Nintendo Gamecube Games with Debug Symbols

Edit on Github | Updated: 25th April 2020

If you are interested in reverse engineering a Gamecube game, the first step is to find out if the game has its debug symbols available, this makes it much easier to reverse as all the functions will have nice friendly human readable names.

Gamecube game executable can come in a number of different formats, one is the standard .DOL file (short for dolphin) and the other is the ELF which is a standard format for Unix based systems.

If a Gamecube game disc has the elf file available then it is possible that it will have debug information embedded inside it, the easiest way to check is to look at the size or run the strings command on it.

ELF Files

ELF files can contain many debug symbols such as the function, variable and sometimes even file names.

You can normally see the symbols by opening in a dissasembler such as Radare2 or IDA Pro.

ELF Executables with Debug Symbols

The following table lists all the known Gamecube games that contain ELF files with debug symbols embedded inside.

Game Name Elf File Number of Symbols Genre Youtube
007 - Agent Under Fire Bond.elf 8,519 Action  
007 - Everything or Nothing boot.elf 822 Action  
Backyard Sports - Baseball 2007 (USA) Mpe.Gcn.Release.elf 4,702 Sport  
Bakuten Shoot Beyblade 2002 - Nettou! Magne Tag Battle! (Japan) main.elf 1,921 Action  
Beyblade VForce - Super Tournament Battle main.elf 2,207 Action  
Big Air Freestyle LoadAndParseELF.elf 5,456 Sport  
Black & Bruised GCNDefault.elf 3,762 ?  
BloodRayne (United Kingdom) Bloodrayne.elf 4,340 Action  
Blowout (USA) Blowout.elf 4,151 ?  
Bratz - Rock Angelz (France) Bratz_NGC_M.elf 15,275 ?  
Crash Bandicoot - The Wrath of Cortex (USA) crashwoc.elf 2,685 Platformer  
Crash Bandicoot 4 - Sakuretsu! Majin Power (Japan) crashwoc.elf 2,684 Platformer  
Cubix Robots for Everyone - Showdown (USA) CubixGameCube.elf 5,433 ?  
Dark Summit (USA) mob2gr.elf 11,459 ?  
Densetsu no Quiz Ou Ketteisen (Japan) main.elf 3,674 ?  
Disney-Pixar Cars (USA) CarsGCN.elf 12,973 ?  
Disney-Pixar Finding Nemo (USA) (v1.00) GCNemo.elf 5,562 ?  
Disney-Pixar Ratatouille (France) ratsgc_m.elf 10,581 ?  
Disney-Pixar The Incredibles - Rise of the Underminer in2gc_m.elf 13,876 Action  
Disney-Pixar The Incredibles (USA) ingc_m.elf 13,931    
Disney-Pixar Die Unglaublichen (The Incredibles) (Germany) (Disc 1) ingc_m.elf 13,931 Action  
Disney’s Piglet’s Big Game (United Kingdom) Piglet.elf 7,951 Action  
Disney’s PK - Out of the Shadows (USA) (En,Fr,De,It) RM_DLL.elf 7,372 ?  
Disney’s Winnie the Pooh’s Rumbly Tumbly Adventure (USA) (En,Fr,Es) winnie.elf 8,392    
Doshin the Giant DolphinDefault.elf 3,047 God Game  
Duel Masters Nettou! Battle Arena (Japan) main.elf 2,306    
Fairly OddParents, The - Breakin’ da Rules (USA) Gamecube.elf 13,828    
Finding Nemo (United Kingdom) GCNemo.elf 5,600    
Freedom Fighters (United Kingdom) startup_release.elf 16,664 Third-person shooter  
Freestyle Metal X (USA) FMX_CUBE_Publisher.elf 5,836    
Frogger Beyond Frogger.elf 4,561 Action https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0DptiBTWPI
GoldenEye - Rogue Agent (USA) (Disc 1) GE2RDVD.ELF 20,654 FPS  
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (United Kingdom) gof_f.elf 19,843 (200MB!) Action  
Hot Wheels - Velocity X (USA) HotWheels.elf 2,363    
Hudson Selection Vol. 4 - Takahashi-Meijin no Boukenjima (Japan) huos.elf 2,298    
Intellivision Lives! (USA) GCNDefault.elf 1,991    
Interactive Multi-Game Demo Disk - July 2004 GCNDefaultD.elf 2,636 Demo  
Jeremy McGrath Supercross World (USA) sx2002.elf 4,186 Sport  
Kao the Kangaroo - Round 2 (USA) kao2gcnF.elf 8,201 Platformer  
King Arthur (USA) Arthur.elf 8,259    
Legend of Spyro, The - A New Beginning spyro06.elf 12,813 Platformer  
Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events (United Kingdom) main.elf 10,416 Platformer  
Mario Smash Football MarioSoccerP.elf 7,879 Sport  
Medal of Honor - European Assault (Germany) MOH4RDVD.ELF 17,815 FPS  
Medal of Honor - Frontline (United Kingdom) Moh2UK.elf 4,778 FPS  
Medal of Honor - Rising Sun MOH3RDVD.elf 9,941 FPS  
Men in Black II - Alien Escape MiiB_GCN_rtl.elf 5,821 Action  
Mission - Impossible - Operation Surma IMF_GC-Final.elf 17,258 Action  
Monopoly - Mezase!! Daifugou Jinsei!! (Japan) GRMJ0001.elf 2,903 Board  
Mortal Kombat - Deadly Alliance mk5gc_release.elf 5,864 Fighting  
Namco Museum 50th Anniversary ffe.elf 4,979 Retro  
Need for Speed - Underground (Player’s Choice) (United Kingdom) Speed.elf 10,162 Racing  
Need for Speed - Underground 2 Speed.elf 13,870 Racing  
Nickelodeon SpongeBob SquarePants - Creature from the Krusty Krab (United Kingdom) SpongeBob_ngc_mfb.elf 16,884 Action  
Nickelodeon SpongeBob SquarePants - The Movie (United Kingdom) sb04gc_nm.elf 8,005 Action  
Nickelodeon SpongeBob SquarePants in - Battle for Bikini Bottom sbpeM.elf 9,296 Action  
Nickelodeon Tak 2 - Der Stab der Traeume (Germany) (Disc 2) BobTak2_German_Disc2.elf 1,187    
Nickelodeon The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron - Boy Genius (United Kingdom) Jimmy.elf 8,375    
Pac-Man World 3 (USA) PMA_GC_M.elf 16,619 Platfomer  
Peter Jackson’s King Kong - The Official Game of the Movie jadegc_ia2cr.elf 6,033 Action  
Scooby-Doo! Mystery Mayhem (United Kingdom) engine_ret.elf 5,849    
Scooby-Doo! Unmasked engine_ret.elf 6,066    
Spider-Man (Japan) SMGDevS.elf 9,711 Action  
Star Wars - The Clone Wars Clonewars.elf 8,173 Action  
Super Mario Strikers (Japan) MarioSoccerR.elf 8,350 Sport  
SX Superstar Supercross.elf 7,552 Sport  
Terminator 3 - The Redemption t3game_gc.elf 11,758 Action  
Tetris Worlds (Japan) TWgr.elf 7,252 Puzzle  
Top Gun - Ace of the Sky (Japan) GCNDefault.elf 2,866 Action  
Top Gun - Combat Zones (USA) GCNDefault.elf 2,866 Action  
TY the Tasmanian Tiger (USA) TY_REL.elf 7,701 Platformer  
TY the Tasmanian Tiger 2 - Bush Rescue (USA) Ty2.elf 15,792 Platformer  
TY the Tasmanian Tiger - Night of the Quinkan (USA) Ty3.elf 16,618 Platformer  
UFC - Throwdown GCNDefault.elf 2,648 Fighting  
UFC2 Tapout Final Spec (Japan) GCNDefault.elf 2,682 Sport  
ZooCube (Japan) ZooCube.elf 8,167 ?  

Link Maps (.MAP files)

Many Interactive Demo Discs contain link maps which are files that the linker generates and contains the function names. Also in retail games such as Animal Crossing and Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicals. One good way of finding these is to do a string search of the GCM ISO files for “.text section layout”.

Game Name Map File Number of Symbols Genre Youtube
Animal Crossing (Australia) foresta.map and static.map ??? RPG  
Bratz - Forever Diamondz (United Kingdom) Bratz_Gamecube Master Fast Build.MAP ??? ???  
FIFA Football 2005 (United Kingdom) fifa_z.map ??? Sport  
Final Fantasy - Crystal Chronicles dvd/map/stg009/game.MAP ? RPG  
Hot Wheels - World Race (United Kingdom) HotwheelsFCDpal.MAP ? Racing  
Jeremy McGrath Supercross World sx2002.MAP ? Sport  
Legend of Zelda, The - The Wind Waker (Korea) f_pc_profile_lst.MAP plus others ?? Action  
Mario Kart - Double Dash!! debugInfoS.MAP ?? Racing  
Mario Smash Football MarioSoccerD.MAP, MarioSoccerP.MAP, MarioSoccerR.MAP, MarioSoccerZ.MAP ?? Sport  
Nickelodeon Tak 2 - Der Stab der Traeume (Germany) (Disc 2) BobTak2_German_Disc2.MAP ?? ?  
Pikmin build.MAP ?? God Game  
Pikmin 2 demo in Multi-Game Kiosk Demo Disc 17 (USA) pikmin2?P.MAP ?? God Game  
Scooby-Doo! Mystery Mayhem (United Kingdom) engine_ret.MAP ?? Action  
Super Mario Sunshine marioEU.MAP ?? Platformer  
Sims 2, The (USA) u2_ngc_debug.map ?? Simulation  
UEFA Champions League 2004-2005 (United Kingdom) fifa_z.MAP ?? Sport  
Ultimate Spider-Man symbolgc-final.MAP ?? Action  
Zelda no Densetsu - Twilight Princess (Japan) frameworkF.MAP ?? Action  

Prototype Games with Debug Symbols

Prototype games are even more likely to contain debug symbols as they are intended for either testing or journalistic usage, thus having the symbols available would help the developers fix bugs before the final retail release. The table below is an incomplete list of prototypes that have debug symbols, if you know any more please let us know!

Game Name Map File Number of Symbols Genre Notes
NFS Underground (Preview 10-09-2003 Console+ 26669 - 010) Speed.elf 9,604 Racing Uses SNSystems Library + Debugger
Resident Evil 4 (Debug Build) Bio4.*.SYM 10,380+ Action Contains SYM files for the main executable & the REL overlay files (some RELs are stored inside DRS containers) - unknown what created the SYM files, but a parser is available.

Other Notes

This section contains notes about other games not listed above.

Pikmin 2

Thanks to Nikki (@NWPlayer123) on Twitter we now know that the pikmin2?P.MAP file in the retail Pikmin 2 release is full of junk data, as Nintendo had a tool to scrub the debug map file but the file entry on the disk still remained.

The good news is that there are 2 Demo Discs of Pikmin that contain a valid Pikmin 2 symbol map, as mentioned in this twitter thread by Nikki:

Nintendo Puzzle Collection

Nintendo Puzzle Collection (Japan) contains an ARM executable for running on the GBA that has developer symbols in it called: ponagb2m_client.elf (Panel de Pon game?).