This idea/request is probably very technical, and I imagine for a game probably known most through Super Smash Bros, it's probably niche in general.
I was curious if a hack could be done to the game Slide Adventure MAGKID for the Nintendo DS. The hack would be more to actually make it playable. What do I mean by that?
For those unaware, Slide Adventure MAGKID was a Nintendo DS game that required the use of the DS's second cart slot, as you were required to put in a peripheral for an optical mouse in order to play the game. This device allowed the system to act as an actual mouse like the one you use on PCs, and this was used to navigate the magnetic character around the screen. For an example of how the game works,
here's a video.
Now, in the current environment, this produces a few problems. First, if you ever wanted to play this game, you're stuck on pre-DSi hardware, so we're talking decade old machines are the only way to play this. Second, as this peripheral was used for one game - this one - there's been little to no interest in actually emulating this device for any DS emulator, which means this has also closed off the window of even being fan translated; after all, if the game won't even boot without the device, how can you put it into another language.
So, my question was more an inquiry into something perhaps a bit deep and complicated. First, how difficult would it be to bypass the peripheral check? Starting the game without the optical mouse doesn't even let you see a title screen. Second, how difficult would it be to remap the input from the optical device to something like the d-pad or touch screen? There have been a few DS games that got hacks to remove the touch screen controls to other means, and I would imagine if the games check could be circumvented, and something like this introduced, you can essentially get a game that's unplayable today for most people and have it be playable, and potentially have that be a start for potential fan translations down the road. It seems a lot of these Japan-only games that have winks and nods in Smash seem to be of interest to people, enough so that they eventually get hacked and translated by fans, and I would imagine the fact the game checks for a peripheral and only works on 10+-year-old handhelds is enough to stop any momentum or interest dead in the water.