F.A.Q. - Frequently Asked Questions
Q : Why are we called "Broken Dragon"?
A : Many inside jokes all came together to form our team's name. First, our translator uses the online nickname "The Secret Dragon". She's got a bearded dragon (a type of lizard) she keeps as an animal companion. The "broken" adjective is there for multiple reasons.
Her bone constitution is very weak, so she breaks her bones a lot to the point she usually has a broken bone somewhere in her body. Another reason for "broken" is because she speaks in the Newfoundland dialects in Canada.
It's quite far from standard international English used in the USA or Great Britain, similarly how Canadian French is far from European French. Finally, the original translation was too literal, so we needed to edit the script to avoid the translation sounding like broken English.
A : Many inside jokes all came together to form our team's name. First, our translator uses the online nickname "The Secret Dragon". She's got a bearded dragon (a type of lizard) she keeps as an animal companion. The "broken" adjective is there for multiple reasons.
Her bone constitution is very weak, so she breaks her bones a lot to the point she usually has a broken bone somewhere in her body. Another reason for "broken" is because she speaks in the Newfoundland dialects in Canada.
It's quite far from standard international English used in the USA or Great Britain, similarly how Canadian French is far from European French. Finally, the original translation was too literal, so we needed to edit the script to avoid the translation sounding like broken English.
Q : Why Sonohana 12?
A : The Secret Dragon already released a PDF translation for this VN before. I really wanted to see the translation implemented in the game, so I decided to learn the insertion method while managing to find an editor.
A : The Secret Dragon already released a PDF translation for this VN before. I really wanted to see the translation implemented in the game, so I decided to learn the insertion method while managing to find an editor.
Q : Why Anaheim ?
A : A long time ago, I discovered there was a release of a VN called Anaheim Girl's Love Story. Since I was heavily into Yuri back then, I really wanted to read it. Sadly, Oppai Missile only did a HTML external translation and this was a major turnoff for me from wanting to read it. For years, I really wanted to reinsert it in some way, but couldn't find a decent tool to do it. On the early morning of March 27th 2020, talking with Marcus André, this VN came to my mind again. So I asked Marcus "Do you know about XYZ engine for this VN so I could reinsert it?" and I got the usual response of "I never heard of this engine." which is normal when this industry's the one with hundreds of different engines with the possibility for anyone to make their own. Did a quick google search afterwards and got a new top result and I was like "You kidding me, someone finally made a reinsertion tool" and that's where I started my crusade to reinsert Oppai Missile's translation into the VN.
A : A long time ago, I discovered there was a release of a VN called Anaheim Girl's Love Story. Since I was heavily into Yuri back then, I really wanted to read it. Sadly, Oppai Missile only did a HTML external translation and this was a major turnoff for me from wanting to read it. For years, I really wanted to reinsert it in some way, but couldn't find a decent tool to do it. On the early morning of March 27th 2020, talking with Marcus André, this VN came to my mind again. So I asked Marcus "Do you know about XYZ engine for this VN so I could reinsert it?" and I got the usual response of "I never heard of this engine." which is normal when this industry's the one with hundreds of different engines with the possibility for anyone to make their own. Did a quick google search afterwards and got a new top result and I was like "You kidding me, someone finally made a reinsertion tool" and that's where I started my crusade to reinsert Oppai Missile's translation into the VN.
Q : Why did you release a prepatched copy of Anaheim instead of a patch?
A : Short Answer : The tool did not made it possible at the moment due to every file having to be replaced.
Long Answer : The tool extracts every file from the data archive, then it decompiles said files to edit them the way you need. When you repack them, the result is a standalone file, which needs to be put back in the game folder and cannot be compressed. Then the tool modifies the game executable and the data archive to say to the game "if you see that file being standalone in the game folder, don't look it up in the archive but use that one instead" so the standalone file supersedes the original asset. Sadly, it's not something the engine had build in by default, leading to the tool modifying everything inside the game folder. At this point it's better to simply publish the whole game than to use some patching utility like Lunar IPS for game roms since it would had been too complex otherwise for your average VN user. Lunar IPS is more popular for vintage video game translation projects.
A : Short Answer : The tool did not made it possible at the moment due to every file having to be replaced.
Long Answer : The tool extracts every file from the data archive, then it decompiles said files to edit them the way you need. When you repack them, the result is a standalone file, which needs to be put back in the game folder and cannot be compressed. Then the tool modifies the game executable and the data archive to say to the game "if you see that file being standalone in the game folder, don't look it up in the archive but use that one instead" so the standalone file supersedes the original asset. Sadly, it's not something the engine had build in by default, leading to the tool modifying everything inside the game folder. At this point it's better to simply publish the whole game than to use some patching utility like Lunar IPS for game roms since it would had been too complex otherwise for your average VN user. Lunar IPS is more popular for vintage video game translation projects.
Q : The patch doesn't work at all.
A : Is your system running on a Japanese locale? I don't recommend using a locale emulator. For switching to Japanese locale on Windows XP up to Windows 10, follow this short guide:
Guide :
Step 0 : Save & Quit every open application on your PC, because you will need to reboot right after Step 4.
Step 1 : Open the Windows Start Menu and type "Control Panel", or simply open it directly if you are running Windows 7 or older.
Step 2 : On the top right of the page, select "View By" and choose "Big Icon".
Step 3 : Select the Region icon and a new window will open.
Step 4 : Select the Administrative Tab and go to "Language for Non-Unicode Program". Choose "Japanese (Japan)", and don't tick the option for UTF8 in recent Windows 10.
Step 5 : Reboot when asked to (remember to save your stuff!) and redo steps 1 through 4 just to verify "Japanese (Japan)" is still the selected option.
Step 6 : Wait a few minutes for Windows to download multiple packages. Also, install Japanese language in the Windows modern settings if you want, and do your Windows update so the additional module gets installed.
Step 7 : Enjoy every JP game with 100% compatibility (if they work with your OS, otherwise use compatibility mode on a per-app basis).
A : Is your system running on a Japanese locale? I don't recommend using a locale emulator. For switching to Japanese locale on Windows XP up to Windows 10, follow this short guide:
Guide :
Step 0 : Save & Quit every open application on your PC, because you will need to reboot right after Step 4.
Step 1 : Open the Windows Start Menu and type "Control Panel", or simply open it directly if you are running Windows 7 or older.
Step 2 : On the top right of the page, select "View By" and choose "Big Icon".
Step 3 : Select the Region icon and a new window will open.
Step 4 : Select the Administrative Tab and go to "Language for Non-Unicode Program". Choose "Japanese (Japan)", and don't tick the option for UTF8 in recent Windows 10.
Step 5 : Reboot when asked to (remember to save your stuff!) and redo steps 1 through 4 just to verify "Japanese (Japan)" is still the selected option.
Step 6 : Wait a few minutes for Windows to download multiple packages. Also, install Japanese language in the Windows modern settings if you want, and do your Windows update so the additional module gets installed.
Step 7 : Enjoy every JP game with 100% compatibility (if they work with your OS, otherwise use compatibility mode on a per-app basis).
Q : The patch website says patch.xp3 but I only see the word patch.
A : Unhide the Windows file extension. Friendly reminder: never launch an .exe file downloaded from a unknown source.
Guide :
Step 1 : Open File Explorer
Step 2 : On the top left of the window in Win10, select the file tab. A menu should pop up, select "Change folder and files option" there.
Step 3 (Optional) : You can untick those bottom case if you want the menu to look more clean and choose the "Open File Explorer to" "This PC" for a Windows 7 menu style.
Step 4 : Select the "View" tab and untick the "Hide Extension for known file type", then press Apply.
A : Unhide the Windows file extension. Friendly reminder: never launch an .exe file downloaded from a unknown source.
Guide :
Step 1 : Open File Explorer
Step 2 : On the top left of the window in Win10, select the file tab. A menu should pop up, select "Change folder and files option" there.
Step 3 (Optional) : You can untick those bottom case if you want the menu to look more clean and choose the "Open File Explorer to" "This PC" for a Windows 7 menu style.
Step 4 : Select the "View" tab and untick the "Hide Extension for known file type", then press Apply.
Q : My game doesn't work in Full Screen/I get a black screen when selecting Full Screen in my game.
A : Welcome to the HiDPI club! You must be either running a 1080P screen or higher or have bad eyesight for this to be enabled. Here's how you can fix this (applicable to any Kirikiri 2/KAG3 games with an .xp3 file in the game folder). Here's how you can fix this (applicable to any Kirikiri 2/KAG3 games with an .xp3 file in the game folder).
This shouldn't be a problem in more recent versions of this engine, but most translated VNs still are using the older engine.
Guide :
Step 1 : Open the installation folder of the VN.
Step 2 : Right click the .exe of the game, select "Properties".
Step 3 : Select Compatibility Tab. Click the "Change High DPI settings".
Step 4 : Tick the box for "High DPI scaling overide" and leave it to the default "Application", then press Apply.
Step 5 : Run the game and try to apply fullscreen again. It should work now.
If you don't know the game folder location on your hard drive:
Step 1 : Right click the start menu shortcut of the app and select open file location (in the "more" menu in Windows 10). A file explorer window should open up.
Step 2 : Right click that shortcut, select "Properties" and note the "Target" line.
Step 3 : Manually open the folder or copy paste the line while removing the last part after the last Yen Symbol (which is the app executable) in the Windows File Explorer's address bar on top.
A : Welcome to the HiDPI club! You must be either running a 1080P screen or higher or have bad eyesight for this to be enabled. Here's how you can fix this (applicable to any Kirikiri 2/KAG3 games with an .xp3 file in the game folder). Here's how you can fix this (applicable to any Kirikiri 2/KAG3 games with an .xp3 file in the game folder).
This shouldn't be a problem in more recent versions of this engine, but most translated VNs still are using the older engine.
Guide :
Step 1 : Open the installation folder of the VN.
Step 2 : Right click the .exe of the game, select "Properties".
Step 3 : Select Compatibility Tab. Click the "Change High DPI settings".
Step 4 : Tick the box for "High DPI scaling overide" and leave it to the default "Application", then press Apply.
Step 5 : Run the game and try to apply fullscreen again. It should work now.
If you don't know the game folder location on your hard drive:
Step 1 : Right click the start menu shortcut of the app and select open file location (in the "more" menu in Windows 10). A file explorer window should open up.
Step 2 : Right click that shortcut, select "Properties" and note the "Target" line.
Step 3 : Manually open the folder or copy paste the line while removing the last part after the last Yen Symbol (which is the app executable) in the Windows File Explorer's address bar on top.
Q : I have a Mac or a Linux PC/Laptop, what can I do?
A : If you are running a Linux Computer, you are lucky since I have found a method to make it all work, check out the Shift-JIS Linux section of my website. If you are on MacOS, you can always use a Virtual Machine or Bootcamp to have a Windows 10 or Linux install in Dual Boot. Mac supports Shift-JIS encoding by default, thanks to it being based on FreeBSD. The support for Wine on MacOS's is sadly very barebones and the method might not work. To make it worse, MacOS Catalina had dropped support to 32bit applications. Your best solutions are either dual booting or using a virtual machine.
The Freaking iDroid's porting it to your alternative platform of choice, it should run on Linux, MacOS and Android using the RenPy engine when it's released.
A : If you are running a Linux Computer, you are lucky since I have found a method to make it all work, check out the Shift-JIS Linux section of my website. If you are on MacOS, you can always use a Virtual Machine or Bootcamp to have a Windows 10 or Linux install in Dual Boot. Mac supports Shift-JIS encoding by default, thanks to it being based on FreeBSD. The support for Wine on MacOS's is sadly very barebones and the method might not work. To make it worse, MacOS Catalina had dropped support to 32bit applications. Your best solutions are either dual booting or using a virtual machine.
The Freaking iDroid's porting it to your alternative platform of choice, it should run on Linux, MacOS and Android using the RenPy engine when it's released.