Author Topic: Beating Castlevania: Symphony of the Night with assembly code (Read 10,777 times)

mouser · « **on:** January 07, 2016, 02:22 PM »

OSNews has a really cool post today about a very unusual and technical "speed-run" (fast playthrough of a game), that involes performing some very elaborate and precise tricks that actually corrupt game data in order to patch the code (planted while playing the actually game live).

Quote

The end time of 7 minutes and 52 seconds is mind-blowing enough, but how he actually gets there is just utterly insane. Basically, he procures a very specific set of items in his inventory, and then proceeds to manipulate the items in his inventory in a extremely specific way, within very specific fractions of seconds of game-time, to use the sorting mechanism of the inventory to manipulate the assembly code in memory to make the game finish itself. All this, on the actual console itself, without tools, without additional software, without emulators, without anything.

http://www.osnews.com/story/29031/Beating_Castlevania_Symphony_of_the_Night_with_assembly_code

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qc56JEd1qxA

Secondary video showing how the code is patched: http://www.twitch.tv/sockfolder/c/3810968

40hz · « **Reply #1 on:** January 07, 2016, 09:17 PM »

Now THAT is a hacker in my book. Using timing to exploit running code is a lost art form these days. Having the know how to pull a trick like that off is even rarer. Time was when it was the lion's share of the lore leading up to the keys to the kingdom in the days of phone phreaking. It wasn't just the tones. It was also getting the timing exactly right in order to get in and not trip warning bells or let the dogs off the leash. Small wonder so many old school hackers (in the old meaning of the word) were also usually pretty decent musicians whenever they were away from their keyboard. It didn't mean a thing unless you could swing.

I don't know about any of this personally mind you. I've just "been told."

tomos · « **Reply #2 on:** January 07, 2016, 09:21 PM »

Quote from: 40hz on January 07, 2016, 09:17 PM

I don't know about any of this personally mind you. I've just "been told."

says 40hz ... the musician :-)

EDIT// forgot to say:
a very impressive video -- even to a non-gamer and non-coder

40hz · « **Reply #3 on:** January 07, 2016, 09:22 PM »

Quote from: tomos on January 07, 2016, 09:21 PM

Quote from: 40hz on January 07, 2016, 09:17 PM
I don't know about any of this personally mind you. I've just "been told."

says 40hz ... the musician :-)

Yep. JUST a musician. Now move along folks. Nothing to see...