Back in the early 2000s, Nintendo re-released their (at the time) 3D Zeldas from the Nintendo 64 console for their then brand new console, the Nintendo Gamecube.

The first re-release was back in February 2003, in the form of a dual bundle disc, which came as a pre-order bonus for people who ordered The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. This re-release included the original Ocarina of Time, and a brand new reworked version of the original OoT called "Master Quest", which remixed all of the original game's dungeons to be more challenging.

The second re-release came in the form of The Legend of Zelda: Collector's Edition, which included a demo for The Wind Waker, the original NES The Legend of Zelda, as well as its NES sequel, Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, followed by The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and finally, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, all bundled in a single disc.

These two re-releases for the Nintendo Gamecube were not actual native ports of the original games, but rather they relied on a custom-made Nintendo 64 emulator by Nintendo of America (and also the NES titles), alongside the original ROMs of the games within the disc, and while the emulator was far from perfect, with Majora's Mask specifically suffering from several drawbacks, with the most prominent being a random crash/freeze that required the player to completely reset the game (those familiar with Majora's Mask save system can know the hurdle), the emulator did its job in bringing these beloved titles from the previous generation to the current one at the time. This N64 emulator by Nintendo themselves, was later reworked and repurposed for use for the Wii's Virtual Console and its measly 21 titles.

Now, thanks to the great effort and research made by Zelda Reverse Engineering Team, also known as ZeldaRET, the Nintendo 64 emulator used on the Gamecube to bring these titles to light has been fully decompiled. With this, some interesting details about the development of the emulator, and also, Nintendo's early dealings in emulation as a whole to bring older titles to modern consoles, could be explored in more detail, and additionally, further research on this emulator could also help towards possibly improving the emulator and bringing a more stable and up-to-date Nintendo 64 emulator for both the Gamecube and the Wii, or even aiding in improving currently existing emulators for the system with currently known Not64 and Cube64 emulators for GC and Wii as well.

Source
ZeldaRET OoT GC Decompilation on GitHub

 

[KiiWii]

Thanks for the shout out @ShadowOne333

 

[ShadowOne333]

Thanks for the shout out @ShadowOne333

I still have that sweet Collector's Edition for it
I'm just missing the booklet, sadly
I searched around for one but couldn't find it in my area.

If someone has one or can send out a repro of the booklet, that'd be great

 

[KiiWii]

@ShadowOne333 I’ll check if my copy has the booklet!

 

[Sonic Angel Knight]

I never actually owned the collection. But I do know the nes pallets are... not good. Like the NES on gba? Makes me wonder, just what is the "Right" pallets for nes systems? The only emulators I know that don't let the player have... different pallets are snes. NES emulators are radically weird, and gameboy/ advance have that "Color correction" that even official nintendo ones seem to try and do. I just have to wonder where these systems went wrong, or do we just blame emulators for this discrepancies.

 

[DragonMals]

I don't even know how decompiling an emulator works, but with this information, it makes me want to find and explore more about the contents of such. Such wonderful news! Makes me wonder how people are going to bypass the now harsh and more threatening restrictions on the upcoming Switch 2.

 

[liquidgykill]

Not64 is quite interesting in GameCube.
Games like starfox64 and super Mario 64 run decently if read from the disc drive or GC Loader instead of a SD2SP2 or memory card slot.

 

[JuanMena]

Hope this improves Emulation in the Wii Homebrew scene.
If I'm not mistaken, N64 Emulation has heen carrying legacy issues due to HLE Code..
On this thought, hope this decompilation isn't just another variation of HLE Code!

 

[Robert Newbie]

I didn't even know this was among the projects going on at ZeldaRET. Kudos to the team.

I'm intrigued by what kind of benefits and research will come from the decomp itself.

 

[KiiWii]

I didn't even know this was among the projects going on at ZeldaRET. Kudos to the team.

I'm intrigued by what kind of benefits and research will come from the decomp itself.

Most likely insight on how to use and modify the emulator for better effect.

 

[SDA]

Master Quest decompiled when?

 

[Jayro]

Finally, we can get more N64 games working on the Gamecube!

 

[LuigiXHero]

Master Quest decompiled when?

Master quest is what they used for the original decomp for oot in the first place because of the debug rom

 

[Dark_Ansem]

Decompppp

 

[MysticStarlight]

This is just getting better and better. Oh and, wasn't this emulator reworked for the Wii U's Virtual Console too?

 

[Lodad]

I still have that sweet Collector's Edition for it
I'm just missing the booklet, sadly
I searched around for one but couldn't find it in my area.

If someone has one or can send out a repro of the booklet, that'd be great

Man, I wish I still had mine. It got lost somewhere along the line of moving three times in five years. A CiB version is going to be one of my first purchases as soon as I can afford it.

 

[smilodon]

Soon : The OS in your smart fridge has been decompiled. Now enjoy open source ice cubes.

 

[master801]

Can we finally figure out why Majora's Mask in the Collector's Edition randomly crashes now?

 

[niuus]

It would be interesting to have a modern release of this that allows painless injection of roms (even though its compatibility is not broad, it does work very well with select titles) but even more important, changing the controller buttons assignations when generating the DOL file.

 

[mrmagicm]

Good news, Not64 might get better!!