Zanki Zero Last Beginning .dat files

Mysticus · Post by **Mysticus** » Thu Apr 11, 2019 10:49 am

Any script to extract the .dat files?

chrrox · Post by **chrrox** » Thu Apr 11, 2019 11:12 pm

the files are split up by the magic
ALLZ
and the decompressed size is at offset 0x8
and data starts at 0xC
I think its using this compression a type of rle.
but it does not seem to be supported in quickbms.
https://github.com/jpmac26/DRV3-Tools/b ... ls/spc.cpp

Mysticus · Post by **Mysticus** » Sun Apr 14, 2019 9:35 am

Mmh... It's hard to me. Do you know something else?

Red · Post by **Red** » Wed Apr 17, 2019 9:21 pm

Glad to see other people working on this game.

Fair warning though, I have almost no knowledge in terms of reverse-engineering. Doesn't stop me from thinking there are actually several archives in a single .dat file (or maybe archives in archives in archives... for some reason). I've only examined the files through Notepad++ and HxD so far.

015.dat looks like a pretty specific case with the file having data before the "ALLZ" mention though, most other files start directly with "ALLZ"...

Still haven't tried using QuickBMS and tweaking it, I'll see if I can get anything out of it.

Mysticus · Post by **Mysticus** » Thu Apr 18, 2019 12:01 pm

Thanks, Red!
I appreciate your help!

Red · Post by **Red** » Thu Apr 18, 2019 3:49 pm

You're welcome! To be honest though, I went here looking for help... I might go and ask on other forums to see if anyone can get anything out of these files.

Vita hackers seem interested in understanding how the PC version works to apply the translation to the Japanese Vita version, so it might be worth a shot to contact them. I haven't seen anyone reporting any progress on the Steam forums, however...

I could post my findings here, but it's not exactly about how to extract/repack the files but rather what they contain (file formats, among other things). And even then, it's not really that useful if it's impossible to do anything with the .dat file ^_^'

Mysticus · Post by **Mysticus** » Thu Apr 18, 2019 3:52 pm

Well. I wish you good luck about making a script for this game.

Red · Post by **Red** » Thu Apr 18, 2019 4:01 pm

Thanks, I'll see what I can do (if I can do anything at all).

Red · Post by **Red** » Fri Apr 19, 2019 5:09 pm

Okay, uh, so... I didn't progress with QuickBMS, but I looked up other tutorials on these forums. The most interesting one was "Example of archive format reversing with QuickBMS (medium)", but now I have several questions.

What comes after the "ALLZ" mention doesn't look like the uncompressed file size, as it seems way too big for some other files. It also doesn't look like an offset (can't find what it's referencing)... The only thing this reminds me of is a header (reminder: I could be completely wrong, I'm a complete newbie in reverse engineering), but I can't figure out how to use it. Maybe it's a file ID or something, for the game to load files in a particular order? Also, this part might be compressed as well (which would make matters worse).

The archives themselves don't seem to use RLE, else the files' names would likely be affected ("adv_still" would likely not be displayed that way), but the compressed files themselves might be using it for all I know.

I've taken a look at the EXE and apparently the game uses zlib/deflate somewhere. The archives don't seem to use it though, else there wouldn't be uncompressed data available to see (going by this tutorial).

Regarding 015.dat, I tried checking if the content before the "ALLZ" mention wasn't in Base64 after seeing a similar string of characters in QuickBMS's documentation, but it didn't convert properly no matter how I tried. Might be Shift-JIS encoded in Base64, since it gave something looking like code with kanjis that put through Google Translate talked about a "temple" (since it's a dungeon RPG, it could make sense), but at the same time it also looked incomplete (glitch characters in the middle). I'm afraid it might be a checksum of some kind, which could be a problem later down the road to mod the game.

I'll send a post on the Reddit thread about the translation's port to the Vita version, since there's probably a common interest in knowing how the PC version works at least to explore its files. Also, any help is welcome, the struggle is real.

Mysticus · Post by **Mysticus** » Fri Apr 19, 2019 9:20 pm

I don't know man.
Keep trying.
Or else I'll ask luigi for that.

chrrox · Post by **chrrox** » Sat Apr 20, 2019 2:51 am

he is adding the compression in the next quickbms.
viewtopic.php?f=13&t=19&start=488#p47064

Red · Post by **Red** » Sat Apr 20, 2019 8:42 am

Oh, nice! Thanks for the info!

LinkOFF · Post by **LinkOFF** » Sat Jun 19, 2021 10:22 am

ALLZ Extraction Tool

It parse all ALLZ blocks in .dat files and decompress it.

Barrymckawkener · Post by **Barrymckawkener** » Thu Dec 22, 2022 10:46 pm

Hi, was just wondering if there was any tool or something that could help me get to the model files? I have the noesis script but it's useless without unpacking the PC versions files

ZenHAX

Zanki Zero Last Beginning .dat files

Zanki Zero Last Beginning .dat files

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