Second Draft, Part 5
Worked incredibly hard the past day or two, and managed to push the Draft 2 progress over the 50% mark. Whew. Feel like I just ran a marathon. There was almost no duplicate text this time, so that was a LOT of work. I’d say it takes about 2 hours for each 1% now.
While I’m talking percentages, I should probably reiterate that the percentage you see in that pic there is for Draft 2 of the main script only. The actual project’s progress is much further along than that. I don’t like giving out arbitrary percentages, but if I had to give a number, I’d say the entire project itself is like 80% done. 85%? I dunno, somewhere around there. Given that this project really only began last July, I’d say that’s some insane progress, though I guess on the outside it probably doesn’t seem that way. Some (many? most?) ROM translations take 5+ years, if they don’t die first. Anyway.
For those following with the map viewer, this latest batch covered maps 66-113. And here are a few random screens. Most of the stuff this time was pretty spoilery and central plot-related stuff, so forgive the fewer (and less interesting) screenshots.
Too tired to write comments for them though 
Here’s a bonus goofy screenshot I made today for fun. Anyway, happy Funday Sunday!
Hi mato! I’v been watching your and Jeffman’s progress via this site for ages, and I’m rooting for you! Gooooo Mato! Gooooo Jeffman!
You ROCK!
First post. Glad to see this is already half way finished. =D
Lucas uses PSI, not magic.
every time I get an urge to check this site I make exactly 2 mins after you update it
get some sleep once in a while
<3 ya mato
Woohoo over the halfway mark. This is coming along nicely. You guys are my heroes.
Good luck, you big fruit you.
watch an episode of arrested development
check for an update
repeat
my schedule for the last few days and most likely the next few
yay for summer!
Awesome progress. I like the second “didn’t want to think of anything for this NPC to say” screenshot. At least Itoi is honest
WOW, dude you´re like a machine or someting!!!
Guys, keep up the awesome work. You are like, my heroes or something!
BTW, Mato:
I´m a mexican fan and i have been looking for a project-hobby-productive for the world thing to do… and i think retranslating the game to mexican spanish (the most talked spanish in the world) would be nice. Is there anyway to get involved?
oh, i believe my brother wanted to do something similar with EB, that spanish transaltion going on is rocking, but it´s also spanish from spain…
Again, these updates are what make life worth it. You guys deserve much praise for your hard work and devotion. Simply beautiful. Many thanks!
I’m liking the progress here. Kepp it up guys. Loving the results so far.
what ever happened with that snake enemy? What name did you decide to give it?
Spanish from Spain is real Spanish. Just like English from the U.S.A. is real English.
i’m on the edge of my seat… great progress. Very exciting to watch as this project nears completion.
I can’t believe no one has called you on that “The Wizard” quote… or am I just too old?
Hooooray ! Now take a break
I thought English from England was real English. P:
Anyway, I’ve been following and I’ve always been so impressed at how much you get done in such little time!
Yay, only 5 more marathons to run! Come on, Mato! You can rest when you’re dead! Er, I mean done.
…
Love the AVGN reference! Perfect!
Pace yourself, but know that we’re all counting on you!
Mato were should I put the meth you ordered.
You know, the supply for this translation.
Charlie, that’s not an AVGN reference.. That’s a “The Wizard” reference.
An awesome one at that.
What those have to do with the Nes Power Glove
Wow, nice progress. Keep it up man.
Great job, Mato! These updates always brighten my day up a little bit. (Or in this case, night. =P )
And roughly 80%…damn. O_0 I can almost taste it…
You’re halfway there guys, stop looking back and start looking forward!
I never realised that this started last July, having not been here since the beginning, but that is totally awesome progress. In under a year, you’ve managed to almost fully hack and translate an entire game! You should feel proud of yourselves.
Now go to bed!
I’m anticipating this patch more than any other upcoming game release! FFIVDS and MGS4 are chopped liver in the shadow of MOTHER 3…
If you’re still interested in finding a method for emailing people, there’s a system that’s set up to do exactly what you want. Your ISP probably offers it, and it’s called Mailman or MajorDomo. It’s called mailing list software, and it’s probably already installed on your mail servers. 30,000 emails is a fairly large volume, but shouldn’t be any problem for a real ISP.
If your ISP doesn’t offer this kind of service for free, mine will, free of charge. I didn’t want to post to you guys about it in a place like this because it will get lost very quickly, but if you insist on making it public, there’s my solution.
If you’re interested in this solution, email me.
this is incredible.
keep up the good work!
its gonna be sad when we cant visit this blog anymore, but its going to be great that you finish!
I started playing EarthBound again during my D&D game today. It was a sweet blend of old and new, EarthBound and the just-released 4th Edition of Dungeons and Dragons. Needless to say, my DM was just a little peeved.
Salsa dancing=<3 (I got far enough in the Japenese version to see that, at least.)
I don’t understand your reference to whatever, but I guess I’ll live. =P
I love the power glove too, Mato.
Except that you can’t play for crap on that thing XD
Perhaps a Stupid question…
If i, like, got my hands on this patch right now, and i don´t know fuzzball about Japanese… how long do you think i coul dplay it before encounter Japanese writing?
Sorry for stupidness, but it IS in the morning right here…
bear my children
Amazing work…
i’m looking forward to the full translation of mother3 even though i’m not an English speaker.
just keep it on! (of course, don’t let this project ruin your health please.)
Wow, this is intense. I really want to quote Darth Vader here, but I’ll save that for release day. I shall play the Eight Melodies from Mother on my ocarina in your honor, though.
Also, I tweaked the screenshot you provided of Hinawa telling lucas to get dressed before he can go outside. I put a tomato on the plate that was on the table. He has a very patient expression. If you like, I can send it to you. I don’t know how to post picture links here, so if someone wanted to tell me that’d be great.
After the translation, we should begin work on the Mother 3 Power Glove Patch.
Nooo, no power glove. X) Nightmares, ahhh!
You…are…my…HERO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You should tell Reggie he can publish the game only if he puts earthbound on the virtual console 8.)
you should name something after yourself…maybe New Year Bomb (Reduces enemy health to 1)
This is going great, but the pace seems so…slow. I’m glad you have the willpower to do this. Has anyone ever told you how awesome you guys are? Wait, most people here have, and they’re right!
Wow, only 15% left. Keep going Mato! *imitates Rob Schieder* YOU CAN DO IT!!!!
FIRST POST
Oh, wait
Aw, man, and do you guys remember the part where Fred Savage and Lucas got into a telekinetic battle of minds and it looked like Lucas would win, but then Joe Cocker showed up and started belting out “With A Little Help From My Friends” and it opened a chasm to the underworld and Lucas fell in?
…Or, you know, that coulda just been a really cool dream I had…
LOL Power Glove…
Y’know, you guys should try to hack in an item called “Power Glove.” It could be completely useless, just like the real thing.
Lol Mato, I remember that movie. The one where we got to see Mario Bros 3 for the first time. What was it called again? Something with Wizard?
The Powerglove reference was coined from the film “The Wizard”
The movie had a character names Lucas (coincidence) who “loved the power glove”. The scene is pretty famous. See the original scene here -
http://youtube.com/watch?v=nCEsLHNT0Bc&feature=related
The Angry Videogame Nerd (which I’m sure many of you are familiar with) famously spoofed this scene, and the Powerglove in general, in his coverage of the peripheral. You can see the video here -
http://youtube.com/watch?v=MYDuy7wM8Gk
Now, does that clear a few things up? =P
Lovely!
Yeah, well you just keep your power gloves off of her.
Mato: What did you end up naming the snake?
Woah, I didn’t mean to comment three times. O_o…if you can remove two of those Mato, that would be great.
Good luck, Sir Mato. May the power of PSI guide you always.
*cheer*
ty for your hard work.
Wow Mato.
80-85% after a year??? I only wish certain other translations had gone that way
There would be a much greater incentive if the original devs took notice of the translations, played them through and then rereleased them via virtual console or something. Giving the new translators a cut in the process. I’m sure certain projects would be finished alot faster. And more good games would make foreign soil.
This project is going wonderfully. I keep an eye on it every other day, and I’m actually going to be overjoyed when i finally get to play it. I can remember how I felt playing Star ocean when the final patch came for that.
I haven’t decided whether I should play it on my Micro, my SP or my DS as yet. Micro seems to be winning.
So, ahh…somebody should make a bronze plaque with your names on it somewhere…it should say something like “…for services rendered to the gaming community as a whole…selflessly, heroically, tirelessly working for a better tomorrow…”
LOL That One Guy, too true.
I begged my parents for one and I got it for Christmas. That was the first, and last day I used it. Damn that Kevin Arnold for making the Power Glove look so cool. And he never even got with Denise the Grease either, even when practically threw herself at him. I mean, sure, Frank the Stank would’ve whooped his ass, but but c’mon, she was so fine.
50%!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I’ve been watching the Angry Video Game Nerd almost nonstop lately, so of course that’s the first thing the Power Glove reference made me think of. (Especially since I don’t even know what The Wizard is.)
Um. Be careful you don’t get as obsessed with finishing the translation as you did with the hacking, Mr. Tomato. You don’t need to go through that again… and we wouldn’t want you to end up rushing the last bit, anyway. (Not that I really think you would, but. Repeatedly working yourself to exhaustion is just not a good thing at all.)
Is it weird that I’m one of the youngest people here, but I get the Power Glove reference?
I’m back from that trip.
I laugh at the power glove,
I quote: “…It’s so bad”
Wow nice! 80 - 85% done? Hopefully you guys will be able to finish it by next month.
Heh heh… The Power Glove. Wasn’t that a cheap accessory for the NES? (I’ve looked all over for The Wizard, btw, but could never find the movie…)
You could not find it?
I had bought the DVD.
It cost me ten bucks.
What do you think Nintendo is thinking of you guys right now?
Effluvium:
If you don’t know what the Wizard is don’t worry AVGN made a video about it :D.
And Mato you said the project really didn’t start untill July. Did you guys just start over when the two projects merged? Or is that when you switched to Harmony’s work as a base?
LOL THE POWER GLOVE
Keep it up guys, you’re doing great
daniel: I’m not sure yet. I’m still waiting to hear back from Jeffman about stuff related to the Spanish translation. A friend of his said he was interested in translating it a while back.
Rich: I haven’t decided yet, just like I haven’t fully decided on that movie name stuff either. Right now I like stuff with the “ill-tempered” stuff, but I’m also liking “Mighty Bitey Snake” more and more, since it’s got some word play which is very similar to the original name.
Deeman: For Draft 2, I started with a blank script and I copy-paste-from-Draft-1-edit-improve the script line by line. Since the script is still half empty (or half full) much of the game text doesn’t display in the current build.
That One Guy: I have an idea for a comic but I have no art abilities — Lucas has the Power Glove on, saying that line and thinking he’s badass, meanwhile Kumatora (seeing as gloves are her weapon of choice) is next to him thinking oh god what a loser. Someone make it happen!
D: Read the previous update. It will not be done in a month. It seems like every update someone says “ooh it should be done by next month then!” Even as far back as January, and we had to keep saying, “No, there’s still much more work left than you think”
Vagn: After I made the menu patch is when we started over with the hacks (well, except for byuu’s), using harmony’s work as a base. So the current hacking really began in like September or so I’d say.
This isn’t a drawn picture, but, I’ll get to that later.
In the mean time, all of this Powerglove talk reminds me. This is probably why I draw stupid comics about Nintendo all day:
http://i25.tinypic.com/2d8nric.jpg
You are the reason I get up in the morning, Mato.
HooRay!!!!!!!!we’re getting there!
lol at The Wizard quote.
I watched The Wizard this past week. Are you going to leave that in?
I still find is amazing to read these updates, and I’m starting to now realize how close we are to playing Mother 3 in English. Keep up the good work guys, this is an amazing undertaking.
I would kill to see the Power Glove line stay in the game
…even though I know enough about the game to know that’s a horrible place for it
Funday? That’s not a reference to the old Doug/Quailman is it?
QUAILMAN WILL SAVE THE DAY BY HELPING MATO DO THE SCRIPT
Actually, “Mexican Spanish”, “Castillian Spanish” (Spanish from Spain), and South American Spanish are all dialects of the same language. Besides certain nuances that they all have, they are the same lanuguage. For the purposes of this game translation, however, (especially for the jokes and little play on words)individual regional translations may be necessary. Ie. A cattlesnake could be “vaca” (cow) and cascavel (rattlesnake) or Vacascavel. I for one would be on board for a latin american spanish version, after all it should be a little bit of everything in true Mother Style. By the way awesome job with the translation I am super amped for the release of this puppy.
We’re not 100% sure yet, but it sounds like the spot for Spanish translation is open, and ideally I’d like it to be TurboNess, seeing as he did translate EarthBound into Spanish. Though he’s getting a lot of people on his case for using Spain Spanish.
That said, maaaaaaybe we’ll let there be more than one kind of Spanish translation, but it’d probably be better for us if there’s only one Spanish one. We’ll see what happens. Right now, translations into other languages are still a good ways off, translation won’t begin until after the English patch is out.
Great stuff Mato. I look forward to seeing your progress each day. =]
I’ll be glad to help you with a latin-spanish translation, if you wish.
Also, I’ll try to make the powerglove comic if I get any free time from work -__-U
For those of you that apparently don’t get the reference in the last pic, it’s from the movie “The Wizard”, which was essentially a giant Nintendo commercial. A character named Lucas in the movie thought he was all badass and said that line about his prized power glove.
The thing about spanish from spain is that it feels really off in written form if you’re not from spain. The differences between it and mexican or south american spanish are truly abysmal. I believe it is a matter of how we express, it’s just… different…
I believe that the main reason for there being more than one spanish translation is that people who don’t REALLY want to play the game (someone’s brother, one of my friends, people who are not yet into mother) and do not speak english would very possibly not play it, not enjoy it, or not fully understand it.
I know that i can play it in English, most mother fans are well served with an english translation, but for those who are not comfortable enough, because of it not being their mother language, anything closer will do. Heck, i’m sure one of my friends would play it in portuguese if he had to!
But why settle for less? I don’t know if you guys can tell but i wan’t to translate this game to the spanish i (and some 110 million people) know and love.
Thanks for keeping it a secret, Mato.
Thank you Mato, you are so close. I can’t even imagine how hard this must have been.
As awesome as ever.
Was looking through old posts now for old time’s sake, seeing stuff like this post just makes me want to reverse roll up in a ball and sleep and hope it all goes away. I thank Giygas that we’re done with all that now, but my god that’s a lot of stuff we had to do
I’m worried that somehow time will reverse and we’ll have to do it again. If time does reverse, uhh, I dunno if I can do this again, so please try not to make time reverse, you people fiddling with the universe’s structure.
(EDIT: And to head questions off at the pass, yes I make regular backups and the team gets regular copies of stuff too.)
Ok mato i wont alter time too bad. Great work man! Almost there! With your efforts alone, Nintendo might finally see that Earthbound/Mother deserves more attention.
ok, i won’t try to reverse time anymore…
but i can’t say for my physics teacher, that guy’s just nuts!
if you get around .5 percent done in every hour, and the last post said you were at around 42 percent, DOES THAT MEAN YOU’VE BEEN TRANSLATING FOR THE PAST 20 HOURS????!!!!!
I put in a few hours Friday and then Saturday was like mega death march except with translation involved. Definitely can’t put any time into it today. I was actually planning to get to 50% like by Wednesday, but I wanted to get over that 50% mark very badly so I drank my weight in coffee.
First time posting in this blog after stumbling upon it about a week ago. Keep up the good work, I managed to beat the Japanese version of the game with the menu translations patch you had posted, and eagerly await the finished product.
So, is it safe to say you have about four pure days (96 hours) of hacking until you get this second draft done?
Of course, I’m sure that there are tons of variables, and whatnot, but does that sound about right?
JUst a quick note mato, most of the translations to spanish the videogames get, are mostly from spain. And as far as I know, the only game officialy translated to spanish in mexican spanish (the most neutral of the diferents dialects in spanish) was Shadowgate 64.
It would be great to see mother 3 in Mexican Spanish (I hate the spanish from spain, nobody talks like that in South america), and I would be glad to help on that, because I used to fansub last year (in a Chilean fansub group) and I translate a lot for my classmates in my university.
Anyway, I’m glad to see that the translation is going so well.
Keep up the awesomeness mato!
The words, from moonspeak,
Into english they become.
All thanks to Mato.
kousuke:
estoy completamente interesado en formar un equipo para traducir mother 3 al español mexicano, o al español latinoamericano.
creo que sería lo mas apropiado para latinoamerica, en realidad hay muchisimo mas gente que sería beneficiada con esto que con una traducción al español de españa.
que dices, estas interesado?
extiendo la invitación a cualquier otra persona con gusto por la comunidad y amor por mother 3
daniel
It’s too early for that, and, ideally, I’d prefer there to be one translator per language if possible. I can foresee group drama possibly sprouting up. So at the moment, I think we’ll only need to work with one person per language. And that’s not even gonna start for a few months, so it’s too early to plan stuff like this anyway.
About demi’s translation . . . will he also be translating from the Japanese version, or will he just be fixing your translation up?
At first, I thought he wasn’t actually a translator; I thought he was just going to check draft 2 to make sure that a reader would interpret the dialog the way that you intended. So I was expecting Draft 3 to go very fast.
But it didn’t take a lot of common sense for me to realize that his role would probably be more about picking up nuances that you missed from the Japanese version. Which, unfortunately, makes Draft 3 almost go as slow as the first rough draft.
Well, I can wait.
No, he’ll be editing the text to sound better, not doing stuff from a translation point. It’s like if you write a book or write a big essay or something big like that, you want (sometimes HAVE to have) fresh eyes to go over it before you submit it.
You guys probably get this alot, but seeing people work so hard for other people, for a cause that is so perfect and epic…It’s really alot to bear.
I’ve always wanted to play whatever sequel that would follow EBZ and EB. My written and spoken Japanese is pretty good, but I always wanted to play it in english.
You guys are making this possible. Really, I don’t know how to make it up to people like you. Sorry If I sound retarded, Just I never thought I’d see the day.
In Debt to your Team,
Jack The Lad: Student Double Bassist.
awesome
For a fan translation this is ridiculously fast. It’s right up there in terms of speed with some professional things I’ve seen (and in the end, due to all of your adoration for the game, it’ll come out better, since you guys actually LISTEN). For an example of a really LONG fan translation head over to Phantasian Productions. Seven years and counting, working on Tales of Phantasia for the Playstation. It’ll be well worth the wait though, because again, it’s done by serious fans of the game out of their love and want to share the game with others.
I don’t really care how long this takes you guys, as long as you guys are happy with the finished product. I know, one day, it will be done. Until then, I’m enjoying coming here and reading on what you guys are doing and sharing with other fans of Mother and this project.
You guys are doing fine, and I hope you aren’t feeling too rushed.
Go Mato! You guys are the best. Now I’m off to play some more Earthbound.
Yeah, the power glove is garbage.
Hey guys, I have a question. I’m not sure if this has been asked already, and if it has, I’m sorry for repeating:
To anyone who has read the script/played through the game in Japanese and actually understood it, what do you think the ESRB would rate it if it were translated WITHOUT the typical Nintendo content filtering/censorship? I don’t even know why I’m asking this, just curious I guess.
I’d rather not discuss this in too detail since a lot of it will go into spoiler territory. But I would say T, maaaaaybe E10+ if the rating people were lenient. I say that looking at this: http://www.esrb.org/ratings/ratings_guide.jsp
EDIT: I should also mention that I assume Nintendo would make some very slight changes to ensure the E10+ rating. Nothing big, and they’d probably write around instances of strong language (oh god did I open another can of worms again) and some sprite changes.
StageProps: I can’t answer for this game in particular, but I can say that the Japanese allow for a LOT of things in Kids stuff that the US would through a HUGE fit over. A prime example of this would be the show NaruTaru, or Shadow Star. This anime was shown on th children’s channel and featured decapitation (among other severed limbs), and hinted at incest and rape.
NaruTaru has only been state side in one form, the manga (which is MUCH more graphic). The manga was handled by Dark Horse, who after I think volume 7, dropped it due to content.
Mato or Jeffman can answer your question more directly though,.
And just did… Damn you’re fast Mato!
Very cool, I love checking back here everyday to see if there’s a new update^^ even when there’s not :3 Keep up the good work on the project :3
Green, green… :3 lol
Whoa, lots of progress!! Congrats, keep going!!
I completely agree that, if there’s not going to be a neutral Spanish translation, there should be two Spanish translations, on for Spain since they’re all different and important, and one for the rest of Spanish-speaking countries (Latin America).
Daniel y Kousuke: a mí también me interesaría formar un equipo que traduzca MOTHER 3 a un español latinoamericano. Hay bastante gente interesada. Creo que deberíamos considerar la opción una vez que la traducción al inglés esté lista.
(Daniel and Kousuke: I’d be interested too in making a team to translate MOTHER 3 to a Latin American Spanish. There’s many people interested. I think we should consider the option once the English translation is done)
hmm…. if it’s .5 percent a day, maybe a bit more if there are little jumps, this MIGHT be done in… 98 days?
My personal goal was to get it done before July… but that would require incredible sacrifices I probably couldn’t/shouldn’t make so I figure just sometime IN July is when Draft 2′ll be done.
yesss
Heh. Something I’ve been meaning to ask for a while. Help me to understand this phenomenon of “translation-ese”, if you would. It seems so interesting… or would it be easier to see if I just read an early draft and a completed draft of a translated document side by side? …now where would I find one of those…
The Power Glove IS so bad, Lucas. It is so bad.
ok… just wanted to answzer something from a previous post:
“if anyone has GOOD suggestions on how to e-mail 30,000 people without incident”
set up a mail server to send out these e-mails bit by bit, like 5 every minute (which should take 2 hours or so). This is to ensure your ISP’s mail server doesn’t reject your outgoing mails. Call them first if you have any doubt on their limitations or rules regarding mass-sends, they might have some tips to offer. Send e-mails to Yahoo and Hotmail adresses first, they purposely delay mail delivery when done through mass mailouts or automated systems, it’ll give them a head start to sort it out so that everyone gets it more or less at the same time. TEST YOUR INTENDED MESSAGE FIRST! it may get caught in spam filters. Look up the reasons for that if it happens (terms used, use of HTML or pictures, no return address etc…) and make adjustment so the spam score goes down.
Basically, you’ll need your own SMTP server to do it properly… I might be able to get you some more infos from my boss, which regularly has to deal out newsletters for our main client (a major electronics company), and has a pretty good experience for that kind of thing
lol the wizard
Daniel y Lightwolf: claro, me encantaria que lo intentaramos, quien sabe que puede resultar, ademas que es util hacer bien las revisiones ya que con solo uno que traduzca no puede capturar bien el sentido de las frases, en especial si ya fue traducido una vez. contactenme via mi fotolog (está en mi site) y nos las arreglamos
Daniel and Lightwolf: Sure, I’d like to try, who knows what will be the result, Also that it would be useful for the revisions because with just one translator the real meaning of the dialogue would be lost, considering this is already being translated.
Looking at “the wizard” reference (are you supposed to have to “the”s to make that right) immediately made me think of punching circus midgets from bad street brawler again
“It was so bad”
Never trouble trouble until trouble troubles you
http://www.last.fm/music/HORSE+the+Band/_/Cutsman
Song from the Horse the Band with both power glove quotes from the Wizard in it (one at the very very beginning and then the one from Mato’s joke at the very very end.) in a song about Cutman (called cutsman to avoid copyright infringement).
Enjoy.
Horse the Band rocks!!!
recomendation (make a backup. gpd damnit please make a back up)
how dare you take gpd’s name in vain
Es obvio que deben uds traducir desde japones a espanol
Tambien voy a jugar Mother 3 en espanol, y no me importa cual version de la lengua usen.
Forgive my mistakes. I’m still learning the language.
I’d suggest that any other discussion of a spanish version take place in the starmen.net forums. Especially si es en espanol, no?
I just don’t understand how you manage all of this, along with your job and all of the other little nuances of your personal life. It’s unbelievable.
How many days of ceaseless sleep do you think you’ll go through after this thing is over with?
Every few days or so, I check the progress here, and I’m always very impressed! Keep it up, Mato! You’re doing a great service for the entire world, or at least the world of Earthbound/Mother fans.
A blood replacement.
Mountain Dew and espresso
now fill Mato’s veins.
Mato -
Out of curiousity, what was the ill-tempered/mighty bitey/etc snake’s name in the original japanese?
-lastech
lightwolf y kousuke:
me parece definitivo que debe haber mas de un revisor. De la misma manera que Mato se apoyará en Demi. Puede facilmente haber un apoyo entre un equipo que delimite bien la parte correspondiente a cada uno.
Pero quizá deberíamos movernos a starmen.net, puede ponerse muy offtopic. Claro que debemos esperar a que termine la traducción al inglés. Pero cuatro meses no es en realidad tanto tiempo.
Tambien me pueden contactar en mi myspace. Si preguntan intercambiamos correos.
(I believe we should definitely have more than one writer-checker. Just as Mato will get support from Demi. There can easily be work and help between a well defined team, with jobs clearly stated.
Though we probably should move to starmen.net, this could get very offtopic. And it´s for sure that we have to wait until the english translation is done. But four months is not that much time really.
I can also be contacted through myspace. We could exchange emails if you´d like.)
Yo también opino que nos movamos a starmen.net. Podemos comunicarnos via PM, mi login es Light Wolf. También me pueden dejar un mensaje en mi blog.
(I also think we should move to starmen.net. We can communicate via PM, mi login is Light Wolf. You can also leave me a message on my blog.)
A mí también me interesaría ayudar, cuenten conmigo. Claro, si es que se puede ^^U
(I’m also interested, count me in! That is, if it’s possible.)
Wow, I understood more of that Spanish than I thought.
As for the snake, I still like “The Fang”.
“I’m worried that somehow time will reverse and we’ll have to do it again”
Vonnegut? do I see a fan of Vonnegut?
-What is the percentage of whole Draft 2 out of all the hack?
-You thought you released the final version without any bugs/glitches. What would happen if it is found out that somebody had missed a little bug?
Rolando84, Light Wolf y Kousuke:
Ok inicié un topic en el foro de mother 3 (el que no tiene spoilers)para discutir la traducción. Allá soy danster.
Whoa! Glad to see the progress on this. I had totally forgot all about this game until a friend of mine brought up earthbound on the snes. Looking forward to the final draft!
Good gpd!
Over 50 percent!
Hooray…glad to see another milestone in the rearview…
Wow, theres alot of comments here… well, if u read this, just know that im supporting you guys 100% and hope you manage to get this project done
GO TEAM! YOU GUYS ARE CHAMPS
I believe Mato said in a really old update that the name of the snake in the japanese version was something along the lines of “Snake That REALLY Bites When It Bites”, for those that are wondering.
(insert generic comment of approval/praise here)
Creature201 -
Sorry, I intended thinking more the actual characters in the original japanese (or at least their romaji equivalents); my guess was that it was a pun on the word for snake (蛇 / hebi), but I thought I’d ask rather than troll through the code.
Aim for July 24. That is my birthday, you see.
THE DAY OF RECKONIN
……..I…….am…..hap-py. (hehe, you guys are sooooo awesome)please keep it up!
BOING!!
I love you. In a waaaay hetero life-mate way.
M3 power glove patch?! GOOD GOD NO!
anyway, progress=win, and Mato is making major progress, so Mato=win. don’t know if that made perfect sense, but w/e. :3
The progress of this project is seriously amazing. I have watcherd many translation projects come and go in the past. But this is actually the fastest moving and most professionally done project I have seen by fans of any game. I absolutely believe the Mother 3 Fan Translation will go down in history as one of the most organized and well done projects ever. Thank you all for your hard work! Everyday my excitement builds to finally be able to play. I have been a die-hard fan of the series since Earthbound came out for the SNES. Since Mother3’s release I have made it a point to avoid any spoilers. I appreciate the fact this blog and starmen.net go out of their way to protect us from spoilers. The day this comes out I will be calling into work sick.
The Mato asks, and the Mato recieves.
Straight from the talented hands of my good friend Steve, I present to you the requested comic.
http://www.ebminon.cc/lucasobadd.png
Get this man a BURGER.
If it was Vonnegut, wouldn’t the oceans be freezing instead of his computer?
Much like ty I will also be “calling in sick” on the day that this translation gets released. I remember renting EarthBound for the SNES shortly after it first came out. Since then, I’ve played it completely through and finished it more times than I can remember. In fact, just last week I finished it again for the umpteenth time. I even got my own mother hooked on EarthBound back in the day! There were times that I nearly had to wrestle my SNES away from her. Sadly though, she suffered a stroke and can no longer play games like she used to. But I did inform her of this translation, and she’s expressed an interest in trying to play it when it comes out. From the way all the videos and screenshots look, I know you guys won’t disappoint either of us. Keep up the good work!
Five seven five.
The syllables on each line.
I never get them right…
Crap!
(I’ve been meaning to do that one for ages, but I keep forgetting. It was either that, or start quoting the Orz at the “time going backwards” thing. “At this *playground*, Taalo are making *time jokes*. It is too funny for the Orz!” )
Heh, I did much the same as Rai. EB was the first game I played so long, I saw the sun rise. I even got my mother hooked on it at one point. (It’s a rare thing she gets hooked on a game, but when she does… We still have a TV that has the playfield from Dr. Mario burned into it!)
same here, only 3 games ever left me awake all night: Brawl, EB, and GH2
Sadly, no one in my family but my brother seems to like EB. The only video game my dad ever liked was Mario Golf XD
This game should totally have a Cornish Translation.
… What? I want to learn Cornish. If not Cornish, how about a Swedish/Icelandic translation, eh? Russian? Arabic?
Well, good job on all that, nice to know it’s going well. I’ll go back to toiling to my site now.
Calling in sick? You guys are doing it wrong
Load Virtual Boy Advance onto a USB stick along with the game and take it to work. It helps if you’re not usually very busy & have your own office.
I had a suggestion for sending out 30k e-mails or so - you can probably use something like a fastmail account… for $15 you can use the SMTP and have 80m of bandwidth, if the e-mails are 1-2 kb that should be plenty. Probably the easiest/fastest solution, though not free = (
All or Nothing Snake?
All-Out Attack Snake?
Those seem more like they translate the name, though I don’t know how good they are.
Think Mato’s decided already. He’s keeping it a secret
good
First post here!
Way to go man! You rock! Translating Mother 3 is not only a good thing, it’s a necessity for all mankind!
Vonnegut wrote about all sorts of things, one being ICE-9 (which can turn the whole world’s water supply into ice) and another being the Trafalmadorians, a 4-dimensionally race of beings that , even though they could see the universe from its birth to its death, could not prevent the end of time because “it has already happened and will ALWAYS happen that way.” ie, if the universe folded time space in on itself to the point where this project rewound 6 months, it would be fate working against us and nothing else.
Good job as always, Mato.
Now… I know this is off-topic, but it’s the only way I could think of to solve my problem.
I’m trying register an account for the forums, but I’m not getting the email that I need. I’ve checked to make sure my email is correct, I’ve tried to get it resent several times, but I’ve gotten nothing. >_> Help?
VBA on a work computer? That’s just ASKING to get caught, you know. *grins* Better to get a flash cart and maybe a Micro. At least then, they can’t keep track of what you’re running. (Besides, most companies also disable portable storage media for fear of data theft or virus introduction.)
Is it wrong that I want to see an Engrish Mother 3 patch? I thought that one screenshot a few updates back with the auto-translator was hilarious. (I spelt that wrong, didn’t I?)
I thought that one screenshot a few updates back with the auto-translator was hilarious.
Whoa, which update was that?
we should translate mother 3 to japanese after
Great job Mato! that text really looks so eartboundish, I hope that the translators to other lenguages will understand and translate the mother humor just as well as you do.
You deserve 1 Rock Candy and 23 Sugar Packets.
OMG, you are doing so much hard work for us!
Thank-You! 
I too love the power glove, its sooo bad! XDXDXD Best. Saying. EVER! Actually know this is:
“This game stinks”
Hey, Tommy (haha, something other than “Mato” for once), will the third draft be the final draft? Also, shouldn’t the final draft (which is pretty much just review, right?) be much faster than the second?
Thanks,
SirVenom
*Reads the 2 hour per percent thing*
O_O I personally think you should take a week off. I mean you deserve it.
Effluvium: It’s an old example, but here’s a line from Draft 1 of my Star Ocean translation.
“…The arrival destination of people who miraculously survived among the Moorians who were thrown into a different space by an anomaly was the planet Roak, and this desolate Farget!”
Clunky and “translation-esy”. Draft 2 had this (and then later on someone else edited it, haven’t played the final patch myself so dunno what it says)
“…Miraculously, there were some Moorians who survived the
disastrous anomaly on Earth. Some of those survivors were thrown through a spatial gateway
and found themselves on Roak, while others wound up on this desolate planet of Farget!”
So that’s an example of translation-ese. Draft 2 is meant to get rid of that, make things smooth, fix any grammar/spelling issues, format text correctly, semi-finalize any jokes or references, etc. etc. So it’s a lot of stuff all at once.
Lastech: “Snake that really bites when it bites”. The description goes on to say “…and it doesn’t bite when it doesn’t bite…”
Can0fMean: There will be bugfix versions of the patch, I don’t think there’s any way getting around that, unless we’re really lucky and if we do really good testing. But even professional companies have to put out fixes for their things. And patch updates are extremely common in ROM translations.
SirVenom: I dunno what’s gonna happen with the third draft. It could take a long time, or it might be quick. I can’t tell, and it’s the biggest unknown left.
————
Last night I played a Draft 1.5 version of the game. Started playing from the very beginning, trying to view it from the eyes of a new player. I’m not sure how to express it in words. Maybe it’s because there’s still a good deal of polishing and fixing that needs to be done, but the experience was a very ehhhhhhh one. Someone asked if all this hacking’s killed the game for me, but until yesterday it was a definite no. Maybe it’s just a case of it being a bad idea to switch from intense script work to playing, kind of like how it’s not a good idea to eat a 5-course dinner then run a marathon immediately after. Or maybe what this feeling is is the same thing Itoi felt as the game was nearing completion. The game isn’t EB, so I’m worried people will play like the first chapter and not like it. Maybe that’s what it is. Or maybe I’ve just played Chapter 1 so many times that I’m sick of it, heh
Mato/anyone that can answer my question:
I am very much interested on playing this game on my GBA/DS. However, I know nothing about flash carts. When the translation is done, would I be able to just buy a blank flash cart and linker (which is what wikipedia calls the thing that links the flash cart to your computer) and download the translation to my computer and then transfer the file to the blank flash cart and play it on my GBA/DS? If so, can anyone tell me where to get blank flash carts and linkers?
keep it up guys you can do it you are allmost there
Lol, yeah. It has always been my belief that the developers can’t get the same enjoyment out of their work as the players…. it may be the same with your translation work.
Plus, having played through alot of the game and having my stinking game erased, I can say that playing through chapter one more than once is VERY frustrating… but it is the same with EarthBound, also; slow beginning.
It might not be EarthBound, but its an offspring of Itoi’s work. Thats good enough reason for me to play!
But Mato, it isn’t supposed to be EarthBound. I think that there are some people who want to view the game as “EarthBound II” in a literal sense, whereas the actual game is very different. If people don’t like it because it isn’t EarthBound, there isn’t anything you can do. Mother 3 is its own game, and people need to recognize it as that.
About it not being an amazing experience, that may be because you translated all the stuff, so it still holds memories of you trying to decide how it should be. Things lose their wonder when you were the one making it
Zeruel: No, I know that. But I think most people are expecting this to be just like EB. There’ve been (and maybe are now?) people on this blog who seem to think it’ll be exactly like EB. So a tiny part of me is worried people won’t give it enough of a try. I’d say it gets EB-ish eventually, but I think most people who expect this to be the second coming of EB won’t go that far. Also, they might be too hyped up thinking it’s EB 2 that it’ll be a big disappointment.
I dunno, those are the kinds of feelings I had playing through the first chapter. Nothing we can do about such people though.
Anyway, never mind my weirdo thoughts too much. Just wasn’t sure where to mention all that. It did kill my motivation yesterday, I’ll try to put an hour or two in today though.
Mato/anyone that can answer my question:
I am very much interested on playing this game on my GBA/DS. However, I know nothing about flash carts. When the translation is done, would I be able to just buy a blank flash cart and linker (which is what wikipedia calls the thing that links the flash cart to your computer) and download the translation to my computer and then transfer the file to the blank flash cart and play it on my GBA/DS? If so, can anyone tell me where to get blank flash carts and linkers?
By transfer I mean drag and drop because that is just about all that I can do.
Jeffman recommends something called “M3 Real”. We’re not linking to specific sites or shops here though, that would probably make things look even worse for us if we wound up in court. So please use search engines.
Mike K: I believe pretty much all flash carts these days support a drag-and-drop style interface. However, since mine’s in the territory of 7-8 years old now, I have to use a special program with mine.
However, if the one you get DOES have a special requirement, it will come with the program as well as any instructions you need.
(Bear in mind that if it doesn’t use MicroSD or other memory cards, and doesn’t have its own adaptor, you might need something with a link cable port. An original GBA or GBA SP, for example. That’s what mine requires, but unless I buy a new cart, I don’t really have much way of saying definitively what it would require for you.)
Oh, and out of boredom, since I went ahead and tested it… On a GBA, in order to tell the system to boot in “Slave Mode” (as in, from a link cable with a game that only needs one cart) without taking the cartridge you have in there out, you press Start and Select during the splash screen.
…Turns out, that still works on the DS, in spite of there not being any link cable port.
I dunno, just strikes me as amusing. ^_^
@Old West: That update was “Draft 2, Part 2″
Really? JeffMan suggests M3 Real? When I was asking him about which one to get late last year I though he suggested M3 Perfect! Hopefully I won’t have any problems with mine…
As long as it can run GBA games and it has enough memory, either should work. Note that for the M3 Real, the GBA slot thingy is sized for a DS Lite and won’t fit in a DS phat (unless you open it up and put it in a regular-sized GBA case).
And if you play it in your ds, will it go strait to the game as if it were the normal game or do you go to some folder screen where you have to choose the game? and why would it only work for a ds lite? is it not the same size as a regular gba game?
Remember tho, putting it on ds flash carts wont let you play this masterpiece on the gameboy player…gba flash ftw if you can find em.
I almost think this fan translation may pinch the gba flash cart biz in the ase. It would be pretty cruel irony considering the reason Nintendo didn’t release Mother 3 was probably due to projected poor sales.
Heh, doing some research on my own, I had already ordered an M3 Real. It seemed the best choice for what I wanted, a friend had already recommended it, and the price was right. From all I’ve been reading on it, it seems to be one of the easiest to use.
Definitely shop around though, the price can vary quite a bit. I can’t mention where I got it, but I got it for $50.00 + shipping, found a 5% off coupon, shipping from Hong Kong was only about $6.00. Got a tracking number and everything. =P Oh, and that was WITH the GBA expansion cart you need for GBA games. Though, the GBA expansion only works for DS Lites, as it’s too small to fit in a regular DS. Oh, and you do need to buy a MicroSD card to use on it for storage, but I was able to snag one off eBay for $9.96 for a 2GB SanDisk brand one.
Although, I did find you can just take it out of the shell and put it in a regular GBA sized shell and it’ll work fine. It’s just that the cart is designed for a DS Lite, to fit flush with the system and not stick out. I just happened to have an extra GBA game around here I don’t care much for, and I was able to get the triwing screw out of it and it’s actually quite simple to do. Though, some other site sells empty GBA cartridges, presumably just for this situation.
I haven’t gotten it in the mail yet, but expecting it sometime this week, probably.
Gonna test it out for Mother 3 when I get it, and see if I have better luck with the combo system without using an emulator. Or perhaps I’ll find out I just suck. Or that I’ve been trying to combo to the wrong parts of the music the whole time. Hoping it’ll work without any problems, they claim 100% compatibility.
> VBA on a work computer? That’s just ASKING to get caught, you know. *grins*
That’s why it’s nice to work in IT, especially when the only other IT person here is my boss (and he knows & doesn’t care so long as my work gets done).
It’s also fun to watch subtitled anime on the work computer, too
The real worry are the network filters (I don’t look at anything strange, but you never know how things will appear to them…) so this is actually ’safer’, believe it or not.
It doesn’t hurt that things like VBA and video players allow you to use save states / pause right away so you can drop everything and do some work if an emergency comes up. Besides, I think they like hearing “right away, boss!” and seeing you get up to do whatever.
Hmm, and as someone else mentioned with a gameboy player… That’d be pretty nice. I have a GameCube, but it’s not hooked up any more in favor of my Wii, but I never got a gameboy player. Eh, it’s not a big deal, playing it on my DS.
I have a M3 Real and it works great. I haven’t had a problem with any games (Mother 3 with the menu patch works awesome, although I still suck at combos). A fair warning for everyone looking to buy a flash cart though: if the online company doesn’t have an address and phone number listed on their ‘contact us’ page be very suspicious. There are lots of phony websites out there that advertise to sell these sorts of products. While I don’t want to post a specific site to purchase one of these products from; a Google search for ‘NDS flash cart reviews’ or something similar will give some good results on what carts to buy and where to buy them.
But remember don’t order something from a company that doesn’t willingly give their info, sites that just have ‘online chat support’ are especially notorious.
Mato maybe you should add this to the faq as it seems to come up alot lately.
Haha, nevermind it is in the faq
Can you Elaborate on what exactly Draft 3 is at this point in time?
Thanks, Mew
HARPOON-LIKE PAJAMAS
“Can you Elaborate on what exactly Draft 3 is at this point in time?”
If this blog were a geographical feature, it’d be an echo chamber.
Just asking
My birthday’s in a week, dunno what my bro was planning on getting me, but as I’ve said before, I have a original GBA.
Anyone know what would be a good flash cart to stick in that GBA? M3 Perfect, if I could still find one?
I’m just curious so I can plan. ^^
Check google
Sheesh come on people.
Mato, I plan to use the patched Mother 3 on my Wii, via Visual Boy(homebrew channel).
Mato: That feeling is something everyone gets when they’ve worked on something for a really long time. I started writing a novel a few months ago, and stopped because it was such utter crap. I read through it again a few days ago to see if there was anything I could salvage, and I was engrossed. I think it was some of my best writing, and couldn’t wait to get started again.
Seeing as you’re a professional translator, I doubt it’s genuinely bad, you’ve just been looking at it for too long. Leave the fresh-eyes to Demi, because after you’ve put so much time into something you just can’t do that yourself.
I sooo wanted a power glove, just for five minutes.
Well, Good job mato! Go make yourself a batch of hazelnut coffee. Just think the coffees on us.
Can you post a vid of you, Jeffman and the rest of the crew working? Just wanna see what the workplace looks like
just go google images of crack dens… mato do the meth.. jeffman is prolly clean.. but mato.. whoof… to be as good as he is.. you need meth.
Can you post a vid of you, Jeffman and the rest of the crew working? Just wanna see what the workplace looks like
They don’t work in the same room, or geographical region for that matter. It’s not that type of collaborative project.
So far I’ve yet to see Mato himself, but I have seen a couple pictures/videos of his lovely cat. D:
Hm I’d sorta like to see that too!
I wish I could help Mato, but all I can do is say good luck. =)
I’d like to thank you. It’s not from me … it’s on behalf of the universe.
Hang in there!
dude. I have to find new games to fill the space between now and the mother 3 release. Right now Im in sort of a mario bros. phase. Im playing superstar saga right now and I will play the new super mario bros. next. It is great to have a step brother to borrow games from. Why I am posting this, I cannot say. Maybe I just want attention…maybe I just need to do something while waiting for the patch and superstar saga isnt satisfying enough…maybe. Eitherwhile (its a transition word like anywhom or anyway. you can make any word just by taking one of the following words: any, every, either. amd adding one of the following words to the end of it: which, while, whom, who, what, where, when, way. Follow this rule, and you will have an unlimited amount of transition words) So…Eitherwhile, Still cant wait for the patch. Everyone just confused me with all of their talk about M3 and what not, so I think I might just play it on vba instead. Thank you for reading my note, especially the stuff in parentheses which I hope was a big help.
Hey Zaratus, could you email me that site and info for where you got that deal for your cart? 50 dollars for both the DS and GBA carts is a pretty solid deal, could you just email me at MetroidMan1118@hotmail.com ? Or if anyone has any information on those kinds of flash carts just email me? Thanks a lot and keep up the great work Mato!!
For people wanting to play this on their DS, the EZFlash 3 in 1 is the best and cheapest way to go. It’s a slot 2 (GBA slot) cartridge that fits flush with the DS. It has 256 internal memory, which is low, but will fit Mother 3 and a few other games as well as homebrew programs easily. It also doubles as a RAM expansion for the DS Browser and as a Rumble pack that are used by certain DS games. It only runs about $20. Note that the EZF 3in1 cannot do DS emulation alone.
It also combos well with an R4 or CycloEvolution DS (slot 1/ DS card) homebrew cartridge, which utilizes the Slot 1 port for DS homebrew and emulation. The R4 and CycloEvolution run of Micro SD cards and the Cyclo can take SDHC cards which allows you to have 4GB (ludicrous) amounts of space on a single card. The R4 only allows regular micro SD cards. Note that the R4 and Cyclos, or any slot 1 card cannot do GBA emulation and homebrew by themselves.
Any more questions, make a post or drop me a line.
Okay, not to be the thread police, but talk about carts really needs to stop/be removed. The last thing we need is to give N any ammo to stonewall this project. We’ve waited too long and been smacked down far to much by N management to let that happen. Plus the work of the team is absolutely epic.
And I’m not remotely interested if you get a good deal or not.
I forgot to mention that I personally use an M3 Perfect Lite because it does GBA and DS emulation in a single cartridge, is relatively fast, and works with every program and game. Only flaw is that it has a clunky UI.
Wow, then yuo’re l33t hax0r teh r@d.
“Okay, not to be the thread police, but talk about carts really needs to stop/be removed. The last thing we need is to give N any ammo to stonewall this project. We’ve waited too long and been smacked down far to much by N management to let that happen. Plus the work of the team is absolutely epic.
And I’m not remotely interested if you get a good deal or not.”
You’re drifting off into “big brother” territory there. Homebrew cartridges have been around for years and years (back to old Gameboy grey brick days)Nintendo already knows about them and is taking measures to deal with them. If they were going to stone wall the project over anything, it would be copyright infringment, not because fans are using them on a 2 year old game they don’t plan on releasing stateside. The only reason companies bring litigation down on projects because of lost profits, which they’re not really losing any of because the game isn’t being released in North America, and most people here already have the moonlanguage cartridge.
Mato, I’ve played up to chapter 4 with the menu patch and can honestly say as a fan of EarthBound that even though the basic structure of the game is not the same, MOTHER 3 is just as good. It’s like reading Terry Brooks’ Sword of Shannara series, then reading the Scions of Shannara Series he wrote later. They’re set in completely different times and visit places in totaly different ways, but we care about the characters in the same way. The fans of the old EarthBound are such fanatics because they care about the game. I’m sure that they will care about this game to.
Fear not, Lord Mato! Those who scoff at this game because it is different from the EarthBound that they learned to love are the same blinded idiots that scoffed at The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess because it wasn’t the suped up version of Ocarina of Time that they wanted! It is these same people that cannot learn that things must evolve, that things must CHANGE. These people fear change. But, lo! Isn’t change exactly what we are trying to accomplish? Is this entire project not a wakeup call/slap in the face of those who withold works of great art from entire societies just because they are to lazy/stupid/worry that they won’t get as much money as they would otherwise?
If my wording is too confusing, I’m talking about NoA. They’re refusal to translate MOTHER 3 is an example of the thing we are fighting against: stagnation. The things we love most MUST EVOLVE. Otherwise, they will be left behind as the rest of the world continues to change.
What I’m trying to say, Mato, is that you shouldn’t worry that there will be people who hate your translation and all of MOTHER 3 just because it is too different from EarthBound for their liking. I’m sure Mr. Itoi had these same doubts when he was making the game. It would be silly for someone to re-hash all these worries again for the english translation!
^ sorry my post was so long and uncontributing. I tend to talk alot.
mad props to you. thanks so much for doing this. i appreciate your time and effort like you wouldnt believe. code on, brotha!
Yambomb mentioned the EZFlash 3-in-1. They also make a GBA sized version. If you’re buying it just for Mother 3 and know someone with a DS and a slot-1 card like the R4, they can load the game to the 3-in-1’s NOR EEPROM for you, then it can be used in any GBA. It’s only like $25.
“Yambomb mentioned the EZFlash 3-in-1. They also make a GBA sized version. If you’re buying it just for Mother 3 and know someone with a DS and a slot-1 card like the R4, they can load the game to the 3-in-1’s NOR EEPROM for you, then it can be used in any GBA. It’s only like $25.”
doh
Listen to this man, my post is worded incorrectly and I make it seem as if the 3 in 1 can do Mother 3 by itself, but this is not the case. Sorry for any confusions :(.
I’d personally recommend the EZ-flash IV. It’s the same size and shape as a regular GBA cartridge, so you won’t be stuck having to play the game on a DS Lite or anything. It’ll work on a GBA, a Micro, the DS/DS Lite or the Gameboy Player, just like any other GBA cartridge.
Amen to that, Fluteboy. Couldn’t word it better myself.
@Yambomb
Right. I have my moon-language copy and a Extreme Flash Advance. I bought my Japanese cart soon after I found out about the translation project. Hopefully the game+patch will work on my version flash cart, I bought the flash cart so I can play M3 on my Gamecube w/ my Hori Gameboy Player controller.
*Ecstatic for the release of this translation*
Can’t wait for this!
Hopefully my cart will play this!
A note on the EZ-Flash 3-in-1 and EZ-Flash IV (and possibly the M3, I’ve heard, but can’t verify), sleep mode is nonworking on those carts. The carts generate spurious interrupts which cause the game to immediately wake up from sleep again. It’s possible to fix if you know what you’re doing with a GBA ROM and a hex editor, so hopefully some bright spark will figure it out and it should be only a minor fix when the time comes. I’m interested in Mato/Jeffman’s perspective on the matter, it seems like a good idea to fix this in the translation patch, or perhaps to offer a separate sleep mode patch for those whose carts need it. Unfortunately I have little-to-no technical knowledge in this area, so I can’t be of any use with regards to what would need to be edited to make it work, but there are a couple of guys on PocketHeaven who have had success finding what needs hacking to make it work.
I had a dream last night that I went on the computer to check this site, and you guys were 60% done with the script revision.
Huh.
I’ve played Chapter 1 and can see that it’s real different from EB, but it seems awesome either way.
Yambomb said:
“For people wanting to play this on their DS, the EZFlash 3 in 1 is the best and cheapest way to go. It’s a slot 2 (GBA slot) cartridge that fits flush with the DS. It has 256 internal memory, which is low, but will fit Mother 3 and a few other games as well as homebrew programs easily. It also doubles as a RAM expansion for the DS Browser and as a Rumble pack that are used by certain DS games. It only runs about $20. Note that the EZF 3in1 cannot do DS emulation alone.”
The cart is 256? Cart sizes are almost always measured in bits (something the DS-X team has had to deal with, as screaming kids who can’t open their eyes and read “The cart is 4 Gbit, which means 512 Mbyte” start screaming “My 4 gb cart only has 512 megs! How dare you try to trick me!” and such. But I digress.) so a 256 Mbit cart is only going to hold 32 Mbytes, or exactly enough for the Mother3 rom and nothing else. Though, Mother3 is the only GBA game (to my knowledge) of that size.
half way through O_o keep on truckin’ mato.
hot doggity dig
another 10%!
remember tomato whenever you need help, scream OOOUUUEENNNDAAAANN! as loud as you can, and a bunch of guys dancing will help you with the 2nd draft
Make go faster!
Get an R4, EZflash 2 in 1, and Cory 1942’s GBA loader and you’re good to go.
Good job! Keep up the good work and remember…
It’s gonna be sooooo satisfying to finish it you’ll feel like you won the olympics.
Very exciting, keep up the great work, it’s great to see a translation project pushing forward so fast. If this is the level of progress that is possible I look forward to the day I’ll have Mother 1+2 & 3 in my pocket, that will be awesome.
Back here -
http://mother3.fobby.net/2007/12/07/hacking-to-do-new-guy/
- you stated “Snap the gray box to the names correctly.”
Is this already “done”? It looks like it mostly snaps for text such as that Friendly Ghost shot up on the side, but then looking at the other screenshots (Alec, Ollie) there’s still a huge gap in between the text and the end of the box.
Not that it’s a big thing, I’m just wondering if that’s how the final dialogue boxes will end up looking.
I would also recommend the EZ-Flash IV (it’d be much cheaper than an R4+3-in-1 as well), but like Vague Rant says, sleep mode doesn’t work. But if there’s an easy fix, that’s awesome. I had never heard of it before.
Also if you’re using an EZ-Flash IV, you could use the Mother3 skin I made for it.
Maketa: It’s been asked many times, and the answer is that it’s final. It’s impossible to make them snap closer for really short names without overhauling the system. The original game even does this. So it’s gonna stay like that.
JeffMan: ah, okay, thank you for the response.
Mato Me and all Earthbound fans at my school thank you
hey why is it when u attack ,you see floating musical notes?
Mato, you said you don’t want people rushing through the game, so can we slow down time, THEN rush through the game?
jk, I couldn’t rush through the game if I wanted to, i’d get bored
Because the game features a combo system where you have to hit the A button to the rhythm of the music.
Mato, the US government is recalling tomatoes because of a recent salmonella scare! You haven’t been affected by this have you? I have some acquaintances in Holland who can hide you and your tomato friends in a secret room in the back of their house if needs be.
Wow, I am surprised so many of you want cartridges instead of just VBA.
I did play through the first chapter of Mother 3, and I would say it is very different from Earthbound. Of course, I only had the menu hack. (SPOILER NOTE: I am going to discuss gameplay elements, but not really storyline.) The “odometer” HP meter is still there. I loved that meter, it saved me in oh so many boss fights in Earthbound. It seems to move slower than the fast moving Earthbound Odometer. The game also seemed to focus on different characters, while Earthbound was pretty much just Ness (with a brief period of Jeff and Poo taking center stage). I also noticed how there seems to be a lot more adventuring and a lot less fighting and leveling up. That might have been just something done because it is the beginning of the game. Of course, Mother (Earthbound Zero) was very different from Mother 2 (Earthbound), and thank god. In my opinion, Mother involved WAAAAAAAAAAYYY too much leveling up and random battles. Earthbound was nice in that you rarely had to take a long time to level up (you really only had to when you got a new party member or right before the final boss, and getting Paula was the only time you had to spend a tremendous amount of time leveling up). I was happy with those differences. I am sure Mother 3 will be a welcome change (and if not, I can always beat fan made stuff done with PK Hack).
Keep up the stellar work Mato.
Hmm, are Spain-Spanish and Mexico-Spanish really that different? I thought it was more like British English vs. American English, where you know, the Brits do things like spell Color with a u and call gas “petro” or call fries “chips” or pants “knickers” but you can still understand them.
I know this is off topic but… Do any Americans know what a toque is? Just curious. (PS I’m Canadian eh?)
If anyone is looking for a flash card, I’d recommend the SuperCard SD. It’s really easy to use =)
I hope that is a joke.
Geez, hoser, most Americans know what a toque is, eh. At least, those of us who enjoy Bob & Doug McKenzie…Which should be aboot everyone.
And just to justify this post…Good job with all the progress, M3 Translation Team!
I also plan to use just VBA. I read somewhere that the music combo thing could not work correctly on VBA, is that true? Because I don’t want to buy a flash cart just for this one game.
To Monsuco: There are lots of words only used in Spain (or another country), that sound very weird in other places. Not only that. The structure of the dialect is a bit different. Spain Spanish uses a more “ancient” structure, like, when in English you hear “thou” and” thy” and that sort of things. I’m not sure how to explain it, but, trust me, they can be very different. You still understand it, but it’s not natural.
“Fear not, Lord Mato! Those who scoff at this game because it is different from the EarthBound that they learned to love are the same blinded idiots that scoffed at The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess because it wasn’t the suped up version of Ocarina of Time that they wanted!”
Dude, Twilight Princess WAS a suped-up version of ocarina of time! The gamecube version is even laid out IDENTICALLY (ie, mountain villages, deserts, Death Mountain itself, and water regions, ALL placed identically to Ocarina of Time). Twilight Princess is OBVIOUSLY homage to Ocarina of Time. Dude, without a boat and cartoony graphics, WIND WAKER is almost the same as Ocarina of Time but not as blatant a rip-off as Twilight Princess by any means.
If my wording is too confusing, I’m talking about NoA. They’re refusal to translate MOTHER 3 is an example of the thing we are fighting against: stagnation. The things we love most MUST EVOLVE. Otherwise, they will be left behind as the rest of the world continues to change.”
NOA isn’t afraid to release Mother 3 because it’s DIFFERENT from Earthbound. They’re afraid that Mother 3 is THE SAME as Earthbound (ie, selling like shiza on us shores), hence, no release.
you know whats weird?
i can combo better on the vba than on the gba
i can bet a constand 9-11 hits on the vba, but on the gba i can only manage 5 if im lucky
weird, eh?
“A note on the EZ-Flash 3-in-1 and EZ-Flash IV (and possibly the M3, I’ve heard, but can’t verify), sleep mode is nonworking on those carts. The carts generate spurious interrupts which cause the game to immediately wake up from sleep again.”
This is a problem when you try to sleep a DS when you don’t have a DS card in Slot 1. As long as you have a cartridge in there, all games (and most homebrew apps) running off slot-2 carts sleep fine.
LETS TRANSLATE IT INTO ATLANTEAN
Anyway good Job Mato and Jeffman
Yambomb: Nope, I just tried it now, it still doesn’t work.
Light Wolf: I don’t know how the PC version works (since I use a version of VBA that is for Wii Homebrew), but I know that the sound is not perfect on the Wii versions of VBA and is very difficult to pull off combos. I don’t think the PC version has too many problems with speed or sound, but I don’t know for sure.
Also, good job to Mato and co. on this project. Keep it up!
Toque, toque… isn’t that the Norwegian guy from Dethklok?
i cant believe what a den of piracy these comments have turned this site into
it may be time to do a complete blackout for the final mile, mato, before these cheapskate pirates net you some unwanted legal attention
Does it take too long to get used to the music combo thing? I’ve tried and gotten 6 max…
I’ve beaten the game a few times and only gotten a 16-hit once. I don’t know how long it’ll take to get used to since I never did at all, but it’s a fairly easy game even without it.
Great work with the translation! This is THE MOST IMPORTANT rom translation project ever! Don’t give up hope! Keep on keepin’ on!
I’ve hit 16-hits plenty of times. Maybe it’s because I’m using the recording VBA and not the regular version. Anyways, it’s just practice. Some are unbearably slow while some are extremely fast to keep up. It’s not necessary like Dr. Meat said, but it’s really helpful. You can reach damage past some of PK attacks.
alright, thx
we should translate the game into Uzbestistanian, so three more people can enjoy the game
To the people recommending the EZ Flash IV: Have any of you tried it with Mother3? I just bought an EZF-IV and Mother3 is literally the only game that does not work. No matter if I try to write it to the NOR flash or just running it regularly, I get the following error: “WARNING: PSRAM is not enough”
Seems like it’s too big for the EZF-IV. Has anyone else gotten this to work on EZF-IV?
(Disclaimer: I have bought two copies of the Japanese Mother3 so far. Sorry if this isn’t the place to discuss this, it seemed too relevant to ignore.)
(P.S. Keep up the good work, Mato! Thank you for doing this! I can’t wait for the final patch!!)
Geeeze
There are other places to talk about flash carts
I know they’re not ilegal but that doesn’t mean
ninty is ok with them.
Talk about them somewhere else and don’t ruin the project.
Which, btw, is going at a rapid pace imo. I remember it took ages for the Star Ocean one to be finished
Wish I could help more than just giving you your just congratulations.