Really? Really! DS - Make voiceovers louder? | GBAtemp.net - The Independent Video Game Community

[WIP/Release] ds_mangaman - Turning the Nintendo DS into the Ultimate Vertical Book-Style Manga Reader!

Hwongfish · 2026-06-09T00:33:11+00:00

Hi everyone! I’ve always felt that the Nintendo DS is criminally underrated when it comes to being a dedicated manga-reader. Think about it: it has two screens built right into the form factor, one of them has a precise (not quite most of the time though) touchscreen, and when you rotate the console 90 degrees counter-clockwise, it perfectly mimics the ergonomics of holding a real physical tankobon (manga volume). When held vertically, the D-pad sits perfectly on the bottom, and the shoulder keys (L/R) are in the ideal position for switching chapters. Plus, the touchscreen can be used to magnify for reading the text or inspecting details. Such interactions are the ultimate form factors that modern smartphones just can't match. To prove this, I built ds_mangaman — an open-source, highly optimized homebrew manga viewer for the NDS/NDSL. Download and learn how to build in Github release: :teach::teach::teach: GitHub Repository: https://github.com/hwfish-error408/ds-mangaman :grog::grog::grog: Looking for Contributors! The compiler engine and core state machine are now fully functional and running smoothly on real hardware and emulators (like melonDS). However, I want to take this project further and could really use the community's help! I’m looking for developers, testers, and retro-enthusiasts to help with: A, Implementing a cleaner UI/Main Menu. B, Adding Bookmark support (saving states to SRAM/FAT .sav). C, Further optimizing the DMA memory copy speeds during page and chapter transitions. Feel free to download the source, check out the build pipeline, test it on your flashcarts, and open Issues or Pull Requests on the GitHub repo! Let's make the NDS the ultimate retro manga machine.

nomcal

New Member

Newbie

Level 1

Sep 10, 2010

I would like to play Really? Really! DS, but since I don't know enough Japanese (particularly Kanji), I sorta need the voiceovers to help me out.
The problem is, the voiceovers for this game are really weak. At max volume, I can barely hear the voices, but the opening song was so loud I took off my earphones in panic when it played.

I read up a few DS ROM hacking guides aimed at sounds, but they don't seem to be applicable for my goal.
Using Nitro Explorer 2, I extracted the sound.sdat file. Then I used the sdattool to extract its contents. Sadly, the sdat file only contains the BGMs and SEs, not the voices. Based on the filenames, at least. (i.e. wave_bgm.swar, wave_sePUZZLE.swar)
Looking at the other files in the ROM, I found a file named vss.bin. It's the largest file in the ROM (130MB), so I think MAYBE that's where the voice data are stored?
I read somewhere that .bin files are not "universal" (there is no one way of decoding them), so I'm kinda stuck.