An unofficial PC port of Star Fox 64 has arrived just in time for Christmas

[Alfonso Maruccia]

TL;DR: The same team that brought Ocarina of Time to PC has been secretly working on yet another high-profile port of a Nintendo 64 classic. Star Fox 64 is about to become much more enjoyable on computer than traditional emulation.

Update (Dec 23): Starship, the PC port of Star Fox 64 is now available on Github.

Harbour Masters 64 recently announced on its Discord server the latest project it has been secretly working on for a few months. Starship is a fan-made PC port of Star Fox 64, the classic shooter on-rails released by Nintendo in 1997 for the Nintendo 64 console.

Harbour Masters 64 is a well-established name in N64 PC ports. The team previously released a PC version of Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, providing fans and younger gamers with all the bells and whistles of a proper PC remake, including support for high-res 3D graphics and higher frame rates.

Sonic Dreamcaster, Samplywx, and other developers chimed in on Discord, noting that they have worked on Starship over the last several months. They are now confident enough to showcase their progress to outsiders. A Star Fox speedrunner known as "Rakanai" recently streamed a Starship beta on Twitch and YouTube, confirming that some parts of the game are not fully playable yet and that multiplayer is still missing.

Harbour Masters 64 is known for building ports by decompiling a game's source code, which is time-consuming in and of itself. A native port born from decompilation can usually provide a significantly better gaming experience, with support for high-resolution 3D graphics and higher frame rates, rendering filters, ultrawide monitors, and more. Modding and lower hardware requirements are also part of the mix.

Rakanai stated that Harbour Masters 64 plans to release the final version of Starship/Star Fox 64 for PC in December. Users must still own a copy of Star Fox 64 to avoid any potential legal backlash.

"Native ports are, like emulation, perfectly legal⁠ – you still have to supply your own ROM to run native ports like Starship," said PC Gamer writer Ted Litchfield.

However, as recent events have shown, Nintendo could still attempt to shut down the Starship project, as the company is very hawkish with its IPs. The Japanese company recently tried to forbid Switch emulation on PCs despite using SNES emulators on its gaming museum Windows machines. That said, Ship of Harkinian, the PC port of Ocarina of Time, is still available for download on GitHub after two years, so Starship should be safe, too.

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An unofficial PC port of Star Fox 64 has arrived just in time for Christmas

 

[VariableSpike]

I'm surprised that Nintendo has left the Zelda version up with their hawkish practices

 

[gamerk2]

I'm surprised that Nintendo has left the Zelda version up with their hawkish practices

Because you still need the ROM file, and a clean-room recompilation is perfectly legal. Now, they could *try* a lawsuit just to financially force it off the market, which has been successful for them in the past.

 

[VariableSpike]

Because you still need the ROM file, and a clean-room recompilation is perfectly legal. Now, they could *try* a lawsuit just to financially force it off the market, which has been successful for them in the past.

Ah, I didn't know it was a clean room decompile and rebuild, the bit about it in the article made it sound like they decompiled it till they were aware of the source and how it worked and then built it back up directly

 

[Vulcanproject]

Was it that good though, really? I mean it was a good game but not one of the GOAT for me. I suppose in 1997 there was a lot less competition.

I personally found a lot of N64 games highly rated at the time have aged really badly. While many PS1 titles suffer the same fate, a lot of those games feel more modern. Perhaps because they had more conventional controls if they had dual shock support and the graphics upscale a lot better with emulation.

This statement will probably trigger a lot of disagreement. I loved Goldeneye 64 and Metal Gear Solid equally. However if you play them again today MGS feels way more modern. Goldeneye's performance was actually terrible and the default controls super janky. Especially so in hindsight. MGS is not perfect either, but still feels good.

There are obvious exceptions like SM64 but in general N64's controller being so weird means you go straight to control config playing today to try and fix them all.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Was it that good though, really? I mean it was a good game but not one of the GOAT for me. I suppose in 1997 there was a lot less competition.

I personally found a lot of N64 games highly rated at the time have aged really badly. While many PS1 titles suffer the same fate, a lot of those games feel more modern. Perhaps because they had more conventional controls if they had dual shock support and the graphics upscale a lot better with emulation.

This statement will probably trigger a lot of disagreement. I loved Goldeneye 64 and Metal Gear Solid equally. However if you play them again today MGS feels way more modern. Goldeneye's performance was actually terrible and the default controls super janky. Especially so in hindsight. MGS is not perfect either, but still feels good.

There are obvious exceptions like SM64 but in general N64's controller being so weird means you go straight to control config playing today to try and fix them all.

-Its a target rich environment for remakes/IPs IMO. First Gen 3D meant a lot of new ideas but not enough hardware to really go all the way.

 

[NumberNine]

Let me know when somebody does Diddy Kong Racing.

 

[gamerk2]

This statement will probably trigger a lot of disagreement. I loved Goldeneye 64 and Metal Gear Solid equally. However if you play them again today MGS feels way more modern. Goldeneye's performance was actually terrible and the default controls super janky. Especially so in hindsight. MGS is not perfect either, but still feels good.

To be fair, its hard to get good shooter controls with just one analog stick.

 

[ferrellsl]

I just downloaded and installed it. Works great. Love the higher resolutions.

 

[oasked]

Love this game, so I'll try this version over the holidays.

I remember the joy of playing the whole thing through (you couldn't save halfway) and making it to the final bossfight (and winning) via the 'hard route'. I can still remember the sweaty palms

Such a shame that they've only half-bothered to follow up with later games (such as Star Fox Zero).

 

[MisterSpock]

Making Pepper, at the end, say “Whaaaaaat?!?” at your reimbursement check always made me grin. I’m looking forward to this.

 

[Endymio]

Because you still need the ROM file, and a clean-room recompilation is perfectly legal.

"Clean room recompile" is a contradiction in terms ... and if this article is correct, this isn't a recompile, but (at least partially) a native port.