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Case study

SymphonyRecomp: a RecompOne static recompilation of Symphony of the Night

Statically recompiles the North American PlayStation release of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night into C# with BlackLabelHQ’s RecompOne, whose runtime simulates the BIOS, memory-mapped I/O, GPU and CD-ROM so the game runs natively without a console BIOS. Per-overlay function maps and patches add widescreen, quality-of-life, randomizer and cheat features. References from the SOTN decompilation help name functions, but the project stresses that it is a recompilation, not a decompilation.

Requirements and limitations

  • Requires the user’s own North American disc (serial SLUS-00067) as a two-track BIN/CUE set or CHD with fixed file names; other-language discs are described only as future sources for a language switcher. The repository contains no game data, and RecompOne needs no BIOS or other Sony components.
  • Release v0.5.1b (2026-08-19) ships Windows x64/ARM64, macOS ARM64/x64 and Linux x64 builds; Linux ARM64 was dropped in 0.5b. Source-build prerequisites list an OpenGL 2.1+ GPU, .NET 10, OpenAL and Git, and the changelog calls the OpenGL 2.1 path experimental with bitmasking problems. Game code is generated by running the RecompOne submodule against config/sotn.json.
  • The README calls this an open beta that may contain game-breaking bugs, and 1.0 has not been released. No equivalence or automated gameplay test is published, and none of the changelog’s fixes or features was rerun here.
  • SymphonyRecomp has no license file, so reuse terms are unspecified; the pinned RecompOne recompiler and runtime are MIT-licensed, and the game retains its own rights. Both projects state that no AI was used to write their code and reject AI-generated pull requests; no REA use is established.

About this entry

Type
Case study
Category
Independent reconstruction cases
Relationship
Independent reconstruction project
Targets
Game

Sources reviewed

The description was reviewed against primary sources. This does not establish runtime testing, security auditing or verified compatibility.

Primary sources

  1. README.md GitHub · BlackLabelHQ/SymphonyRecomp · Revision c94a909
  2. config/sotn.json GitHub · BlackLabelHQ/SymphonyRecomp · Revision c94a909
  3. CHANGELOG.md GitHub · BlackLabelHQ/SymphonyRecomp · Revision c94a909
  4. .gitmodules GitHub · BlackLabelHQ/SymphonyRecomp · Revision c94a909
  5. patches GitHub · BlackLabelHQ/SymphonyRecomp · Revision c94a909
  6. README.md GitHub · BlackLabelHQ/RecompOne · Revision 3c34e6e
  7. LICENSE GitHub · BlackLabelHQ/RecompOne · Revision 3c34e6e
  8. https://github.com/BlackLabelHQ/SymphonyRecomp/releases/tag/v0.5.1b