PC-98 Sprite ripping

[AFruitaday!]

Any possible way to rip sprites from PC-98 other than screenshots or animeget? Im thinking of ripping sprites from Garudius '95.

[Magma MK-II]

So far there's no easy way. There is a program called DiskExplorer which allows to view and extract the files from the roms, but it is prety much a crapshoot wether you'll be able to do anything with these files or not, since each game uses its own filesystem.

[rufaswan]

Hi, I don't know what kind of advice I can offer you in ripping PC98 games. It is a PC. People make their own file format for their games. Companies made game engine for it, like Alicesoft system 3. It also has RPG maker games (Corpse Party).

The only thing I can show you is how Rusty's graphic data looks like:



In this case, the sprite is 1-bpp repeat 5 times. Merging 4 bits together, you will get the palette index. The mask is to remove the background, since not all black pixels are background.

For maps, there are the same thing, but without the mask (so it is repeat 4 times). 256 tiles, with every tile is 32x16 pixel.

And then you'll have to 2x the height to display on screen.

So I just write a script to rip all graphics in the game. The script is on my GitHub:
https://github.com/rufaswan/Web2D_Games/...bl-dat.php

result:
   
(it is the skeleton's lower body, and it need to reassemble together with upper body parts!)

Hope that helps, and good luck with your hacking!
- Rufas

[Magma MK-II]

So I guess this script would also work on Totsugeki Mix?

[rufaswan]

Yes, it works. The game is already ripped, just looking for character names to upload.

- Rufas

[AFruitaday!]

Will this also work in Gal Pani and Gal Pani II for the same computer? Doing it for the Kaneko Ripping Project. How do I get them to load and ready in Neko Project II, because it also uses a dos program (both games uses the same one). Thank you so much!
EDIT: Do you need python in order to make it work?

[Magma MK-II]

Yes, it works. The game is already ripped, just looking for character names to upload.

- Rufas

According to the Archive.org page (https://archive.org/details/msdos_Totsugeki_Mix_1994) they are called Rare, Medium, and Well respectively. The back cover of the game (https://www.mobygames.com/game/pc98/tots...Id,249221/) spells their names as Rea (レア), Midea (ミディア) and Well (ウェル).

[rufaswan]

According to the Archive.org page (https://archive.org/details/msdos_Totsugeki_Mix_1994) they are called Rare, Medium, and Well respectively. The back cover of the game (https://www.mobygames.com/game/pc98/tots...Id,249221/) spells their names as Rea (レア), Midea (ミディア) and Well (ウェル).

OH! I was wondering how MobyGames get those names, so that's where the names came from! I was looking everywhere for them! Thanks!

- Rufas

[rufaswan]

Playing around Galpani 1 and 2 on PC-98. Since both games has CD-check, I couldn't get it to install into HDI image. Also tried to switch emulator from Neko Project to Anex86 with CDX plugin, but it didn't work for me.

The archive file (.LBR file) are easy enough to extract, but all image files are compressed. Without the ability to run the game, I just dive right in to look for decompression code with IDA Pro, available here: https://www.scummvm.org/news/20180331/

To my surprise, there are not just one decompression code, but THREE decompression code. The difference is just the dictionary position and length. The 2nd code is 2x the position and 1/2 the length. The 3rd code is 4x the position and 1/4 the length.

So yeah, HOLY CRAP! How am I suppose to know which decompression code to use, if I can't verify it via save state?

So far, I managed to get this by randomly trying the decompression code:


Really wish to have save states to check for stuff.
- Rufas

P.S. I heard DOSBOX and MAME can also run PC-98 games. Not sure if it is real or not. I haven't try.

[Magma MK-II]

I know Anex86 supports savestates, I just don't remember how to activate them.

[AFruitaday!]

Wait, how do you run the game on Neko Project II? (talking about GalPani I & II). I couldn't get it to run.

[rufaswan]

Wait, how do you run the game on Neko Project II? (talking about GalPani I & II). I couldn't get it to run.

I couldn't either. Everything is done with IDA Pro, in assembly. And that's why I can't check for stuff.

- Rufas

[rufaswan]

Figured out how to switch between these 3 decompression code, and now I got everything, or most of it anyway since some stuff require checking with the game running.



I'm not going to put a download link here because it contains nudity and NSFW graphics. PM me if you want them.

@AFruitaday I just send you a PM.

Thanks,
- Rufas

[AFruitaday!]

I know how to enable save states. I got the information from the website Gang Fight in the PC-9801 emulation section. So go to the website. Under the name Configure Emulator, go to Enabling Save States, and it says to open the file np21w.cfg. Once you open the file, type STATSAVE=true under the section [NekoProject21] and save the file and hopefully it'll work.

Special Thanks to Gang Fight for finding out how to enable save states by the way.

[rufaswan]

I can't believe it has been TWO YEARS already! I have forgotten about it (SORRY!).

Thanks to AFruitaday, I'm able to run both PC98 Galpani. You'll need to use NekoProject 21/W:
https://simk98.github.io/np21w/download.html

First, go to "Harddisk -> IDE #2 -> Open..." and select the ISO file.
Then, go to "FDD1 -> Open..." and select the CD Floppy.

Like so:
   

And from there I can check stuff. For example, now I can know the 16 colors palette I have is actually starts from 84th slot, so it is actually 84th to 100th color of a 256 colors palette.

Also, there are no 4-bpp gfx. All gfx are 8-bpp.

And with that, all the remaining .DAT files are now ripped:
https://www.mediafire.com/file/a7wnpbe9q...32.7z/file

There are still some errors. For example, I have palette that goes up to 248 colors, but for some reason the gfx wants 254th color that doesn't exists. It is like it reused palette from another file, but I have no idea which file it is from.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The PHP scripts are uploaded to my github repo.

Good luck to your Kaneko ripping project!
- Rufas