Heroes of Might and Magic III HD Edition wrapper/port for PS Vita

This repository contains a loader of the Android release of Heroes of Might and Magic III HD Edition, based on the Android SO Loader by TheFloW. The loader provides a tailored, minimalistic Android-like environment to run the official ARMv7 game executables on PS Vita.

At the time of writing this readme, the Heroes of Might and Magic III HD Edition was delisted from the major Android storefronts. This loader ("port") is intended to be used only by those people who bought the game prior to the delisting and still can legally access their own copy through the Purchased Apps list on Google Play.

This software does not contain the original code, executables, assets, or other non redistributable parts of the game. The authors do not promote or condone piracy in any way. To launch and play the game on their PS Vita device, users must provide their own legally obtained copy of the game in the form of an .apk file.

Setup Instructions (For End Users)

The port has been tested only with the latest available version of the game (which is v1.1.6)

In order to properly install the game, you'll have to follow these steps precisely:

Install kubridge and FdFix by copying kubridge.skprx and fd_fix.skprx to your taiHEN plugins folder (usually ur0:tai) and adding two entries to your config.txt under *KERNEL:

  *KERNEL
  ur0:tai/kubridge.skprx
  ur0:tai/fd_fix.skprx

Note Don't install fd_fix.skprx if you're using the rePatch plugin!

Note 2 You no longer need to install libgpu_es4_kernel_ext.skprx with version 1.0.1 or higher (since it's already bundled with the game).

Legally obtain your copy of Heroes of Might and Magic III HD Edition for Android in form of an .apk file and .obb files (main.1113.com.ubisoft.mightandmagic.heroesiii.obb and patch.1110.com.ubisoft.mightandmagic.heroesiii.obb are located inside the /sdcard/android/obb/com.ubisoft.mightandmagic.heroesiii/) folder. You can get all the required files directly from your phone or by using any APK extractor you can find on Google Play.
Open the .apk with any zip explorer (like 7-Zip) and extract it. Copy libhomm3.so file (located in the lib/armeabi-v7a folder inside the apk) into ux0:data/homm3hd/.
Open the main.1113.com.ubisoft.mightandmagic.heroesiii.obb with your zip explorer (.obb files are zip files just like .apk files so just rename the .obb to .zip) and extract the contents to ux0:data/homm3hd/.
Same as before, open the patch.1110.com.ubisoft.mightandmagic.heroesiii.obb with the zip explorer and extract the contents inside the zip to ux0:data/homm3hd/.
Install HOMM3.vpk (from Releases).

Additional info

You can add custom "Restoration of Erathia" maps by copying them into ux0:data/homm3hd/data/maps/<your_language_folder>/ folder (ux0:data/homm3hd/data/maps/en/ for example). Note that ONLY "The Restoration of Erathia" maps are supported.

Known Issues

Sprites are sometimes rendered in the wrong order on the world map.
It may be hard to trigger ranged unit attack with double tap during the big battles (due to lower framerate). You may need to turn on the auto combat in some situations to trigger their attack (and disable it afterwards).
Unit movement speed is a bit too fast during combat.
The game can crash sometimes due to running out of vram.
Visual bugs may appear after some time (dark UI elements, weird looking rectangles in the place of fading out UI elements). It's recommended to save the game and restart it at that point.

Build Instructions (For Developers)

In order to build the loader, you'll need a hardfp vitasdk (not the softfp one that's used for other Android ports)

Dependencies

mkdir build && cd build
cmake .. -DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=${VITASDK}/share/vita.toolchain.cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DVIDEO_VITA_PVR=ON
make install

You may need to rebuild SDL_mixer and SDL_image manually after the installation of the required SDL2 fork.

After all these requirements are met, you can compile the loader with the following commands:

mkdir build && cd build
cmake .. && make

Credits

TheOfficialFloW for the original .so loader.
GrapheneCt for the PVR_PSP2, gpu_es4_kernel_ext and lots of tips.
TheOfficialFloW, Rinnegatamante and v-atamanenko for all of the previous work on Android wrapper ports.

lovefancy88 / homm3hd-vita