Friday 24 August 2012

DoDonPachi Resurrection on an Asus Nexus 7

Installing/playing DoDonPachi Resurrection on an Asus Nexus 7 


Installing this on an iOS is simple, not so for the Android counterpart. Not only is it region locked, it's device locked. If your device isn't on the supported games list it will refuse to run, even if it's more than capable.

This was installed on a fresh Nexus 7. If your machine has had an account on it previously it may not work without removing/disabling that first. It's probably possible to get this shit working with far less hassle but this worked for me.

Step involved; (at your own risk, etc.)

On a computer create a Japanese Gmail account (location must be in Japan)
Navigate to Google Wallet
Add your credit card details to the account
Set a shipping address to somewhere in Japan
Set the billing address as appears on your cc bill
Root the Nexus 7
Add the Japanese Google account
Download ROM Toolbox Lite from the Google Play
Open > performance tab > build.prop editor
Edit the following lines in the build.prop (probably best to back it up first. ;) )

ro.product.model=SO-01C
ro.product.brand=docomo
ro.build.fingerprint=docomo/X10_1233-7397/SonyEricssonSO-01C/es209ra:1.6/R1EA018/1266719038:user/rel-keys

Exit ROM Toolbox Lite.

Download & Install Market Unlocker 3.3.0
Set the market to Japanese DoCoMo
Set to use a proxy
Proxy details, IP 49.212.161.19 port 3128
Enable proxy
Reboot

Launch Google Play (check Market Unlocker and proxy are running)

Navigate to 怒首領蜂大復活
Click purchase, spend 700Yen
Download & install (this should take seconds as it only downloads a launcher)
Click the launcher tile in your applications
357MB of additional data should now be downloaded (proxy not required for this afaik)
Wait.
Play.


So that's it, pretty drawn out and tedious to play a game that ain't even all that great. Still, it's better than fuck all. Adding regular Google accounts doesn't seem to have any effect on being able to play the game either, not tried removing the Japanese account yet, it may come in handy.

Thanks to Risike & Matskat on the shmups forum for info.

Friday 17 August 2012

Ketsui Save Hack

Ketsui Save Hack.

Another hack courtesy of austere. This is the V3 revision of the ROM patched to save high scores in the NVRAM.

Instructions. (At your own risk, etc)

Download the archive 
Extract the file ketsui_v100.u38
Write to a 27C160 EPROM
Place in the U38 socket on the Ketsui PCB
Good to go.

When powered up you should be greeted with a screen like the one below.


Note. If the game hangs after the region warning reboot in to the test menu, factory reset [9. DEFAULT] set to coin play, reboot again, enter a few coins and hit the start button a few times whilst still on the region warning screen. Scores may appear garbled first boot due to spurious data in the NVRAM, these will go as the table fills up with legitimate scores.

Also note;  if the PCB is powered off whilst the game is saving the NVRAM contenets may get corrupted. If this occurs follow the steps above. Inserting a V1 Ketsui ROM and factory resetting is also a option if that fails.

Thanks to austere for the hack and Shady994/idc for the decryption tools.