ROM Hack [Release] Kuroshitsuji: Phantom & Ghost English Patch

[PhantomGhost]

Kuroshitsuji: Phantom and Ghost was released for the DS in 2009. It's a completely original story supervised by Yana Toboso, that takes place between chapters 13 & 14 of the manga (the end of the Red Butler arc). The game is set in Brighton and allows players to control either Ciel or Sebastian to unravel a thrilling case in a choose-your-own-adventure style game featuring puzzles, mini games, and much loved characters. In other words; it's a MUST play for any fan of the series!

After over 2 years of hard work I’m delighted to announce that an English patch has finally been released! It is fully playable and includes translations for the main storyline and all of the bonus content.

Check out the trailer for a preview of what’s in-store, or grab the download here!

 

[PhantomGhost]

A small update!

Thanks to the kind help of Greiga Master, the problem with ButlerTrans (our previous tool to extract/insert text) has been identified. That is, it doesn't actually update the jump commands. We're unable to contact the original author, so documenting the text codes and writing a new tool is what it comes down to. That's hopefully currently under progress, so we might just be one step closer to seeing the translations in action!

However, it still leaves the problem of those unusual images. To go into that in further detail, I believe the problem lies in those images being a single file, and not split into tile, palette, map or animation files as the others have all been.

My terminology might be a bit wonky, but I don't believe these images are 'compressed' as I've been able to view them correctly in Tinke/CT2. The issue is that, when I try to import any edits, (via methods that have worked for the other images), it becomes scrambled. Even if I were to simple export and re-import the image without touching it, for example.

I've got a GDrive folder here with some files that can be used to test. The images appear in the bonus section of the game, gallery, which the save data is necessary to easily unlock.

The files come from the game's tex folder. These are originally .txc files, which ButlerTrans unpacks into .XTTN. I haven't tried editing the .txc as they were originally in the game, as I have not been able to view the images there, similarly to the .bgc and .dac files before they were processed through ButlerTrans and divided into tile/palette/map etc. Some of the images in the tex folder were divided by ButlerTrans, but those came out as empty files with 0 KB.

Here I've included a copy of st03012, which is one of the images I've been trying to edit. There's also the original image as I can view it in Tinke 0.9 (by opening as palette, offsetting it to 1C, then opening as tile and offsetting that by 48.) I've also sent my edit, indexed to only contain colours in the palette data. As you can see, I also cropped out the top line of scrambled pixels, as this is the height that matches the other images pulled from this game which previously worked.

The main thing that's stopping this project from being able to release are these technical difficulties, so as always, we'd be eternally grateful for any help! I'd be more than happy to assist or answer anything you might need clarifying.

Thank you for your time!

 

[jjjewel]

I didn't run ButlerTrans, so this is based on the sample images you posted.

From the original game file, .txc files are compressed in LZ10 but not in traditional format. (It has some header before the compression starts, so most LZ10 decompression programs won't detect it.)

From the XTTN file you posted, ButlerTrans already decompressed it from .txc file. So, I assume if you can edit image in XTTN, you can use ButlerTrans to compress it back to .txc.

On to XTTN image editing using CT2.
- First open XTTN file in CT2 in Hex Editor mode.
- Note the address where you see the word PALT (usually at byte 0x10), and add 0x0C to that address. So it's 0x10+0x0C=0x1C. Right-click on the byte at that location (1C in this case) and select "DATA->palette conversion".
- Note the numbers at location 0x08 and 0x09. In your example file, the values are 30 and 02. Combine them in reverse order --> 0230. That is your image offset.
- Change view from Hex Editor to Tile Viewer (either in View menu or from icons on the menu bar.)
- Set "offset" on the properties tab (on the left) to the number you get earlier (0230 in this case).
- Set "Tile form" to GBA 8bpp, set width 256, height 192. (For image pattern, keep it as the default "Tile".)
- This should show the correct image with correct pallette.
- You should be able to right-click on the image and export it to edit, and then import it back and save.

Note: Don't know if all the files have the same size and/or format, so if this method doesn't work, try changing sizes and tile forms and see if it works.

Good luck.

 

[PhantomGhost]

Ah, actually setting the height did the trick! I can't believe it was something so simple, ahaha ah well!

Thank you very much for the help and breaking it down into super straightforward steps! Seeing them working is so satisfying~

And um, happy 9th birthday to your account! I've stumbled into some of your posts around the forum before. You're a real credit to this community

UPDATE: I'm delighted to announce that the patch has been released!

 

[Fel]

Thanks for the release! Is it a CYOA like the Fighting Fantasy gamebooks or more Bantam's CYOAs (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choose_Your_Own_Adventure)?

 

[PhantomGhost]

@Fel There are 7 'bad' ends available for the main routes, as well as a shared true ending, so it's fairly linear. The short length of each scene makes it really easy to go back and see what changes if you pick a different option.