Second Draft, Part 3

2 months, 3 weeks ago by Mato

Ordinary status update. Been hard at work on Draft 2. Currently at 36.41%, as you can see. It’s crazy to think I’ve gotten a few thousand lines done already. Not sure how that happened. Between 30% and about 60% always feels kind of depressing though, it feels like, “Man, already a lot of progress, but so much more work left to do, ugh.” At least that’s how it felt last year with Draft 1.

Anyway, for those following with the map viewer, it’s been maps 15-35. A lot of tedious stuff, some of these blocks have text from 4 or 5 different chapters, it’d definitely have been insane to try translating this without knowing any context first. Anyway, aside from those tedious blocks, some really fun and some really memorable text in this latest batch.

Here are some random screens from the latest batch of Draft 2 text.


  • Reminds me of that guy in Fourside

  • He’s a connoisseur

  • If you choose not to save your game

  • I hate when random baldness attacks

Anyway, past the 1/3 mark with this draft now. Woot and all that.

Posted on Sunday, June 1st, 2008 at 6:42 pm by Mato, filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

357 Responses to “Second Draft, Part 3”

  1. Some random guy said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    first comment!…i hope

  2. matt said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    <3

  3. Marc C. said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Great work, Mato! The humour feels so Earthbound-like and so right. Million thanks to you and the team!

  4. Anna said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Oh my no posts yet what kind of bizzaro world am I in? :O

    Go go mato!

    Are we still going for rewriting that one joke?

  5. Geno_Whirl said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    glad you are doing so well ^_^

  6. NMcCoy said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    *accidentally goes bald*
    Dang it!

    Anyway, keep up the awesome work. It’s truly inspiring to see how far this project has come.

  7. Some random guy said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    hey, i did get first comment! yay!
    …how did i get here so fast?! :P
    that guy in the first screenshot looks a little like picky :O

  8. mechas said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    At this rate it may be done by late August yay!

  9. Old West said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    That’s fantastic. This is looking just amazing, and I’m glad you guys are so devoted to retaining the style and humor of the original dialogue. I don’t think I’d rather have anybody doing this. Not even Nintendo. ;O

  10. Old West said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    *anybody else ;P

  11. Inpachi said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    WOW! keep up the good work mato!

  12. LarryTheCucumber said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    From last post (I was writing it as this got posted):

    I’ve had a good pun, but it isn’t related to illness…

    If the Grand Canyon been owned by Russia, what would it have been called?

    The Czar Chasm

    Now lets see if I can think of a good sickness one…

  13. LarryTheCucumber said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Wait, the second part didn’t copy…

    The illness:

    Jack had a parakeet named Enza. He got sick, and his parakeet went missing. He was about to give up on life, but then in flew Enza. What illness did he have?

  14. Sety said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Awesome work guys.

  15. Mato said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Larry: Wow, I might actually use that. I don’t want to give away what is said by this same guy later on, but that might even connect with the other stuff 8O

  16. otherhand said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    It’s lookin’ completely amazing. Keep up the good work! (but don’t forget to take a breather once in a while)

    As we creep ever closer to that shiny happy awesome day, have you ever considered doing ‘present boxes’ like the official site did a while back when the game was first being released?

  17. LarryTheCucumber said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Thank you!

    I’m glad to be of some help!

    Its good to hear that you are already over a third of the way through. Keep up the great work!

  18. Spitball Sparky said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Lookin’ great! We’re all behind you!

  19. Mato said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    otherhand: No, old mother3.org started to do that and it was a real disaster. It gave people the impression that stuff was done (or a loooooot farther along than it was) and didn’t really help anything. In fact, it only added drama.

    If we ever did something like that, I’d want the project to be 100% done first, and if we have a 100% patch done, I wouldn’t hold back on it, that’d be a lame way of doing things.

    Maybe afterwards we’ll have some gift box things though, like I want to translate a bunch of side-stuff, like really good Itoi interviews, the musician’s notes about various songs, etc. But that’d be after the patch, so it’d be like “bonus material boxes” :P

  20. Arashi said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Thanks to you, I know scowl at my grandma for using tomato paste when she cooks. What did the poor thing ever do?

  21. Forgotten Man said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Wow, that’s alot of progress

  22. KoolKojo said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Mato, i feel sry that u have to spend soo much time just for us fans!

    thanks man, thank you and Reid Young, and all those other MOTHER fans who nintendo ignores XD

  23. Lucas said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    LoL I’m going to tell that go bald thing to random people on the last day of school!

    Yay! Almost 4 tenths done!:)

  24. Negi said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    KoolKojo forgot jeffman =P!

  25. Golden Eevee said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    since you have a map viewer, can you PLEASE make a sprite viever too?

  26. metalparott said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Well, that’s pretty darn exciting I think! Keep up the good work, even though I’m sure this is the millionth time you heard that. 1/3rd is that bad at all.(*a party is going on inside my brain for my excitement*)

  27. Triangle said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Mato… I know there’s a lot of work left to do… but just think.. you only have to do what you’ve already done, just 2 more times, and its over :)

    you have a world of fans behind your every update, who are very thankful for what you are doing

    take breaks all the time..
    go steady, but slow and steady
    us.. the fans, can wait as long as it take (NO WE CANT..BUT WE WILL STILL DO IT)

    but at least you’re translating now, and not hacking much anymore

    anways, onces again

    Thank YOU! (and Jeffman too, of course :) )

  28. neonix said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    :D

  29. Arashi said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Mato, a couple updates previously, you put up a video and the background theme was Dudter’s Theme, you said. I looked for it on SM.net’s Mother 3 Music section, but it wasn’t there. Is it under a different name?

  30. Arashi said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Duster’s Theme*

  31. LarryTheCucumber said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Is this it?

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKZfmIxVnhs

  32. BFM said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    SHIT BALDNESS ATTACK *buys several wigs*

  33. brandnizzlebaby said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    mato. you never answered my question before. this may be a bit off topic, but do you like the persona series?

  34. Snuffy said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    My dad had a baldness attack before he and my mom had me and l’ve been diagnosed with chronic baldness ever since I was 4. I guess genes arent my friend. D:

    and on a side note:
    Dammit! There arent any rom patching programs for Mac. (Ive already tied gumby and that doesnt work.) D:

  35. rc5 said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Wee cool. Keep on translatin’!

  36. EdgartheAlien said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    More progress :3 can’t wait for the whole thing.

  37. Some random guy said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    I still feel proud for gettin first comment :O

  38. Jupiter-x said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Don’t get discouraged! Remember, when you are suffering hardships, your enemy is also struggling.

  39. starman_373 said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Mato: who do you have in mind to do the French translation? I didn’t know there was going to be an “official” French translation - I just thought it would be done by someone for fun.

    Anyways, I was wondering if I could volunteer to help with that, like proof-reading a draft or something. I don’t know what you’re looking for in terms of qualifications other than being fluent in French (which I am, and I have proof… kind of) but I’d still like to help in any way I can, even if something small.

  40. Daves said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    AWESOME JOB!!!

    just for curiousity sake, do you find yourself changing a lot of the text, or wondering “WTF was i thinking when i wrote this sentence?” that’s what happens when i look at code that i wrote a year ago.

  41. Vagn said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Great work Mato, I hope you take a well deserved break when you finish this second draft.

  42. Rolando84 said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Excellent!
    Keep up the good work Mato. :)

  43. akinari42 said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    This update just made my day. ^_^

    THANK YOU MATO FOR EVERYTHING!!!

  44. Alato said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Awesome. You’re going really fast. From a general look on the whole translation project, you’re so close to finishing it. I’m sure that it’s gonna be great. And looking at all the things you’ve shown(screenshots, videos and the disclaimer thing), it looks like such a complete, official and stylish game.

    Also, I was playing Pokmon Diamond, then I thought how you could do a better job translating. In battle it has the thing where it has to skip lines so the text is really short. You’re doing a better job than Nintendo. :)
    Anyway, now, to wait for mitch.

  45. whoreman Jr said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    I’m prepared to give out favors of a sexual nature in exchange for an early version of the patch

  46. Roll said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Way to go, mato! I hope the 2nd draft will be ready sooner than expected!

  47. Apteryx said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Awesome, the humor feels just like earthbound! Can’t wait!

  48. Penguinguy said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    I am very much looking forward to further translations of Itoi’s interviews and MOTHER related things. Awesome to hear that you’re going to continue doing that.

  49. thethirdman said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    >I’m prepared to give out favors of a sexual nature in exchange for an early version of the patch

    You’re on the Internet. That doesn’t work.

  50. MarkShark said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Awesome as usually Mato.
    I wish there were people as great as you guys over in the Tales of fanbase. No one seems to be going this far for Tales of Innocence. Just one guy who says that a little menu patch is complete enough. Feh.

    On a Mother relevant note, I got Earthbound to work on my flash cart, to compliment EB0. I’ll be able to have all 3 games on it at once! :D

  51. A Fan said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    I went through ISO/IEC 8859-15 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO/IEC_8859-15 ) and divided everything up. IMHO, I’d fit as much of it in as you can, but try to fit categories in approximately this order. Of course, you might not need some at all (currency symbols, for example) but I wouldn’t know that like you do :) Hopefully this helps.

    —–

    Required punctuation (known to be used in French & Spanish):
    ¡ ¿ « »

    Misc. (the superscripts of a and o seem to be used for ordinals [1st, 2nd, …] in some languages, the macron seems to go *over* other letters, but that’s unclear because there are a jillion different macrons in Unicode and I dunno):

    ¯ ª º

    Necessary accents:
    À Á Â Ã Ä Å Æ
    à á â ã ä å æ

    È É Ê Ë Œ
    è é ê ë œ

    Ì Í Î Ï
    ì í î ï

    Ò Ó Ô Õ Ö Ø
    ò ó ô õ ö ø

    Ù Ú Û Ü
    ù ú û ü

    Ç Ð Ñ Š Þ Ÿ Ý Ž
    ç ð ñ š þ ÿ ý ž
    ß

    (The rest here is probably unnecessary:)
    Currency symbols:
    ¢ £ € ¥

    Mathematical symbols:
    ¹ ² ³ µ ¬ ± · × ÷ °

    (The ° here is the degree symbol, and should not be confused with the superscript o above).

    Misc. Symbols:
    § © ® ¶

  52. A Fan said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Probably not as good as the one above, but whatever :)

    * John is very sick and in bed.
    * Just then, some caterpillars crawled down his throat and formed a chrysalis.
    * Now then, what illness does John have?
    * Remember, the caterpillars are in his stomach now.

    [Has butterflies in his stomach.]

  53. Trimalchio said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    I’m still wondering why all of the different letters have to be in the same translation. Why not change the alphabets for each language?

  54. Mike k said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Here is A sickness one. I just made it up so it might suck, but it has a good earthbound reference:

    James was in happy happy villiage when all was going well
    then came some insane cultists and he started feeling down
    what is he sick with?

    (the blues)

    I hope you guys like it

  55. Bennysaurus-Rex said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Trimalchio: because having the letters in there in the first place means the only thing that will need changing in translations is simply the text. Less farting around it comes down to.

    Mato: Hey it’s good to get the updates on where you are at with the translations - true, knowing you have done x amount of lines isn’t the most exciting thing in the world but still lets people know you’re alive :-p

    Just a clarifying question here - what do you look for/change in the second draft as opposed to what you do in the first? I mean, do you go through the script again in it’s original language or do you simply clean up the English?

  56. Super3dcow said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    (To Mato) I just want to ask this so I’m 100% sure. You aren’t changing what people say in the game are you? You’re just translating it to english, and rewording it so what they say makes sense… correct?

  57. supertails61 said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Great job, guys! I played Mother 3 a while back just with the menu translation, but it will be a whole different experience to enjoy the game in full English! :D

  58. Bloodcurse13 said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    yay

  59. Mike k said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Do not mean to get anxious but some feedback on my sickness joke above would be nice. I Actually think it is pretty good

  60. Drü said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Mike k: More like what music he listens to

  61. Mike k said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    no, if you are sad or feeling down you have the blues

  62. Reagle said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Thanks, Mato. Honestly. Thanks to everyone working on the project! I love you guys!

  63. Jenova said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Woohoo! ^_^

  64. Div03 said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Thanks Mato for keeping this translation very professional and being very devout about your updates and not taking the easy way out.

    Epic.

  65. Light Wolf said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Am I the only one who wants to click the “OK” button?

  66. Poe said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    rofl “try not to go bald”

    Just had to say that I love that line. XD

  67. Mato said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Golden Eevee: We didn’t make the map viewer. Sprite viewers aren’t necessary for the translation anyway. I’m sure at some point we or someone else will create some sort of sprite utility. The sprites in M3 aren’t organized nicely, so it’s complicated.

    Arashi: I forget the title, but try something like “Mind of a Thief” or something like that.

    brandnizzlebaby: I’ve never played one myself, only seen/read/watched. Every once in a while when I’m at a game store I look for the third one, but 1. it’s never there and 2. I wouldn’t have time anyway. I’m so behind on playing games. I still have Tales of Symphonia, I haven’t even opened it yet but I got it like 4 years ago. If that’s any indicator of how far behind I am with games. Me and games just don’t have time anymore.

    Snuffy: If Gumby doesn’t work, dunno what to tell you. Have a friend patch it for you and then send it to you or something.

    starman_373: A fellow named poik, he’s a staffer at starmen.net and he’s a cool guy who I know will do a great job. He also did an awesome playthrough video series of M3 a while back. He’ll be head of the French translation, so whenever the time comes, if you still want to help out, you’ll want to contact him. Until then though, it’s probably best to just wait until the English patch is out.

    Daves: Main things I’m doing are 1. checking the original translation for missed nuances or mistranslations, given 7500+ lines, stuff is going to creep in in the first draft; 2. rewriting the rough text to be nicer and sound more natural, I dunno if you’ve ever translated anything, but usually the initial translation sounds strange, almost like its own language, which I call “translation-ese” and 3. formatting the text, most of the draft 1 text isn’t formatted so most of it is unreadable in-game. Gotta format it, that’s one of the biggIest things.

    I’ve been changing almost all the lines in Draft 1, for the better of course. I was able to leave notes to myself during Draft 1 though, so I’m not too surprised by stuff. If anything, I’m understanding weird not-so-obvious humor that didn’t make 100% sense at first, and then bringing that across as best as possible.

    Trimalchio: because it means a lot less work for us later if we do it this way.

    Bennysaurus-Rex: See above response somewhere.

    Super3dcow: If I was changing what people say, that wouldn’t be translation. So yes to your second question.

  68. ILOVEUGUYS said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    (look at name)

  69. Safety First! said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    You guys do have back up files right? Just bein safe here, it would be horrible if the project crashed :(.

  70. Dr. Meat said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Man, that Yokuba guy seems like kind of a jerk!

  71. Enclave said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Hey Mato, I had a question though I already suspect I know the answer.

    I was just wondering if since Exophase is involved in the project that his GBA emulator on the PSP will support this game?

    As I recall he isn’t planning any updates anymore to the emulator at this time which is what has me curious.

    Oh and if your curious as to what I suspect the answer is, well that would be “I don’t know”. Seems the most likely answer.

  72. wasp2020 said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Awesome. Missed out on the many mini-updates from the last one

  73. Faux said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Hey Mato, what emulator do you use to test the patch? VisualBoyAdvance? This has probably been asked a while ago, but I’m not ready to wade through all those comments.

  74. Jeeves said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    I’m really looking forward to reading that Shogo Sakai stuff.

  75. MoonsideMan said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Cool guys! Keep it up!

  76. Destrudo said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    You haven’t played ToS yet, Mato? You poor soul.

    (Though I do slightly favor Tales of the Abyss over ToS.)

  77. 8BitWalugi said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    out of all the times i have been to this site to rwad the posts, for some reason this one is the most exciting.
    As escapist’s Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw said in his GTA IV review,
    Fackeen Oresum!
    thats what this translation is to me, a ‘Fackeen Oresum’ Fan translation. when this is done everyone at my school will be playing it. i will spread this game all over my school network. preety soon everyone will know what Mother 3 is and who Mato and Jeffman are.

  78. G@MIE said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Really nice!

    http://www.zophar.net/utilities/download/UIPS.sit

    UIPS is a good IPS-patcher for mac!

  79. Real1 said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Mato, have my babies!

  80. JeffMan said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Faux: We’ve been using a combination of no$gba and VBA. VBA seems to work fine so far. In fact, in one case (besides audio because no$gba is crap at that) we found it emulating more accurately than the mighty debugger. :P

  81. MrEverdred said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    The humour is indeed very Mother-ly. Perfect.

  82. Damn Impressed said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    This is a weird question to be asking this late into the game, but is there a specific reason that this translation was such a nightmare? Do all translations really involve this much “hacking”, or was it something specific to this game? If it was, what element of the game made that necessary? Is it just a series of things that wouldn’t work in English, like the fixed width font stuff?

  83. Mato said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Gemini and some other people have been hacking Magical Vacation (one of Brownie Brown’s first games incidentally) sort of recently, and from what I hear, most of the same lame problems we’ve had here exist in that game too. So it might be that they have this set way of doing things, and that way sucks if you want to localize stuff.

    I don’t even know where to begin addressing why this game was harder to hack than others, I think I’d have to point you at this entire blog as an answer. It all boils down to the fact that they obviously never planned ahead of time to localize the game, and so every text routine in the game was designed to use only so many letters, and the way they did it was stupid and inefficient and made it technically impossible to increase the # of letters without changing the program design, which is tough to do, especially at the ASM level.

  84. Durelle said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Umm will there be much space in this game after its done trasnlating, becaus ei know for a fact that FRENCH takes more space due to the grammer which makes sentences longer thaan english ones.

  85. Mato said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Won’t know until we’re done. As it is, we’re already very very close to the size limit, but I’m going to clear out some unneeded text data at some point to get extra space. But already, the hacking allows for twice as much text as the original game, so that’s better than nothing.

  86. Tyler said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Mato…..thanks =]

  87. Damn Impressed said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Oh. I meant to say this three years ago. There’s a “everything.toEnglish()” function in the API. Slipped my mind.

  88. Vagn said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Hey Mato:

    Are you guys gonna let Shigesato Itoi know when you’re done that you completed this? Or is that treading on possible law suit area? I just thought he might find it interesting to see the dedication some fans here in the west have to the Mother series.

  89. Joe said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    > I’m still wondering why all of the different letters have to be in the same translation. Why not change the alphabets for each language?

    Because they’d have to create the new letters and do a lot of hacking and coordinating with the other people, instead of giving them tools and a bit of advice :) Or, as Mato put it, because it’s a lot less work this way.

    Unless a Greek, Russian, Hebrew or Arabic translation is required, the ISO charset should suffice and the Chinese would do better hacking from the unhacked version :)

  90. Sabaal said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    To people having difficulty finding an IPS patcher, http://www.zophar.net/utilities/patchutil.html has a nice little collection of patching utilities for all platforms.

    I personally recommend JIPS, as it seems to run smoothly no matter how many layers of OS emulation I put it through. Very stable indeed.

  91. Tarik said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    well done mato. i love to see all the progress!

  92. MarioRPG said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    I never even got to post how thankful I am that this is occurring. I can not properly represent how grateful I am that fans have taken it upon themselves to do this immense task.

  93. Poo said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Should my rom say “start game” “sound player” and “Mother 3″ in english on the title sreen. The warning screen is in japanesse, as well as the rest of the game. I just wonder if something is wrong with my rom, because the title screen is in english. (I did not apply the menu patch)

  94. Dr. Meat said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Yes that’s how the original game is.

  95. Poo said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Why don’t they just make it in japanese? That’s so weird that they would use a different language for the title screen.

  96. Drü said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Because if you’ve ever read any publication made in Japan, there is always some kind of English. More people in Japan know English than Americans here know Japanese. It’s part of the aesthetics of Japanese pop culture to include certain English parts. For example, the game controllers in Japan say “A, B, X, Y, START, SELECT.”

    Hence the title being “MOTHER 3″ instead of “母”. You can do a lot of research in the subject if you try hard enough. It’s easy and fun!

  97. Arashi said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    yeah, found the song, thx

  98. Typhin said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    To the people mentioning IPS patching programs, it was my understanding that the IPS format has a limit of 16 MB. The Mother 3 ROM is 32 MB. Thus, they are using a different format for this game.

    (But, I believe they also said they would have links, advice, and such at time of release.)

    I can’t wait for release either. If my flash cart won’t work with it, though, at least I can play on emulator. This is more a question for the hacking side than the translation, but does the game use SRAM, or EEPROM/Flash memory for saving? And if it doesn’t use SRAM, will there be an SRAM patch available? I know I won’t be able to use PogoShell, since 32MB takes up the entire cart, so I don’t have to worry about compatibility with that.

  99. A Fan said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    > Why don’t they just make it in japanese? That’s so weird that they would use a different language for the title screen.

    Everyone in Japan learns English in school. It’s on the tests to go to university, so it’s considered important :)

    But no, they don’t always use it correctly. Visit engrish.com sometime…

  100. ukdudeinuk said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    wewt

  101. JeffMan said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Typhin: The save file is 64KB, which means it must be Flash. We will take care of all saving issues and save patches and stuff at the time of release.

  102. IcePi¢k said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Have you snuck any easter eggs in to the game?

  103. Reanzet said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Progress FTW! Of course, the hard[est] stuff is done and over with, so now you can hopefully add in more sleep time. Personally, going at a monster while half-asleep is much worse than charging at it refreshed!

  104. Kumatora said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    You guys PSI Rockin!

  105. gBev said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Will the final patched roms be playable on a flash cart, that way it could be played on the GBA? And if you can, where would i get one?

  106. Johnnybgood said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Mato, I like this joke for that sickness thing that u mentioned on the last one. It comes from mike k

    Here is A sickness one. I just made it up so it might suck, but it has a good earthbound reference:

    James was in happy happy villiage when all was going well
    then came some insane cultists and he started feeling down
    what is he sick with?

    (the blues)

    I hope you guys like it

  107. Vagn said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Gbev yes you will be able to play the final patch on a GBA via a flash cart. The team does not want to discuss where to get these kinds of products as Nintendo or others might view this as promoting piracy and that could compromise this project. I suggest you do a search on Google for ‘GBA flash cart’ or similar, it’s not that hard to find information on these things just search around for awhile. :)

    This is also addressed in the faq for the record.

  108. GhostSonic said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    “I sure hope you’re not holding out on going to the bathroom though!”
    I bring my gba to the bathroom with me :P

  109. SoreThumb said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Omg.. Mato . Poik is doing the translation? I love that guy! His M3 Playthrough was pretty slick– I used to wtach it and rewatch it until I found youtube LPs.. <:)

  110. blade the mercenary said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    i also noticed the first pic and i quote

    “hey, i did get first comment! yay!
    …how did i get here so fast?!
    that guy in the first screenshot looks a little like picky :O”

    indeed it does look like picky… now that i think about it what was picky’s name in mother 2…?

  111. Aaron said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Mato: Is it possible that Nintendo would buy this hack from you? :)

  112. NecrosaroIII said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    I’m not Tomato, but I can answer that for him, Aaron.

    There is a 0% chance Nintendo would buy it. First off, there are a TON of legal issues that would factor into it. Secondly, despite however good Tomato and Co.’s hacking is, it will never be as good as if the source code was used.

  113. Aaron said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Oh, right. I forgot that professional video game translators use source code. :S

  114. Blah said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    This is not to say Mato isn’t also a professional video game translator.

  115. Kirk said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Working through the night, Mato fixed the final draft. It became Mother 3!

  116. evansucks said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Didn’t mato say that the Nintendo guys that the Starmen.net crew show’d their mother 3 stuff were impressed?

    I don’t think Nintendo could necessarily do a better job, even WITH the source code. It would be easier but i doubt they would put the time and effort forth that mato and co. are. Just saying, I can’t remember the last time i was impressed at all by a nintendo localization…i doubt they’d even TRY to use the original earthbound font/s…

  117. Mato said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    I don’t think people are talking about the translation side of things, but rather the technical, programming side. No doubt an official version would work much better… in most cases. I don’t think they’d go as far as to implement many of the things we have, but for stuff like the sprite text routine, their final implementation would be way better, simply because they have the source code.

    If there’s one thing I’m really worried about, it’s the sprite text. It’s still not acceptable IMO. At the very least it still needs some tweaking and improvement since the last hash algorithm was put in. I have ideas on how to make it work, and even if those don’t work, there’s another way to make sprite text not be so lame, but that’d be a bit of work too.

    My ideal goal is for people who know nothing about this project to say, “Damn, THIS isn’t an official translation? Holy crap.” Key word being “ideal” of course, at some point you just gotta say, “okay that’s good enough”. At least in this situation :P

  118. TimeSpaceMage said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Yeah, I had that reaction with the FF3J NES translation [T-Eng1.0_FF3jTransTeam]. Granted I never beat the game, it was really enjoyable and I preferred it over the DS version (mainly due to speed and gameplay changes).

  119. Lothis said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    That translation was almost word for word what the DS version ended up having - its kinda creepy in a sense but cool at the same time.

  120. Cerryl said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Hi Mato. Much thanks to you for doing this project! I was just wondering, what is it about the sprite text that isn’t acceptable at the moment?

  121. GoldyK said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    It is like Earthbound.
    I can see the same humor,
    and it makes me laugh.

  122. Kirk said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    If I log back on
    And see another haiku
    I may shoot myself

    ;)

  123. Underyx said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Sorry Kirk, Good-bye
    This is just another haiku
    So do what you want…
    :D

  124. Mon said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Just curious about the different scripts. You are 36% done with script 2 and someone else is doing script 3. Is it not possible for the other person to be doing script 3 as you are doing script 2 since part of script 2 is already done?

    Additionally, can someone explain the significance of commenting first and why it matters?

  125. Fredishungry said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Quote Mon:Just curious about the different scripts. You are 36% done with script 2 and someone else is doing script 3. Is it not possible for the other person to be doing script 3 as you are doing script 2 since part of script 2 is already done?

    Additionally, can someone explain the significance of commenting first and why it matters?

    What?

  126. Monsuco said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Wow, rock on Mato. This is REALLY coming along. Hell, every time I check this webpage it seems you have gotten much further than before. I can only imagine the amount of Mountain Dew this must have taken over the course of the project.

  127. eyfey said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Posting first doesn’t actually matter- In fact it probably implies that you didn’t actually read the whole entry and just went ahead and posted…

    Either way I guess it makes people really happy to know that they were first? Like how people like getting first in a marathon or a competition…. except without the competetive part… *shrugs* There’s a first post T-shirt though http://www.joyoftech.com/geekculturestore/webstore/firstpost.html

  128. Mato said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Vagn: To be honest, I think he knows already. Or at least it’s very likely. I know he/his staff visited starmen.net when he got his PK Siege Japan stuff, and there’s the MOTHER 3 translation link right there on the top page. Also, someone used an online translation service only used by big Japanese corporations to look around this site. So I’m sure that even if it wasn’t him, it was someone who could/would tell him eventually. Plus we’re one of the top hits when you search for mother 3 and mother3.

    Poo: Your question’s already been answered, but history and other cultures are a good thing to study. It’s interesting stuff and will help you understand the world better.

    Typhin: I think people were asking because of other stuff, like my EB0 patch.

    IcePi¢k: Not that I know of.

    Aaron: No.

    Cerryl: The sprite text “morphing” problem is still pretty bad, worse than in any of the currently-posted videos. Also some slight slowdown due to the new hash algorithm. There’s also a strange bug where the music actually speeds up really fast with some sprite text, for unknown reasons, but this only happens on VBA and not other emus or real hardware. But mostly the morphing thing. Check some of the menu text videos and you’ll probably see what I’m talking about, otherwise I’m sure someone here can explain it in more detail.

    Mon: demi wants to play the game fully in English first before starting on the third draft. Which is fine with me, and I actually would like really fresh eyes working on it, that’s why I wanted non-me help for that in the first place.

  129. Fritz said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Last Post!!!!11!

  130. flclrocks07 said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Fritz = Lier X. Agerate

  131. A Fan said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    What causes the morphing, Mato? I thought that was due to hash collisions? Anyhow, I hope the hacking on that goes well, because it has to be a real pain in the ass.

  132. Trimalchio said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Is “sprite text morphing” the problem where the text doesn’t show up correctly at first, but then settles down? If so, it needs to be called something different…

  133. Trimalchio said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    “settles down” meaning “settles on the right letters.”

  134. Redlandsman87 said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    So, is demi going to get some sort of beta patch to use? Not that I’m asking you to distribute it, or any such thing…I’m just curious. =P

  135. Reanzet said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Huh, I’m surprised I haven’t seen this one yet. What coding language is Mother 3…uh…coded in? I have a relative who’s decent at programming (he helped make Snowcraft. look it up!). He’s curious, so I’m asking as a proxy. Thanks

  136. Trimalchio said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    It was originally in some higher-level language and compiled, but we only have the compiled stuff, which is in native GBA code (”THUMB”). If we had the original code, this would be a lot easier.

  137. Reanzet said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    true, but we don’t. thanks anyway

  138. JeffMan said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    The “sprite morphing” is the brief moment of lag when changing sprite text that is experienced because of the long text welding routines. The hash function is only there so that the game doesn’t constantly try to weld the same text, or else the morphing would be constant.

  139. Mato said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Yes, the hash runs pretty much 99.99% of the time. Only if the hash thing doesn’t work, does the game know text has changed and then it does its changing stuff. Which is why a fast hash is important. I’ve noticed some slight lag, might be good to try out that alternative to multiplication.

  140. Arashi said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Haikus are easy
    Even if they don’t make sense
    Refrigerator

  141. Dr. Meat said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Haikus are so lame
    Real men write poems in
    Iambic pentameter

  142. Dr. Meat said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    ahaha I’m retarded

    but my point stands

  143. Zinco said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    At this point, how often are there fatal lock-ups and other glitches?

  144. Megahedron said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Haikus are awesome
    Doctor Meat can go eat steak
    Learn2writehaiku

  145. Husky_Washu said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    (psst, ‘haiku’ is technically three syllables ;)) Haha, my favorite haiku will always be Bowser’s from SMRPG…

    I second the “taking your GBA to the bathroom” thing. :>

    As always, thank you so so much, Tomato and co. It’s really coming together and looks brilliant so far. You guys have come such a long way.

  146. Dr. Meat said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    steak is delicious
    and i need to learn math
    also it was just a joke
    i actually enjoy haikus
    let’s all be friends

  147. matthew said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Wow great work and thank you so much for doing this, this is my first time commeting but wow. Thank GOD you exist.

  148. Vague Rant said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Typhin: It uses SRAM, but some people have still had trouble with it. It runs fine on my EZ-Flash 3-in-1, though, except for the sleep issue. I tried to get in contact with JeffMan about the problem with sleep mode, but I don’t know how successful I was.

  149. mantendo said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    I looked on your to-do list, and when you mean testing, are you guys going to do that after everything else is finished? Or are you testing it already..?

  150. Dr. Meat said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Yeah the sleep mode doesn’t work on my EZ-Flash IV, but everything else does, including saving without the need for a patch.

  151. M3FTW said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Definitely playing this a second time. Its really a great game, those that haven’t played it, and as soon as I get a flash disk GBA thingy, I’m MAKING my friends play it. After I play it, of course. I haven’t seen any other turn-based RPG games with a back-beat twist at all, and I think its a genius way to get people out of that dreadful Countious “A button” stage of turn-based. Those of you that do this, you know what I mean. I just cry every single time I think of how great the game could be on the DS, touch screen instead of A button, maybe a little of that 3D style EB64 was going to have, keep the psychedelic backgrounds of course, instant hit. Not suggesting anyone try to make it, just saying, if there was a 10th year anniversary edition, I’d look for these things on it. Enough of my rant, DON’T OVERWORK YOURSELVES! Everyone is pulling for you (except Reggie. He is not pulling for you. But his employees are :) )

  152. Jon said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Hey Mato, know where I could find a (new) copy of Mother 3 for a reasonable price? Because the link to buy it on Play-Asia is dead, and all of the ones on ebay are like 50+ dollars. What, do they not manufacture it anymore? Surely there is a japanese website that has some.

  153. Mato said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    They don’t make GBA games anymore, so nope, it’s sold out at most places now. Here are a few links you can try though.

    eBay stores

    toys n joys

  154. A Fan said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    > Yes, the hash runs pretty much 99.99% of the time. Only if the hash thing doesn’t work, does the game know text has changed and then it does its changing stuff.

    I know there were collisions with the old hash, are there some with the new one, too? (Or just lag, now?)

    > Which is why a fast hash is important. I’ve noticed some slight lag, might be good to try out that alternative to multiplication.

    Well, you can do a shift and add for each 1 bit in the prime you multiply by, doing long multiplication almost by hand, though I don’t know how many cycles that saves (and it probably actually hurts emulators which have more to translate). I don’t know that there is a faster hash that won’t give collisions (and thus cause morphing) for such small strings…

    If there are too many slowdowns, you might almost do better to find some other loop-central routine and optimize that better :) I have to bet it’s doing something useless that might prove an easier task for optimization than a hash that uses only two mathematical operations.

  155. sunzo132 said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    At E3 08, they are revealing some hidden secrets from Nintendo. Maybe they will add some information on the Mother Franchise. I am not sure, but it is a possibility.

    Also Mato, does Nintendo of America know about the project? If they did, would they do anything to stop you guys?

  156. Mato said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Every year, before every E3, people get their hopes up for EB stuff. There’s always secret stuff at E3, so people’s hopes get high. It’s best to not hope or expect anything from E3, at least not anything EB-related.

    EDIT: And yes, it’s already been well-documented throughout this blog that Nintendo knows. Reggie himself says he knows. But we’re still here. People working at Nintendo can’t wait to play the patch, too.

  157. A Fan said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    It’s funny, though, imagining that Reggie is allowing this to continue because he himself wants to play it :-)

    I wouldn’t blame him, though, were that speculation true.

  158. MarkShark said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    From a purist perspective, these haikus aren’t even haikus.

  159. Redlandsman87 said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Quick question concerning Reggie….I know he has made statements alluding to the fact that they know about the Sieges, Starmen.net, and you’ve said they know who you are, Tomato…but when has has Reggie stated he knew about this translation? I’m sure he knows, but I don’t remember him stating anything of the sort.

    Not saying it isn’t true, but could you possibly direct me to a quote, or quote him yourself? Or whatever it is in which he made such a statement? Hope I’m not being a bother.. I’m just curious. =P

  160. necrosis said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    There is an american website which seems to have Mother 3 in stock last I checked. I can personally recommend them, since the shipping is cheap (even if they don’t lower prices later into the game’s release like Play-Asia and such might) and I’ve ordered from them a whole bunch of times since back in like 2006.

    Here’s a link: http://www.ncsx.com

  161. Mato said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    NCSX recently ran out of stock, like yesterday or something supposedly. I’ve been linking to it from this blog since like a week ago, wonder if that’s coincidence or not ;)

    Reggie’s knowing about the translation is from here.

  162. gBev said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    could anyone post a link for where it says Reggie knows? I’d like to read it.

  163. Mike k said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Mato, just a suggestion: how about VERY small daily updates. Just like what percentage of the way through the draft you are.
    ex:
    June 2: 50.35%
    and that would be it. And then every 3 days or so have a normal length update.
    just a thought.

  164. Dr. Meat said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    You know, I feel pretty relieved Nintendo hasn’t tried to shut this thing down yet. Not that stuff like that happens a lot or anything, it just seems like that’d be the logical outcome given our bad luck with EB-related things :)

    jinxed har har

  165. Anony1200 said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    I have a friend who works at a neuclear power plant.He experiences cases of random baldness near every day.

    Seriously,though.I think Nintendo is starting to take notice of this.If you pull this off,they might actually pay you money for the rights to it…

  166. Mato said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Mike k: Mini updates already serve that purpose, and daily updates with nothing but percentages would clutter up things fast. It’s easier to find my mini-updates now anyway, and I quietly update the percentage on the to-do list every so often.

    Anony1200: I don’t think Nintendo would try to sell something that tens of thousands (hundreds of thousands? please maybe??) of people just downloaded for free in full form.

  167. shawnji_us said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    I’ve been dealing with NCSX for quite some time now. They’ve always had good customer service and I’ve never had a problem with them. Hope they restock soon.

    As always, I’m happy to see how well the translation is progressing. The content of the updates always continues to pique my interest in Rom-hacking. I’ve been messing around with little things like Hex editing and building table files for some Japanese games, but nothing really major. It’s really fascinating. Do you happen to have a particular favorite repository of hacking info online? I’d love to hear about it.

    Also, when I went to the Aeon Genesis website to download the new LAL patch the other day I was reminded of one of my favorite imports; Slime Morimori Dragon Quest. I can’t believe they still haven’t found a translator yet! I’ve played through the game twice over now and I can read most of it easily. I decided to send them an e-mail through their help wanted section, but I haven’t heard anything back for a week or so. Wonder if the project’s dead? Oh well… anyway, thanks for all the great work, as always!

  168. shawnji_us said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Hmm… doesn’t seem to be showing my reply. I apologize if there’s a double post.

  169. madlobster said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    I don’t know. For all releases Nintendo had for the GBA (and other systems), they were dumped soon after and downloaded by many people. While I doubt they would buy the completed hacked ROM image to put on a GBA cartridge, they could be interested in buying the text of the translation to put into an official translation on the Wii’s VC.

  170. Mato said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Anyone got any good nicknames for exceptionally tall people? They need to be non-insult ones. I can’t think of anything good :|

  171. Bats said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Stilts?

    Stretch?

    …I dunno.

  172. captainplanet said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Big guy?

  173. Bats said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Tiny?

  174. Effluvium said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    What to call a tall person.

    Supersize? Or is that an insult?

    Bear? Loom? Redwood? Biggie? Everest? Shoulders? Lookout?

    Shorty? Tiny?

    Gentle?

    It’s hard to come up with names that aren’t insulting… I bet a few of these could be considered insulting too… eh well.

  175. TLS1988 said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Well this one guy was about 9′ tall. They called him the “Buffalo Giant” (he was from Buffalo, New York). You could that sort of idea. Yay Wikipedia!!
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Carroll

  176. GoldyK said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    I will keep at it,
    responding in this format.
    Though, its difficult.

  177. TLS1988 said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    You could what with that idea? Use it, that’s what. Unforntunatly Wikipedia never teached me gramar.

  178. Effluvium said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Oh, I forgot Hillbilly, Legs, Stiltzkin, Ceiling, Top, Bottom, Duck, Scraper, and the oh-too-obvious Tallboy.

  179. shawnji_us said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    I vote for Big McLargehuge.

  180. TLS1988 said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Well for a good (or fitting) nickname something memorable or more descriptive might help. Also if the people around the tall person had nick names we could sorta make one to go along with those, like a short person called “Stool” because you can sit on them. Oh, and a gender might help. Nothing beats the hell out of a boy named Sue.

  181. Lynn said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Little John

  182. Typhin said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    “Big McLargehuge” sounds familiar… Have I heard that before? I don’t know…

    Sorry, the only one that comes to mind is “Weather Guy”, as in “How’s the weather up there?” I wouldn’t say I’ve actually heard the nickname in live usage, but I’ve heard the full phrase. (I believe the Munchkin version of D&D has a feat for people above a certain height to accurately divine the weather once per day, but only when asked the question.)

  183. Typhin said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Mmh, I might be thinking of some nicknames I came up with in the past for things, that followed a similar pattern. The only one that comes to mind off-hand was for people who stepped exceptionally heavy on DDR (when I worked at an arcade), which was “Stompy McLeadfoot”. My roommate was a Stompy McLeadfoot, but he was skinny as a bean… Seems to be the lighter you are, the heavier you step… O.o

  184. A Fan said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    I like Legs or Tiny from those mentioned above :)

    Oh, and from Mato’s link, I found this quote:

    “He said the “Mother” series (known as “Earthbound” when “Mother 2″ was released in the U.S.) is important to Satoru Iwata, Nintendo’s president, who worked on the series years ago as a developer.”

    That could be one good reason they’re not too eager to go after this project. The huge fan gift basket thingy to Itoi couldn’t hurt, either :)

  185. Soopy said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    I vote “Stretch”. its not very insulting and it gets the point across that they are indeed a tall person.

  186. Soopy said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    And yes i am 6′4. if somebody were to call me stretch it wouldn’t be insulting, just annoying ^^

  187. Effluvium said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Of course, my favorites from the ones I came up with are Scraper and Lookout, I flatter myself they sound like military callsigns.

    But yeah, I would have said Stretch if someone hadn’t said it before me. I guess it really gets the point across.

  188. Skullrama said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    How about Ben? Like the big one? The clock.

  189. Blah said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Beanstalk

  190. tibbs said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Yeah, I like Big Ben, especially if it’s the outrageously tall guy ringing the bell! ^^ (nah, it’s not a spoiler!)

  191. Tarik said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Big Ben sounds great.

    Big isnt insulting, and Ben references the huge clocktower.

    Its a win win.

  192. Chris said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Being 6′4″ myself, I would frequently get called scout. I think it’s an interesting nickname. At school I’d also get called Godzilla. I always hated that name though. One other I’ve heard is High-top. Hope they are of some use…

  193. Chris said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Oh, just thought about Paul Bunyan…

  194. Shaun said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    How tall are we talking, Mato?

  195. Jay said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Big Ben get my vote.

  196. Reagle said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Stretch is probably the best one without being really insulting. Skyscraper, maybe?

  197. Super3dcow said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Maybe Big, then the first letter of his name. Like Big D.

  198. Nutsjesmoar said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Mato, is this for a renaming of リダ, the bellringer? Or is it more like an affectionate nickname, like people might call me stretch, or big guy, or whatever (not in my hometown, where everyone’s tall, but everywhere else :P ). Or would revealing the context tread into the realm of spoilers? If it’s renaming, you could go the subtle route and give em a name that means ‘tall’ or ‘big’ in another language, like ‘Alto’ or ‘Procerus’ or ‘Psilo’ or ‘Hoch’ or something. If it’s general nicknames, there’s things like ‘beanpole’ or ’stretch’ but it might be hard to come up with ones that aren’t somewhat insulting. Maybe some sort of colorful metaphor about how tall they are, but that’s all I can think of. Maybe that’s not helpful.

  199. Redlandsman87 said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    If we are talking about リダ, then I like the nick name of Wadlow. Pretty obscure, maybe, but リダ always immediately reminded me of him. =P

    I dunno, maybe you could (with spoiler warnings?) give a bit more context on how the nick name will be used - if you just want a sort of “generic” nick name for someone tall (no offense to those who suggested them), names like Big Ben and Skyscraper do work very well, but something like Wadlow might fit the context of “random pop culture reference” that the series is famous for.

    Well, that’s my two cents, anyway.

  200. Mato said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    It’s a nickname not a rename.

  201. LarryTheCucumber said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    I really like the Big Ben idea, but I’ll see if I can think of one to give you some more choices…

    Hm… I had a friend who was very tall. Some friends started calling the friend Ganglyo (perhaps it would look better as Ganglio)? My friend had no problems with being called that name.

  202. Redlandsman87 said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Hm…Ganglyo? Would you mind explaining that a bit, Larry? Maybe I’m just being slow today, but I don’t quite get it…

  203. LarryTheCucumber said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Gangly means tall and thin.

    http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&channel=s&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&hs=IbF&defl=en&q=define:gangly&sa=X&oi=glossary_definition&ct=title

  204. Mato said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Did a test just now (preparing stuff for when the day comes) and the current build creates a patch that’s about 930 KB zipped up. For those who care.

  205. Negi said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    I just saw Stretch and I’m putting in a vote for that one.

  206. mobilisq said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    yeah i’ll throw in my vote for Stretch, too.

    it’s what all the girls at work call me, too, so in a round about way you’ve got another 10 votes right there

  207. Will said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Kite Rack, Stretch Legslong

    And, yes, I’m tall too.

  208. Dr. Hobo said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    I like Big Ben.

    I actually known a kid named ben who is, as I call him, “freakishly tall”. I call him shorty, and ask him how the weather down there is. Ya know, for a change of pace.

  209. Coconut of Enlightenment said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    For those of you who’ve never lived in London, you might be interested to know that Big Ben is the name of the tower’s bell, not the tower itself.

  210. Jupiter-x said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Big Ben fits the bellringer great, to me, but Stilts and Stretch are good nicknames too.

  211. Reagle said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Yon Tall One

  212. PizzaPasta said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Mato,

    Please don’t recommend Toys ‘N Joys. They have really awful service and rarely actually ship products that are ordered from their site.

    http://www.resellerratings.com/store/Toys_N_Joys

  213. PizzaPasta said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Also, (sorry to double post) Toys N Joys likes to lie about having items in stock on their site. So they probably don’t even have the game anyway.

    Just a heads up, STAY CLEAR!

  214. Drü said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    I’m 6′4″ and I don’t mind when people call me “Lurch” or “Stretch.” But I’m sure Lurch is too common and Stretch a little less-humored. So I like Big Ben.

  215. Drü said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    IDEA!!!

    Add the Bell Ringer to the naming screen and let the player decide his nickname!!

    . . . Because I’m so sure that doing so wouldn’t involve days of coding, hacking, reworking, and lack of sleep. Get on it, Jeffman, we’re counting on you!

    (sorry for the doppio)

  216. Habiib said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    How about Daddy Longlegs? Like the spider.

    I don’t think that’s very offensive.

  217. PizzaPasta said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Isn’t the “Bell Ringer’s” name kind of involved in the plot?

  218. Light Wolf said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    I like Big Ben. Oh, who knows…

  219. Arashi said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    I. R. Tall?

  220. Mato said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    OK, we’re in the 40s now.

    BTW, I decided on Beanstalk, so thanks to everyone who made suggestions. That was one of the ones I was leaning toward originally, but didn’t like it much. Some smoother writing makes it sound okay. I wish I could consult you guys for lots more names, but many of them need context or involve spoilers, heh. Oh well.

    Anyway, lots of tedious town talk is out of the way, lots of small rooms coming up it looks like.

  221. Trimalchio said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    I’d say “nearly halfway,” but it sounds kind of depressing.

    I’ve got a great idea!

  222. Arashi said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    When you started the script #2, I had thought you had all the text on some huge ass word document and would translate it line by line like that, rather than right into the game

  223. Psychomax said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    I just typed in http://mato3.fobby.net/ about 30 times and freaked out because it kept bringing me to the starmen.net home page D:

    BUT ANYWAYS, do you realize that if this project were a glass, and you filled 40% of it with water, you wouldn’t be able to tell it wasn’t 50% unless it were a measuring cup?? Think of it!

  224. Itchy_nugget said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Beanstalk is just as good.

    Awesome progress on the game! Im sure whether or not it will be just as good as an official release won’t be a problem to alot of people. I know I just want to great story to be told and have it flow just right. But I’m still going to encourage you to do the best that you can with the translations.

    Mother 3 ftw >:D (this goes for the rest of the series as well)

  225. Mato said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    For those watching with the map viewer, we’re in Map 46 now. Cattlesnake country, yeehaw~ Dem’s good eatins!

    EDIT: Looks like lots of text from the middle of the game now.

  226. gBev said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    should have used ‘Giant Beverage’

  227. insaneafroguy said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    oohh ohh! a good name for exceptionally tall pple
    E.T. or exceptionally tall

  228. 7ucky said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Hey guys! Did anyone miss me? Better question: did anyone notice I was gone? :D

    I’ve missed so much, but wanted to let you know that haven’t died and that I’m still waiting for M3 with bated breath!

  229. Mato said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    I’m really drawing blanks here, I even left a note to myself during Draft 1 that said “oh god come back to this later”.

    Basically, I need to come up with two really incredibly respected and important movies, preferrably from the 60s or before. And then I need the main actor of each one. If possible, actor for one and actress for the other. Anybody got any random well-known and important movies in terms of filmmaking?

  230. Zaratus said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Umm, I’ve never watching it, or anything, but the only thing that comes to mind is Gone With The Wind. Err, or, maybe Wizard of Oz? How old is that movie anyway? *shrug*

  231. Damn Impressed said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    I’m not much of a movie buff, so my best suggestion would be 1967’s “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” There’s not really a main lead, but the main female lead is Katharine Houghton, and the main male lead is Sidney Poitier. Another good one might be the 1955 “Rebel Without a Cause”, which really sucks, in my opinion. Yeah, not the best suggestions. That’s the great thing about having so many fans, Mato, you’re going to get lots of fantastic suggestions.

    I could have sworn I asked this earlier, but I guess not. Is anyone else closely following the P2 Innocent Sin translation? They’re not nearly as dedicated as the team here, but I am such a persona whore I can’t help but be excited, and they are certainly showing continual progress.

    “PAIRSOHNA!” — Maya, P2: EP, every goddamn battle

  232. Damn Impressed said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Zaratus wins. Wizard of Oz, 1939, dorothy played by Judy Garland. That’s probably one of the most important movies evar.

  233. LarryTheCucumber said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Hmm…

    Citizen Kane (Orson Wells is Kane, but William Alland plays the man that investigates Kane’s life after Kane’s Death) and Casablanca (Ingrid Bergman)?

  234. Vague Rant said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    I have to go to work right now, but I’ll throw in Dr. Strangelove.

  235. tapioca said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    gone with the wind: clark gable + vivien leigh, and casablanca: humphrey bogart + ingrid bergman?

  236. Jon de la JonJon said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    The Maltese Falcon, containing Humphrey Bogart.
    Breakfast at Tiffany’s, containing Audrey Hepburn.

    There, now you only have to reply to one post!

  237. Jupiter-x said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1960)

  238. Mandabar said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    MarkShark:

    “On a Mother relevant note, I got Earthbound to work on my flash cart, to compliment EB0. I’ll be able to have all 3 games on it at once!”

    How? More Info? SNEmulDS just doesn’t cut it for me. My Palm 700p (LJP 1.1 out recently) Emulates it more correctly (And usually faster) then my DS does.

    On a sidenote, I’m still loving this blog and the pure awesomeness and speed of the whole team (And Mato of course).

  239. Jupiter-x said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    1961, sorry. I lied.

  240. rainwalker said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    I’ll throw in my votes for Casablanca and Gone With the Wind, even though I’ve read some pretty negative retrospective reviews of the latter film.

  241. Dusty said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Casablanca - Humphrey Bogart - 1942
    Some Like It Hot - Marilyn Monroe - 1959

  242. lb101 said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Here are my votes. Depending upon the context:

    Wizard of Oz (1961) (Judy Garland)
    -Might fit if the context calls for a female protagonist whose unlikely adventure (all she ever wanted was to go home) exposes evil and corruption, as well as resistance on a variety of societal levels.
    High Noon (1952) (Gary Cooper)
    -Might fit if the context calls for a male protagonist who attempts to defend his town/country against unlikely odds–especially without the support of any other town members (it was a critique against McCarthyism).
    Some Like it Hot (1959) (Marilyn Monroe)
    -Might fit if the context calls for a female protagonist who is the object of everyone’s affection and leads those around her to do “bizarre” things to obtain her love.
    The Searchers (1956) (John Wayne)
    -Might fit if the context calls for a retrospective look at a famous individual who had a significant role in governmental tyranny–John Wayne was a major figure in Hollywood’s communist scare. But as for the movie, it is about a cowboy searching for his niece who was captured by Native Americans.

  243. Forgotten Man said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    The Public Enemy- James Cagne- 1932

  244. mike k said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    How about:
    Ben Hur (1959) starring - Charleton Heston
    and
    West Side Story (1961) starring - Natalie Wood

  245. Dr. Meat said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) starring Gregory Peck

    “Atticus Finch (Peck), a lawyer in the Depression-era South, defends a black man against an undeserved rape charge, and his kids against prejudice.”

    This is possibly my favorite movie of all time. Atticus Finch is one of the greatest heroes ever (he’s a book hero too, but… I never read it). I don’t know what kind of movies would fit, but this is a fantastic, classic movie. There’s an Earthbound connection as well, which I’m sure you’re aware of. The greedy Aloysius Minch being the opposite of the virtuous and humanitarian Atticus Finch.

    It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) starring James Stewart

    “An angel helps a compassionate but despairingly frustrated businessman by showing what life would had been like if he never existed.”

    It’d be venturing into the realm of spoiler to say why I think this movie has a fairly major thematic connection to MOTHER 3. If you’ve not seen it I could tell you why in a PM or something to avoid ruining the party for everyone.

    Anyway those are my suggestions.

  246. mike k said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    I was thinking about saying To Kill a Mockingbird as well. That was such a great book and Gregory Peck was great in that movie.

  247. Zero said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Not knowing the context for the movie references, I would suggest these two:

    -Casablanca (1942), Humphrey Bogart
    -The Sound of Music (1965), Julie Andrews

    I suggest them because Itoi seems to be into music with a touch of (apparent) class, and also ‘mysterious noir’, so these would reflect a personal translation of Itoi if he did.

  248. Nutsjesmoar said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    I’ve always been partial to 2001: A Space Odyssey, (1968) starring Keir Dullea (or Douglas Rain as HAL.. I’m afraid I can’t do that, Dave.)
    Hmm, well you know, there were two films called “Pollyanna” made in the 1960’s and earlier era.. the famous Disney one from 1960 (starring Hayley Mills) and a lesser-known one with Mary Pickford from the 1920’s. Neither of these were very significant historically, but this IS a Mother-series game… haha, kidding, kidding.
    Or am I?

  249. eyfey said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    I forget the main actor… but howsabout

    Princess Bride?

  250. eyfey said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Up- Ignore that. I missed the “60’s or before” part -_-;

  251. mike k said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Im pretty sure Princess Bride was made in the 80s or 90s, but my fineal votes are for:
    Wizard of Oz - Judy Garland
    To Kill a Mockingbird - Gregory Peck

  252. rc5 said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    I would say Audrey Hepburn in Sabrina (1954) just to be different. Or maybe Humphrey Bogart in the same movie.

  253. mace said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    My vote is for
    Wizard of Oz - Judy Garland
    then a tie
    Ben Hur - Charleton Heston
    Casablanca - Humphrey Bogart

    I think they are the biggest icons in the list and Casablanca won best picture, Humphrey Bogart was nominated for best actor. Ben Hur won both awards along with many others.

    There is also One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest, although it was 1975…but it was fantastic and it won best picture, actor, and actress so you could take your pick with actor or actress.

  254. KoolKojo said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Why don’t u try music bands,
    like earthbound…

  255. Vagn said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    I’d say the Wizard of Oz and Casablanca.

    Trivia time!

    Did you know that The Wizard of Oz was the first movie to be shot in colour? Nifty eh?

  256. oh ok said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Ellipses have 3 periods normally, and 4 when used at the end of a sentence.

  257. Some random guy said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Enough with it all
    The haikus are quite stupid
    And Mato agrees

  258. Carl said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Vagn:

    The Wizard of Oz was definitely not the first film to be shot in color. It used the three-strip Technicolor process. The first feature-length film to use this process was Becky Sharp, released in 1935, several years before The Wizard of Oz. And that’s not to mention the several other processes for color filming.

  259. NecrosaroIII said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    To Kill a Mockingbird(Gregory Peck)
    Vertigo(Jimmy Stewart)

  260. Trimalchio said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    The question about the first film to be shot in color is COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT and meaningless, since going from black-and-white to color was a gradual process.

  261. Elise said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Cat on a Hot Tin Roof with Paul Newman and Liv Taylor?

  262. baxter said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Mato:

    The Third Man, 1949, Orson Welles or Joseph Cotton

    I highly recommend this. Not as obvious as others that were mentioned, but just as revered. As far as filmmaking goes, it’s widely considered a milestone in both cinematography and storytelling, and was voted best British film of the 20th century by the British Film Institute.

  263. baxter said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    For the second one, I’d go with Sunset Boulevard (1950), starring Gloria Swanson, one of the most famous film noirs alongside The Third Man. (”Alright, Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up”)

  264. baxter said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Wikipedia, re: Sunset Boulevard, “In 1989 the film was among the first group of 25 deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.”

  265. Vagn said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Carl:

    Your correction makes me sad :( but you are correct…
    Also a quick search on google reveals that there was colour processes going way back to the 1890’s, interesting!

  266. D-S said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    I can help if you need a Spanish translator…

    Also great work!

  267. Trimalchio said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    My computer’s messed up, my posts aren’t displaying, sorry…

  268. Negi said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Casablanca - Humphrey Bogart
    To Kill A Mockingbird - Gregory Peck

    You have to use Casablanca. It is probably the greatest movie of all time; its name is instantly recognizable; it fits within the time period.

  269. Bytron said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    My votes:
    Sound of Music plus Casablanca.

  270. ok said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    mato prolly doin a little less meth now with the coding out of the way..
    but i bet he still do a LOT of meth..

    good luck my friend mato.. your family loves you

  271. Bytron said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Maybe something with Frank Sinatra: Guys and Dolls, From Here to Eternity, or Oceans Eleven. And if you use Ol’ Blue Eyes, how about some Marilyn Monroe with Some Like it Hot, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, or How To Marry a Millionaire.

  272. Husky_Washu said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Aw I love The Wizard of Oz.

    I guess it kind of depends on how well-known you want them to be? The two that immediately popped into my mind were “The Wizard of Oz” and “Gone with the Wind” and I’m not much of a movie buff…probably want the names to be the most recognizable to the largest number of people, unless you think it’s one of those more subtle jokes that caters to the older generations.

  273. KratosAuron0 said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    To Kill a Mockingbird - Gregory Peck
    The Sound of Music - Julie Andrews

    these get my vote, especially since they’re probably the only movies from the 60s that I know of

  274. evansucks said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    I second anything supporting the third man. GREAT film.

  275. Mato said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Whoa that’s a lot of replies 8O

    OK, awesome. I’ll sift through them and see what seems best. FWIW, this particular line isn’t really special or anything, I think it’s just on some sign that you probably won’t even know to check. I know I’ve never seen this sign before, I’ll have to go in and hunt around for it.

    But now that we got the classic films, what’s a film that’s like the exact opposite of all those? The first thing that came to mind is “Dude, Where’s My Car?” but I don’t want to use that one because I don’t think Itoi would’ve used that. Maybe something also from the 60s and earlier, but something that’s really bad and the opposite of a good movie.

  276. Pineapples said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    The Good, The Bad, and The ugly (1966) w/ Clint Eastwood

    The Graduate (1967) w/ Dustin Hoffman

    Bonnie and Clyde (1967) w/ Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway

    The Manchurian Candidate (1962) w/ Frank Sinatra

    Rosemary’s Baby (1968) w/ Mia Farrow

    A Hard Day’s Night (1964) w/ The BEATLES (I like a Beatles reference whenever possible)

    Goldfinger (1964) w/ Sean Connery

    Funny Girl (1968) w/ Barbara Streisand

    Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) w/ Elizabeth Taylor

    Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid (1969) w/ Robert Redford and Paul Newman

    Movies from the 60s rock, btw, I’m looking forward to whatever part of the game this is.

  277. Mato said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    ATTENTION

    If anyone here has spare time and wants to help spread EarthBound love around the world, check out this thread. A Spanish translation of EarthBound is nearly complete, but there are some cases of buggy text, and all of this stuff needs to be identified and logged so we can manually fix those lines.

    If you’re interested, head over there and check out the patch and start trying to find crazy text! Of course, you might kind of need to know Spanish, but that might not matter to people who’ve played it in English 800 times :P

  278. Pineapples said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    That’s an easy one, so many terrible movies..

    Battlefield Earth
    Gigli
    The Hottie and The Nottie
    Crossroads
    Glitter
    From Justin To Kelly
    Star Wars Ep. I: The Phantom Menace (it sucked, admit it)
    Kazaam
    Man of Steel
    anything with Keanu Reeves not called The Matrix or Speed

  279. Weebo said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    excellent. something i can contribute and an outlet for my insane movie obsession.

    it should be these:

    citizen kane - orson welles
    casablanca - ingrid bergman

    there aren’t any american films from the period you provided that are more respected and important to film history than these two.

    of course, you have plenty to work with if you want something more recognizable to the larger mother 3 playerbase.

    seconding some that others have suggested: garland in Oz, sound of music, 2001. those would work well not knowing the context.

    to add more revered pre-70’s hollywood flicks-

    vertigo
    rear window
    north by northwest
    psycho
    on the waterfront
    its a wonderful life
    butch cassidy and the sundance kid

    if we’re including foreign films as well i’ll suggest by director:

    anything by kurosawa if there would be benefit to having japanese movies - seven samurai and yojimbo being his most recognizable. among cinephiles his works are wildly praised.

    leone’s spaghetti westerns - the good the bad and the ugly, fistful of dollars, for a few dollars more. clint eastwood is insanely recognizable.

    Also, i don’t think bergman or fellini are what you’re looking for but the seventh seal and 8 1/2 are two of the most widely regarded films of all time and they came out in 57/63 respectively.

  280. Weebo said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    as for an awful movie, pre 60’s, the quintessential option is definitely ed wood’s plan 9 from outer space. read up on it. its uniquely horrible.

  281. Nutsjesmoar said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    gotta put “Soylent Green” out there. Sorry if there’s any fans, but it is awesomely bad.

  282. Dust said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    I’d like to add another vote for a “Third Man” reference. Easily one of the greatest movies yet made, that one.

    Also, I second the nomination of “Plan 9 from Outer Space” as an awful movie reference. Poor, dead Bela Lugosi…

  283. Pineapples said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Plan 9 from Outer Space is hilarious

  284. Blak Playg said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    If you’re looking for opposite of “good movie”, Manos: The Hands Of Fate is the only choice. It’s so bad it loops around to being good and then bad again.

  285. A Fan said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Man, gotta pull out MST3K if you want a list of bad movies :-)

    Yeah, Plan 9 from Outer Space & Manos: The Hands of Fate are definite ‘worst ever’ mentions. Here’s another list, though, if you want more:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Films_considered_the_worst_ever

    Santa Claus Conquers the Martians
    Zombie! vs. Mardi Gras
    Freddy Got Fingered
    Gigli
    Battlefield Earth

    I think that if you want movies people will _KNOW_ are terrible, go with Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (you only need the title to know how bad that is) and Battlefield Earth or Gigli (you have to live in a cave not to know how horrible they are) :)

  286. Mato said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Yes, movies that are instantly recognizable is what I need. I know about many of those bad movies, but I don’t think the general public would know what Manos is, for example. It’s possible that even just really ridiculous titles from that era would suffice.

  287. A Fan said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    BTW, I believe that the Far Side always loved using Ishtar as their favorite movie to mock (the only movie in Hell’s Video Store, etc.)

  288. A Fan said 2 months, 3 weeks ago:

    Well, then you CAN’T go wrong with Santa Claus Conquers the Martians