Sonic Generations 3DS Hacking

So I may have found some variable names?
4ED9E4 in the IDA file has a bunch of names intertwined with file paths. For instance some variables could be related to the profile card:

Code (Text):

1. w_y_f
2. yellow_b
3. yellow_f
4. w_y_f
5. yellow_b
6. orange_f
7. w_o_f
8. orange_b
9. orange_f
10. w_o_f
11. orange_b
12. red_f
13. w_r_f
14. red_b
15. red_f
16. w_r_f
17. red_b
18. blue_f
19. w_b_f
20. blue_b
21. blue_f
22. w_b_f
23. blue_b
24. silver_f
25. w_s_f
26. silver_b
27. gold_f
28. w_g_f
29. gold_b

 

It's definitely one of the platforms I would want to target should a portable decomp come of this. With the obvious PC port. I'd also think that a PSP and Wii port would be worthwhile too since Gens was meant to come to those platforms (Although I'd imagine the Wii version was moreso meant to be more in line with the HD version, but whatever)

 

Found another beta screenshot in the files LAYOUT_X/WHITEMAP_LYT.amb/WHITEMAP_L_00.ARC/timg/xx_ta_bg.bclim

While you may notice that the times are maxed out that is the least interesting thing here.
First of all, for some reason a shield icon is next to the times, this does not appear in the final game. I think it might have indicated that you used an item in the level? But you can't bring items into levels like the HD version, you can only get them via the stage. Now that's cool and all... But see that X button prompt? Also not there, and based on what Google Translate is telling me, this is a removed hard mode. I am geeking out so hard right now!!!

 

Dimps just seems to love leaving beta screenshots in this game, very nice of them. This time we got a bottom loading screen

Like the HD version, it seems like it would have given general gameplay tips. This tutorial being on stomping.

Also, NOW LORDING...

Kind of disappointing that small things like this and the hard mode were cut. Seems like Gens 3DS was really rushed, even though seemingly it had the same amount of development time as the HD version given the PSP files were from November 2009. Did Sonic 4 really take that many resources away from Dimps?

 

By the way I just want to go back on this a little.
It seems that bringing items into the stage is possible as seen in this video

The player here brought a bomb item into the level, but didn't use it, so I'm still not sure if item use gets marked on your record, let alone how you even get items into levels. Maybe it's done by Streetpass... Or Spotpass? That would effectively leave it unused I suppose if you hadn't registered times before the Nintendo Network went down, or rather when Sega stopped delivering items via Spotpass.
This is the thing that sucks about researching an inferior version of a game with since defunct online features, there's so many unknowns.

 

According to the graphics I got on hand, you can get a shield, 10 ring, magnet shield, bomb, and invincibility.

While I'm here, got another unused graphic for you:
LAYOUT_X/OPTION_LYT.amb/PROF_C_00.ARC/timg/prof_cara_01.bclim

It's purpose was simple enough, just a placeholder image for your selected favourite character on your profile card before they had the Uekawa graphics in (Which might I add they are surprisingly thorough, including Emerl, Wherehog, and Chip.)
It doesn't follow the naming convention of the other, used character images though. They're chara_##.bclim instead of prof_cara_##.bclim

 

Been a minute eh, the Mac lot that the recent Sonic CD 2011 prototypes were found on also coincidentally have Sonic 4's source code on them! And surprise surprise, a lot of the source code file names match up with the paths I found in November.
How much of the actual code itself matches up is a question. But in theory if it's even remotely similar then it could make the process of reverse engineering Generation 3DS a whole ton easier.


Edit:
So while I'm here why not show off some new unused content I found. I found another model viewer (CTR Studio) which is in active development and doesn't explode the models when looking at animations, so that's helpful. Anyways
Shadow and Silver both have grinding animations despite there being no rails in either of their boss fights:

This can probably just be explained by them recycling Sonic's animations, but their animation list is pretty conservative and for the most part only contains what they need aside from these grinding animations. It makes me wonder if you were to put rails in their maps if they could use them.

 

Man it's already been a month since my last post? How time flies.
I've decided to take decompiling a little more seriously. And while I am staunchly against AI in the creative fields as an artist, I'm cool with using it for coding aids. So with the help of ChatGPT I've gotten the first method somewhat decompiled. Which just clears the bss segment.

I'm still learning how to use Ghidra though and these undefined data types are annoying I can't rename them in the event that I do know what the data type is. And my own lack of knowledge on programming anything outside of 68k assembly is also a hinderence.
There's also a bunch of SVC functions that I got done automatically since there are pre-existing Ghidra script for those which is nice.
Just hoping I run into something I can surely recognize as being based on the Sonic 4 source code that leaked recently, but so far that just involves scrolling around functions randomly hoping I run into something with those path strings I found back in November.
Edit: Potentially started work on some actual game code? Doesn't look much like Sonic 4's code... But I'm not sure if that's good or bad.