About

This is a work-in-progress decompilation project of Final Fantasy VIII (PS1, USA SLUS_008.92).

Progress

A more detailed progress report is available on decomp.dev

Total Progress
Binary	Functions	Code
Main Executable
menumain.ovl
menucfg.ovl
menupty.ovl
menusts.ovl
menuabl.ovl
menushop.ovl
menuext.ovl
menuitem.ovl
menumgc.ovl
menugf.ovl
menujnc2.ovl
menusav.ovl
menucrd.ovl
menututo.ovl
menutmag.ovl
menutips.ovl
menutest.ovl
field_init.bin
intro.bin
field.bin
tripletriad.bin
battle_render.bin
battle.bin
world.bin

Development

Any help is greatly appreciated! Before opening a pull request, please read the contribution guidelines.

Below are some basic steps to get started and building the project.

The following distributions have been tested:

Distro	Can build?
Debian 12	✅
Ubuntu-22.04	✅
Ubuntu-24.04	✅
Ubuntu-26.04	❌

1. Prerequisites. This "guide" is for devs using debian/ubuntu on Windows using WSL 2

   sudo apt update
   sudo apt install git make cpp gcc-mipsel-linux-gnu binutils-mipsel-linux-gnu binutils-mips-linux-gnu python3 python3-venv cmake g++

2. Clone the repo with submodules:

   git clone --recursive https://github.com/roengstrom/ff8-decomp.git
   cd ff8-decomp
   git submodule update --init --recursive

3. Provide your own disc image: You need a BIN file of FF8 Disc 1 (USA, SLUS-00892). Once extracted from the disk, place it inside the "rom" folder.

4. Run the setup:

   make setup

   running this command creates a Python venv, install dependencies (such as splat), extract the bin disc and verify its SHA1, then extracts SLUS_008.92, all executables and overlays. At the end it will run a full rebuild by doing

   make full

   This runs clean, split (runs splat on the executable + overlays), build-assets (converts binary assets to C source), and verify (assembles, links, and checks that each output matches the original SHA1).

   At the end of the command, you should see a list of overlays all with the State Match.

   For incremental work, the individual targets are also available:

   make split          # re-run splat
   make build-assets   # regenerate asset C source
   make verify         # build and compare SHA1s
   make verify EFFECTS=all   # ... including all 343 battle effect overlays

5. objdiff GUI (optional). To diff against the original in objdiff:

   make expected       # builds the target objects, on a verified tree

   then open the repository in objdiff. Re-run after make split.

References

This project stands on the shoulders of giants. A lot of work has already been put into figuring out the inner workings of FF8 which I have liberally used when starting with this project. A shoutout to the decomp community as well, this project wouldn't be possible without all the work that has been put in and the tools that have developed.

• deling
• hyne
• FF8UltimateEditor
• OpenVIII
• FF8 Modding Wiki
• Qhimm Wiki
• maspsx
• splat
• decomp.me

License

This project does not contain any game assets or copyrighted material. It is a clean-room decompilation for educational and preservation purposes. You must provide your own copy of the game to build.