Hacking Shiren 4 (PSP) Translation

umbreon112

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--- Update (Sept. 30th, 2021) ---
Check the latest post for details, but the tl;dr is that this is still in-progress, and the translation is somewhere around 60% complete at the moment.

--- Update (May 19th, 2020): ---

Story text can be translated, and the font width is being worked on.

However, the game crashes on startup because it appears to read a bunch of text into RAM, and since English takes up more space than Japanese, it flows over and overwrites important stuff in memory.

Would anyone here be able to help with the memory crashing issue?

--- Update (May 7th, 2020): ---
Most of the text (excluding story) can be translated now thanks to someone who goes by DhrGR.

However, the font is still a bit too wide and some item/monster names don't fit inside certain windows, so we need help making the font narrower. If anyone can help with that, it would be greatly appreciated!

--- original post ---
Hi everyone, I'm new here.

I've recently been curious about translating Shiren 4 for the PSP. I've searched around a bit and was able to extract the files + data0.cpk file (using UMDGen and CriPakTools), and I see a script folder with some binary files, but the contents appear to be further compressed or something. There doesn't appear to be any discernible text in either Shift-JIS or UTF-8 when viewed in a hex editor.

I'll admit I'm pretty much new to this stuff and don't have much experience yet, but I also tried dumping RAM/VRAM/decrypted eboot.bin through PPSSPP and took a look at those in a hex editor as well, but I wasn't able to locate any of the text that was on-screen / what looked like text in the executable outside of a block of test messages.

So with that said, would anyone happen to have an idea what I should try next? Thanks.
 
Last edited by umbreon112,

StorMyu

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maybe a custom encoding ? that's not impossible. A lot of games do it but on PSP it started to feel dumb and standarized encoding became more a thing so... idk.
 

umbreon112

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I did a little bit of work on Shiren Gaiden Asuka Kenzan (Dreamcast) which uses Shift-JIS, so I'd like to say that's what Chunsoft sticks to... but then I remembered Asuka was developed by Neverland Co. instead of them, so I'm not really sure.

I've heard of cases like Japanese N64 games that use some sort of texture/graphic outputting system rather than a text encoding, so maybe something like that is at work?
 

umbreon112

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A person here who had done some work on Shiren 4 shared some of their notes about the game late last year, but hacking the game is above my skill level at the moment, and they didn't respond to my last message, so it basically hasn't moved forward at all. (Side note: the text encoding is Unicode 16 bit Little Endian [UTF-16LE])

I'm fluent in Japanese and I'd gladly do all of the translation work if someone wanted to step up to the hacking side, but otherwise there probably won't be any progress for the foreseeable future. I've been working on translating a different game in the series with someone since last year, so I haven't had time to dive back into trying to learn how to hack PSP games myself.
 
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Dekross

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A person here who had done some work on Shiren 4 shared some of their notes about the game late last year, but hacking the game is above my skill level at the moment, and they didn't respond to my last message, so it basically hasn't moved forward at all. (Side note: the text encoding is Unicode 16 bit Little Endian [UTF-16LE])

I'm fluent in Japanese and I'd gladly do all of the translation work if someone wanted to step up to the hacking side, but otherwise there probably won't be any progress for the foreseeable future. I've been working on translating a different game in the series with someone since last year, so I haven't had time to dive back into trying to learn how to hack PSP games myself.
Well, there is the same game Shiren 4 but for NDS, I don't know anything about hacking but modifying a NDS ROM seems easier than a PSP. So there is always the possibility to parch the NDS version. If you want to do it let me tell you that there are still many people wishing for this games to get an english patch so we would be grateful if you could do it. Thanks for the quick answer too.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

Also what game were you translating?
 

umbreon112

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I'd rather not say which game it is on a larger platform like gbatemp, since we don't want to risk drawing Chunsoft's attention before it's released (They announced a Shiren 5 Switch port recently, so they might be considering remaking old titles too for all we know). But the text is 100% translated, and we're working on polish + bug fixes + texture edits now, aiming for a 2020 release.
 
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I'd rather not say which game it is on a larger platform like gbatemp, since we don't want to risk drawing Chunsoft's attention before it's released (They announced a Shiren 5 Switch port recently, so they might be considering remaking old titles too for all we know). But the text is 100% translated, and we're working on polish + bug fixes + texture edits now, aiming for a 2020 release.
Yes, I am aware of the Switch Shiren 5, I suppose they will do a european version, I mean, the game was already translated for the Vita. Also I hope hope they do other games ports like shiren 2 and 4. Will you share your project when you finish it? I love that franchise. We have a Shiren discord, if you like to enter and stay communicated.
Oh i was going to put the invitation here but i can't put links because I'm a new member. But anyway if you search shiren discord on google it should appear.
 

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So right after I say it's basically not happening, someone who goes by DhrGR came by with a script that can do text insertions for the game. We don't have access to the story text yet, but everything else can be translated now.

The game already has a proportional (variable) width font we can use, and it looks quite nice.
However, the font is a bit too wide for some windows at the moment, so we need help making it narrower.

I specialize in Japanese to English translation and have very little experience on the hacking/technical side, so I have no idea how I'd go about doing that - any help would be greatly appreciated.

IEPiLAz.png


Some other screenshots for fun:

3m5ui0e.png
 
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umbreon112

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Update: here's a video preview of the translated intro, so you can get an idea of how things look / how the game plays.

Good news: Someone by the name of kkzero is working on adjusting the font + widths, and we also have access to the story text, so everything can be translated.

Bad news: The game reads a bunch of text into RAM at startup, and since English takes up more space than Japanese, it appears the translated text is flowing over and overwriting important stuff, causing the game to crash before it gets to the title screen now.

Would anyone here be able to help with the text / memory crashing issue?
 

umbreon112

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Another update since it's been a few months.

The main story scenes are fully translated now, along with most menus, names (item, monster, special moves, etc), scrolling messages during gameplay, and some other bits and pieces. I'm now working on the descriptions file which has 1800+ entries, so that one is going to take a while.

However, no one has been able to solve the game crashing issue yet, so help would be appreciated.

What we think is happening is that English text takes up more space than Japanese, so when the text gets read into memory it overflows/overwrites other stuff and ends up crashing the game.

So a possible solution might be to somehow change the text from UTF-16LE to UTF-8 or ASCII so that it takes up less space, since we don't need the Japanese characters for the translation. But I wouldn't know how that can be accomplished at all.

Example: Currently "E" = "45 00" when it could just be "45"
X4DNAQj.png


On side note, it seems the translation can be ported to the DS version without anything breaking at first glance, so that's nice:

PSP version:
VIVMRnS.png


DS version:
pntjd3d.png
 

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Congratulations on getting all the main story text translated! This looks really nice :D

I hope you can get help on the technical side soon! Someone must be able to, just gotta wait for them to see this post! :yaypsp:
 

rastsan

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its a control code issue for the onscreen text box runoff
yes the textboxes themselves can be changed in size and position i just cannot remember how I did it.

if taking from other games and "adapting" the sir0 files and trying for a repack beware the the tables in the files at least in the ds are coded in several files. it just means ds wise alot of repointing. for the psp though you do not need to worry about that.
as to the font its an easy work around. in the out (if using the bms unpacker for the cpk) in the graphic folder is 3 files that will need to be looked into. again cannot remember... but it was pretty simple the pointers lined up the letters and offset for spacing between those letters were in there too... just cut out the letters you do not need or only edit the ones you have to. again... been way to long since I worked on this... (if need direction compare the chinese version and you will quickly see which files need a change)
so if using shiren 5 files to help translate the control code spacing is off its set to what is needed for it. so control code text yellow which is different in shiren 4 ends up being sent to screen then text runoff. the control codes need to be mapped and charted.

dictionary20.bin is one file that you will need to work on font wise the 2 others though...
kanjitex20.bin
sorry cannot remember the other one.
good luck
i got lost in the player names and item names between 3,4,5... too many issues
 

umbreon112

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Great to hear from you rastsan!

Thanks for the tips, kkzero managed to make the font narrower, so it should fit within the windows now, at least for the PSP version.

The main obstacle now is that the game crashes on startup, because from what I understand, the text takes up too much space in memory. In PPSSPP's debugger, I tried using explain.bin and adding "A" until the game crashes as a test:

original:
start address = 095BAE30
size = 45400

no crash (AA):
start address = 095AACE0
size = 55550

crash (AAA):
start address = 095AACD0
size = 55560

And I haven't been able to come up with a solution after half a year, so the project has basically reached a dead end on the PSP version until someone else can help. (This issue doesn't seem to be present on the DS version so far). It's a shame since the PSP version is so much better than DS, visuals and content wise (extra dungeons), and the translation is really far along. (mainly NPC and item description text left)

If you feel like taking a look, I'd be glad to share my files / notes.
 

umbreon112

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So it's been a while (I forgot I had this thread here), but an update just in case anyone is interested:

This is still in progress, and thanks to a person who goes by Arc Impulse, the game no longer crashes on startup + other fixes have been made. The translation is roughly 60% complete, with 12 files (11 of which are NPCs, so smaller in size) left in the message folder, and then all that's left is NPC dialogue in messarc. (That said, it's still a few month's worth of translating)

There are a few more issues that need to be addressed besides the translation itself, but it's coming together pretty nicely now.

It's slightly outdated, but here's a video showing off some gameplay:

 

Nikokaro

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Just want to give this old thread a bump, since the English patch has now been released.
Wow, a truly unexpected surprise. I still remember when I first played the title for SNES, as soon as the translation patch was released: really memorable those sad and poignant bgms.:sad: Hmm... but the graphics of this PSP title look little better to me than the previous one: no 3D or isometric view? What a shame! :glare:
 

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