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[IC5]

It seems to me that reverse engineering a game disc or cart, isn't the obvious catchall it seems it should be.

An example being Okami. For the Wii version, Ready at Dawn depended on Capcom to deliver asset files. Some of the assets were never delivered. (probably lost, as Clover, the studio which made Okami, was shutdown only 2 months after Okami released). So those things were completely remade from scratch.

And a lot of game code was redone for the Wii. Because the original code was very specific to the PS2 hardware. (this may be why they couldn't use a PS2 game disc as an asset source). The Wii version was more of an archeological reconstruction, than a port.

 

[ethomaz]

It's a good point. We tend to think of the options available today, but in the past stuff was stored on physical media of some sort.

Yeah... today is everything backup'ed on Cloud... dozen of GBs easy to use.

But people forget games were made before CDs... and even CDs was a fragile 750MB backup option.

Ohhhhhhh email inbox with 1MB, 2MB, 5MB... OMG you need to clean up frequently to not lost messages... Gmail come with 1GB... c'mon that was unreliable huge space.

Today it is nothing.

 

[Pokemaniac]

I remember a member here (Krejlooc I think?) responding to the whole "Sega lost its Saturn source code stuff so that's why they don,t make ports" thing by saying ancient code on a foreign architecture would be completely useless for the purpose of making ports to modern systems. Not having any knowledge in this stuff, I don't know how true that is.

So, the thing about a lot of really old code (particularly for games) is that a ton of it was written directly in assembly. Assembly is only one step removed from native machine code, though (it's basically just machine code, but represented in a somewhat more human-readable format), meaning that the code is highly specific to the instruction set of the CPU it was written for. For games that were written mainly in assembly, there is little difference between the source and the compiled code.

This isn't to say that the source for these games would necessarily be useless for porting them, however. The source would most likely include stuff like comments or function names which could be useful for trying to figure out exactly what things are doing.

Incidentally, this is probably where the very outdated notion that the Switch using an ARM CPU would cause porting troubles came from. The thing is, modern software is much more portable, since most of it doesn't go any lower than C/C++ (languages that are mostly* hardware agnostic) except for some small, targeted exceptions.

*

Spoiler

It's complicated

 

[Ninja Dom]

I heard the original arcade Bubble Bobble source code is lost.

Another reason why emulators that can run these games are important.

What's the story with Bubble Bobble? How did they include it in so many compilations in the 2000's?

 

[night814]

A funny alternative to losing source code; how interesting and crazy is it that Miyamoto still had the drawings for which he and Tezuka designed the first SMB levels? They talked about it when Mario Maker was coming out. The alternate side to SEGA who was quick to throw away their past only to later be their only relevant contributions to gaming.

And they told devs they hired to download roms off websites to make compilations? How absurd.

 

[eso76]

Would happen to me all the time.
I keep losing footage and assets and presets and projects etc. at work

 

[cress2000]

I seem to recall hearing that Final Fantasy III Famicom's source suffered this fate, and is the reason why it never saw an enhanced 2D remake in similar style to the ones the first two received.

 

[mieumieu]

I seem to recall hearing that Final Fantasy III Famicom's source suffered this fate, and is the reason why it never saw an enhanced 2D remake in similar style to the ones the first two received.

As someone pointed out earlier, these early projects are coded in assembly. Even if code is lost, just disassemble or emulate your final ROM and continue working on that. Like what Chrono Trigger and SNES FF on the PSX did.

 

[NewGame]

I heard the original arcade Bubble Bobble source code is lost.

Another reason why emulators that can run these games are important.

Hnnng. I hope this isn't true.

 

[Knurek]

Oh, is that the story behind this old pic?

*twitches*
Floppies and magnets are not a good match.

I seem to recall hearing that Final Fantasy III Famicom's source suffered this fate, and is the reason why it never saw an enhanced 2D remake in similar style to the ones the first two received.

There was one planed for WonderSwan.

 

[Green Yoshi]

Is there a website where you can download the source code of older games? Obviously, you will need the assets and sound files, too.

 

[Chev]

Is there a website where you can download the source code of older games? Obviously, you will need the assets and sound files, too.

This is such an uncommon occurrence that no generalized website exists, obviously. You'll just have to search for what games are open source. And forget assets, those get released even less often.

 

[btrboyev]

Sega had lost lots of original code from genesis and saturn era. That's why they never remade games like Panzer Dragon or Daytona, which was only emulated on PS360.

I don't think Daytona is emulated. It's definitely a port.

 

[keraj37]

*twitches*
Floppies and magnets are not a good match.



There was one planed for WonderSwan.

That reminds me how I was cheating in my programming classes in high school - from time to time we had to write some programs as home work and bring it in floppy. When I didn't do anything I was just buying empty floppy, use my friends magnet over it and done - I was really good actor, when I was crying in front of teacher: "Oh now, all my work is gone! ".

 

[Chainsawkitten]

Is there a website where you can download the source code of older games? Obviously, you will need the assets and sound files, too.

Very few commercial games are open sourced. Wikipedia has a list.

 

[always crazy bacon]

I don't think Daytona is emulated. It's definitely a port.

It's emulated.