Hacking Final Fantasy Type-0 RomHacking

[TheLostSabre]

There's no patch released.

 

[Xaijin]

This is awesome!
I already played FinalFantasy type 0 but the magic is Square enix games really lie in the story so I stopped when I reached the second chapter of the second UMD...
You guys rock and I hope that you succeed

Do you guys have a donation box of some sort? Would love to donate

 

[xist]

Inspired by new users with 1 post, silly repetitive questions and a limited willingness to read....this can and will be updated as required/prompted. (or deleted if desired)

With its long and troubled history including a jump of platforms and a name change, Final Fantasy Type-0 is undoubtedly a game guilty of stirring interest in any passing fan of Square’s trademark series. Despite it’s positive reception upon release in Japan, and the clamouring of Western fans for a localisation (and by all accounts an almost complete official translation and dub) Final Fantasy Type-0 remains anchored resolutely within Japan. Of course with a series like Final Fantasy a trifling language barrier is unlikely to stop dedicated gamers, but as so often is the case with JRPG’s, a text heavy story detailing the machinations of political and military intrigue curtail a player from truly enjoying the game. Factor in the variation of gameplay styles ranging from party oriented combat to RTS style skirmishes and, whilst playing the game with no understanding of the text is possible, it’s far from truly enjoyable.

Enter SkyBladeCloud…

Sky, as he shall henceforth be known, with experience of translating various Final Fantasy games into his native Spanish and the creation of various file manipulation and extraction tools was ideally placed to head a localisation project. And Type-0 is no mean feat to take-on with its vast bodies of text and captioned images spanning two UMD’s. Calling for translators and script editors to aid the endeavour and encouraging support from fans, work began on the project. And it’s still going on…

Rather than walls of text detailing the in’s and out’s of the project, a series of questions seems more versatile to address the major points that may be raised by the curious petitioner.


Q. Where do I get the game?
A. Final Fantasy Type-0 is currently available via the Japanese PSN (making a Japanese account is easy…there are many guides for doing this) and can be easily imported.

Q. Will this translation patch work without a homebrew capable PSP/Vita?
A. No. Sadly tinkering with official code makes it “unofficial”. That means even if you have the PSN version of the game then importing a translation into it will make it unplayable on an official firmwared console. You’ll need a temporary CFW at the very least.

Q. When will the patch be finished? Where do I get the latest release?
A. How long is a piece of string? It will be finished when it’s finished, and of course translation of the text is the limiting factor here. However there will only be a complete translation released and not a series of sequential translation patches. No amount of whining will change this….if you’re reading this without seeing a download link to the translation at the tail end of the message then it’s not done yet.

Q. Translation is easy! Even Google can do it! I’ll help using my powers of web translaterering!
A. The short answer to this is that the only way to translate a game is by knowing the language. Machine translations are not acceptable. The longer answer is that If a game is text heavy then errors will occur if text is just bunged into a translator. Nuances are lost, relationships are ignored and mistakes are made. If you’re still blinded by the wonders of Google/Yahoo/Whatever translate then go browse some Chinese and Japanese forums and see how much sense they make.
If you are truly Japanese competent however that’s a different issue. If you’d like to help get in contact with Sky via Skype (skybladecloud).

Q. Two UMD’s!? How’s that going to work?
A. At this point in time the current plan is to merge the UMD’s into a single image so that text can be translated with a single tool. Sky has created a merging utility to that effect. At some point in the future there may well be single patches for each UMD, but the task at hand is to get the translation done first, and then later round out the possibilities available.

Q. Using CFW my PS3 can play PSP games. Can I play this one? Will the translation patch work?
A. At this stage the best answer that can be given is possibly. The PS3’s PSP support is wobbly and it’s unknown at this time how it will react to patched/merged ISO’s and Type-0 as a whole. Don’t get your hopes up but equally don’t just give up on the idea. That being said a CFW’d PSP is the ideal home for Type-0.

Q. I’m playing the game and there’s a little slowdown/lag. Is that normal?
A. It is obviously dependent upon a variety of factors (memory stick performance, PSP model etc..) but Type-0 does experience a little gameplay lag when things get busy. So yes, expect a tiny bit of performance drop from time to time as seen in the original game.

Q. Will there be any changes made with the patch aside from the English translation?
A. The game code includes the Type-0 demo data which is obviously unnecessary as these missions are included in the full game. However playing through the demo unlocked Summer and Royal uniforms for the 14 characters. Obviously as playing though these missions twice just for costumes seems a tad redundant, these costume sets will be made available from the outset instead.

Q. I can’t help with the translation…is there anything else I can I do to assist the team?
A. Like it or loathe it the best answer to this question is to buy the game. Patches get unfairly tarnished with the piracy claim but if this patch encourages people to actually invest in a PSP game then ultimately it’s a good thing. See the first question for more details on where to get it.

Also STAY INTERESTED! It’ll come but as with any huge project things take time.

Q. Where is the project based?
A. The public home of the project is centred around the dual hubs of GBAtemp and Sky's blog.

Q. Will this be as good as the Vagrant Story localisation by Alexander O. Smith
A. No. Nothing is as good as the Vagrant Story translation. AOS is a giant among men. Sorry folks...

Q. Will the Japanese language track be redubbed into English?
A. Currently Sky has no plans to do so with the translation alone being a huge endeavour. Once done though he may help others to make a dub possible. However that's a distant possibility for the future.

Q. Where do i get the patch? I don't see the translation patch! WHERE DO I GET THE PATCH!
A. Seeing as you got this far where the hell were your eyes up near answer 3? First rule of Type-0 club is don't be an idiot....same goes for the second and third rules...


I AM the reinforcements....

 

[SkyBladeCloud]

Thanks Xist, may I put your post as OP?

 

[Iscu16]

oke srry 4 the trouble

 

[xist]

Thanks Xist, may I put your post as OP?

Of course you may. It was getting to the point where someone needed to detail some project information and given that there's no opportunity to assist you other than to invent things to help out i decided to take the initiative. I think it covers the main points that i felt were important.

Edit- although saying that, you might also consider (due to the ridiculous size of this topic) starting a new topic with that post above as the first post and then all your coding and detailed information in the subsequent posts.

 

[SkyBladeCloud]

You might be right, a new topic would be a good idea since there have been many news since this one started, and that would help the fans being up to date.
I'll end up doing it, but due to some issues, I'll postpone the idea for the moment. Thanks again:

~Sky

 

[trenso]

@trenso, yes, u have to go to options. Was replaced with the "installation" option. If u really read all 50 pages u should know that but that aside, sky made it that way^^

Must have over looked that post since some of them were just people being rude/ impatient and annoying asking and suggesting things that weren't really relevant, but yea I'm enjoying the merged files even though I can't understand anything of whats going on.

 

[insi]

Hi everyone, I've been eagerly following this topic for quite some time. First of all thanks for the effort of the translation and hacking team!

I can only make assumptions about the project, but peronally I think this projects lacks a bit of transparency (and probably efficiency), which is why I would suggest using a open repository, website or something similar to track and show progress to the community and the team.

Examples include Google Code and/or Google Docs or even something like a Wikia. I don't know if you guys are already using these or something similar, but why not make it "public read-only" so that everyone can see the progress? This would save a lot of Q/A as well. Seeing the progress of the project might give other people some motivation to join as well as increase motivation of the team as well. Maybe we can even see a speed up at the last 20% when everyone wants to see the finished product ASAP.

Setting up such a system takes probably a two or three days at best - if I'm generous it could even take two weeks but I think the time saved by a proper organization structure might be well worth the effort. I think we're at least a few months (maybe even 1-2 years) away from a complete translation at this point.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[SkyBladeCloud]

Hi there insi and thanks for yor message.

We've been actually using a SVN for quite some time now, we did experience a speed boost when we started, but I think the rest of the team will agree with the fact that it should be kept private.

As good as keeping track of the job is, I don't feel very safe sharing all we do, Keep in mind that if we were to share all translated script, tools, references and notes, the quality of the project could be put in danger, as anyone would be able to distribute/modify our work, or even steal it.

In fact, when the project started it was all public, until we notices some videos showing our work by fans of the translation (that was ok but one of them was even took down by SE :S).

However, I'll try to make the translation more transparent and give news more often, if I don't do that already, is because I'm currently busy with my career project.

Regards:

~Sky

 

[idalarian]

Hey guys, just wanted to say I really appreciate the work, time and effort you're putting into the project! Oh and I read in some pages that you were maybe looking for a talented translator in the field to revise some parts. Why not ask Tomato (http://legendsoflocalization.com/contact/) a little bit of his help if you have any questions? Ok probably he won't invest himself fully in the project but I'm sure he'll be glad to help in any way he can for some localization problems (well according to his page anyways...).

 

[l0l_cabbage]

So, how's the translation is going?

 

[Reako]

Hello,

As the main post said the files were not decrypted or anything of that sort, I thought it would be possible to make a temporary, very small, patch for the game. Mainly including the skills' descriptions in order to make them understandable without constantly translating it in my mind, but mostly for my step brother who is playing the game with me. He does not understand Japanese at all, so it is only for personal use. But when I open the game with a Hex Editor, I can find words such as ''Queen'', but I cannot find ''クイーン'' or for example her skill Cross Judge when looking for either ''Cross Judge'' or ''クロスジャッジ, or in a different example to look for ''Attack'' or ''攻''. As there is no Japanese text in the ''text'' area, only English text and combinations of weird symbols. How am I supposed to find the text, or even get somewhat closer to finding it? I have what is necessary to translate, but I am not very skilled at these things (yet, hopefully). If it is not too much trouble, could someone tell me what it is that I have to do to be able to find text? I would greatly appreciate it. I doubt I could help with the translation that is ongoing, but that is not the point of my question, nor will I try to make a translation of my own, it is just for personal use on a small scale.

To anyone who will help me, I thank you in advance.

EDIT: I forgot to mention the fact that I am opening yellow.pkg and yellow.fsd with the Hex Editor, not the ISO itself.

 

[JonnyLawless]

I created n account on here JUST TO ENCOURAGE YOU (Skyblade) TO KEEP IT UP!!! I really do wanna play this since square F**ked us AGAIN. but it looks like we at least have spmebody competent on the project. If you do release anything PLZ PM me. and also if there's anything I can do to help don't hesitate to ask.

 

[RukaRoaw]

Planning on importing soon. This is so exciting! I am happy that there is not too much attention being drawn to this as Sqaure might actually shut this down for reasons only known to them. Keep up the good work! Reminds me of the time when Mother 3 was being transelated. On a side note, Sky, are you accepting voice actors or plan on using some kind of fan dub?

 

[xist]

On a side note, Sky, are you accepting voice actors or plan on using some kind of fan dub?

HOLY CRAP, not another one....READ THE DAMN TOPIC! Or better yet search within the topic.

 

[joegoku]

Planning on importing soon. This is so exciting! I am happy that there is not too much attention being drawn to this as Sqaure might actually shut this down for reasons only known to them. Keep up the good work! Reminds me of the time when Mother 3 was being transelated. On a side note, Sky, are you accepting voice actors or plan on using some kind of fan dub?

it was discussed before, not within THIS project. Maybe after eng sub-translation is finished, but thats in the clouds cause it will take alot of time. Clear no at the current state. Sky has shown interest but said will finish translation first.

 

[RukaRoaw]

HOLY CRAP, not another one....READ THE DAMN TOPIC! Or better yet search within the topic.

Well, the topic was "rom hacking" and your compilation did lack any reference to quedtions concerning voice changes. I was only clarifying as I did see a post with Sky talking of Turkey voices and a few other possibly sarcastic posts.

 

[xist]

Well, the topic was "rom hacking" and your compilation did lack any reference to quedtions concerning voice changes. I was only clarifying as I did see a post with Sky talking of Turkey voices and a few other possibly sarcastic threads.

If you had used the "search this thread" option with the term dub then you'd have quickly got your answer.

 

[coredecepts]

If someone is going to insert voice acting into this game, it won't be us.