ROM Hack [WIP] Final Fantasy (eShop) Translation.

[Drwho0894]

Progress:
Still a lot of progress to go...

To do:
Everything at this point, but we'll give it ago.

Images:
N/A At the moment.

Members:
geekboy1011(coder/project head)
Drwho0894
WiikeyHacker(Translator)​

 

[ThatGuy...]

So will this be a fan translation or would the translation be based off of the remakes?

 

[Drwho0894]

So will this be a fan translation or would the translation be based off of the remakes?

Hopefully we might be able to patch the PSP translation into the game once we are able to get to the text. This 3DS version is based off the PSP game.

 

[geekboy1011]

SO i have been taking a stab at this. I got packing and unpacking of both DPK files and PCK files down. As well as decompressing the wp16 stuff thanks to someone over on the zenhax forum. I have hit a snag with repacking. Currently have to figure out the checksum used in the archive, OR find the code responsible for checking it and removing it. Not 100% sure how to go about this, but hey its is a start.

 

[Drwho0894]

Nice some progress at least!

 

[geekboy1011]

So totally forgot to post this, This is the DPK/PCK fileformat

Header
File Table
FileData

Header  | Total Size: 0x80
------------------------------------
FileCount  | Size: 0x4
Archive Size  | Size: 0x4
Padding  | Size: 0x78


File Table  Total | Size: NumFiles*0x80
---------------------------------------
File Name  | Size: 0x16
Checksum  | Size: 0x2  ;Checksum. Method to calculate unknown
Offset To File  | Size: 0x4  ;From Archive Start
Size in Archive  | Size: 0x4
Uncompressed Size | Size: 0x4  ;If file is a compressed stream these will differ.
Padding  | Size 0x5C

FileData  | Total Size:  ArchiveSize-FileTable-Header
Appended to the table is the stream of all assets marked out by earlier files.

 

[Drwho0894]

So it turns out the English translation is already there in the files. Just need to confirm they translated any new assets.

 

[geekboy1011]

So it turns out the English translation is already there in the files. Just need to confirm they translated any new assets.

So to clarify this. With out deep inspection (EG not looking directly at the assets.) There are files labeled for the US language option inside the DPK archive. So it is completely possible they have already translated the game. It however is also possible that they have not, and the files are place holders for some thing they did not complete.


AND looks like they did not translate the newgame sequence of stuff. So I'm going with they made a copy and never completed the work

 

[geekboy1011]

Also to poke some fun at your title post. Todo is get PCK files repacking verbatim. No point in continuing anything until this is accomplished. Second, Assets are not translated and are dummy files. Woo >.<
So after getting them repacking the goal is to find out how text is actually stored and making sure we can do basic arbitrary edits. Then proceed to full scale.

 

[Ev1l0rd]

Hm... just one question, what translation is gonna be used? I know that there are at least a few, but I think that going for the PSP translation (which is also used in all similar releases graphically, such as the iOS/Android version) will be a good idea.

 

[geekboy1011]

Honestly I plan on just getting the ball rolling then I think I'm going to step out and maintain my tools. Life is busy That being said there are quite a few people who want to work on this translation. So hopefully other people will chime in once we prove that this is even possible.


Also some minor conjecture is we are going to need an asm hacker because currently the game is monospaced. I do not know if the text system even supports variable width fonts. So we have to play with that as well. And I know for a fact that I'm not capable of that.

 

[geekboy1011]

Is anyone actually interested in this? I kinda lost steam with the file repacking, and the lack of interest makes other projects higher priority.


Also looks like we might have solved the checksum problem. But i have to write a completely new de-packer for it...but hey that will make it less of a headache to de-pack things..Kinda still need to re-implement the de-compressor in something that is not C.

 

[Drwho0894]

I am still in translating the game.

 

[geekboy1011]

So repacking kinda works?!? It repacks everything seemingly ok but it crashes trying to load the main menu. Not sure why yet. Other endeavors have put this on the backburner. As for what the culprit is I currently have no clue. I could be accidentally mangling the assets, Or worse the game could expect it to be compressed (not likely due to the warning screen originally being compressed, and that loads fine.) It currently white screens in HANS and with layeredFS makes the OS reboot. Will be looking into it, but any insight is well appreciated if anyone has some. I will have my code up eventually right now it still needs some user friendly-ness updates.

 

[Drwho0894]

So repacking kinda works?!? It repacks everything seemingly ok but it crashes trying to load the main menu. Not sure why yet. Other endeavors have put this on the backburner. As for what the culprit is I currently have no clue. I could be accidentally mangling the assets, Or worse the game could expect it to be compressed (not likely due to the warning screen originally being compressed, and that loads fine.) It currently white screens in HANS and with layeredFS makes the OS reboot. Will be looking into it, but any insight is well appreciated if anyone has some. I will have my code up eventually right now it still needs some user friendly-ness updates.

I'm glad there is progress.
I'm not sure with PCK files but maybe the archive has to be the exact same size?

 

[geekboy1011]

No sir. The argument against that is that the warning screen is compressed and that shows up fine uncompressed.

 

[GuyInDogSuit]

Cool, I didn't even know they had actually released this. I heard about it back in 2014, but forgot. So no news on a western release, huh?

 

[Drwho0894]

Well as far as we know the files have to be unpacked from a DPK file. It has some encryption on it and currently working on a way that will unpack and repack and still make the game work. Some of the files have english text in already as it is a port of the PSP version. I'm not sure if there is an offset anywhere that could change the language but currently it looks like we might have to replace the JP text to translate it. Even then the text messes up etc so thats another job in itself.

I just want to thank @geekboy1011 for all the work on this.
They've been a great help in getting this going.
I'm just a translator and have no knowledge in rom hacking so I was quite lost when I hit a wall of trying to unpack the DPK file.

 

[geekboy1011]

Well as far as we know the files have to be unpacked from a DPK file. It has some encryption on it and currently working on a way that will unpack and repack and still make the game work. Some of the files have english text in already as it is a port of the PSP version. I'm not sure if there is an offset anywhere that could change the language but currently it looks like we might have to replace the JP text to translate it. Even then the text messes up etc so thats another job in itself.

I just want to thank @geekboy1011 for all the work on this.
They've been a great help in getting this going.
I'm just a translator and have no knowledge in rom hacking so I was quite lost when I hit a wall of trying to unpack the DPK file.

Going to sound mean here but, About half of what you just claimed is wrong. DPK files and PCK files are the same afaik based on their structure and those are all extract and repackable. There is no English text other then the traditional New Game, Load ETC. We are more then likely going to have to rewrite the entire text display routines to support variable width fonts as well as some other details that have to do with the translations.

Right now the issue just stems from the game crashing while loading a file, Which I currently do not know which file OR what is causing the error. Nor have I looked that hard yet. But that's a different story.

 

[TwistedZeon]

Well hopefully it's nothing too bad keeping it from working.

Anywho, Keep up the great work. Really looking forward to this.