[N64] Pokemon Puzzle League does not run

[CardsOfTheHeart]

update 2022-02: emulated correctly by Ares64 core, which unfortunately is too slow for casual play

This is a known issue with all Mupen-based emulators that has carried forward into the Mupen64Plus core. To the best of my knowledge, no version of BizHawk has ever been able to load any version of Pokemon Puzzle League on any configuration. I presume that BizHawk is stuck trying to load the opening splash screen because even Nintendo had trouble with the cutscenes in this game, resorting to running pre-rendered video in all the cutscenes for the Virtual Console release, video that, to the best of my knowledge, does not exist anywhere in the N64 rom.

[YoshiRulz]

If you ever get the latest upstream mupen to run it, please let us know what versions and settings you used.

[CardsOfTheHeart]

Checking this again with 2.4.2 yields effects that I don't remember seeing before. Using the Glide64 plugin makes a white bar appear in the bottom left corner. Using GlideN64 produces a jumbled graphic within the first second of loading as in the below screenshot.

[YoshiRulz]

Thanks for the update, have you tried upstream? Not much we can do without a known working set-up.

[CardsOfTheHeart]

It does seem that 2.5.9 is playable with Glide64mk2. Notably, I can't get any video from the FMV cutscenes so it doesn't look like it at first.

[getCursorsExe]

Not fixed! Still happens in 2.7, although this does not happen in RetroArch's Mupen64Plus-Next. This effectively means that it is impossible to TAS this game currently!

[CasualPokePlayer]

This game seems to function fine in Ares64, with even the FMV cutscenes working correctly.

[CardsOfTheHeart]

It "functions" at about 45fps out of the box in either Ares core. I still would not call that playable.

[CasualPokePlayer]

Performance core likely would perform better with rewind disabled (due to how slow states are).

Although regardless, this is probably the best this issue gets until mupen gets an update, which isn't likely to occur any time soon. At the very least the game is tasable.

(also I didn't close the issue due to the speed issues that sadly come with ares' level of accuracy).