Through a lot of reverse engineering, a Github programmer made the legendary A Link to the Past is playable without an emulator.
The hero of Time responding to the pseudonym of xander-haj has indeed rewritten the game in C with no less than 80,000 lines of code. His work makes it possible to play this cult SNES title on Windows, PlayStation or even on SEGA consoles (“ What is this heresy?! Nintendo might say).
A new long-term link to the past
Probably one of the games Zelda most popular of all time, with Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask or most recent Breath of the Wild, A Link to the Past offers itself a new impetus, courtesy of long-term voluntary work.
It indeed started with the Zelda 3 JP disassembly project, aiming to turn the game ROM into raw code, among other things. An invaluable boost for xander-hej, who was able to better understand how the title was developed to reassemble it as faithfully as possible.
The programmer and 19 contributors to the project then used the PPU and DPS libraries of LakeSNES, an emulator of the cult console. However, this version of A Link to the Past does without an emulator. This makes it compatible with many other platforms on which it was previously unthinkable to be able to play this monument.
A sort of open-source fan-remaster
Xander-haj and his contributors have split a reassembly that is no longer faithful to the original title. Everything is there, whether it’s levels, enemies or puzzles, in the smallest details that fans remember with sweet nostalgia.
Not content with this feat, the instigators of this project even took the opportunity to offer a kind of open-source remaster. Many features have indeed been added, such as support for pixel shaders, for an even more beautiful and detailed visual part.
Among the new features, we can also mention the support for higher resolutions in order to enjoy the game even on modern screens without compromising on visual quality. The sound part has also been the subject of particular attention through a modern synthesizer for better clarity.
This new titan work by fans of Zelda commands respect. The fact that this version of A Link to the Past without an emulator will it save its creators from suffering the wrath of Nintendo? Unfortunately, nothing is less certain.
Source : xander-haj on Github
10