I remember having to do that to allow it to do ripemd160, but the compilation error we were getting was that libcrypto_static.lib was missing, and only appeared to be in the older versions. My guess is they moved away from static libraries. Holger maintains the python scrypt as well, and it probably hasn't been updated since either. Didn't really look into it too much other than helping get it going. I do plan on digging into the deps anyway, e.g. there is at least 3 difference ecdsa libraries it tries to import as well.