ROM Hack [Help] [.bin] How do I translate Trauma Center 2 under the knife? Need help!

[NOVA31]

I want to translate Trauma Center 2 : under the knife but I can't figure out how to open / unpack the script files. I unpacked the .nds and found the script files in the directory named "/operation/msg" which contains a lot of .bin script files.
Then I simply tried to open the file with a text editor and it was, and it's still, unreadable. I opened the file with 2 hex editors and it was still unreadable.

Is there a tool to translate this game or a trick to make the files readable?

 

[FAST6191]

I can't remember if it was this game or the prequel that rendered all the text as graphics so do check for that.

When you say opened with a hex editor what were you looking for and what did you try?

 

[NOVA31]

I can't remember if it was this game or the prequel that rendered all the text as graphics so do check for that.

When you say opened with a hex editor what were you looking for and what did you try?

I tried to find clear, readable text and I also tried a few times to shift the bits of the file.

 

[FAST6191]

I tried to find clear, readable text and I also tried a few times to shift the bits of the file.

While not unheard of for DS games to use standard ASCII/unicode most hex editors will display things in (and some shiftJIS in the case of Japanese games, though most non hacking hex editors will not give you the option for this) a lot of games will be custom.
Assuming this is an English or European language have you tried a relative search tool? http://www.romhacking.net/utilities/513/ being my suggested one. If it is a European language one try not to do a search including an accented character or the like, or if you do use a wildcard for that character.

 

[NOVA31]

While not unheard of for DS games to use standard ASCII/unicode most hex editors will display things in (and some shiftJIS in the case of Japanese games, though most non hacking hex editors will not give you the option for this) a lot of games will be custom.
Assuming this is an English or European language have you tried a relative search tool?[...]

I downloaded the tool but I don't know how to use it...

 

[FAST6191]

Select the file (can be the whole ROM) you want to scan in the top option.
In the one below it put a line of text from the game (preferably not one split across lines, and also not with any accents, cedillas or the like). You want relative search rather than value scan at this point.

The advanced stuff can be skipped for now (it is usually used more for Japanese).

Press the search button.

It will attempt to find anything that matches the pattern in the file.

If there is no pattern it will say, or it might not find the one the text uses.

If it finds it then great you can proceed to making a table to feed to a ROM hacking hex editor that supports such things, if not then you get to play hacker to figure out the encoding (could be compression troubling the search, could be the graphics thing I mentioned before, could be a non relative encoding, could be several other things). Guide to ROM hacking https://gbatemp.net/threads/gbatemp-rom-hacking-documentation-project-new-2016-edition-out.73394/ .

 

[NOVA31]

]Select the file (can be the whole ROM) you want to scan in the top option.
In the one below it put a line of text from the game (preferably not one split across lines, and also not with any accents, cedillas or the like). You want relative search rather than value scan at this point.

The advanced stuff can be skipped for now (it is usually used more for Japanese).

Press the search button.

It will attempt to find anything that matches the pattern in the file.

If there is no pattern it will say, or it might not find the one the text uses.

If it finds it then great you can proceed to making a table to feed to a ROM hacking hex editor that supports such things, if not then you get to play hacker to figure out the encoding (could be compression troubling the search, could be the graphics thing I mentioned before, could be a non relative encoding, could be several other things). Guide to ROM hacking [...]

I tried with "Angie" (a character from the game) and the software showed multiple results. What do I have to do with them now? I never worked with tables.

 

[FAST6191]

Better to try a longer thing if you can (it will guess at spaces so no need to worry there) and character names can be tricky (especially if you can set your own at some point).

Anyway if the character is likely referenced multiple times in the game script so it is probably displaying the results of that.
Either side of those when you click on the results and it will have tried to fill in the blanks (if you already have n,g,i and e then the rest of lower case should follow) and with that you can try to see if it found something readable. It will then make a start of a guess about a table (might even have got the upper case letters).
You would then get to fill in any blanks (punctuation is usually a good one) and then see about where things are in the file or game.

That said if you are aiming to translate something it also means you will likely be asking about pointers, fonts, formatting and compression before long so might need to take a step back and learn some of the more fundamental stuff. A puzzle game like this with just a bit of start mission, end mission and sometimes mid mission text is a reasonable thing to want to translate but it is not like translating a document on a computer or anything and you will benefit from having some more technical skills, or working with someone with them.
I already linked my document on ROM hacking
http://www.romhacking.net/start
https://gbatemp.net/threads/the-ultimate-nintendo-ds-rom-hacking-guide.291274/ some like as well.

Don't know what I have for French language if you would prefer that. There are usually some guides to various aspects around the place but for all the great French emulation/ROM/hacking sites there are I so rarely see a ROM hacking guide on them.

 

[NOVA31]

deleted msg

 

[NOVA31]

Better to try a longer thing if you can (it will guess at spaces so no need to worry there) and character names can be tricky (especially if you can set your own at some point).

Anyway if the character is likely referenced multiple times in the game script so it is probably displaying the results of that.
Either side of those when you click on the results and it will have tried to fill in the blanks (if you already have n,g,i and e then the rest of lower case should follow) and with that you can try to see if it found something readable. It will then make a start of a guess about a table (might even have got the upper case letters).
You would then get to fill in any blanks (punctuation is usually a good one) and then see about where things are in the file or game.

That said if you are aiming to translate something it also means you will likely be asking about pointers, fonts, formatting and compression before long so might need to take a step back and learn some of the more fundamental stuff. A puzzle game like this with just a bit of start mission, end mission and sometimes mid mission text is a reasonable thing to want to translate but it is not like translating a document on a computer or anything and you will benefit from having some more technical skills, or working with someone with them.
I already linked my document on ROM hacking
http://www.romhacking.net/start
https://gbatemp.net/threads/the-ultimate-nintendo-ds-rom-hacking-guide.291274/ some like as well.

Don't know what I have for French language if you would prefer that. There are usually some guides to various aspects around the place but for all the great French emulation/ROM/hacking sites there are I so rarely see a ROM hacking guide on them.

I re-tried with another word from the game and it found nothing. I am not sure the software found the real text files...