Hacking [PSP] La Pucelle Ragnarok Translation

[ChepChep]

It was a stupid bug... I had accidentally typed 2 extra 00 in the hex code when translating and pushed the Fa off the screen. I also tried to hexedit the save file to fix it, but the save file is encrypted so I cannot figure out where it is being stored.

I really need to find a Japanese to English translator. I have been looking at the extra chapters and it will take me forever to use google translate to get it done and will be a crappy translation if done that way.

Anyone interested in helping? I want to find someone who has played La Pucelle or willing to play through the entire game before starting the translation.

-ChepChep

 

[Linka]

I'll try to advertise on twitter/tumblr that you're looking for a translator. Maybe someone will pop up!

 

[ChepChep]

I have not really needed a translator yet since I have been able to use the PS2 content. Once I am done with the base story, I will start trying to find one. I also need to figure out how to translate stuff in start_JP.LZS in the talk00_jp.dat file. There is a bunch of stuff in the file I have translation for but whenever I use the toolpack to repackage things, it crashes the emulator and PSP. My guess is there is a bug in the toolkit. I need to solve it at some point since I do not want to hexedit everything that is in that file.

 

[Deleted User]

Hello! I'm a huge NIS fan, and even though I'm not exactly fluent in Japanese, I'm confident I could translate the dialogue in the extra chapters! It makes me so happy to see someone putting this much effort into a fan translation, so I'd like to do whatever I can to help out!

 

[Linka]

Hello, Sardine-Queen! I recognize your name from my tumblr post that you reblogged. Nice to see it got a response!

Hopefully you'll be able to help.

 

[Kelebek]

So all the story text is full-width, is that really needed? If it can't display half-width, couldn't you replace the font? Just wondering if it can't be done for some reason.

 

[ChepChep]

Kelebek,

The story characters right now have to be double width. There is a bug in the PSP font code that will not allow single width in the story and cause crashing on the game. I have narrowed it down to an issue with odd number of single width characters. Something is hard coded and cannot figure out where. Also ' are hard coded to have a space after them and spaces are always double width and a certain number of pixels. I have no plans to fix this since it it going to be almost impossible to find it since the code running it is in byte code.

 

[Kelebek]

Really? Cause it looks pretty fine to me:

Spoiler

The only issues I see are the hard-coded weirdness as you said. Breaking the character after the apostrophe, and the double space. But it can take single-width just fine, so maybe something can be done.

 

[ChepChep]

Try putting in lines with odd number of characters counting spaces. Those examples are all even numbers (18).

Typically it will crash with odd amount. I have tried many times to fix it and cannot get a solution that will work for all cases.

 

[Kelebek]

Well yeah of course, A lot of JP games require their strings to be an even length, that's an easy fix, you just add a space on the end, as I did with the second line. It's the end of the line so you can't ever see it.

By editing the font, you can stop the game breaking with apostrophes:

Spoiler

(Ignore the broken textures, that just seems to happen when repacking START_JP for some reason)

As you can see, no characters have been removed, and it works fine. So whatever bytecode that was doing it, runs independently to the font map. All I did was set < to be a space, and > to be an apostrophe. Since changing space, yeah, that's just a standard sized space, it can't actually be doubling it or anything, so could keep space the same.

So the problem is just that they're too big, but I don't know how to sort that out. Maybe you could figure out how to scale the whitespace either side of it down.

 

[ChepChep]

Kelebek,

The broken texture is due to using the single width. That is one of the bugs I cannot fix. Also others start to occur if you continue to use single width. Some will crash the game when you try to talk to NPCs or during the storyline. I have spent hours trying to fix it and I cannot find any solution. Later in the game if you talk with NPC from the PS2 version and then try to talk to new NPC found only in the PSP version with single width characters, the game will crash. I could not find any way around this bug.

-ChepChep

 

[Kelebek]

Well, I replaced the single-width text back into full-width, the only edit I made in scriptpack at all, and the problem still remains. So it doesn't look like a single-width issue. Things break as soon as I repack START_JP.LZS, rather than the scriptpack.

Here, to prove it, I just replaced scriptpack with the single-width edit I had, leaving START_JP.LZS alone (I edited it from your patched version, not the original JP version, so it has the new font, but not my font edit for the apostrophes and spaces), and it works:

Spoiler

So yeah, the issue is in START_JP.LZS. I'm not sure how you got it to work for your patch, but it's not a single-width text issue. As long as you keep all your strings to an even length I don't see how single-width can be what's breaking it.

Soon as I replace START_JP with a repacked one though, bam the corruption.

EDIT: Yeah, there's definitely issues with the repack. Take START_JP straight from the rom, unpack, pack, and the differences between the two files, they're huge. 200403 bytes difference when the files are untouched is pretty big.

 

[ChepChep]

More good news. I have finished translating chapter 12. I just need to play test the chapter and then create a patch. After this next release, our status will be at about 95% of the base story is completed.

I also would like you to all welcome Sardine-Queen who has agreed to help translate the text not in the PS2 version of the game.

Look for a new patch this weekend.

-ChepChep

 

[Linka]

Awesome! I'm really looking forward to the patch coming out. Is the other 5% the miscellaneous bits, like the "joke" Overlord Prier ending relating to the Dark World, and whatnot?

And nice to see you're good with Sardine-Queen! Hope this spells good things for the Overlord Prier chapter overall.

 

[ChepChep]

The other 5% is other things like the new NPC for the PSP version and anything else I may have missed. I plan to play through the game again with New Game + to try to find any of those bugs or things I missed.

There is also a bunch of text in talk00.dat that I am having a hard time getting inserted back into the game. I just rewrote my python code to try to reinsert a new version of talk00.dat that I know works for the LZS compression but it failed and I get garbled text. I am starting to get a feeling that either some of the fonts or background images are hard coded someplace for a memory location. If that is true it is going to be very tough to find it or to hexedit everything in talk00.dat. There is very little room in talk00.dat with the japanese. That file contains many of the shops, tuturials, flavor text, and some of the demon overload scenes from the Dark World.

Anyways I will post any updates once I figure things out. It just takes awhile for the python LZS code to encrypt since it takes 30-40 minutes to compress everything.
The C# code in the toolkit is much faster since it is compiled but I know there is a bug in it if you change the filesizes.

-ChepChep

 

[marychristie]

i actually have a question... if i start playing the game with the current patch, if i apply the patch after i already have saved will the new content be added? for example i have the 11 chapter patch.. if i install the 12th chapter patch, or the full patch when you are finished will i be able to use my save data and continue to the 12th / demon prier chapters in english? also i am interested if you are ever polishing the font.. while it is ok it could be better. thanks and i really appreciate you translating this.

 

[Linka]

I asked a similar question, and I was told that the save should still work correctly with the new patch.

Also answered, changing/polishing the font would be a bigger mess than is worth it.

 

[ChepChep]

MaryChristie,

You should have no issues with your save data applying new patches in the future. I have been doing it all along. The only bug I have seen so far is names of playable characters. I had a couple of typos in the eboot.bin that did not get fixed when applying the new patch that was suppose to fix it. If you start over they will be fixed. Those typos in the names are fixed so you should have no issues. I plan to release a patch today that will finish up the base story through chapter 12.

Most likely patches will be slowing down in being release since most of the content left to translate I do not have english content yet for it or there is a major technical challenge I need to solve.

As far the fonts, I totally agree it is ugly but I have no plans to change it. My goal for LPR Ragnarok is to get the game playable in english. I doubt I will ever get more than 95% of the game translated. The other 5% have major technical hurtles that will most likely take longer than I have already spent on the patch. I am more than willing to provide any files if anyone else wants to tackle fonts or other issues with the game.

I hope you will enjoy LPR Ragnarok in a portable format. I have a real hard time playing the PS2 version now since there have been so many major improvements in the PSP version.

-ChepChep

 

[ChepChep]

I can also confirm that you can get three Prinny, Etna, Flonne and Larharl from Disgaea. I was not sure if you needed the DLC to get them. They are available in the New Game+ and not in the Dark Prier Chapters. I am wondering how good the prinny are since you get them at level 1? Anyone know how good they get at higher levels?

 

[Linka]

Haha, you too with trying to play the PS2 game anymore, huh? The whole "you can move again if you do purification" thing really spoils a person, it's so great and it speeds up the game immensely. Trying to play the PS2 version anymore is so tedious that it tends to be more worth it to slough through my copy of the PSP game.

Looking forward to the patch hitting. I'm not sure about the extra added characters, though. I never got far enough in my copy to even hit New Game+, let alone the Disgaea cast. I knew they were in the game though, without DLC.