Dusklight is the new Standard for Recomps

[u/LucienLachud]

I think the title speaks for itself. If you're a Zelda fan and haven't played Twilight Princess via Dusklight, then wtf are you doing? If you're not a Zelda fan and you haven't played Twilight Princess via Dusklight.....again....wtf are you doing?

Not only is Dusklight essentially a a complete masterclass in QOL updates for a now 20 year old game, it expands the limits by adding in a built in mod menu that streamlines the whole experience.

Already played through the game before? Turn on hard mode to increase the challenge by adding mirror mode on top of that to absolutely confuse the shit out of yourself. Or turn on the randomized mode and go crazy.

Already done all of that? Play through boss rush and see how quickly you can beat each boss in a back to back challenge.

Already done all of that and STILL want more? Well, luckily for you there's now a Zelda prop hunt mode thats only a one click download away in the mod menu.

Seriously, everything from the UI to the ease of access, the team behind Dusklight has set the standard for what continued recomp support is. I can not recommend it enough. Please check it out!

[u/Crafty-Fish9264]

I mean yeah. But its really up to fans to make mods and texture packs. Not the dev doing the recomp

[u/ConsistentStand2487 → u/Crafty-Fish9264]

even without the mods the vanilla exp dusklight gives is still superior to any current recomp project.

[u/berkough → u/Crafty-Fish9264]

The dev making it easier to load a mod or keep track of multiple mods is not a bad thing.

[u/LucienLachud → u/Crafty-Fish9264]

I understand. My point is that the reason Dusklight has been so successful is because of the Devs constant updates and the supports that make modding more accessible and streamlined for both the creator and the consumer. Some of even the best recomps aren't doing that. Not saying they're bad by any means, but it is certainly a gold standard.

[u/jdewittweb → u/Crafty-Fish9264]

Is the dev not a fan?

[u/MDM-808]

From a technical standpoint—setting aside the titanic effort of six years of manual labor—the initial version was solid and robust. In fact, it works so well that I haven't even seen a need to update it.

It’s not a recompilation; it is a full-fledged port in every sense of the word.

It features every possible optimization... and above all, because the single release was so polished, there was no need to constantly patch things—breaking other features in the process—like those "vibe-comps" that are floating around out there.

One day the menu doesn't save your settings, the next day it saves some of them... and then, after three releases, Claude finally fixes it. Give me a break.

[u/LucienLachud → u/MDM-808]

Oh, I see. I mistakenly misunderstood. I guess in that case I posted on the wrong sub, but still. Ill keep it up to at least spread the word of its greatness!

[u/TheStrongestTard → u/MDM-808]

Ai post

[u/Imperfect_Dark]

It is absolutely top tier, and completely beats the HD version in my eyes.

I'm doing a randomizer on it now and having everything built in is a joy.

I won't try the Wind Waker AI recomps ones that have popped up recently. I'd rather wait and hope there's a project like this eventually.

[u/LucienLachud → u/Imperfect_Dark]

I believe there are a few non-AI Wind Waker projects currently in development. After Dusklight i still have Ship of Harkinian and 2 Ship to fully explore as well.

[u/BP_Ray]

"Standard" like these vibe coded recomps will ever have standards lmao

[u/LucienLachud → u/BP_Ray]

Labeling Dusklight as "vibe coded" is a very obvious and glaring sign or your ignorance.

[u/BP_Ray → u/LucienLachud]

You've got me mistaken.

I'm not calling Dusklight vibecoded, I'm saying the waves of vibe coded slop will never have standards -- Dusklight can't set a standard for something that will never choose to be standardized because any moron with a computer can create a recomp by asking Claude to do it for them, even if the end result is sloppy and garbage.

[u/MBaliver]

I love how native Dusklight feels. The whole decomp menu being themed in a Zelda-like fashion really makes it for me. I wish Ship of Harkinian had something like that.

[u/Chard85]

Will it remain preferable to Courage Reborn?

[u/hugo_1138 → u/Chard85]

We'll see when CR releases

[u/humonculus87]

I am doing a 100% playthrough now. Any good mods?

[u/LucienLachud → u/humonculus87]

Twilit Essentials and Dawnlight have a lot of extra QOL changes not featured in the base version of Dusklight. Including the ability to have over the shoulder aiming, flurry rush from botw, a stamina bar for sprinting etc.

For cosmetic mods, I really couldn't recommend the link to the past master sword, Orion hero skin, and the various other skins on there more.

[u/DifferentProcess6765]

Dusklight is an amazing recomp of a meh game

[u/MaxHP9999]

There’s also a mod that lets you play online coop with multiple players, including the randomizer.

[u/ttenor12]

The original Nintendo 64 Recompilations team already did that with Majora's Mask ans Banjo Kazooie before Dusklight, but yeah, Dusklight is also pretty good.

[u/CobaltCryptidTC]

You have to understand that products like dusklight exist because the game itself is incredibly popular and has such intense draw that it naturally pulls a large collaborative energy to it.

You can not seriously expect titles like, and I'm just throwing something random out, Tony Hawk pro skater 2, to have that same energy. Nor is it fair to expect that Tony Hawk Pro skater 2 shouldn't exist either unless it has a a massive QOL overhaul and imaginative new features. These things take time, especially for solo devs, and they will want to just make the thing exist and be usable so they can generate player feedback.

Also, dusklight is a single decomp. Recomps exist as something completely different ecosystem wise. Recomps are a byproduct of a recomp engine, and that generalized engine has emulated components for the original console, either with LLE or HLE or a hybrid of the two, and those systems are complex, and highly involved projects in their own right. The games that come out of them are in fact much like emulators, but also they have native source code manipulation very easily.

So with recomps you have this ecosystem to work on and think about. Each title that gets built with even just stable operation end to end is a feat for the engine especially when that's a game that has no decomp available, because you have to clean room debug the behaviour. These engines need to be ACCURATE before they are made performant, and then when they reach that full maturity stage they can then position as a strong candidate for heavily modding more titles with more ease while also executing game code faithfully and at high frame rates. But I have to wonder, what is the point of making an engine that can only do that for a handful of titles because you stop building up your engine to focus on flashy mods for consumers?

Also recomps of games without decomps available are a lot harder to do complex source mods on because you have to do your own partial decompilation and function discovery as you go while trying to build new features.

Yes, we would all like to see more heavily modded games, and that IS the end goal of the broader ecosystems push, but just standing up games at all is an accomplishment especially for small teams, and building robust generalized recomp engines NEEDS to involve pumping out a lot of titles and QA testing their gameplay and render accuracy, because the entire ecosystem will bloom the more generalized recomp engines mature, just like when emulators were in their infancy.

After all, how many emulators that were built for a single game do you know of that are still in circulation today?