Platform Signatures

Filetype: N/A
File Extensions: N/A
Signature: ARC0
Platform(s): Nintendo 3DS, Android, NX, PSP, PSVita, Windows?, iOS/iPadOS
Endianness: Little-endian
Used in: Yo-kai Watch 1, Yo-kai Watch 2, Yo-kai Watch Blasters, Yo-kai Watch 3, Yo-kai Watch Busters 2
Alignment: 2 Byte Alignment
String Encoding: ASCII

In Level5 file formats, you will often - but not always - encounter signatures. Signatures (sometimes called magics) are sequences of bytes used to identify the type of the file - similar to what a file extension was supposed to do. Platform signatures, are a type of signature Level5 commonly uses, these appear at the start of the file/file section and follow the format XXXYZZ, where XXX is the main file-format unique signature (e.g., IMG, ANM, CHR etc), Y is the platform code (see the next section), and ZZ is the version number as a hex string (00, 01, etc).

Supported Platforms

The platforms are checked in the following order:

Char	Platform Code	Platform
A	4	Android
C	1	Citrus (3DS)
I	5	iOS/iPadOS? (not observed yet)
N	6	NX (Nintendo Switch)
P	2	PSP
V	3	PS Vita
W	6	Windows? (same as NX)

Any other character will yield the Platform Code 0xFFFFFFFF and is treated as invalid by their engine.

Implementation

Platform signatures are read and validated using the following functions:

uint64_t __thiscall LXP_CODE_BIN::GetPlatform(LXP_CODE_BIN *this);
int __thiscall LXP_CODE_BIN::GetVersion(LXP_CODE_BIN *this);
bool LXP_CODE_BIN::CheckFormat(const char* param) const;