MegaMan Legends 1 & 2 PSF by MusashiAA at 11:11 PM EDT on May 18, 2016
So far, I've tagged the current MML1 .psf set available on psf.joshw, but haven't timed it yet. As it has been mentioned before, plenty of the "missing tracks" are either played in the background over prerecorded .xa cutscenes with dialogue, or are straight up .xa files such as the CD Shop songs. Despite this hard evidence that they are not actually sequenced music like any other song in the game using the PS1's internal MIDI playback, I can't help but believe that they were or are in some way still in the game, in their sequenced forms, just hiding and/or unripped. The fact that the .xa prerecordings have the songs, that the original soundtrack release has the cutscene songs with no dialogue or SFX playing over them, and the songs themselves are so similar in sound to the rest of the sequenced tracks makes me think that they were (and hopefully are) sequenced at some point, and might lie in said form inside the game.
There's been numerous times these games have been brought up to the spotlight for ripping, especially MML2 for its non-standard inner workings. May I also ask if there has been any advancements in terms of ripping Resident Evil 3, and by extension MML2? Maybe MML1 contains the previously mentioned tracks hidden inside using the same non-standard formats.
Since RE3 PSF rip exists, and a Misadventures of Tron Bonne PSF rip also exists, then I guess it's time for whoever knows how to do it to finish the job:
I have tagged in my own free time Mega Man Legends 1's PSP rip (Yes, MML1 and MML2 were ported to PSP in Japan only). I'm also willing to tag and update the MOTB PS1 rip currently hosted. All we need is the final crown jewel of MML2, and we can give this rip series its proper end unlike the games themselves.
I'll try to post the Bio3 stuff to my Github soon, as I don't think I'll have the time to rip MML2 at all.
The data for Bio3 is standard SDK stuff, just simply reformatted headers (for smaller file size). No clue if it's the same used for MML2, but wouldn't surprise me.
EDIT: Found a bit of time to spare and am looking into MML2 now... pretty similar to Bio3. I should hopefully be able to produce something.
Thanks for looking into this. The closest I got into looking into ripping MML2 was ripping breakpoint triggered savestates from PCSX-Reloaded that I modified with breakpoints and ran under a debugger, and had altered the save states to lock up immediately after triggering the song playback so they would only continue with their interrupt driven stuff. I never did look into the actual data, but was amused to find that a lot more of the cutscene stuff in MML2 used sequences instead of mixing the music into the dialog XA tracks.
I was also mildly amused to find that the ending credits file contains a mixed stream of the background image, the credits text/images, and the PSX ADPCM audio that plays over the whole thing. Which reminded me that someone I used to follow was annoyed by the switch from the J-Rock ending of the Japanese version to the generic synthesizers and rock thing they used for the English releases. I wonder if the code from those versions would happily play the Japanese credits file? It looks like just a packetized format with generic commands and data for everything, including the interleaved chunks of audio data.
None, I'm truly sad to say, and I honestly haven't forgotten about this. Between moving to the DC area, taking summer college courses, and becoming a potential spouse, my hands are tied right now... bare with me a couple more months.
You are AMAZING! I've been patiently waiting for this to come out! Listening to it now and I couldn't be happier. Now if only someone could do Valkyrie Profile 2. If this can be done, I'm sure VP2 can as well. One day!
EDIT: NEVERMIND! It's already been done! Downloading now.
WOW!!!! I've been waiting for this for decades (actually, I'm not sure the PSF format existed 20 years ago [I know it was in development that long ago, but I don't remember what stage the format was at, or what rips were available], so that might not be 100% accurate. But it sure feels like it!)! THANK YOU!!!! You have no idea how excited I am that this game finally got ripped! YAY!!!!
My only complaint now, is that The Misadventures Of Tron Bonne hasn't been timed... But that's a minor thing! THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!
you got a few tracks mixed up Elysium - Residential Area (Reaverbots) with defense zone, the defense zone plays when Reaverbots show up on Elysium. just wanted to point that out and I agree with Mouser X with Tron bonne :)
Glad you like the rip, this one wasn't easy. It's now mirrored on the main server in case my link goes down at some point.
@Eliskuya A few tracks are re-used in different area, choice had to be made for titles since atm, no official OST exists. I mostly followed this walktrough and then set breakpoints in game to get corresponding bgm IDs to pair the titles:
@Mouser X I also have a complete re-rip for Tron ni Kobun using original driver now. So no more tempo issue on some tracks unlike the currently available set (which is using a generic driver). It's untitled/untimed and i'm looking for someone who could cover this part to release it. If anyone is interested to give a hand, reach me over HCS discord server. :)
MML2 uses custom and compressed bgm data format. Someone would first need to reverse both to consider adding support to conversion tool such as VGMTrans.