Dreamcast-Talk.com

EDIT:

For the latest version of the patch, click here: https://www.dreamcast-talk.com/forum/vi ... 70#p162870

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As some of you who see me on Discord, Twitter, or YouTube may know, I'm working with some other people on an English translation patch for Sakura Wars: Columns 2 ("Hanagumi Taisen Columns 2" in Japanese). Right now I have assistance from some of the people who helped with the Sega Saturn patch (Sakura Wars), without whom this wouldn't even be possible. They have been awesome!

On the development/hacking side though, I'm the only one on the project, although several others in the Dreamcast development and hacking scene have assisted me with a few things (thank you mrneo240 and VincentNL). While I'm not posting this in order to recruit others to work on the project full time, I am posting this to see if somebody out there can help with the compressed PVRs that I have encountered.

While the majority of the game has already been "cracked" and I've been able to prove I can modify it as needed, there are several images locked behind compression which are absolutely imperative for me to modify. This includes things like the menu. I have provided a link below to one of the PVMs that I've extracted from one of the game binaries. It contains several PVRs and in one way or another, there is compression involved that I can't figure out. I've tried PRS decompression utilities like PuyoTools, prs-utils, etc., but with no luck.

TITLE.RQL_03.ten2
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vL0amneT332Eu9259A9df97wEDTnZpL1/view?usp=sharing

If anybody is feeling generous and has been down this road before, any and all assistance will be greatly appreciated! Thank you so much.

I got these pvr files out of it but they dont display in pvr viewer. most of them are 1kb but two are larger. maybe you can get them to show.

pvr tool says its unsupported color format

Exactly, the images are still compressed. I appreciate the effort very much, but unfortunately this is exactly where I am!

Also, the issue with extracting that file as if it were a standard PVM is that the phrase "PVRT" occurs several times through the file, even when it doesn't seem to be indicating a new PVR. It's because of the compression used that the PVRT header is scrambled/scattered around like that.

hmmm thats wild

20 pvrs in that file and really no reason to compress them. sorry I couldn't help

I don't believe there are actually that many PVRs in there, I think the phrase "PVRT" occurs throughout the file even when it's not part of a true header for a new image (part of how the compression works?).

Anyway, thanks for trying. I hope some brilliant soul saves the day...

The decompressed source code is in the 1st file address: 0x130150
good luck~

yzb wrote:The decompressed source code is in the 1st file address: 0x130150
good luck~

Hey, thanks! Are you referring to that address in 1ST_READ.BIN?

ateam wrote:

yzb wrote:The decompressed source code is in the 1st file address: 0x130150
good luck~

Hey, thanks! Are you referring to that address in 1ST_READ.BIN?

yes

yzb wrote:yes

Thank you very much, yzb. I can't thank you enough for taking a look at this

Unfortunately, I'm in a bit over my head when it comes to reverse-engineering the compression/decompression code. I attempted to modify the game to point to non-compressed PVRs/PVMs, but of course that didn't work, since the game is expecting compressed images.

Being that this game has a full story mode with a very long script, it will take a few months for the translators I'm working with to complete the English text. I'm hoping that in the mean time, I'm able to make progress with these images, especially since the main menus are among those that are compressed and currently inaccessible. I would be so disappointed if I have to release this patch with untranslated menus!

Well folks, after weeks and weeks of trying, and with the help of others, I've finally done it.

https://i.imgur.com/JcRHCRS.mp4

The main menu images were locked behind compression, and now the game will display whatever images I want. This video (obviously) only shows a simple PVR that reads "THIS IS A TEST!", but it's now possible!

The pride and joy is immeasurable right now...