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snesrev/zelda3

★ 4,615CAudience · developerComplexity · 4/5LicenseSetup · hard

TLDR

A fully playable reverse-engineered recreation of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past written in C, with added features like widescreen support, pixel shaders, and higher-quality audio. Requires an original SNES game ROM to extract assets.

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((zelda3))
    What it does
      SNES game recreation
      Fully playable
      Reverse engineered
    Added Features
      Widescreen 16x9
      Pixel shaders
      MSU audio tracks
      Quick item switching
    Tech Stack
      C language
      SDL2 graphics
      Python scripts
    Build Platforms
      Windows
      Linux
      macOS
      Nintendo Switch
    Audience
      Game developers
      ROM hackers
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Code map

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Things people build with this

USE CASE 1

Play a fully recreated A Link to the Past with widescreen support and pixel shaders on Windows, Linux, macOS, or Nintendo Switch

USE CASE 2

Study 70,000 to 80,000 lines of reverse-engineered C code as a learning resource for game disassembly and recreation techniques

USE CASE 3

Mod the game by editing C source code instead of assembly, using this as a base for custom Zelda modifications

USE CASE 4

Build the game natively on your platform of choice using standard build tools like make, TCC, or Visual Studio

Tech stack

CSDL2PythonMakeVisual Studio

Getting it running

Difficulty · hard Time to first run · 1h+

Requires the specific US region Zelda 3 ROM (verified by SHA256 hash), Python for asset extraction, and SDL2, building from source needs make on Linux/macOS or TCC/Visual Studio on Windows.

MIT license, use freely for any purpose including commercial, with no conditions beyond keeping the copyright notice.

In plain English

This project is a reverse-engineered recreation of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (also known as Zelda 3), originally released for the Super Nintendo. The code is written in C and covers the entire game, making it playable from start to finish. The approach taken was to study the original game's assembly code and rewrite its behavior in C, resulting in roughly 70,000 to 80,000 lines of code. To run this, you need a copy of the original game ROM file (the specific US region version, verified by a SHA256 hash listed in the README). A Python script extracts the game's assets (levels, images, and other data) from that ROM file into a separate data file. After that step, the ROM itself is no longer required to run the game. The project uses SDL2, a cross-platform library for handling graphics and input, and builds on Windows, Linux, macOS, and Nintendo Switch. Several features have been added beyond the original game. These include support for pixel shaders to change how the game looks, widescreen aspect ratios of 16:9 or 16:10 instead of the original 4:3, a higher-quality world map, support for MSU audio tracks (a format for replacing the original music with higher-quality recordings), and extra controls for switching items more quickly. For people who want to build it themselves, the README walks through compiling on Windows using either a small free compiler called TCC or the full Visual Studio IDE, as well as on Linux and macOS using the standard make build system. A Windows-only launcher built by a community member provides a simpler no-build option. The project is licensed under the MIT license.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1
Walk me through building zelda3 from source on Linux, what dependencies do I need, and what commands do I run to compile and launch it?
Prompt 2
How do I extract game assets from my Zelda 3 US SNES ROM using the Python script in the snesrev/zelda3 repo?
Prompt 3
How do I enable widescreen 16:9 mode and a pixel shader effect after building zelda3?
Prompt 4
I want to modify zelda3 to change the player movement speed, which C file and function should I look in?
Prompt 5
Show me how to replace the original game music with MSU audio tracks in the zelda3 build
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