Place for me to add projects that I haven't fully committed to for whatever reason.
If you are interested in helping me with any of these projects please contact me.
Feel free to join my Hacking Discord server where I plan on posting updates for all my projects.
I apologize for the awful notes.
Info: Not sure if "relocalization" is the right term but I want to edit the existing localization of the game to use the modern terms used in later Ys localizations and releases. Having Dogi be renamed as Colin is funny though
Progress: Made a table file and found the text, I don't think dumping text is needed. I also made a spreadsheet to compare what needs to be changed
Notes: See notes file and localization changes spreadsheet
Status: I'll work on this eventually I think. I know that the English localization of the game also had many balance changes but I haven't found the stats in the game's files yet
Info: Same thing like the PC-Engine version of the games, I wanted to fix Atlus' localization of the game to match the newer terms used.
Progress: Some of the text has been edited.
Notes: The text for Ys I is in overlay/main_0001.bin and Ys II in overlay/main_0002.bin with the text using Shift-JIS encoding. All overlays are loaded at 0x205C000. Names of locations on the map are in different .inf files located in data\ys1\files\inf.
I have columns in the localization changes spreadsheet for this game too.
Status: I figured out how to load NDS projects into Ghidra, some strings don't seem to have pointers but that should be fine. I will start working on it more.
Info: Localized as Mega Man Battle Chip Challenge N1, this game is different from its GBA counterpart Mega Man Battle Chip Challenge being a cutdown version of it.
Progress: Made an unfinished table file (thanks to Sugunii for the help!), found where the text is located.
Notes: See notes file
Status: I don't have a full table file so I won't be able to dump all the text I think. I might just compare strings from the Japanese GBA version and then replace them with their English counterparts.
Info: While I already have been working on translating Ys V: Lost Kefin, Kingdom of Sand as one of my main projects, I eventually want to translate the other Ys games that were remake on the PS2.
Progress: I only looked at the file structures and formats for all of the games' ISOs.
Notes: The only different between the normal and the "Tokubetsu Genteiban" releases of Ys I & II - Eternal Story is a single byte change (in SYSTEM.CNF to change SLPS_252.06 to SLPS_252.05).
Ys III - Wanderers from Ys has the extact same file structure as Ys V by having DATA.BIN, DATA0.BIN, and DATA1.BIN for all the game's data. The game also uses the same custom graphics formats. This should be the easiest to hack next.
Ys IV - Mask of the Sun, A New Theory has DAT.PAK and DAT.PKI to store all its gamedata. I found a script by Silvris that extracts them.
Using their permission, I made my own version of the extractor. I also made a PKM/PAK/PKI re-inserter but I'm struggling on rebuilding the files perfectly. More research will be needed for these formats.
Status: I do have some folks willing to work with me for translating these games, but Lost Kefin is going to be the main project.
Info: While I'm not super familliar with the series, my friend wants this game translated so I looked into it.
Progress: Using previous attempts to see how the game works, I was able to get the script files extracted.
Notes: The font is data/font12jp.NFTR and is in Shift-JIS with variable-width ASCII support. All text files are .rtz files in the scnrts folder and are LZ10 compressed. The rest of the game's files are in .narc archives and use formats that can be opened with NitroPaint.
Status: I do have some people interested in helping with translating this but with Lost Kefin being my main priority I don't want to lead another game right now. So if anyone else wants to pick it up, feel free to do so!
Info: Wow another Ys translation attempt! This version has very interesting in-game artwork and also has titlescreen/boxart made by the legendary Yoshitaka Amano.
Progress: I didn't get far since it seems that the game's text is compressed.
Notes: Once decompressed into the RAM, the game uses Shift-JIS encoding.
Status: I need to figure out what kind of compression the game uses still.
Info: I'm still not done with this series. When looking into the different versions of this game, this specific version is seen as a good version (with other later ports like the Genesis version being based off of this). So it made me surprised to see that nobody had bothered to translate it.
Progress: I found the text.
Notes: Game uses Shift-JIS encoding.
Status: The game only supporting full-width text will cause issues with fitting an accurate translation, but if I can get a translation of the game then I'll try to insert it.
Info: Guess which game in this collection I wanted to get translated. I only looked into this since the author of the current existing translation had disappeared without releasing any of the files.
Progress: I made a table file that only includes the English letters.
Notes: See the original thread for bits and pieces of hacking notes.
Status: I want to be able to recreate the existing work instead of just using the original author's patch so that it can be used for the other games in the collection and its sequel.
Info: While there already is a translation for the game, the translation quality was critisized. I managed to find an old, full translated script of the game done by Translator Tom. I asked for permission to use the script as a personal project.
Progress: I was able to get most of the Japanese script dumped and inserted the first few lines of the game.
I got in contact with Specialagentape, the hacker and editor of the original project. They explained to me that most of the script that their translator Higsby worked on had to be trimmed down a lot due to the limitted space that the Gameboy (Colour) screen has. This is completely understandable on their end.
I also got in contact with Tom for permission to use their old English translation. They wanted me to not release anything if I do use their script, but if I ever finished up anything, they would be willing to make a new translated script.
So ideally, I'd have to implement some methods to increase the number of possible letters on a screen, such as implementing a Variable Width Font (VWF) routine.
Notes: I used the ROMhacking tutorials by Bunkai to help with hacking the game. My files for this project were a complete mess.
Status: I might return to this one day and also try hacking the counterpart game Red Book or its sequel game White Book. Hopefully we see more Devil Children translations in general since there's still a good few games left untranslated.
Info: After I successfully made a full translation of the MSX version of the game I wanted to try translating the other versions since the MSX release is distinct from the others. Since I had already beat the PC-88 version I wanted to try translating that.
Progress: With the help of MKCA, we were able to make a full table file for all the characters used in the PC-88 BIOS files, including the Kanji tables. The text for the game was found and I was able to edit it. The issue is that there is a lack of space available to add longer text or even use non-fullwidth characters.
Notes: None
Status: If I can get better at hacking Japanese PCs like the PC-88, or even the Sharp X1 and FM-7, I can translate the game. It's a shame that there isn't that many resources for hacking these systems.
Info: Popful Mail is one of the more underrated titles by Nihon Falcom. There are multiple versions released but the only one that was officially localized (though poorly translated) was the Sega CD version. The PCE-CD version of the game is also popular and recently Forrealsyall made a full translated playthough of the game. Which made me interested in trying to hack it to insert their translation. Big thanks to X-pert74 for bringing this to my attention!
Progress: I found the game's text and managed to edit it. But the font is very large it would be ideal to support ASCII encoding.
Notes: Game uses Shift-JIS encoding.
Status: I will need to look more into this as I'm not very familliar with HuC6280 assembly.
Info: The only Wild Arms game I've played is the first Wild Arms but I'm interested in playing the other games too, including its remake on the PS2. Thanks to Lime for letting me know that the game's script could use a better translation, or at least be editted to sound better. The original Japanese release also had voices for the characters in battles that were removed in the English localization so I want to try to restore those voices.
Progress: I found the game's text and the game still seems to have the voice files, I just need to find a way to make them play in-game.
Notes: Game uses Shift-JIS encoding(?) for its text. Many files are idential between USA and JAP releases.
Status: I'm still working on this.
Info: I have beat this game in full once thanks to the multiple guides on GameFAQs but I still want to have this game translated, especially since there are many other translated Evangelion games
Progress: Zoinkitty has posted a file inserter and character font before on the ROMhacking.net forums but the download links do not work any more.
The filetable posted by Zoinkitty is still available. Interestingly, a Korean translation of the game did release but by different people (and not OP)
Notes: None from me.
Status: I might return to this eventually, but hopefully an N64 hacking expert like Zoinkitty tackles this instead
Info: I only know about this game because of the music track *Select Your Carranger! but still I want to try translating this game eventually
Progress: I haven't found any of the text graphics or text itself
Notes: None
Status: I will need to learn more about 65c816 assembly to hack this game
Info: I think by now you can tell that I really like Ys, so I wanted to see what I could get translation hacks going for.
Progress: I made a pretty basic table file based off of the PC-88 BIOS files and also found the text for the game
Notes: Nothing to say here
Status: Cancelled, well, only my version of the translation project. I found someone that is working on translating the entire PC-88 Ys trilogy, so there's no reason for me to continue working on this (they've made much more progress). I'll update this whenever that project is finished
Info: A really cool shump/dungeon crawler doujin game with a really cool artstyle and soundtrack that I saw my friend Sugunii play. The game seems to have a story but is sadly untranslated so I decided to look into if I could find the text.
Progress: I found the text but I have no translator.
Notes: Text for the game can be found in the date folder in the indiviual .scp files for each stage. The stages' script files seem to just have a text "" command which can be changed.
Status: This is just something I looked into for curiousity. If someone is interested in translating the game it seems pretty simple to do so.
Info: A game I don't really know much about but my friend wanted to get the sprites extracted as regular image files.
Progress: After unpacking the ROM with NitroPacker I was able to find the characters' graphics in data/2d/cast as file formats that were recognized by NitroPaint and was able to extract.
Notes: None
Status: I guess this is considered complete? Once NitroPaint has the function to export NANR animations as .GIF files, extracting the character animations would be faster.
Info: Same thing with Witch's Wish my friend wanted to extract the graphics of the game because they love the cute artstyle.
Progress: I couldn't do much, the game has a lot of overlays and a single romfile.bin so I'd have to do some more manual work to extract the sprites.
Notes: None
Status: Even though I didn't get much done I still wanted to add it here so I can get into the habit of posting about future tinkering with other games.