We’ve seen a bunch of unofficial PC ports of Nintendo 64 classics over the last few years thanks to the fan-made N64: Recompiled tool which helps enthusiasts reverse-engineer the code base of original games for modern hardware. But now the scene is facing a wave of new AI vibe-coded decompilations, and many are furious about it.
A project called Banjo-Tooie Recompiled was shared online last week and drew ire for corrupting human-based PC porting efforts with AI-generated code. It was shared on the YouTube channel Video Game Esoterica (via VGC), which didn’t initially make it clear that the effort involved vibe coding.
Argentinian software developer DarioSamo, who worked on the previous human-led unofficial port of the first Banjo game, called out the channel for not disclosing that fact and attempted to distinguish his work from the Banjo-Tooie Recompiled project.
“The Banjo-Tooie Recompilation is NOT associated with us,” he wrote on October 1. “It is entirely AI-generated. Both Zelda: Recompiled and Banjo: Recompiled have very clear No AI stances. We have not, do not and will not use AI to ever work on these projects.”
He continued, “We’re not interested in engaging a race to the bottom and will take the time that is necessary to deliver a polished version of the game. Using the extensive amount of human research we’ve done for the framework, the renderer and the games themselves and throwing AI at it is just disrespectful.”
DarioSamo pointed out that his group had already made clear its intentions to produce a port of Banjo-Tooie at some point without using AI. He also slammed the competing project over on the Decomps subreddit, calling on Banjo-Tooie Recompiled to be renamed.
Getting tired of untested vibecoded ports that are just buggy and because no experienced coders are around, they can’t fix it?
Never fear, as I have listed decomps and recomps done by actual people and it will continue expanding! If you know any, lemme know! pic.twitter.com/zUZDZIHdhC
— FunkyLion ‘Yuyake’ (@Funky90sLion) October 1, 2026
“AI bros are definitely not beating the ‘lacking basic respect and common sense’ allegations,” he wrote. “Worth noting it’s also one of those slopcomps that completely ignores the existing patching system and instead opts for patching all of the recompiled code and memory from the wrong side, meaning modding as people usually expect it is completely unmaintainable in the long run and it contributes nothing to the decompilation efforts.”
The influx of vibe-coded fan projects is so bad that X user FunkyLion went to the trouble of creating a list of the decomps and recomps that are human-made. In addition to concerns about ethics and slop, FunkyLion reiterated the problems with AI-assisted projects being miserable to mod for.
“Now we’re in the mid-2020s, and AI has gotten a hold of everything, with people that have little to NO programming experience porting games completely untested, leading to a wave of buggy AI ports of games that are completely broken,” FunkyLion wrote. “And the sad part is, they overshadow the quality work of decomps/recomps done by actual people. That’s gonna change!”
One of the people working on a new MediEvil recomp project has also supported the backlash against “slopcomps.” “I have no idea about what this is other than what I see posted here,” wrote Jay Gunn on Blueksy. “But I agree with what the comments are saying – keep GenAI the fuck away from MediEvil… now and in the future! The charm of those days of dev’ was that everything was hand made with barely any premade tools or shortcuts.”
