anonymousJS

Is it really resurrected tho?

This guide is not a complete guide and only covers the most common issues encountered when trying to play RPG Maker games. For simplicity, this guide assumes you are using Windows and the only locales are “English” and “Japanese”. Versions covered: XP, VX, VX Ace Diagnosis 1. Does the game window load? a. If yes, see “Wrong locale – Game.exe” b. If no, continue 2. Does the error message refer to a Japanese filename (see Figs. 1 & 2)? a. If yes, see “Wrong locale – File extraction” b. If no or not sure, continue 3. See “RTP not installed” a. If your issue is not resolved, continue 4. In the game directory, open the “Graphics” and/or “Audio” folders 5. Are any the filenames in those folders unintelligible or appear corrupted (see Fig. 3)? a. If yes, see “Wrong locale – File extraction” b. If no, contact someone Figure 1 – English filename dialogue Figure 2 – Japanese filename dialogue Figure 3 – Corrupt filenames in folder Issues Wrong locale – Game.exe This occurs when the game doesn’t agree with the locale for whatever reason (I’m still working it out) Solution 1: Recommended for users who don’t intend to switch locales frequently 1. See “Change system locale” 2. Run Game.exe Solution 2: Recommended for most users 1. Install Locale Emulator 2. Right click on Game.exe 3. Click “Locale Emulator” > “Run in Japanese” Wrong locale – File extraction This occurs because ZIP files created in Windows frequently use the creator’s locale and Windows forces extraction tools to use your locale. When these locales are different, the list of filenames cannot be read properly. Solution 1: Recommended for users who are not tech-savvy or don’t intend to switch locales frequently 1. See “Change system locale” 2. Use file extractor to extract ZIP file Solution 2: Recommended for advanced users 1. See this post RTP not installed The RTP is a resource pack that contains many common and default assets used by RPG Maker games. This is not included in most game downloads in order to decrease file size. Solution: 1. Go to this site 2. Select the version of RPG Maker used for the game 3. Download and install Appendix Change system locale 1. Open Control Panel 2. Navigate to “Clock and Region” > “Region” 3. Select the “Administrative” tab 4. Under “Language for non-Unicode programs”, click “🛡Change system locale…” (see Fig. 4) 5. Say “yes” to the admin pop-up 6. Select “Japanese (Japan)” from the drop-down menu 7. Click “OK” 8. Restart your computer Figure 4 – Region settings, Administrative tab

Yeah, Windows likes to fight you sometimes. My best guess (pure speculation) is that the default zip library only obeys the registry heedless of how the file is encoded or if the caller wishes to specify an encoding.

Nap

To the safety of the bladder cult

Unicode is not required (or seemingly used by default) for ZIP files. I tested this in Windows and mounted my testing setup briefly to Linux to verify a problem someone was asking about. On both systems, the names of extracted Japanese files were garbled when extracted normally and appeared in Japanese when extracted as such. Windows just makes extracting in Japanese much harder somehow. In Linux, the fix turned out to be unzip -O shift-jis. On Windows, even the CLI of 7-Zip is limited in what character encodings it can use for console output and list input and is unable to control the encoding used to unzip a file. The only officially supported way of changing the locale used to unzip files is to change the "Language for non-Unicode programs" aka the system locale. Since this is a system value, changing it requires a restart of the system and Administrator privileges which is a pain if you don't want to stick with the Japanese locale which has some mildly irritating side effects for English users.

I've recently discovered a new way to unzip zipped files that contain Japanese filenames that doesn't require changing the system locale and can optionally forego needing admin privileges. This method uses two programs, Locale Emulator by xupefei and 7-Zip. Both programs can be easily found on Google. This method only works with the 32-bit x86 version of 7-Zip and has only been tested with version 2.4.0.0 of Locale Emulator. Install Locale Emulator Install the 32-bit x86 version of 7-Zip. See alternate instructions if you lack administrative privileges. In C:\Program Files (x86)\7-Zip, delete the Lang folder Right click on 7zFM.exe Select Locale Emulator > Run in Japanese. 7-Zip's file browser should appear in English. Navigate to the file you wish to extract and extract normally Alternate instructions for unprivileged users Install Locale Emulator Download 7-Zip Portable from PortableApps.com Run the executable and select a suitable folder for the pseudo-installation In that folder, go to Apps\7-Zip and delete the Lang folder Continue from step 4 of the normal instructions (Optional) Make a shortcut Make a shortcut for LEProc.exe located in Locale Emulator's installation folder Copy the full path to 7zFM.exe Right click on the shortcut created in step 1 and open Properties In the Target field, add a space at the end before pasting the path to 7zFM.exe (Optional) Change the icon Click Change Icon... Say Ok to the warning prompt Clear out the text field at the top and paste the path to 7zFM.exe Click outside of the text field to update the available icons Select an icon Please let me know if you find this useful and if you have any problems getting this to work.