Gaming Is Trails of the Sky voice patch possible for PSP?

[John Brown]

There are three PSP games called Sora no Kiseki SC (Trails in the Sky SC), Zero no Kiseki and Ao no Kiseki. They all have PSVita remasters called Sora no Kiseki Evo. Zero no Kiseki Evo and Ao no Kiseki Evo. In the PSvita remastered versions they include voice acting. Essentially someone has managed to take out the voice acting files from Zero no Kiseki Evo and Ao no Kiseki Evo (the PSVita versions) and put it into the PSP versions.

My question is can the same be done for Sora no Kiseki SC (Trails in the Sky SC)? (with the logic being Zero no Kiseki & Ao no Kiseki PSvita versions to Zero no Kiseki & Ao no Kiseki PSP versions being possible should imply Sora no Kiseki PSvita version to Sora no Kiseki PSP version should also be possible)

This is the tutorial to add the voice acting: https://github.com/ZhenjianYang/ZeroAoVoice-PSP

Would it be possible to follow that guide in order to do it for Sora no Kiseki SC? I won't lie it seems out of my depth but I have noticed there is specific code in that guide that has ZERO and AO in it. Would simply renaming those areas with the proper name for Sora no Kiseki SC do the trick or would there be more to it?

 

[John Brown]

There are three PSP games called Sora no Kiseki SC (Trails in the Sky SC), Zero no Kiseki and Ao no Kiseki. They all have PSVita remasters called Sora no Kiseki Evo. Zero no Kiseki Evo and Ao no Kiseki Evo. In the PSvita remastered versions they include voice acting. Essentially someone has managed to take out the voice acting files from Zero no Kiseki Evo and Ao no Kiseki Evo (the PSVita versions) and put it into the PSP versions.

My question is can the same be done for Sora no Kiseki SC (Trails in the Sky SC)? (with the logic being Zero no Kiseki & Ao no Kiseki PSvita versions to Zero no Kiseki & Ao no Kiseki PSP versions being possible should imply Sora no Kiseki PSvita version to Sora no Kiseki PSP version should also be possible)

This is the tutorial to add the voice acting: https://github.com/ZhenjianYang/ZeroAoVoice-PSP

Would it be possible to follow that guide in order to do it for Sora no Kiseki SC? I won't lie it seems out of my depth but I have noticed there is specific code in that guide that has ZERO and AO in it. Would simply renaming those areas with the proper name for Sora no Kiseki SC do the trick or would there be more to it?

 

[FAST6191]

Not sure that too many Trails in the Sky fans and PSP hackers you will find around here but by all means ask.

As a general principle it is eminently possible -- I very much doubt the game draws too much on the PSP resources to all kick a call to some file to play back a voice line at the same time.

As far as doing for this game in a simple fashion. That will vary.
Normally adding voice acting happens because the English localisation (or whatever) can't be bothered to hire voice actors in and silenced is for the final release.
Backporting from remasters or cross porting from an anime or something, or doing fan work, can be harder.

The base Windows versions and PSP games were knocked out reasonably close together so it is unlikely to be a radical new engine or anything, though early games in a series can make things harder (I would also presume anybody doing the other two would have had a look, though maybe they did not care for it)

Here though going by that github link it seems they use a PRX file (a plugin) and "NOTE: PSP1000 is not possible. So voice patches will not work with PSP1000." by virtue of the extra memory used. This makes it seem like something is run in the background that intercepts things (because it adds them to the game script itself as part of the hack) at the right time (rarely seen actually in consoles working like this, Lua emulators, texture replacement emulators and PC is a different matter).

Doubt I will be the one to do anything but thanks for sharing an interesting style of hack that might have flown under my radar otherwise.

 

[John Brown]

Not sure that too many Trails in the Sky fans and PSP hackers you will find around here but by all means ask.

As a general principle it is eminently possible -- I very much doubt the game draws too much on the PSP resources to all kick a call to some file to play back a voice line at the same time.

As far as doing for this game in a simple fashion. That will vary.
Normally adding voice acting happens because the English localisation (or whatever) can't be bothered to hire voice actors in and silenced is for the final release.
Backporting from remasters or cross porting from an anime or something, or doing fan work, can be harder.

The base Windows versions and PSP games were knocked out reasonably close together so it is unlikely to be a radical new engine or anything, though early games in a series can make things harder (I would also presume anybody doing the other two would have had a look, though maybe they did not care for it)

Here though going by that github link it seems they use a PRX file (a plugin) and "NOTE: PSP1000 is not possible. So voice patches will not work with PSP1000." by virtue of the extra memory used. This makes it seem like something is run in the background that intercepts things (because it adds them to the game script itself as part of the hack) at the right time (rarely seen actually in consoles working like this, Lua emulators, texture replacement emulators and PC is a different matter).

Doubt I will be the one to do anything but thanks for sharing an interesting style of hack that might have flown under my radar otherwise.

Thank you for the reply and taking the time to look into it. Going by what you said it really does seem like it's out of my depth I'll still give it a shot and post any success in case someone else is interested but most people moved onto the PC version. For myself I need to play off PPSSPP so I can use on my phone because I like the portability. If I have no luck in doing it myself is there anywhere I can go to find someone who'd be up for it?

 

[FAST6191]

If I have no luck in doing it myself is there anywhere I can go to find someone who'd be up for it?

That I don't know. PSP ROM hacking is somewhat advanced (case in point the semi subject of this very thread -- that is a non trivial hack over simple file system fiddling, someone playing with a relative text editor or making basic infinite whatever cheats) but at the same time never quite solidified around any one site or gained that much traction among more general ROM hacking (too new, file sizes too large, emulation too clunky, the whole decrypting eboots thing not necessarily being a dealbreaker but a small hurdle -- the GBA for comparison, though might just as well apply to the DS, has had decent emulation with debuggers for years and can see its games downloaded trivially).

Were you to do it a more traditional way and adding your own intercepts/playback options to the game script engine, and porting across any files and a means to play them back* (all of which is a fairly advanced hack -- you are not getting out of that without knowing assembly for the PSP, indeed other than finding the text to begin with and maybe decoding the Vita audio format you are not going to be getting off the starting line really without it).
If it was a case of silenced audio or not making it out of Japan for the initial game that would be a different hack (livening audio back up is not usually so bad, undubbing is not usually so bad either, and while it might involve backporting the English/whatever script back to the Japanese version if it is gone entirely that is tedious but within reason for first hack of a determined person -- I will always say for any learning programming/hacking/building things then if it is a project you will stick with and within some kind of reason then that is probably better than 10 arbitrary ones).

*by kicking it all to an external plugin that spares having to embed a new playback option in the code of the game, and adding flags into the script that also spares having to intercept the text engine/code upstream of it, all while not having to worry so much about resources by dint of extra ram being taken advantage of. Clever and fulfils the "works within hardware" limit that many place on such things, though not as elegant as some might want.

If there is a trails of the sky/trails/the legend of heroes serious fan forum out there then they sometimes gain hackers (for most ROM hacking communities they are either generalists or sharply game/franchise specific) then that can be a thing. I don't know how many there might be but eh.
Can't rule out a random forum somewhere doing it (I have fished things out of the oddest places over the years) but not really something I can justifiably say "go ask here for".
Things might change over the years to come as the PSP and Vita start to be looked at more but that is years to come and not really something to speculate about here.

 

[MrCokeacola]

Would simply renaming those areas with the proper name for Sora no Kiseki SC do the trick or would there be more to it?

Give it a go and see what happens. I've replaced files on some games just like that and sometimes it works. Just gotta trail and error.

 

[arkhamtheknight]

Did it ever happen and did it work?