Brandish 4 in Translation

This site is the official v.1 release of the Brandish 4 English translation! Currently, only about 5% of the game is translated, though the game is completely reversed. We're looking for translation help (see below).

The hack is done and all tools for reinsertion are ready! So we are looking for someone who can speak moderate Japanese and who has a pains-taking attention to detail. If you're interested, contact DTagg at j_karcsi@hotmail.com or drop a note in an echo below the link on the download page. We are not responsible for any problems the game might have after the patch is installed. Finally, remember that the patch is right now more symbolic than practical--we expect to have a more thorough and refined patch on the way soon.

Technical details about Brandish 4

Brandish 4 is packaged in a pretty predictable, Falcom-esque packaging system. Game files are held in archives. All sound effects are wave files. Images and sprites are in 8 bit color (256 color), though any file format headers are stripped out--leaving only image data (common in game archives). Text is held in peculiar system files which offset each string of text with a four byte integer at the front of the system file. Specific formatting of the text, for example carriage returns or dialog markers, are custom written. These are often nothing more than a random hexadecimal byte, so the japanese text appears to have a bit of gibberish in it when you manage to reduce it to a text editor.

The tricky part is, all of the files are compressed. I admit the compression for the game may be in a common format; sadly, I was unable to identify it and ended up writing my own reverse routine for it based on the disassembled code. In the end this was for the better: I learned a whole lot and have a better grasp of how the game behaved and treated its resources. It made me better able to draft the insertion tools. These tools don't attempt to recompress edited objects--it simply formats the inserted objects in a way that the compression routine in the game will largely ignore. This may bloat the game size, but only by a few megabytes. It technically makes the game faster, too, though this benefit is moot on today's computers.

I will release all the tools to extract/reinsert text, images, sprites, etc. when we manage to get a translation out. As selfish as it is, I'm worried that by releasing the tools before then, I would allow another team to get together, translate the game, and ignore the hundreds (probably thousands) of hours I've put into the project.

Translation Report

  Percent Completion:

        Text:   05%
        Menus:   40%
        Graphics:   50%
        Hacking:   100%

  Project Team:

        DTagg:   Project Lead/Lead Hacker/Lead Coder