Finishing Sprite Text
I’ve done a good deal of work since the last update, and things are looking up. First, the main thing is that the sprite text welding hack is finally nearly done. It’s taken a lot more time than I had expected, what with real life rush jobs, unexpected craziness from the game, etc. etc. Anyways, it’s not quite done yet, a few last things need to be done, which I’ll talk about in a bit. First, here are some before and after pics.
before 
now
Yeah, Kumatora’s name is messed up there. That’s actually a result of her having 8 letters in her name. We’ll have to do some more hacking with the menus to fix the 8-letter name stuff. That’ll be for another day. It’s probably nothing too hard.
Anyway, as you might or might not recall, the whole point of sprite text welding is to allow for more text than the original game allowed. The game only allows for 95 sprite letters. 95 sounds like a big number, but it’s not much at all when you have a whole bunch of sprite text scattered all over the screen. What would happen originally is that if we went over that limit, text simply wouldn’t show up anymore. The GBA hardware only allows for only a small amount of sprites, you see. But the pic to the right has the sprite welding working, so now the full description can be displayed.
Sprite text is used all throughout the game, not just item descriptions. So while one might be tempted to say screw it, just use super-short descriptions, there are many other places where that wouldn’t work. Many times it seems pointless for the original programmer(s) to have used sprite text, but it’s too late to tell them that now 
before 
now
(and yes, I see it )
Another important place sprite text is used is on the naming screens. Luckily, my sprite text hack works almost flawlessly on them, just one little bug to fix and it should be set. But anyway, as you can see here, the text on the summary screen can now be displayed in full.
Also, I decided to check out the ending of the game — it uses TONS of sprite text. Before, whole sections of text just wouldn’t be displayed because of the game’s technical limits. But happily for all of us, that’s all been fixed now. I was amazed at how well everything worked 
There are three things left to this hack now, one is to make the game take status icons in descriptions into account. They mess things up, as you can see:
fast acid 
this makes you do the truffle shuffle?
Shouldn’t be too difficult, though.
The second thing to be done is to fix various little bugs here and there.
The third thing is to optimize the hack, because it REALLY slows down everything, especially when there’s lots of sprite text on the screen. I checked, and this happens on real hardware too. The original designers didn’t intend for all this extra code to be running in such a tight loop. My current idea for fixing it is to make it not redraw text when it doesn’t need to. The game needlessly redraws text many times per second, even if the text hasn’t changed. Hopefully that should fix the speed issue. (EDIT: I put up a video showing how slow the sprite text makes the naming screen stuff. See it here. This slowdown happens anywhere there’s sprite text. It’ll obviously be fixed for the final patch)
Elsewhere, I’m not 100% sure, but it looks like it *may* be possible to use the trick I did for the battle text with the main script text and the main menu non-sprite text. If so, I won’t have to do any more of this text welding crap after this. Let us pray nine times.
More updates and mini-updates as stuff happens. Incidentally, if you didn’t follow the mini-updates in the last post, you might wanna check ‘em out anyway. Looking back, they’re kind of neat and show the process better with dev pics and pics of weird bugs and all that.
Once sprite text is done, not too much other stuff left to hack.
Good to see that your tuning the sprites.
Nice Work, Keep it up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11
Did you guys even read all that before replying
Hey Tomato, I was going to suggest for a previous update and I played with it in photoshop. Would it be possible to match up both the text boxes like the japanese version?
hi
And, I know this will never make it in the game, but I thought this was a sweet idea.
hi2
Keep up the good work guys!
haha nice job mato
and yes i took the time to read it
<33
Awesome!
I still think you should come to #tomato
Finally, I’ve been so tired of that blue text. BTW, this sprite text stuff went a lot calmer (from an observer’s perspective) than I assumed it would.
“Elsewhere, I’m not 100% sure, but it looks like it *may* be possible to use the trick I did for the battle text with the main script text and the main menu non-sprite text. ” So you’re saying that this sprite text you just fixed on the menus, yet there is sprite text elsewhere in the main script, thus you hope that you can use the same hack?
Awesome you are almost done.
Tweder: We can’t move the text there to the left without moving text in every other name box to those same coordinates. The Japanese version had it slightly sticking out too, anyway.
And your title pic is neat, but it misses the entire point of the title graphics/the story
Mato = win.
I would be willing to accept a little bit of slowdown occasionally, especially in menus where it doesn’t really affect gameplay. You probably shouldn’t spend too much time agonizing over it if it’s not immediately obvious.
As a side note, I have an additional theory as to why Mother 3 never got translated officially. Mato has said plenty of times that the programmers didn’t really think much about translation when developing the game. Perhaps even the developers were scared of the massive rewrite required?
Looking good. I remember looking at this a couple years ago, and the progress since then is so great compared to what you used to have.
great news =3 so only lil hacking left right? cant wait to get the patch =D
Great….we’re getting so close.
“the ending of the game — it uses TONS of sprite text. ”
Way to spoil it for me, sheesh.
Tomato and crew, thank you all so much. I actually played through the first chapter yesterday, no translation guide or patch. It’s pretty amazing how Itoi and Co. managed to convey such emotions through sprites, regardless of the language barrier. From the look of the screens, you’re doing them justice and then some.
Anyway, that’s all. Thanks for this, and thanks for your previous translations as well, I really enjoyed them.
It’s all falling into place, like pieces of a puzzle.
Wow this patch is flying off the presses!!! Mato, you are the chosen one!!!
Excellent work. And with all the different types of text fixed, it’s only a hop, skip and a jump until all energies can be diverted to the translation part. And presto: the patch will be done. Well, perhaps I’m getting ahead of myself. But ever since the new year started, this project has been taking off.
So can we cross this off the to-do list?
No, I explained in the update that there are there things left until I can cross it off.
Wow, what an update. The whole sprite text welding seemed like one of the last big hurdles, and it’s already pretty much taken care of? Wow. Hell, we might even be playing this come summer or so. Not jumping the gun or anything, I’m just saying, the end just seems that much more realizable now.
James: The pieces of the puzzles are all falling into place like a house of cards - checkmate!
@MasterInsan0: The official translators would have the source code and documentation, it would be very easy for them to modify (plus, they are professionals, whereas Jeffman and Mato are just hobbyists :P)
cool i loved your YES i see it comment about Bonie xD
Hey guys — haven’t commented in a while.
Nice job on everything; I can’t believe the huge amounts of progress you guys have made in such a short time.
Also, I’m not mitch, but expect a doodle from me soon that I started in school. I’m not that good at drawing, but it has some funny bits, like Mato glued to a… well, just wait and see.
BTW, I just did a count, that shop menu pic on the left takes 78 or so sprites (it flickers on and off since it’s at the limit), while the sprite welded version uses only 34 sprites. And it displays the full description. That’s mighty nice #s.
you’re doing a great job Mato for all of the Mother fanbase keep
up the good work!
With this hack in there, does it mean that the game is not as crashy any more? Or are there still ugly main script problems that hose the game during your testing?
In the mean time, glad to see it’s coming along! Good luck!
Yee! Cool. Progress makes me happy. =)
Here’s a video of the slowdown in the naming screen, for those who are curious. This is obviously unacceptable
Ok, I almost missed your reply under the previous update where you said:
> There’s a counter so the game knows what sprite # the next one should be, that’s about it. It increments each time a sprite is added, then, after everything is loaded, it turns all sprites off and redoes everything again. It does it so fast that you don’t notice, well, at least the Japanese version does.
Am I completely nuts, or could you simply skip the redraw loop unless that counter has changed?
Or you could keep a copy of what the counter was LAST time it did a redraw, and only update the sprites between the previous and current part.
Or does it update lots other things like position without affecting that counter? Hmm, yeah, it probably animates things or moves sprites, doesn’t it?
Hrm.
…uhm, Mato?
The video you posted of the naming screen says it was removed.
I know, just give it time. Youtube is smelly.
My god…
That is a problem…any idea how much time you’ll have to spend shaving cycles, Mato? It would probably be as tedious as sprite-welding…
Sorry, just making sure.
Also, I’m so glad to see how well this project has come together. It’s just incredible. However, you really need some help, Mato. Why not try asking other hackers to help ya?
The video is gone already.
Wow, I thought the sprite welding would be the hardest thing to do and it looks like you’ve tackled it pretty well.
Good work Mato!
Also: I know you mention from time to time that there are other super-hackers supposedly working on the project, yet it seems like it’s just you and Jeffman.. Either way, more power to you guys =)
Wow! Good luck working with this stuff. I give you all my blessings to continue to have this awesome strength to go through this hacking stuff. You are doing such a terrific job!
“There are three things left to this hack now”
*nerdish hyperventilation ensues*
@solidpit
I think that’s for just the Sprite Welding hack and not the rest.
Tomato, you are awesome and basically my hero.
It’s really weird, I still can’t get the video to play, and I’m the one who uploaded it
> That is a problem…any idea how much time you’ll have to spend shaving cycles, Mato? It would probably be as tedious as sprite-welding…
Don’t worry, he studied assembly language under Lance in college, just like I did. He’s quite used to saving bytes and cycles (which are often related). A few lousy bytes in your solution was the difference between an A and an E (they don’t give out an F). And your solutions were compared to Lance’s solution, where he used lots of tricks he didn’t tell people about to shave bytes. Like that screwball use of DB when we had to preserve *all* registers while having multiple function entry points…
If anyone can, Mato can
But yeah, it’ll probably still be tedious.
Oh god…
So it’s almost done?
I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy~ 8D
You could try uploading it with zshare or badongo, perhaps
Youtube is smelly indeed
I’m so happy to hear of the amazing progress.. just don’t finish the patch before my exams are over or else I’ll fail out of university!
BFM: Uhh, no, only this particular hack is almost done. The to-do list has everything that’s still left. Keep your eye on that.
Maybe YouTube thinks it’s a ToS violation for some stupid reason? It wouldn’t be the first time a video was wrongly flagged.
*prays nine times*
;D So, Mato…
Let’s say for a moment that Sprite Text was a boss in your great hacking playthrough of Mother3translationBound.
What boss would it be?
Titanic Ant, cause he brings lots of bugs with him wherever he goes
It’s admirable you’re still hammering away even though your real-life job has been hectic. There’s thousands of people out there who consider you a hero. Keep up the great work.
“Amazingly Fast-Acid” makes me giggle. Also sounds like like what a Skip Sandwich would be before Nintendo-censorship.
Ouch, that looks painful
Awesome work though
Will making the game not redraw the sprited as often completely remove the lag or will you have to do anything else?
I suck at assembly, and I don’t know the GBA Hardware, so I’m kinda curious what you would do if that wouldn’t work completely
Thanks for the update Mato! It’s great tos ee your dedication to this project even when you are the super busy.
Just a question - when you mention that a lot of the sprite text in the ending is fixed, does that mean you can cross off the to-do list item about hacking special boxes at the end of the game? Or is that something completely different?
Also, what’s Jeffman working on now?
Yes, and the Black Antoids keep calling their friends.
It’s almost certainly the constant refilling of the glyph buffer. It basically does 4x the amount of work the original Japanese version did, plus a little more to account for the bit-shifting. I’m actually starting to worry that by making it skip drawing most of the time that it’ll make things go too fast in some places, but maybe that’s not what’ll happen, I dunno. I assume the game originally expects a specific amount of time per draw though…
Hmmm…
Upon looking through the To-Do list, it would seem that the best course of action after the sprite text hack would be to wrap up the Menu hack section, as there are only two left, and they are both very important components of gameplay.
However, I have absolutely nothing to do with this hack, so I’ll support whatever Mato chooses to hack next 100%!
After you put up the final update, you’ll soon set the world record for most “thank you” posts.
Triple10X: That’s completely different, battle text is completely different from sprite text and any other text. It actually turns out to be easier than most of this normal text. I wouldn’t have believed that if I heard that a few months back
Jeffman’s been helping when he can, like I think he has a good idea what causes those weird sprite issues during the naming screen and stuff and explained it to me. Both of us are busy most of the time, so it usually seems like one of us will do a lot of stuff, then the other will do a lot, etc.
Poo: And then the world record for help how do I make this work posts
hey, great to see you’ve gotten some of the sprite bugs out, good luck with the naming and whatnot!
Clyde,
You are amazing! I can’t believe you and Jeffman have gotten so much work done mostly by yourself. I am really looking forward to seeing this released.
Woo! Thanks for answering my question and keep up the great work!
*chokes* You dare utter his NAME?!?!
ok,no
A Fan said: Maybe YouTube thinks it’s a ToS violation for some stupid reason? It wouldn’t be the first time a video was wrongly flagged.
what’s ToS? cuz my immediate response was Tales of Symphonia >.>
So what is next on the list? Are you going to finish the battle menu hacking? That looks like the next major headache…and once that is done, it looks like there would not be much left.
Geez-Louise! Who knew soda could be so troublesome?! My dentist always warned me to stay away from that stuff, but I never knew it was because it was so bothersome to hack.
Neurovore: Sprite hacking will still take a few more days. After that, I dunno. Probably will fix that 8-letter name in main menus thing, and then maybe mess with other main menu stuff. I hate hate hate hate hate this menu hacking. *zaps Gestahl*
Err… my previous comment would have made much more sense if I bothered to include an image of a Sprite can.
So close your eyes and use your imagination. Pretend that I included an image of a can of Sprite with my previous comment.
[/this is probably why I’ll never be a stand-up comedic]
This is looking good, nice work fellas. Hope to very soon click on this page and see a new title: “It’s done!!!”
@Mato - Don’t forget to kick his body off the floating continent.
*hopes people understand that reference*
@Nightfang: Who wouldn’t get a FF6 reference?
Well, Mato, right after I read “Sprite hacking will still take a few more days”, I instantly thought that you’ll make an update tomorrow saying “Sprite text is done :D”, since sometimes you manage to fix things that you said would be hard… Well, good luck nonetheless.
Ah, well, that video’s working fine for me as of now, is it the same for everyone else?
After a hard day of work its nice to eat a meal and come to this blog and read all the progress that has been made and it feels good to know that the evil sprite text welding hack is near complete,also thanks for posting the video showing the sprite text welding slowdown hopefully its a easy fix.
KEEP GOIN! DOIN’ GREAT!
@Moonside - Good point.
Anyways, keep up the good work guys. Everytime i see one of those screens, i get chills at how professional and complete it looks, even with the slight bug here or there.
72 responses in two hours
wow
anyway, great job guys, this is all coming along great
@ArashiSai
Terms of Service.
@Mato
…(prays)…
> what’s ToS? cuz my immediate response was Tales of Symphonia
Terms of Service. YouTube seems to throw darts against the wall when deciding if something “violates” it or not and then randomly disables videos or accounts.
And some of the bots copyright holders police YouTube with aren’t any better. I believe it was the NFL who sent a DMCA Notice & Takedown letter over their _copyright statement_ being posted on YouTube. Except that it was posted for academic purposes (because that bit about you not being able to post any “accounts or descriptions” of the game you just watched is overly broad), and it was posted by a copyright lawyer who was talking to her class about how ridiculous it was.
If you’re wondering, the NFL gave up and let it be restored. Only to accidentally file another letter soon after, and get sued because they weren’t supposed to
Like Mato said, “YouTube is smelly”.
TUT (tears of joy)
Mato…
You are a GOD…
I seriously can’t thank you enough for this…
G A M E R G E E K… H A P P Y…
Eye drops will make Lucas do the truffle shuffle? Who would’ve thunk?
Oh man. I’m still laughing. =P
It’s amazing to see how far things have come. Even with only two people working on the hack, and trying to figure out impossible code, this project is progressing at an alarmingly fast rate. And it’s looking fantastic. Makes me proud to be a member of such a dedicated fanbase. Once again, keep up the awesome work.
Mato used PK Butts! 2039846712358 HP damage to Sprite Welding!
Ooooh… Still, doesn’t seem too slow… But yeah, its kinda bad. And I notice Claus nor Flint came out when you were naming them. I guess they’re shy…
We’re all rooting for you Mato. Don’t slow down now!
Maybe if I keep checking this blog every couple of minutes, Mato will get done faster.
…How is it that some of us can view the video, while others (like me) can’t?
Wow, Tomato.
First time poster, and you are awesome.
I read most of that and I’m so very excited. I can’t wait!
You’re awesome, Tomato. Just…awesome.
whoops, forgot to pray!
does this pray thing even work? I hope it does, cuz if everyone prays 9 times, you’ll probably get roughly 90,000 prayers for this to go faster.
Hey Mato, this looks pretty good, but I think it would be even better if you fixed all the stuff that’s still wrong and finished the rest of the hacking before releasing the translation maybe.
^ He’s joking folks.
Lol @ Vague
Haha hopefully we learned our lesson from ArcFrank?
Actually, correction, because that’s not really trolling/being an ass. My apologies.
That crazy Boney. Anyway, great work, keep it up, etc. etc. Quite pleasing that you’ve fixed this thing in such a short time. When you first explained it to everyone I thought it would take you months, perhaps. This has been a surprisingly rapid procedure. Admirable job, and kudos to you.
> does this pray thing even work? I hope it does, cuz if everyone prays 9 times, you’ll probably get roughly 90,000 prayers for this to go faster.
Ask Paula?
I bet Mato could use a nice golden light effect after a long day of hacking. Or at least a good smiting thunderbolt against those bugs.
Hmm.. I’d like to try that amazingly fast acid.
why cant the to do list be up to date.
and
pray pray pray pray pray pray pray pray pray
KumatoraD sounds like a scary name.
Hahah, Titanic Ant!
Good answer!
Hm, would one need a Franklin Badge (or at least a VWF Badge, lulz) to defend against some attacks from the Spritanic Ant?
man…. can’t wait!
YeaH! xD
Mato: Just a quick and Dumb question, after this, will you go back to your old project (Mother Remake Hack)? And will you start doing updates like this? Just asking cuz I never played Mother 1. (plz to those who want to tell me the story plz dont spoil it)
Very Nice, I bet you guys can see how big ur fanbase is, so many replies within 4 hours!
I know that Tomato has said that they’re going to stick with the name “Mother 3″ instead of changing it to “Earthbound 2,” and I enthusiastically agree with that idea, but if they WERE going to change the title, I think that Tweder’s mocked-up EB2 title screen actually looks really great for the metal portion of the letters. If you edited it to include wooden portions as well, like the original M3 logo, it’d be perfect, in my opinion.
Anyway, good to hear that the sprite text is coming along. I just ordered an EZ-flash IV so I can play the game on my Mother 3 Game Boy Micro when it’s finally done. I’m really looking forward to it.
Keep up the good work.
lol, where’d boney go? oh, and btw, i get the sort of same audio problem in the slowdown video whenever i play mother 3 on the no$gba emulator(music turning from pretty to BARF and back)…it goes away after a while, but its annoying. halp?
I did read it before posting! Well done, Mato. You can now be called a uber-hacker, l33t h4X0rz etc. I can’t believe how well you, Jeffman, and various others working on the project not only get the fantrans working, but who cleanly and regularly you keep us groundlings updated. It’s all so very nice, and to hear phrases like “not too much other stuff to hack” makes my secrete diverse bodily fluids in an unexpected manner with startling rapidity. Which is to say, I’m excited at the progress!
They say getting there is half the fun, or the journey is it’s own reward, and you guys make that true on this project. Watching you pull it together is amazing, and I will savor the final product like much default Steak!
Ok, I say Toe-may-toe, but never mind that.
And now for another short musical interlude:
(based on the song “Mr. Roboto” by Styx (better if you listen to the song while reading this next part))
Domo arigato, Mr. Tomato,
Mata ah-oo hima de
Domo arigato, Mr. Tomato,
Himitsu wo shiri tai
You know just who I am-I have to make my stand
Likes games made in Japan, I am a Mother Fan
I’ve got a yearning I’ve been hoping will happen soon
But people say it will come true in a very blue moon
So if you see me writing N.P., come and join in
I’m just a fan who wants this game bad, I’ll do what I can
To get localized-just get localized
will do what I can to get localized
I’m just a gamer without translation- that cannot read
Japanese text without a walkthrough,my brain is in need
of English language, I’m just a player, Who likes foreign games
I cant read all those funky letters and all those wierd names
all those wierd names-and all those weird names
Just can’t play games-with all those weird names
I am the a mother fan, who really has to ask
please will someone bring English to this thing
Domo arigato, Mr. Tomato, domo…domo
Domo arigato, Mr. Tomato, domo…domo
Domo arigato, Mr. Tomato, domo…domo
Thank you very much, Mr. Tomato
For hacking the game that Nintendo won’t do,
And thank you very much, Mr. Tomato
For helping me read it just how I needed to
Thank you-thank you, thank you
I want to thank you, please, thank you
The problem’s plain to see: We don’t have Mother 3
and text made in Japan aint fit for U.S. man
i’d like to say hello
To one I’d like to know
The man with all the fame
The man behind the game…
he’s Itoi! Itoi! Itoi! Itoi!
…sounds complicated, but good thing your almost done with the apparent worst part
I’d personally prefer the EB2 title to M3 for continuity in the english versions of the series if nothing else… but yeah… wooden portions needed then it will be perfect. Perhaps if enough people wanted an EB2 title and someone came up with one with the wooden portions, mato might make a version of the patch with EB2 title screen… *hopes*
Mato, you probably already know this, and you’re probably gonna be like “why is this guy telling me this doesnt he think i’d already spot that”
but here goes anyways:
Boney is in his place for the first half-second or so on the confirmation screen, then he’s moved out of place for some reason..
just thought i’d throw that out there in the very slim chance that it might help with the fix of it
koooool, that TomatoFan guy up there seems pretty creepy though.
there’s also a GBA emulator for the Wii (un modded) in development that should be done soon, playing this on a TV would be awesome.
anyway, keep up the good work!
“All of a sudden, Mastermind remembered the M3 Fan Translation team’s hard work, and he prayed fervently for the sanity of Mato and his friends.”
For those of you wanting to see M3 on the big screen, if you have laptops/desktops that can do it, you can hook up directly to the tv.
I wish I were a super hacker so I could take my skyrunner and bad programming machine to Mato.
I like how Flint and Claus don’t show up, despite that Lucas is the shy one.
I just checked out the video after reading the update at midnight and there are already over 100 posts and 1500!!!!! views of the video on yootoob!!!
LOVE!
That Tomato song… Yeayer!!
Emulation question: I don’t have a GBA cart for roms. I do have a slot 2 DS card and a PSP. Whats the best handheld solution? My preference is PSP but I’ve never tried any GBA emulators on it.
I normally just read the progress and never post but then I read this:
“Titanic Ant, cause he brings lots of bugs with him wherever he goes”
I totally lost it with laughter and decided to finally comment. Anyway, this translation effort has been amazing so far, and I can’t tell you how awesome it is when I check the site and read about all of the hard work that’s been done in the interim. I remember checking earthbound.net (now starmen.net, of course) even back in high school years ago - it’s just so great to see that the EB following has only grown larger and larger over the years with people like Mato and Reid at the helm.
*tips hat*
Thanks - your dedication is appreciated by all of us.
If Dave Barry were here, he would only say one thing–
“Fast Acid would be a great name for a rock band.”
As for the slowdown on the naming menu…is there a way you can just turn off the sprite welding for the naming menu and only use it everywhere else? It seems, from what you’ve explained, that the slowdown problem doesn’t occur anywhere else in the game. If it’s only on the naming menu, maybe you could just deactivate the hack for that one part?
If that’s impossible or overly difficult, then just forget it, but if just changing the frequency of redrawings will mess up the animated sprites, then maybe it would be better to skip the sprite welding, in this one instance.
Yes now I got a perfect name for my rock band all I need now is talented people and lots of money.
Heck, even “Finishing Sprite Text” could be the name of a band these days…
That said, I hope Mato isn’t driven crazier by M3’s programming in trying to finish off some of those remaining bugs
MasqueDeMask:
There are already several ways to play this game on TV. The most obvious is the GameCube’s GBA player. The other is console emulation on original XBOX. Personally, I prefer the latter, as ROM-files can be uploaded to the system via ftp and makes for more organized file management. Also, there are tons of emulators for xbox that work remarkably well, and Mother 3 works really well on XBoyAdvance (the GBA emulator of choice for xbox), what with frameskip options and graphics rendering. The only thing is that battles aren’t as smooth and sometimes this messes up the music/rhythm aspect but that can be fixed by setting frameskip to 2. You can also completely customize the control scheme, so I made mine more earthboundly, and it’s amazing (set map to Y button like snes’s x button, set additional A button to L to make it work like the SNES L, etc.)
I really, really hope that the translated version of this game works on XBoyAdvance. I won’t make any more off-tropic comments from here on out, I promise.
SKIPBORIS: GBA emulators on PSP are pretty slow, and Mother 3 never worked for me at all on it.
…I think I just broke my promise. sorry.
ah, yeah i know about other means of GBA emulation on consoles and stuff. also i’ve heard that this emulator runs 100% without frameskip or anything, it just needs a few tweaks.
oh and GBA emulation is pretty much perfect on PSP, Mother 3 works on it too.
Jeez, there are a ton of posts! Keep up the good work and all that stuff, I never know what questions to ask, but I want to show support!
Mato rules the world of Mother 3 with an iron fist of determination… and for that, I am thankful.
Meth Saves the Day Again.. Closer to Completion.. Mato.. Good Job my Boy
Yaaaaaaaaay! ^_^
yes!!! keep up the good work! can’t wait to see the final product!
I love this whole project. It’s like a TV show. We got our Fearless Leaders in GeoffMan and Tomato, the moral center of fantrans story, a supporting cast of a lot of intelligent posters always quick with words of praise, rounded out by the crazy meth-head neighbor and the quirky unappreciated waitress who is obsessed with trout.
And me? I’m the Fonz.
Tomatofan,
I loled.
Well done.
I noticed something in the screenshots on the right, regarding the sleep mode message “press SELECT + L + R simultaneously”.
Is that alright with Nintendo official terminology? Apparently it should be “L button” and “R button” or “accurate graphical depiction” according to the glossary.
Don’t know, just saying…
This is my first post but I’ve been following your translation progress for ages now. I just want to say that what you are doing is really great and really, this is what gaming should be about - people who love games (if you’ll pardon the jive speak) ‘Keeping it real’.
anyway, just to finish, I’ve been thinking long and hard about this and I’ve decided that when you complete the translation, I am willing to let you have my girlfriend. forever. She’s pretty hot with long legs but unfortunately (or possibly not) she’s a bit stupid and can’t cook.
skipboris: Your slot-2 DS flash cart should be capable of playing GBA games for sure. Have you tried to run any? See if the Japanese MOTHER 3 ROM runs on it.
*Pimpslaps luke* You fool. GF > Games. Always!
Luke, why are you trying to push a second-rate girl on Mato and Jeffman. She can’t even cook? What an inferior offering to give to the men to whom you owe so much. I am ashamed to even read about it.
I look forward to the remaining fixes in the sprite text. Everything feels so positive with this project now. I’d buy you a pizza, Mato, if only I knew where you lived. Anyway, don’t forget to keep a little time for yourself, you know.
Is this part of the updated menu patch?
I don’t know you guys… coming from a girls point of view I (sometimes) would rather play video games then hang out with my boyfriend.
So… significant other [is greater than or equal to] video games.
Anyway, great job, I’m really excited! All my friends are rooting for you, mostly because they want me to get my game so I’ll shut up.
Glad all is going well.
Hey Mato or anyone with Japanese skills, in EarthBound I know it’s Itoi’s voice saying “OK desu ka” at the main menu … and I got OKです (OK desu) from the internets … what is the character for ka, or am I hearing things?
Hey, MaiXu.
It is OK desu ka
And this is the character for ka:
So you get…
“OKですか”
When combined!
Hope that helps.
Somehow, one of my Ka’s vanished…
か
Fixed.
TonE prayed with his whole heart…
Mato was covered in a golden light
TonE pray with his whole heart…
Mato realized the power of PSI Hack the rest of the sprite text to work perfectly despte the loopy programming in mother 3
TonE prayed with his whole heart…
The translation started moving at the speed of light
GO GO MATO, Super gorgeous sexy beautiful wonder hacker of POWER!!!!!!!
MasqueDeMask:
Which GBA emulator on PSP have you used? I must have missed it, and I’d love to check it out. Mother 3 on PSP would be awesome.
Game slowing down because of a loop?
This looks like a job for:
LOOP UNROLLING!
That was one part of my plan, but it’ll still have to do all those memory accesses and 4x the extra amount of code, so it won’t help too much.
Anyone have the cheat code to get XTerminator Spray? I think Mato needs some to use on those last few nasty bugs
Great job Mato and team. *Thumbs-Up*
You guys post too fast.
http://i25.tinypic.com/28nqu0.png
This is sooooooooooo exciting!!!!!I love following these updates
You are a king blacksmith of sprite text welding. If that makes sense 
Edrees: No, it doesn’t
Looks great! It’s very interesting to see how these sorts of things come together, and all the problems and solutions along the way. Keep up the good work, we’re all waiting on the edge of our seats!
WOOOOOO! Progress!
WOOOOOOOOOOOOO! WOOo!!
*runs off with hands in air*
I’ve just one thing to say in regards to the entire project:
ur doing it right
and then this time Mato say “woah” and take a puff of meth.. and so he code for 14 Hours Straight without Stop once to Pee or Eat… and I go.. Mato.. My Boy.. Take a Break! But he Look me in the Eyes and say.. “ok… my Friend.. There are Hundreds of People Who Depend on Me Hard Working for Mother patch.. I Cannot Let them Stand By While thE Satan Nintendo Refuse to Bring Them Game of Glory Mother 3″ and I Go… “Why You Smoke Meth?? Why??” and Mato Go “It is foR my Fans… They Need me.. I Need my Best..”.. Mato.. the Selfless Hero of Mother 3 Community.. <3
From what I understand of all the hacking you have to do to get this translation done(I dont understand much), it seems as though the original programmers were trying to make it very difficult to translate so anyone trying to do so would give up before completing the project. But of coarse, even a black hole couldn’t stop a determined Earthbound fan. Keep up the excellent work guys.
quote: ok
[meth induced rant about mato’s greatness]
quote: hasone
[at least we can agree on mato’s greatness]
Oxygen Waster: No, it’s just a case of them not even considering localization, or at least not GOOD localization. Some of the stuff they did almost seemed out of the ordinary in terms of friendliness, like storing a huge chunk of the SJIS font in the ROM, uncompressed/unencrypted. Not using compression on the main script. And the battle programmer was cool enough to program things in a smart way. But all this other stuff just shows that they either had tough deadlines to meet or didn’t consider localizations too much when designing stuff.
im just posting again to say “Mato you use meth?” I thought you were better than that. You should at least be using fast acid.
Hmm, maybe we could help Mato get rid of these bugs if we work together and destroy the Infinite Ant Machine under Ayers Rock in Australia before they steal the world’s sugar and…
Err, yeah, I have been watching Hayate no Gotoku, why?
I don’t know much about programming (I’m 16 and still learning C++), but I know how much of a pain it can be working with someone else’s code. The person who does the coding rarely considers modification by others…sounds like that’s the main problem here. The existing code was not designed to run with any other functions other than the initial ones, so adding things causes major problems.
I know this is unrelated to the hack but on the Check Mii Out Channel, there’s a contest called Mother Earth. This contest is practically screaming for EB characters. I entered Ness :p
Mato, I have a question for you.
Are you planning to open source any of this whenever you’ve made your final release?
Did I miss a an off-topic discussion about FF6? All I saw were the words Gestahl and “Floating Continent.”
If so, I’m mad. Seriously, screw you guys for talking about FF6 without me.
Oh, I forgot. Keep it up, eveything is looking better and better every time you update.
I love you guys if this comes out next week. If it doesn’t, I still love you guys if it comes out. If it doesn’t come out, I don’t love you.
You almost ate it for that silly trinket!
PizzaPasta, Mato just randomly zapped Gestahl, and Nightfang told him to kick his body off the Floating Continent
It’s nothing, really.
The mockup EBII screen got me thinking. A poll for which title should be chosen might be a good idea. While the title “Mother” is a very important part of the story, the title “Earthbound” could also be important in several ways (despite localizers more than likely just coming up with it on the spot). And let’s remember Itoi originally had a not-so-deep meaning behind the original’s title — the Beatles song. While more went on behind it, that was essentially fan speculation. It goes both ways, I believe.
So, yeah. Reworked EBII logo (Complete with asthetics similar to the original M3 release), or the trusty Mother 3 logo.
You want off-topic FF6 references? Hmm, we need to get Mato a Genji glove and Offering so that he can hack M3 almost 8x as fast!
Well, except for the amount by which the glove weakens your attacks, anyway…
But I still say we need to get that XTerminator Spray. That’s much more likely to work on M3 bugs…
Charles: You’re a gentleman and a scholar. Thanks.
To a fan: The genji glove does not weaken your attacks, only the offering does that.
And as cool as I think that EarthBound 2 logo is, I dunno, it just doesn’t seem right. Maybe as an alternative start-screen when you beat the game? I have no idea how difficult/impossible that would be, but still, Mother 3 has gotten us this far …
What mato needs is an Ultima Weapon to smite the bugs.
Update on the handheld Mother 3:
The emulator “gpsp” for PSP runs the japanese rom perfectly. So, on release day I’ll try that one first.
Oh, see now things are getting good.
What Mato really needs is to have a fully leveled up Relm cast Quick on herself (whilst equipped with a Soul of Thamasa relic) a bunch of times so she can do all of his work for him.
Mato, sorry for being off-topic but I’m just giving some ideas.
Today, I started to play Mother 3 and then I cursed myself for not knowing any Japanese vocabulary.
Does Rosetta Stone actually work?
Rosetta Stone will help, but it is VERY far from perfect. There are FAR better ways to learn a language.
Yeah, I was half joking about Rosetta Stone.
There are some courses at Ohio State which is right up the street from me. Once I get out of the poor house I might take them but I think they’re for business people who want to know how to hail a taxi in Japan.
Nah, just learn Japanese from anime. I now know all about how to deal with invasions by alien machines, kendo matches, love polygons, etc. You know, the normal conversations that come up in everyday Japanese life …
Does anyone have the picture available of this “EarthBound 2″ logo?
Redlandsman87: Someone posted a link to one they made in a comment, but it was either in this story or the last. There are plot-significant reasons why the title has to be Mother, though. Or so I’m told. I don’t actually know the plot, yet
Edrees: Half right. The Genji glove doesn’t weaken your attack if you have TWO weapons. If you are unarmed or have only one weapon, you do 75% damage (and defeat the point of wearing it in the first place). But yeah, I forgot that caveat until I looked it up in a FAQ
And Offering does, in fact, halve your attack strength even while it gives you four hits…
But…there..are..so..many….comments! Ugh.
I’ll go searching now.
Hm, no luck when searching through comments.
I guess I’ll stop being a bother (and making off topic posts) now and just go ask on the message board. =P
here, reupped on Imageshack. You have to use IE to access that file in it’s original link, I think.
http://img258.imageshack.us/img258/7289/screenww3.gif
Beautiful, seed.
Awah! Im so happy you guys are doing this! I’m just curious if the patch will cost any money.
I bet Nintendo would be OK with that and all.
Salutations, Mato, old chap!
I’m rather impressed at the quality of this translation. I hope everyone heaps lavish encomia on you for your work in this herculean labor. You must have accomplished this feat through many days and nights of intense work, and that is a truly laudable action indeed. I just wanted to say that I don’t attribute any of your success to illegal narcotics or any other drugs. I just wanted to get that off my chest.
Best regards,
Prudence Hastings Fairweather
(more merrily known as ok)
ok is my favorite guy on this site, next to Mato, GeoffMan, and me. I Love all Of His mEth!
On an unrelated note, can anyone show me where to purchase the MOTHER 1 OST?
Here’s a quick link on ebay that I found:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Mother-EarthBound-NES-original-Soundtrack-CD_W0QQitemZ140222238906QQihZ004QQcategoryZ187QQrdZ1QQssPageNameZWD1VQQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp1638Q2em118Q2el1247
Glad to see you run a tight shift around here Mato.
Oh, Phantom Edit! E-gads! MaiXu began crying uncontrollably.
does anyone know the MD5 hash for the mother3 ROM, so I can find a clean one? most of the ones floating around are hacked. or patched with the menu patch. As you probably already know, an MD5 hash lets me check the integrity of the file — nothing to do with finding it except knowing if I have the right one. And if UPS patching is anything like IPS patching, if I get a ROM with even a LITTLE difference, the patch will glitch up and destroy the ROM. And I can’t just rip a clean one — rips vary.
Note that I’m not asking for the ROM, just a way to verify if I have the right one once I find it through other means. This should not be illegal, nor should it break this site’s ‘no ROMS’ policy.
Mato, you should be able to get me this just by hash-checking the clean ROM that you’re using as a base for the hack. Just in case you don’t know this. Which you probably do. So nevermind.
Well, the phantom edit was of course understandable, both talking about warez and using vulgar language.
AHHhhhhh CANT WAIT
update the to-dolist
Was it that vulgar? I honestly don’t remember. I can understand the attitude towards illegal downloading, especially on a site that owns all the prime real estate in the huge legal gray area that is fantrans of a Japan-only release like Mother 3, but there was some good fan-made music in that torrent as well.
Ah well, it’s late, I gotta get to sleep.
just make a seperate torrent with just the music then, MaiXu.
What I have is:
af8b0b175f7ec8914cb87b3161ba1aaa
It’s release # 2377, so I assume it’s good. I honestly haven’t tested it very much yet, though.
Well, you used the F-Word…
The MD5 of the absolute original unmodified ROM is AF8B0B175F7EC8914CB87B3161BA1AAA.
Aww..phantom edit.
Oh well. Bound together I can still link since it’s NOT Warez (it’s a remix project)
http://www.wushuplaya.com/boundtogether/
Never listened to it myself though.
So many comments, i’m making this post as a bookmark to know where I am,lol
Sweet, thanks JeffMan. I just hash-checked my ROM, and I got the right one. *does a happy dance*
MOTHER3 in english… HERE I COME! =D
geeze Tomato you might be on the Autism spectrum, talking about your obsessiveness! Take a vacation man!!
OH GOD I CAN ALMOST TASTE IT
Good, at least now I know that I have the original, too
If you’re searching, look for mother 2377. You get better links.
One day to the 2 year anniversary of Mother 3!!!
How durst one going about checking their ROM to see if it’s original? The opening screen in mine is in English (start, continue, etc.), is mine modified slightly?
Get an MD5sum program and run it on the ROM, then see if you get AF8B0B175F7EC8914CB87B3161BA1AAA as the answer.
If so, you have the correct thing
Anyhow, there’s an md5sum program you can download here:
http://etree.org/md5com.html
Of course, I bet the next question is “how do I use it?” because it only runs in DOS. I’d copy both that program and a copy of your ROM to the base of the c: drive (you can move them later, I’m doing this to make my instructions easier).
Then hold down the windows key and press R. A box will come up, so type CMD and click the OK button. The windows key is between ctrl & alt on the left side. If you can’t do that, just open the DOS prompt somehow
Now that you have that nice black, scary-looking window, type the following commands into it, one at a time, pressing enter after each one:
c:
cd \
md5sum *.gba
Then it should print something like
af8b0b175f7ec8914cb87b3161ba1aaa *Mother3.gba
After that, feel free to move your ROM back to where it was, delete the md5 program, or whatever
Cheers! I am *a fan* of you! Har har, somebody stop me.
oh, so your a Fan squared?
KKH3049: why do you say that? i dont get it..
im startin to feel like…….
i donno.. i feel weird…. coming here and making conversation while Mato’s hard at work on hacking…. i kinda feel like i’m here dickin’ around while Mato’s off doing a job for me that he’s not even gonna get paid for in any way
feel free to be like “screw you guys, im taking a week break from this shieeettt”, Mato
Woah. This was stupid of the designers to use sprite text; we need to get APE and BB off the job for MOTHER games XD
And why wouldn’t Nintendo release this to the US? Weren’t we the ones who started the petition?
This sounds like the starting of WWIII XD
“”I don’t know you guys… coming from a girls point of view I (sometimes) would rather play video games then hang out with my boyfriend.”"
Same here, but I don’t have a boyfriend. Not yet, at least ·^.^·
Take your time Mato. I’ll have plenty of things to keep me busy inbetween now and…well…awhile. from now.
GTA4 mainly. Bit of MGS4 too.
mato,
are we still friends?
i can find any of my posts on here i hope i havent offended you in the past.
but just wanted to drop by and tell im very thankful for your efforts and it makes for a nice surprise when i see a new update
Man, it makes me happy to hear “not much left”, even though I know I’m getting my hopes up.
actually A Fan… there’s a better program here: http://www.whitsoftdev.com/md5/
it uses a windows interface, and you don’t need to move jack crap. It conforms to standards too, so it’ll spit out the correct hash instead of one that isn’t right because of ignorance of standards (some programs have their own way of checking that’s sometimes inaccurate)
I said that MaiXu was a fan squared because he said he was (a fan) of (a fan). In Math terms of means times so MaiXu was (a fan)x(a fan) making him (a fan)^2 or a fan squared.
MaiXu + Mother 3 = (a fan)²
But MaiXu + Mother OST torrent = √-1 (apparently)
你们都非常奇怪.
I’ve been busy most of today and yesterday night, so for those who had posts removed/edited, that wasn’t me. Also, sometimes the spam filter catches legitmate posts, so maybe that’s what’s up sometimes. I know posting lots of links will definitely set off a flag.
Anyway, still chugging away at the sprite stuff.
Having learned there would be another Earthbound game after enjoying the SNES title so much, I was at first very disappointed that Nintendo would not bother to bring EB to North America. However, I knew some awesome group of people would be up to the task and work hard at it, which, along with the fanslation ROM of Tales of Phantasia, are testaments to the dedication of aforesaid people. Playing Mother 3 in strict Japanese and having a limited ability to read kana - not to mention the limited vocabulary to understand much more than basic phrases, the game was intriguing while totally nonsense, though the walkthroughs have certainly helped.
In any case, thanks for working as hard and selflessly as you have been! I can’t even begin to think of how much better Mother 3 will be when I no longer have to go between playing the game and reading the guide to understand what I’m missing!
Awesome the sprite text is almsot done! Nice work
Mato or Jeffman or Reid or whomever does the blog software: go install Spam Karma 2. Like, yesterday. It is by far the most effective and best spam filter EVER. I administer a ton of blogs for work, many of which would be easily hammered by spam if left open given the limited time I have to fiddle with each one, and if it wasn’t for Spam Karma I wouldn’t even bother and just shut off comments entirely. It’s amazing, ridiculously effective, and works fine out of the box completely hands off (but there’s a lot to tinker with if you’re REALLY into that kind of thing).
happy birthday mother 3!!!
^ Wow, has it already been two whole years? Wow… The time just passes by.
“same here, but I don’t have a boyfriend, at least not yet.”
Twyleiht, do you live in the western hemisphere?
If so, we should totally hook up maybe sort of not really i don’t know yeah ummm..
not that i’m at all lonely or desperate or anything.
But girls who love earthbound kick ROCKS.