Castlevania SOTN Decompilation

[Random Encounter]

This guy is working on decompiling the source for SOTN and getting it ready for the community to modify and use. It really gets into the weeds of the code, but you may find it interesting! There are other videos available on his channel of him working through various blocks of the game code if you like what you see.

[Selbaek]

Nice! Is this the first decompilation project for a PS1 game? I hope this opens the door for many more PS1 decompilations like N64 games seem to have.

[Random Encounter]

It's aimed at all ports currently, with the PS1 port having the most documentation right now. More details can be found at their website, where their GitHub and Discord are linked up top:

https://sotn.xee.dev/

[The Grimace]

I haven't seen it in a while, but over the last two years there's also been a guy "demaking" the game for Sega Genesis. Seeing his process for how to figure out how to make the game work on less powerful hardware was fascinating.

Looks like he's still doing it and even did an update three days ago!

https://youtu.be/DDDmy-035x0?list=PL1xqkpO_SvY1pe_6YeD74LEu3bcxM86Z5

Of course since the Genesis can only do so much, it's no longer a Metroidvania. Instead, it looks like he's taken the route of making it like Dracula X: Chronicles, with branching levels.

[Random Encounter]

I've been keeping up with that guy doing the Genesis project. A lot of time has just been spent getting the physics and animations of Alucard just right. You take for granted the feel of a game, to say nothing of the music and graphics. If he gets it even close to the scope of the original, that alone is impressive.

[The Grimace]

SotN is a fascinating example of gamefeel for me. For being the first of the Igavania genre, to this day it is still one of the most ambitious Metroidvanias.

Alucard has two idle standing poses. One for when he's in the middle of action, and a peaceful idle, where he pulls his cloak around him. The exact inner workings of how these poses work seem to have even eluded Konami, as when you play as Alucard in Dawn of Sorrow, the idle animations don't work the same as in SotN.

Stuff like this makes me thin, "how and why, or why not?"