Hacking Psp iso translations possible?

[soultakerx]

Are they possible, if so can someone direct me to a guide or tutorial how to, I would like to learn how to translate games

 

[Schlupi]

There is no guide "how to", but if you want info... Ask some of the people who translated games (Team HGG translated Monster Hunter 2nd G and 3rd, and I know somebody did Kingdom Hearts BBS/Final Mix, Hatsune Miku, etc).

Good luck.

 

[prowler]

Most people say to get the idea of translating a PSP game, start off on something like the DS (since there is already a ton of guides (romhacking.net)).

I'm not saying translating DS games are much like PSP games but if you have no idea how shit works, your translation is going to be stuck at 0% forever.

 

[Rydian]

Games like to all do shit differently, so there can never be one guide that shows you how to do it. Often for a new translation the people doing it need to figure out how the game works.

 

[soultakerx]

Does translating a game require significant knowledge of programming or will provided tutorials be sufficient. What I'm saying is that I've no experience and is it possible to learn through provided translation guids ps i think i'll start on NDS games

 

[FAST6191]

I would say it helps to have some knowledge of some of the concepts in programming- pointers, strings, variables/placeholders and such as you will probably encounter them all. Likewise a bit of programming goes a long way when it comes to building custom programs to handle custom formats (the PSP has some common formats but custom stuff is all the rage and not many of those common formats have nice tools to edit them compared even to the likes of the DS). What I have seen though is PSP games do like compression and in some cases some encryption/cryptography/obfuscation far more than some other consoles.

After that find a program capable of pulling apart and rebuilding a PSP iso (there are loads of them). Find an editor capable of dealing with the PSP 2d formats (afraid I have not got one to hand I like to use), you might want a PSP disassembler (not sure if there are any good standalone ones or if it is just IDA) and from there it pretty standard rom hacking for file system based isos/roms. The PSP has quite a lot of power compared to a lot of devices so some methods might not be quite so hardware oriented which cuts both ways (more likely to use common formats as opposed to ones close to the hardware less powerful consoles are all but mandated to use but equally capable of doing some nasty complex stuff).

 

[soultakerx]

with sound hacking is it possible to even change voice acting. The game I wish to translate in the far off future for psp is super robot tasien z2 and it has little tidbits of voice acting probably taken from the original animes that some characters belong, is it possible that I can do the same.

 

[FAST6191]

It is possible to change anything but it can be difficult.
Traditionally sound hacking was one of the more difficult areas of rom hacking but with file system based consoles and known formats (assuming you just want to do a like for like replacement) it could be as easy as finding the file that does what you want, encoding a new one in your chosen audio editor, maybe converting it a bit if your initial editor did not allow it and then injecting it back into the rom.
More likely is the game has a big archive or voice clips somewhere which you get to pull apart, edit as above and put back together before putting it back into the rom.

After this I can scare you with hideously complex methods I have seen games (mainly on other systems) use in the past but I will save that until you have found where the sounds are stored.

 

[raulpica]

This thread reminded me of my Evangelion: Another Cases translation (which I've left dead in the water). I hope to be able to pick it up again during Xmas.

The real problem for PSP translating is not having a good emulator for it for quick tests (and debugging, which I know only on a basilar level anyways).

I hate having to transfer every single time 600mbs to my MS just to test something :c

 

[soultakerx]

Thanks guys for all your help but I'm going to put the psp translation on hold till I get a better grasp of ROM hacking for now I'm focusing on ds games specifically SRW L the "ultimate Nintendo ROM hacking guide" has been useful so far and I'm beginning to understand Tables.