[Other] Hacking WiiWare Pokémon Mystery Dungeon games

We know there's so much discussion on handheld ROM hacks and all. But there is one actually three particular Pokémon Mystery Dungeon games that never got released outside of Japan.

Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Adventure: Blaze Squad
Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Adventure: Storm Squad
Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Adventure: Light Squad

These games were WiiWare games, and they are only available in Japanese. And I've been searching all over the entire web looking for tools and solutions to hack these Pokémon Mystery Dungeon games and do some research into them. But so far, I haven't seen any information on hacking .wad files or even any details about extracting and packing them.

So it really does raise me many questions. How do I hack them? How do I modify the data?

I'd love to research them, so that I could document all the data and post them in a thread in the future. So that one day, someone might come along and make an English translation or even an English localization of the games.

I would assume that no one really wants to help or even can help me. Despite these games never being released outside of Japan. Maybe no one cared about it enough to even do any research into them as much as I do? It's... so sad... ;-;

If you want to research it, do it. Don't let the lack of interest discourage you.

Platinum Lucario said:

We know there's so much discussion on handheld ROM hacks and all. But there is one actually three particular Pokémon Mystery Dungeon games that never got released outside of Japan.

Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Adventure: Blaze Squad
Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Adventure: Storm Squad
Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Adventure: Light Squad

These games were WiiWare games, and they are only available in Japanese. And I've been searching all over the entire web looking for tools and solutions to hack these Pokémon Mystery Dungeon games and do some research into them. But so far, I haven't seen any information on hacking .wad files or even any details about extracting and packing them.

So it really does raise me many questions. How do I hack them? How do I modify the data?

I'd love to research them, so that I could document all the data and post them in a thread in the future. So that one day, someone might come along and make an English translation or even an English localization of the games.

I would assume that no one really wants to help or even can help me. Despite these games never being released outside of Japan. Maybe no one cared about it enough to even do any research into them as much as I do? It's... so sad... ;-;

Click to expand...

Have you tried searching for nintendo wii rom hacks? I think I saw something about wii hacks on another rom hack website. I think they can be a good place to start :)

NightwingJay said:

Have you tried searching for nintendo wii rom hacks? I think I saw something about wii hacks on another rom hack website. I think they can be a good place to start :)

Click to expand...

I have noticed that most of the stuff I see on Wii ISO websites is usually about extracting the ISO and using homebrew applications. But .wad files are actually completely different from Wii ISOs, they require different programs to unpack and pack, from what I've heard. The only tool I have is ShowMiiWads 1.4, which doesn't really do much

Hello. Mind if I join the discussion? :P
I have been taking a crack at PMD Light off and on since December, and have made a bit of progress. I've been able to determine what the vast majority of the files within the .wad contain, and was able to locate the file containing all the game data, as well as a file containing the languages for Europe and the US.
I have been attempting to access them, but due to the encryption, converting the files to ASCII text is difficult. So I have instead viewed these files in a hex editor, which provided additional information as to the contents, and also converted the files to Unicode. The problem with unicode is that while I am able to view the Japanese kanji and attempt translation, there are a vast array of unicode characters that appear as identical white boxes, each with their own identifier code. So I am in the middle of understanding unicode to determine what I can remove, and what boxes need to be converted.

(Since this is my first post, I need four more before I can post links. I used scribd to upload the files, so just tack on the below to view the files. I'll update the links t be more accessible after my initial five posts.)

.wad content analysis: /document/321901631/Primary-File-Analysis
Sample of unicode text from primary data file: /document/321901953/Data2-WPHJ-Ascii

Has any progress been made on this since the last post? I, for one, would love to be able to play these games, be it on an emulator or on an actual Wii, in English; I'm a massive fan of the Mystery Dungeon series and I really want to play these games.

Gameskiller01 said:

Has any progress been made on this since the last post? I, for one, would love to be able to play these games, be it on an emulator or on an actual Wii, in English; I'm a massive fan of the Mystery Dungeon series and I really want to play these games.

Click to expand...

I'm waiting as you for the translation

Let me complete my collection. XD

Hey, is this still happening? I'd love to play these games one day...

This isn't happening, no? :(

Show mii wad unpacks wad files into .app files, and unpacks those. So far i can see the home button menu data, as that is universal for all games. the wii has no os technically, the system menu itself is a wad file just like any other game; the code for recognizing wiimote inputs is stored in every wii game. the safety screens telling you to use the wiimote strap and the home button menus are all easy to access. the game files seem to be stored under 00000002.app which showmiiwad can decompress as u8. 00000002_app_OUT\content\data2_WPFJ.bin is where everything seems to be stored, as the file size suggests. unfortunately nintendo's tool ntcompress.exe form the sdk which usally works for this kind wiiware .bin stuff doesn't work; but it does for most other .bin files, namely the ones with the home menu stuff. It looks like other people have gotten this far too, but these aren't pac or pcs or brres or any other common nintendo file archive.