Hacking Tutorial for translating vita games

[RaphaelDDL]

Hello all,

I've been searching on gbatemp (all vita discussions, like hacking and tutorials), as well on reddit subs but I couldn't find any tutorial, tip or anything on how to start/attempt to do a game translation. Searches normally end in tutorials on how to apply a translation patch or on translation release threads.

The only tip I found around the threads was that games made with Unity are harder to open files but that's it. Would you be kind to point me any resources available?

Information I think that might be helpful:
- How decrypt the game files;
- What settings are good for a hex editor (open as 32bit is enough? What else should I do);
- How to create the patch file after translating a file;
- Common issues translators have (file size mismatch crashes games? font issues? etc etc)

I really want to attempt translate Luminous Arc Infinity.

Senpai, please teach me (and anyone else who stumble upon this topic )

 

[happydance]

How decrypt the game files; I'm probably not the best one to answer this, so don't take my answers as fact. Since I'm still pretty much a noob at this.

There probably really not much documentation 'now' on how to start hacking game for translation cause there little interest for it now or maybe your just using the wrong term. In the past they don't call the process of hacking a game to change it's language as translation, cause you know transition is the translation of the language itself not the hacking process. They call it rom-hacking and as far as I can remember it started on Nintendo games (NES) and got more popular during the SNES days. I started to learn rom-hacking during the SNES days and I've used this tutorial to start off The ROM Hacker's Bible or The New Romhacker's Bible. It might be old but still the basic is there and the theories can be still be applied to new games. You can hang around https://www.romhacking.net to learn stuffs since basically most game translation of any game console are organized there and other romhackers still hang around... I think...

Well basically you just need to really familiarize yourself with a hex editor to really get started, start with already English titles and experiment with those, search some text and change.

for the info's you want.

-How decrypt the game files?
Some games are really encrypted, but others are not. they may be just in raw format, compressed, etc. there no specific way to extract/decrypt these files, extension may not even help in identifying them since game files vary from game developers and platform. But usually a certain game developer will use the same game format or with little variation for it, so it might help to know the game developers and platform when in search for a tool. You can laso try visiting http://forum.xentax.com/ and http://zenhax.com/ for some game ripping/extraction/decryption tools/scripts and also learn how to reverse engineer game files (for game translation)

- What settings are good for a hex editor (open as 32bit is enough? What else should I do?
dunno man, I just use plain old HxD

- How to create the patch file after translating a file?
this is really straight forward and usually Xdelta is used, or you can make your own pitcher

- Common issues translators have (file size mismatch crashes games? font issues?
maybe a translator for a start? there might be a good hacker/programmer but he/she can't read other language so a translator is a must
hmm... maybe limited translation space? and sometimes even if you can extend your translation space or edit the window image, you'll sometime need to shorten stuffs since it wont fit a window
there a mountain of problems to encounter so can't really give you anymore

It also really help if you know other programming language (I don't know one lols)

again don't take my word for it, I'm still a noob at this

 

[RaphaelDDL]

How decrypt the game files; I'm probably not the best one to answer this, so don't take my answers as fact. Since I'm still pretty much a noob at this.
(...)
again don't take my word for it, I'm still a noob at this

Don't worry man, I appreciate your tips, at least it's a start, and always better than not having anything.

Regarding translator, I have a friend that studies Japanese over 8 years, I'll hire him as a freelance, but at first I just wanted to try google translate just for testing purposes. Great tip on trying with english games first, I'll do that!

For programming languages, I'm UI Engineer, so pretty much Javascript and few backend langs as well.

Thanks!