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Video game decompilations have been all the rage these past couple of years, and out of all the retro consoles, the Nintendo 64 has seen its fair share of titles getting decompilation projects, like Super Mario 64, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Perfect Dark, with the first two having proper PC ports alongside a wide variety of Quality of Life improvements, as well as unofficial ports to other systems thanks to the decompilation project. Today, another popular title from the Nintendo 64's library joins the list of fully completed decompiled projects.

Paper Mario (N64) has reached a full 1:1 decompilation, matching with each and every one of its functions 100% with those from the original game. While the developers themselves might not be interested in a PC port for the title, other people might take on the endeavour and attempt porting it to other systems, so a PC port might be in the upcoming future.

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Certainly, the amount of titles getting decompilations is increasing day by day, and for the Nintendo 64, the list of titles that are nearing completion is getting bigger and bigger, with other popular titles such as The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask (70+%), Banjo Kazooie (90+), Goldeneye 007 (50+%), and many others, currently being worked on extensively to get them up to 100% matching functions between the decompilation and the original game. Not only that, but games from other consoles have also seen some decompilation projects, like the Super Nintendo with titles like Super Metroid and The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past.

The future for decompilation projects is looking brighter and brighter each day, with more titles appearing as time goes on.
Which title would you like to see getting a proper decompilation project?

Source

 

[Valery0p]

Oh the italian translators are going to love this!

 

[Doblete]

Hopefully one day they will make a port to play station 2.

 

[godreborn]

Hopefully one day they will make a port to play station 2.

maybe. there's a port of sm64 for the ps2. it takes a few moments to load up, even longer if you compress the data, which I didn't do. extra step that just makes the game worse.

 

[Kioku]

maybe. there's a port of sm64 for the ps2. it takes a few moments to load up, even longer if you compress the data, which I didn't do. extra step that just makes the game worse.

Why on earth would you want to compress it anyway? Compared to PS2 games, this thing is a flea..

 

[godreborn]

Why on earth would you want to compress it anyway? Compared to PS2 games, this thing is a flea..

I do not know, but there is that option. it's just an elf file that you can load in ulaunch.

 

[AmandaRose]

Not really sure why but this is the only Paper Mario game I could not get into. Started it a good few times then always got bored after the first few hours yet I have no problem playing the god awful last few Paper Mario games from start to finish

 

[godreborn]

Not really sure why but this is the only Paper Mario game I could not get into. Started it a good few times then always got bored after the first few hours yet I have no problem playing the god awful last few Paper Mario games from start to finish

I was playing the game on nso. I like it a lot, but I hated the desert.

 

[AmandaRose]

I was playing the game on nso. I like it a lot, but I hated the desert.

Ah The Mystery of Dry Dry Ruins the very point I always give up at.

 

[godreborn]

Ah The Mystery of Dry Dry Ruins the very point I always give up at.

I traveled to all rooms in that. there's one with like 12 pokey's. that one was horrible, but I found a couple hidden badges going through every square. I'm at the pyramid iirc, so I'm still in the general area. this is with the official nso btw as I've never hacked a switch. I was thinking about starting a game in yoshi's story at some point. that game I've never played as I never owned an n64.

 

[AmandaRose]

I traveled to all rooms in that. there's one with like 12 pokey's. that one was horrible, but I found a couple hidden badges going through every square. I'm at the pyramid iirc, so I'm still in the general area. this is with the official nso btw as I've never hacked a switch. I was thinking about starting a game in yoshi's story at some point. that game I've never played as I never owned an n64.

Yoshi's story is terrible no joke you can finish the whole game in about 15 minutes and that's on your first play through. It's by far the easiest game Nintendo have ever made.

 

[godreborn]

Yoshi's story is terrible no joke you can finish the whole game in about 15 minutes and that's on your first play through. It's by far the easiest game Nintendo have ever made.

lol. as much as nso may be a rip off, I guess, it does have some of the best games ever made, so I don't see it as much, but I do not like the drip feed of games that come in. it's a bit like game pass where the main games you see are first or second party while third party games come and go. that's why I stopped game pass. I now just pay for gold. I'll continue to use nso expansion pack, mostly for the n64 and now gba games.

 

[Rya687]

Believe me, if Nintendo was able to, they would have shut down each and every decompilation project for each of their IPs.

They did DMCA the Super Mario 64 decompilation, but they only DMCA'd the final compiled executable of the project, not the project's source code in GitHub.
This is due to the fact that all of the decompilation projects (or most of them) follow a clean room strategy to reverse engineering the original game's code in other languages, or attempt to recreate them without relying in the official source code, this is protected by law, and Nintendo knows damn well that attempting an attack on these projects might fire back.

Actually, Ethteck himself stated on Reddit that decompilation projects generally don't follow clean room strategies, as they're unfeasible under such restrictions. To my understanding, the legality of other reverse-engineering techniques varies from country to country and is often somewhat unclear. If Nintendo actually were to sue these projects, there's a chance they'd win.

 

[yujiniki]

this is crazy holy hell. the time for pc ports is HERE.

 

[Arnauw]

So, it's been a year and we still don't have a port :'(
I'm sadge.

 

[raxadian]

So, it's been a year and we still don't have a port :'(
I'm sadge.

I guess it is because last of interest due to the Switch getting the game be it by paying that expensive monthly sub or hacking the console and running a Nintendo 64 emulator?

 

[Rya687]

I guess it is because last of interest due to the Switch getting the game be it by paying that expensive monthly sub or hacking the console and running a Nintendo 64 emulator?

Nah, I really doubt it's that. According to the admin of a Paper Mario modding Discord server, the decompilation team is indeed not interested in personally making a port, but it's because past PC ports of decompiled N64 games have apparently brought a lot of bad people into their communities.

I'm sure it'll still happen eventually, now that the source code is out there, but they probably won't be the ones making it.

 

[raxadian]

A vita or PSP port would be great to have but for now I guess I will keep playing the Wiiware version.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

So, soon we'll have both of the best Paper Mario titles running natively on the Switch (I'm sure it won't take long to be ported)
What a time to be alive. Both games deserve the modernizing, but Nintendo has been sitting on their hands when it comes to Paper Mario for so long that you can't take anything for granted anymore.