Paper Mario PC ports beckon as coder completes full decompilation of the N64 classic
Nintendo lawyers don’t read this. Everyone else, hello.
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It takes a brave kind of person to announce they’ve fully decompiled Paper Mario mere days after Nintendo finished mounting hackerGary Bowser’s head on a proverbial spike, and that person is Ethan Roseman. Spotted byVGC, Roseman—a coder—has announced that he’s “reached 100% completion” on a project aimed at decompiling the Nintendo 64 classic, opening the way for mods and unofficial PC ports.
I’m extremely happy to announce that after 3+ years of working on a decompilation project for Paper Mario, we have reached 100% completion for the US version of the game. Every compiled function has been matched!https://t.co/2iwkrFmK4h pic.twitter.com/KRCd25u4TfApril 19, 2023
The completion of the project means that, sooner or later, we should be able to play Paper Mario on our desktops without having to resort to emulation.
As draconian and litigious as Nintendo is about these things, previous projects of this type have managed to avoid the gaze of its lawyers so far. Decompilation projects forOcarina of Time,A Link to the Past, andPerfect Darkall remain in good health, so Roseman’s project should—in theory—remain online for the foreseeable future.
The reason is probably because projects like these don’t really infringe on any of Nintendo’s intellectual property. Coders like Roseman aren’t just ripping Nintendo’s assets (like textures) out of their games and slapping them onto the PC, instead, they’re remaking the code themselves, which Nintendo has yet to find a way to crack down on.
Of course, that does mean if you want to play an unofficial PC port of Paper Mario, you’ll have to provide those Nintendo assets via a (legally acquired!) ROM. It’s a little more roundabout than just hitting ‘Go,’ but it keeps everyone involved out of prison, which is probably for the best.
If you’re interested in how Roseman managed to accomplish his feat, he’s detailed the decompilation process ina video on YouTube. And if you just want to play a port of Paper Mario on your PC, you probably won’t have to wait too long for someone to figure out how to get it all working. It might even be Roseman himself, who says he still has to work on “documentation, other version support, [and] more asset support” for the project.
For now, you can find the decompilation onRoseman’s GitHub. Who knows? Perhaps the PC version of Paper Mario might have a modding scene as robust asBreath of the Wildsomeday.
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One of Josh’s first memories is of playing Quake 2 on the family computer when he was much too young to be doing that, and he’s been irreparably game-brained ever since. His writing has been featured in Vice, Fanbyte, and the Financial Times. He’ll play pretty much anything, and has written far too much on everything from visual novels to Assassin’s Creed. His most profound loves are for CRPGs, immersive sims, and any game whose ambition outstrips its budget. He thinks you’re all far too mean about Deus Ex: Invisible War.
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