Hacking Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE restoration

[Riku]

I was answering to this part:

people is getting a little impatient about whether or not a uncensor patch will be made

Your "restoration" thread making people believe they can expect unaltered version of the game from you, which is not true.

 

[Ruben Burgt]

To truly have an uncensored version, you would have to remove the added effects that hide cleavages, replace the audio with the original audio, put the pelvis bones back and replace the censored costumes.

Wouldn't it be better to replace the files of the Japanese version with the English menu and subtitles? Then again, you would have the subtitles from the localised version which is based on the edited audio.

Still great that someone is looking to restore the game and for that am I him (or her?) grateful for.

It is sad, really. I wanted to buy a Wii U for this game and buy it day one, but now I don't want to buy it at all anymore and will only buy it used even if there will be a fan patch for it avaiable.

Nintendo really messed up this time. The game already sold worse enough in Japan as it is.

I completely understand you when you said that you don't want to buy the wii u anymore. Fatal Frame 5, xenoblade chronicles x, fire emblem awakening, fire emblem fates and probably a few more has all fallen victim to Nintendo censorship. I was hyped for all these games and now I can only play Xenoblade chronicles x and fire emblem awakening thanks to the modders on this site.
It's a shame Nintendo censor their own games.

 

[dmc310]

Thank you for this, Nintendo has butchered this and even the artbook

 

[CXu]

I don't think it will be done. Not by a kid who, obviously, didn't finished and can't understand original game. A changes were made in scripts such as scene camera angles, dialog boxes count, re-recorded voices, etc. It's not just about models and textures. OP have no idea what he is talking about.

For now we don't know the extent of what needs to be done within the game files to restore what functionality, but we know that we at least have the tools to do some changes, and that's good. Also, yeah, maybe he can't understand the original game, but that's what a community is for. If one person can't do it, someone else can pick it up, help out or work together to try and find some solution. Anyway, no need to be a killjoy about something before we even know exactly what can be done, but it does give hope since there is something, since we can edit things in the Japanese game, and therefore most likely in the English game as well.

 

[Sn0wCrack]

I tried my hand at this before, but unfortunatly didn't have the tools to repack the cpk archives correctly.

However, I'd say the easiest way to have the original level of content is to simply copy over a repacked English pack_031_message.cpk over the Japanese version.
It'd have to be repacked anyways as more than likely the folder structure will be changed from all the files being in a /JP/ directory to an /EN/ directory and the game not knowing what to do with that.

The alternative option is to place everything BUT the pack_031_message.cpk file of an English version of the game with the Japanese files (or at least anything pretaining to censored content, such as maps, textures, models, movies, etc.), as this will be the easiest without having to repack.
However this has the downside of having unsubbed cutscenes and video.

None of this can be really tested as of right now, as the English verison won't be dumped until the game is officially released.

 

[CXu]

Usually moving English text over to the Japanese version gets kinda wonky due to font and line wrapping and stuff, and dialogue count might still be different in some way, but yeah, until the game is out it's only just speculation anyway.

 

[Sn0wCrack]

Usually moving English text over to the Japanese version gets kinda wonky due to font and line wrapping and stuff, and dialogue count might still be different in some way, but yeah, until the game is out it's only just speculation anyway.

I completely forgot that could even be an issue.
So I would assume my second option to be the better as a for now solution then, huh.

 

[Kimran]

I completely understand you when you said that you don't want to buy the wii u anymore. Fatal Frame 5, xenoblade chronicles x, fire emblem awakening, fire emblem fates and probably a few more has all fallen victim to Nintendo censorship. I was hyped for all these games and now I can only play Xenoblade chronicles x and fire emblem awakening thanks to the modders on this site.
It's a shame Nintendo censor their own games.

Yes, it is a shame, but Nintendo's crazy censorship policy hadn't hit me as hard as it hit you (and other people) until now, due to the european version of Fire Emblem Awakening having not even been close as much censored as the American version. No edited character models or censored DLC hotspring pictures. We only had a small change in one of the support conversations between Tharja and someone I can't remember about her breasts. And while I don't like censoring in general I still could live with that.

Albeit, I can't say the same about Tokyo Mirage Sessions, which is exactly as butchered in the euopean version as it is in the American one.
I think the same is true for XB:C and FE: Fates, of which I still bought the latter even after hearing about the censorship as I already had spent weeks to get my hands on a Collectors edition beforehand and didn't want to cancel my order after all that.

However, I already decided not to buy the next FE whenever it will be released. They gained my trust after Awakening as it is one of my favourite games of all time, but they destroyed it with Fates.

Never again.

So, I can only hope that this patch will work out. Really want to play the real Tokyo Mirage Sessions.

 

[joex11]

I tried my hand at this before, but unfortunatly didn't have the tools to repack the cpk archives correctly.

However, I'd say the easiest way to have the original level of content is to simply copy over a repacked English pack_031_message.cpk over the Japanese version.
It'd have to be repacked anyways as more than likely the folder structure will be changed from all the files being in a /JP/ directory to an /EN/ directory and the game not knowing what to do with that.

The alternative option is to place everything BUT the pack_031_message.cpk file of an English version of the game with the Japanese files (or at least anything pretaining to censored content, such as maps, textures, models, movies, etc.), as this will be the easiest without having to repack.
However this has the downside of having unsubbed cutscenes and video.

None of this can be really tested as of right now, as the English verison won't be dumped until the game is officially released.

I'm really looking forward to this patch. unsubbed cutscenes and videos are a small price to pay for an uncensored version

 

[Sakitoshi]

@Sn0wCrack That is exactly what I was gonna do first, but as you can see on the OP picture the japanese game uses fixed width fonts and the spacing will be all over the place.
At first I'll focus on the character models and fix the ages in the profiles. I'll see about the rest once I reach further to test the changes.

 

[cristian321]

wow, thanks for trying this for us,btw did someone ever modded fatal frame to have the original unlockable models?

 

[Sn0wCrack]

@Sn0wCrack That is exactly what I was gonna do first, but as you can see on the OP picture the japanese game uses fixed width fonts and the spacing will be all over the place.
At first I'll focus on the character models and fix the ages in the profiles. I'll see about the rest once I reach further to test the changes.

You don't have to copy over the Japanese font files onto the English version of the game, but yeah, we really do have to wait for the English version before we can say anything.

 

[GHANMI]

The dialogue suffered from lots of changes as well, for example stuff like managers telling the idols what to do, and the photographer who went crazy, not just the ages were increased. If you just copy the English text file as is, you'll preserve the scripting of the US version too most likely and thus if a scenario got changed to "..." or animations were changed (which indeed they were, like when they're greeting each others or even the way they're sitting) you'd end up importing said changes, if not breaking the game in case it's referencing differently named audio files.

The English version suffered too much since the changes extend to more areas than the JP one (this is waaaay beyond the technically simpler model and text changes in Bravely Second) and they likely broke stuff they don't like (minigames, DLC compatibility) so importing whatever text there is to the JP version is the way to go... I'd say, but not even the text can be trusted to be accurate, not even with Atlus' involvement.

And the copyrighted bullshit would be an unnecessary excuse for them to wipe yet another alternative take on this game than theirs, just like with the European localization having all languages cancelled (since they would be localized from Japanese and risk being more accurate) save than theirs. Anyone who'd inject the English text in the JP version would need anyways to be somewhat fluent in Japanese enough to recognize what each matches what, and what stuff is missing since they would have messed up the order with their scene scripting alterations going beyond just the text.

A re-translation is in order. It would be needed anyways for the DLC and missing main story text. This game's sequels won't be released outside Japan anyways since NoA made it clear they would do their best to sabotage them (NoE not allowed to translate it for largest Western anime markets France/Spain even though they were for Devil's Third of all things, no promotion, all kinds of cuts) and then point at the inevitable lackluster sales, and they alongside the gaming media cheering for them, would have loved it didn't even exist if they could have helped it, so it's better to fit expectations around that.

Maybe importing the fonts from the US to JP version would be worthwhile to fix the width issue but not a guarantee.

 

[Sn0wCrack]

The dialogue suffered from lots of changes as well, for example stuff like managers telling the idols what to do, and the photographer who went crazy, not just the ages were increased. If you just copy the English text file as is, you'll preserve the scripting of the US version too most likely and thus if a scenario got changed to "..." or animations were changed (which indeed they were, like when they're greeting each others or even the way they're sitting) you'd end up importing said changes, if not breaking the game in case it's referencing differently named audio files.

The English version suffered too much since the changes extend to more areas than the JP one (this is waaaay beyond the technically simpler model and text changes in Bravely Second) and they likely broke stuff they don't like (minigames, DLC compatibility) so importing whatever text there is to the JP version is the way to go... I'd say, but not even the text can be trusted to be accurate, not even with Atlus' involvement.

And the copyrighted bullshit would be an unnecessary excuse for them to wipe yet another alternative take on this game than theirs, just like with the European localization having all languages cancelled (since they would be localized from Japanese and risk being more accurate) save than theirs. Anyone who'd inject the English text in the JP version would need anyways to be somewhat fluent in Japanese enough to recognize what each matches what, and what stuff is missing since they would have messed up the order with their scene scripting alterations going beyond just the text.

A re-translation is in order. It would be needed anyways for the DLC and missing main story text. This game's sequels won't be released outside Japan anyways since NoA made it clear they would do their best to sabotage them (NoE not allowed to translate it for largest Western anime markets France/Spain even though they were for Devil's Third of all things, no promotion, all kinds of cuts) and then point at the inevitable lackluster sales, and they alongside the gaming media cheering for them, would have loved it didn't even exist if they could have helped it, so it's better to fit expectations around that.

Maybe importing the fonts from the US to JP version would be worthwhile to fix the width issue but not a guarantee.

Hell, I'm willing to resub the videos in the Japanese version and translate any missing or change lines if that's what needs to happen.

I'd say the easiest way to compare the texts together is a diff file and finding any new or changed areas to MSBT files.

I'd say we'd have a pretty good chance of importing over anything not related to the main game scripts, so anything related to: Battles, UI, Stores, Menus, etc. being fine and would run without a hitch. That is to say if we can import the US font into the Japanese version.

 

[swavalier711]

I wish you guys good luck if it's possible.

What GHANMI said is true. They've done way more than visual edits, they've also re-recorded voice lines and changed many dialogue beats. Only manual insertion would work, and even then a resub would have to be considered for the censored translation.

 

[RemixDeluxe]

Is this patch only for the US version of the game?

I own the Japanese version and didnt want to get excited over nothing being excluded.

 

[Sn0wCrack]

I wish you guys good luck if it's possible.

What GHANMI said is true. They've done way more than visual edits, they've also re-recorded voice lines and changed many dialogue beats. Only manual insertion would work, and even then a resub would have to be considered for the censored translation.

Wait, they changed actual voices lines? I haven't seen this, can you show me an example, I'm genuinely curious to see what they changed.

Okay, so I did a little looking through the video files and they're all USM formatted (CRI Movie 2), so there's another CriWare tool we'll need if we go down the editing the Japanese version route, as we can decode it if the files are extracted correctly using the latest CriFileSystem, however we can't re-encode them with any existing software.

@RemixDeluxe

I''ll be getting the EU version myself, I already own the Japanese version as well. I'm assuming at this stage the Japanese route will require only a dump of the Japanese version in Loadiine format and that's all I can say, I'm not in charge here, or even involved, so just speculating and trying to help. So yeah, more than likely you'll only need that Japanese version, but we'll see how things progress once the game is out.

 

[swavalier711]

Wait, they changed actual voices lines? I haven't seen this, can you show me an example, I'm genuinely curious to see what they changed.

Okay, so I did a little looking through the video files and they're all USM formatted (CRI Movie 2), so there's another CriWare tool we'll need if we go down the editing the Japanese version route, as we can decode it if the files are extracted correctly using the latest CriFileSystem, however we can't re-encode them with any existing software.

@RemixDeluxe

I''ll be getting the EU version myself, I already own the Japanese version as well. I'm assuming at this stage the Japanese route will require only a dump of the Japanese version in Loadiine format and that's all I can say, I'm not in charge here, or even involved, so just speculating and trying to help. So yeah, more than likely you'll only need that Japanese version, but we'll see how things progress once the game is out.

For any instance of the game where Tsubasa says in Japanese that she's 17, they re-recorded it so that she says she's 18 in Japanese. Don't have a video link (at work atm) but if you google around you should be able to find it.

Also since they censored a ton of things in chapter 2, they have to replace voices that reference things like bikinis, swimsuits and gravure; otherwise you'll be able to hear them talking about something totally different while the subs say something else.

 

[Supster131]

For any instance of the game where Tsubasa says in Japanese that she's 17, they re-recorded it so that she says she's 18 in Japanese. Don't have a video link (at work atm) but if you google around you should be able to find it.

Also since they censored a ton of things in chapter 2, they have to replace voices that reference things like bikinis, swimsuits and gravure; otherwise you'll be able to hear them talking about something totally different while the subs say something else.

Unless you understand Japanese, I don't really mind.

As long as it's possible to change the textures to the JPN version, and maybe a bit of text modification, I don't really care for what they're saying.

 

[splatu]

Lets say this is possible... What homebrew will we need to use for changing what's censored ?