README

WA1Tools V1.1
=============

WA1Tools is a suite of command-line translation and hacking tools for the
PlayStation 1 version of the game "Wild Arms" by Media Vision. It can be
used for modding the game, searching for hidden content, and creating fan
translations. The main focus of the tools is on the dumping and editing of
in-game text.

The included tools are:

 * trans / untrans
   Dump ('untrans') or reinsert ('trans') all translatable text and graphics
   in the game to or from a set of text and image files.

 * mapinfo
   Dump the script code of all maps.

The tools are entirely written in Python and have the following
dependencies:

 * Python 3.11

 * Pillow >= 10.3.0 (https://pypi.python.org/pypi/Pillow/)

The tools use the included 'wa' package which must reside in the same
directory as the tools themselves, or be included in the PYTHONPATH.


Restrictions and general information
------------------------------------

The tools are designed for the PlayStation 1 version of the game. They will
not work with the PlayStation 2 remake "Wild Arms Alter Code: F" nor with
any other of the games in the Wild Arms series.

Only the 'untrans' and 'mapinfo' tools can operate directly with a CD image
of the game. The 'trans' tool only works on extracted files from the
filesystem of the game CD. For extracting the filesystem tree of the game
I recommend using the 'psxrip' tool from the PSXImager toolset (see
https://github.com/cebix/psximager) which preserves the XA media files the
game uses.

The tools support the following releases of the game:

 * Wild Arms, Japanese release (SCPS-10028)
 * Wild Arms, US release (SCUS-94608)
 * Wild Arms, English European release (SCES-00321)
 * Wild Arms, French European release (SCES-01171)
 * Wild Arms, German European release (SCES-01172)
 * Wild Arms, Italian European release (SCES-01173)
 * Wild Arms, Spanish European release (SCES-01174)

The 'trans' tool does not work with the Japanese version of the game because
Japanese text encoding is not implemented. Dumping Japanese text with the
'untrans' tool works fine, though.


trans / untrans
---------------

Usage: untrans [OPTION...] <game_dir_or_image> <trans_dir>
  -a, --altchars                  Use alternate character set for text
  -V, --version                   Display version information and exit
  -?, --help                      Show this help message

Usage: trans [OPTION...] <trans_dir> <game_dir>
  -a, --altchars                  Use alternate character set for text
  -V, --version                   Display version information and exit
  -?, --help                      Show this help message

With these two tools you can dump and reinsert all translatable text in the
game, including the game's fonts and textures with embedded text.

When doing a retranslation of the game it is recommended that you first use
the 'untrans' tool to dump all text, change what you want to change, and
then use the 'trans' tool to reinsert the text into the game files. The
section "Workflow for translation" below will give you some hints for doing
this efficiently.

The 'untrans' tool extracts text from either a plain ISO or raw
("MODE2/2352") CD image, or from a local directory (the "game directory")
containing the game files, to a newly created "translation directory" which
holds individual text and graphics files for each of the game's maps, menus,
etc.

The 'trans' tool performs the reverse operation of inserting the text and
graphics from the files of the specified translation directory into the game
files. It only writes to extracted game files, not to CD images.

The tools only read and change the following game files, and the 'trans'
tool creates backups (with the ending ".orig") of all files it changes:

  SYSTEM.CNF
  BIN/CDSTG.BIN
  BIN/CDFLR.BIN
  EXE/WILDARMS.EXE
  EXE/OPENING.EXE
  SYS/SY0.BIN
  SYS/SY1.BIN
  SYS/UT0.BIN
  SYS/UT0.OVR
  SYS/OP0.BIN

To put the files changed by 'trans' back into the actual game you either
have to replace these files directly in the CD image (for example with the
'psxinject' tool from PSXImager), or remaster the entire CD image (for
example with 'psxbuild' from PSXImager).


The translation directory consists of the following subdirectories and
files:

  exe/
    item.txt
    item_help.txt
    arm.txt
    arm_help.txt
    tool.txt
    tool_help.txt
    fast_draw.txt
    fast_draw_help.txt
    magic.txt
    magic2.txt
    magic_help.txt
    force.txt
    force_help.txt
      Names of items, ARMs, tools, Fast Draw techniques/hints, spells and
      force abilities, together with their respective help texts.

      "magic.txt" contains the 64 standard spells which can be renamed by
      the player. They are limited to 10 characters each. The names of other
      spells, some of which can be cast with the 'Randomizer', are in
      the file "magic2.txt".

    technique.txt
      Names of the special abilities unique to each character.

    character.txt
      Default names of the playable characters. They are limited to 8
      characters each.

    job.txt
      Character descriptions in the status screen.

    luck.txt
      Luck levels as displayed in the status screen.

    guardian.txt
      Names of the Guardians.

    map_name.txt
      Names of maps, indexed by map number (0..127).

    menu_help.txt
      Help texts for the main menu commands (which only have icons, not
      names).

    auto_cmd.txt
    auto_cmd_help.txt
      Texts for the 'Auto Battle' menu

    config.txt
    config_help.txt
    config_setting.txt
    controller.txt
      Texts for the 'Config' menu.

    menu.txt
    menu2.txt
      Additional texts for the game's menus.

      There are more menu texts which are embedded in textures
      ("gfx/menu_labels.png", see below).

    load_save.txt
    load_save2.txt
    memory_card.txt
      Texts for the load/save and memory card management screens. The
      "load_save2.txt" file is only used with European releases of the game.

      There are more texts which are embedded in textures
      ("gfx/load_save.png" and "gfx/memory_card.png", see below).

    name_entry.txt
      Mapping of cursor positions to characters in 'name entry' screens.

      This file only determines which character to insert when the player
      makes a selection. The actual layout of the entry screen is stored as
      a texture ("gfx/name_entry.png", see below). If you want to customize
      the name entry screen you need to change both files in a consistent
      way.

    icon.txt
      Texts for the icon editor.

    window.txt
      Texts for the window frame editor.

    command_help.txt
      Help texts for battle commands.

    enemy.txt
      Names of enemies.

    attack.txt
      Names of enemy attacks and abilities.

    battle.txt
    miss.txt
    ok.txt
      Additional texts used in battles.

    best_runners.txt
    trial_result.txt
      Texts for the Time Trial leaderboard in the Adlehyde fair.

    script.txt
      Text related to using the Gella Coin item. This file has the same
      format as the map dialog text files (see below).

  map/
    One file for each map of the game (except for map 25 which doesn't
    exist), containing all dialog text of that map. Each string is prefixed
    with a header line starting with the character '▶' (Unicode U+25B6), for
    example:

      ▶ 1 (dialog)
      *You Can't Summon
       The Earth Golem Here!
      ▶ 2 (string)
      YES
      ▶ 3 (string)
      NO
      ▶ 4 (dialog)
      {CHAR 1}:
      「Fine, I'll take care of my   
       own problems.

      ... etc. ...

    The 'untrans' tool puts a running index number into the header line, and
    an indication about the use of the string ('dialog' = the string appears
    in a message window, 'string' = the string is a choice response or is
    used as a text for some menu screen).

    The 'trans' tool looks for the '▶' header lines to determine the start
    of each string, so you should not remove or add these lines. The text
    following the '▶' character on the same line is ignored, however, so you
    can use these headers to record comments about your translation.

    Note that due to possible differences in the map scripting, corresponding
    strings in different regional versions of the game are not guaranteed
    to have identical index numbers.

    Maps which have no corresponding text file in the translation directory
    are skipped by the 'trans' tool and left unchanged.

    Four maps (5, 36, 51, and 57) have extra text files which contain
    additional strings used in the map-specific code:

    005_extra.txt
      The names of the five runners initially on the Time Trial leaderboard.
      They are limited to 7 characters each, except for the last name which
      is limited to 11 characters.

    036_extra.txt
      The password ("Emiko") for the Memory Temple. It is limited to 7
      characters.

    051_extra.txt
      The password ("Metal Bird") for the Epitaph of the Sea Wind. It is
      limited to 11 characters.

    057_extra.txt
      The password ("Demon Gate") for the Demon's Lab. It is limited to 11
      characters.

  gfx/
    This directory contains graphics that are relevant to translation:
    1) the game's fonts, 2) textures with embedded text.

    The graphics are stored as PNG images. You can edit them using a
    graphics program (or a specialized sprite/tile editor if you have one)
    and reinsert them into the game with the 'trans' tool. You must,
    however, preserve the original size of each image.

    The tools only handle 8-bit indexed (paletted) PNG images and you cannot
    make any changes to the color palette. The 'untrans' tool gives each
    image a default palette which is why some icons in the images show up
    with the wrong colors (the game actually uses different palettes for
    different parts of a texture). The 'trans' tool ignores the palette from
    the image file completely, and only looks at the pixel values in the
    image data (0..15, since the game uses 4-bit textures). It also never
    changes the color palettes defined in the game files.

    The directory contains the following files, which vary between game
    versions:

    dialog_font.png
      The main font of the game which is used for dialogs and help texts in
      menus.

      For the US release of the game, the font contains 96 characters (ASCII
      range 20..7f), each character occupying 8x16 pixels. The lower five
      pixel rows are not drawn by the game so the maximum character height
      is actually only 11 pixels.

      In European releases, the font contains 224 characters (code range
      20..ff) but the character dimensions are the same.

      The Japanese release of the game uses an entirely different character
      set with 12x11 pixels per character.

    dialog_font2.png
    dialog_font3.png
    dialog_font4.png
      These files are only used with the US release of the game and contain
      alternate versions of the "dialog" font which are, to our knowledge,
      unused by the game. If you want to give the game a different look you
      can copy one of these files over "dialog_font.png".

    kanji.png
      This file is only used with the Japanese release of the game and
      contains the kanji for the texts in the "exe" directory. The game
      actually has additional kanji sets embedded within each map which are
      not dumped by 'untrans'.

      This font is provided for reference purposes only since the 'untrans'
      tool can automatically decode kanji into their UTF-8 equivalents.

    menu_font.png
      This is the second font of the game which is mainly used in menus, for
      example in the inventory list. The texture has 8x16 pixels per
      character (8x12 pixels used) in all versions of the game. European
      releases have a different character set, however.

      The magenta background (pixel value 0) is transparent in the game.

    menu_labels.png
      This texture contains the labels for the game's menus ("HP", "LV",
      "EXP", "Gella" etc.), texts for battles ("LEVEL UP!"), and some icons.

    battle_icons.png
    battle_icons2.png
      These textures have the "CONDITION GREEN!" and "CHARGE UP!" icons
      which come up in battles, as well as the labels for Cecilia's spells
      that raise character stats.

    load_save.png
    memory_card.png
      These two files contain buttons and texts for the load/save and memory
      card screens, and for the icon and window frame editors.

    name_entry.png
      This image contains the layout of the 'name entry' screen. In
      non-Japanese versions of the game only the lower third of the image is
      used.

      The image only determines what is visible on the screen. The actual
      characters which are entered into a name when the user makes a
      selection are stored as a text file ("exe/name_entry.txt", see above).
      If you want to customize the name entry screen you need to change both
      files in a consistent way.

    op_title.png
    op_push_start.png
    op_demo.png
      The elements of the game's title screen. The "demo" image is unused by
      retail versions of the game.


Warning and error messages of 'trans'

  Common warning and error messages of the 'trans' tool which you may
  encounter include:

  "File '<file>' expected to contain <x> lines but found <y>"
    Many files in the translation directory (everything in the "exe"
    directory, as well as the "extra" text files in the "map" directory)
    must contain a certain, fixed number of lines, even if some of them are
    empty. You probably accidentally deleted or inserted a line.

  "String '<str>' from file '<file>' is too long when encoded (<x> > <y>
   bytes)"
  "Text in file '<file>' is too long when encoded (<x> > <y> bytes)"
    Since the 'trans' tool replaces some of the game's texts in-place, they
    are limited in the maximum number of characters they can contain. You
    should shorten these texts.

  "Not enough room for strings"
    There is not enough room for inserting all of the text from the files in
    the "exe" directory. You should shorten some of these texts.

  "Unknown escape sequence '\<char>' in string '<str>'"
    The '\' backslash is used to escape the characters '{', '}', and '\'
    itself. Other escape sequences are not recognized.

  "Mismatched {} in string '<str>'"
  "Unknown command '<command>' in string '<str>'"
  "Syntax error in command '<command>' in string '<str>'"
    Either you misspelled one of the {<command>} control codes, or you
    wanted to use a '{' or '}' character in the text but forgot to escape
    it as '\{' or '\}', respectively.

  "Argument of <command> command out of range in string '<str>'"
    The numerical argument of a {<command> nn} control code is not within
    the range of supported numbers. Depending on the command, this range is
    0..9, 0..99, or 0..999.

  "Unencodable character '<char>' in string '<str>'"
    Your text uses a character which is not present in the character set of
    the particular game version. See the section "Character set" further
    below for a list of supported characters.

  "Image '<file>' expected to be of size (<w>, <h>) but found (<w>, <h>)"
    The size (width, height) of an image file in the "gfx" subdirectory of
    the translation directory has been changed from the original image. The
    'trans' tool can only insert images which have the exact same size.


Known problems in the official translations

The US release of the game contains invalid characters in the following
files which are a remnant of the Japanese character set:

  map/003.txt, string 144
  map/037.txt, strings 135 and 136
  map/119.txt, strings 135 and 136

The German release also has one invalid character:

  map/005.txt, string 138

The Spanish release has an invalid "{COLOR \0}" control code which should be
"{COLOR 1}":

  map/040.txt, string 107

The Italian release has an invalid "{COLOR C}" control code, where the "C"
probably belongs to the next word, and the actual code should be "{COLOR 4}":

  map/016.txt, string 41

You should correct these strings before running 'trans'.


Text which is not extracted

  Some of the text in the game is not extractable or changable with the
  'trans' and 'untrans' tools:

   * Text embedded in map tilesets.

   * The ending credits which are hardcoded into the ending movie.


Control codes
-------------

The strings in the translation files may contain some special characters,
and control codes denoted by {} braces. For this reason, if you want to have
literal '{' or '}' characters in your texts you need to escape them as '\{'
and '\}'.

Some control codes have a numerical parameter which is specified in decimal
notation.

Note: Names of items, spells, enemies, etc. do not support these codes, but
their help texts do.

  <newline> character
    Starts a new line of text. The game does not have automatic word
    wrapping, so all line breaks must be inserted manually.

    Map dialog text is usually displayed in message windows holding a
    maximum of three rows with 32 characters each.

  {STR n}
    Insert the string specified by the game variable var[n] (n = 0..9).

  {NUM n}
  {UNUM n}
  {HEX n}
    Insert the value of the game variable var[n] (n = 0..9). {UNUM} displays
    the value as an unsigned quantity, and {HEX} uses hexadecimal notation
    (neither of these two codes is actually used in the game and they are
    probably leftovers from development).

  {CHAR n}
    Insert the name of a character (which may have been changed by the
    player):
      0: Rudy
      1: Jack
      2: Cecilia
      3: Hanpan
      9: current party leader

  {COLOR n}
    Set the color of the following text:
      0: black
      1: white (default)
      2: red
      3: orange
      4: cyan
      5: green
      6: gray

The following control codes are only supported in dialog messages (the text
files in the "map" directory):

  {ITEM n}
  {SPELL n}
  {TOOL n}
    Insert the name of the item, spell, or tool referenced by the game
    variable var[n] (n = 0..9).

  {ITEMICON n}
  {SPELLICON n}
  {TOOLICON n}
    Show the icon of the item, spell, or tool referenced by the game
    variable var[n] (n = 0..9) in the top left corner of the message window,
    shifting the text to the right to accomodate. This is usually used for
    'XYZ acquired!' messages.

  {PAUSE}
    Show the green continuation arrow at the bottom of the message window
    and wait for the player to press the OK button before continuing.

  {SCROLL}
    Scroll the contents of the message window up one line. This is used in
    the game to present the dialog in segments of three lines which are
    visible at once, and is usually followed by a {PAUSE} code or the end of
    the string.

  {CLEAR}
    Clear the contents of the message window and move the cursor to the top
    left corner of the window. The 'untrans' tool automatically adds a
    newline to the translation file after this code to make the formatting
    of the following text easier to see. Similarly, the 'trans' tool ignores
    a newline immediately following a {CLEAR} code.

  {SOUND nnn}
    Play a sound effect (nnn = 0..999).

  {WAIT nn}
    Wait nn frames before continuing (nn = 0..99). One frame equals 1/60 of
    a second in NTSC releases of the game, and 1/50 of a second in PAL
    releases.

  {SPEED nn}
    Set the text output speed (the number of frames the game waits between
    printing each character). Higher numbers make the text appear slower.

  {LARGE}
  {SMALL}
    These two codes are only supported in the Japanese release of the game
    and switch the text size between a large font (16 pixels) and the small,
    default font (12 pixels).

  {XSHADOW}
  {YSHADOW}
    Toggle the text shadow in the X or Y direction, respectively. The
    default is for the shadow to appear in both directions, i.e. one pixel
    below and to the right of the text.

    To completely toggle the shadow on or off you need to use both codes
    together: {XSHADOW}{YSHADOW}

  {ASK 0}
    Let the player choose between two responses, for example to answer a
    yes/no question. The two choices are specified by the game variables
    var[10] and var[11], and are always strings contained in the same map
    translation file. To see which choices correspond to which questions
    you need to consult the script code dumped by the 'mapinfo' tool.

    If used, this code must appear at the end of a message.

  {CONTINUE}
    Automatically continue script execution after the message has been
    displayed completely. Normally, at the end of a message the game shows a
    spinning green symbol in the bottom right corner of the message window
    and waits for the player to press the OK button. The {CONTINUE} code
    disables this behavior.

    If used, this code must appear at the end of a message.

  {ASYNC}
    Continue script execution while the message is being displayed. This is
    used for playing cutscene animations over accompanying text, for example
    in the character intros.

    If used, this code must appear at the end of a message.

    In general, you should not add or remove {CONTINUE} and {ASYNC} codes in
    the dialog texts because doing so may interfere with the timing of
    cutscenes.


Character set
-------------

The text files in the translation directory produced or used by the
'untrans' and 'trans' tools use the UTF-8 character encoding. The game's
fonts include only a subset of all Unicode characters, of course.

All Western releases of the game support the following standard ASCII
characters:

  0123456789
  abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
  ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
  !"#%&'()*+,-./:<=>?[]_`{}

as well as these additional characters which take the place of some of the
ASCII code points:

              in-game
   Unicode   character
  character  code (hex)  notes
  ------------------------------------------------------------------------
     「         40       opening dialog quote (replaces the ASCII '@' character)
     『         7e       left quote mark (replaces the ASCII '~' character)
      』        5e       right quote mark (replaces the ASCII '^' character)
      ★         3b       star (replaces the ASCII ';' character)
      ♂         5c       male sign (replaces the ASCII '\' character)
      ♀         7c       female sign (replaces the ASCII '|' character)

The angled quote marks are taken from Japanese typography. Note that there
is no 」 closing dialog quote in the font. The characters ★, ♂, and ♀ are
only used in name entry screens.

European releases of the game use an extended font which provides additional
characters:

              in-game
   Unicode   character
  character  code (hex)  notes
  ------------------------------------------------------------------------
      Á         b5 +     A with acute
      Ä         8e       A with diaeresis (A umlaut)
      Å         8f       A with ring
      Æ         92       AE ligature
      Ç         80       C with cedilla
      É         90       E with acute
      Í         d6 +     I with acute
      Ñ         a5       N with tilde
      Ö         99       O with diaeresis (O umlaut)
      Ú         e9 +     U with acute
      Ü         9a       U with diaeresis (U umlaut)
      ü         81       u with diaeresis (u umlaut)
      à         85       a with grave
      á         a0       a with acute
      â         83       a with circumflex
      ä         84       a with diaeresis (a umlaut)
      å         86       a with ring
      æ         91       ae ligature
      ç         87       c with cedilla
      è         8a       e with grave
      é         82       e with acute
      ê         88       e with circumflex
      ë         89       e with diaeresis
      ì         8d       i with grave
      í         a1       i with acute
      î         8c       i with circumflex
      ï         8b       i with diaeresis
      ñ         a4       n with tilde
      ò         95       o with grave
      ó         a2       o with acute
      ô         93       o with circumflex
      ö         94       o with diaeresis (o umlaut)
      ß         e1       German sharp s
      ù         97       u with grave
      ú         a3       u with acute
      û         96       u with circumflex
      ÿ         98       y with diaeresis
      ¢         9b *     cent sign
      £         9c *     pound sign
      ¥         9d *     yen sign
      ƒ         9f *     florin sign
      ª         a6       feminine ordinal indicator
      º         a7       masculine ordinal indicator
      ¿         a8       inverted question mark
      ¬         aa *     not sign
      ½         ab *     1/2 fraction
      ¼         ac *     1/4 fraction
      ¡         ad       inverted exclamation mark
      «         ae       left guillemet
      »         af       right guillemet
      ¶         e3 *     pilcrow
      µ         e6 *     micro sign
      ±         f1 *     plus-minus sign
      ÷         f6 *     division sign
      °         f8 *     degree sign
      ∙         f9 *     bullet

The characters marked '*' are present in the game's font but not actually
used anywhere in the game's texts, while the characters marked '+' ARE used
in the Spanish release of the game despite not being present in the font,
showing up as white squares instead (nice QA job, Sony...).

The tables above specify all characters which the 'untrans' tool will
produce (for Western game releases, at least) and which the 'trans' tool
will recognize.

When invoked with the '-a' (--altchars) option, the 'trans' and 'untrans'
tools switch to an alternate Western character set which exchanges the quote
marks with their more common forms:

              in-game
   Unicode   character
  character  code (hex)  notes
  ------------------------------------------------------------------------
      “         40       left double quotes (replacing 「)
      ”         60       right double quotes (replacing `)
      ‘         7e       left single quote (replacing 『)
      ’         5e       right single quote (replacing 』)

and which, for European releases of the game, adds the following additional
code points which are missing in the game's font:

              in-game
   Unicode   character
  character  code (hex)  notes
  ------------------------------------------------------------------------
      À         b7       A with grave
      Â         b6       A with circumflex
      Ã         c7       A with tilde
      Ð         d1       Eth
      È         d4       E with grave
      Ê         d2       E with circumflex
      Ë         d3       E with diaeresis
      Ì         de       I with grave
      Î         d7       I with circumflex
      Ï         d8       I with diaeresis
      Ò         e3       O with grave (replacing ¶)
      Ó         e0       O with acute
      Ô         e2       O with circumflex
      Õ         e5       O with tilde
      Π        ef       OE ligature
      Ø         9d       O with stroke (replacing ¥)
      Ù         eb       U with grave
      Û         ea       U with circumflex
      ã         c6       a with tilde
      ð         d0       eth
      õ         e4       o with tilde
      ø         9b       o with stroke (replacing ¢)
      œ         ee       oe ligature
      ý         ec       y with acute
      Ý         ed       Y with acute
      þ         e7       thorn
      Þ         e8       Thorn
      ~         aa       tilde (replacing ¬)
      …         f2       ellipsis

Note that giving the '-a' option to 'trans' will not actually alter the
game's font in any way. It just changes the set of characters that the tool
will recognize in translation files. To make the characters show up
correctly you need to add them to the font textures yourself, by editing
the files "gfx/dialog_font.png" and "gfx/menu_font.png" (see above).

These additional characters are intended to support future fan translations
of the game to other European languages. Except for the four quote
characters they are not supported in the US release of the game which is
restricted to the 20..7f character range.

For advanced users: If you want to translate the game into a language that
is not covered by the game's character sets, such as Russian, you need to
supply your own font image files and change the variable 'altCharset' in
'wa/text.py' accordingly to define the correct mapping between characters in
the text files and code points within your font.


Workflow for translation
------------------------

This section describes a possible workflow for creating a fan translation or
a mod of Wild Arms using the WA1Tools and PSXImager.

Here, we assume that we are translating from Japanese and are using the US
release of the game as a basis for our new version. This doesn't necessarily
mean that the target language has to be English. For most languages it might
actually be better to base the translated version on a PAL release, because
of their support for non-ASCII characters.

 1. Produce a raw ("MODE2/2352") image from the US game CD, for example
    using 'cdrdao':

      cdrdao read-cd --read-raw --datafile WildArms-US.bin WildArms-US.toc
      toc2cue WildArms-US.toc WildArms-US.cue

 2. Dump the game files with 'psxrip' from PSXImager, creating the game
    directory "WildArms-US":

      psxrip WildArms-US

 3. Extract all game text to the translation directory "text-us":

      untrans WildArms-US text-us

    The created files will be the template for inserting the new, translated
    texts.

 4. Repeat steps 1 and 3 for the Japanese game CD, creating a second
    translation directory "text-jp":

      cdrdao read-cd --read-raw --datafile WildArms-JP.bin WildArms-JP.toc
      toc2cue WildArms-JP.toc WildArms-JP.cue
      untrans WildArms-JP.bin text-jp

    The created files will be the source for the translation.

    Note that in order to save disk space we did not extract the game files
    with 'psxrip' but ran 'untrans' directly on the CD image.

 5. Translate/modify the files in the "text-us" directory. The 'trans' tool
    will work slightly faster if you make a copy of that directory and
    delete all files from the "map" subdirectory which you are not going to
    change, or which you haven't translated yet (since you are unlikely to
    complete the entire game script in one go).

 6. Reinsert the changed text and images into the US game files:

      trans text-us WildArms-US

 7. Rebuild the CD image:

      psxbuild WildArms-US

 8. Load the resulting image into an emulator and test your changes.

 9. Repeat steps 5 through 8 if necessary.

Note 1: CD images produced in this way will not be bootable on original
PlayStation hardware because the PlayStation checks a signature on the CD
which is not reproducible using 'psxbuild' and off-the-shelf CD burners.

Note 2: You are not allowed to redistribute modified copies of the game
without having obtained permission from the copyright holders (Media Vision
in this case).


mapinfo
-------

Usage: mapinfo [OPTION...] <game_dir_or_image> <output_dir>
  -V, --version                   Display version information and exit
  -?, --help                      Show this help message

The 'mapinfo' tool dumps a rough disassembly of the script code embedded in
each of the game's maps. It creates the given output directory and writes
one text file per map.

Not all of the script commands are completely decoded but the dump should
give you a general idea of how a particular map's scripts are organized, the
context in which certain messages are used, and how to trigger them.

Examining the script requires you to have some familiarity with programming
and with the use of scripting languages in gaming. The following
explanations are not supposed to be a complete specification of the game's
scripting language (which we don't have, either) but only to give you some
general hints on how to interpret it:

- The language supports simple jumps ('jump'), subroutine calls ('call',
  'ret'), conditional branches ('if'), and nested loops ('while', 'break').

- Script instructions are referenced (for example in jump targets) by 16-bit
  hexadecimal addresses.

- 'window' opens a message window, 'message' displays the specified text in
  the active window, and 'close' closes it.

- 'mapfunc' and 'exec' execute native MIPS code in the map file which
  implements map-specific functions.

- Game variables ('var[x]') and event flags ('flag[x]') are stored as a part
  of the game save state. Each game variable can hold a 32-bit signed
  integer value or a script address.

- Variables 'var[0]' through 'var[9]' are mainly used in conjunction with
  message control codes (e.g. '{ITEM n}').

- The two choices of an {ASK} question in a message are stored as pointers
  to 'string' commands in variables 'var[10]' and 'var[11]', loaded with
  commands of the form 'let var[10] = (addr xxxx)'. The player's choice can
  be queried via the special 'result' variable.

- The 'result' variable is also set by certain 'menu' instructions, by code
  called with 'exec', as well as by some other commands. For example,
  'result' indicates whether adding an item to the inventory was successful.

- 'rand' returns a random value between 0 and 32767.

- The flags 'flag[-1]' and 'flag[-2]' as well as the variable 'var[12]' are
  specific to the object or NPC the player currently interacts with. For
  example, 'var[12]' could be the amount of gold obtained from a treasure
  chest. This allows the game to reuse the same script code for different
  treasures.

- 'party[0]' through 'party[2]' correspond to the three party slots, each
  holding the index number of the character who occupies the respective slot
  (0 = Rudy, 1 = Jack, 2 = Cecilia, -1 = nobody).
  'let party[-1] = x' adds a character to the party.
  'let party[-2] = x' removes a character.

- 'let inventory[-1] = x' adds one copy of item number x to the party's
  inventory, while 'let inventory[-2] = x' removes an item. Inside
  expressions, 'inventory[x]' checks whether the item x is in the inventory.

- 'arm[]', 'fast_draw[]', 'spell[]', and 'tool[]' work in the same fashion.

- 'status[]' yields the status effects inflicted on a character.

The WA1Tools suite does not currently include a tool which would let you
change the game script.


Acknowledgements
----------------

Creating WA1Tools would not have been possible without:

 * The aid of Marco Kretschmer in deciphering the kanji character sets.


Author
------

Christian Bauer
www.cebix.net