ogdanimal/SkiesOfArcadiaLegends-Recomp

A native port of Skies of Arcadia Legends (GameCube) to Windows, Linux, macOS and Android, made by static recompilation: the game's PowerPC code is translated ahead of time into native code, and the GameCube's graphics, sound and input come from Dolphin's hardware code. It adds widescreen, 60 fps, camera control, save states and quality-of-life options.

This is a beta (v0.60). Please report what you run into.

No build contains the game. You need your own copy of the disc.

Get a build from the Releases page:

Versions ending in -beta (or -rc1, -rc2, ...) are published as prereleases.

1. Install it:
   • Windows: unzip, and run Skies of Arcadia Legends.exe from inside the folder.
   • Linux: make the .AppImage executable (chmod +x, or Allow executing in the file's Properties) and run it; it has the libraries it needs inside. Or extract the .tar.gz and run ./SkiesOfArcadiaLegends from inside the folder.
   • macOS: unzip, and move Skies of Arcadia Legends to Applications if you like. The app isn't notarized by Apple, so the first time macOS says it can't check it: open System Settings → Privacy & Security and choose Open Anyway (or Control-click the app and choose Open).
   • Android: install the APK and open Skies of Arcadia Legends.
2. Choose Select Disc and pick your disc image. The launcher checks it, imports it (a few seconds) and patches it for this port; you only do this once.
3. Press Start Game. Later, Continue starts from your newest save.

Updating from an earlier version: your saves, save states and settings carry over. On Windows and Linux, unpack the new version and run it; if the launcher asks for your disc once more, choose Select Disc and pick the same disc image, which updates your earlier import in a few seconds. On Android, install the new APK over the old one; the app updates the imported disc by itself.

The disc is the USA or the European GameCube release (game ID GEAE8P or GEAP8P, the original release), as RVZ, ISO, GCM, GCZ, WIA or CISO. The European disc has the text in English, German, French and Spanish (the Language tab in Settings and in the in-game menu, which can restart the game in the new language at once) and runs at 60 Hz like the USA one. The Japanese release isn't supported. One disc is installed at a time: Change Disc replaces it.

Requirements:

Tested on a Retroid Pocket 5 (Android 13, Snapdragon 865), which runs it at full speed at 60 fps, and on Windows. Slower Android devices may not keep 60 fps (see Slower devices).

On Windows, Linux and macOS the keyboard and a controller both work, together or on their own. The game uses whichever controller you press, so a controller plugged in later or a second one needs no setup (started from Steam with Steam Input, Steam's controller works the same way; the Steam Controller shows as "Steam Controller"). On Android the built-in controller, or the first one you connect, is set up for you; without one, the game shows touch controls (the in-game Back menu turns them on and off).

The face buttons go by name, not position: Xbox A is GameCube A. Every button and key can be changed: Settings → Controls in the launcher, or Controls → Button mapping in the in-game menu (on Android too). The controller's A and B can be changed but not cleared, so the menu always works. On Linux the keyboard needs an X11 session or XWayland (what most desktops run games in). On macOS, Control-Command-F switches full screen.

The game's own controls are unchanged; on top of them:

Every setting is also in the launcher's Settings window, with a short description of each. Settings → Controls has the controller, every button and key, the stick dead zone and rumble.

Most of these are set in game from the settings menu (Esc, the controller's Back, or hold Z and press Start), or in the launcher's Settings window.

• Widescreen 16:9 with the HUD at the screen edges, Match screen for any other shape (ultrawide 21:9 up to 32:9, 16:10, a phone's 20:9), or the original 4:3 (identical to the original game). On an ultrawide, a higher Resolution keeps the picture sharp across the width.
• HUD placement on a wide picture: at the screen edges, in a centred 21:9 or 16:9 area (easier to take in on an ultrawide), or the original 4:3 layout in the middle.
• 60 fps by frame interpolation, or the original 30.
• Internal resolution and anti-aliasing.
• Camera control: hold Z and use the C-stick to tilt, and R / L to zoom (towns, dungeons and the world map; on the world map Z + C-stick left / right also turns around the ship).
• Battle speed up to 4x: tap Z during a battle.
• Field speed 1.5x, 2x or 3x for cutscenes, towns, dungeons and sailing: hold Z and press X outside battle. A desktop PC holds 2x everywhere; 3x needs a fast one. Where a device can't keep up, it steps down by itself to what that device holds (a Retroid Pocket 5: about 1.25x-1.5x).
• Options: random encounter rate (off to 4x), Hold B for no random battles, EXP / gold / magic EXP (off to 4x), and Invincible.
• Romhacks that change the game's data, such as Maeson's rebalance (see Romhacks).
• Keyboard and button mapping: play with the keyboard on Windows and Linux, and change any button or key (see Controls). On desktop, any controller you press is picked up without setup.
• Dreamcast music (optional): the Dreamcast version's soundtrack, from your own Dreamcast disc (see Dreamcast music).
• HD textures (optional): a texture pack you downloaded, imported in Settings (see HD textures).
• Save states: five slots, plus an auto-save every 10 minutes on the field (the newest three are kept). Your memory card saves are never touched by a state.
• Continue in the launcher starts from your newest save state or memory card save, whichever is newer. A memory card save loads straight into the game, without the intro or title screen.

Settings → Saves → Import a save takes a save you already have and puts it where the game finds it:

• A memory card save from Dolphin or a real GameCube: .gci, .gcs or .sav.
• A whole memory card from Dolphin (MemoryCardA.USA.raw) or a card dump (.gcp): its Skies of Arcadia Legends saves are taken, nothing else.
• A save state from this port, e.g. from your other device. Save states only work in the same version of the port; memory card saves work in every version.
• A backup made with Settings → Saves → Back up saves on Android (.zip): every save in it. Make one before uninstalling the app, which deletes its saves.

A memory card save replaces the file with the same number; the old one is kept beside it as .pre-import.bak. A save has to be from the same version as your disc: USA saves with the USA disc, European saves with the European disc. Saves from the Japanese version can't be used.

The Dreamcast release of Skies of Arcadia plays the same soundtrack on the Dreamcast's own sound chip, and it sounds different from the GameCube version. To hear it here:

1. In the launcher, Settings → Sound → Import a Dreamcast disc... and pick your own Skies of Arcadia Dreamcast disc: a GDI (with its track files beside it) or a CHD. On Android, use a CHD. Either disc has most of the music; import both for all of it.
2. Set Music to Dreamcast (launcher Settings → Sound, or the settings menu's Sound tab in game; it switches mid-song).

The port runs the Dreamcast's sound driver on an emulated sound chip and plays the songs from your disc, in place of the GameCube music. Two of the streamed songs differ on the Dreamcast, the intro's (disc 1) and a story scene's (disc 2), and play the disc's recordings too (converted once, the first time they're needed, and kept in the music folder); the other two (the title and staff roll, the ending) are the same recordings on both. Intro music (below the import) picks the intro's: the Dreamcast recording is a different cut, so it doesn't line up with this intro's scenes; choose GameCube to keep them in step. Music imported with an earlier version has no streamed songs: import the disc again. The two discs can come from different regions. Where both have a song, the USA or Japanese copy is kept, because the European discs play the story scenes' music slower (made for 50 Hz). Remove deletes the imported music. Only the sound driver and the music are copied from the disc.

Texture packs made for Dolphin work here, for example Skies of Arcadia HD by Bighead and frozenwings (on the Dolphin forums; it redoes the three leads' faces and costumes, the skies, the menus, text and some effects). None is included: download one yourself, then:

1. In the launcher, Settings → Graphics → Import a texture pack... and pick the .7z or .zip you downloaded (on desktop, Import a folder... takes one you already unpacked).
2. HD textures turns on by itself. Switch it in the launcher or in game from the settings menu's Graphics tab.

Only the pack's textures for this game are copied: its GEA folder (used by both discs) when it has one, leaving out its optional extras (French text, the other flight meter), else every texture in it. Each import adds to what is already imported, so a pack that comes as several archives (the HD Texture Pack 4x Upscaled by Shoopkid comes as six) can be imported one archive at a time, or all at once: pick them all in the Android picker, or put them in one folder or .zip / .7z and import that; a texture in two packs is the last import's. Remove deletes everything imported. On Android, take a pack's PNG download where there is one: most phones can't show BC7 DDS textures (with their own driver; a Turnip driver can), and the app shows how many of them stay as they were. BC1 and BC3 DDS textures work.

A romhack of the game that changes its data plays like the original disc: patch your own disc image with the romhack's patch (DeltaPatcher for an .xdelta, Lunar IPS / Floating IPS for an .ips), then pick the patched image with Select Disc (Android: Change Disc). The launcher shows modified beside the game's name. Enemy and item stats, encounter tables, scripts, text, textures and models all count as data; so do the tables inside main.dol.

A romhack that changes the game's code can't run on this port's recompiled code, and the import says so. One code change is recognised and replaced by an option of the port's own: the hold B for no random encounters patch (cleartonic's, also built into Maeson's rebalance, which therefore plays) becomes Settings → Gameplay → Hold B.

A romhack's save states are kept apart from the original game's (a state brings back the game's item and magic tables, so they mustn't mix): Continue, the menu's slots and the auto-saves only see the disc you play. Its memory card saves sit beside the original game's (the romhack keeps the disc ID), which the romhack's author says is fine.

On Adreno devices, Settings → Graphics → GPU driver can load a driver package (for example Mesa Turnip) when the device's own driver crashes or draws things wrong. This is unsupported; if the game doesn't close normally with a new driver, the app goes back to the device's own driver by itself, and after the first normal session it asks whether to keep the new one.

If 60 fps can't keep full speed for a while, the settings menu opens once by itself on Frame rate, so you can switch to 30 fps. Nothing changes unless you choose it.

• Changing the battle speed while a round plays out can freeze the battle. Change it while you choose commands instead.
• On Android, battles top out at about 2.5x speed on a Snapdragon 865; 3x and 4x settle at 2x.
• On Android, the field speed tops out at about 1.25x-1.5x on a Snapdragon 865 (1.5x on foot, 1.25x on the world map and in cutscenes).
• An auto-save can cause a brief hitch on Android.

Open an issue and say what happened and where in the game. On Android, open Settings → About → Copy device info and paste it into the report: it names the device, its chip and the graphics driver.

Your imported game, saves and settings are kept in:

To keep them somewhere else, open Settings → Disc → Data folder → Change... and pick a folder or drive: everything moves there (into a folder named Skies of Arcadia Legends) and the launcher starts again on it. Move Back to the Default returns it. Picking a folder that already holds this port's data (from another install, or after reinstalling) uses it as it is. If the folder isn't there at start (a drive not connected), the launcher asks: try again or use the default folder.

• Portable (Windows and Linux): an empty file named portable.txt beside the program keeps everything in a User folder beside it, for example on a USB drive. Copy that folder along when you update to a new version. (Linux: the .tar.gz only; the AppImage can't hold a file beside it.)
• Android (11 or later): Change offers internal storage, an SD card or another folder, and asks for All files access first (the game reads its files by name, which Android allows outside the app's own storage only with it). Moved out, the data stays when the app is uninstalled and a file manager can reach it.

Nothing from the game is in this repository or in any build: the launcher reads your disc, and the port's changes to the game are applied to your copy as a patch.

See BUILDING.md. How the port works, with measurements and history, is in docs/development-notes.md.

• Launcher background art: I_LIKE_SONIC
• App icon art: Reckoner
• Built on ModernGekko and DolRecomp, which build on the Dolphin emulator's hardware code.
• The Dreamcast music plays through Neill Corlett's Highly Theoretical (the Dreamcast sound chip, maintained by kode54) and reads CHD images with Romain Tisserand's libchdr.
• HD texture packs in .7z files are read with Igor Pavlov's LZMA SDK.
• Started from ModernGekko-Template.

Skies of Arcadia Legends is © SEGA. This project isn't affiliated with or endorsed by SEGA.

GPL-3.0 (see COPYING). Third-party components and their licences are listed in release/THIRD-PARTY.md.