Reverse engineering and decompilation exist in a nuanced legal space. Generally, decompiling code you own for personal use, educational purposes, interoperability, or archival preservation is protected under various fair use doctrines. However, distributing copyrighted game binaries, proprietary SDK code, or assets (like graphics and music) is illegal.
void setMode3(void) DAT_04000000 = 0x23; // hand-correct to DISPCNT = MODE_3
It is important to remember that decompiling commercial software may violate the Terms of Service of the product or intellectual property laws in your jurisdiction. Decompile only for educational or research purposes.
If you have $1,500, IDA Pro with the Hex-Rays ARM decompiler produces significantly better C-like pseudocode than Ghidra for NDS Thumb code. Combined with the ndsldr plugin (community-made), you can load overlays dynamically. Several commercial NDS ports (e.g., to modern consoles) have been done this way legally under clean-room reverse engineering. nds decompiler
void FUN_08001234(void) *(uint16_t*)0x4000000 = 0x1000; return;
The original code was optimized for speed, not readability. This means the resulting C code might look strange or inefficient.
The NDS-Decompilation-Project-Maker is a targeted utility for creating XML-based projects from ROMs. Reverse engineering and decompilation exist in a nuanced
Install a community NDS plugin for Ghidra to save manual memory mapping setup. Import arm9.bin or arm7.bin into a new Ghidra project.
, the open-source software reverse engineering (SRE) suite developed by the NSA, is currently the most popular choice for NDS decompilation.
"Let’s see what they hid in you," he whispered, the hum of his PC a low growl in the quiet room. void setMode3(void) DAT_04000000 = 0x23; // hand-correct to
Translates raw binary data into low-level assembly language (e.g., ARM assembly). The output matches the machine code exactly but is incredibly difficult to read and modify at scale.
Decompilation is a legal gray area.
For command-line users, is an open-source, cross-platform alternative that also handles ASM patching. To unpack a ROM, you would run:
IDA Pro is an industry-standard interactive disassembler and decompiler. While the full version with the Hex-Rays ARM decompiler is expensive, it offers unmatched analysis accuracy and speed. IDA Free provides basic ARM disassembly, but lacks the advanced high-level C decompilation found in Ghidra or paid IDA tiers. 3. PokeFinder / Specialized Decompilation Projects