Zelda
Image: Nintendo

The SNES classic The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past has been successfully reverse-engineered, opening the door for unofficial ports on a wide range of systems (thanks, NeoWin).

A programmer called xander-haj has completely reverse-engineered the game with the aid of the Zelda 3 JP disassembly project (which dumped the original game ROM into raw assembly code), reimplementing it in the programming language C across 80,000 lines of code.

It currently requires the PPU and DSP libraries from the SNES emulator LakeSNES, but, as and when this dependency is removed, the game could potentially be ported over to non-Nintendo systems such as the Sony PlayStation or Atari Jaguar.

Like many other projects of this nature, xander-haj's version of Link to the Past benefits from new features not possible in the original game. Pixel shaders and widescreen support are baked-in, giving this 1992 classic a modern lick of paint. There's also a more detailed world map, and a secondary item slot has been added to streamline the gameplay (you can also switch items using the L and R triggers). Finally, there's support for MSU audio.

This is by no means a solo venture; xander-haj has worked alongside 19 other contributors to make this a reality. The code supports building on Windows, Mac, Linux, and Nintendo Switch, but it's the possibility of where the game could end up outside of those platforms that is really exciting.

This isn't the only project of its kind, however; last year, developer Rinnegatamante released a PS Vita implementation of the game which also delivered several enhancements.

[source neowin.net]