Hacking Eiyuu Densetsu: Sora no Kiseki FC Evolution [Translation Port]

[satan89]

Windalgo was joking

I see. My bad.

 

[the database]

I've been working on the ._dt files in the text directory. Some of them have the same exact content so I was able to simply copy the English version over, but others have new content or ran off the side so I wrote patches for those. So far, these files are working in English:
t_book03._dt
t_book04._dt
t_book05._dt
t_book06._dt
t_book07._dt
t_cook2._dt -- added extra newlines to fix lines running off the side
t_memo._dt -- several new strings added to Evo; translated these by hand
t_name._dt
t_quest._dt -- it turns out FC Evo didn't add any new quests -- both versions had 86 slots for quests. Maybe new quests were only added in the other Evo games.
t_shop._dt
t_town._dt
t_world2._dt

And there's still work to be done on these files:
t_book01._dt -- need to fix image positions
t_book02._dt -- need to fix image positions
t_item2._dt -- 37 new items added to Evo, need to be translated by hand or referenced from later Trails games such as Cold Steel
t_magic._dt -- 21 new magic arts added to Evo, need to be translated by hand or referenced from later Trails games such as Cold Steel
t_monsnote._dt -- still needs to be reverse engineered, and I know new monsters were added to Evo so the English version can't be used directly

I was also looking at the things that remain in Japanese even after all these _dt files are patched. The settings menu is still in Japanese, as well as various system text, not surprisingly. There are a few other miscellaneous things too, like quest statuses ("Finished", "Expired", "In Progress") and shop types ("Arms & Guards", "Lodgings", "Septian Church") that appear over the shop name. And also several shop/inn interactions as well.

All of these strings are in the eboot.bin, when viewed with utf8 encoding. This part will probably be difficult or near impossible for now -- I assume vita eboot hacking hasn't progressed very far at the moment? I don't know much about this topic. I was able to hex edit some English translations in (but of course, I fit the English text into the length of the original Japanese text so that the overall eboot.bin length was unchanged). That actually did work, but still, I probably can't replace the Japanese strings with longer English strings unless the whole vita eboot.bin is reverse engineered, so this is a bit of a roadblock. I suppose in the worst case I will attempt to translate to English just via hex editing and keeping the English strings short, but it will be ugly. I will probably focus on finishing the remaining _dt files before I look at this again.

 

[Gorre]

Glad to see some interest. I've uploaded some resources that I'd like to share with you privately, but I'm not sure how to send private messages here. Do I need to have more posts before having the permissions to do so, perhaps?

Not sure if you've found out already but yes it takes 10 posts to be able to send PM when you click on someone's avatar image. Nice looking progress btw, but someone beat me to the multiple text boxes suggestion for lengthy English strings lol

 

[Grink]

I've been working on the ._dt files in the text directory. Some of them have the same exact content so I was able to simply copy the English version over, but others have new content or ran off the side so I wrote patches for those. So far, these files are working in English:
t_book03._dt
t_book04._dt
t_book05._dt
t_book06._dt
t_book07._dt
t_cook2._dt -- added extra newlines to fix lines running off the side
t_memo._dt -- several new strings added to Evo; translated these by hand
t_name._dt
t_quest._dt -- it turns out FC Evo didn't add any new quests -- both versions had 86 slots for quests. Maybe new quests were only added in the other Evo games.
t_shop._dt
t_town._dt
t_world2._dt

And there's still work to be done on these files:
t_book01._dt -- need to fix image positions
t_book02._dt -- need to fix image positions
t_item2._dt -- 37 new items added to Evo, need to be translated by hand or referenced from later Trails games such as Cold Steel
t_magic._dt -- 21 new magic arts added to Evo, need to be translated by hand or referenced from later Trails games such as Cold Steel
t_monsnote._dt -- still needs to be reverse engineered, and I know new monsters were added to Evo so the English version can't be used directly

I was also looking at the things that remain in Japanese even after all these _dt files are patched. The settings menu is still in Japanese, as well as various system text, not surprisingly. There are a few other miscellaneous things too, like quest statuses ("Finished", "Expired", "In Progress") and shop types ("Arms & Guards", "Lodgings", "Septian Church") that appear over the shop name. And also several shop/inn interactions as well.

All of these strings are in the eboot.bin, when viewed with utf8 encoding. This part will probably be difficult or near impossible for now -- I assume vita eboot hacking hasn't progressed very far at the moment? I don't know much about this topic. I was able to hex edit some English translations in (but of course, I fit the English text into the length of the original Japanese text so that the overall eboot.bin length was unchanged). That actually did work, but still, I probably can't replace the Japanese strings with longer English strings unless the whole vita eboot.bin is reverse engineered, so this is a bit of a roadblock. I suppose in the worst case I will attempt to translate to English just via hex editing and keeping the English strings short, but it will be ugly. I will probably focus on finishing the remaining _dt files before I look at this again.

good shit

 

[AttackOtter]

I was playing Cold Steel recently, and it got me wondering. Do you think it'd be possible to replace the Evo font with the Cold Steel version? The Cold Steel version has much closer kerning that allows for more characters per line.
Granted I haven't looked into the font file and don't know if it's built into the eboot or not.

 

[the database]

Not sure if you've found out already but yes it takes 10 posts to be able to send PM when you click on someone's avatar image. Nice looking progress btw, but someone beat me to the multiple text boxes suggestion for lengthy English strings lol

Good to know, thanks. This is my 10th post!

I was playing Cold Steel recently, and it got me wondering. Do you think it'd be possible to replace the Evo font with the Cold Steel version? The Cold Steel version has much closer kerning that allows for more characters per line.
Granted I haven't looked into the font file and don't know if it's built into the eboot or not.

I actually wanted to try this, but I wasn't sure how to get into Cold Steel's files. Expanding its data.psarc gave me several .pkg files (effects.pkg, fonts.pkg, text.pkg), and I don't know what to do with those. And I think the PS3 version has the same file structure.

And I know that FC Evo's font file is system/vitafont2bit.fnt. I tried replacing it with various files, but didn't have any luck. It crashed in some cases and other times it didn't crash but no text appeared.

Edit -- joseji informed me of a tool that let me decompress the pkg files from Cold Steel ("senpkg"). Extracting fonts.pkg gives me a single fonts_us.itf file. At a glance it seems like a different format than FC Evo's font, but I'll try dropping it in later and seeing what happens.

 

[AttackOtter]

If the font kerning is built into the font file, it should be possible to at the very least edit the kerning.
I didn't think they'd use the same font file of course, but having the Cold Steel font at least brings us a little bit closer to a possibility for editing the kerning or replacing the font.

 

[the database]

Just a brief update this time -- I finally finished patching t_item2._dt, so all items are now translated. It took forever because there were some new items, plus several stat rebalances so the existing English version wasn't fully compatible.

I was surprised to see that ingredients in the Recipe Book squeeze longer entries in by making the font narrower automatically. It would be nice if I could make use of this function in the main scenario text boxes.

Next up, I'll be working on t_magic._dt. Hopefully they didn't do a lot of rebalancing on the magic arts as well.

 

[AttackOtter]

Some of those ingredient names are wrong.

It's supposed to be a Prickly Seed and a Fish Fillet, not a Monster Seed and Monster Fish Meat.

Where did you get those names?

Edit: Ah, those appear to be from the PSP version. They've since changed a lot of those terms in the PC release. I suggest using that as a base and not the PSP version's translations, since the PC version was re-edited to fit better with the translation of TiTS SC

 

[the database]

I accidentally used the USA PSP version instead of the USA PC version (which gets patches so it's more up to date) while patching the items. The original is:

The last two ingredients are 魔獣の種 and 魔獣の魚肉 which are literally Monster Seed and Monster Fish Meat. I don't know why they toned it down to Prickly Seed and Fish Fillet in the PC version, but anyway, I redid it so the items use the USA PC version's text. Thanks for catching that.

 

[AttackOtter]

No problem. I don't think it's exactly toning it down so much as localizing it more to something that works better in English?
Monster Seed and Monster Fish Meat are kinda awkward. Plus Monster Fish Meat takes up more room than just Fish Fillet

Also, this is about what the description should say. (Ignore this if this is what it is in the PC version)

【Sit-Down Meal】 (alt. 【Sit-Down Recipe】, 【Sit-Down Dish】, 【Sit-Down】)
Restores 750 HP and
Revives all fallen allies
Homemade gruel topped with
fluffy eggs.

 

[Maverick81PL]

so... What is progress??

 

[AttackOtter]

so... What is progress??

It's being worked on. That's really the only gauge of progress at the moment.

 

[AttackOtter]

Yeah, looking at the PC version, the item descriptions are completely different between it and Evolution. They have about the same effects and it'll be easy to work on it, but it's not a simple cut and paste job.

Edit: I can do the TL work on these, if need be by the way.

 

[the database]

No problem. I don't think it's exactly toning it down so much as localizing it more to something that works better in English?
Monster Seed and Monster Fish Meat are kinda awkward. Plus Monster Fish Meat takes up more room than just Fish Fillet

Also, this is about what the description should say. (Ignore this if this is what it is in the PC version)

【Sit-Down Meal】 (alt. 【Sit-Down Recipe】, 【Sit-Down Dish】, 【Sit-Down】)
Restores 750 HP and
Revives all fallen allies
Homemade gruel topped with
fluffy eggs.

The PC version has what's listed in the first screenshot:

Salubrious Oatmeal.[Sit-Down/HP+K.O. cure for all]\nHomemade gruel topped with\nfluffy eggs.

I'm not sure why it doesn't mention the 750HP heal. We could easily edit it in manually, but I'd prefer if we could find a source that includes that in the description already.

Yeah, looking at the PC version, the item descriptions are completely different between it and Evolution. They have about the same effects and it'll be easy to work on it, but it's not a simple cut and paste job.

Edit: I can do the TL work on these, if need be by the way.

I thought I accounted for all the differences already, but I wouldn't be surprised if I missed some things. I'll send the you a table of all the items and how they've been patched your way -- can you look them over and see if you find any issues?

 

[the database]

I've been working on the Monster Book. The format was a pain to work with; it's very complicated. Thanks to Ribose who pointed me in the right direction.

There are a few new monsters exclusive to FC Evo. Also, several descriptions run off the side slightly. I think this is the worst one (at least among the monsters I've discovered so far):

Don't think there's anything I can do about this unless we manage to hack a lower font kerning value in, but I'm not optimistic about the odds of that.

 

[AttackOtter]

Damn, yeah. Might want to ask around on the Xentax or Zentax forums if anyone can look into the font file format. A lot of recent games have a font format with built in kerning data. Hopefully this is one of those games.

Now for those exclusive monsters, I'd say look into if they've been used in some of the newer Trails games. It seems pretty much everything new like that was added from other games so far, so this might be the same.

 

[the database]

OK, so I tried replacing the font with various other fonts, and the pspfont.dat file which is the font used for the PSP version of the game actually did work (it looked terrible because of the low resolution, as expected). The width was identical to the vita font though.

But that means if anyone has succeeded in hacking the PSP font, we could apply that knowledge to hack the vita font as well. Will look into it more later.

 

[AttackOtter]

Huh, really? That's pretty interesting. I didn't think the PSPFont file would be the one the game used. Honestly thought it used vitafont2bit.fnt as its primary font file.
Could you take some screenshots?

 

[the database]

Evolution does use vitafont2bit.fnt -- pspfont.dat is what the original PSP version used. I edited Evolution's eboot.bin to load pspfont.dat instead of vitafont2bit.fnt and it worked, which means these two fonts probably share the same format (I tried various other fonts, like text_us.itf from Trails of Cold Steel, fonts from Trails in the Sky PC, and the Ys Celceta font, but none of those worked -- it didn't crash but the text just disappeared).

The screenshot above is with vitafont2bit.fnt. This one below is with pspfont.dat. Notice that the amount of space the text takes is the same in both.

Edit: Monster Book is done (besides the text overflow issue).

Work that remains:

1. Fix t_book01 and t_book02 image positions in the Liberal Times books
2. Patch eboot.bin with about 500 strings -- probably the most difficult part
3. I found around 200 lines in scenario files that were newly added for Evo; these need to be translated
4. See if we can apply any font hacks to fit more text in a line, or settle with what we have if it proves too difficult
5. Graphics