Mega Man: The Wily Wars (Genesis Recomp)

Mega Man: The Wily Wars Recompiled (Genesis)

v1.0.0. Boots, menus and stages run on Windows, with the side menu, shaders, opt-in widescreen, cartridge saves and the one-click builder. Download: Releases (WilyWars-GenesisRecomp-windows-x64-v1.0.0.zip).

This project ships no game code or ROM data. You supply your own cartridge dump.

An unofficial Windows PC port of Mega Man: The Wily Wars (Sega Genesis, USA), built on the segagenesisrecomp static-recompilation framework. The 68000 game code is translated to C ahead of time and built into a native Windows x64 exe.

Features

• Native Windows x64 exe, generated and built from your own ROM.
• Framework hardware: VDP, YM2612 (ymfm), SN76489 PSG and Z80 sound CPU. Any routine the static pass missed runs on the built-in 68000 interpreter fallback, so the game keeps running while coverage improves.
• One-click builder (MMWW-Setup.exe) with a ROM picker; the game is generated and built on your PC.
• In-game side panel (Esc / F12 / pad Guide): shaders from the libretro slang set via librashader (live preview, default Off), sharp/smooth filter, opt-in 16:9 widescreen (default Off), quit. Widescreen keeps the game, sprites and HUD at 4:3 and fills the side columns with the stage: real tiles where the game has drawn them, otherwise a darkened mirror of the stage edge.
• Check for updates in the side panel: asks GitHub for the latest release and, if there is a newer one, opens its page in your browser (nothing is downloaded or installed automatically).
• Window and exe icon from the USA Genesis box art.
• Saves: the cartridge's own EEPROM saves, kept in mmww.eep beside the exe. There are no save states.

Play on Windows (no coding needed)

1. Download the release zip from Releases and unzip it anywhere (for example C:\Games\WilyWars).
2. Double-click MMWW-Setup.exe and pick your ROM: Mega Man - The Wily Wars (USA) (Mega Drive Mini, Genesis Mini).md (2,097,152 bytes, CRC32 0cd405db). Setup refuses any other dump.
3. First run only: setup downloads a portable compiler (about 300 MB download, 900 MB on disk, from the official llvm-mingw, CMake and Ninja GitHub releases), translates the game to C on your PC and builds it. This takes a few minutes; progress is shown in the window and saved to setup.log.
4. The game starts. Next time, open MMWW-Setup.exe again (it just starts the game) or game\WilyWarsGenesisRecomp.exe directly.

MMWW-Setup.exe --rebuild builds again (for example after updating the zip). Your saves (game\mmww.eep) and settings (game\mmww_video.ini) are kept.

Controls & Shortcuts

The Genesis pad map is positional.

Action	Xbox controller	Keyboard
D-pad	D-pad	Arrow keys
Genesis A / B / C	B / A / X	Z / X / C
Start	Menu (Start)	Enter
Side panel (pause)	Guide	Esc or F12
Fast-forward (hold)	Back	Tab
Fullscreen		F11 or Alt+Enter

In the side panel: Up/Down picks a row, Left/Right changes it (shaders preview live), Enter applies, Esc resumes.

Shaders

The side panel's Shader row lists the libretro slang presets run through librashader on the OpenGL renderer (see SHADERS.md). Default is Off. If renderer=sdl is set in mmww_video.ini, shaders are not available.

Tested On

Target machine (the project owner's PC); development testing ran under Wine 9.22 on Linux:

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D
• GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti (8 GB)
• RAM: 32 GB dual-channel
• Storage: NVMe SSD
• OS: Windows and AtlasOS
• Renderer: OpenGL 3.3

Known limitations

• Early build. Boots, menus and Mega Man 1 stages are tested; Mega Man 2 and 3 are less covered by the native pass (more of them runs on the interpreter, which is slower but correct).
• No save states. Use the game's own save files.
• Widescreen sides are a fill. The game only draws one tile column past the 4:3 view, so the sides are mostly a darkened mirror of the stage edge.
• Partly interpreted. The game is compiled C that jumps through function pointers, so the first static pass finds few routines. The rest runs on the interpreter fallback until coverage is fed back into game/game.toml.

Build from source (Linux host, Windows exe)

git clone --recursive https://github.com/rac08241988/WilyWars-Recomp.git
cd WilyWars-Recomp
scripts/setup.sh --rom "/path/to/Mega Man - The Wily Wars (USA) (Mega Drive Mini, Genesis Mini).md"
cmake -S segagenesisrecomp/recompiler -B build-host -G Ninja -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
cmake --build build-host
cmake -S . -B build-win -G Ninja -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release \
      -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=$PWD/cmake/llvm-mingw.cmake \
      -DGENESIS_RECOMPILER_EXE=$PWD/build-host/GenesisRecomp
cmake --build build-win

The recompiled C is generated inside the build tree from your ROM and is never committed.

ROM identity

File	Mega Man - The Wily Wars (USA) (Mega Drive Mini, Genesis Mini).md
Header title	MEGAMAN THE WILY WARS (serial GM T-12053 -00, region U)
Mapping	Flat 2 MB, EEPROM save at $200001
Size	2,097,152 bytes
CRC32	0cd405db
SHA-1	26ad72719991e94dbe477c78e65d68f4a4fe51e6
SHA-256	c3e5e56c1252de5a1ff3bb68b47366120f2c85d333a9ca0eb6df3dab1b03e583

The .md extension is the Mega Drive ROM format, not Markdown. The header checksum ($CB82) does not match the data ($23AD) on this release; that is expected and the game does not check it.

Credits

• segagenesisrecomp by Matthew Stanley and contributors: the Genesis static-recompilation framework, including ymfm, superzazu/z80 and SDL2 (see its THIRD-PARTY-LICENSES.md).
• recomp-ui: side-panel UI and fonts.
• recomp-updater (rac08241988): the Check for updates helper (checks rac08241988/WilyWars-Recomp releases).
• miniz (MIT): zip extraction in the setup program.
• Box art: libretro-thumbnails (USA Genesis cover), used for the icon.
• Options menu, shader and display code carried forward from rac08241988's earlier recomp ports (see NOTICE.md).
• libretro slang/GLSL shaders and librashader.

License

This project's own source is under the MIT license in LICENSE. The options menu and shader parts carried forward from earlier ports are PolyForm Noncommercial 1.0.0 (see NOTICE.md). The framework is PolyForm Noncommercial 1.0.0 with its PERMISSIONS.md grant, so binaries are for non-commercial use only. None of this covers the game, which is not distributed here. Mega Man is a trademark of Capcom; this project is not affiliated with Capcom or Sega.

One-click Windows builder

tools/package_windows.sh <llvm-mingw bin> <GenesisRecomp.exe> <shaders dir> assembles dist/WilyWarsRecomp-win64/ (local folder; ~66 MB): MMWW-Setup.exe, the Windows recompiler in tools\, the project/engine sources in src\ and the librashader shaders. It refuses to finish if a ROM, any 2 MB image, or generated C ends up inside.

On the player's PC MMWW-Setup.exe shows the ROM picker, checks size + CRC32 0CD405DB, downloads pinned llvm-mingw 20261006 / CMake 3.31.8 / Ninja 1.12.1 into toolchain\, generates and builds the game into game\, then launches it. Later runs just launch; --rebuild rebuilds. MMWW_SETUP_ROM / MMWW_SETUP_NO_LAUNCH are for automated tests.