In recent times, we’ve seen a rise in the number of PC ports available for classic games. These take the decomp for a beloved N64 game (like Super Mario 64 or Ocarina of Time), and update it to run natively on PC. By doing this, you get a much more performant game, and one that’s a lot easier to modify if you’re working on hacks or mods.
And it seems like another Nintendo 64 masterpiece has just gotten the same treatment. Why? Because Harbour Masters (the same folks responsible for the Ship of Harkinian ports of Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask) have now been released their next project.
Starship: Centauri Alfa, aka Star Fox 64/Lylat Wars for PC.
Here’s the release post about it on GitHub, where you can find the files and setup process.
As you can tell, it uses the same setup as the other PC ports you can think of. You get a ROM for the original game, then rebuild the release provided to extract the resources from said ROM for the PC version. That way, only the new code is available from Harbour Masters themselves, without any of the copyright issues resulting from reusing Nintendo’s assets.
Still, now the port’s out, what does that mean?
Well, it likely means that Star Fox 64 mods are going to be a lot easier to develop. Now, changing out assets like character models and textures is less of a nightmare than it used to be.
And it probably means we’ll see more ambitious mods for the game in general too. Cause unlike Super Mario 64 or Ocarina of Time, Star Fox 64 mods are not exactly easy to come by. Indeed, based on a quick check of the internet, there’s only one mod available for the game on ROM Hacking.net, and only one people talk about outside of that (the randomiser for the game).
So, it’s slim pickings for Star Fox fans, that’s for sure. There aren’t any epic adventures with all new characters and planets, or games that change the entire feel into something else.
But hey, that might change now. Now that the game can run natively on PC, modders might actually do something with Star Fox 64 for once, and develop the sort of fan game scene the series has always struggled to obtain.
Still, Starship: Centauri Alfa is now available to download for Windows, with Mac OS and Linux versions likely coming along in the near future. Definitely check it out if you’re a Star Fox fan, or someone who just wants to try another N64 classic on PC with mods and a higher framerate!
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