data-mining games

Strangelove

AI Researcher
AKA
hitoshura
with the pc release of rebirth on the horizon, i would be interested in using the tools mentioned here to extract the text from the pc version and have an easily readable copy of the script(s) and just poke around and see if there's anything interesting there

in the distant past i messed around using other tools to see what i could find (using a iirc ffx tool i managed to find some unused voice lines in 'digital devil saga' that are just text in the actual game). for a few nds games like ffxii revenant wings and xenosaga 1&2 i managed to extract the text, although that was because they were just easily accessible text files and i didn't need to mess around too much. at one point i managed to extract some of the localisation files from uncharted 1 but i don't remember the process i used now, it might have been by trying that same ffx tool who's name i don't remember, but i might have burnt what i got onto a dvd somewhere (that's how long ago this was, people were still burning dvds)

from the above examples it should be clear that i'm mainly interested in getting the language related data out of the games rather than extracting models or romhacking (which i'd be interested in primarily to learn how to access the text). in my limited reading so far one hurdle for a lot of games, particularly older ones, is the way different developers would use different file types to store things so the method that works for one game wouldn't necessarily work for another. i don't know if this is easier with the rise of more devs using 3rd party engines like unreal and unity rather than proprietary ones. that's my wishful thinking, because trying to word out some of this stuff is way over my simple little head lol. you can't tell me i need to use a hex editor, i am a stupid baby

stuff i was going to be experimenting with first:

  • death stranding: i have a pc copy i need to reinstall and then look around and hopefully, it's just sitting in the open somewhere
  • front mission 1st: was going to be looking at the nds release which i was under the impression included additional story content that isn't in the recent remake, but i might wrong on that. if the nds version is too much for me to work out i might look at the remake in the hopes it will be simpler

and a kind of wish list of varying difficulties:

  • final fantasy xvi: quick googling tells me this might be a unique engine rather than unreal like other recent square enix titles so i don't know if other tools will work there
  • xenosaga 1/2/3: i am apprehensive about older disc-based games like these because i get the impression they need more skill than just poking around a pc game's files until you find the localisation stuff, but it would be super cool to me personally to get all the text out of these
 

Strangelove

AI Researcher
AKA
hitoshura
unrelated to any of the above games, i installed alien isolation on a whim and all the localisation files are just. right there in easily identifiable and accessable .txt files

thank you lord, why can't everyone just do this :sadpanda:
 
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