A decompilation project of Paper Mario 64 has been completed. All features provided by the original game’s code have been recreated. This has made a replica of the game that must not infringe Nintendo’s copyright. This also allows ports and mods.
Most of the code is written in C and is available on GitHub. Work on the American rom is finished, but not yet on the European and Japanese ones. Because the source code is public, it’s relatively easy to create mods and ports for the game that also support advanced features, such as higher resolutions, texture resolutions, and frame rates. To avoid illegality in the project, the code can be downloaded, but without things like textures and audio. Anyone who wants to try the project must therefore provide a rom of the game to fill those gaps.
Developer Ethan Roseman, who is credited with most of the commits, has made a video looking back at the development process. In total it took more than three years.
Paper Mario 64 is a roleplaying game, a genre in which Mario sometimes ventures. Battles in this game are turn based and there is a system of experience points and levels. The game dates back to the year 2000.
Other similar decompilation projects have been done with The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Super Mario 64 and Perfectly Dark. That too has already led to ports and mods. Nintendo can take action against, for example, a ready-made port of Mario 64 for Windows and has done so. Decompilation projects for Banjo Kazooie and Majora’s Mask are still in the works. The American law firm Holland & Knight wrote a blog post about the technical side of decompilation projects and their legality.