Is this a garbage level?

[SergeantViggo]

Hello again, I have another question!

On Fur Fighters: Viggo's Revenge (PS2) there's a file called TEST_L3.LP2. When I try to load it into the game, the game gives me an error (cannot load a file of size 0). This is the same generic error you get when you try to load a file that doesn't exist. Except Test_L3 does exist, and has a file size of 2.66kb (the test hub isn't much bigger).

So my question is, is there any possibility that this level could still be loadable somehow? Or, judging by the small file size, is it just a leftover garbage level that in no way contains anything other than random junk inside? I took a peek in HxD and there does seem to be level remnants in there at least, such as loading instructions at the top.

[bungholio]

A 2.66kb sized level!???? That would be the smallest file size I had ever seen for a level for a game ever. Nintendo game levels are probably bigger than that. Your best guess would be looking at the sizes of other levels. If you look at other levels and see them being multiple megabytes while this is 2.66kb, it's probably an empty level that only went as far as giving it a name and nothing more.

[Lazy Bastard]

Do you know anything about the level file format? There's probably something in the file header that tells the system what the size of the file is, and its value is probably 0. If there's a shell of a real level floating around in there, setting the correct file size value might grant you access to it.

I'm not sure if the file is compressed or otherwise obfuscated (proprietary encoding format, encryption, etc), but if you can hex edit that level file and another level file, you might be able to identify the address of the file size value (if indeed there is one). If you know the size of a working level file and open that in a hex editor, look for the little-endian representation of its file size (so, check the real file size of the file, convert that number to hex, then search for it in little-endian).