Breath of Fire III - PC Version

[Azuris]

Hi,
so this Week i found out, that Breath of Fire III has a PC Release! But only in China...

Breath of Fire III 龙战士3 Simplified Chinese CD ROM : Capcom : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Breath of Fire III is a role-playing video game developed and published by Capcom originally for the PlayStation console as part of the Breath of Fire...

archive.org

So i downloaded it, mounted the ISO of that and the PSX Version and compared the Files.
Besides of the Structure of the Archive, they both seem ot contain the exact same Files, but in different Containers.
The PSX Version has its Files in .EMI, meanwhile the PC Version goes with .DAT.
It also seems like the Compression seems to be better, as the Files are taking less Space.

I guess there is Possibility to patch the chinese Version to a english one by using Files from the PSX Version.

But i am very much a Nobody in Modding PSX Games, i have no Clue with what i can access those Files.

Someone any Idea?

.Dat could be anything, but maybe someone has Experience with Capcom Games.

I also asked in the sadnes Forums, as they seemingly modded the PSX Game to italian.

Breath of Fire III - PC

Breath of Fire III - PC

lnx.sadnescity.it

Edit: With exact same Files i mean, the PSX Version has AREA000.EMI and so on, the PC Version has AREA000.DAT and so on.
They probably jucht took a File Format that was usable on PC with their Engine.

 

[BunnyLain]

I wonder if it was Capcom that ported and published it or it was some third party. What an odd entry into the series to pick out for a PC release.

 

[KaizerAvalon]

Hey, nice find! Didn't know that the Breath of Fire series had PC ports at some point!

 

[Azuris]

I wonder if it was Capcom that ported and published it or it was some third party. What an odd entry into the series to pick out for a PC release.

Strangely enough, it seems Ubisoft published it in China oO

 

[Ian Naxieas]

Huh, interesting. I didn't actually know the PC copy was unusual. When I was in China around 2003 I just so happened to get a copy of it, alongside other 100% legal games. King of Fighters 2001 was ported to PC with MAME right? Hahaha. ? But really, sadly I don't have the disc anymore, even though I never got far because I can't read Chinese. x)

 

[Azuris]

Chatgtp recommended Noesis and Quick BMS to access Files, will see if i they work when i am back from Work.

 

[bloodywing]

Chatgtp recommended Noesis and Quick BMS to access Files, will see if i they work when i am back from Work.

chatgpt always suggests that, even when there are no bms scripts for the file format. I had most success so far with ghidra and find the function that extracts those archives. This is of course a lot harder for ps1 games, especially when they were not made with PSY-Q

The .DAT files are stitched together files, found .wav files in them.
With that information you can use Linux onboard tools like head and tail to split the files out of the archives or any script language.

 

[Nicktendonick]

So, how's progress on this? Has there been any?

 

[Leon]

I wonder if it was Capcom that ported and published it or it was some third party. What an odd entry into the series to pick out for a PC release.

Fun fact, breath of fire 4 has a pc version, in english too.

 

[Azuris]

So, how's progress on this? Has there been any?

Someone in the Italian Fantranslation Group answered, they haven't digged much around in BOF III, but it is probably too much of a Difference between the Data Types for the PSX and PC.

With the Release of BOV IV on Gog, someone in the Gog Discord was so nice and gave me a Tool named Extractor, it can read and extract Files from the Game.
I also tested out to exchange Files from the japanese and english Version of BOV IV.
It seems all the Text Lines are backed in into the "AREA" Files, making it sadly harder (and for me impossible) to exchange Files.

One Example of the Differences between PC and PSX.
The BGM Files have MP3s included in the PC Version of BOF III and IV, in the PSX Versions there are Files, the PSX produces the Music on the Fly with the Sound Chip.
You can see it with the PC Version of Final Fantasy VII and VIII, the original ones did a same approach, so it sounded very different from the PSX Version, depenging on your Midi Sound Chip in the Sound Card.
Guess this is why they wen't with the MP3 approach in Breath of Fire.
Sadly, because of Size Limitations, this leads to the bad Loop in the PC Version.

Other Files would also have a different File Format, that is specific to the PSX.

This Job is something for Experts :)