[Other] How can I decompile the French versions of Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald/FireRed & LeafGreen?

[NitroHedgehog]

Long time no see,

Sorry if I'm at the wrong place, but I was wondering if it was possible to decompile the French versions of Pokémon RSE/FRLG, as I can't seem to find any source code anywhere for these languages... It was done for the Japanese, English and German versions, so I was wondering what kind of tools I could use to decompile the French version of these games, to get a result as close as the ones on Pret's GitHub. I wanted to do this since there are things that can ONLY be done in dissasembly (I think...) such as removing the fishing rod reel in RSE or editing the title screen/intro. Thanks for your help.

 

[Lunos]

Long time no see,

Sorry if I'm at the wrong place, but I was wondering if it was possible to decompile the French versions of Pokémon RSE/FRLG, as I can't seem to find any source code anywhere for these languages... It was done for the Japanese, English and German versions, so I was wondering what kind of tools I could use to decompile the French version of these games, to get a result as close as the ones on Pret's GitHub. I wanted to do this since there are things that can ONLY be done in dissasembly (I think...) such as removing the fishing rod reel in RSE or editing the title screen/intro. Thanks for your help.

It would be faster to grab Pokeruby or Pokefirered, and then translate the text strings, sprites and tilemaps to French, than it would be to decompile the French versions of the games.
The process that Pret followed, as I understand it, was to dump the games' code in ASM using a disassembler like IDA Pro and then manually rewrite all the code to C.
Then they passed the different functions of code as they wrote them through the same compiler Game Freak used back in the day in order to make sure their handwritten code was functionally equivalent to GF's.
This allowed Pret to generate a matching ROM. That is, a ROM whose code matches perfectly with the code in the ROM within the cartridges of these games'.
This is a huge undertaking that requires many, many years of constant work and dedication.

If you're interested in learning about the full process, I'd suggest asking in Pret's Discord server.

 

[NitroHedgehog]

It would be faster to grab Pokeruby or Pokefirered, and then translate the text strings, sprites and tilemaps to French, than it would be to decompile the French versions of the games.
The process that Pret followed, as I understand it, was to dump the games' code in ASM using a disassembler like IDA Pro and then manually rewrite all the code to C.
Then they passed the different functions of code as they wrote them through the same compiler Game Freak used back in the day in order to make sure their handwritten code was functionally equivalent to GF's.
This allowed Pret to generate a matching ROM. That is, a ROM whose code matches perfectly with the code in the ROM within the cartridges of these games'.
This is a huge undertaking that requires many, many years of constant work and dedication.

If you're interested in learning about the full process, I'd suggest asking in Pret's Discord server.

I see. Thanks for the help :) I do have one last question, though. Is it possible to turn this dissasembly/decomp script "https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=441800" into a normal script that can be used in regular ROM Hacks tools? 'Cause I don't like having to reel in due to the fact that I blink often...

 

[Anon822]

Regarding decompilation, pokeruby's CONTRIBUTING.md file gives a decent overview of the process.
In the case of decompiling the localizations, you could probably save a lot of time by taking identical code and assets from the english decomp (pokeemerald-jp's graph_search.md describes an algorithm for automatically finding matching code), but even then it would still take a lot of work.

I see. Thanks for the help :) I do have one last question, though. Is it possible to turn this dissasembly/decomp script "https://www.pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=441800" into a normal script that can be used in regular ROM Hacks tools? 'Cause I don't like having to reel in due to the fact that I blink often...

Everything that can be done with the decomps can also be done with binary hacking. The modification you linked modifies the game's code, which is typically done with ASM in binary hacking. You would have to learn ASM hacking and "recreate" those changes with it.