The FFVII Mobile Game Initiative (2004-2008 Era)

[Shademp]

Hey, is this still a thing? Found your posts by accident when looking for something else FF related... So, I actually bought the Dirge of Cerberus Amp'd Mobile bundle. It came with a phone (the RAZR is the one I had), the game pre-installed (or maybe it was a code or something - I don't recall exactly on that), and a stock figure of Vincent (the PlayArts one like this: http://images.comiccollectorlive.com/covers/0bc/0bca16af-b3d5-4f6e-9082-6899a605f9c3.jpg).

The game was tricky though because it came in episodes, and you could only have one episode at a time downloaded to the phone. I remember it being so weird to play a high-quality game on a flip phone. Like, those graphics were insane at the time. Blew the NGage (which is actually the phone I had previous to this one) out of the water. When you completed an episode, it'd require you to wait until the next one was downloaded before you could continue, and it'd erase the current one in the process. But when Amp'd shut down, I still had one of the episodes downloaded to the phone and could replay that one level over and over. I do not remember which level though.

As for what happened to the phone, there is a very slim chance I may still have it. Unfortunately, the vast majority of my possessions were stolen in 2008, but I recall seeing some old cell phones in some stuff as recently as 2016 when a lot of my things were put in storage. If ya'll are still looking for DoC: LE stuff let me know and I'll try to find some time to go dig through storage and see what I can find. I can't promise anything, but honestly, I need to go through storage and clean it up anyway.

Questions/Concerns:
Would the battery still work if charged?
Would the phone even still work? Is there anything in it that could degrade overtime even if not being used?
Have you found any on auction sites and are they actually worth anything?

Thank you for sharing!

I've always been curious about the Vincent action figure you could apparently get with Lost Episode. Happy to see you mention it.



Do you know if the action figure was identical to that PlayArts one you linked or was it a different design?


Like Naoya said, the Kahvibreak Discord is a great place for technical help with old cell phones.
The English version of Lost Episode (which actually released before the Japanese one) has so far not been extracted. Having even a single episode extracted, archived and datamined would be a huge victory. It is reassuring to hear that you could play the same level over and over again without issue, at least back then.

 

[NaoyaShinota]

UPDATE on FFVII Mobile preservation: A small step towards something bigger?

In 2007, AU distributed Before Crisis Final Fantasy VII for their BREW cell phones. AU phones run BREW games. And according to a TGS booklet I received a while ago and scanned, it is confirmed that BCFFVII is playable on devices that run on BREW 3.1 and up. For now, until someone comes to us and provides proof that it does not, this is what we are going with for now.

Recently three phones that could be compatible with BCFFVII and many other Japanese cell phone games can be dumped and fully extracted. These phones are:
CA005
W52SH
W64S

If we find BC FFVII on these phones or any other Japanese games on these phones, we can save them as these games are no longer accessible to download anymore. This goal is to save these games from extinction and to give everyone a chance to experience games that they missed out on.

If you have the phones I mentioned above and want to help, you can always DM me about this and we can help you. There are more phones being looked into. This is just difficult.
Yes, I am aware of Ever Crisis on the horizon and to include BC.... However, make no mistake about it. EC is not a replacement for any of the FFVII titles at all. If you want to play it that is fine, but EC is not an excuse to stop searching for BC or to stop asking SE for a BC port or remake of any kind.

W51H Update?
This phone is still being looked into. Many complications.

What about Softbank and Docomo Phones?
We still need help finding more documentation on the chips that are on the boards of these phones. Please DM if you have any info that might help us save games.

 

[Kuraudo.]

A scene in Episode Legend from Before Crisis Final Fantasy VII. Credit to sousi.

 

[Radigar]

Amazing video, is stuning that so many years later someone still has this, i'm still impressed, sousi's recording quality is great. Thanks to all of you for not giving up in the search for these and others little treasures.

 

[NaoyaShinota]

I will give an update soon on what has been going on with iMode preservation.
But for now please enjoy the first time footage of the Dirge of Cerberus Lost Episode(DEMO) that was dumped from a P903i.

 

[NaoyaShinota]

Dirge of Cerberus Lost Episode (DEMO) PRESERVED

What has happened so far?
The servers to play these games have been shut down, but not our efforts to preserve games. Recently, the P903i phone that has the Dirge of Cerberus Lost Episode Demo has been preserved and is now playable on pc. Good news is that it is playable on PC. If anybody is looking for a way to emulate on android or side load on Docomo phone, it is as of now, not possible(yet). More and more iMode games are getting preserved. Little by little. And not just FF7 related, but Dragon Quest, Bomberman and just about anything that can be found on iMode phones. And without having to take chips off a phone…..yet. The following Docomo phones that we can extract the firmware from and preserve iMode games Devices that can have its contents extracted.
P900iV
P901iS
N900i
N900iS
N901iS
P902i
N-02A
P702i
P903i
This list is being updated constantly.

This is the script that helps us make progress.

GitHub - ktdumper/ktdumper

Contribute to ktdumper/ktdumper development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

It has been discovered that these phones have a test mode. By shorting specific area of pins you can put your DoCoMo phone in test mode.
For this to be possible, your Docomo USB adapter/cable needs to be modified.

Method and instructions on preparing USB for Test Mode.

DoCoMo Game Preservation Techniques

List of preserved i-mode games List of phones that have been dumped with this method Further game information is on the Kahvibreak Discord server Custom debug cable: this dumps firmware from compatible phones You need: standard FOMA to micro USB cable, soldering iron OR a FOMA USB Connection Ca...

docs.google.com

Amazon: Link on the adapter that I used to perform this method.

Amazon.com

Insert modified cable into phone, makes sure battery is not inserted and your phone's screen will be not turn on, but it will show up as something else in device manager such as FOMA N2003, Panasonic IPL Mode. It is different for each manufacture and the time that the phone was made. Now we have found people with lost FFVII games such as BC, DC and Snowboarding on Docomo phones. But we are still pondering on how to approach the next step to preserve these games. Once these games are dumped, we can play them on the DoJa/Star SDK on PC. As for side loading/playing the game on an android emulator, nobody has support for it.

In the meantime, what this is means is as of now the chances of preserving BEFORE CRISIS, Dirge of Cerberus Lost Episode and FFVII Snowboarding is much higher than it was back when this all started. And a major aspect of this is that you do not need to break your phone, take chips off the phone.

If the game does require connection to play, network connections can be turned off.

If you do know anyone who has the remaining game data of Dirge of Cerberus Lost Episode, Before Crisis FFVII or FFVII Snowboarding on DoCoMo phones and is willing to help out, you might be able to help preserve a lost history of FFVII. These three mobile games and many others, too many to count, have had their websites shut down, the method to access and pay for them is no longer possible at all. Meaning this is the only way so far to play these games.

Thanks to the Kahvibreak Discord Community for making this possible

 

[NaoyaShinota]

Also 50 DoCoMo phones can be dumped with this script. It is great to see that the chances of getting BC and the other docomo games are getting higher we go on. Hopefully someone with a phone on this list that has BC is willing to help preserve the game.

ktdumper/ktdumper/devices.py at main · ktdumper/ktdumper

Contribute to ktdumper/ktdumper development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

 

[Strangelove]

i've been wanting to preserve old bonus dvds i had from magazines and purchase bonuses and stuff (things that weren't for sale individually and are out of print now), and upload them to archive.org or something. one of the first ones i wanted to do was the bonus dvd that came with the first issue of young gangan magazine, which i spent all week looking for only for it to be in the last place i thought to check (that was also the easiest to access. it was literally right in front of where i am now). it's relevant to this thread because it contained a trailer for before crisis that i think is the fullest version of the animated promo they made for it. in the trailer there is a bit of text at the start, but it also includes a overview video for the original compilation of ff7 titles (bc, ac, dc) which has that shot without the text but with voice over narration. so with some video editing, you could probably make a textless version of the whole thing.

i took a screencap of the menu for some reason

other contents include the ffxi opening, other square-enix trailers (4, iirc itadaki street, romancing saga minstrel song, radiata stories and one more i forgot now), and interview with sugiyama kouichi for dragon quest viii, a feature showing materials from a dragon quest manga that ran in young gangan (it also had a ffxi manga which is maybe why they have the opening there), and something called 'square enix information' which i'm not sure i ever looked at lol

i've made an iso of it but it gave a copy protection warning so i will need to check that it is actually working and then i try uploading it and maybe move onto other discs (i also found the dvd from that 'cloud' book but i cannot remember at all what was on that or where the book is now).

 

[NaoyaShinota]

This is interesting. I remember hearing about gangan. I hope it is actually new footage of BEFORE CRISIS. But amazing at all that you found this. I look forward to seeing what is on this dvd.

 

[Strangelove]

my attempt at making an iso of the disc didn't work, when i tried to play it from the file it didn't load up properly. i have manage to rip mkvs from the disc, but i would still like to find a way to get an iso so there is as complete a copy as possible.

i've uploaded the dc related clips (separate trailer and a compilation of ff7 video) on their own for now, hopefully this link works:

https://file.io/qGOn03H1C44E

i tried to merge the bc animation so it's mostly textless but one of the videos has a black box around the edges, and i was using davinci resolve for the first time ever and it was 2am and i couldn't be bothered to figure out how to fix it so i gave up.

re: the content i didn't know/remember from the disc before
the trailer i couldn't remember was for front mission online, and the 'square enix info' feature was just giving details for books and manga being published by s-e

 

[Strangelove]

the link seems to have been deleted. i thought i should download it to test it out, but i guess i was one of those single use links and i just ruined it lol. this is what i get for trusting google search results, back to trusty old mega instead:

117.43 MB file on MEGA

mega.nz

279.8 MB file on MEGA

mega.nz

 

[Strangelove]

going through the 'cloud' dvd, it's trailers for compilation stuff plus early ffxiii and versus xiii (when it was still called that and planned for the ps3 lol) and a mobile game called monotone and the original ds version of the world ends with you. it includes a before crisis trailer which is a mix of game screens, last order footage and a tiny bit of the original promo animation. and there's a dc lost episode trailer

for some reason it wouldn't make separate mkv files for the mobile game trailers, so here's a 1gb mkv file of the entire disc's footage because i still haven't worked out how to crack the copy protection to make an iso

1.02 GB file on MEGA

mega.nz

also the title screen because why not

 

[makoenergy]

Thank you for sharing!

I've always been curious about the Vincent action figure you could apparently get with Lost Episode. Happy to see you mention it.

View attachment 13622

Do you know if the action figure was identical to that PlayArts one you linked or was it a different design?


Like Naoya said, the Kahvibreak Discord is a great place for technical help with old cell phones.
The English version of Lost Episode (which actually released before the Japanese one) has so far not been extracted. Having even a single episode extracted, archived and datamined would be a huge victory. It is reassuring to hear that you could play the same level over and over again without issue, at least back then.

in case you were still wondering-
i found a square enix press release from 8/22/2006 detailing the release of DCLE on amp'd phones- the figure was described as "highly articulated", so it's all but confirmed that the figure you could win was the FF7 advent children play arts one (released in 2005 in japan, not sure when for the US). it's the only one released around that time that was highly articulated + the volume 2 vincent came out around 2008 so it can't be that one.
otherwise it's gotta be some super niche figure, because there's no other information online about it

 

[Nin]

Thank you for your work everyone! I know its not in the 04-08 era, but now that First Soldier is down, is there any project to preserve playing that?

 

[NaoyaShinota]

Thank you for your work everyone! I know it’s not in the 04-08 era, but now that First Soldier is down, is there any project to preserve playing that?

Hmm good question. Even tho we have the server files, I don’t even know how to get the game to run. Or if we can even get it to run. I would like to get it to run. But have no idea where to start.

 

[makoenergy]

if anyone hasn’t shared/seen this website yet, i’d like to be the first to show it off…
FF7AC　reunion
found this on my wayback machine travels last year. lots of info about before crisis, like chapter synopses, how to get S-ranks, and strategies for beating bosses. love it!

 

[makoenergy]

i really love the whole concept of video game preservation, and even if I might be repeating some stuff (i know this thread is 7 years old), i hope you don’t mind me ^^

 

[NaoyaShinota]

An update
Sideloading is now possible: With KTDumper and the sideloading script, you can now sideload DoJa and Star games to the P-01F which has a Start 2.0 profile. With it being the latest, it should have less issues getting the games to run.
Credit goes to xyz for making this happen.
So this means that games like Dirge of Cerberus Lost Episode is now playable.
I will make a guide on how to sideload games onto P-01F.
No Custom firmware or device flashing required
All that is needed is the
P-01F
Modified USB adapter to put phone into test mode
KTDumper: GitHub - ktdumper/ktdumper
Sideloading script: GitHub - ktdumper/panasonic-sideloader

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1805132686815822236

 

[NaoyaShinota]

An update on the FFVII mobile games
I have secured a copy of the following FFVII games
Before Crisis Final Fantasy VII
Before Crisis Final Fantasy VII Extra
Before Crisis Final Fantasy VII Gold Saucer
Final Fantasy VII Dirge of Cerberus Lost Episode
Final Fantasy VII Snowboarding

What is extra and Gold Saucer?
Extra and Gold saucer are extra appli you can download to access extra features of the game. FFVII fans will already have an idea of what Gold Saucer is. This is where you can go to the Gold saucer and participate in Chocobo racing, Battle Square, Wonder Square and more. You can even play FFVII Snowboarding just like you can in the original FFVII.

BCFFVII Extra is the app that is used for Weapon D Mode. In this app you search for turks who have been captured by Jade Weapon. Not much detail on this game is available online.

So far the BC games are not in a playable state despite our history of getting iMode games into a playable state for phones and pc.
However many of the assets for the game are in the sp file of the game and in the phones storage. Chances of recovering more than we have hoped for are slighly higher. The next step would be to reverse-engineer BC's server connection to get it running in any form. This is not an easy task. Reach out if you can help!

There is a lot to go into. And we will go into detail about this when we receive more updates.
here are the games.
To the person who helped out, thank you very much for your trust.

FFVII Mobile Games : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

The lost mobile games from Sqaure Enix's iMode service from 2004-2018. Before Crisis Final Fantasy VIIBefore Crisis Final Fantasy VII ExtraBefore Crisis Final...

archive.org

 

[Nin]

oh my god this is huge!! thank you for the updates!!

 

[NaoyaShinota]

An update on BC FFVII game preservation

There has been a significant update in progress of preserving this game. The second bank for the W51H has been dumped thanks to Kraze. This means that the user data has been dumped which is where the BC FFVII Demo is in, but there is another road block.
To extract from this, we need a custom header extractor for the W51H's FTL and Filesystem.

If you have experience in this type of field, please reach out

But we have found something rather interesting. When looking at the firmware file in a hex editor we found strings that references to what we have found in the doja version of BC FFVII's code such as

text that refers to Limit Break
0% 50% 100% OFF referenced. this is mentioning the options menu. If you try to access Options in BCFFVII demo, you get a message saying "not available in Demo".
Materia fire, water, thunder, gravity, meteor and other magic image files referenced in the firmware file. Demo version only lets you use Cure, Fire and Blizzard.
P900iV is referenced: it's just interesting to me
Highwind Image that appears on Status for Chapter 16 S rank is also in the game. Yet Chapter 1 is the only playable chapter

All of this excluding the 3 magic materia spells are not in the game you can play but the code exists. Meaning it might have more than what we thought it to have had. But we won't know for sure until we extract

Furthermore, the game has reference to jar files. And it seems that it loads jar files from offline. In theory, if we obtain other copies of BC, we'll be able to piece other parts of the game together, regardless of the platform it originated on.

With all of this, there might be more benefit down the road to extracting this game.

If you are interested in helping out you can also join the Keitai wiki discord

Join the Keitai Wiki Discord Server!

The center for keitai game preservation! | 464 members

discord.gg

 

[NaoyaShinota]

Before Crisis Final Fantasy VII W51H DEMO preserved

Thanks to discord use Irdkwia, we now have the ability to extract the contents from filesystem on the W51H's second bank. The W51H was a very challenging phone. But Irdkwia helped make a breakthrough.

How to play?
Before Crisis Final Fantasy VII Demo This contains chapter 1 Some notes:

1. No sound for now.
2. You can sideload to a Japanese brew phone. Guide for this will come later.
3. Some things are a bit off such as text placement

How to play BC FFVII?

Download latest version of Melange

usernameak / Melange · GitLab


Download the BC FFVII Game

Before Crisis Final Fantasy VII Demo : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Before Crisis Final Fantasy VII Demo (BREW)Contains Chapter 1Player: Rod

archive.org

Open Melange after install.
Create a breConfig.toml file under the path /MelangeBREW/sys/
Add the following text in breConfig.toml

width = px
height = px

For example

width = 240
height = 320

Samples

• 176×203
• 128×146
• 240×298

Make sure to set it to 240x320

put the game file in the /sdcard/MelangeBREW/mod folder •place manifest files .mif in (mif) folder

You can also play this on Western BREW phones such as the C781. Since the game is in japanese, the text is not readable.

 

[NaoyaShinota]

How to play AU/EZ web games on PC with Bluestacks

Requirements:
An app that lets you browse filesystems. So long as it allows you to
Copy
Paste
Create New files
UnZip files
Move files
I am using ES File Explorer because it works for me. But so long as it does the above then you are good to go.

Link to ES File Explorer used in tutorial:
https://apkpure.com/es-file-explorer-file-manager/com.estrongs.android.pop/downloading

Melange:

usernameak / Melange · GitLab

GitLab.com

gitlab.com

BC FFVII game:

Before Crisis Final Fantasy VII Demo : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Before Crisis Final Fantasy VII Demo (BREW)Contains Chapter 1Player: Rod

archive.org

1. Install Melange and ES File Explorer on bluestacks, drag and drop the apk to bluestacks screen should install the apps. This is what it should look like when you are done.

1. Import the file from computer. I use MediaManager

Select Import from Windows

I import zip file that contains the BREW game I wish to play, in this case it is Before Crisis Final Fantasy VII

Tap on the zip file, it will ask you what app to open with, I selected ES file Explorer. Select Open

Now we are going to move the folder that contains the mod file to the mod folder.
In this case, click down until you see some options show up.

The Blue check mark indicates what file you want to perform actions on. In this case we will select copy

On the left, select Internal storage.
Go to MelangeBREW/mod/
Select Paste.

If you do not have mod folder, select New at the bottom to create a folder
Name that folder ‘mod’
There is where you will select Paste.

That is for the mod files
Next is the mif files.
Use the back arrow key to go back to the zip file
Copy the mif files
Navigate to
Internal Storage (on the left) -> MelangeBREW/mif/
If you do not have mif folder, create folder and name it mif
Paste mif files. You should have this

Last we will create the breConfig.toml file
Add the following text in breConfig.toml
width = px
height = px
For example
width = 240
height = 320

After you have made the adjustments, click the 3 dots in the top right, it should bring down a list of options such as save as, select save as and navigate to MelangeBREW/sys



File name should be like this

Once you are done, if all is done correctly navigate to Melange, you should see the brew game