I reverse engineered Wii version of SMAS (SMB 25th Anniversary Special). Can its ROM be replaced? :)

Hello world of GBAtemp!

Today is April 4th, 2021. Today it's Easter Day (thanks to Manuela from @Manuelasparkles for remembering me for that, see her message here).

I extracted the partition (reverse engineered) of the Wii version of the game Super Mario All-Stars originally made for SNES in 1993 and ported to Wii in 2010 for celebrate Super Mario Bros. 25th Anniversary.

Extracted my backup of the game with Wiimms ISO Tools (WIT) and I got these folders:

View attachment 256239

So, after I extracted the game and went into folder from extraction, I went to folder ...\SMAS_Wii_extr\files\ and I found these folders, looks like it's a "modified VC WAD file" for run in a ISO file:

View attachment 256240

After I entered in this folder, i entered in folder I went to folder ...\SMAS_Wii_extr\files\content5\ (thinking it's a unpacked version of SNES VC 00000005.app file) and I found these files, I was surprised that used a LZH8-compressed ROM file and a LZH8-compressed PCM (audio) file in the content5 folder, just like in a official SNES VC release, so with this I realized that the Wii version of Super Mario All-Stars uses a modified standalone SNES VC emulator for use Wii Remote input on the game, whereas VC doesn't.

The ROM file found in the content5 folder is: LZH8SVME.rom
The audio (PCM) file found in the content5 folder is: LZH8SVME.pcm

View attachment 256241

So, I uncompressed the ROM and PCM files with @hcs' LZH8 (un)compression tools, and then used Plombo's VCromclaim's snesrestore.py tool (requires Python 2.7) for "reencode" the uncompressed ROM and PCM files to a VC dump of Super Mario All-Stars that can be used in a SNES emulator.

So, I tested it with SNES9X and... I'm also surprised that original ROM from Wii release also works on emulator!

View attachment 256246

So, I will try to see if the original ROM file of the Wii version of SNES Super Mario All-Stars can be replaced and played in a ISO file with Wii Remote controls, which is so a VERY BIG advantage.

What do you think about this interesting project? Tell me in the comments! :D

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Greetings to all!!!

saulfabreg - @SaulFabre
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Comments

Uiaad
Someone, please correct me if I'm wrong, I'm pretty sure that there was a big thing when Nintendo released stuff for the VC that they were just ROMs ripped straight from some ROM site complete with the header information left intact
 
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Reynardine
@Uiaad, the guy who worked on the Virtual Console for Nintendo previously worked on one of the first public NES emulators and presumably reused the iNES header format from that. That's where the idea they downloaded roms of their own games came from.

It was mentioned in a presentation held by Frank Cifaldi.

As far as I know Nintendo didn't get their roms from the internet, they have their own archives of master roms for every game.
 
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Uiaad
@Reynardine it was pretty much just a vague memory of something I read many many moons ago. Hell at the moment I struggle to remember what I have to get done during the day without a conclusive list, but things are improving slowly still get frustrated as all hell when I screw up because of it still.

As far as Nintendo having a master archive ... I really would hope so, but in 2021 Nintendo strikes me as it doesn't really care any more, they have definitely lost their way if nothing else. How many times have we seen remasters have to built from the ground up because either didn't care or things just got lost in the endless shuffle? *Slowly looks over at SquareEnix*

At the end of the day, it really doesn't matter all too much if they have or not. I mean as long as there are people like me who keep backups of whole virtually complete romsets ( it is an absolute nightmare once you start getting into CD and DVD's storage wise.) Luckily I have everything available before 2015 from the 6th generation and back, backed up on LTO and everything for the 5th gen and back on a hard drive array that needs upgrading. Next time I do upgrade the hard drive array I'll make a blog post about it and take some pictures.
 
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manks
Reynardine has that information correct - people incorrectly assumed that the presence of iNES headers in VC roms meant that Nintendo "stole" dumps from the community. It is a matter of record that the creator of the iNES header was hired by Nintendo.

Nintendo has always been a for-profit corporation focused on revenue. They've been doing scummy shit between cool shit for literally decades. It's good to keep a balanced picture. I generally don't think they're worse than they used to be - though I did hate the time-limited Mario and Fire Emblem shit recently.

But they definitely care: about keeping their own shit on lock, "Disney vault" style. If there's one thing all those nintendo leaks have shown us the last couple years, they save a LOT.
 
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Uiaad
This is the problem with Nintendo, they have gone from being scummy with 3rd companies in the NES era to being utter arseholes to consumers now. Being this hostile towards customers (and potential customers) is not a good move.
right now, I don't have a switch, mainly because it's not been financially viable for me, but me and the Mrs have talked about it serval times and it's stuff like this that really stops us from pulling the trigger ( well and the whole Nintendo not really acknowledging joycon drift to any great degree)
 
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