As it turns out, L IS real, 2401.
Last weekend saw a large number of goings on. But, for Nintendo fans, none were quite so large as the gigantic 6+ GB leak of Nintendo game data, source code, interoffice emails, programs, and high res assets. And all following on the heels of May’s similar leak, not only clearly coming from the same source, but containing a comparable trove of sweet, sweet data.
As per usual for these things, Modern Vintage Gamer (who knows way more about the particular value of this data than I in regards to its overall usefulness to the emulation community) weighed in on the leak.
Long story short: there’s little here for emulator teams, as most of the console code is for platforms that are already fairly well documented. And there’s also not much from a game source code angle, either: While much of the leaked games are from the SNES era and feature prototype builds (in some cases with radically different soundtracks), the source code of the 14 N64 games associated with the iQue player are generally incomplete or corrupted, and therefore are really only of use from an archival standpoint. So, while data fro an unused temple from Ocarina of Time was found, you won’t be likely to see a reconstruction of the beta build of the game (though there may be some possibilities in the future…).
As for those SNES games, there are a number of things of interest, including an early build of Yoshi’s Island featuring tracks from Super Mario World (and, apparently, Yoshi having a bad ‘nam flashback), a version of Mario Kart featuring different music mixes and radically different tracks, and an unfinished game titled Super Donkey that seems to be a precursor to the work on Yoshi’s Island.
Also, there are early builds/source code of both SNES Star Fox games, including the revelation that there was apparently a human character planned for Star Fox 2. There are also early builds and source code for a number of Game Boy and SNES games (including the ones mentioned above), as well as some for Super Mario Bros Advance featuring different music for each character.
There are also a number of programs, including Nintendo’s Ensata DS emulator and their in-house sprite editing program, among many others.
But as mentioned above, the big deal has to do primarily with the 14 N64 games associated with the iQue player: Animal Crossing, Custom Robo, Dr. Mario 64, Excitebike 64, F-Zero X, Mario Kart 64, Paper Mario, Sin & Punishment, Star Fox 64, Super Mario 64, Super Smash Bros., The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Wave Race 64, and Yoshi’s Story. You can also tack on information from The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask. Of them, however, there are (admittedly corrupted) source files for 1080 Snowboarding, Animal Crossing, F-Zero X, Star Fox 64, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of time and Wave Race 64, among presumably others. Of these, none of these source files are supposedly usable, though many associated files surrounding them are. Of particular note, Ocarina of Time files have been found for beta versions of certain game areas such as the Temple of Time, and notably an entire unfinished dungeon (possibly the Light dungeon),as well as functional files for the beta versions of the Stalfos and Iron Knuckle.
But notably, for all of these games, there are high resolution art assets, and most notably in the case of Star Fox 64 and F-Zero X, high quality sound files which are completely uncompressed.
As for the high res art assets, they include the high-res models used in game advertising, as well as high quality versions of the box art.
But none of this, none of it, eclipses the greatest revelation of all…
L IS REAL
Oh, man. While we knew about the 2 player mode that they had to cut due to hardware limitations, knowing that Luigi was planned and that they even had a model for him is huge. It puts to rest a quarter century of conspiracy theories related to that fountain in the courtyard.
People are still combing through all of this data. And what’s more? The hacker probably still has more data that he’s sitting on. God only knows what the next leak might contain; not to mention how steamed Nintendo’s broccoli will be about it.
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