AwesomeREA.org

Case study

Pikmin 2: a fully matched GameCube decompilation across five releases

A fan decompilation of Pikmin 2 that rebuilds main.dol for five GameCube releases (USA retail, two USA demos, PAL and Japan) with the original Metrowerks compilers, checking each against a stored SHA-1. The build reads main.dol from the user’s own copy of each release. decomp.dev reported all code matched and fully linked for every version at the reviewed commit, and a non-matching mode builds the US DOL entirely from C++ for modding.

Requirements & limits

  • README still calls this a work-in-progress decompilation and lists five supported versions: GPVE01 (USA retail, the default), GPVE01_D17 and GPVE01_D18 (USA demos 17 and 18), GPVP01 (PAL) and GPVJ01 (Japan). Each has its own configuration and SHA-1 file, and CI builds all five. Outputs are GameCube DOLs, not a PC executable or port.
  • Each version needs main.dol from the user’s own copy of that release at orig/<version>/sys/main.dol, and decomp-toolkit checks it against the hash in that version’s config.yml before splitting. The repository commits game-derived symbol and split tables for every version; config comments say the GPVE01 symbols were generated from a pikmin2UP.MAP linker map and the Japanese and PAL tables were recovered from those DOLs using the US symbols. No disc images or extracted game files are included.
  • Builds need Python and ninja on Windows (native tooling recommended), macOS (with wine-crossover) or Linux (an automatically downloaded wibo on x86, Wine elsewhere). configure.py pins decomp-toolkit v1.7.5, objdiff v3.4.1, binutils 2.42-1, sjiswrap v1.2.2, wibo 1.0.0-beta.5 and the 20250812 compiler bundle, using Metrowerks GC/2.6 for game, JSystem and runtime code and GC/1.2.5n for the Dolphin SDK libraries.
  • configure.py marks 1,154 objects Matching for every supported version and one more for Japan only; none is NonMatching. The default ninja target checks the linked DOL against config/<version>/build.sha1 before reporting progress, and CI builds all five versions in a container that supplies the original files and compilers. decomp.dev’s reports for the pinned commit list 100.00% of code matched and fully linked for each version (24,957 functions and 1,153 units for GPVE01); this collection ran no build.
  • With --non-matching, README says the final hash check is disabled and the US DOL builds completely from C++ source that is, to the team’s knowledge, functionally equivalent, so every file can be edited for modding. The repository carries CC0-1.0 in LICENSE.MD; Nintendo’s game, its files and the downloaded compilers fall outside that dedication. The reviewed sources establish no AI or REA use, and no runtime reproduction is claimed.

About this entry

Type
Case study
Category
Independent reconstruction cases
Relationship
Independent reconstruction project
Targets
Game

Sources reviewed

The description was reviewed against primary sources. This does not establish runtime testing, security auditing or verified compatibility.

Report an outdated entry Suggest a translation fix

Primary sources

  1. README.MD GitHub · projectPiki/pikmin2 · Revision ffbd853
  2. configure.py GitHub · projectPiki/pikmin2 · Revision ffbd853
  3. config/GPVE01/config.yml GitHub · projectPiki/pikmin2 · Revision ffbd853
  4. config/GPVE01/build.sha1 GitHub · projectPiki/pikmin2 · Revision ffbd853
  5. config/GPVJ01/config.yml GitHub · projectPiki/pikmin2 · Revision ffbd853
  6. tools/project.py GitHub · projectPiki/pikmin2 · Revision ffbd853
  7. .github/workflows/build.yml GitHub · projectPiki/pikmin2 · Revision ffbd853
  8. LICENSE.MD GitHub · projectPiki/pikmin2 · Revision ffbd853
  9. https://decomp.dev/projectPiki/pikmin2

More in Games

All 231 entries in GamesGames case studies (189)