Shenmue 1 Japanization Guide

[Shensoul]

Dear Shenmue Community,

After about 6 months of research, investigation and knowledge collection I completed my "Shenmue 1 Japanization Guide" last weekend. I made this guide because there was no Shenmue 1 modding section on the Shentrad Team homepage and because I was interested in a Shenmue with Japanese voices and English subtitles and text.

The guide features all knowledge you need to upgrade your Shenmue PAL to NTSC-J without losing the English text. I learned a lot of stuff about Shenmue when I worked on this and maybe it will be usefull for you too.

I would like to say thank you to the following people (without them this guide would not exist today):
Shentrad Team [coders of the modification tools]
Hiei- [author of the original guide which I used as template]
IlDucci [helped me a lot with AFS Utils (XML files), FREE0x and A0100, AFS list]
Wude [teached me the vending machine file swapping]
Master Kyodai [provider of the useful disc scene list]
Mestre Ziming [provider of the useful character ID list]

EDIT3: updated to version 0.8.3 (added new link, previous links are nuked)
Link:
http://cramit.in/mubc64cciprp

EDIT4:

Hello again Shenmue community.
I have been inactive for some time but winter is approaching again and soon it will be Shenmue time again.
I noticed that Kogami from the metagames forum managed to fix us a Shenmue version with Japanese Audio and English subtitles.
I am very thankful about that and so the translation guide might not be necessary for Japanese audio related stuff anymore.

I also noticed that the previous link to the translation guide is dead and I decided to reupload it.
If anyone wants to use it for another translation into his/her language the guide might still be useful.
The second link is the raw word document. Someone on Metagames forum once asked me for it and I couldn't find it.
LINK: http://www66.zippyshare.com/v/96740604/file.html
LINK: http://www55.zippyshare.com/v/60299160/file.html

EDIT 5:
reup links added:
http://a.pomf.cat/ipgjgl.pdf
http://www15.zippyshare.com/v/aYAJbSmd/file.html
http://s000.tinyupload.com/?file_id=636 ... 2687216787

EDIT 6:
OK I tested my guide once again for 1 AFS package and it still works.
I only found 1 issue with the image creation process. I found out that image creation is not possible with the 1ST_READ.BIN from the binhack test folder and that I always used a customized one. Therefore I am uploading this file too:
http://www84.zippyshare.com/v/His5W7B8/file.html
http://i.pantsu.cat/xhmmgc.BIN
http://a.pomf.cat/zhxfhn.BIN
(keep in mind to rename those files back to 1ST_READ.BIN after you download them)

[Master Kyodai]

Hmmm just read it and it definitely is a nice "how to" guide. However regarding the sheer amount of dialogues i think it will not be THAT useful for the general public, i guess most people would ask like "OMG where teh cdi image link?".

I still think injecting the voices might not be the worst choice, at least it should go fairly fast. I'm not sure if the lip synchronization would be THAT bad. I watched some japanese movies with english dubbing and didn't even think about it, so i could imagine the impact would not be THAT bad.


Well anyways - good guide, nearly too detailed - imho you would not have needed to explain what USB and Byte are, maybe a bit over the top.

Anyways, great guide and thanks a lot for sharing it!

[Messiah]

This is seriously awesome Shensoul! I'm so glad you are taking the initiative to get this thing rolling. But to be honest, before I fully commit I want to make sure that there are enough people willing to work on this project. Could we get a poll or pettition going just to get some numbers?

Also, the process you have laid out in your pdf. is it tried and tested? By that I mean, have you got a proof of concept and know that if enough of us were to work on it, it would be a success? (Sorry if this sounds like a lazy question to ask).

Again, Bravo!

Peace.

[Shensoul]

Hello Messiah.

This is seriously awesome Shensoul! I'm so glad you are taking the initiative to get this thing rolling. But to be honest, before I fully commit I want to make sure that there are enough people willing to work on this project. Could we get a poll or pettition going just to get some numbers?

Thank you very much even if this is not "really" my work. The only thing I did is collecting knowledge from other people like Wude, Hiei- or IlDucci to 1 central guide. They deserve this thx more than I do
PS: I never said officially there is a project, I'm still experimenting.

Also, the process you have laid out in your pdf. is it tried and tested? By that I mean, have you got a proof of concept and know that if enough of us were to work on it, it would be a success? (Sorry if this sounds like a lazy question to ask).

The process is confirmed. I tested it with NullDC and it works. I am getting J-dub, E-sub, perfect lip sync, original vending machines and brands in Sakuragaoka and Dobuita (Amihama not tested yet).

The problem is just this free quest stuff (cinematics is not an issue, got about 70% of CD1 in 1 week and a lot of CD1 containers are also on CD2/CD3). There are so many NPC's and so many lines. It would be easy to translate if the dialogs were identical in E and J but if only 1 line in E got dropped compared to J you cannot export and reimport the subs and you will need to translate each of them by hand (Ine-san subs are like that).

Oh yeah, and I found some minor mistakes in some containers SEGA did during translation ^^ (Like fuku-san instead of Fuku-san and the other one I already forgot).

[Shensoul]

Original post updated and new download links added.

[Shensoul]

I was offline for a long time and during that time somone sent me a message in January to reup the guide as it got deleted.

Reup Links:
http://a.pomf.cat/ipgjgl.pdf
http://www15.zippyshare.com/v/aYAJbSmd/file.html
http://s000.tinyupload.com/?file_id=636 ... 2687216787