The way MOTHER 3 was originally programmed, it’s very obvious they never planned to release the game in other languages. That’s the main reason the project has needed so much hacking
In contrast, we’ve organized and planned our hacks carefully, so once the English translation is complete, it will be EXTREMELY easy to translate the game into other languages. The text files will need to be translated, and that’s about it. So once the English translation is done, we’ll work with people to get the game into other languages.
(The pictures above are sample translations; the non-English translations haven’t really begun yet)
So far, it looks like there’ll be Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, and German translations for sure. As long as a language has these letters, translating the game will be extremely easy.
More details when the time comes, but I wanted to get this info posted for now.
EDIT: We’ve been getting a much bigger response from this than I ever expected, so if you’re interested in translating the game into your language, please go here and try to organize yourself with others. I’m amazed how many people from around the world are wanting to work on this
This’ll be a short update, busy like crazy with work, but it’s not a bad busy. In any case, Draft 2 is still moving along. It’s in the 85%-ish area at the moment. I really want to get into the 90%s sometime this week, starting to really feel burnt out.
Jeff’s been doing tons of work with the remaining hacking tasks, he’s even finished a thing or two on the to-do list in the last couple days, but I think he still wants to test them a bit before crossing them off. I’ll let him do the talking about that later on when he’s done with it.
Meanwhile, the other day I was exhausted after a ton of real life work, so I started playing around with the current build, and it was neat seeing all these different things coming together, so I was like why not take some video of it. So I recorded the very first part of Chapter 1, it’s like 20 minutes long or so. There are no real spoilers, but the related videos might have spoilers, so be careful of them I guess. I actually wasn’t planning on showing this on a blog update originally, but I won’t have an update about Draft 2 until later in the week, so this is like a stand-in.
Naturally, I should add the disclaimer that this is an early version and text/bugs/etc. will be fixed and smoothed out and changed by the final patch. And yeah, I know about “The Flint”
It’s looking good now, but the game does have crashing/freezing/moonside-creating/etc. bugs, most of which is related to Block 0 text (which is the last really big thing to hack) so the final version’s still a couple months off. When things start to wind down we’ll have a more accurate guess for a release date.
Since Mato started on Draft 2, the hacking progress sort of slowed down because everyone was instantly busy with real-life stuff. However, things are still being fixed and bugs are still being found here and there.
Over the last couple of days I’ve been powering through the following hacking issue:
Fix some ending sequence text stuff — this involves sprite text, let’s hope and pray we don’t need to do sprite text welding again. Currently has some pretty crazy graphical glitchiness.
This was one of the few remaining major hacks that everybody’s been dreading forever, mainly because we all knew in the backs of our heads that some kind of text welding would be necessary, because Mato’s whole sprite welding ordeal surprisingly didn’t affect the credits.
Screenshots of the cast credits follow, so if you’re saving that as a surprise for when you beat the patch, you don’t have to click onward. Otherwise, well, check it out!
Just a quick progress update today. Got through another big batch of text to push Draft 2 past the 82% mark. Most of the text this time around was very tedious and exhausting, but looking at it in-game, it’s turned out nicely indeed.
For those following along with the map viewer (which is available on the downloads page), this latest batch was from maps 342 to 402. Gonna be real busy again this week, so I probably won’t have much time to work on Draft 2 in any significant way until at least the middle of the week, so updates/mini-updates will be scarce until at least then.
Most of the text in this batch is spoiler-ish or just uninteresting, so here is some text from one of my favorite insignificant characters in the game, who happened to appear in this batch
Anyway, it looks like my guess of Draft 2 being done in July will be spot-on. Nice.
A very busy week this week, but I work on the second draft every chance I get. Right now we’re a little past the 76% mark on Draft 2 of the main script. As usual, I should mention that the percentage for the entire overall project is higher, somewhere in the 80%-85% range.
For those following along with the map viewer, this latest batch goes from maps 256-342. Most of that stuff is stuff I don’t want to reveal here, so here are two pics from a batch or two ago.
Meanwhile, Jeff’s been working on little things here and there, and finding bugs every so often. It also looks like the script will wind up a little too big, but I was anticipating that and I’ll deal with it when Draft 2 is done.
In a few days, Draft 2′ll be in the 80%-90% range. We’re getting there.
Been very busy with real life translation work, but I also decided to try to kick things up a notch here. The sooner I can get this stuff done, the better for me. So Draft #2 has jumped from 52% to 71%. No loss in quality, in fact, I’ve been pretty impressed by how it’s shaping up in-game.
All kinds of stuff in this latest batch of stuff, but mostly it was text used in lots of individual rooms. For those following with the map viewer, we’re up to Map #256 now. Here are two random pics from that huge pile. I’m trying to avoid story stuff, so sorry for the bleh pics.
Other than that, not too much else to report. Real life work is picking up now, so things may slow down here. We’ll see. I think we should be done with Draft 2 in a few weeks though. Weekends will probably be when most work on it gets done.
Not entirely related, but for those who haven’t joined in yet, this year’s EarthBound Funktastic Summer Gameplay just started, so check that out if you’re feeling bored or EarthBoundy!
It’s been a real-life-workathon week, so not too much Draft 2 progress in the past few days. Got a few more % done, hopefully we’ll be in the 60%-70% mark sometime next week.
For now, here are a few pics of stuff from today. Nothing special; most of the stuff I did today was main story stuff I don’t want to show here.
Jeff’s been mighty busy with real life too, but he’s been working on hacking stuff when the chance allows. Very early testing has also started, and a few bugs have turned up and been squished shortly after. Luckily for us, they’ve mostly been very simple bugs so far, which is a good sign.
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.
Another late night update. As you can see, Draft 2 stands at 42.61% now. We’re in the 40s, hopefully we’ll be in the 50s in a few days. Unlike before, there wasn’t much duplicate text this time around, so it’s been very exhausting work. But slowly we’re moving away from the text used in the central areas and branching out to interesting new areas. Lots of cut scenes and text-heavy lines too, so the % change doesn’t reflect the amount of work done very well.
By the way, for those following along with the map viewer, this latest batch covered maps 36-65.
Some more random pics from the latest batch of Draft 2 progress.
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.
MOTHER 3 is the sequel to MOTHER 2 (also called EarthBound). It is a GBA RPG that was released in Japan in April 2006. Nintendo has made it clear that they do not intend to translate the game, so we, the fans, have begun our own translation.
When will the translation be done?
We don’t know. But if you enter your email address below, we’ll send you an email when we’re finished!
What's left to be done?
Things are always changing, but a general to-do list can be seen here.
Just a quick progress update today. Got through another big batch of text to push Draft 2 past the 82% mark. Most of the text this time around was very tedious and exhausting, but looking at it in-game, it’s turned out nicely indeed.
A very busy week this week, but I work on the second draft every chance I get. Right now we’re a little past the 76% mark on Draft 2 of the main script. As usual, I should mention that the percentage for the entire overall project is higher, somewhere in the 80%-85% range.
Been very busy with real life translation work, but I also decided to try to kick things up a notch here. The sooner I can get this stuff done, the better for me. So Draft #2 has jumped from 52% to 71%. No loss in quality, in fact, I’ve been pretty impressed by how it’s shaping up in-game.
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.
Another late night update. As you can see, Draft 2 stands at 42.61% now. We’re in the 40s, hopefully we’ll be in the 50s in a few days. Unlike before, there wasn’t much duplicate text this time around, so it’s been very exhausting work. But slowly we’re moving away from the text used in the central areas and branching out to interesting new areas. Lots of cut scenes and text-heavy lines too, so the % change doesn’t reflect the amount of work done very well.
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.
