Unsurprisingly, Nintendo of America has gone after the Link's Awakening DX HD fan project, less than a day after the fangame gained publicity online. Once hosted on Itch.io, The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX HD has been removed from the platform, following a DMCA takedown from Nintendo. The notice, shown below, cites copyright infringement for uploading a fully playable version of a Nintendo game. The Link's Awakening fangame was uploaded only after it was completed, though, meaning a backup likely still lurks somewhere on the internet.

To Whom It May Concern:

I am an authorized representative of Nintendo of America Inc., owner of the following copyrighted material:

PA0002212311 (The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening) and PA0000772666 (Legend of Zelda : Link's awakening (Game Boy version).

It has come to our attention that the following game, https://linksawakeningdxhd.itch.io/links-awakening-dx-hd, offered on Itch.io infringes and makes unauthorized use of Nintendo’s copyrights in The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening video game.

For additional information visit Nintendo’s website at the following URLs:

https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/products/game-boy-nintendo-switch-online-switc...

https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/products/the-legend-of-zelda-links-awakening-s...

Please act expeditiously to remove the download and information page for the infringing game.

I have a good faith belief that the material is not authorized by the intellectual property owner, its agent, or the law. The information provided in the notice is accurate, and I swear under penalty of perjury that I am authorized to make the complaint on behalf of the intellectual property owner.

Sincerely,

Nintendo Legal

Nintendo of America Inc.

Source

 

[realtimesave]

I gotta say, the absolute gigachad energy coming from the author of this fan game is astounding.

Imagine spending time and energy developing a remake of a whole game, completely in secret, barely post anything about it, and release it with no fanfare, no-license source code included, anonymously, using new accounts named after the project.

This is how you *have* to make Nintendo Fan Games now.

True and I'm amazed someone caught on to that and even did it. Pretty awesome if you ask me.

 

[The Catboy]

I gotta say, the absolute gigachad energy coming from the author of this fan game is astounding.

Imagine spending time and energy developing a remake of a whole game, completely in secret, barely post anything about it, and release it with no fanfare, no-license source code included, anonymously, using new accounts named after the project.

This is how you *have* to make Nintendo Fan Games now.

I hope more do this, more so including the source code when doing it. Nintendo might kill the project‘s release but once the project is out there, there’s no way for Nintendo to stop it.

 

[CheatFreak47]

I hope more do this, more so including the source code when doing it. Nintendo might kill the project‘s release but once the project is out there, there’s no way for Nintendo to stop it.

The exact pipeline for this is the same as always. A cool homebrew or fan game comes out, people discover it, some idiot with a keyboard in games journalism says "WEEE WOO WEEE WOO NINTENDO DON'T LOOK HERE, AWESOME COOL FAN GAME ALERT WEE WOO" and then, less than a week later, it's gone.

I'm honestly really worried that Heaven Studio is going to get killed by Nintendo before it is able to actually finish. Journalists, if you're looking, best keep your fucking mouths shut about projects like these if you actually want them to get finished before they get killed.

 

[duwen]

Not exactly. The Doctor V64 by Bung Enterprises was ruled to violate the DMCA for circumventing protection measures (I presume those lockout/CIC chips which necessitated the use of a cart with the same chip on Passport carts to play bootlegs), and that copying the carts onto hard drives was infringement in itself.

There's protections for cracking DRM when game servers shut down so it can function afterwards. But even this year, Nintendo barred Dolphin from releasing on Steam for including cryptographic keys (y'know, the ones obtained with a friccin tweezer, of all things). But it hasn't been tested in court.
Emulation is legal (as it should be), but there doesn't seem to be protections for say, homebrew hardware & software dumping games for those emulators (as there SHOULD be already)

What I said is still entirely true; there's nothing to stop anyone from dumping roms and applying patches - no illegality at all.

The Bung products (in all versions, across all platforms they were made for) allow for playing roms on actual hardware. And while you can use them to dump your own games, they were mainly used like a proto-flashcart. Dumping roms has never been the issue; distributing roms for piracy has/is. ...and the DMCA barely existed at the time of the controversy around the Bung products, nor would it have been much help as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act is a North American incentive and the Bung products came out of China/Hong Kong. At best it meant that they were harder to get hold of in the US.

Passport adapters were created and sold as a means to bypass region lockouts - there were no N64 bootleg carts back in the day, that's where the Bung devices came in - and they used floppy disks and optical media for storage.

 

[GunzOfNavarone]

Simple: Dont support Nintendo for next console system and games in the future. Let them bankrupted then. That's why I sold Nintendo Switch 1 Generation system. Nintendo is done! They are cruel company! Hello Sony and Microsoft!

It's why I have no quarms about using Atmosphere on their first party games.

 

[PacBunnyXV07]

I think people need to do something better with their lives than to hate on Nintendo with hollow justification. Thats just petty as hell.

 

[DuoForce]

Nintendo being Nintendo. This is why I don't give a shit if people pirate Nintendo games.

Post automatically merged: Dec 20, 2023

Simple: Dont support Nintendo for next console system and games in the future. Let them bankrupted then. Maybe not but they can suffer too! That's why I sold Nintendo Switch 1 Generation system. Nintendo is done! They are cruel company! Hello Sony and Microsoft!

I sold my switch because well, Yuzu (for site reasons and rules I totally don't support piracy, big no-no!) games run better on the emulator than the actual switch itself. I was with you until you said Sony. They're just as bad as Nintendo. Microsoft is the only saving grace because, well, Windows! (Nintendo isn't done btw, your frustration with the company is 100% valid but a few people pirating their games won't even put as much as a scratch in their sales)

 

[thesansfan5678_41736]

NOOOOO

 

[Lumstar]

I think people need to do something better with their lives than to hate on Nintendo with hollow justification. Thats just petty as hell.

The mindset of people who defend piracy is awe inspiring.

There wouldn't be an issue if you had to provide your own rom.

 

[Bladexdsl]

The mindset of people who defend nintendo is awe inspiring.

 

[Murazik]

View attachment 408864​

Unsurprisingly, Nintendo of America has gone after the Link's Awakening DX HD fan project, less than a day after the fangame gained publicity online. Once hosted on Itch.io, The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX HD has been removed from the platform, following a DMCA takedown from Nintendo. The notice, shown below, cites copyright infringement for uploading a fully playable version of a Nintendo game. The Link's Awakening fangame was uploaded only after it was completed, though, meaning a backup likely still lurks somewhere on the internet.



Source

I hope there's a backup

 

[BlusterBong]

when you make any fangame at all, ethier you make your own assets or you ask the user to provide the ROM to pull it from (Seriously, Is googling 'super mario snes rom' really that hard for normies?)

if you don't, you shouldn't be even remotely surprised when the company comes to kill your project.

Also fun fact: Nintendo's stances on piracy has been the same since the days of the SNES, when Iwata was alive, why do you think that game copiers were vilified in the 90s as soon as they were introduced in Japan and European regions.

 

[Myst0gan]

What a nice threat, they didn't sue them for a kidney.

After seeing your comment, they'll

 

[Kioku]

The mindset of people who defend piracy is awe inspiring.

A lot of interesting conversations surrounding piracy.

Nonetheless, this remake/port runs wonderfully. I actually prefer it to the Switch remake, but that’s just nostalgia.

 

[Asia81]

Too bad I wasn't fast enough to download it, and archive.org has excluded the url...
**cough cough** If anyone know where to download it... **cough cough**

 

[shunoia]

Not gonna lie, I understand why they're doing it, they don't need fangames to stay relevant (unlike certain blue hedgehogs...) but it's still not very nice Netiquette, but I guess I'd do the same if I wanted to keep my property from being abused!

 

[SG911]

Wish I would of gotten my hands on that. Before It got shut down, I still have the original files. For that Metroid II remake.

EDIT: Never mind. Came across it a bit after of making this post.

 

[Leobgood]

FYI,
There is a glitch in the second dungeon once you finish it where the instrument is not there.
can be resolved by adding, then removing the following command in your saveGame0 file:

s d2_instrument 1 (Documented in itch.io /t/3361957/randomly-stuck)

Post automatically merged: Dec 28, 2023

Too bad I wasn't fast enough to download it, and archive.org has excluded the url...
**cough cough** If anyone know where to download it... **cough cough**

Do bing search for: Links Awakening DX HD v1.0.0.zip
Git hub (/ ihm-tswow / Links-Awakening-DX-HD) has a fork to build your own or find where you mentioned > Link's Awakening DX HD
It is scattered throughout but you have to sift for it!

 

[Kioku]

Too bad I wasn't fast enough to download it, and archive.org has excluded the url...
**cough cough** If anyone know where to download it... **cough cough**

It’s still up and easy to find. Took all of two seconds to do so. May have to dig a bit further though.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Not gonna lie, I understand why they're doing it, they don't need fangames to stay relevant (unlike certain blue hedgehogs...) but it's still not very nice Netiquette, but I guess I'd do the same if I wanted to keep my property from being abused!

There is more than one blue hedgehog?