How to translate a Dreamcast game

@Dreamcast

Published in 

Dreamcast

 · 15 Nov 2022

What do you need:

• Hex Workshop 3 Editor
• Much patience
• The Crazy Taxi game (for this example)

How to do it:

I'm going to use Crazy Taxi as an example, as it's the simplest game to start with.

• First install the program Hex WorkShop 3.
• Copy the entire game to a folder on your computer's hard drive.
• Remove the READ-ONLY attribute from all files. Right-click and Properties.
• Run Hex WorkShop 3 and open the 1st_read.bin file.
• Search for the texts you see in the image.

All texts can be modified following the following rules:

• You cannot put more letters than the one already present.
• Do not modify texts that are similar to directories, programming codes. In general do not modify any text that do not appear in the game.
• Never insert strange characters, like Ñ, since they do not exist in the console.
• Think before changing any text that does not make sense because perhaps it is simply inconsequential information.
• All the games are very similar as far as translation is concerned.

The difficulty is in finding the texts in the game's files. They are not always in the 1st_read.bin.
Another problem is that sometimes the text is compressed, so the only thing you can do is forget to modify it.
The texts in Japanese cannot be modified for now.

Good luck and see what results you send me.