ROM Hack Text/Translations/Sub?

[DSMuse]

Out of curiosity, why can you just not switch the text from an English game rom to a Japanese one like you can for most audio? Or can you and it's just people don't bother, and the ones people want translated aren't out in English?

I ask because there are some games where the English version have way more bugs & glitches than the Japanese, so if one could take a Japanese rom and put the English text on it... Well, it's a nice theory but I assume there has to be some major roadblocks somewhere? But I wanted to check!

Also, I assume this isn't possible but... If you have a program like Nitro, could you open the text file and fix spelling errors the game creators made? One of my games has so many typos I'm going a bit insane from them, and fixing it would be worth the time...

Thanks for any information!

 

[thedicemaster]

Out of curiosity, why can you just not switch the text from an English game rom to a Japanese one like you can for most audio? Or can you and it's just people don't bother, and the ones people want translated aren't out in English?

I ask because there are some games where the English version have way more bugs & glitches than the Japanese, so if one could take a Japanese rom and put the English text on it... Well, it's a nice theory but I assume there has to be some major roadblocks somewhere? But I wanted to check!
depends on the game, since sometimes content is added/removed, and you may also have to hex-edit some parts of the english arm9 into the japanese one.
Also, I assume this isn't possible but... If you have a program like Nitro, could you open the text file and fix spelling errors the game creators made? One of my games has so many typos I'm going a bit insane from them, and fixing it would be worth the time...
possible, but some games require special tools or knowledge of how to decrypt/encrypt files using an unknown encryption.

Thanks for any information!

 

[psycoblaster]

this depends on the game in various ways:
1. the font
2. the file type
3. graphics
4. arm9 binary

1. Font
usually, the font for games might be different from the japanese and english roms.
And what is the problem for this? The japanese fonts are SOMETIMES wider than the english rom's font.
so basically, when you put english text in a japanese game, it might show up like
M y n a m e i s
Instead of
My name is

which can be a trouble, because texts might get out of screen, which some games can tend to crash.
And in many times, the font is in the arm9.bin, so editing the width of a font can be a problem.

2. File type
A good example is final fantasy XII. The english rom had files all tied together, while they were all saved separately for the japanese rom.
Even though the way the file was set up was similar, it wasn't the same.
In the japanese rom, single byte characters weren't supported, and in the english rom, double byte characters weren't supported.
So other codes, such as color codes, line breaks etc were different, too.
That meant an ordinary file swap wouldn't work.

3. Graphics
even if you switch text files, graphics wouldn't be changed.
Graphics can also be swapped, though.
but some graphic swaps can cause problems, also in final fantasy.

4. arm9.bin (and overlay files)
Now this is something that makes the difference. Even though it is the same game but in a different language, you won't be able to just swap the arm9 binary.
Everything inside it is unique for every game, and sometimes, there are texts actually inside the arm9.bin.
same goes for the overlay files. They can be easily edited, but in some cases, the japanese version has lots of overlays but the english version might not.
And overlays can have texts in them too.

 

[DSMuse]

Ok thank you for the information. Looks like you have to be lucky to get a game that this works for.

Thank you very much for the information!

 

[dib]

I ask because there are some games where the English version have way more bugs & glitches than the Japanese

Name two.

 

[DSMuse]

I ask because there are some games where the English version have way more bugs & glitches than the Japanese

Name two.

Haha. Don' trust my word, eh?

Rune Factory 1 (EG Melody Glitch)
Harvest Moon DS (EG, billion dollar glitch, Leia vanish glitch, the fact that you can't marry HG or WP, etc.)

Good ol' Natsume.

(And that's just two.)

 

[iPikachu]

whut melody glitch in RF1? you cant use her bath?

 

[DSMuse]

whut melody glitch in RF1? you cant use her bath?

Yep. As far as I can tell that only happens in most of the English ones; a few lucky games and the Japanese don't have it, I believe.
There's a few other glitches in there I've run into, like a weird bottle vanishing one, but it's been a while since I played.

 

[ChaosBoi]

The JP version of HMS is actually more buggy than the US version. If I remember correctly, JP had trouble getting into the basement and a lot of other problems occurring so Marvelous had to re-release the game there with a few bug fixes. When Natsume brought us our copy, they used the latest version from JP but didn't even bother fixing the glitches that were still present. Then later on when people over here found out they couldn't marry the Witch Princess due to a certain glitch, Natsume released the game with a few bug fixes.

 

[DSMuse]

The JP version of HMS is actually more buggy than the US version. If I remember correctly, JP had trouble getting into the basement and a lot of other problems occurring so Marvelous had to re-release the game there with a few bug fixes. When Natsume brought us our copy, they used the latest version from JP but didn't even bother fixing the glitches that were still present. Then later on when people over here found out they couldn't marry the Witch Princess due to a certain glitch, Natsume released the game with a few bug fixes.

Odd. On Ushi No Tane there is a HUGE list of bugs that everyone has reported, and I think they are all English, and listed the fixed Japanese. But I could be wrong. Besides, I know the marrying special girls is bugged, because you can't get the full item list.
Regardless the game I'd like to do this to is DS for Girl/Cute, so then I'd have English up until after marriage for Special girls. Now that one there is stuff that was buged or tried to be blocked and it didn't work/errored.