​

The Resident Evil franchise is no stranger to its fair share of odd entries and multiple ports from time to time, from the spin off titles like The Mercenaries 3D, Operation: Raccoon City and Resident Evil Resistance, to their more obscure and weird entries to forgotten devices, like the mobile port of Resident Evil 4 in 2008 (appearing also on the iPhone in 2009) and its follow up mobile game based on the CGI movie of the time, Resident Evil: Degeneration in 2009.

Unlike the spin off titles, which tend to be released on main consoles and/or PC, the mobile ports are a whole different story, since they used to run not only in niche devices from decades ago, but they usually ran on certain subscription services and internet connectivity for the mobile devices, which was something not frequently seen in mobile devices at the time.

All of these details add up, making a vast majority of these games from the 2000s and early 2010s released on mobile from a wide variety of franchises to be specially hard to come by nowadays, more so since most of the phones have been ditches already in favour of more modern touch-screen based devices with current standardized operating systems. Only those users that still maintain their mobile phones from more than 10 years ago in a fully functional state, and also with their memory intact, are the only ones that could help to preserve all of the lost media from this specific age of gaming.

This is where Twitter user RockmanCosmo, with the help from m3M0ryHuN73R and usernameak, jumps in. In a collaborative effort and utilizing special debugging cables and tools like the Xyz's ktdumper script, they managed to successfully dump and preserve a demo of one of the Resident Evil mobile titles, this one being "Resident Evil: The Stories", which is a Mercenaries-like game set on the original Resident Evil 3's settings and timeline, seeing Jill traversing different sections from the PSX classic, like the Clock Tower, killing zombies and other B.O.W.s to gather points and getting a rank based on the performance. The free demo has a time limit, while the full game requires an internet connection.

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"Resident Evil: The Stories" was part of multiple Mercenaries-based titles released on mobiles back in the mid 2000s, with the others being "Resident Evil: The Missions", "Resident Evil: The Episodes" and "Resident Evil: The Operations", all of which follow a similar gameplay format. These are far from being the only Resident Evil titles that saw the light of day in mobile devices back then, as there's also the aforementioned Resident Evil 4 port and also the Resident Evil: Degeneration mobile game, to name a few.

Thanks to their efforts, yet another title thought to be lost to time now has a change to be achieved and preserved for times to come, and one can only hope that more titles from this mostly neglected age of gaming can get their spotlight in the gaming archives for other generations.

 

[Ryab]

View attachment 406641
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The Resident Evil franchise is no stranger to its fair share of odd entries and multiple ports from time to time, from the spin off titles like The Mercenaries 3D, Operation: Raccoon City and Resident Evil Resistance, to their more obscure and weird entries to forgotten devices, like the mobile port of Resident Evil 4 in 2008 (appearing also on the iPhone in 2009) and its follow up mobile game based on the CGI movie of the time, Resident Evil: Degeneration in 2009.

Unlike the spin off titles, which tend to be released on main consoles and/or PC, the mobile ports are a whole different story, since they used to run not only in niche devices from decades ago, but they usually ran on certain subscription services and internet connectivity for the mobile devices, which was something not frequently seen in mobile devices at the time.

All of these details add up, making a vast majority of these games from the 2000s and early 2010s released on mobile from a wide variety of franchises to be specially hard to come by nowadays, more so since most of the phones have been ditches already in favour of more modern touch-screen based devices with current standardized operating systems. Only those users that still maintain their mobile phones from more than 10 years ago in a fully functional state, and also with their memory intact, are the only ones that could help to preserve all of the lost media from this specific age of gaming.

This is where Twitter user RockmanCosmo, with the help from m3M0ryHuN73R and usernameak, jumps in. In a collaborative effort and utilizing special debugging cables and tools like the Xyz's ktdumper script, they managed to successfully dump and preserve a demo of one of the Resident Evil mobile titles, this one being "Resident Evil: The Stories", which is a Mercenaries-like game set on the original Resident Evil 3's settings and timeline, seeing Jill traversing different sections from the PSX classic, like the Clock Tower, killing zombies and other B.O.W.s to gather points and getting a rank based on the performance. The free demo has a time limit, while the full game requires an internet connection.

​

"Resident Evil: The Stories" was part of multiple Mercenaries-based titles released on mobiles back in the mid 2000s, with the others being "Resident Evil: The Missions", "Resident Evil: The Episodes" and "Resident Evil: The Operations", all of which follow a similar gameplay format. These are far from being the only Resident Evil titles that saw the light of day in mobile devices back then, as there's also the aforementioned Resident Evil 4 port and also the Resident Evil: Degeneration mobile game, to name a few.

Thanks to their efforts, yet another title thought to be lost to time now has a change to be achieved and preserved for times to come, and one can only hope that more titles from this mostly neglected age of gaming can get their spotlight in the gaming archives for other generations.

So many old mobile games of this era are just lost media.

 

[ShadowOne333]

So many old mobile games of this era are just lost media.

Indeed. It's very rare to hear or even see a game from back then being dumped, and much less even playable.
Sure the gaming sphere for mobile in the 2000s/2010s wasn't the best, as most of it was shovelware at best, but that's still an important part of gaming history that is sadly lost due to how niche each device was from one iteration to the next.

 

[Ryab]

Indeed. It's very rare to hear or even see a game from back then being dumped, and much less even playable.
Sure the gaming sphere for mobile in the 2000s/2010s wasn't the best, as most of it was shovelware at best, but that's still an important part of gaming history that is sadly lost due to how niche each device was from one iteration to the next.

I've always been an archivalist and it sucks when it comes to mobile games. I know there are a few games from Japan that are still available for their old FOMA branded phones and are going to be lost soon. Problem is well... I dont live in Japan.

Post automatically merged: Nov 30, 2023

Indeed. It's very rare to hear or even see a game from back then being dumped, and much less even playable.
Sure the gaming sphere for mobile in the 2000s/2010s wasn't the best, as most of it was shovelware at best, but that's still an important part of gaming history that is sadly lost due to how niche each device was from one iteration to the next.

Another major part though is these phones were mostly 3G connections and nothing else. 3G connections are basically being killed off at this point.

 

[HarveyHouston]

View attachment 406641

"Resident Evil: The Stories" was part of multiple Mercenaries-based titles...​

Okay, so now I'm not only based, I'm partly insane. First of all, I didn't know the backstory of this game, and thus had no idea about it's name being changed because of this:

...Also, I could've sworn that there was already a famous game series named "Biohazard" besides Resident Evil. I must be thinking of BioShock, because a simple web search for Biohazard pulls up nothing like what I was thinking of.

 

[Payne]

Shoutout to my BOI Memoryhunter, I know him IRL, keep doing gods work brother

 

[ShadowOne333]

Shoutout to my BOI Memoryhunter, I know him IRL, keep doing gods work brother

Hope he can gets his hands on even more mobile games from the era so they can be preserved, he's doing god's work for sure.

 

[Payne]

Hope he can gets his hands on even more mobile games from the era so they can be preserved, he's doing god's work for sure.

Thats the most difficult part. They managed to crack encryption (E D I T : Individual behind this project specified that "it technically hasn't been cracked yet because we still need to find the bind IDs for games on SDs.", please check bellow reply for full details) , but now they need to get their hands on Japanese phones that do have specific games, and its pretty much shot in dark when bidding on auctions.

 

[ShadowOne333]

Thats the most difficult part. They managed to crack encryption, but now they need to get their hands on Japanese phones that do have specific games, and its pretty much shot in dark when bidding on auctions.

Damn auctions are a cancer to this kind of things.
Best we can do is hope for the better.

 

[RockmanCosmo]

I'm happy to see the enthusiasm for the recent dump!

Thats the most difficult part. They managed to crack encryption, but now they need to get their hands on Japanese phones that do have specific games, and its pretty much shot in dark when bidding on auctions.

Quick note about encryption: it technically hasn't been cracked yet because we still need to find the bind IDs for games on SDs. It appears to be generated from the UIM and the game itself, making it not universal. There were initially fears that SD games without their UIMs couldn't be decrypted due to the bind ID's derivation from a UIM. Luckily, it appears the bind ID can be bruteforced, and doing so will take a shorter amount of time than the bruteforcing the device key (took 20 days). The image attached is a general overview of what it takes to crack the CPRM.

 

[ShadowOne333]

I'm happy to see the enthusiasm for the recent dump!

Quick note about encryption: it technically hasn't been cracked yet because we still need to find the bind IDs for games on SDs. It appears to be generated from the UIM and the game itself, making it not universal. There were initially fears that SD games without their UIMs couldn't be decrypted due to the bind ID's derivation from a UIM. Luckily, it appears the bind ID can be bruteforced, and doing so will take a shorter amount of time than the bruteforcing the device key (took 20 days). The image attached is a general overview of what it takes to crack the CPRM.

That's quite interesting, so basically it's not a full decryption, but rather a bruteforced solution to crack it. Sounds like some good hacking there.

 

[memoryhunter]

Much thanks for the post! Also, note to everyone, you can help the presetvation by reaching out to a lot of people, communities, anyone. If you know a Japanese person, reach out to them and ask if they have an old Feature phone with games on it to spare. Or check auctions out, even though it's pretty much rare to get a juicy hit.

Post automatically merged: Nov 30, 2023

Hope he can gets his hands on even more mobile games from the era so they can be preserved, he's doing god's work for sure.

Also, did you know we archived FF7: Dirge of Cerberus - Lost Episode? The small sidestory of FF7 world

 

[RockmanCosmo]

That's quite interesting, so basically it's not a full decryption, but rather a bruteforced solution to crack it. Sounds like some good hacking there.

Yeah, we've got some super talented team members. They deserve so much credit.

For those who are curious about how I dumped this, I used a new debug cable method (I'd link the informational doc, but I can't post links because I'm a new user)
By modifying a FOMA to micro USB cable, you can rip the firmware of compatible phone models with Xyz's ktdumper scripts. The scripts now support most Panasonic phones, but some of their filesystems are harder to read than others. For example, I've recently dumped a P-01A with the Kingdom Hearts Coded demo, but the jars may be split and incomplete due to the flash translation layer. MemoryHunter and others are still working on trying to read that dump.

 

[SylverReZ]

Docomo phones are super expensive, but I'm glad preservationists are preserving these long-lost games.

 

[Ligeia]

That's interesting. Hopefully more games like this are gonna get dumped and preserved.

 

[Kevbo]

I'm sorry but, "THE STORIES" is just so funny. It's like saying Star Wars: The Tenth One!

 

[Marc_LFD]

So many old mobile games of this era are just lost media.

There was an old Java game of Prince of Persia made by Gameloft which I used to play it a lot. Too bad it seems lost and unplayable now. :/

I don't remember specifically which PoP it was, though.

 

[Spider_Man]

Back when mobile gaming were actual games and not free to download cash cows with everything made very slow unless you paid for everything and riddled with adverts.

I recently saw Metal Gear Mobile which actually looked decent for its age, I wonder if there are mobile emulators to play these as Metal Gear Mobile never came to the UK.

 

[raxadian]

Uh, so the full game is lost forever cause it requires to connect to a server that no longer exists?

While the demo will probably get cracked to remove the time limit if that's the only difference with the full game.

 

[yuyuyup]

I'm sorry but, "THE STORIES" is just so funny. It's like saying Star Wars: The Tenth One!

You will probably find this amusing https://gamicus.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_Simple_series_video_games

Spoiler: the