This is a stupid question, but as I am stupid I must ask it. I started replaying Shenmue recently (god I love that game...) because it has been a while, and doing so reminded me how horrible the English voice acting was. I remember that the PAL version of Shenmue II had Japanese audio with English subtitles; was the PAL version of Shenmue the same? Also, will the PAL version of Shenmue work on an NTSC television like Shenmue II did?
yep crappy dubbing just like Tachikoma said. Even the Japanese got a version of that awful English language version called US Shenmue. International Shenmue would have been a better title in my book. Unfortunately unlike Sonic International you can only select English voices with English or Japanese subtitles. In Sonic International you can choose the spoken language as well as the subs. Yakumo
I'm afraid the only Japanese language version of Shenmue is the JP one with no English subtitles. When I get round to it, I'm going to see if it's just a matter of swapping audio files round e.g. take a English language version of Shenmue and swap out the English audio for Japanese.
1: get the japanese audio from the japanese version 2: downsample it 3: replace the english audio with the japanese downsampled audio 4: make it selfboot. :dance:
Sounds simple, but simple it is not. Firstly, how would you find out which files were audio? It isn't as if they are just .wav files or something. Plus, the audio files might not even have the same names on both discs. You said you would need to downsample it; how would you know by how much?
The problem with translating any game is that not all the conversations are stored in one shot. Shenmue takes this problem to the next level. The Japanese langauge can be dissected differently than the English, and from a technical standpoint, that's what's happened. Translations are never perfect, but for Shenmue to really work in another langauge, there's gotta be some low-level reprogramming. In theory, couldn't you hack the GD-Roms and replace the English subtitles with the Japanese ones? Might be easier than doing the audio. Also seems a lot easier to edit them to make the translation a bit tighter.
that is probably easier, but what about the menus/signs? there is a file named "0GDTEX.PVR" that is probably the text file... also, there are many folders named SOUND that contrain many files with the extention .SND , heres a screenshot: you know... if i only had access to images of the japanese discs.... i have plenty of free time too....
What would be the point in that? My only problem with the American version is the crappy voice acting.
did you even read? 1: take the english subtitles from american version 2: replace japanese subtitles from the japanese game with the japanese dub with the subtitles from the american versions....
Actually, it's the texture file for the spinning disk in the CD player, if you go into it with a DC game in the drive, you see (most often) the image of the disc.
Out from personal experience with replacing audio and video streams on games for various systems, replacing Audio/Video in general isn't much of a problem. (Unless the game has some weird archive system for things or some sort of protection to prevent files from being messed with) I see that Gajin mentions the possibilities of reprogramming and that can often be a problem (such as a game that has audio sequences taken out or dummied and the game uses an archive file for all audio, replacing audio then can quickly be a total bitch) I've never touched a Japanese version of Shenmue, but atleast the way the game feels when I've played it, it seems like localization of the game hasn't done a single thing, except from translating text and dubbing audio. Also, judging from the way people talk in the game, it seems like the English script stays very true to the Japanese original script. So I guess it shouldn't be much of a problem replacing audio and at the same time get an enjoyable outcome (Inserting Japanese audio in a game that has had a heavy re-write in the English can quickly become confusing if you're a little familiar with japanese)
It can't be done unless you know aboutr Dreamcast audio. The files will be in ADX format for a start and highly likely that they are compressed in to ASF format. So you'll have to uncompress everything then recompress it which I doubt you have the tools for. Yakumo
I think the simpleist way (and im sure its been said above) is to get the jap game and the american game. Take out the subtitles from the english and rename them the same as the subs in the jap game. Then inset the rigged english subs into the jap game. Then when playing the jap game it will load the english subs but since they are named the same as the jap subs it will work fine and display in english. Like I said I think thats what people have been saying but I was just trying to spell it out a little better. Anyway I have the full NTSC Shenmue ISO files if someone needs them. And yes I own the real game (2 copies actually) so I am allowed to have the ISO.
Comparing the English to the Japanese voice acting is a difference as much as day and night IMO. I have all Shenmue I & II regions, but I only play the Japanese versions nowadays. Excellent to practice my Japanese. =)
Somehow I don't think it's going to be that simple. I doubt the game has textures of every line of text, that wouldn't make sense. It would be a waste of storage space. It's far more likely to have a file containing all the strings of text in the game, and another file containing graphic art for the kanji and katakana symbols. Then you get into complicated shit as you need to 1/ translate the Japanese, 2/ replace the Japanese characters with Roman ones and correctly lining up the text without breaking the game. From what I know, rebuilding an ISO isn't as trivial as it sounds either, it isn't like ROM hacking where you can just change data as you like. The audio files won't necessarily have used the ASX format, either. If the logo doesn't show when the game boots up then it's a different sound format, and you'll have fun decoding it.
