Retro Porting Toolkit · Recompilation ecosystems for legacy games

Legacy games, decoupled from their hardware

Retro Porting Toolkit

A family of decoders and runtimes that turn a game's original binary back into code.

Recompiled games build as native programs for modern platforms, preserving the original behavior while opening the door to widescreen, higher frame rates, mods, translations, and netplay.

What it is

Retro Porting Toolkit is a collection of platform-specific recompilation ecosystems. Each one pairs a decoder, which statically translates a game's original machine code into C, with a runtime that stands in for the original hardware. The output compiles as a native program for modern platforms: no emulator core underneath, and no game data ever distributed. Every project builds from your own legally dumped ROM or disc image.

The most established ecosystem is PSXRecomp, which recompiles the real PlayStation BIOS and runs seven playable first-party titles alongside community ports like OpenPete's Spyro the Dragon. NESRecomp covers ten commercial titles across four mapper families. Newer targets run from SNES and Game Boy Advance down to research experiments on CD-i and the GameCube. The Hardware section reports each one's real maturity, in the projects' own words.

Because the result is code rather than a ROM inside an emulator, games can grow past their original constraints: adaptive widescreen, 60 FPS rendering, mods and runtime text translation, gyro and solar-sensor hardware substitution, and shared netplay and rollback infrastructure. The Software section documents every public game project, what works today, and what is still rough.

Coverage

  • Press: Time Extension on OpenPete + PSXRecomp, Notebookcheck on Pepsiman in the browser, retro-gamer.jp on Twisted Metal 4
  • Video: Video Game Esoterica, Save states & rewind showcase
  • Writing: 1379.tech, the team's technical blog

What recompilation makes possible

  • Native builds for modern platforms: Windows, Linux, macOS, Android, and even the browser, with no emulator core underneath.
  • Adaptive widescreen that genuinely widens the logical view, demonstrated up to 21:9 on titles like Tomba! 2 and Mega Man Zero.
  • Enhancements the original hardware could not do: 60 FPS patches, MSU-1 CD-quality audio, HD voxel renderers, and mod loaders that never modify the original ROM.
  • Hardware substitution: WarioWare: Twisted! gyro on a phone or DualSense controller, and Boktai's solar sensor driven by real local weather.
  • Runtime text replacement, powering Tsumu Light's first English fan translation and NES text overrides.
  • Shared netplay, rollback, and save-state infrastructure (recomp-net and retcomm-rbengine) that every ecosystem can adopt.

Hardware

  • PlayStation (2026): PSXRecomp, the most established ecosystem: recompiles the real PS1 BIOS and runs seven playable first-party titles.
  • NES (2026): NESRecomp, a 6502-to-C static recompiler ecosystem with 10 commercial titles across four mappers.
  • Super Nintendo (2026): SNESRecomp, a 65816-to-C static recompiler with three released games, true widescreen, and MSU-1 audio.
  • Game Boy Advance (2026): GBARecomp, the first 32-bit target: ARM7TDMI to C++, about 10 game repos, adaptive widescreen, and an Android build.
  • Sega Genesis (2026): SegaGenesisRecomp, a 68000-to-C static recompiler with the Sonic family released, netplay, and experimental Z80 sound recompilation.
  • Nintendo DS (2026): ndsrecomp, very early pre-alpha dual-CPU static recompiler research with one public game consumer.
  • Virtual Boy (2026): vbrecomp, a V810-to-C static recompiler with one commercial title, Mario's Tennis, as a tech demo.
  • GameCube (2026): gcnlle, experimental LLE-first GameCube IPL static recompiler research that boots the native firmware menu.
  • CD-i (2026): cdirecomp, very early research that recompiles the whole Philips CD-i system ROM as native code.
  • Original Xbox (2026): Xbox low-level emulation research validated against a real console; the main artifact is not yet public.

Software

  • Tomba! (2026): The game that started PSXRecomp: reasonably playable, with a warp debug menu, FMV skipping, and experimental widescreen.
  • Tomba! 2 (2026): The 3D sequel recompiled, with adaptive widescreen up to 21:9, FMV skip, and an experimental debug menu.
  • Ape Escape (2026): An early recompilation of a very popular PlayStation title, with opt-in widescreen and an experimental Linux AppImage.
  • Mega Man X4 (2026): Mega Man X4 recompiled for PC, with true 16:9 widescreen, fast loading, and a damage multiplier option.
  • Mega Man X5 (2026): Mega Man X5 recompiled, with widescreen and frame interpolation mods and FMV decoding with auto-skip.
  • Mega Man X6 (2026): A released recompilation carrying an authorized adaptation of the Mega Man X6 Tweaks mod: 203 configurable mod items.
  • Tsumu Light (2026): A Japan-only PlayStation puzzle game with an original English fan translation applied at runtime, no ROM patching.
  • Super Mario World (2026): SNESRecomp's flagship title: believed playable end to end, with adaptive widescreen, MSU-1 audio, and a growing mod catalog.
  • Mega Man X (2026): Fully playable and released: the first SNES game recompiled without an explicit disassembly as reference.
  • The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (2026): Playable through the early dungeon, with adaptive widescreen, MSU-1 audio, and a first Linux build.
  • Donkey Kong Country 2 (2026): A community-led SNES recompilation hosted by the core team, with experimental widescreen and an automated route auditor.
  • The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap (2026): One of the first GBARecomp titles, with adaptive widescreen demonstrated up to 21:9.
  • Mega Man Zero (2026): The famously cramped Mega Man Zero games, given room to breathe with opt-in fixed-width or adaptive widescreen.
  • WarioWare: Twisted! (2026): The gyro-driven GBA game, playable without the original tilt cartridge: phone gyro on Android, controller motion on PC.
  • Mario Kart: Super Circuit (2026): Super Circuit recompiled, with a 60 FPS track rendering mod and adaptive widescreen.
  • Dragon Ball Z: Buu's Fury (2026): An early recompilation of the GBA action RPG, with an optional adaptive widescreen mod and edge-anchored HUD.
  • Pokemon Ruby & Sapphire (2026): The Gen 3 pair recompiled, with the cartridge real-time clock modeled by the GBARecomp runtime.
  • Pokemon FireRed & LeafGreen (2026): Both Gen 1 remakes recompiled from one repository as separate native targets.
  • Pokemon Emerald (2026): The recompilation that completes Gen 3 coverage in the GBARecomp lineup.
  • Super Mario Advance 2 (2026): The GBA release of Super Mario World, recompiled as part of the GBARecomp lineup.
  • Super Mario Advance 4 (2026): The GBA release of Super Mario Bros. 3, recompiled as part of the GBARecomp lineup.
  • Super Mario Bros. (2026): A released NESRecomp title with character replacement mods, an experimental widescreen mod, and a first-person Voxel 3D mode.
  • The Legend of Zelda (2026): Released NESRecomp title with a Voxel 3D renderer for the overworld, a first-person mode, and an experimental HD build.
  • Metroid (2026): One of NESRecomp's ten supported commercial titles, chosen partly for its strong public disassembly.
  • Mega Man 3 (2026): An MMC3 title among NESRecomp's ten supported commercial games.
  • Dr. Mario (2026): MMC1 puzzle title among NESRecomp's ten supported commercial games.
  • Faxanadu (2026): NESRecomp's first supported commercial title and the showcase for its JSON-driven Text Override System.
  • Duck Hunt (2026): Light-gun classic made playable on PC through NESRecomp's mouse-as-Zapper substitution.
  • Yoshi (2026): Puzzle title among NESRecomp's ten supported commercial games.
  • Yoshi's Cookie (2026): Puzzle title among NESRecomp's ten supported commercial games.
  • Gumshoe (2026): GxROM light-gun title among NESRecomp's ten supported games, playable with mouse-as-Zapper.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog (2026): The first Genesis title recompiled by SegaGenesisRecomp, with a widescreen setting and intro skip.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (2026): SegaGenesisRecomp's second title, with a widescreen setting.
  • Sonic 3 & Knuckles (2026): The combined Sonic 3 & Knuckles experience on SegaGenesisRecomp, with a widescreen setting and a pre-boot launcher.
  • Mario's Tennis (2026): The Virtual Boy framework's first and only title, running at correct play speed as a tech demo.
  • Metroid Prime Hunters (2026): The Nintendo DS framework's public alpha: campaign entry, adaptive 21:9 widescreen, Prime-style mouse controls, and experimental Wiimmfi online.
  • recomp-net (2026): Portable delay-sync netcode library for recompilation hosts, used by psxrecomp's opt-in netplay build.
  • retcomm-rbengine (2026): Platform-agnostic rollback engine whose snapshot ring underpins save states and rewind across the recomp ecosystems.
  • OpenPete (Spyro the Dragon) (2026): A native PC port of Spyro the Dragon built from a decompilation hybrid, with PSXRecomp covering the undecompiled functions.
  • Xenogears (2026): An independent static recompilation of Xenogears for PC, built with PSXRecomp as the decoder.
  • Boktai: The Sun Is in Your Hand (2026): Community GBA recomp that drives the game's solar sensor from real local weather instead of the original cartridge hardware.
  • Pepsiman (2026): A community browser recompilation of the PS1 cult classic, running natively as WebAssembly at 60 FPS.
  • Twisted Metal 4 (2026): Independent PSXRecomp-based project targeting PC, Mac, and Linux while preserving 4-player multitap multiplayer.
  • Mega Man X for Original Xbox (2026): A community port of the Mega Man X SNES recomp build to original Xbox hardware, using RXDK / XDK.

Articles