How to extract ROMs from the Castlevania & Contra Anniversary Collections on Steam

[farmerbb]

If you've purchased one or both of these game collections on Steam, and want to know how to play the included games with whatever emulator you want, here's a guide on how to extract the ROMs.

--------------------------------------- UPDATED 12/28/2019 ---------------------------------------

1. Download and install .NET Core from https://dotnet.microsoft.com/download

2. Download MArchiveBatchTool from https://github.com/farmerbb/RED-Project/releases

3. Extract the zip file and copy alldata.bin and alldata.psb.m from your Castlevania or Contra Anniversary Collection install into the extracted directory.

4. Now, open up a command prompt (or shell) inside the MArchiveBatchTool folder, and run this command:

Windows:

MArchiveBatchTool.exe fullunpack --keep alldata.psb.m zlib 25G/xpvTbsb+6 64

Linux:

./MArchiveBatchTool fullunpack --keep alldata.psb.m zlib 25G/xpvTbsb+6 64

5. When finished, the ROMs will be located inside of the "alldata.psb.m_extracted\system\roms" folder. Enjoy!

[emjeeman]

Thanks for bringing this to my attention. Since the game's data is now definitively known to be in their native ROM image formats, I'm really hoping you could help out with something about this. Is it ok if I send you a PM about it? It's about comparing the versions of the games in this collection with the originals.

[farmerbb]

The modified inject_gba tool that I had linked to in the post has since been deleted by the ModMyClassic team. It's been replaced with a different tool called MArchiveBatchTool. I've updated the instructions in my original post to use MArchiveBatchTool instead of inject_gba.

[themazingness]

Please restore this guide or find a way to contact me with instructions. I'm not impressed with these Konami collections' features and would like a way to legally play the games I own now without the clunky interface and features M2 included.

[spandriel]

I've only played the Hardcorps so far and I've noticed they did something to the flashing effect that usually happens when bosses take damage. It seems less prominent, almost clamped to gray sometimes. I assume they did it for the sake of folks with epilepsy, but I'd like to have an option to play the game the way I remember it. Do you guys know whether they have patched it in the roms, or is it a post-effect in the emulator this collection uses?

[farmerbb]

Thanks everyone for your patience. I have now restored the guide with updated instructions for both Windows and Linux.

[Rarefoil]

Man, buying products officially sure is fun and convenient, right? It's so user-friendly!

*grinds teeth*

Seriously thanks for this guide. I just had to get that off my chest.

[Rarefoil]

Originally posted by Rarefoil:

Man, buying products officially sure is fun and convenient, right? It's so user-friendly!

*grinds teeth*

Seriously thanks for this guide. I just had to get that off my chest.

Sorry, should have waited before replying. Need to ask this: where are the arcade ROMs ripped to?

[Rarefoil]

Originally posted by Rarefoil:

Sorry, should have waited before replying. Need to ask this: where are the arcade ROMs ripped to?

Sorry, just found out you can't get the arcade ROMs from this process.

[themazingness]

Originally posted by farmerbb:

Thanks everyone for your patience. I have now restored the guide with updated instructions for both Windows and Linux.

Thanks again for this. I'm setting up retroarch on my PC right now and hoping to setup a Raspberry Pi for emulation in the future. Are there any other games or collections this works for?

[farmerbb]

Originally posted by themazingness:

Originally posted by farmerbb:

Thanks everyone for your patience. I have now restored the guide with updated instructions for both Windows and Linux.

Thanks again for this. I'm setting up retroarch on my PC right now and hoping to setup a Raspberry Pi for emulation in the future. Are there any other games or collections this works for?

I'm currently working on a documentation project that covers extracting games from all sorts of different compilations, including a few others that use the MArchiveBatchTool.

The project is located here: https://github.com/farmerbb/RED-Project/wiki

Keep in mind that it's still a work in progress :)

[themazingness]

Originally posted by farmerbb:

Originally posted by themazingness:

Thanks again for this. I'm setting up retroarch on my PC right now and hoping to setup a Raspberry Pi for emulation in the future. Are there any other games or collections this works for?

I'm currently working on a documentation project that covers extracting games from all sorts of different compilations, including a few others that use the MArchiveBatchTool.

The project is located here: https://github.com/farmerbb/RED-Project/wiki

Keep in mind that it's still a work in progress :)

This is awesome! There's a discussion on the RetroPie forums that I've been participating in that has lots of resources like these. You may want to take a look at it. I'm going to be posting about your project there.

https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/10918/where-to-legally-acquire-content-to-play-on-retropie

[farmerbb]

Originally posted by themazingness:

Originally posted by farmerbb:

I'm currently working on a documentation project that covers extracting games from all sorts of different compilations, including a few others that use the MArchiveBatchTool.

The project is located here: https://github.com/farmerbb/RED-Project/wiki

Keep in mind that it's still a work in progress :)

This is awesome! There's a discussion on the RetroPie forums that I've been participating in that has lots of resources like these. You may want to take a look at it. I'm going to be posting about your project there.

https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/10918/where-to-legally-acquire-content-to-play-on-retropie

Nice, I'll definitely take a look at that!

[RoundConstant]

The question is: is this legal?

[themazingness]

Originally posted by Cipher:

The question is: is this legal?

It would depend on the EULA (which can be region specific) and your country's laws. Some software on Steam doesn't have a EULA. As far as I see, this collection has no EULA to agree to (the Store page for each game/software has the EULA in the right column in the same place if there is one).

[RoundConstant]

I'm not good with law and legal agreements, but as far as I'm aware you don't actually own games you buy on steam, which in term means you don't own the ROMs you are ripping from this edition