ROM Hack Translation Ar nosurge Deluxe English Patch Proof of Concept

[DeathChaos]

Proof of Concept that this is possible, albeit a bit more work than you would think it is.

By borrowing the dialogue text from the vita version, we can have English dialogue on the Switch version, however, without assembly patching all the UI text will be Japanese and you will also run into other issues such as a hardcoded character limit per line that is very terrible.

(Example of before/after patching the limit to match English PS3/Vita releases)

Spoiler

Most (all?) of the text in the UI is located in the executable (such as button prompt text and character names in dialogue boxes), and the button prompt text requires full width english characters (so 3 bytes per character) or else that entire part of the UI actually stops rendering, which means new text is often bigger than the original, which means you need to find space in the executabe, write the new string there, redirect references, etc etc.

Here's a good preview video of how things look right now.



How much interest is there in a release of this?
I'm doing this because a good friend asked, but if people are interested I could make a public release(s) of some capacity.

 

[masagrator]

If you want to go around this limitation, you can write your own skyline plugin. Ofc this will require C++ knowledge and reverse engineering main.

I would help with it, but it seems this year is out of question. Still working on porting Summer Pockets REFLECTION BLUE translation (which is the most advanced project yet in my life) and I would like to finish playing XC3 before taking anything new.

 

[DeathChaos]

If you want to go around this limitation, you can write your own skyline plugin. Ofc this will require C++ knowledge and reverse engineering main.

I would help with it, but it seems this year is out of question. Still working on porting Summer Pockets REFLECTION BLUE translation (which is the most advanced project yet in my life) and I would like to finish playing XC3 before taking anything new.

While I don't have a lot of experience in either of those things, I have done my fair share of reverse engineering and suffering with other platforms such as PS3, so I am no stranger to this.

 

[FiveOVER]

I'm personally interested, but at the same time I don't think many others would be. Gust also doesn't seem interested in continuing this series, so I don't think future modding projects will benefit from this.

Imo I don't think it is worth the effort even though I would really want it.

 

[WithoutAnySeas]

I don't know how much effort it's worth, but I think you should post whatever level you get to. Is the PC version on the table too? I hear Ciel is modifiable on PC with Gust Tools. I might find Ar nosurge with English script/Japanese menus on PC a big help soon.

 

[DeathChaos]

For anyone interested, I was able to fully port over the English audio from the Vita version by unpacking the audio files, converting to KT's switch format and then repacking everything.

Spoiler

I'm personally interested, but at the same time I don't think many others would be. Gust also doesn't seem interested in continuing this series, so I don't think future modding projects will benefit from this.

Imo I don't think it is worth the effort even though I would really want it.

Oh well, I didn't particularly do it for any reason other than my friend saying they'd like it, it is what it is.

I don't know how much effort it's worth, but I think you should post whatever level you get to. Is the PC version on the table too? I hear Ciel is modifiable on PC with Gust Tools. I might find Ar nosurge with English script/Japanese menus on PC a big help soon.

Unfortunately I don't think I will be dealing with the PC version, a lot of the text is in the game's executable which requires a bit of reverse engineering and a LOT of code patching, and I don't particularly feel like going through that entire ordeal twice,

 

[Tayfunx3]

Very interested in this, did you continue with this project? Unfortunately this game doesn't seem to be too popular.

 

[Alacard]

i hope you continue this, would love to be able to play this game

 

[Gattorie]

I'm very interested, I hope you have continued with the project.

 

[mathew77]

Very interesting!..

 

[wavvydev]

This would be amazing. I'm hoping for a full translation for the Switch!

 

[TrishaCat]

Any word on this? Somehow neither Ar Nosurge DX nor Ciel Nosurge DX have English patches, even though both games have English translations

 

[PrincessLisette]

Seconding Trisha's comment. Especially given Koei Tecmo seems to have firmly decided not to localise these ports (which is ridiculous IMO, especially for Ar nosurge).

 

[Nazosan]

I'm really surprised this isn't more popular and GUST themselves don't seem to be interested. Ar nosurge had an incredible story, excellent characters, and mindblowing music including well known stars (and some of Origa's last works. That, if nothing else makes it more worth preserving.) I always felt like the only real problem is people only know their higher profile Atelier games and thus this and the Ar tonelico games simply fell under the radar (which is more a fault of bad advertising than anything else then I guess?)

I don't lnow much about it, but the files at least looked similar to the PS3 original to me. Maybe that might be easier than the Vita port for working with? I wasn't really entirely sure where to start and had problems due to lack of disk space as both the original and the Switch rerelease are quite large whereas my free space, not so much...

 

[saito1234]

Is there any chance you could share your work? Even it has some issues, it still looks very playable.