ROM Hack Request: Disgaea DS VA Restoration Project

[Herr Riz]

As Disgaea fans probably already know, voice acting was severely cut in Disgaea DS, down to basically the battle sounds and the intro cutscene. I've been told that the PS2 version has extensive voice acting that the DS version doesn't.

What I'd like to have done is converting the (Japanese) PS2 voice clips in to DS format and hacking them in to the ROM. I understand this would make a huge filesize, but that aside, is it possible?

If it is possible, we'd need romhackers and people familiar with differences between the DS and PS2 versions. I personally have no romhacking knowledge, but I am willing to follow instructions for the busy work of the project, as well as organize a forum or wiki or something and handle distribution of the completed project.

Is this possible? If so, who's interested?

 

[hankchill]

So you're basically asking if some of us can reverse engineer a game so that we can add hooks into the game to trigger sound samples that you plan to inject into the game?

Sorry bud, not happening. If you've got no rom hacking knowledge, then don't start with this, and don't expect any of us too either. Go play with the insides of an NES game.

I really cannot understand why people think that forum members will devote their time and energy into doing something that would have zero return value.

 

[psycoblaster]

anything can be possible but this will take a huge knowledge of assembly. I never looked into a PS2 ISO before. I believe that Disgaea DS has sound files all separately. If the PSP's ISO file does not, then you will need to extract the sound out of the PS2, convert it to the sound data file that the DS version use, and finally you have to insert the sound data into the ROM, do an assembly hack so the ROM plays the sound file in the time you need it to play.

 

[Lumstar]

The DS version has audiovisual cuts all around. Voice acting, music quality, framerate, textures, etc.

Anyway. I don't see why expanding the ROM wouldn't be possible. It'd probably take extensive work to implement the changes though.

 

[Absynthe]

I made a thread about restoring the original music, but it quickly got deserted... So yeah, Disgaea on my DS with restored music & undubbed & restored VA would be... Awesome.

 

[Lumstar]

Unfortunately, the DS version of this has rabid fanboys who defend it. Much like the RE4 fanbase.

 

[Absynthe]

Heh... By the way the bgms are in .msnd format, but we couldn't find out what kind of compression was and how to encode/decode it. Maybe you can? Dunno about the VA though, never really looked into it

 

[Herr Riz]

I really cannot understand why people think that forum members will devote their time and energy into doing something that would have zero return value.

Zero return value? Presumably there are romhackers who like Disgaea as much as I do. So it would have value to them.

 

[Shardnax]

"I really cannot understand why people think that forum members will devote their time and energy into doing something that would have zero return value."

Yeah, all rom hacking projects are free; so I don't know where you're going with that.