A quick test

[josejl]

I've started to check Ys II Special, and what I've found so far is kind of interesting.

• The data files aren't compressed at all.
  English text output can be done without further programming.
  The font is on the EXE, although I haven't been able to figure out the format.
  Same goes for the text encoding, it isn't standard by any means. I guess that the font will need to be extracted in order to see how the characters are mapped.
  I totally underestimated the complexity of VGA graphics rendering. This game uses the so called Mode X, which is a lot more complex than PC-98 video output, that's for sure

[SkyeWelse]

Thanks for taking a look at this Josejl. I'm still really hoping we can take a look at this one day. I know BatteryShark was also interested in hacking it.

-Thomas

[NightWolve]

Have fun. I actually thought about messing with this ages ago, but I never could find a Korean to English translator for a Softmax game I wanted to do, so never expected to ever find one for something else. Best place to try is romhacking.net I suppose.

[josejl]

Well, things have changed in these months.



It turns out that the game uses a "rare" Korean encoding, although Mantra used its own encoding on top of this one, but it's easy to map. (CP1361 or Johab encoding, none of my hex editors support it, except IDA Pro)
So, basically, the script seems to have been dumped properly, and can be reinserted as well.
There's a Korean translator this time. (The script is 45k characters long).

I still have to figure out the image format, since the opening "text" are images.

The game script format is more similar to a modern Ys/Kiseki script than something like Brandish 2, which was pure ASM. It's got 144 different opcodes.

[NightWolve]

Cool, so you're gonna try to finish this! Korean translators were much harder to find, hope s/he sticks with it. Ys I Complete was 98KB, so appears this is about half that. Ys II was 198KB.

[SkyeWelse]

Josejl,

So you are saying that not only is there a full dump of the game's script but it is also something that can be re-inserted and there is an interested Korean translator as well?

-Thomas

[josejl]

Yes, that's what I'm saying. Script dump and reinsertion seems to be working so far.

I only have tested it with a handful of scenes, but so far so good.

Still clueless about the image format, since this is something totally different from how current graphics rendering works.

In fact, I was asked by the translator to get the script dump.

[SkyeWelse]

Hi Josejl,

I was just curious how this project was coming along. Are there any updates you could share when you have a chance?

-Thomas

[NightWolve]

Ys II Special lives!!!

Who's translating ?