Hacking + Translation Updates
Very tired today, but wanted to show/talk about a couple things real quick.
First, let’s talk about hacking stuff.
sblur’s been working hard and he’s managed to get the scrolly text 8-bit-ified. For those who don’t remember from the last update, the game would freeze at all scrolling text in the game because those routines hadn’t been modified to read the script in 8-bit format. But now that’s been tackled, sort of. This now means that the game is *probably* fully playable all the way through. But that’s just a theory, because of other bugs, plus none of us have actually played all the way through yet 😛
(btw here’s a pic of scrolly text in the editor. Note that there are still issues with line lengths… which I mention below)
Second. If you’ve been following this project’s progress for the last few weeks, you might remember that a while back we had problems because the game would insert line breaks automatically every 21 or so characters. byuu found a fix for that easily enough last week… except it turns out that that fix might’ve been the cause for many of the crashes and crazy behavior lately. So for now we’ve taken that fix out, which means the game doesn’t crash, but now the text puts line breaks every 21 characters and it makes things very unfun and ugly. We’re gonna have to figure something else out — or completely rewrite the font drawing routine maybe — to iron this out. This + the weird problem that keeps the ys and ps and gs and other such letters from being drawn fully are looking to be some really tough bugs to crack.
BUT, even with byuu’s previous hack taken out, the game will still sometimes freeze when you go into battle. Why does this happen? Who knows. That’s what sucks. Hopefully when the hacking stuff gets reorganized it’ll be easier to isolate the problem and any other similar problems as they arise. Bugs are smelly.
Meanwhile, Jeffman enhanced the script editor some more to make it easier for me to do things, plus he also ironed out some problems that are really a result of insane, insane programming design by Brownie Brown’s programmers. But now most of those issues should be gone thanks to him. He also updated some of the font stuff so that text lines up better when it’s on the second line, and he also made it so that most text menus (like ones that say “yes/no”) look and act correct, as you can see in the screenshot above.
So there’s been constant hacking improvements/progress, even if sometimes it’s backward steps. There’s so much to do. Wish these guys luck.
On the translation side of things, I figured this would be the best time to discuss this real quick.
Usually whenever I translate something, whether it’s professional or for fan stuff like this, I get into this weird “deep” mindset. To really bring across every line of translation right, you have to think about so many things, like what the writer was thinking, what the writer was intending, what the character is like, what the character knows, what the character DOESN’T know, what the character’s motivation for this line is, the style of this line, the flow of this line, the effect it should have on the viewer/player, space limits, time limits, culture issues, etc. etc. It’s all pretty crazy and it’s almost like being a writer, director, actor, and reviewer all in one. Except you gotta dig deeper.
So when I work on anything, I get really involved. To the point where it feels like it’s a part of me. When I translate Detective Conan/Case Closed episodes, I wind up thinking all detective-like for the rest of the day. When I work on ninja shows full of action, I really get into it. When I work on sad shows I wind up feeling sad all day. When I work on action fighting shows, I feel like wanting to pump iron and work out. (The only exception so far is probably Beyblade, which made me want to curl up in bed)
So what about Mother 3? There’s really no way to express it in words, but the game’s tagline, “Strange, Funny, and Heartrending” really, truly is the only way to explain the feelings the translation leaves me with. I’ve gone through so many extreme emotions translating the game… but what gets me the most is when I listen to the soundtrack at night when I’m relaxing before bed. I’m always thinking “Oh man, people are gonna LOVE when they get to this part” or “people are gonna crap their pants here” and just stuff like that. It’s really hard to describe. I think what I’m trying to say is that as I’ve translated the script, I’ve come about as extremely close to the raw emotions invoked by the game as one can get, and that I’m trying really hard to make sure it gets transmitted to the players too. I want you guys to feel as messed up as I have 🙂
If that sounds crazy, just wait until you finally get to play it. Those who’ve already played the game probably kind of know what I’m not explaining very well. If ever there was a game that could truly make you laugh, cry, and go “WTF?!?!” from the bottom of your heart, this is that game.
Also, the first draft translation is now at 100%.
Tomato, thanks for the update. Can’t wait to play this 🙂
It’s interesting to see how deep you get into it. I don’t know, makes me appreciate the translation more? But it reminds me of stuff Itoi said back when he was making the game.
also per request
::wishes luck::
you sir are my hero. one day my boy will be able to enjoy all this, and i sincerely applaud all that you do.
Keep up the good work Tomato. Its really admirable that you’re going into this with such dedication. Most people would just try to hammer out a barebones translation just to get it done but you’re really thinking of all of us. Its much appreciated good sir!
You get ten high fives. Please distribute the high fives evenly throughout the party. If this is unacceptable, more high fives will be allotted.
Also: Thanks. 😀
😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀
Many thanks for the update and the hard work all the way here from São Paulo, Brazil. May God bless your great mind and willpower 🙂
Keep up the awesome success
I appreciate what you’re doing… In reading your experience, I’m reminded of a (perhaps opposing) idea of translation something to the effect of:
“The main error that our contemporary translators make is their attempt to turn Hindu, Greek, Chinese, and so on into English. Instead, the translator should allow the foriegn language to powerfully affect his own at the level of work, image, and sound.”
I’m not sure if you’ve thought much about the wierd situation: That Mother 3 was intended to be a ‘translation’ of America into Japan, which you are now translating “Back” — if we can call it that — into English. I’m not sure what we are getting, as a result of these various crossovers — of a distortion of a distortion. Of an imagination of the other’s imagination of otherness.
Great work!
For the “y” and “g” problem – Did you try moving the first row of text one pixel up?
You, sir, have the true spirit of a writer! It’s not enough to just know what your characters (or in this case the characters you are translating) will say or do but you have to feel what they feel, think how they think, and weigh every option in the mindset of the character.
I can not wait to play this game, I’ve been avoiding as many spoilers as possible while waiting patiently for the translation. Take your time (not that you need me to tell you that) and do the best job that we all know you can!
From the bottom of my heart to the top of my slightly random and insane brain I say “thank you!”
Whoa! that post was deep D:
But your way to do a translation it’s how any translation should be done. I always get annoyed of the awful translations there are in anime (mostly when they translate from english to spanish) or some videogames.
Mato you are awesome! Greetings from Temuco, Chile, South America.
are you japanese or do you just speak it? is it hard to learn? i am way stoked to play this game, i play earthbound every summer, can’t wait to make this game part of my tradition. thank you
i like many others have been waiting for this since i beat the first Earth Bound(well second i guess) when i was 11.you guys are champions among men who play video games when they should be interacting socially.i tip my hat to you and wish you god speed.
you guys rock! hopefully you get all the bugs worked out!
I’m rooting for you guys. It sounds like a MOTHER game all right. Good luck.
Mother 3 devotion team, you guys are probably the best thing ive found since i first got the internet about 7 years ago (sounds sad because i DO live in the u.s. and im 23. Yes, growing up, my parents were cheap.)
Ill take this time to thank the rom translators who have peppered my life with nuggets of juicy goodness through the years that the lack of japanese linguistic knowledge previously left me high and dry (currently in the process of remedying that. Dont get me wrong though, you guys keep translating em and ill keep playin em. Its truly a wonder to behold the devotion of one that cleanly translates/romhacks the game with a natural looking font. Best way to surprise fans of long-running rpg series is to show them the game they never got to play, in english. )
So thank you Tomato, for translations/hacks of bahamut lagoon and Star Ocean (REALLY for star ocean, man…so good)
Thank you Demi for for translations/hacks of the prelude to earthbound, Final Fantasy II (making this game playable a full year or two before square decided to re-release every final fantasy game they ever made, minus 3 and mystic quest…ewwww….mystic quest…)
And MUCHO thanks go to Gideon Zhi of Aeon Genesis for SOOOOOO many great japanese to english translations, my favorites being the Shin Megami games, Rockman and Forte, Star Fox 2, and Super Robot Wars. I guess Ball Bullet Gun should get tossed in there too (SOOOOO much fun).
Just know that, before 7 years ago, i actually owned all these games (or the ones that are actually possible to own. Sorry Star Fox 2 and Earthbound Zero…would be so sweet to find one of those hacked earthbound zero carts out there but didnt ebay kick em?) and never fully understood them, just had an obscure feeling that i was happy that i dug out plastic pieces of my snes for a good reason. You all have given me the understanding that I believe the developers themselves were going for.
You guys are awesome and when i heard you were teaming up with the first translation team (took over is more accurate but, as it sounds like, it was a needed overhaul to make this game truly earthbound-calibur) I nearly sharted a poo hole through the bottom of my pants. Not only had i been trying to dredge through Mother 3 with barely any sort of fun at all (went so far as recording my voice reading a fan translation methodically and then talking to all the characters in the correct order, playing their segments one by one…really wanted to get the most out of this game.) but now, damn-near everyone of my favorites rom hackers/translators signed on for it. This cleared up a lot of doubt around the quality of the translation as well as whether or not it would even get done (cant imagine the starmen uprising that would occur if even fans gave em the shaft like Nintendo has for far too long). I thought about offering up my services as an editor but, based on screenshots, you guys are nailing the earthbound flavor so all i can say is this.
Take your time. We will wait.
and
Thank You.
You have all made my life at least a wee bit more enjoyable (which is no small feet. Life sucks more often than not).
Just wish dark force was in on this too so i could kiss his booty for past fun as well. Oh well, maybe Tomato will drop him a line and let him know some kid on the mother 3 comments was talking him up too.
You wait until the end of your post to tell us that the first draft is 100% done?!? Sheesh! But I suppose it is important to first inform us just HOW the translation is being done; otherwise, the 100% doesn’t really mean much, does it?
I am overjoyed at the progress I’ve seen in just two weeks. Right now, the only thing that could stop this project is, I guess, an official statement by NOA saying that they are going to localize Mother 3. That doesn’t seem likely, unless a million people purchase EarthBound on the virtual console. I don’t know if I would be happier to get an official release, or sadder because it would kill this project (and we would have to wait even longer to get M3).
q335r49: Yeah, I’ve read about all sorts of different translation theories, they’re all pretty interesting. Sometimes some things are just theories and can’t really be put into practice, though. The one you cite is how I handle my literal subtitle tracks for the DVDs I translate at least.
It’s a wrong assumption that Mother 3 is a rendition of America, though. Anyway, my own personal philosophy is hard to explain, but it’s something like this: everything in a line of text paints a sort of “image” into the brain. Not like a visual one, but like a sort of image of feeling. Hard to explain. My goal in translation is to take try to make the words in English produce as close to the original image in viewers/players as possible. If I was an artist I’d try to sorta show what I mean, but oh well.
bowser: won’t work since stuff at the top is already getting cut off too. That’s why quote marks look messed up, for example.
hunter: no, I’m Americano. Japanese isn’t so much hard to learn as it takes extra time and dedication when compared to other foreign languages. But learning it is definitely worth it 😛
evansucks: a novel :O Don’t forget byuu, he’s equally as well known in the hacking/emulation scene. btw get that hole in your pants fixed 😛
coconut: the rule is save the best for last 🙂 Also, they COULD throw legal guys at my face and shut us down that way, but I’m hoping they won’t, that’d be like PR poison, especially since for the last 10 years we’ve been petitioning and sieging them to LET us pay them for this game in English.
Even with all the work I’ve put into the project, I wouldn’t feel bitter or mad at all if an official version got announced and we had to stop the project. Our goal is to get M3 in fans’ hands one way or another.
@ evansucks. Those hacked carts that are all on ebay all came from one of two sites on the internet that sell them for much cheaper prices. And you still CAN get them on ebay as well. (Searching Earthbound NES and Earth bound NES will usually bring a few up) I just got one of them and they’re slick. (Playing it right now. I want to beat all three mother games before the end of summer in order on the systems they were intended for)
Relevant to the topic at hand. I can’t believe the translation’s first draft is 100% done. I guess all of my other worries have been put to rest, so I have but two real questions.
Are you going to release a debug mode gameshark code (provided it’s not the same as it already is)? I’ve already beat the game in japanese, but there’s still a few parts I’d like to read in english right away before I dive into a third complete playthrough.
Second:
And are you going to release the “Mother 3 Funland” program? Just curious I guess.
THANK YOU BYUU!!!!!!!!
I LOVE YOU ALL!!!
ps, got a quick question.
On the older website, before master hacking/translation crew came on board, there was talk of having two patches released, one being just a mother 3 translation, the other being a the mother 3 translation with an Earthbound 2 title screen added on for those who would like continuity in title screen among their games.
Just bringing it up because im somewhat of a completionist and Having Earthbound Zero, Earthbound and Mother 3 sounds lame.
I’d rather have someone hack out the title screen for earthboud zero and earthbound so they both say Mother and Mother 2 but either would please me. I just think it would be slick to boot up the ENGLISH version of Mother 3 (which was already advertised as earthbound 2 in a few publications) and have it say just that. Earthbound 2.
Remember, this is just a small request and one i wouldnt really care whether or not it was addressed. Just, if the technical know-how is there, why not?
I’m sure I’m not the only person who feels this way.
Oh, and for the y and g problem, would it funk everything up if you just shrunk the font size an iota or two, making it JUST small enough to fit? I imagine it would do something bad, like glitch out the game horribly or make the text unreadable. Just tossing out thoughts.
w00t! keep up the good work! gratz on fixing the issues
kasumi: I just checked and most of the menus in the debug room crash/reset the game. That may change before the final patch, but there’s no guarantee. You could probably still transfer over a save from the Japanese version though, so you could still do what you want, it’d just be a roundabout way of doing it.
As for the M3 Funland program, it’s possible. Probably we’ll release some sort of text editor instead. But not right away, obviously, it’d probably be a while after the patch is released.
evensucks: it probably won’t happen, because (if you’ve played the game) as you might recall, the title logo appears many times throughout the game and each time there are unique things going on. Plus in this case, the title of Mother really is important/significant.
I’d also like to avoid multiple patches personally.
As for the font, that’d be taking the escapist way out, plus it’d look ugly. We demand only the finest in quality here 😛
Now that the first draft is complete, what is the next step. Correction of errors and making sure everything flows naturally? Also, is this the draft where you make sure things such as character/item/place names are consistent?
thanks again tomato
If you don’t mind my asking what will the second draft consiste of? Also what’s a MOTHER3 funland program?
The next phase in the text side of things is like this:
1. I go through the script again and fix stuff I made notes about in the first draft. I also do formatting fixes, etc. And just generally fix things.
2. Meanwhile, all the editors will play through the game from start to finish with Draft 1 inserted. This is so they’ll have context super fresh in their minds, and it’ll also serve as some extra early bugtesting 😛
3. When they’re done, demi will divide the script up into parts and give each one to a different editor to work on. They’ll play their parts of the game and edit stuff to sound good. This is like Draft 3 or so.
4. When they’re all done, demi will do a final edit to everything to make it all in one style/voice.
5. When he’s done, I’ll go through one last time and make sure the original meaning didn’t get lost in stuff. This is Draft 3.5 or so.
The M3 Funland program = this
Mato, since I didn’t catch you last post, what are you going to name the main characters as defaults?
Very happy that the first draft translation is complete and also its good to know your feelings as a translator.
Jackalope: Hasn’t been finalized yet. They’ll likely stay the way they are, but might have more “Don’t Care” names added.
Hmm, I just remembered a thought I had. Now, I know the games on Virtual Console make it mostly unedited. I think they had changed a few advertisements in Wave Race or something. But, I was just thinking… When/If Earthbound makes it to Virtual Console, you think they’ll change that sign? The one in Fourside? You know the one. The one talking about Earthbound 2. You never know…
You guys are going to be famous for your work, I mean you guys really have given it your all. Truth me told, I am glad that if anything else, we will be able to play Mother Three. Maybe sooner than I expected, but hey I could wait a long time as long as I know that your able to play Mother Three.
Good luck translators and Tamato, you’ll always be remembered for your hard work, at least the fans like us will.
Thanks for the updates, and frequent updates. I was worried when the teams joined we would not hear anything. I can’t wait to play the game (translated).
Keep doing that voodoo that you do so well.
‘Is all I got to say.
Translation at 100%, thats great news.
I know its been said before, but we (the gamers) are enternally in your debt for doing this translation, its much appreciated.
The works going great, keep it up, and thanks again
Holy *bleeping* *bleep* I am so *bleeping* excited to play this!
But here is my real question – Seing that everyone has to complete the game at one point (on the team). Is this going to add to the time that it takes for the completion….. or is everyone going to hax there way through making it faster?
Also….. I have some major secret plans for you Mato….. Is there a mailing adress that you can give me…. But i could always send it to Reidman…. but this item is intended for you in thanks for the translation
I never knew you could “log in” wow now i am red 0.0
Now that the thought’s in my head, I bet you already have staff to play the game, but when uninterrupted, I can finish the game in less than a week. Just getting that out there.
Yay! For first draft translation completion!
i love you, man! what you’re doing is such comitted hard work, and you’re doing it just for this community! to be this comitted, you must truely love this game. you have a heart as big and red as a very large tomato. for these qualities, i honor you. you are a symbol of greatness we all should strive toward and an inspiration and a SCHOLAR! you are also probably a ninja. a TOMATO-ninja of plump red goodness. if i could, i would hug you for all your hard work. but, sadly all i can do is thanh you for commiting your time to this from the bottom of my heart. perhaps, this is the feeling you get when a hard day is done and your fingers are raw. perhaps it is like the feeling of respect this great community has for you. it is a great, almost tangible thing. so all i can say is said except for “good job. keep up the hard work. i look forward to playing soon.”
zaratus: Probably not. I fully expect a few changes for legal issues, but companies are usually pressed for time and will only do the bare minimum of stuff needed. It’d be neat if they acknowledged Starmen.Net or something somewhere though 😛 (if you guys are reading, and I’m 99% sure you will at some point, hi)
nessie: playing the game was always a part of the plan. Any good ROM translation will require multiple playthroughs. I played through Bahamut Lagoon probably 10-20 times at least back in the day. It’s common stuff.
Also, if you wanna send me something, then yeah, send it to reid and he’ll get it to me eventually 😛
jackalope: yeah, that’s on our FAQ page, actually. We can handle it, we are gamers after all 😛 The debug room is all crashy and stuff, but I think the “set everyone to Level 99 thing” works still, so we can blaze through the game fast if we need to. Or we can just hack savestates. We ARE game hackers too 😛
siegfried: ninja scholars! there should be a game about that.
First draft 100%? Really? Awesome! Great progress, guys!
Ah, sorry. I bet I bothered you with that little comment.
I forgot to say this before: Good luck!
I am glad to hear that you are making your best effort to translate the feel of the game. The charm of Earthbound was weaved into the text of the game. Translating the original Japanese verbatim to English was my biggest fear for this completely free translation. Your update puts me at ease. That said, I don’t care if it takes another year or another ten years to finish.
ah…
This is getting better by the minute.
Go team! Translation team that is.
TheFreak: Who do?
Anyway, I really don’t have anything useful to say right now. XD
Best of luck with the battle glitch; From my point of view that’s what’s really skunking you guys, at least until you find out the cause. Unexplained glitches SUCK. D:
Poo, is that true?
“I want you guys to feel as messed up as I have :)”
This is the best possible thing a translator could want. I can’t wait to feel as messed up as you do. It really sounds like Mother 3 is going to be ten times the WTF factor that EarthBound was, and I’m excited.
Keep up the terrific work guys. I’m very excited for this!
Hey Tomato
You are totally my hero, translating this game. My japanese is passable, I can understand of this game on my own, about 20-35%, but I really, really appreciate you translating this.
You’re a good man, keep up the good work.
By the by, I wanted to be a translator someday, I’ve been in classes for 2 years and been to japan twice for a semester there. Do you have any advice on how to become a professional translator, or are you working on that yourself?
Very Nice everyone! keep up the good work
elliot: I’ve been getting that question a lot lately, so I’ll probably throw together a section on my site about it. (Yeah, I translate professionally) Just… need to find some free time somehow someyear 😛
In your specific case, the quick answer is:
1. pass the JLPT level 1
2. study and study and practice like crazy translating stuff. this is what’s good about doing fan translations, gives you practice you otherwise wouldn’t have. try translating a novel for fun/for yourself. I learned more doing that than I would’ve in years of translation classes
3. pick up other skills specific to certain types of translating, like for instance, having the knowledge of how to subtitle videos is great to have
4. expect to go freelance, in-house translators are pretty rare
(I’ll someday list more stuff on my site sometime)
HOLY HELL MAN THIS IS AWESOME!!!!!!!!
ok yea your post made me laugh a little because i know what you mean getting involved in a project for example i do the same thing when i am programming my latest game project i really try to dig down and think like the character would think rather than what i am planning for him/her.
I know I speak for hundreds of us out there when I say that I am grateful beyond words for what you guys are doing.
let us know if there is anything we can do to help!
I know it’s sort of wrong to say this, but I almost would rather get the fan translation instead of an official one. And I don’t mean that the way it sounds. I want as many people to play Mother 3 as possible (myself included–I’m completely saving myself for an English version, and tempting myself to not play Brawl until I play this all the way through), but an official NOA translater would be working with less Earthbound experience and motivation. I always hoped that the fans would translate M3 as truthfully and as perfectly as possible, and Tomato basically reassured me of that.
I’m glad you guys are taking things as seriously as the project should be taken! Here’s hoping the best for this project, and hopefully these new bugs will be fixed in the near future!
Man, I just skimmed over comments, but I just wanted to add my thanks for how much you guys are putting into this. All of you, really.
Mato, I totally understand what you mean about getting DEEP into a translation. I translate Portuguese freelance every once in a while, and you know you are really analyzing a document when you feel like crying while translating a paragraph about work place policies 🙂 Thanks for how much you are putting into keeping the final translation good and pure.
Anyways, best of luck to the team!
WHEN WILL THIS GAME COME OUT STOP BEING JEWISH WTF -TRANSLATE- THIS GAME FOR ME AND STOP SUCKING YOU KNOW WHAT
In my country we will make a plaque for you and your team, and then we will eat it to remind ourselves that we’ll soon be playing Mother 3 in english!
*bearhug*
ilovetoeatpoop, people like you suck.
Either youre impatient or just not funny.
WHEN WILL I STOP COMPLAINING AT PEOPLE WHO DO THINGS ONLY FOR MY OWN AND MANY OTHERS BENEFIT AND FOR FREE WTF -WHY CANT I SHUT UP-
well said evansucks,
my guess is that he’s just some silly 12 year old kid
also… Mato… i wanna hug you (but not in a gay way)
Pimpshi: Not to mention they’d “soften” the game a great deal to appeal to an international audience. The only thing that really comes to mind at the moment would be the merman machines (oh, and the hotsprings,) but I can imagine that there are more out there. I can’t remember the evidence, but I can remember thinking “oh god, if they knock this down to an E rating it’ll ruin this game.” Strange, huh. XD
That said, a lot of “stuff” squeezed through the localization of Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow. And it’s only T.
Can anyone offer me a link to for the file?
i have been searching for like 2 hours and all ive found was a headache
just some way i can play the game
Thanks!
sorry if im not allowed to ask here im probably breaking some sort of rule :/ Sorrryy!
i just really wanna have the file for when its complete!
by the way this is a dream come true as nerdy as that sounds
i thought there was only a handful of people including myself who have been waiting on a mother 3 ( earthbound 2 if you will)
soon to be my all time favorite game
“And I like WWWWWWWWWWWWWW”
lol
“everything in a line of text paints a sort of “image” into the brain. Not like a visual one, but like a sort of image of feeling. Hard to explain. My goal in translation is to take try to make the words in English produce as close to the original image in viewers/players as possible. If I was an artist I’d try to sorta show what I mean, but oh well.”
I think I understand what you’re saying, and if you are saying what I think you’re saying, I love you all the more for thinking like this. Just saying. 😀
Well I am certainly STILL impressed…. not to sound creepy…. but where exactly do you LIVE? If that is to creepy for you you can just tell me the state and the general area…..
Hopefully you live near San Diego, then we can meet at some cafe’ and have tea or something….. then I would have a freind who likes earthbound 🙂
so i’m wondering if you guys would ever do a mother 1+2 translation? i’m not sure if it would ever fall within your team’s ethics, but it would be unbelievable to be able to play mother 1+2 and 3 all on a handheld.
darn sparrows
‘Mato, more nitpicking. : )
The MOTHER3 logo only appears at the title screen, after the prologue, and at the end of the game. On the other hand, the title is more significant than it was before, so I suppose it’s still worth leaving intact (plus it’s really quite a nice little dramatic touch in both in-game cases).
Wait, didn’t I say that? It appears throughout the game, and sometimes it has a fancy animation or is altered in some way, making it even more difficult to hack.
please make sure you get it finished before you get a cease and desist order from Nintendo, i can just see it now, another Nintendo game i wont get unless i personally live with Mato…. 😀 (its a joke… hopfully)