How to apply Hilltop's Boku no Natsuyasumi 2 English patch on Linux

Haven't blogged in awhile, so here’s a quickie. Last week, Hilltop released an English patch for Boku no Natsuyasumi 2, which finally makes the Japan exclusive PS2 game accessible to us English speaking folks. The README explains how to apply the patch on Windows or via a web utility. Having never patched an ISO before, I wondered how it could be done using a native Linux utility instead. Turns out it's easy to do via the xdelta tool.

First, get xdelta from your distro’s package repository. I use Guix so I ran guix shell xdelta rather than install it because this is a one-off task.

Then patch the ISO:

xdelta3 -d -s Boku2.iso Boku2EnglishPatch1.1.xdelta Boku2-patched.iso

Did a quick test in my softmodded PS2 with GrimDoomer’s modified OPL so I could easily load it from an SSD in the expansion bay and it works!!

Boku no Natsuyasumi 2’s title screen showing English text

Of course, I went through all this trouble to play the game because of Tim Roger's 6 hour review of the original Boku no Natsuyasumi. Check it out if you haven’t seen it.