Looking for guidance on decompiling sega cd game snatcher, as i wish to translate it for the saturn using the existing script on sega cd

[Gr0undP0und]

Happy new year all,

I am new here, and hope your all well.

Not sure if this is the right place to post this, and sorry if this is not correct.

Looking for guidance on decompiling sega cd game snatcher for a translation project i wish to attempt, as i wish to translate it for the saturn using the existing strips on sega cd, can any one point me in the right direction.

If successful, i am also looking to attempt to use the same script to translate other versions such as the pc-e version( i will ask elsewhere for how to do that, as i know this is sega only here).

Any guidance welcome. Thank you in advance.

 

[Levine91]

Hello and welcome!
So what I personally recommend is to first download ByteSearch from this very website as it will be very beneficial in tracking things down.

Once you've done that and you have your copy of Snatcher, presumably in a bin+cue format, you'll want to copy all the files from the bin. The easiest way to do that is to either mount the disc image in Windows or use cdmage to pull the files from there.

Once you've copied/dumped those files off the disc, you'll want to put ByteSearch.exe in the same folder as the contents.
From there, open up command prompt within the same folder as well.
Now before you can go any further, we need to try and identify part of the script we can search for.
Let's just try using part of the opening line from Act 1:

So, you'll want to do a search for "Welcome to Junker Headquarters", but we need to convert that ASCII Text into Hexadecimal.
I typically go to this link for getting any of the converting done - https://www.rapidtables.com/convert/number/ascii-to-hex.html
The conversion of "Welcome to Junker Headquarters" comes out to be 57656C636F6D6520746F204A756E6B657220486561647175617274657273
That's what we're going to look for using ByteSearch. So back on the command prompt you opened up, enter in this command (but of course be sure to change the target to the directory you dumped Snatcher in)...

byte_search --source_type string --source 57656C636F6D6520746F204A756E6B657220486561647175617274657273 --target "C:\Users\jessi\Downloads\Snatcher"

That exact phrase is only detected in one location.
File "SP06.BIN" at offset 0x3820
So opening that specific file in a hex editor (I suggest HxD but any should be fine) and jumping to that exact offset, we can see that the script (at least part of it) is indeed located in "SP06.BIN"

Now as far as ripping the script, I'm not 100% certain what the best way to go about it would be. Someone else here might. I would however suggest going through this same process with the Saturn version to see how similar the file struct & file names are in comparison to the Sega CD version and going from there.

 

[Gr0undP0und]

Hello and welcome!
So what I personally recommend is to first download ByteSearch from this very website as it will be very beneficial in tracking things down.

Once you've done that and you have your copy of Snatcher, presumably in a bin+cue format, you'll want to copy all the files from the bin. The easiest way to do that is to either mount the disc image in Windows or use cdmage to pull the files from there.
View attachment 10410


Once you've copied/dumped those files off the disc, you'll want to put ByteSearch.exe in the same folder as the contents.
From there, open up command prompt within the same folder as well.
Now before you can go any further, we need to try and identify part of the script we can search for.
Let's just try using part of the opening line from Act 1:
View attachment 10411

So, you'll want to do a search for "Welcome to Junker Headquarters", but we need to convert that ASCII Text into Hexadecimal.
I typically go to this link for getting any of the converting done - https://www.rapidtables.com/convert/number/ascii-to-hex.html
The conversion of "Welcome to Junker Headquarters" comes out to be 57656C636F6D6520746F204A756E6B657220486561647175617274657273
That's what we're going to look for using ByteSearch. So back on the command prompt you opened up, enter in this command (but of course be sure to change the target to the directory you dumped Snatcher in)...

byte_search --source_type string --source 57656C636F6D6520746F204A756E6B657220486561647175617274657273 --target "C:\Users\jessi\Downloads\Snatcher"

View attachment 10412

That exact phrase is only detected in one location.
File "SP06.BIN" at offset 0x3820
So opening that specific file in a hex editor (I suggest HxD but any should be fine) and jumping to that exact offset, we can see that the script (at least part of it) is indeed located in "SP06.BIN"

View attachment 10413

Now as far as ripping the script, I'm not 100% certain what the best way to go about it would be. Someone else here might. I would however suggest going through this same process with the Saturn version to see how similar the file struct & file names are in comparison to the Sega CD version and going from there.

Thank you for the response and warm welcome, for sure you have given me a good place to start. By script i mean the written dialogue in game. If i can get this all down, no doubt it will take me some time, i can then try and apply a patch to the Saturn game the same way i have seen others, there is a patcher tool used for games such as Lunar 2 which should work.

If that fails, some one has mentioned to me that there is a Russion tool which seems to work in translation projects also.

Step 1, written text all copied over.

step 2, audio.

If i can get that done at minimum, then i am to translate the sega cd version in to Japanese, as i am told that the Sega CD version never had a native Japanese version.

I am new to this, so i wanted to provide myself with a goal that could be achievable as a first time project. and you have now given me hope with your response!

It this goes well, i will be trying other projects such as Eldarado gate, as i am told that this has never been done.

Regarding other tools, are you familiar with ghidra?

Thank you again for your response and guidance!