#textractor

Update: Since this post has been getting some interaction again a few years later I decided to add some new information! First of all, if you get some kind of error when installing a Japanese game, make sure to change your computer's locale to Japanese and make sure a Japanese language pack is installed, if not it won't be able to display Japanese text and you might not be able to install or open the game at all.

LunaHook This is one of the more recent translation tools which I've seen people using recently! Unlike Textractor it will find most hooks immediately and you don't have to manually search for them or enter a hook code manually. It can be downloaded here (the download link is on the right if you scroll down). Textractor won't be updated anymore, so right now this is the best altnernative now. The way you hook the program to the game works the same way as the Textractor instructrions below, it does look a little bit different, so if you have any trouble there's also a tutorual on YouTube here. There's also LunaTranslator which is more similar to Sugoi Translator, which you can download here. Everything I listed below is from 2022 so it might be a bit outdated, but it might still be useful to illustrate how to hook these tools to the game, so I won't delete it.

Textractor You can download Textractor here. One of the newer tools I have been using for a couple of years now. Very easy to use. you just open the game and Textractor, press ‘’Attach to game’’ and select which game you want. The dropdown menu next to it should now show multiple hooks. 

You might want to skip through some text in the game to find one that works correctly, but usually it is pretty easy to find one that works. In the example below I’m using it together with LoveDelivery’s new game Tokyo 24 Ku.

In some cases it doesn’t immediately show a correct hook, so you might need to add a custom one. In this example I will be using Slow Damage’s Japanese version. I’m aware it’s getting an official translation, but keep in mind it’s just an example of how to use these hooks/translation tools. Also please skip through the tutorial of the game first (when Taku appears and wakes Towa up)

> Open the textractor folder and look for a text file called ''Saved Hooks''. If you don't have it don’t worry, you can just create a new text file and give it the same name. 

>The next thing you should do is to find the folder Slow Damage is installed in and copy the file path. Then paste this in the ''Saved Hooks'' text document.

> Find the hook code. These can usually be found on forums like Aarinfantasy. Slow Damage’s code is  /HS65001#-1C@5C40:slowdamage.exe

>The ‘’Saved Hooks’’ text document should look something like this now. Make sure the spacing and everything is exactly like the picture below or it might not work.

>If you open your game (Slow Damage in this case) this new hook should appear in the dropdown menu. You might have to try a few of them before you get the right one, make sure to check that it hooks all of the Japanese text and doesn’t skip any.

> After doing this check again if the new hook works. If it works it should look something like the screenshot below. If it’s still skipping certain parts of the dialogue (mostly the hiragana and katakana) the hook isn’t working yet.

>Alternative solution: I’ve heard from a couple of people that this method sometimes doesn’t work, but they found alternative solutions. First copy the hook code mentioned above. After this select ‘’Add Hook’’ in Textractor.

Translation Aggregator Can be downloaded for free here. This is an older tool that was previously used a lot with other tools like ITH. One of the reasons I didn’t put ITH in this list is because some versions of it stopped working for me after switching to a Windows 10 PC, so I think it’s just not very reliable to recommend it anymore when newer tools exist. Some of the Textractor tools also allow you to just see furigana and the meaning of each kanji, so it's also useful if you already know some Japanese but just want to easily look up new kanji.

Translation Aggregator itself doesn't hook the text, though it does translate it. This means you need another tool like ITH or Textractor to hook it for you. I sometimes use Translation Aggregator because Textractor still gets a little bit buggy when you're playing certain games. One of the main problem I ran into is that it sometimes stops translating. In this case you can open Translation Aggregator and select different machine translation tools. Unfortunately it's a pretty old program so not all the translators work anymore, but some of the version I linked above still do. Make sure to press the icon next to the translator’s name so it automatically translates the text Textractor copies to your clipboard. It should look like the picture below (the screen on the right).

Sugoi Translator Can be downloaded here. This one also has an offline mode and uses DeepL. This one works pretty similarly to Translation Aggregator, but the quality of the translations and the interface is in my opinion quite an improvement. I could explain how to use it together with Textractor and DeepL, but you can watch an instruction video about that here! I think it's much easier to watch this than to follow text instructions. They have their own Discord server too, so I recommend joining it and asking questions there if you have any! It can be found in the description of the video.