RPG's item file.dat open in Hex-Editor: but it's just all number 3's entirely???

[aweigh]

When I normally use a hex-editor (CrystalTile2 is the one I like using) in order to do simple stuff like:

- Translate into English an RPG's entire list of items, spells, enemy names, etc. Simple stuff that doesn't require fluency in japanese.

This is what it looks like (game in screenshot is Elminage 2 for PSP):


That "Longsword" wasn't originally in English. I did that. Go me, yay.

However, I recently got hands on RPG called "Students of the Round", and I thought I'd caught a lucky break because it has all files already "out", and even a folder itself dedicated to "table"-type files, i.e. the listings of the stuff I mentioned!

But this is what I'm looking at right now when I open the item.dat file:




Um... obviously I'm just a noob, but I guess this is my first encounter with compression? or is this "encryption"? Hell, please just someone be kind and tell me what all those 3's mean!

I tried using CONTROL + F to search for individual characters from a weapon's name, until I would eventually get a hit on one of the characters, and I noticed that there is definitely "weapon info" in that mess.

In the picture, look at the offset highlighted in yellow, and look at 0x4, i.e. the sudden "+3"; that is definitely the weapons accuaracy bonus. Checked throughout rest of the file and my theory holds.

So, I don't wanna jump ahead without even waiting for the help I'm asking for, but also: what do I do now?

[BlackDog61]

Tough to know if what I write is going to be more than guess work, but here I go...
IF this is compression, and if these are indeed characters from the original text, then the compression scheme could very well be LZ77, LZSS, or any other LZ variant. You'll find a lot about these on this forum. This is not a certain thing, though. It could be RLE too. Or it could be something else. 
Good luck!