PS1/2 Possibility of someone tackling an Inuyasha Secret of the Cursed Mask undub or [re]translation?

[Shiggitay]

Hey all... I know that simply taking a JRPG and swapping audio around isn't easy or always feasible, and I've asked if anyone's tackled IY: SOCM (PS2) before (regarding making an undub), but what about simply either totally retranslating or swapping English components from the US release into the Japanese release, there-being it becoming an undub? I hope y'all are following what my idea is here... lol.

 

[FAST6191]

In my experience the PS2 did not quite get the same level of ROM bothering that the likes of the DS enjoyed, and not so many PS2 ROM hackers (not that there are many in general) float around here.

If it is going to work with a straight file swap then that is likely the sort of thing you can do yourself (if you can unzip two zip files, throw some files around and make a new zip then you can do it for a ROM. The PS2 file system was not as well supported by free software last time I looked (was several years ago mind you) but the paid stuff is up to the task.

In some cases said file swap might benefit from some basic massaging but changing order, names and such is not a big ask.

If the game lost the calls for voice or whatever during the translation (quite possible for a low interest game like Inuyasha that they did not care to piss money away hiring voice actors, or indeed the voice actors from the US dubs, and dropped it instead) or the game used radically different formats between regions (again quite possible as I have seen it plenty on systems before and after the PS2, I am guessing the licensing fees for the libraries or patent woes made it the case) then it is often easier to backport the script to the region with the sounds you want. Said backport, especially for a device as old as the PS2 (even today program it like it will be translated later is not always done), is seldom a straight file swap and instead more akin to a regular fan translation (that is to say I expect font issues, text encoding challenges, line handling and more issues, possibly also some untranslated or poorly translated text for minor menu items or shop fluff text)

 

[Shiggitay]

In my experience the PS2 did not quite get the same level of ROM bothering that the likes of the DS enjoyed, and not so many PS2 ROM hackers (not that there are many in general) float around here.

If it is going to work with a straight file swap then that is likely the sort of thing you can do yourself (if you can unzip two zip files, throw some files around and make a new zip then you can do it for a ROM. The PS2 file system was not as well supported by free software last time I looked (was several years ago mind you) but the paid stuff is up to the task.

In some cases said file swap might benefit from some basic massaging but changing order, names and such is not a big ask.

If the game lost the calls for voice or whatever during the translation (quite possible for a low interest game like Inuyasha that they did not care to piss money away hiring voice actors, or indeed the voice actors from the US dubs, and dropped it instead) or the game used radically different formats between regions (again quite possible as I have seen it plenty on systems before and after the PS2, I am guessing the licensing fees for the libraries or patent woes made it the case) then it is often easier to backport the script to the region with the sounds you want. Said backport, especially for a device as old as the PS2 (even today program it like it will be translated later is not always done), is seldom a straight file swap and instead more akin to a regular fan translation (that is to say I expect font issues, text encoding challenges, line handling and more issues, possibly also some untranslated or poorly translated text for minor menu items or shop fluff text)

Wow thanks for that response... I'm not ready to take this on myself, hence why I asked if anyone here was up for the task.

 

[FAST6191]

Wow thanks for that response... I'm not ready to take this on myself, hence why I asked if anyone here was up for the task.

Do have a go with trying to swap files yourself -- it really is a matter of open up, see if you can find the audio files (they are usually named as such or have extensions/directories indicating their use) and copy paste over the others. If you confirm that does not work or has certain failings then things can proceed and you are more likely to attract some help. How much you might get is a different matter -- these endless manga/anime (I know it has since concluded but at the time...) tended not to produce the best games and thus that reduces people's desire to do much with them. If it happens to be one of the exceptions/hidden gems then show us.

 

[Shiggitay]

Do have a go with trying to swap files yourself -- it really is a matter of open up, see if you can find the audio files (they are usually named as such or have extensions/directories indicating their use) and copy paste over the others. If you confirm that does not work or has certain failings then things can proceed and you are more likely to attract some help. How much you might get is a different matter -- these endless manga/anime (I know it has since concluded but at the time...) tended not to produce the best games and thus that reduces people's desire to do much with them. If it happens to be one of the exceptions/hidden gems then show us.

Okay I'll give it a looksee... ...Though I seem to remember that when I asked about this the last time I did I was told that it's not just a simple audio / script swap... as there are certain moments in cutscenes etc where it's not subtitled.... hence needing additional work to fill in those dialogue gaps. I will still give it a shot to see if I can produce a booting ISO in any way shape or form... Gonna test on PCSX2 as well as my FMCB'd softmodded PS2...

EDIT (2 I guess?): I've also joined the ROMHacking.net Discord to ask for help.. Lessee how this goes.

 

[FAST6191]

I don't know how the cutscenes have been subtitles but it is often a whole lot easier to hardsub a video than it is to add a subtitle function to a game, especially if you are a dev possibly with access to the tools in question. To that end you might also wish to take along the cutscene files as well if they are straight videos. Equally you yourself might be able to hardsub it -- a few of the codecs from around then have been reverse engineered or leaked so you might get lucky there.

I have also met it that the cutscene videos use a separate audio format to the rest of the game.

 

[Shiggitay]

I don't know how the cutscenes have been subtitles but it is often a whole lot easier to hardsub a video than it is to add a subtitle function to a game, especially if you are a dev possibly with access to the tools in question. To that end you might also wish to take along the cutscene files as well if they are straight videos. Equally you yourself might be able to hardsub it -- a few of the codecs from around then have been reverse engineered or leaked so you might get lucky there.

I have also met it that the cutscene videos use a separate audio format to the rest of the game.

Ooof... Well I might wait on this then.. IDK.

EDIT: I've gotten as far as being able to listen to all the voiced dialogue in a program called PSound. I've also figured out that both versions of the game have the same opening anime-style cutscene type thing, and I do see where subtitles would be needed if this were to made into an undub. I've not gotten to the point of attempting to extract/inject the audio files into the one or the other... Another thing I figured out is that the US version seemingly is larger by a tad and has more audio clips as a whole.... so simply removing all the US audio for the JP audio might not be as smooth a transition to undub as I had initially thought.

All this is a start getting to know the file system of the games, but where do I go from here?

 

[TonyAkawari]

Ooof... Well I might wait on this then.. IDK.

EDIT: I've gotten as far as being able to listen to all the voiced dialogue in a program called PSound. I've also figured out that both versions of the game have the same opening anime-style cutscene type thing, and I do see where subtitles would be needed if this were to made into an undub. I've not gotten to the point of attempting to extract/inject the audio files into the one or the other... Another thing I figured out is that the US version seemingly is larger by a tad and has more audio clips as a whole.... so simply removing all the US audio for the JP audio might not be as smooth a transition to undub as I had initially thought.

All this is a start getting to know the file system of the games, but where do I go from here?

Sorry for the necro, but how did you got your hands on the audio files? I'm trying to undub it as well but all files are contained in a so called ker.img that I can't figure how to open

 

[FAST6191]

The user in question has not been seen in almost two years at this point (though might be a lurker still).

https://www.romhacking.net/utilities/679/ is the tool mentioned by said same for viewing files, and it did include a location in the bottom of the window in its picture there. Many such tools will scan whole larger files looking for indicators of audio and play from there.

"ker.img"
So you downloaded/ripped your cop(ies) of the game, extracted them and now have one big lump called that? I ask as img is still a known extension for ISOs, though could also well be one of the sub archives we sometimes see in games that devs use for whatever reason (you can ask why, might even get some interesting reasoning but still goings to have to handle it).

 

[TonyAkawari]

The user in question has not been seen in almost two years at this point (though might be a lurker still).

https://www.romhacking.net/utilities/679/ is the tool mentioned by said same for viewing files, and it did include a location in the bottom of the window in its picture there. Many such tools will scan whole larger files looking for indicators of audio and play from there.

"ker.img"
So you downloaded/ripped your cop(ies) of the game, extracted them and now have one big lump called that? I ask as img is still a known extension for ISOs, though could also well be one of the sub archives we sometimes see in games that devs use for whatever reason (you can ask why, might even get some interesting reasoning but still goings to have to handle it).

Yes. The ker.img is a file inside the iso that is essentially the same size of the iso (ISO is 3gb, ker.img is 2,97gb). This .img refuses to open with most of the tools I used. I talked to someone on reddit, he used a program called ghidra to look into the files and he found sound/ bgm, voices and se "folders"

But he told me I would have to through a hex editor to get them but I have no idea how to do it lol

Post automatically merged: Feb 8, 2023

The user in question has not been seen in almost two years at this point (though might be a lurker still).

https://www.romhacking.net/utilities/679/ is the tool mentioned by said same for viewing files, and it did include a location in the bottom of the window in its picture there. Many such tools will scan whole larger files looking for indicators of audio and play from there.

"ker.img"
So you downloaded/ripped your cop(ies) of the game, extracted them and now have one big lump called that? I ask as img is still a known extension for ISOs, though could also well be one of the sub archives we sometimes see in games that devs use for whatever reason (you can ask why, might even get some interesting reasoning but still goings to have to handle it).

With psound I found over 16.184 sound files holy cow. Unfortunately psound doesn't let me take them as they are. Even if it did, no idea how to reimplement them into the usa version of the ker.img

 

[FAST6191]

Ghidra is a high end hacking tool
https://ghidra-sre.org/
Indeed it is the NSA's answer to the likes of https://hex-rays.com/ida-pro/ (the main industry program) and https://rada.re/n/ (the other big open source offering).

I don't tend to use it so I am not entirely sure what abilities it will inherently have to parse this format; as file formats are so commonly custom then all those programs will feature options to define custom ones, and aid in the documentation of formats. It is curious to see full directory names like that though as most formats will not include such a thing for every file and instead such a thing gets created if necessary (massive waste of space and effort to scan it if you store it all like that for no great gain) but also not that hard to generate by the would be hacker.

http://wiki.xentax.com/index.php/Game_File_Format_Central https://wiki.multimedia.cx/index.php?title=Category:Game_Formats being examples of formats found in games if you did want to see how such things have been done in the past; there are certain types of data you will need when defining an archive format so most of the time figuring such a thing out is figuring out the order and data types used for those particular things and whatever other features came along for the ride.
I cover pulling apart some things in https://gbatemp.net/threads/gbatemp-rom-hacking-documentation-project-new-2016-edition-out.73394/ , though you might find you encounter sector sizing in this (32 bits does do 4 gigs easily enough though so you might be lucky) rather than more direct methods common in older/smaller file size efforts. File names, file sizes, file locations, subdirectories, compressed status... all being things to ponder in this (file size and file location can be mutually exclusive as you can use one to calculate the other, though sometimes both are good if the file locations are not one after the other and there is some padding in the middle).

16000 odd sound files... possible I guess -- if there are say 20 player characters and they all have a variety of individual attack sounds, hit sounds, low health... and then all those got doubled up to sound more fitting in a sewer level, possibly plus a few languages then it can end up there, and PS1/PS2 having the storage it did it is not like cartridges where space was at a premium.

"take them as they are". Does that mean you can only extract them as .wav or something rather than raw data you could search the file for? Pity if so as that can really help in searching for things. Also yeah sounds like you will need to either have a format description for this particular thing called img, though

Re hex editor for pulling files out. If you ultimately know enough to use in a hex editor you probably also know enough to get https://web.archive.org/web/20170218180937/http://min.midco.net/cracker/filecutter.zip to do it for you in a large batch file. Won't help so much in putting it back together though, however if it is going to be a simple pointer/file location and you can overwrite things then you might not have to build a full file builder tool or do a lot of manual work. You might even get lucky and find the Japanese or whatever are smaller than the things you are replacing in some/most instances which further reduces the effort. One minor concern is if the Japanese is higher quality than your target (happens from time to time, especially in European versions aiming to squeeze in say 5 languages) in which case you have other considerations (drop quality, make game understand higher quality, scrap the whole effort and port the game's text files to Japanese/whatever version instead).