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The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past gets a reverse-engineered clone

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The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, the 1991 classic from Nintendo has been reverse-engineered to bring it natively to more platforms. Nintendo are no doubt warming up their lawyers. Available on GitHub under the MIT license, it notes the game is fully playable from start to finish and it does need the original ROM for the resources, so it doesn't include the copyrighted assets.

Some extra features were added too including:

  • Support for pixel shaders.
  • Support for enhanced aspect ratios of 16:9 or 16:10.
  • Higher quality world map.
  • Support for MSU audio tracks.
  • Secondary item slot on button X (Hold X in inventory to select).
  • Switching current item with L/R keys.

Looks like it's supported to run it across Linux, macOS and Windows too!

You can see their own side-by-side comparison in the below video:

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I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
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dpanter Feb 1, 2023
Magnificent project! Compiled without issues on Siduction.
Grabbed Libretros GLSL shaders git for that sweet SABR shader, then Puzzledudes ALttP MSU1 Deluxe music pack and the thing works perfectly with my Logitech F710 gamepad. Enabled some QoL stuff in the zelda3.ini file and boom.

One of the best Zelda games just got upgraded to Godlike.
legluondunet Feb 1, 2023
Playstation is opening its doors to PC gamers, they are now selling some of their games on Steam and you can play other PS games on the cloud with PS+
With Xbox Game Pass, PC gamers can play XBOX games on the cloud.
The physical console is evolving towards dematerialized and you can play the same games on Windows, Linux, Android through the cloud... Whatever the OS or your hardware.
What awaits Nintendo to follow? There are a lot of Nintendo game fan projects, why? Because people want to play their games, old or new, and they can't! The competition is fierce, I think Nintendo should open up its market, not stay cloistered on a machine or they will disappear, like Sega before.
JamesKruk Feb 1, 2023
Very exciting.
officernice Feb 1, 2023
Inb4 Nintendo kills it like they do anything their fans create.
Bumadar Feb 1, 2023
Quoting: legluondunetPlaystation is opening its doors to PC gamers, they are now selling some of their games on Steam and you can play other PS games on the cloud with PS+
With Xbox Game Pass, PC gamers can play XBOX games on the cloud.
The physical console is evolving towards dematerialized and you can play the same games on Windows, Linux, Android through the cloud... Whatever the OS or your hardware.
What awaits Nintendo to follow? There are a lot of Nintendo game fan projects, why? Because people want to play their games, old or new, and they can't! The competition is fierce, I think Nintendo should open up its market, not stay cloistered on a machine or they will disappear, like Sega before.

The mentally of Nintendo seems quite simple, they are happy how things are now, they selling a lot of consoles, they don't really compete with pc/xbox/ps on the AAA front (flashy gfx etc etc). They got their zelda, Mario and focus more on family fun. They shoot anything and everything down which tries to touch their stuff, fan based or not. Sad but that is how it is and as long as they are happy with the yearly results it will not change.
Purple Library Guy Feb 1, 2023
QuoteNintendo are no doubt warming up their lawyers.
That makes Nintendo's lawyers sound somewhat robotic. But I'm sure that wasn't Liam's intent.
Rusty Feb 1, 2023
Considering all of the code is reverse-engineered and all the assets are extracted from a ROM, there's not really much Nintendo can do here. The case law isn't on their side. This is why we have projects like sm64pc and Ship of Harkinian.
legluondunet Feb 1, 2023
Quoting: RustyConsidering all of the code is reverse-engineered and all the assets are extracted from a ROM, there's not really much Nintendo can do here. The case law isn't on their side. This is why we have projects like sm64pc and Ship of Harkinian.

If only you could be right, remember Rockstar GTA 3 and Re3 github project...
MadWolf Feb 1, 2023
Quoting: legluondunet
Quoting: RustyConsidering all of the code is reverse-engineered and all the assets are extracted from a ROM, there's not really much Nintendo can do here. The case law isn't on their side. This is why we have projects like sm64pc and Ship of Harkinian.

If only you could be right, remember Rockstar GTA 3 and Re3 github project...
that project did not get clean room reverse-engineered but Rockstar has failed to take down the code for that project HA HA
Luticus Feb 1, 2023
Works very well on a Steamdeck. Controls worked out of the box. If you run this, adjust the ini file to enable extra features like 16:10 res and other nice things.
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