Harbour Masters’ Star Fox 64 Port: A Galactic Gaming Experience

Out of this World Enhancements

The Harbour Masters team, responsible for excellent PC ports of N64 classics like Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask, has brought an incredible adaptation of Star Fox 64 to the PC. The classic arcade flight-sim game has been playable on PCs for some time, but the new port, dubbed Starship, boasts several enhancements to the original, including support for ultrawide resolutions, unlocked frame rates, and rumble support for modern Bluetooth controllers. These additions bring the game to a new level of immersion, making it an absolute blast to play.

Nintendo’s Code Cracked

Nintendo is notoriously protective of its intellectual property, making it challenging to emulate its hardware or use original code from ROMs. However, Harbour Masters has found a creative workaround by converting the original ROMs into PC executable code, avoiding any proprietary Nintendo assets. This approach allows the team to maintain the integrity of the original game while making it more accessible to PC players.

The Possibilities of Modding

Porting the original code also presents an opportunity for modding, opening up a vast playground for the community to create new assets and customize the game. With modding comes the potential for fresh storylines, new characters, and unique game modes, giving fans an endless array of ways to engage with the Star Fox 64 universe.

Getting Started

If you’re eager to experience this enhanced port for yourself, the Harbour Masters team has made the process surprisingly simple. First, download and extract the Starship emulator from Github. Next, obtain a legal copy of the Star Fox 64 ROM, specifically the v 1.1 (Rev A) version in z64 file format. If your ROM is in.n64 format, you can convert it using the online tool hack64.net/tools/swapper.php. Once you have the correct ROM, place it in the same folder as the Starship emulator, run the generate_otr application to extract the necessary files, and then start the Starship application to configure your controller and graphics settings. If the application crashes, try installing the latest C++ redistributable and restart the process.