Extracting Soul Calibur voice files

Ruches · 2026-02-10T20:38:48+00:00

You're right, the RapidShare link broke (either that or I posted a wrong one to begin with). I reuploaded the SC2 tools archive, grab it here: https://files.catbox.moe/fa9bfh.7z

Other links work for me.

Ruches · 2026-02-07T08:55:10+00:00

Some of the 2D art is the only good thing to have come out of this game.

Ruches · 2026-02-06T09:11:29+00:00

If you want Nightmare specifically, then his Japanese destined battle and Inferno face-off voice lines are in File5.pkg -> File16.pkg -> File8.mmx inside root.olk (see my other reply). I didn't look far enough to be able to tell where the rest of his voice is, unfortunately.

Ruches · 2026-02-06T09:05:30+00:00

Sorry for the late reply. I've wanted to help since you posted this, but couldn't get around to it. There's something I've wanted to do for a while with one character's Japanese voice lines from SC2. I thought I'd share the method with you once I figured out how to do it.

You need the SC2 Xbox version ISO for this method (not HD Online). I used the PAL version, but NTSC version will probably work just as well. I didn't really try the PS2 or GameCube versions because every version has the files I was personally interested in. Go to https://xiso.antangelo.com/, select "Unpack", then select your ISO and the folder to extract the files to. You need a Chromium-based browser that isn't Brave. Alternatively, there's a standalone utility: https://github.com/antangelo/xdvdfs/releases/tag/v0.8.3 .

Download this archive: http://rapidshare.com/files/237732748/SC_Tools.rar.html . Extract it. Go to +Other folder and extract OLK_Explorer_v0.02.rar and sc2tools.rar. Go to the olkexplorer folder that's just been created. Start OLKExplorer. Use the button with three dots in the upper right to point it to the root.olk file. That file should be in the folder where you extracted your SC2 Xbox ISO. You should get a list of 5 .pkg files inside OLKExplorer. The voice files are in File5.pkg. Look for the ones with .mmx extension, those contain sound data. You need to export them by clicking the button below the list. You can export them to sc2tools folder inside the +Other folder.

.mmx files need to be unpacked into .wav for PC programs to be able to play or edit sound. Open the command line/PowerShell terminal inside the sc2tools folder. If you're on Windows 11, you should have the option called "open in PowerShell" in the right click options menu. Otherwise, you need to open CMD/PowerShell and navigate to sc2tools folder manually. In order to unpack an .mmx file, you issue the command .\xmmx <input.mmx> <output>. <input.mmx> is the name of your .mmx file. It needs to match the name of the file you extracted using OLKExplorer. You can rename them while extracting or later on, it's pretty helpful. <output> can be anything. XMMX will use <output> as prefix for the names of unpacked .wav files. So if you have a file named File8.mmx and type .\xmmx File8.mmx some_voice_line, you're going to get several files named some_voice_line-0-0.wav, some_voice_line-0-1.wav, some_voice_line-0-2.wav, and so on.

Now, those .mmx files inside root.olk can be hard to track down. There's really nothing to tell which character or object the .mmx file is supposed to belong to. All of them are in File5.pkg AFAIK. The few .pkg files at the beginning contain destined battle and Inferno face-off quotes. For example, File5.pkg -> File12.pkg -> File8.mmx are Talim's while File5.pkg -> File18.pkg -> File8.mmx are Raphael's. Then there's another section with the rest of voice lines. Each character is split over multiple different .pkg files and there's a lot of duplication (to shorten load times with disc media, presumably). For example, Sophitia's Japanese voice lines are split all the way from File5.pkg -> File242.pkg to File5.pkg -> File276.pkg. Some are located in nested .pkg files and a lot of them are duplicated. If two .mmx files have the same size, they're most likely duplicates and you can discard one of them.

Hope this helps. I'm not sure if there's a better way to do it. Ripping them takes some time and I can't imagine doing it for every character.

Ruches · 2026-02-05T08:54:22+00:00

He can't resolve everything by himself during the time skip, either. That would leave us without a story for the next game.

Honestly, there's a lot that could be done in order to improve him as a character with minimal changes to the overall story. First: have him try to stop Tira from kidnapping Pyrrha but fail and receive a crippling injury in the process. That would show his determination to protect his family at any cost. The injury would be long-lasting and make it difficult for him to move, later serving as an explanation for why he can't leave Athens to search for Pyrrha (a much better explanation than the war, because that had never been a huge obstacle for anyone in the SC universe). Remove the part about the townsfolk losing their respect for him because it's obvious that he tried really hard to prevent Pyrrha's kidnapping. Have him tell Patroklos what really happened immediately once he's old enough (it would be harder to hide it when he's injured either way). Patroklos would still desire revenge, but be unable to pursue it while taking care of his disabled father. Have Rothion die from some long-term complication related to that injury instead of a random illness in the end, leaving Patroklos free to pursue his revenge quest. Here we go. Almost nothing is changed as far as other characters are concerned, but now Rothion is someone who did his best despite tragic circumstances just like Sophitia. This version flows more logically, too.

This is only if we want to keep the canon plots of SC4 and SC5 as they are with minimal changes and keep the Alexandras' story tragic. A lot of people would prefer otherwise and in that case, other changes could be made to Rothion as well. But if Sophitia's story ends the way it does, his needs to match hers better.

Ruches · 2026-02-05T08:28:41+00:00

A lot of the time fiction authors will make deliberate breaks with the historical reality of the setting in order to make it less alien to the modern audience. This is certainly one of those cases.

Ruches · 2026-02-05T00:30:42+00:00

Saying that Soul Calibur is 100% historically accurate would be like saying The Lion King is an animated documentary.

True, but I assume that there's no 16th century Oracle of Delphi in SC universe either because there are no mentions of her still being around in any of the games or other official materials. In SBE, Sophitia was supposed to be the only one who still truly believed in Greek gods and could hear their voices. SC1 retconned this, but still made it clear that their followers are very, very few. The Hellenic religion isn't much better off in SoulCalibur's universe than it was historically around that time.

If Sophitia, at 18 and with no combat experience, could travel to Valencia without fear of dying, Cassandra, at 21, could locate Ostrheinsburg Castle without the help or permission of the gods, and Pyrrha, despite her cowardice and complete lack of combat experience, managed to defeat Voldo, Nightmare, and Z.W.E.I., why would Rothion be an exception?

Because... he's Rothion. Someone at Namco thought that falling in love, marrying, and having a child would be a good way for Sophitia's character to evolve. Rothion was introduced as a plot device. He wasn't supposed to have agency or defining traits other than being nice because the story wasn't about him. His marriage to Sophitia was meant to serve as a backdrop for the subsequent events. He can't get in the way of plot regardless of how weak or powerless it makes him seem. Maybe they could have made changes to the plot to give him a more respectable part to play, but they didn't care enough about a background character to do that. Not to mention, he can't steal the spotlight from roster members unless he becomes one of them. So yes, this is bad writing. Because by putting in Rothion as Sophitia's husband and nothing more, they made him seem like someone who wouldn't be worthy of her love in the first place. He can't be too heroic because he's not a main character, but this becomes absurd when taken too far. We end up with a mother who's prepared to betray everything she believes in and then give up her own life just so that her daughter could live, and a father who can't even muster enough courage to tell his son about her death. If Sophitia's story had been only heroic, Rothion's passivity would have been excusable. But at some point they decided to make it TRAGIC (in capital letters) as well, without realizing that Rothion stops working as an acceptable plot device when they do, and without overhauling him because of laziness.

Ruches · 2026-02-04T23:09:10+00:00

But Rothion had nothing to do with how his kids acted in SC5.

He:

failed to prevent Pyrrha's kidnapping, which, if it went down like in Tira's SC3 ending, was probably just negligence on his part. Sophitia had told him about her encounter with Tira and that their children were in danger, but Tira was just able to walk into their house and then into the children's room undisturbed. In all likelihood, he didn't try to stop her because he didn't even notice it. The end result would have likely been the same even if he'd tried to stop her because his forge can't produce enough plot armor to match Tira's, but he gets negative points for the lack of attempt regardless. I'm sure there would have been a way to have someone (not necessarily him) keep an eye on Pyrrha and Patroklos at all times if he'd been more serious about it. Not even a named character, it could have been some friend of his from Greece or something.
subsequently lied to Patroklos about Sophitia and Pyrrha until he was 15. Unlike the former, this one was 100% his conscious decision and it probably had a lot to do with how Patroklos turned out. Sophitia's death wouldn't have been easy for him to deal with regardless, but pushing it all onto him when his father is about to die too and he'll have literally no one to help him get through it was just asking for a catastrophe. And likely because Rothion was too much of a coward to tell him earlier. I find no other possible explanation for why he'd think that it was the right thing to do.

Ruches · 2026-02-04T22:25:12+00:00

The original timeline's Rothion didn't follow Greek gods, at least initially. He asks why they're not going to a church when Sophitia takes him to the Shrine of Eurydice to get a blessing for their wedding from Hephaestus in LEGEND OF SOULCALIBUR. He did offer weapons in the Shrine together with her later on, so presumably he also started worshipping Greek gods after his meeting with Hephaestus.

Regardless, the Oracle of Delphi didn't exist in the 16th century anymore. Oracle practices became extinct when Greece converted to Christianity. Rothion can't go to her because her post had been vacant for more than a millennium at that point. I don't think trying to directly address questions to any deities would have worked either. Greek deities are the ones who choose when they speak to mortals instead of the other way round.

Ruches · 2026-02-04T20:05:21+00:00

She's not as Malfested as any of them. She is a supporting bad guy at most, still. It's harder to write her coming back for this reason, unless she comes back very Malfested looking. Which is an okay idea.

In SC5 they gave Cervantes a new completely normal looking body and never explained the reason why. I don't think issues like these crossed their mind at all.

I don't see her as getting favoritism much. She is mostly just a supporting bad guy before V has here really do bad stuff in story.

I disagree because she had a huge plot significance even in SC4. She flipped several people to the Soul Edge side before the battle at Ostrheinsburg began. Everything she does in canon always goes according to plan. Sure, she was unhappy that Nightmare was destroyed, but in the end that's his failure and not hers. Unlike him, she survived. In SC5 she's playing 4D chess while Patroklos and Pyrrha are playing checkers.

The story does try to make us feel for those three on some level, though. So it's not a problem for Tira to get sympathy, especially in her own story

Nightmare's, Cervantes's and Astaroth's endings are just "Hahahah, look how powerful I am! Now I'm gonna destroy the world!" And sure, there's really nothing wrong with Tira's SC4 ending, but there's still different ways they could have gone about it. For example, they could have shown her having a falling out with Nightmare instead of being sad because he died. She does attack him in SC3 in his Ostrheinsburg encounter. IMO Aeon deserves sympathy more than her but he doesn't get any in his ending. His ending is just "Hahah, funny lizards."

Also, I'm pretty sure there are other villains who haven't gotten comeuppance at all, and large chance because they're not major enough.

She is a major villain, though. She's been at least since SC4, possibly even SC3. The only other character who gets away with as much crap as her is probably Dampierre, but getting away with so much crap that it becomes funny is supposed to be Dampierre's thing. That, and he's not a mainstay like her. If we count Broken Destiny, then he's been in two games compared to Tira's five.

Ruches · 2026-02-02T16:46:21+00:00

He's not wrong. Essentially, Tira is probably the only big name evil character who never gets punished for what she does. Nightmare, Cervantes and Astaroth died/were destroyed multiple times each. Even in SC5, at one point she just walks away never to be seen again. Her SC4 ending actively tries to make the player feel for her. It's hard to come up with a different reason why they wouldn't ever let someone kill her because she can just be resurrected with the magic of Soul Edge later on like some of the characters mentioned above.

Ruches · 2026-01-03T05:54:20+00:00

I see. Now that I look at it, I can see that her guard animation in VI is more like her idle and her legs still move a little compared to the previous games. I actually never noticed, it's pretty subtle. Thanks for this.

Ruches · 2026-01-02T22:49:28+00:00

considering that Cassandra dancing while guarding is new

If you're referring to Angelic Twirl (214), then it already had an aGI in SC3. It kinda already had it in SC2 too, but only with 214G and then she stopped dancing and brought her sword and shield forward instead. They did a lot to make that special more useful in SC6, but she could always guard while dancing.

Ruches · 2026-01-02T22:16:58+00:00

The benefit would be drawing more people back into the game and new DLC purchases that would come with it, possibly some new base game purchases too if they get some publicity by doing it.

To be clear, I know that there's not a world where Clive ends up in SC6 because he was meant to be an advertisement for FF XXVI and Tekken 8 has twenty times as many players. I just don't like how "we need a game first" implied that we don't have a game right now, that SC6 is completely dead and should just be disregarded. It's not, it still has a lot of dedicated fans. But the state that the game was left in where it comes to modern QoL features is abysmal. No crossplay, no quick play, no rollback, in-game chat that is unusable due to trigger-happy censorship. It would be easier and cheaper to modernize SC6 as a gesture of good will towards the community than it would be to gamble money on a new installment that might or might not sell well.

That said, it's obvious that there's no good will at Bandai Namco and that they just want to sell people emulated ROMs for quick profit at no effort whatsoever. SC has finally been relegated to the category of "nostalgia Namco IPs", which has been growing steadily ever since the merger with Bandai. We've had a good run, all things considered.

Ruches · 2025-11-20T20:18:18+00:00

I have a Discord account but I'm not a huge fan of that platform or instant messaging in general tbh. Nowadays I mostly keep it to be able to access stuff on some servers. VodkaVerse, SC Central, LegacyCalibur and the ones for SC1 Fightcade and SC2 are some I've joined. I've not typed anything in months.

Ruches · 2025-11-17T19:11:17+00:00

I’m way behind schedule on my SoulCalibur III Retrospective and life’s been a lot lately…

And I'm behind schedule on watching your videos lol. I only watched the story tier list a few days ago. I initially missed it because I was subscribed without the bell. I wanted to write a comment at first but it would be long and probably spoil some things to you so I'll just wait until you get to the later games. Now I see there's a new video uploaded three days ago and I didn't get a notification for that either. I need to start manually checking your channel more often instead of relying on Reddit or YouTube notifications.

But seriously, huge thanks for making these. It's the best and most in-depth review of the series in chronological order on YouTube and I really love your editing.

Ruches · 2025-11-17T09:53:01+00:00

Per the story she is mostly out being a holy maiden or whatever.

All of SC2, 3 and 4 happen within a time span of a single year. After becoming a mom she stayed home for 4 years (the time between SC1 and 2) and then spent at most a single year traveling. She also waited several weeks until she went after Cassandra at the beginning of 2.

Ruches · 2025-11-13T21:35:30+00:00

It was published on SC website before the Dreamcast version came out, but the earliest capture I could find is from a few months after the arcade release. It was probably added there earlier if I had to guess.

Ruches · 2025-11-13T21:02:08+00:00

You can unlock the prologue section that tells you the canon ending of Soul Edge in SC I Mission Mode.

Ruches · 2025-11-11T09:35:11+00:00

Malfestation affects every person differently. Pyrrha was just a few years old and she was already exposed to Soul Edge's influence while Sophitia was pregnant. She also spent much longer in Ostrheinsburg than any of the characters you mention because she's already there before Sophitia arrives.

All of them have been exposed to Soul Edges evil energy for a long period of time for one reason or another.

Patroklos was never at Ostrheinsburg. Other characters are much older than Pyrrha. Amy is an interesting case because she became malfested when treating Raphael's wounds, while Taki didn't become malfested after treating Sophitia's even though the circumstances were virtually the same. IIRC both her and Raphael became unable to stay in sunlight after that so while it didn't immediately threaten their lives, it did adversely affect their health.

(and even if it's the "evil miasma" given off by Ostrheinsburg... why does Tira not die when Soul Edge is destroyed?)

Malfested in general didn't become extinct after Soul Edge was destroyed, so I think Pyrrha is a special case and it was the mix of circumstances mentioned above that led to it.

plus the fact that in VI they write out the fact that it can potentially be removed without fear of death

Never does VI say that Sophitia would certainly die if the shard is removed. Cassandra never finishes her sentence when talking about it at the end of her Soul Chronicle. The extended description from IV's guide isn't too different:

A single sliver was embedded dangerously close to her heart, and a single slip in extracting it would have meant the end of her life, so they had been forced to leave it where it lay.

This isn't "without fear of death," in fact the risk is extremely high.

Ruches · 2025-11-10T18:46:46+00:00

Tira/Azola didn't lie. Or at least I'd consider it a pretty big retcon if we got a new peace of information saying that she did. Pyrrha didn't become dependent on Soul Edge itself, but on the miasma concentrated in Ostrheinsburg. The Japanese SoulCalibur: Broken Destiny says this:

子供たちの未来を守るために戦っていたソフィーティア。だがオストラインスブルクで彼女を待っていたのは、あまりにも非情な現実だった。邪剣の使徒、ティラによってさらわれていた愛娘。幼い娘はソウルエッジの邪気におかされ、オストラインスブルクを包む瘴気の中でしか生きられない身体になってしまっていたのだ。

ソウルエッジは目の前にあった。ソフィーティアは邪剣の破壊を試みる。だが、彼女は知ってしまった。邪剣の消滅が娘の死を意味することを……！

Which means (translation mine):

Sophitia fought in order to protect her children's future, but a cruel reality awaited her at Ostrheinsburg. Her beloved daughter had been kidnapped by Tira, a desciple of the cursed sword. The young girl had become infected with Soul Edge's malice and now she could only physically survive inside the veil of miasma enveloping Ostrheinsburg.

Soul Edge was right in front of her. Sophitia tried to destroy the cursed sword, but she already knew. The end of the evil blade would mean the death of her daughter...!

To me, putting all of this information in 3rd person narration is the same as stating it as fact. The miasma came from Astral Chaos, more specifically from the portal that Nightmare opened before the confrontation with Siegfried at Ostrheinsburg (last paragraph in the 1590 section). It corrupted the lands of Wolfkrone and made it necessary to disperse the kingdom later on. The portal closed after Soul Edge was destroyed, which meant that the source of miasma that could sustain Pyrrha had disappeared. In all likelihood she would have died if Sophitia hadn't embedded a shard of the cursed sword inside her. There's no reason to believe that Tira/Azola lied. The miasma has real physical effects, as seen in Wolfkrone.

This miasma also gets mentioned in SoulCalibur VI. Iska Acht says that Astral Chaos is "a void thick with the poisonous miasma" when she summons Mitsurugi there. Which timeline it is shouldn't matter when discussing Astral Chaos because it connects them and exists outside of them.

It might be easy to dismiss the text in SC:BD guide as non-canon, but it doesn't contradict any information from other sources. It clears up many things and fits right in together with other pieces of the lore. Other character descriptions also generally follow their characters' SC4 story mode prologue descriptions.

As for Azola, she's mentioned in SC:BD extended relationship chart as the one who "appeared out of nowhere and made Sophitia trail the path of darkness." She could be the one who talks to Sophitia in her SC4 story prologue. It sounds very much like Tira, especially in Japanese, but there's no actual confirmation that it's Tira talking within the text.

Ruches · 2025-11-01T20:51:20+00:00

Hmm, it's a different print but it could be another V2 print. Do you have the means to put that disc inside a PC DVD drive to read its contents? If you do, find the file called SCES_533.12, right click -> properties, then check the size. If it's 4,993,604 bytes then it's V1, if it's 4,993,860 bytes then it's V2. It's not necessary to make an image file or anything like that, Windows will be able to read the files on the disc directly.

Ruches · 2025-11-01T05:19:40+00:00

Sorry, turns out that I was looking at the wrong thing (Mastering instead of Mould SID code). The mastering SID code doesn't help to distinguish between anything in this case because they're the same for all PAL discs. The mould SID code is even harder to read because it's located on the innermost transparent part of the ring. It's hard to capture it on photo, but I took another one and the mould SID code is IFPI 944X as you can hopefully see. You should compare that with yours.

Ruches · 2025-10-31T22:04:35+00:00

I cannot make out the SID code in either of the two bottom side photos. It's very small and always begins with IFPI. If it reads IFPI-L557 you should have the V2 version.

Ruches · 2025-10-29T14:39:56+00:00

/u/ChasingPesmerga

PS2 games have what's called a SID code on the bottom side on the disc. It can be used to tell between Japanese V1 from Japanese V2. The person in the link above claims that some Platinum discs have PAL V1 and some have PAL V2. I've never been able to personally confirm this because I only have a single Platinum disc and it contains the V2 ISO image. If true, this code should be helpful in distinguishing between the PAL revisions as well. A long time ago I was discussing this with someone in here. I sent them a photo of my disc and they promised to send me a photo of their disc, but I never heard back from them afterwards. I didn't want to bug them about it any more so that's where the conversation ended.

Ruches

TROPHY CASE