STRG (Metroid Prime 3)

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See STRG (File Format) for the other revisions of this format.

The STRG format in Metroid Prime 3 is another update to the STRG format, used both in Prime 3 as well as Donkey Kong Country Returns; the only difference between the two is that DKCR supports more languages. The most significant change from the Echoes STRG format is that the string encoding was changed from UTF-16 to UTF-8. There was also a more robust system for string offsets implemented, allowing for the same string of text to be reused for multiple languages if the string is identical in both.

Format

The initial header is identical to Prime 1/2. The differences start after that; the name table now precedes the language table, and the language tables and string tables are structured differently.

Offset Type Count Name Notes
0x0 u32 1 Magic Always 0x87654321.
0x4 u32 1 Version Always 3. See hub article for a list of possible version numbers.
0x8 u32 1 Language Count Number of languages that this table has strings for.
0xC u32 1 String Count Number of strings contained in the file per language.
0x10 Name Table 1 Name Table Associates each string in the file with a name.
char 4 × Language Count Language ID Array Array of fourCCs that defines which languages have strings included in the file. See below for a list of possible language codes.
Language Language Count Language Table Table that defines the languages that are present in the file. Each element in the array corresponds to the language in the Language ID Array at the same index.
String Varies String Array Contains the actual string data. The reason the count varies is because if a string is identical between multiple languages then the same string data will be used for all of them, so there's no value that can tell you the real string count directly.
End of file

Possible language codes:

ID Language MP3 DKCR
ENGL English
GERM German
FREN French
SPAN Spanish
ITAL Italian
DUTC Dutch
JAPN Japanese
SCHN Simplified Chinese
TCHN Traditional Chinese
UKEN U.K. English
KORE Korean
NAFR North American French
NASP North American Spanish

Notes:

  • In DKCR, Japanese appears after English instead of after Italian.
  • The languages DUTC, SCHN, and TCHN are unused and don't actually appear in any STRG file. However, their fourCCs can be found in the dol alongside the other language codes, so presumably the game supports them.

Name Table

This part of the file is a table that allows names to be assigned to strings. It's identical to the structure from Echoes, so check the Echoes documentation for details.

Language

This is a small structure that defines where the strings for a particular language are located. It appears once per language.

Offset Type Count Name Notes
0x0 u32 1 Strings Size This is the combined size of each string this language uses.
0x4 u32 String Count String offsets Relative to the start of the first string.
End of language definition

String

Offset Type Name Notes
0x0 u32 String Size Size of the string data in bytes.
0x4 string String Zero-terminated string encoded with UTF-8 Unicode.
End of string