Coding Questions and other Quandaries

[Hackwiz]

Howdy all,

I have encountered something I’ve never seen before while hacking, perhaps you can shed some light as to what is going on.

The game I am hacking is “Anima- Ark of Sinners.” (USA) Wiiware.

Specifically, I am looking for an infinite health code.

The address for the protagonist’s [Celia] health changes every time the game is booted. This can usually be hacked using ASM, but in this case, it appears the address the actual game code itself is stored at, changes as well.

- I started a new game, and when I took control of Celia, with a full health bar, created a save state.

- I found her health address to be at: 91D31454 000000C8

- The return on breakpoint when taking damage: 80E9AA08 stw r3, 0x0014 (r29)

- So I re-wrote the code like this:

80E9AA08  stw r3, 0x0014 (r29)
                li r11, 0xC8
                lis r12, 0x91D3
                stw r11, 0x1454(r12)


Works great until one of four things happen:

1) I deactivate the code and allow Celia to die.

2) Celia falls to her death.

3) A new area of the game is entered.

4) The game is rebooted, and my save state is not used.

In any of these cases, her health address changes, and the address where the store command is changes also.

I have let her die 5 times and ran a BP on all the new health addresses and came up with a new address where the store command is every time e.g.

80E9AA08    stw r3, 0x0014 (r29) r29 = 91D31440
80E##### stw r3, 0x0014 (r29) r29 = 9#######
80E##### stw r3, 0x0014 (r29) r29 = 9#######
80E##### stw r3, 0x0014 (r29) r29 = 9#######
80E##### stw r3, 0x0014 (r29) r29 = 9#######

What gives?????

If anyone wants to check it out, the quick way to her health is a word search on 000000C8

You’ll get 5** returns.

Take a hit from an enemy and do a decreased value search. You’ll end up with 2 or 3 returns.

It’s pretty obvious which one it is.


Looking forward to your insight!


HW