Translation Gekijouban Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica - The Battle Pentagram (translation project)

[admin]

This is a work in progress.
Quick status of the translation: overall 98% complete. Prologue: 100%, main story : 100%, (all events: 100%), skills: all but DLC ones, gui: a good chunk is done (% difficult to estimate).

INSTRUCTIONS

I'll provide instructions for both a real Vita and the vita3k emulator (despite the game doesn't run particular well on the emulator, but just in case someone want to test).

For a real vita, these instructions will assume that you have a cfw, repatch installed, VitaShell installed and that you've already either a) installed the game (if it is digital, which I guess it is the most likely case...) or b) that you have a physical copy.

For the emulator, these instructions will assume that you've already set up the emulator and installed a digital copy of the game.

STEP 1
Download this and extract it somewhere in your computer.
This contains both the translator tool (HolyPentagram.exe) and the translation files.
This tool will generate the translation patch. But before it can do that, you'll need to download a couple of programs and get 4 game files decrypted.
So make sure to pay attention to the next steps.

STEP 2
You can see that the translator tool has a folder called "external_programs".
You need to download these two programs, and place their .exe files there.

vita-unmake-fself: Download at https://github.com/CelesteBlue-dev/PSVita-RE-tools/tree/master/vita-unmake-fself/release
vita-elf-inject: Download at https://github.com/CelesteBlue-dev/...master/elf_injector/build/vita-elf-inject.exe

STEP 3
You can see that the translator tool has a folder called "game_data".
You need to get 4 files from the game decrypted and put them there.
This is the most difficult step, but don't worry, you can do it!

There are two methods of doing this. The "real Vita method" and the "emulator method".
The files obtained from "real Vita method" works in both, real vita and emulator while the files obtained with "emulator method" only works on the emulator.
(in concrete, the eboot.bin decrypted by the emulator method doesn't work on real vita, because of being uncompressed or something)

Method 1) Real vita method.
- Let's begin with decrypting the eboot.bin. To decrypt this file you need a homebrew called FAGDec.
You can download the tool at https://github.com/CelesteBlue-dev/PSVita-RE-tools/tree/master/FAGDec/build
The interface of this homebrew can be a bit misleading, so make sure to pay attention if you are not used to this tool.

Start this homebrew. It will list all things you have installed (and the physycal game, if any)
Navigate to the battle pentagram game (which will appear as 劇場版 魔法少女まどか☆マギカ) and press X.
Wait for it to list modules (will be almost immediate) and now navigate to the eboot.bin and press X.
Now press circle to go back.
Now press start. Select the second option START DECRYPT (SELF) and press start again.
The program will take some time (ignore errors about kuEntente is busy). Make sure to navigate down to see all messages.
When a message called "[!] Done" appears, it will be finished.

Now start VitaShell and connect to computer either by usb or ftp.
Grab the following file: ux0:/FAGDec/app/PCSG00214/eboot.bin.
Copy that file to your PC, to the "game_data" folder of the translator tool.

- Now it is time to decrypt the remaining 3 files.
In VitaShell navigate to ux0:/app, position the cursor over the PCSG00214 folder, press triangle and choose "Open decrypted".
(If you have a physical copy of the game, the path would be gr0:/app instead)
Now enter the data folder. Position your self over data.apk and press square. Now the same for pack.idx and stage.apk.
Press triangle and choose Copy (you will see a message that says "Copied 3 files/folder(s)"

Now navigate to somewhere else in ux0. For example the root (ux0: ). Press triangle and Paste.
These copies of the files are decrypted and can be transfered to the PC either by usb or FTP.
Do it, and place them in the game_data folder.
After you are done, you probably want to remove those copies from the vita to not waste space, as data.apk is pretty big.

Method 2) Emulator method
The emulator is so nice, that if you have already installed the game, all the 4 files are already decrypted in your PC, even the eboot.bin!
You just need to grab and copy the files.

The eboot.bin is at this path C:\Users\[USERNAME]\AppData\Roaming\Vita3K\Vita3K\ux0\app\PCSG00214
And data.apk, stage.apk and pack.idx at C:\Users\[USERNAME]\AppData\Roaming\Vita3K\Vita3K\ux0\app\PCSG00214\data
(Replace [USERNAME] with your actual user name)
(These assume default Vita3K settings; otherwise you are on your own searching for them)

Copy them to the "game_data" folder of the translator tool.


STEP 4
Run the translator program, HolyPentagram.
It will list 3 options. Choose option 1: "Create translation patch" (just type 1 and press enter).
It will list all translations available, which atm should be english and japanese. Choose the number associated to the english option and press enter.
Wait for the program to complete; when it is done, it will say "Translation successfully done", and it will prompt you to exit by pressing enter.

STEP 5
On, step 4, a folder called "PCSG00214" will have been generated in "output" folder. This is the folder you have to copy.

Real Vita) Copy the "PCSG00214" folder to ux0:/rePatch. If you are updating the translation, press Yes to any overwriting/merging messages.
Emulator) Copy the "PCSG00214" folder to C:\Users\[USERNAME]\AppData\Roaming\Vita3K\Vita3K\ux0\app\ (replace [USERNAME] with your actual username) and press Yes to any overwriting/merging messages.

STEP 6
Just run the game.
If you did things properly, when booting the game, instead of the japanese warning message with black background, you'll see this "Congratulations" message:

Spoiler

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PROGRESS

- Prologue: 100%
- Main story: 100%
- Friendship events: 100%
- Main menu: done.
- Guide bar: mostly done, missing parts in the gallery
- Battle tutorial: ~95%, missing a texture that has several texts, and the sticks buttons with kanji.
- Special magic and support skills: all done except DLC skills.
- Stage objectives: all the ones of main story stages and some in extra content. Missing some in extra content.
- Message boxes: most are done, missing DLC ones
- Battle gui. mostly done, still missing "LEVEL" texture.
- Evaluation messages of the partner girl or Kyubey at the end of a stage: 100%

TODO LIST

Highest Priority
- Nothing: all things that had the highest priority are done now.

High Priority
- Remaining stage objectives.
- Any remaining part of the gui that is important for the player from a practical point of view goes here (but not including dlc/gallery/extra barriers, which are in Average priority)

Average Priority
- DLC things (costume names, "superior skills" names and descriptions, error message boxes)
- Gallery things
- Extra barriers mission names.

Low Priority
- Character names that are in textures. Since these ones usually have a character portrait next to them, they aren't a special priority. Some of them already done thanks to the textures of InochiPM, some still missing.
- Section titles (usually in a texture with purple background) Some of them already done thanks to the textures of InochiPM, some still missing.
- Any part of the gui that is not specially relevant from a practical point of view goes here.

Lowest priority
- Loading screens. As much as I would like to translate these, it won't be easy. Not because of the translation itself, but because cleaning these textures from japanese texts will be a pain.
- "First time messages". These are some messages that appear the first time you do something in the gui. Since they only appear once and never again, they have this priority (that and because of being in textures, I hate textures)

Will not be done (aka NOT TO DO LIST)
- The digital manual. The typesetting there is a hell. And some people don't even know these manuals exist (I know because I was one of them) = doesn't worth.

Still to be considered
- Trophies. I'm not well versed in these trophies things, so I don't know yet if they can be modifed without any risk or not.

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KNOWN ISSUES

- Some place names had to be shortened considerably because the screen space there is so small.
E.g. -> Homura's House -> Homura H.
- Some lost meaning in translation of mission names/descriptions because of screen space limitations.
E.g: "An unavoidable fate and a torn heart" -> "An unavoidable fate".
When the translation is mostly complete (99%), I will try to see if I can fix these with some font and/or eboot.bin hacking.
Luckily, these space problems don't affect the events themselves, since the limit there is much more permissible, and in worst case I know how to insert extra text boxes.
- In an event of Day 1, the audio of a Kyubey line is repeated. (this is because I had to insert an extra text box, and these require an audio file id). I'll fix this in the future somehow.