Rockman EXE: Phantom of Network/Legend of Network Preservation Project Report

We have a sizeable progress update on the Rockman EXE: Phantom of Network and Rockman EXE: Legend of Network preservation project that began in January. A lot has happened between now and then; we're here to get you up to speed.

Read on for the full scoop... and how you can help!

 

From team member Kraze:

"The Rockman.EXE Phantom of Network and Legend of Network preservation team has made significant advances in understanding how to extract the games from the donor feature phone. All the money from January’s PayPal pool was used to fund purchases of research equipment and service fees. With our discoveries so far, there are many potential plans of action."

 

You can read about these discoveries from Kraze's detailed progress report. That document includes a breakdown on expenses and technical data reports, among other important topics. For those needing a quick summary, however, here's the basics:

"We found the feature phone’s schematics, which were used to establish a NAND chip pinout. The next step is to read the NAND chip, analyze the dump for file system structures, and analyze the file system. From there, we will try to ascertain a method to reverse-engineer the feature phone’s firmware. In doing so, we may be able to reach the game files and extract them off the device. 

Other possible methods of extraction, like decrypting game files from an SD card or unlocking more phone features with HyperSIM, are being researched. One of these approaches will ultimately be used on the donor feature phone to retrieve the EXE games. An emulator to play DoJa games (the platform the EXE games run on) is also being developed in conjunction with the project."

Team member RockmanCosmo adds, "If we've made this much progress since January, think about how far we'll be in another eight months. We aren't groping in the dark - there is a plan."

A brand-new PayPal pool has been set up to accumulate additional funding. These funds will be used to "advance the progress made on the NAND chip analysis and further research the other possible extraction methods." This will cover expenses needed to acquire additional phones and hardware, cables and adapters, service fees, shipping fees, and insurance. If you need more information, read Kraze's complete progress report.

UPDATE: Funding goal reached. Thank you for your continued support!

The preservation team are 100% committed to not only saving these games, but working toward a means to make them accessible for everyone.

And, again, all of this will take some time. It's not a simple as dragging a file or two from the phone onto a PC. Never was. But once research is complete and methods are fine-tuned, this will benefit the preservation of EVERY Japanese-exclusive docomo game, too. There's so much good that can come from this.

So if you can help and pitch in a bit - great! If not, you're patience and support is appreciated.