Thanks to a titanic reverse engineering work, a team of developers managed to rewrite Nintendo’s cult game to offer it on PC in an improved version, all without an emulator!
While fans of the license are impatiently awaiting the release of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of The Kingdom on Switch this May 12, 2023, an ambitious project has just given a second youth to one of the cult episodes of the Nintendo saga.
Indeed, the so-called Snesrev embarked on a somewhat crazy adventure: to make A Link To The Pastan opus released in 1991 in Japan on the Super Nintendo, an episode fully playable on PC. And this, without going through the emulator box!
To do this, Xander-Haj and 19 volunteer contributors embarked on a gigantic job of reverse engineering and completely rewrote the game in C (one of the most widely used programming languages in the world) to I‘help of more than 80,000 lines of code.
Also read: The Legend of Zelda in 3D in your browser, test it urgently!
A Link to the Past returns to PC in a modernized version
It all started with the disassembly project Zelda 3 JP, which aimed to turn the entire game rom into raw code (while other sources provided the necessary functions and variables). Thanks to this, Snesrev was able to get all information on the construction of the original title, and thus ensure the quality and fidelity of the reimplementation of the game.
The result is worthy of the work accomplished, since this version, which not only provide full original content, also includes some well-regarded novelties. For example, the game supports Pixel Shaders (ndrl: a method used for rendering advanced graphic features), for a magnified visual part. The resolutions of our current screens are also includedwhile the sound component has been improved thanks to a modern synthesizer.
Moreover, the world map has been reworked to provide more detail, while players can now easily access their items by pressing the X button (on an Xbox controller). A very practical feature that avoids tedious round trips in the inventory. It remains to be seen if Nintendo will see this new project in a good light…
Source : Neowin
