LLM-Assisted Decompilation Challenges: From Rapid Progress to Long-Tail Difficulties in Snowboard Kids 2 Reverse Engineering
By
knackers
Crisp on the outside, thoughtful on the inside. A keeper.
Summary
The article details the author's experience using LLM-assisted decompilation for the Nintendo 64 game Snowboard Kids 2. After initial rapid progress using one-shot decompilation (from 25% to 58% matched code), progress slowed dramatically. The author describes evolving their workflow and tooling to push decompilation to around 75% before hitting fundamental limitations. The post explores the challenges of tackling increasingly difficult functions in the 'long tail' of decompilation work, highlighting both the effectiveness and limitations of current LLM approaches for reverse engineering legacy game code.
Key quotes
· 5 pulledAfter that, progress slowed dramatically, requiring me to significantly alter my workflow.
With those changes, I pushed the decompilation into the ~75% range before stalling out again, this time perhaps for good, though I would love to be proved wrong.
This post describes how my workflow h
After rapid advances thanks to one-shot decompilation, progress on the Snowboard Kids 2 decompilation began to falter.
This post explores the workflow evolution, tooling improvements, and fundamental LLM limits that emerged when tackling the long tail of increasingly difficult functions.
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