NocturneRecomp

Static recompilation of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (Xbox Live Arcade) for Windows, Linux, macOS and Android, built on the ReXGlue SDK.

This project converts the Xbox 360 PowerPC default.xex into native x86_64 and arm64 code at build time, then wraps it with a small host runtime (logging, overlays, hooks) so the game runs natively and can be modded like a PC port.

You must own the game. This project does not ship any copyrighted code, data, or assets. You provide your own legally dumped game.

Feel free to visit NocturneRecomp's official Discord server if you need any help.

Get the game on Goopie!

Using a prebuilt release

Get the latest stable build from the Releases page.

Nightly builds are available from CI artifacts.

Platform	Download	First run
Windows	nocturnerecomp-<tag>-win-amd64.zip	extract the archive and run nocturnerecomp.exe
Linux	nocturnerecomp-<tag>-linux-amd64.tar.gz / -linux-arm64.tar.gz	extract the archive and run nocturnerecomp
macOS	nocturnerecomp-<tag>-mac-arm64.dmg / -mac-amd64.dmg	drag the app to Applications; the build is not notarized, so right-click it and choose Open the first time
Android	nocturnerecomp-<tag>-android-arm64.apk	sideload the APK (allow installs from your browser or file manager)

The start screen

The game opens on a start screen. Pick your legally dumped XBLA package (the LIVE/STFS file, which has no extension) with Select File, then Extract.

Two releases are recognized, and each is installed into its own folder of the game library. Either one is enough to play, and there is nothing to pick: with both installed the game uses them together, World's files plus what the Japanese release has.

Release	Folder	Adds
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (Xbox Live Arcade, World)	assets/xbla-world	the base game
Dracula X: Nocturne in the Moonlight (Xbox Live Arcade, Japan)	assets/xbla-jp	the story movies (opening, castle collapse, ending), the Japanese voices, its own artwork (the Dracula X logo and the PS1 side's text graphics), and its Japanese text when the game language is Japanese

With both installed, the settings overlay (F4) has two more rows on the General tab, and both apply without a restart:

• Force English Voices: World's voices instead of JP's (off by default).
• Artwork: Auto (JP's while the language is Japanese, World's otherwise), JP or World.

A JP-only install plays too, with everything coming from the Japanese release.

The start screen also has a Mods page and a Saves page (export a save as a zip, import one into an empty slot, delete). It is skipped once a version is installed; use Restart to Start Screen in the settings overlay (F4) to come back to it, or set show_start_screen = true to see it on every launch.

Making it portable

By default saves, options and caches live in your platform user folder (Documents/nocturnerecomp on Windows). To keep them next to the executable instead, create an empty portable.txt beside it.

The root cvars in nocturnerecomp.toml (or --name=value on the command line) override each location. Any root left empty falls back to its default.

game_data_root   = "assets"    # one folder per installed version (default: assets)
user_data_root   = "user"      # saves and profiles (default: Documents/nocturnerecomp)
cache_root       = "cache"     # shader cache (default: <user_data_root>/cache)
mods_data_root   = "mods"      # mod folders (default: mods)
mods_dump_root   = "dumps"     # dumped textures and shaders (default: dumps)
update_data_root = "update"    # extracted title update files (default: update)

Troubleshooting

Android: the game crashes or will not start

Many Adreno phones ship a Vulkan driver too old for the renderer, and Android offers no way to update it. The game can load a custom driver instead, such as Mesa's Turnip drivers, packaged as the same .zip files other Android emulators use.

1. Download a Turnip driver package to the phone.
2. In game, press back and choose GPU driver....
3. Tap Install..., pick the .zip, then OK.
4. Let the game close, then start it again.

If the game never gets far enough to open the menu, start it again after the crash: when the previous start did not finish, the same dialog appears before the renderer loads, so you can install a driver or switch back to the system one. See docs/custom-gpu-drivers.md for details.

Building from scratch

0. Install dependencies

Linux (Arch/CachyOS)

paru -S clang20 cmake ninja vulkan-headers

Windows

scoop install llvm cmake ninja

1. Clone

git clone --recursive https://github.com/birabittoh/NocturneRecomp
cd NocturneRecomp

If you already cloned without --recursive, fetch the submodules with:

git submodule update --init --recursive

2. Download the ReXGlue SDK

python scripts/download-sdk.py --pinned

3. Provide your game

Place your legally dumped World XBLA package (the LIVE/STFS file) into game/, then extract it:

python scripts/extract_game.py

This writes the same layout the start screen does: a World package goes into assets/xbla-world/, a JP one into assets/xbla-jp/ (run it once per package to install both). World's also makes assets/default.xex a copy of its executable, which codegen and the build read (the guest shaders come from assets/xbla-world/MEDIA), so building needs World even though the game plays with JP alone. Pass a package path to pick one when game/ holds several, and --force to replace an existing version folder.

An older flat assets/ tree still works: the game moves it into assets/xbla-world/ the first time it runs.

4. Build

python scripts/build.py

Without --release the script builds RelWithDebInfo. --package builds the release archive for the host platform; macOS .dmg files come from scripts/package-mac.py and the Android APK from the Gradle project in android/ (see .github/workflows/_build.yml for the exact steps).

Credits

• ReXGlue SDK
• MottZilla's Randomizer
• SOTN Decomp

License

The host-side source in src/, build scripts, and CI config are available under the MIT License.