands today: https://www.arl.org/copyright-timeline/
1787: US Constitution
According to Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the US Constitution, “the Congress shall have power . . . to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.”
1790: Copyright Act of 1790
The First Congress implemented the copyright provision of the US Constitution in 1790. The Copyright Act of 1790, An Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by Securing the Copies of Maps, Charts, and Books to the Authors and Proprietors of Such Copies, was modeled on the Statute of Anne (1710). It granted American authors the right to print, re-print, or publish their work for a period of 14 years and to renew for another fourteen. The law was meant to provide an incentive to authors, artists, and scientists to create original works by providing creators with a monopoly. At the same time, the monopoly was limited in order to stimulate creativity and the advancement of “science and the useful arts” through wide public access to works in the “public domain.” Major revisions to the act were implemented in 1831, 1870, 1909, and 1976.
@Meteoroid they have reversed everything so that they are able to compile to a rom identical to the rom they reverse-engineered, so yes.. all imperfections are present.
That’s actually a huge motivator for many who have been working on this. Having human readable source code could help speed runners finding new glitches to take advantage of.
That being said.. I am looking forward to seeing people having free hands with the code. Making mods, unofficial bug-fix patches and ports. Maybe we’ll see a version running on the Switch at 1080p widescreen @60fps with hi-res textures and mod support.
It’s all possible with source code.
Removed - flaming/arguing
Calling Ocarina of Time "Zelda 64" is as bad as calling Link to the Past "Super Zelda".
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