So over the past 2 years or so I have been searching google for any signs that this game was going to be decompiled into legal clean room source code. Well, that day has come! If ever there was a game that should have been on the Dreamcast it is this! It is super early stages, but some of the progress that has been made is very promising. I hope that somebody makes an ultimate version that combines all the Saturn content to it. It is based on the PSX original, though would be cool to see if they decompiled the Saturn or recent Android port which I have been playing a lot this year.
The game is going to be decompiled into pure C code so this is going to really be all I ever hoped for. A native PC version with modding support would be amazing to see as well but just being able to see this game finally ported to multiple systems is going to be awesome. I will try and keep this thread updated with any progress I find, but hopefully, this bodes well and we are in for a great time.
Thanks for bringing this up Anthony! How great would it be to have this on the Dreamcast and put it into a castlevania collection much like what Ian has done with the cowabunga collection.
Wow they are really picking up speed I see! Thanks for posting that juicy info! I also found this great thread here which this guy is updating with all the current decompilation projects. Obviously decompilations aren't ports, they are a first step though so still people have to make ports much later on. But nice to see somebody putting all the active projects in one location and constantly updating. He makes the cut off date at 3 months, so if a project stagnates it gets pulled from his list.
Anthony817 wrote:Wow they are really picking up speed I see! Thanks for posting that juicy info! I also found this great thread here which this guy is updating with all the current decompilation projects. Obviously decompilations aren't ports, they are a first step though so still people have to make ports much later on. But nice to see somebody putting all the active projects in one location and constantly updating. He makes the cut off date at 3 months, so if a project stagnates it gets pulled from his list.
The port of the level is far from perfect and it has countless hacks and work-arounds to somewhat make Emerald Hill Zone from Sonic the Hedgehog 2 to run in the SOTN game engine. I am still working on making it prettier and less buggy. When (and if) it will be ready, it will be published and open-sourced.
The SOTN game engine does not allow flipping tiles horizontally and vertically, therefore I had to duplicate the tileset for each variant which resulted in almost filling up all the available stage tileset VRAM. Each tile can only be associated to a single collision ID, but since Sonic 2 uses different collisions for the same tile I had to duplicate the tile indices further to simulate it. Sonic 2 also has two collision layers and each collision tile has their own collision descriptor to describe when the tile is fully solid or Sonic can collide on its floor but not when jumping from below it. This mechanic is fully ignored in this port.
Finally collisions are not perfect. The collision system is far more sophisticated in the Sonic MegaDrive trilogy, but here I have to resort to approximate collision replacements that helps to not allow Alucard to fall into the void or get stuck but still does not provide a smooth experience.
A lot of compromises, but still am interesting challenge!
Just goes to show you that this is going to be such an amazing game engine for homebrew and mods! I seriously can't freaking wait!
