[6Kyojin4]

This project idea is dead to lack of interest in people that actually want to join the project. Sorry but stuff happens  :'(

輪廻月姫 (Rinne Tsukihime) is an officially licensed Windows program made by inside-cap/ 帽子屋インサイド that allows you to convert your PC copy of tsukihime into a Gameboy Advance rom.


I would like to start a project to make a rom hack that can changed the rom's script into english and bypass its annoying DRM

http://web.archive.org/web/20080504002214/http://www.inside-cap.com/techs/security/index.htm
 
When I spoke to man in charge of inside-cap he told me this

これは、先に述べたコピー問題と関係があります。

ユーザーがプレイ実行を継続させるために、母艦となるWindowsとのペアリングする仕組みを作りました。

しかし、もしGBA実機でプレイすることができれば、この面倒な認証をスキップすることができます。

このプログラムは、実行環境がエミュレータか実機であるかを判別していました！
判定方法は秘密で、今のところエミュレータでこの判定をクリアしたものは知らないです。

Rough translation
In order for the user to continue the play the game, we have created a security/ DRM mechanism to pair with the mothership, Windows.

However, if the user is able to play on the actual GBA machine, then this troublesome authentication can be skipped.

The rom is able to determine whether you are playing on an emulator or the actual machine!

The determination method is a secret, and so far I don't know of any emulator that has been able trick and skip the cleared the security/ DRM mechanism.

My part in the project will be as a technical assistant and a graphic designer.

I've spent the money buying Rinne Tsukihime disc off of https://www.suruga-ya.jp and have uploaded it to archive.org with instruction on how to get it working. If you are interested in the project please reply to this thread.

https://archive.org/details/rinne-tsukihime-ver-1.00-build-011230

[FAST6191]

Troublesome GBA game and I did not know about it?
Must be slipping.

This might also be something you care to draw the attention of https://mgba.io/tag/debugging/ (the analysis of the Shrek videos being fascinating reading) or one of the emulator authors (in addition to mgba noted there then not sure what vba-m is doing these days but they were carrying the torch of vba, no$gba is still updated too). Do also try it on those in case it was just some ancient crusty version of VBA that the DRM worked in where the more accurate options of the other stuff mentioned works fine. I would still try to figure out what it is to nerf it in case of another issue though.

I don't even want to speculate on what goes here -- these sorts of one off devs having some fun things are usually where the exotic DRM types click in. You have an example of the various known methods in the one above but this could be anything from save timing (saw that as one of the rarer types on the DS, probably only months after this and such things are popular all over the shop), some quirk of hardware timing, some quirk of emulator access (does an emulator accept a read/write to an area that does something else than was is intended -- what is technically invalid below 8000h on the DS being a good example of that), save type fun (most flash carts, though not a lot of modern emulators, will do fun things there depending upon what it detects vs what reality says), trimmed ROM detection (unlikely here but has been a problem for some flash cart users in the past), save fun (could embed some kind of check in the save, we did see something similar on the DS for one of the music games that allowed you to download songs and if this has a PC running in the background...). Hopefully failed AP checks are immediate upon failing the check (not some obfuscated check that sets a result that is acted upon several thousand cycles later) and obvious (no subtle can't win the game/will only have boring encounters type deal) such that you have something to latch onto.