Hacking Is there a Metafortress patch for NTSC-J Kirby's Return to Dream Land?

[ButThouMust]

I imported an NTSC-J copy of Kirby's Return to Dream Land (Hoshi no Kirby Wii, SUKJ01) for about $20 to play on my NTSC-U Wii. With both GeckoOS and USB Loader GX, I can only get as far as pressing 2 on the title screen before the game freezes on a white screen. After some research, I found out that this is due to the Metafortress anti-piracy/anti-tampering routine in the game, and I found patches (gameconfig.txt files, see below link) to disable it in the NTSC-U and PAL versions. However, I could not find such a patch for the NTSC-J version; does one exist?

I tried forcing each patch on the NTSC-J disc in GeckoOS and USB Loader; for example, I copied in the PAL patch but changed SUKP01 to SUKJ01. However, the game would not even boot with either patch. Disabling hooktype lets me get up to pressing 2 on the title screen.

Edit April 27, 2021: Now you can click on the link for the NTSC-U and PAL patches, https://gbatemp.net/threads/kirbys-return-to-dream-land-white-screen.462119/page-2#post-8528664

Spoiler: GeckoOS config options

Game Language: Japanese
Force NTSC/PAL60/PAL50: No
Gecko Hook Type: VBI
Load debugger: No
SD File Patcher: No
SD Cheats: No
Gecko Pause Start: Yes (the game would not boot if I set this to "No")
Bubbles On: No

Spoiler: USB Loader GX "Game Load" settings

Game lock: off
Favorite level: 0
Video mode: System Default
Dol Video Patch: off
Sneek Video Patch: off
VIDTV Patch: off
Aspect ratio: System Default
Game Language: Japanese
Ocarina: off
Private Server: off
Parental control: 0 (Everyone)
Hooktype: VBI (Default)
Wiird debugger: off
Game IOS: Use global (249; d2x-v10beta52, base 56, rev 65535)
Return to: off
Block IOS reload: on
Nand emulation: Use global (full)
Nand emu path: Use global (not set)
Alternate DOL: off
Select DOL offset: Not required

Spoiler: Syscheck output

sysCheck v2.1.0b19 by Double_A and R2-D2199 Nano
...runs on IOS58 (rev 6176).

Region: NTSC-U
System Menu 4.3U (v513)

Drive date: 2007.02.13
Homebrew Channel 1.1.2 running on IOS58
HomebrewFilter ist nicht installiert
Hollywood v0x11
Console ID: 75873752
Boot2 v4
Found 140 titles.
Found 50 IOS on this console. 14 of them are stub.

IOS4 (rev 65280): Stub
IOS9 (rev 1034): No Patches
IOS10 (rev 768): Stub
IOS11 (rev 256): Stub
IOS12 (rev 526): No Patches
IOS13 (rev 1032): No Patches
IOS14 (rev 1032): No Patches
IOS15 (rev 1032): No Patches
IOS16 (rev 512): Stub
IOS17 (rev 1032): No Patches
IOS20 (rev 256): Stub
IOS21 (rev 1039): No Patches
IOS22 (rev 1294): No Patches
IOS28 (rev 1807): No Patches
IOS30 (rev 2816): Stub
IOS31 (rev 3608): No Patches
IOS33 (rev 3608): No Patches
IOS34 (rev 3608): No Patches
IOS35 (rev 3608): No Patches
IOS36 (rev 3608): No Patches
IOS37 (rev 5663): No Patches
IOS38 (rev 4124): No Patches
IOS40 (rev 3072): Stub
IOS41 (rev 3607): No Patches
IOS43 (rev 3607): No Patches
IOS45 (rev 3607): No Patches
IOS46 (rev 3607): No Patches
IOS48 (rev 4124): No Patches
IOS50 (rev 5120): Stub
IOS51 (rev 4864): Stub
IOS52 (rev 5888): Stub
IOS53 (rev 5663): No Patches
IOS55 (rev 5663): No Patches
IOS56 (rev 5662): No Patches
IOS57 (rev 5919): No Patches
IOS58 (rev 6176): USB 2.0
IOS60 (rev 6400): Stub
IOS61 (rev 5662): No Patches
IOS62 (rev 6430): No Patches
IOS70 (rev 6912): Stub
IOS80 (rev 6944): No Patches
IOS222 (rev 65280): Stub
IOS223 (rev 65280): Stub
IOS236[58] (rev 21 Info: rev 21): Trucha Bug
IOS247[37] (rev 21007 Info: d2x-v7final): Trucha Bug
IOS248[57] (rev 21007 Info: d2x-v7final): Trucha Bug
IOS249[57] (rev 65535 Info: d2x-v10beta52): Trucha Bug
IOS250[56] (rev 65535 Info: d2x-v10beta52): Trucha Bug
IOS251[58] (rev 65535 Info: d2x-v10beta52): Trucha Bug
IOS254 (rev 65281): BootMii
BC v6
MIOS v10

Report generated on 2021/01/16.

Slots 236, 247, 248 are from when my brother had originally hacked our Wii years ago. I followed the cIOS guide at wii.guide/cios.

 

[ButThouMust]

I solved my issue. I had downloaded Dolphin a week ago to try running it with a rip of my disc, but I didn't find out until today that Dolphin contained my solution the whole time.

In /Dolphin-x64/Sys/GameSettings, there's a file SUKJ01.ini that contains the NTSC-J Metafortress patch. I just had to reformat the .ini file's contents to make it compatible with USB Loader GX/GeckoOS (e.g. change "0x80175194:dword:0x48000084" to "poke(80175194, 0x48000084)"). And voila, now I can play the game on my Wii.

I guess I'll attach the NTSC-J patch here for the maybe single-digit number of people who need it...? I couldn't find it with just a Google search a week ago.

Edit: "with just a Google search" in the last sentence instead of "anywhere on the Internet"

 

[Felix12332]

I solved my issue. I had downloaded Dolphin a week ago to try running it with a rip of my disc, but I didn't find out until today that Dolphin contained my solution the whole time.

In /Dolphin-x64/Sys/GameSettings, there's a file SUKJ01.ini that contains the NTSC-J Metafortress patch. I just had to reformat the .ini file's contents to make it compatible with USB Loader GX/GeckoOS (e.g. change "0x80175194:dword:0x48000084" to "poke(80175194, 0x48000084)"). And voila, now I can play the game on my Wii.

I guess I'll attach the NTSC-J patch here for the maybe single-digit number of people who need it...? I couldn't find it with just a Google search a week ago.

Edit: "with just a Google search" in the last sentence instead of "anywhere on the Internet"

i quite honestly didn't understand anything you just said but can i do the same with the ntsc version? and how exactly would one do it on dolphin

 

[Elbart]

@Felix12332
Follow the link in OP.

 

[ButThouMust]

i quite honestly didn't understand anything you just said

Yeah, looking back on this post, it's pretty much the ramblings of a complete madman. I suppose I'm glad I eventually figured it out for myself, but I'm not sure if saving maybe $20 over an NTSC-U copy was worth the "troubleshooting."

how exactly would one do it on dolphin

Dolphin's files include the NTSC-U patch with the NTSC-J patch. Hoshi no Kirby Wii ran in Dolphin without any issues for me (I ripped my disc on my Wii), so I think Kirby's Return to Dream Land should do the same.

 

[Felix12332]

where is it exactly?

thank you for answering

 

[ButThouMust]

I got the latest beta version of Dolphin from their downloads page (https://dolphin-emu.org/download/).
Unzip the .7z archive to get a folder Dolphin-x64. Navigate to Dolphin-x64/Sys/GameSettings, and find the file SUKE01.ini.

 

[MyJoyConRunsHot]

Anyone have the NTSC-U patch? All of the links for that one appear to be dead.