ROM Hack Question Rune Factory 4 SP english translation

[milkydude12]

I have loved the Rune Factory series since the ds days, I have fond memories of playing the ds on the go and at home, farming/fighting/taming monsters/crafting and was wondering if someone could perhaps show me the ropes of how to begin a project like translating Rune Factory 4 sp from Japanese to English. I was also wondering if perhaps some of the rune factory 4 3ds ver english translations could be used with the switch ver. I have absolutely zero knowledge on where to even begin with a project such as this, and will need massive amounts of help. Thanks

 

[masagrator]

But this game is gonna be released in West this year, so why bother?

 

[Drwho0894]

I can answer this question as I have attempted it myself. The game uses the 3DS text files with added lines in some of them. It is possible to do it in english by replacing the files with the eng files from the 3DS game. The problem is due to the new lines the order for everything is completely messed up resulting in the npc text talking about end game stuff right at the beginning or the menus being weird. I cannot work out the order or what has changed etc so unfortunately it might be worth just waiting for the proper translation in at least 5 months time. If you want to try the .jpn files from the Japanese switch version can be opened with Rune Translator, same with the 3DS ENG files.

Also a screenshot of the files. You'll notice the same names yes some of them are exactly the same from the 3DS version.

However the difference is there are now empty lines between them.
Again left is Switch .jpn files right is 3ds .jpn files.

Youre welcome to try given that theres already eng files that are exactly the same. But I dont think its worth it.

 

[Andross]

I can answer this question as I have attempted it myself. The game uses the 3DS text files with added lines in some of them. It is possible to do it in english by replacing the files with the eng files from the 3DS game. The problem is due to the new lines the order for everything is completely messed up resulting in the npc text talking about end game stuff right at the beginning or the menus being weird. I cannot work out the order or what has changed etc so unfortunately it might be worth just waiting for the proper translation in at least 5 months time. If you want to try the .jpn files from the Japanese switch version can be opened with Rune Translator, same with the 3DS ENG files.
View attachment 174389
Also a screenshot of the files. You'll notice the same names yes some of them are exactly the same from the 3DS version.
View attachment 174390
However the difference is there are now empty lines between them.
Again left is Switch .jpn files right is 3ds .jpn files.
View attachment 174392

Youre welcome to try given that theres already eng files that are exactly the same. But I dont think its worth it.

Do you by chance have a link to a tool for extracting the 3ds files? I can give it a try.

 

[Drwho0894]

Do you by chance have a link to a tool for extracting the 3ds files? I can give it a try.

All tolld you should need are here.
https://gbatemp.net/threads/tutorial-how-to-decrypt-extract-rebuild-3ds-cia-cxi-files.383055/

 

[Andross]

All tolld you should need are here

Thanks! Will take a look after i find a clean rom.

 

[NightTimeNoctis]

Bump i want this too but have no idea how to go about it. yokai watch 4 would be cool too i dont think we will get that any time soon

 

[milkydude12]

But this game is gonna be released in West this year, so why bother?

OM

I can answer this question as I have attempted it myself. The game uses the 3DS text files with added lines in some of them. It is possible to do it in english by replacing the files with the eng files from the 3DS game. The problem is due to the new lines the order for everything is completely messed up resulting in the npc text talking about end game stuff right at the beginning or the menus being weird. I cannot work out the order or what has changed etc so unfortunately it might be worth just waiting for the proper translation in at least 5 months time. If you want to try the .jpn files from the Japanese switch version can be opened with Rune Translator, same with the 3DS ENG files.
View attachment 174389
Also a screenshot of the files. You'll notice the same names yes some of them are exactly the same from the 3DS version.
View attachment 174390
However the difference is there are now empty lines between them.
Again left is Switch .jpn files right is 3ds .jpn files.
View attachment 174392

Youre welcome to try given that theres already eng files that are exactly the same. But I dont think its worth it.

OMG! Thank you so much for the information! I'll attempt to do this

 

[BasedBoy]

How do I open the text files like this. Which tools? I want to translate Tsuri Spirits to english.

 

[LordBone]

I've spent a few hours on it and edited the language files. It seem to work however I've only tested it for the first 30 minutes of the game.

It's not perfect, but it's playable until the localized version comes out. Especially if you are desperate to play it... like me.

The main menu is still in Japanese, and all the new lines (there is apporx ~9400 new lines) (or the ones that were changed) are in Japanese, and some of the names and titles are in japanese, but most of the story, item names, quest names skill names etc. seem to have went trough. Also the text sometimes cuts out, because it's longer than the max character number.

I've only tested this on SXOS.

Feel free to let me know if there are any crashes or strange translations.

Extract the zip into your titles folder. (For SXOS: on your sdcard - \sxos\titles\). Then you may need to restart your Switch. Start the game and it should work.

 

[Drwho0894]

I've spent a few hours on it and edited the language files. It seem to work however I've only tested it for the first 30 minutes of the game.

It's not perfect, but it's playable until the localized version comes out. Especially if you are desperate to play it... like me.

The main menu is still in Japanese, and all the new lines (there is apporx ~9400 new lines) (or the ones that were changed) are in Japanese, and some of the names and titles are in japanese, but most of the story, item names, quest names skill names etc. seem to have went trough. Also the text sometimes cuts out, because it's longer than the max character number.

I've only tested this on SXOS.

Feel free to let me know if there are any crashes or strange translations.

Extract the zip into your titles folder. (For SXOS: on your sdcard - \sxos\titles\). Then you may need to restart your Switch. Start the game and it should work.

View attachment 174743

Nice I will try it out. Any chance anyone knows how to edit the character limit?

 

[Drwho0894]

I've spent a few hours on it and edited the language files. It seem to work however I've only tested it for the first 30 minutes of the game.

It's not perfect, but it's playable until the localized version comes out. Especially if you are desperate to play it... like me.

The main menu is still in Japanese, and all the new lines (there is apporx ~9400 new lines) (or the ones that were changed) are in Japanese, and some of the names and titles are in japanese, but most of the story, item names, quest names skill names etc. seem to have went trough. Also the text sometimes cuts out, because it's longer than the max character number.

I've only tested this on SXOS.

Feel free to let me know if there are any crashes or strange translations.

Extract the zip into your titles folder. (For SXOS: on your sdcard - \sxos\titles\). Then you may need to restart your Switch. Start the game and it should work.

View attachment 174743

Played about an hour, theres a few little hiccups like maybe in a few lines they say something a little different. For some reason the MC says "hes asleep" to the butterfly girl in Yokmir Forest after defeating the boss. Also the menu is messed up a little but even I couldn't work that out when I tried. For some reason though the map says your room is "butlers room" and the butlers room as "your room". Also the game crashes when you try to open the calendar. But other than that it pretty much works and you can keep up with the story.

 

[LordBone]

Played about an hour, theres a few little hiccups like maybe in a few lines they say something a little different. For some reason the MC says "hes asleep" to the butterfly girl in Yokmir Forest after defeating the boss. Also the menu is messed up a little but even I couldn't work that out when I tried. For some reason though the map says your room is "butlers room" and the butlers room as "your room". Also the game crashes when you try to open the calendar. But other than that it pretty much works and you can keep up with the story.

Yeah since the menu is different from the 3DS version, there will be strange names and items there.
The calendar crash should be easily fixable, most likely just line number differences, I will fix a few things up I've found too, and then post an updated version. Thanks for the feedback.

 

[Drwho0894]

Yeah since the menu is different from the 3DS version, there will be strange names and items there.
The calendar crash should be easily fixable, most likely just line number differences, I will fix a few things up I've found too, and then post an updated version. Thanks for the feedback.

Np glad I can help and test.

 

[Nazosan]

But this game is gonna be released in West this year, so why bother?

One thing I want to add here for those wondering the same thing. Those who dealt with trying to undub RF4 for the 3DS found that its filesystem was a real mess and it was 1000x easier to swap the translated text (even as much work as that was to actually do) than to try to swap the audio. Most likely this will be completely necessary to have an "undub" version for the Switch port too if its file structure really is so similar. So it's not necessarily just a matter of not wanting to wait a quarter of a year.

The Rune Factory series, unfortunately, has really bad dubs. I won't say RF4's original voicework was the best of the best by any means (there are even a few characters I really felt they should have switched) but it's still far better than that awful dub. Even if you don't personally agree, you have to admit there's no harm in it for anyone else if those who do want this to do so. Here's hoping RF5 will have learned from basically everything else and offer the original voices (I suppose free DLC given how most do it these days) and none of this will be necessary with it... (But there's no doubt in my mind that RF4's Switch port won't change things in this respect. Ultimately it comes down to licensing I guess, but there was no technical reason they couldn't have offered original voices on the 3DS version, so I don't believe they will on the Switch with RF4 either.)


Anyway, I lack the ability to really help, but I really do wish you all the best in all of this. I'm unable to get the game right now, so I can't even offer to help test right now, but I'm cheering you on at least. I'm glad to see there's already so much progress since the data is so similar.

 

[LordBone]

One thing I want to add here for those wondering the same thing. Those who dealt with trying to undub RF4 for the 3DS found that its filesystem was a real mess and it was 1000x easier to swap the translated text (even as much work as that was to actually do) than to try to swap the audio. Most likely this will be completely necessary to have an "undub" version for the Switch port too if its file structure really is so similar. So it's not necessarily just a matter of not wanting to wait a quarter of a year.

The Rune Factory series, unfortunately, has really bad dubs. I won't say RF4's original voicework was the best of the best by any means (there are even a few characters I really felt they should have switched) but it's still far better than that awful dub. Even if you don't personally agree, you have to admit there's no harm in it for anyone else if those who do want this to do so. Here's hoping RF5 will have learned from basically everything else and offer the original voices (I suppose free DLC given how most do it these days) and none of this will be necessary with it... (But there's no doubt in my mind that RF4's Switch port won't change things in this respect. Ultimately it comes down to licensing I guess, but there was no technical reason they couldn't have offered original voices on the 3DS version, so I don't believe they will on the Switch with RF4 either.)


Anyway, I lack the ability to really help, but I really do wish you all the best in all of this. I'm unable to get the game right now, so I can't even offer to help test right now, but I'm cheering you on at least. I'm glad to see there's already so much progress since the data is so similar.

The english voices on the 3DS were a hit or miss for me. Some voices I found awful, some were pretty good. But overall I always like to play these kind of games with Japanese VO, it just feels "righter".

I wonder if I should make new thread for the translation, I'm starting to feel bad for hijacking somebody's question thread.

 

[LordBone]

Played about an hour, theres a few little hiccups like maybe in a few lines they say something a little different. For some reason the MC says "hes asleep" to the butterfly girl in Yokmir Forest after defeating the boss. Also the menu is messed up a little but even I couldn't work that out when I tried. For some reason though the map says your room is "butlers room" and the butlers room as "your room". Also the game crashes when you try to open the calendar. But other than that it pretty much works and you can keep up with the story.

I've fixed the calendar crash, the map name mismatches and cleaned up a few things in menus and other areas. You can find v2 here: https://gbatemp.net/threads/rune-factory-4-special-english-translation-conversion.544844/

 

[milkydude12]

I've spent a few hours on it and edited the language files. It seem to work however I've only tested it for the first 30 minutes of the game.

It's not perfect, but it's playable until the localized version comes out. Especially if you are desperate to play it... like me.

The main menu is still in Japanese, and all the new lines (there is apporx ~9400 new lines) (or the ones that were changed) are in Japanese, and some of the names and titles are in japanese, but most of the story, item names, quest names skill names etc. seem to have went trough. Also the text sometimes cuts out, because it's longer than the max character number.

I've only tested this on SXOS.

Feel free to let me know if there are any crashes or strange translations.

Extract the zip into your titles folder. (For SXOS: on your sdcard - \sxos\titles\). Then you may need to restart your Switch. Start the game and it should work.

View attachment 174743

Thank you so much!!! I've tried to do this myself... and eventually gave up and decided to go with what u made! Thank you so much again, its fun to be able to run this without having to use google translate for every single line of text while also attempting to just remember what everything is/does XD.