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

 

[Mike_77712]

I'm downloading it out of spite

 

[retrospect]

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.

While I agree, I think more responsibility lies with the developers. The devs are the ones announcing their creations before they're finished, inviting a shutdown. If they must do a development blog, why not do it secretly and publish the blog at release time? That'd be awesome.

I'm just glad AM2R got released and had subsequent bug fixes. Hilarious that the bug fixes were post-shutdown too.

Post automatically merged: Dec 30, 2023

What hurts the most is that with the take down, author of the HD Remake won't be able to improve it further, effectively killing any chances of seeing a better version than the one that's already been saved by thousands of enthusiasts.

Actually this time the .zip download included the source code, so other devs could release patches. I've read that it also included the ROM and that's where the copyright claim comes from. There was no need for it to include the ROM, but there we go.

 

[dudeguy2022]

I knew this would happen and immediately downloaded the game onto my phone when I saw that it existed

 

[K0rbo]

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!

Yeah, that's never gonna happen, theres a point where a companies too big to die from stumbling a little bit

 

[Luke94]

Well maybe unofficial,fanmade Nintendo IPs’ needs to publically shown as being ported to Nintendo Switch I dunno what else could I say to prevent lawsuits of DMCA violations and copyrights infringement.

 

[TigerTheGreat]

It's on Archive.org. Yuzu is on Archive.org. Citra is on Archive.org. Everything ends up in there. And the source code is usually sooner or later taken over by an interested party. Do your worst, Nintendon't. In this aspect, the company and all their efforts on the topic are completely worthless.

 

[Jayro]

I've missed out, is there any new updates since the v1.0 release?

 

[impeeza]

I've missed out, is there any new updates since the v1.0 release?

lots, latest version is 1.9

Please let my foot stay inside my mouth

 

[Xdqwerty]

lots, latest version is 1.9

but how if when the game was deleted it was only in 1.0?

 

[chronoss]

lots, latest version is 1.9

can u share the file ?

 

[impeeza]

Nah, sorry I read wrong is 1a, the same on the Archive.org.

 

[Jayro]

but how if when the game was deleted it was only in 1.0?

Well AM2R got updates after it was taken down.

 

[DragonMals]

Well AM2R got updates after it was taken down.

lots, latest version is 1.9

Fans would take fngames to make their own modifications to them even if they have been taken down. AM2R has a whole community of players that are playing the game based on the patches, features and such that continues the longevity of the game.

 

[Dark_Ansem]

Fans would take fngames to make their own modifications to them even if they have been taken down. AM2R has a whole community of players that are playing the game based on the patches, features and such that continues the longevity of the game.

Where?

 

[DragonMals]

Where?

https://github.com/AM2R-Community-Developers/AM2RLauncher

 

[NinStar]

Fans would take fngames to make their own modifications to them even if they have been taken down. AM2R has a whole community of players that are playing the game based on the patches, features and such that continues the longevity of the game.

Popular fangames normally never die, even after they are taken down or the original creator leaves the project. SMBX is a good example of that.

 

[ShadowOne333]

Prime example of why fangames based on company's IPs should always be open source, even romhacks at this point, more so for Nintendo games, since a-holes seem to be too legal trigger happy nowadays with everything related to anything Nintendo.
If you go close source, you run the risk of getting DMCA'd and letting the game be in a legally abandoned limbo forever.

Aside from that, I heard there's a continuation for the PC port, does anyone know what the most current versions include?
Does it have 16-bit graphics now?

 

[DragonMals]

Popular fangames normally never die, even after they are taken down or the original creator leaves the project. SMBX is a good example of that.

I will always remember SMBX, I haven't heard about that game for a while now. It used to be one of the many things I've watched as a kid, and it's extremely surprising to see the creator of Terarria made that game.

 

[NinStar]

I will always remember SMBX, I haven't heard about that game for a while now. It used to be one of the many things I've watched as a kid, and it's extremely surprising to see the creator of Terarria made that game.

There are basically 3 different versions of the game being maintained by different people nowadays:

SMBX1.4 38E - A remake made from scratch with new features
SMBX2 - A hacked version of the original SMBX with Lua support (this seems to be the version most people uses, at least on Windows)
TheXTech - A port of the original VisualBasic code to C++, it supports a bunch of platforms, including the Wii U and PSVita.

I personally use TheXTech because of the native support it has for so many platforms, the source code for it is on GitHub.