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A minuet of mods
We’ve been covering the unofficial Ocarina of Time PC port for a little while now, and it’s close to finished. So as we approach that time, naturally, leave it to people to come up with a whole bunch of mods.
This project was only possible because the Zelda Reverse Engineering team decompiled the N64 classic last year. Harbour Masters – which is behind the port – have been testing a number of different mods and sharing the results among the group. These include simple things such as replacing the game’s textures with 4K ones, and widescreen support in the main game and menus – which the below video from VGC highlights.
There are also some more fun updates to this port, as Harbour Masters has added gyro controls to the Hyrule Castle Shooting Gallery (which is also a benefit of the 3DS version of the game, of course):
Then there’s the downright silly – or brilliant, depending on who you are. You can see what it looks like when Star Fox‘s Arwings invade Kakariko Village, or just delight in the much smoother textures and visuals of what many believe to be the best Zelda game ever.
Actually, who wants 4K textures when you can paste Toad’s face all over the game? This might make those ReDeads and Like Likes more tolerable.
Because of the way this PC port has come about, through the reverse engineering approach, it’s technically legal. This is because the team didn’t use any leaked content, and nothing in the mod is a Nintendo-copyrighted asset. If you want to play this, you’ll need your own ROM of Ocarina of Time to experience the first N64 Zelda game in an all-new way.
[source videogameschronicle.com]
Comments (37)
Widescreen looks incredible, but high resolution textures on N64 geometry always looks so "off". I think it’s the lack of ground clutter and too many straight edges.
i see madeforreleasio strikes again
@Matty1988 If this is anything like the Mario 64 PC port, then people are going to give this game a big visual overhaul to look much smoother and all, so that will probably be fixed in due time.
I assume this is going to go the same way as Mario 64 on PC where people really like it and then Nintendo swoops in to kill it? If so, terrible shame.
You know whats bad, nintendo generally doesn’t know about most of these things and doesn’t kill them until news outlets like nintendolife tend to cover them. Nintendo doesn’t have an internal team who actively goes hunting for this stuff, if they did they would have dmca’d a lot of the various pokemon roms and such but they only tend to go after the ones that news outlets cover (i.e. Uranium being an example). As such when news outlets cover them they are actively helping nintendo shut them down.
Imagine a Render96 project but for Ocarina of Time. That would be amazing
I’m actually not sure what I would want, widescreen 60fps Is great, maybe some up-scaled 3DS textures.. multiplayer?
The race to remove all semblance of the game’s original charm for higher graphical numbers begins.
@Darkcaptain3 Yep, it’s very odd they seem to promote them like ‘ayy this is cool’ but have to know they’re actively helping projects get shut down. I mean anyone who is likely to play any of this modded PC stuff already knows about it without these constant articles.
You say this is legal. Did you get that from a lawyer or from the individuals behind the port? It sure doesn’t sound legal to me. What they are doing is translating, which is covered by copyright law. It’s NOT reverse engineering.
It’s very important to preserve this game since Nintendo has only rereleased it on every single platform since its release and made only one remake of it
@Fizza SM64 PC isn’t dead. Render96 (the main project for updating the game’s textures and models) is still getting updated to this day, and mods for it are still being made as well.
@roboshort Considering the worst thing that could happen is that the project is shut down, which doesn’t seem likely as the Mario 64 project is still going strong, I’m not sure how important the semantics on legality really are.
Time for somebody to make the inside of hyrule castle assessable.
@roboshort Except your applying the NA and EU’s copyright laws to this when you are thinking about it while Nintendo is following the JP copyright laws which do state that anything using their ip’s at all in any way falls under them allowing to strike it, japan is far lacking behind in the freedom when it comes to copyright laws. Thats why anime companies can go after youtubers that are merely reviewing their shows as well as why nintendo actively hunts out youtubers who show their stuff unless the youtuber is a nintendo ambassador. JP copyright laws are not as lax and fair compared to ours and since the company in question who this is coming from is in jp it would follow their laws.
@alexybubble That’s great to hear! I assumed it was killed off permanently after many sites like IGN and NLife itself reported Nintendo wanting to take it down. I might try and give it a go myself if I ever get a decent PC since I’m not the biggest fan of base SM64 personally. Maybe the enhancements will sway me over?
@Darkcaptain3 I think maybe I wasn’t clear enough. I meant to say that translation of the code without approval is probably a copyright violation. Also, the use of the characters in the game are almost certainly trademark violations even if they created new assets.
You raised a good point about Japanese law that I hadn’t considered. My guess is this Ocarina of Time port would also be a violation of copyright and trademark law in the US, though.
Who knows what Nintendo will take action, though
Instead of taking down these fan-made games, Nintendo should let people mod games for the online service. I don’t know why they have to be so stingy about these things. These people are trying to make the games better and let us play them for free. Nintendo should encourage that instead of always trying to ruin our fun and charge us for games that are very old and don’t perform well anymore.
@roboshort Yeah, Nintendo can be very weird about what they take action against and what they don’t. All I know is that when news outlets tend to call attention to these things then Nintendo generally takes more notice of it and actively goes after them.
@Minecraft_Master Nintendo is just incredibly protective of their intellectual property is all it is. Their like Disney in that regard. An they don’t like it when others do anything with it because they could wind up painting things in a bad light or something potentially.
Ocarina just got scary. Those toads ?
@Darkcaptain3 even then JPN copyright would only apply there unless there is a reciprocating agreement. USA based people would be safe unles it violates USA law.
Now the hosting site can takedown the item even if its legal
@Darkcaptain3
Well yeah, but nintendolife can get a lot of clicks if they promote them. And then get about 10 times as many clicks when they report on the project being taken down. It is a total win. For nintendolife that is.
@Coalescence Play what you want and like. Things being added or changed, don’t remove the original game. everything is optional.
@blindsquarel @Darkcaptain3 With all due respect, if you honestly think a company as huge as Nintendo is only aware of these projects when a fansite like us covers them, you’re perhaps being a little naive.
These mods are promoted and shared across social media, YouTube and many other channels – channels that have a reach that far, far exceeds that of Nintendo Life.
I would assume the game’s scapes & models and interactive design are also copyright aspects.
Amazing project, but high resolution for the N64 to me just make the game look like a bundle of polygons. For me, the only way I’ve seen to make the game shine while retaining the original atmosphere while looking cleaner is via the Gamecube via RGB into a consumer CRT in 480i at 5-6ft. It’s absolutely magic and as far as I know, no one seems to know about it. The interlaced image softens the image beautifully while still looking so clean – and avoids the overly pixellated image of 480p (not the original feel of the game). As it’s a consumer set, the interlacing isn’t apparent at 5-6ft. The really amazing thing is that with this setup, the GC’s upscaling of the original 2D elements blend almost perfectly with the 480i image, so look clean and as if they’re supposed to be there. Again, 480p wouldn’t allow for this – or 480i on a pro CRT for that matter, low-use consumer set is best. Of course trying to get this to look good on a flat panel is hopeless. 480p and below looks overly pixellated and takes away from the authentic image of the world. Hi res just fine for a lot of people and I completely understand that people love that, it’s just not the world that Nintendo presented and I wish more people could see how much that takes away from the original vision. On the right display, you have the best of all worlds – original feel of the game, higher res but not too-high-res, beautiful, smooth, clean image and nicely integrated text & 2D elements. When all this comes together, you are truly transported seamlessly into the seminal world that this team created, fully absorbed without any distracting elements to pull you out of the experience, invoking the true spirit and magic of the game that blew us all away so profoundly back in the day.
@Damo Absolutely agreed – love this site
@Fizza I’m guessing you don’t need a good gaming PC to run it. Any somewhat modern PC should be able to run it.
@Damo
Is it not true that Nintendolife is one of the bigger Nintendo news/fan sites. Lots of people learn about the mod from this site, and then talk about it on YouTube or social media. So yes these articles do play a big part in these mods being taken down.
@roboshort Look up the famous Sony vs. Connectix case if you’re wondering why it’s most likely legal in the US; it also relates to how Nintendo don’t make you agree to an EULA forbidding reverse engineering before playing.
However, the assets used in the game (models, textures…) are still ? Nintendo, which is why they’re not included and you need a ROM to compile the game. So that part is infringing.
Also, copyright and trademarks are different things, and the bar for prosecuting someone for trademark infringement is usually higher than for copyright.
@blindsquarel Even that were true – which, given how many posts there were on social media about this BEFORE our news story went live is massively unlikely – what would be the point of creating a mod and having nobody know about it? The people who create these things aren’t doing it to avoid attention, or to keep for themselves.
Once you post about something on the internet, it doesn’t remain locked away in some secret room, waiting for a site like ours to write about it. It’s on the internet, and will therefore get shared. ?
@Aurumonado Render 96 sucks.
I worked for them, they banned me from all the servers for something outside of the server…
@Darkcaptain3 Actually it’s because they fear they’ll lose potential sales for a product they make. That this could take away from the sales of an actual Zelda game because "I can get a free modable experience here, so why should I spend 60 bucks for a game on a console that doesn’t allow mods to let it live on for years to come?"
God, I want a Star Fox 64 PC port so bad. I’ve been working on models based on the promo material and it would be amazing to see them in the game.
Despite the characters still being low poly in the promo material, they have more details on the boots and have way less blocky hands. Fox and Peppy had literal boxes for hands in game, but promo models had mitten hands. In game models had ugly fur textures and teeth, but not the promo.
@Bermanator While that might be somewhat true they also go after games that their no longer selling at all too.
@Damo You guys aren’t a fansite but are considered a news outlet. An I do still feel that you do help spread stuff to a wider audience than would normally have known. For proof of that you can simply see the comments here in which people actually reacted as if they hadn’t heard of this. But I do at the same time agree with you too.
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Game Profile
Title:
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
System:
Nintendo 64
Publisher:
Nintendo
Developer:
Nintendo EAD
Genre:
Adventure
Players:
1
Wii Shop Release Date:
26th Feb 2007 (USA), 1,000 points
23rd Feb 2007 (UK/EU), 1,000 points
27th Feb 2007 (JPN), 1,200 points
Release Date:
11th Dec 1998 (UK/EU)
21st Nov 1998 (JPN)
23rd Nov 1998 (USA)
Wii U eShop Release Date:
2nd Jul 2015 (UK/EU), £8.99
2nd Jul 2015 (USA), $9.99
Series:
Legend Of Zelda
Reviews:
Review: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (Wii U eShop / N64)
Wikipedia:
en.wikipedia.org
Where to buy:
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53
Video Here’s A Look At Another Zelda 64 PC Port, And It’s «Nearly Fully Playable»
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