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Patapon 3

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This page contains notes for the game Patapon 3.

This page is rather stubbly and could use some expansion.
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This page will contain all gathered informations so far for reverse-engineering Patapon 3 resources.

File types#

Archives#

  • BND (Header: 42 4E 44 00 01 00 00 00 40 00 00 00 20 00 00 00) - Main Patapon archive format.
  • BNS (Header: 42 4E 44 00 00 00 00 00 40 00 00 00 00 00 00 00) - "Earlier" version of BND.
  • GZIP (Header: 1F 8B) - Popular archive format, used rarely in Patapon files.

Textures#

  • GXTv1 (Header: 58 58 47 2E 30 31 2E 30 4D 49 47) - Patapon graphics format
  • GXTv2 (Header: 58 58 47 2E 30 31 2E 30 4D 49 47) - Patapon graphics format with more complex palette and pixel data

Sounds#

  • VAG (Header: 53 47 58 44) -
  • AT3+ (Header: 53 47 58 44) -

Fonts#

  • FTL

Parameter files#

Mission files#

  • PAC

Save data#

BND#

BND is the main Patapon archive format, which Patapon games store all the data. Files with this archive format most likely will have .bnd file extension, but sometimes they are disguised as other extensions, such as .dat, .amdl, '''.

If you want to know if the file is a BND archive or not, use any Hex Editor and search for 42 4E 44 header at the beginning of the file.

How it works#

BND dictionary contains checksums, offsets, and file names. (Someone more experienced may write down how this archive works)

BNS#

BNS is the least used Patapon archive format. It is most likely an older version of BND. Only files named stage.bns will be using this archive type.

How it works#

BNS dictionary contains checksums and offsets, but no file names. (Someone more experienced may write down how this archive works)

Extracting#

BND archive can be easily extracted with the QuickBMS tool using Patapon.bms script.

GZIP#

GZIP is a popular archive format which can be extracted with any extraction tool such as WinRAR or 7zip.

GXT v1#

This refers to GXT spritesheets used in Patapon 1 and Patapon 2. Anything that is GXT v1 is unused in Patapon 3.

GXT v2#

GXT v2 is exclusive to Patapon 3. They are swizzled spritesheets.

VAG#

AT3+#