# Advance Wars: a byte-identical GBA reconstruction

> advancewars reconstructs the USA Game Boy Advance release of Advance Wars as assembly and C that build a byte-identical ROM. Its build uses devkitARM and agbcc, incorporates a user-supplied baserom, and checks the output against the listed game hash.

- Type: Case study
- Targets: Game
- Category: Independent reconstruction cases
- Relationship: Independent reconstruction project
- Sources reviewed: 2026-11-06
- Added to the catalog: 2026-11-09
- Original resource: <https://github.com/ketsuban/advancewars>
- Primary source: <https://github.com/ketsuban/advancewars/blob/c5ecbd5a778e56317d213fabd0563a1f707e5b71/README.md>
- Catalog page: <https://awesomerea.org/resources/advancewars-decomp-case/>
- Record JSON: <https://awesomerea.org/resources/advancewars-decomp-case/record.json>
- Chinese version: [简体中文](https://awesomerea.org/zh/resources/advancewars-decomp-case/index.md)

## Requirements & limits

- **Prerequisites:** Requires a user-supplied first-revision Advance Wars USA baserom with the specified SHA-1 hash.
- **Prerequisites:** Requires Linux or WSL, devkitARM, GBA tools and agbcc.
- **License:** No licence file in the repository.

## Primary sources

1. <https://github.com/ketsuban/advancewars/blob/c5ecbd5a778e56317d213fabd0563a1f707e5b71/README.md>
2. <https://github.com/ketsuban/advancewars/blob/c5ecbd5a778e56317d213fabd0563a1f707e5b71/INSTALL.md>
3. <https://github.com/ketsuban/advancewars/blob/c5ecbd5a778e56317d213fabd0563a1f707e5b71/Makefile>

## More in Games

- [Advance Wars: Dual Strike: a matching Nintendo DS decompilation](https://awesomerea.org/resources/advance-wars-dual-strike-decomp-case/index.md) · Case study
- [Age of Empires II: matching PC and PlayStation 2 decompilation](https://awesomerea.org/resources/age-of-empires-ii-decomp-case/index.md) · Case study
- [Age of Empires: The Rise of Rome — a function-matched beta decompilation](https://awesomerea.org/resources/age-of-empires-rise-of-rome-beta-decomp-case/index.md) · Case study
- [Agent decompilation: a byte-matching retrospective](https://awesomerea.org/resources/agent-decompilation-oracle-case/index.md) · Case study
- [AGS 2.x Decompilation: matching the Adventure Game Studio runtime](https://awesomerea.org/resources/ags2-decomp-case/index.md) · Case study
- [Aironauts: an early PlayStation decompilation of OUTROE.EXE](https://awesomerea.org/resources/aironauts-decomp-case/index.md) · Case study

## About this entry

The description was reviewed against primary sources.
Original editorial content: MIT. Linked projects, papers and assets retain their own rights and licenses.