ROM Hack Sekaiju no Meikyuu III - Work in progress

[Nivalis]

Been poking around with this new game, thus far i believe it to be pretty much the same format as previous games with the exception that all of the files are packed into a single file with one file to identify filenames and another file for .. well, i've no idea.
Files in question are :
Target.bin (fbin file containing pretty much the entire game)
Target.idx (unknown)
Target.ndx (all of the filenames for the data within Target.bin)

Now i know this is a very small step in terms of getting anywhere, however i felt i'd post it incase someone has come across something similar employed for other games, or felt like joining in to figure things out

Also it gives people who are sick of seeing threads about getting pokemon working, something different to read

 

[Stealth Fox]

Yay...another project with no future... I cant wait.....

 

[Nivalis]

Yay...another project with no future... I cant wait.....

If you don't have anything to share, don't post at all.

Anyway, it seems some backgrounds and ui elements are stored in raw data, but sprite data is in compressed CMP files like the previous two games, where the files individually packed it wouldn't be that big an issue to decompile them and extract/change, using ndsrledec, but all thrown in to one file makes that a little more difficult.

As with previous games the text is contained within the mbb file segments, though this time all within Target.bin, i can change things around but it'd be a lot easier if i could figure out the filesystem.

 

[ramestre]

It will eventually be announced and released in english...

But thanks to your efforts in speeding up the proccess, if you release a patch I know I'll play it.

 

[Nivalis]

Heres my findings so far.

Target.ndx

01000400 DATA
0C00000012000200 --2D
E00000000900 AreaStart
700100000600 Battle
B60200000500 Debug
1F3A00000700 Dungeon
503A00000600 Effect
073D00000500 Enemy
005600000500 Event
027100000400 Font
749400000D00 InterfaceFile
AD9400000400 Item
A09800000700 LevelUp
6C9A00000600 MapDat
989A00000500 Model
F09D00000200 SE
000000000500 Skill
179F00000300 Tex
57A000000800 TexTable
2B3C020006001300 2D_Keyboard_obj.bin
000000001700 2D_keyboard_obj_pal.bin
000000000E00 2D_map_obj.bin
000000001200 2D_map_obj_pal.bin
000000000E00 2D_sea_obj.bin
000000001200 2D_sea_obj_pal.bin
000000000C001500 area_effect_01_00.tbl
000000001500 area_effect_01_01.tbl
000000001500 area_effect_02_00.tbl
000000001500 area_effect_02_01.tbl
000000001500 area_effect_03_00.tbl
000000001500 area_effect_03_01.tbl
000000001500 area_effect_04_00.tbl
000000001500 area_effect_04_01.tbl
000000001500 area_effect_05_00.tbl
000000001500 area_effect_05_01.tbl
000000001500 area_effect_06_00.tbl
000000001500 area_effect_06_01.tbl
0000000007001100 BattleBGTable.tbl
000000001100 battlemessage.mbm
000000001600 BattleSETableAfter.tbl
000000001A00 BattleSETableAtkBefore.tbl
000000001700 BattleSETableBefore.tbl
000000001200 EffectSEETable.tbl
000000000600 Effect
6303000006000500 After
AB0300000800 AtkAfter
1D1B00000900 AtkBefore
CF1D00000600 Before
812000000300 ESE
000000000300 Etc
3D39000090010900 AE000.tbl
000000000900 AE001.tbl
000000000900 AE002.tbl
000000000900 AE003.tbl
000000000900 AE004.tbl
000000000900 AE005.tbl
000000000900 AE006.tbl
000000000900 AE007.tbl
000000000900 AE008.tbl

Within target.nds theres segments of code in between readable text, by extracting the code and sitting it alongside the trailing text, it shows that the second to last byte declares the file/folder character length in hex, for exmaple :
027100000400 Font
749400000D00 InterfaceFile
04 in decimal is 4, folder length in chars is 4
0D in decimal is 13, folder length in chars is 13
The rest of it i'm not yet sure about however it seems obvious to me that the sections that are 4 bytes longer than the rest, are stating which folder the following filesets go in to.

Again, if anyone has seen a similar file layout in other games, feel free to step up and speak out

 

[Nivalis]

Okay thus far i've found that foldernames are followed by two bytes which dictate which folder the said file belongs to, with two bytes before the foldername dictating the folder structure, when new trees are added the folder content is defined by how many files are present, as such.
uint16_tunk0; uint16_tname_length; charname[name_length]; uint32_tunk1;
We're working on something to make a logical order of things based on the ndx file, then we'll move on to the idx which should hopefully define which parts of the bin file are what, or rather the contents of the 28 FBIN files contained in a single stream within the Target.bin

As things stand, things seem fairly hardcoded, so unless the filesystem remains intact (not adding, or removing files, or extending or shortening any files , not even by a single byte), the game most likely will not function properly or at all, which makes a translation patch a hell of a lot harder, unless of course the idx file is figured out enough to rebuild it and point to our custom offsets.

However we're going to continue and attempt to extract the filesystem.

 

[xtreme1]

Yay...another project with no future... I cant wait.....

+1

 

[Nivalis]

Okay so we're making headway on the idx file, we should have the filesystem extracted by the end of the day.
and to the people saying 'project with no future', fk off and go elsewhere, this is 'rom hacking and translations', not 'TRANSLATIONS ONLY', the whole point of this thread is to reverse the filesystem used for Sekaiju no Meikyuu III, and we're on the verge of doing so.

 

[Nivalis]

Okay, we have extracted everything

need some proof?

 

[KingVamp]

Okay, we have extracted everything

need some proof?

not really...


what up with the pic?

 

[Nivalis]

That would be,
\Data\Tex\Monster\eb001_0.cmp, or in other words, the first monster sprite in the monster sprites directory..

Well, to be exact, eb001_0.cmp is 128x128, the top portion of the sprite, and eb001_1.cmp is a 32x128 segment from the bottom of the sprite, combined makes the above image.
incidentally, eb001_0.ntfp is the palette for the monster.

 

[Maverynthia]

I don't know why people are so negative, yes this game will probably get an English release, however ATLUS hardly remains true to the content. They change the names of Jobs, people, places and monsters. I have a feeling this translation when completed will be superior to Atlus.

 

[9th_Sage]

I hope people will support it's release. It probably WILL be released here officially, which is kind of a miracle in and of itself that this series has seen release here at all. You might complain about Atlus, but you have to give them props for bringing us obscure things like this, and Sting's games like Knights in the Nightmare.

 

[Nivalis]

So, got much of the games menus and skills translated, will be hacking up a better suited font in the coming days as the standard 10x10 and 12x12 shift-jis fonts are terrible when used for english, incidentally menu data is stored within the lz compressed overlay_0003.bin, and the game can be used with the unpacked target.bin if you unpack arm9.bin and fiddle with the structure.
I was going to release the tools we made for unpacking the target file but i'm going to hold off on that, mainly due to the retarded 'isn't going to go anywhere' comments from people who have no idea in this thread, until i release it you'll just have to unpack it yourselves, besides given that unpacking serves no real purpose but to make it easier to see the files (and know where the cmp's start and end), unless you mess with the arm9 and have it load the data from the old structure type instead of the target nonsense, it doesn't help all that much.

That said the idx still contains all the pointers needed, and all that does is take the request from the game and tell it where the requested file is.
Is someone wants to call bs on this, by the way, lets say "bs you don't have it unpacked', or 'bs you dont have any tools to even post', i'm more than happy to provide ample proof.

To anyone actually interested in helping translate, and of course assuming you also know what you're doing (decent knowledge of asm, or past experience redirecting pointers or changing fonts), feel free to pm me and we'll work something out.

 

[sein kurusawa]

God bless my friends, go ahead.

 

[gukid]

I don't know why people are so negative, yes this game will probably get an English release, however ATLUS hardly remains true to the content. They change the names of Jobs, people, places and monsters. I have a feeling this translation when completed will be superior to Atlus.

Agreed. Just look at the Tales of Hearts translation. Definitely better than Namco. "Fans" will always do better work.

Good luck with the project!