Gaming Who wants the MaBoShi DS ROM?

[Vague Rant]

No ROMs or other warez are being linked in this topic.

Now that that's out of the way, let's get started. The WiiWare game MaBoShi: The Three Shape Arcade (E)/Maboshi's Arcade (U) (Wikipedia article) includes in it a downloadable version for the DS, where you can play the three modes separately (in the Wii game you play all three simultaneously). Now, I don't have a Wii, and even if I did I'd prefer a ROM I can run whenever I want to having to boot my Wii and launch MaBoShi, choose to send the demo and boot my DS into Download Play and transfer it, only to have it disappear when I turn off my DS. So I went about figuring out how to extract the demo from the WiiWare WAD, and below is a quick tutorial so you can do the same.

Tutorial:
1. Find yourself a copy of the MaBoShi WAD (European or US versions should be fine).
2. Extract your WAD using your preferred unpacker (I used wadunpacker.exe, a command-line tool from the archive in this topic; remember to place common-key.bin in the folder with the executable). Dragging the WAD directly onto the .exe should work.
3. Extract 00000002.app with u8extr from u8tool.
4. Extract LZ77_mbs_dsEU.srl using LZ77ex (drag and drop should work; wait until it says "Successful writing data ..." before closing it.
5. Rename the newly extracted "LZ77_mbs_dsEU.srl.out" to anything ending in .nds ("MaBoShi - The Three Shape Arcade (E).nds" makes sense) and stick it wherever you usually stick your ROMs.
6. Play!

Guide:
The entire game is played with nothing but the D-Pad. The circle and stick modes are single button games; in circle mode, any direction will switch the rotation of the ball; in stick mode, any direction will make the stick move based on its current swing, it's all momentum. The square mode works roughly like Snake on mobile phones, except that your tail is constantly exploding and you can use it to set off chain reactions by touching coloured blocks. It makes more sense in-game, I promise.

Boring stuff:
I extracted the demo from the US version (Maboshi's Arcade), but as you can see, the title screen shows the UK title (MaBoShi: The Three Shape Arcade), and the internal filename for the compressed game is "LZ77_mbs_dsEU.srl", so it looks like the devs got lazy and never bothered to make a version specific to the US release (hence my suggested filename above using "(E)" for its region). The internal title looks like it hasn't been changed from the Japanese version, and is given as ??????? ??????? (Katachi no Game: Maru Bou Shikaku), however all in-game text is in English. Its serial is the generic "NTRJ" used in all Download Play demos I've encountered. Its icon is a representation of the three game modes, and it looks like this:

 

[Lord Toon]

I gotten a copy of the MaBoShi WAD but I couldn't extract the WAD using the wadunpacker.exe. I did place common-key.bin in the folder with the executable, But nothing happened...What am I doing wrong?//

 

[Vague Rant]

Did you extract the whole zip, or just wadunpacker.exe? It's probably easiest to just extract the whole thing, but if you'd rather not, then wadunpacker.exe relies on common-key.bin, cygcrypto-0.9.8.dll and cygwin1.dll, so your folder should have the .exe, the common-key.bin, and both DLLs (and your WAD). You should then be able to drag and drop just fine.

 

[Lord Toon]

Did you extract the whole zip?

Of course...Its just when I move the Wad to the Exe, it just show the command prompt and then its gone.

//

 

[Vague Rant]

Hmm. It should create a new folder and dump all the files from the WAD in there ... I'll take another look and see if I can figure out what's going on.

 

[-GJ-]

Why not make an XXXX release of this?
Anyway, I'm gonna try it.

edit: Meh, doesn't work.
It doesn't create any new files. It just starts a DOS Prompt and quits it in like, 2 secs.

 

[kesadisan]

try to type this on notepad

wadunpacker --edit this with the name of your wad file--

for example

wadunpacker MaBoShi.wad

then save the text in .bat format PS: remember to select All Files for save type(for ex: unpack maboshi.bat)
save it on the place you extract wadunpacker and the wad
then run the bat file

if it works, new folder with random number/name with pop up on your folder
hope it works, it works on me

 

[mrgone]

i used wadtool for unpacking and did not neewd a common-key.bin

 

[OSW]

Thats really awesome...

However what is with those screens? If those are screens of what you extracted, I'm pretty sure the game I played using download play has far more detailed graphics, in the same style as the wii game. Or is my memory totally stuffed?

Maboshi is a pretty cool wiiware game btw, and only 80 odd blocks.

EDIT: I must have been confused, imagining the wii game on the DS screen. LOL.

 

[cherry]

I'm gonna try it.

 

[Pyrofyr]

The real question here has been asked but not answered. Why not just make a XXXX release of this? Set it up on the scene and start torrenting it.

 

[Vague Rant]

From what I hear, DS-Scene already made a "scene" release of this a week or so ago, but personally I don't think it belongs in the scene at all. It has never existed on a physical card, it's just a single Download Play demo, much like the demo games and videos from the DS Download Stations, or like the tutorial you can send to a second player in Ouendan, or the mini version of Docomodake with a few stages you can share.

Besides which, since I gave the instructions here, anybody could have made a release of it if they'd wanted; I didn't want to, but that didn't stop anybody else (yourself included) doing it.

 

[NNoah95]

The link you gave to the u8tools just redirects to Google. Does anyone have a mirror or anything? I can't seem to find it anywhere.

 

[matt!]

it's just a single Download Play demo

Just to correct you: it's the full game. Not play limited in any way. You can play to 1m points in any of the three games.

 

[BETA215]

Any help with this? Can somebody upload the .nds file or the programs to extract it?

 

[BETA215]

Thank you very much! I owe too much to the GBAtemp guys.

 

[matt!]

Please post your thoughts on the game here.

 

[BETA215]

It's great! I ask myself why this is so underrated.

 

[matt!]

I suppose it is because it was released as a digital download on a console that, at that time, was considered a place for casual gaming only. But this game is so hardcore!

In fact, it received great reviews. But it's almost unknown.

Congratulations for having great taste and finding a rare hidden gem. Spread the word!

 

[HNKii]

Nice guide! Exactly what I needed!