Just before Christmas last week, a native PC port of the legendary Star Fox 64 was released online. Nintendo would likely never create such a thing as it then couldn’t sell more consoles, so this port was brought to us by a dedicated community of fans. The people responsible for the incredible PC ports of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask, a group known as Harbour Masters, had been working on a decompilation effort for quite some time and were delighted to have things ready before the holidays.
As you would expect from a PC port, this newest version of Star Fox 64 includes support for widescreen resolutions, unlocked frame rates, modern rumble support, and even 21:9 ultrawide. For all intents and purposes, this is now the definitive release of the title unless Nintendo makes some massive remake that touches things up (and no, Star Fox 64 3D doesn’t count). The one caveat is that you’ll need a legal ROM of the game to play it on PC, but there are ways around that. We won’t be linking to any ROM sites, but you specifically need the V 1.1 (Rev A) version of the game.
Once you have the ROM, you can head over to the GitHub repository and download “Starship,” which is what this port is called. Your ROM must be in the .z64 format, though a handy online conversion tool exists. This port isn’t in danger of being struck from the internet by the Nintendo ninjas as it was reverse-engineered from the original code, so you’ll have plenty of time to give it a go if you want.
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Written by Peter Glagowski
Peter has been a freelance gaming and film critic for over seven years. His passion for Nintendo is only matched by the size of his collection.
