Besting the Battle Text
Worked all weekend (and I mean allllllll weekend π― ) trying to tackle one of the toughest hacking problems of all – getting the battle text to have a better VWF and allow for as many letters per line as we need and fix the auto-wrap thing. Finally, after much time, I’m starting to see some results π
Before 
After 
Before 
After (yes, I see it π )
This is probably the toughest thing left in the project. The programmers designed the battle text system very stupidly. I don’t even know where to begin explaining it. It’s also a memory hog, so trying to expand to allow for more letters (it only allows ~22 per line, ~44 on screen max at any one time) isn’t an option — the game would run out of stack space. So none of us really knew what to do. Gutting the whole thing and starting over is way out of the question, everything’s too intertwined. So my idea was to let the code do its stupid stuff, and in the meantime I do my own stuff over here to the side, then when it comes time to print a letter, do some magic with the existing data to make the game use my results and not its own.
Blah blah whatever I guess π But this is pretty exciting stuff. I still need to do a LOT of fixing; the pics above are the first two I took after I got stuff working. But because everything is so complicatedly intertwined, I gotta make my changes occur elsewhere. Or else sometimes bad stuff happens. Stuff… LIKE THIS
Anyway, just know that this is a really good first step toward overcoming one of the main obstacles holding things back π
More updates/pics/info to come as I fix this thing.
Keep up the good work Mato! We’re all one step closer to Mother 3!
first post!!
Great job with the translation everyone, I’ve been watching since the VERY beginning before it was the unified translation.
Curse that salsa! Bugging things to HECK! HECK I say!
Nice job! Looks like the project is going well. Hope you figure out that bug! ;D
Awesome!!!!!!!!!!! Good luck Mato!
Awesome!! This looks great! I’m glad your making progress so fast!
Six posts in less than a half hour…doesn’t anyone have anything better to do? xD
Seriously though, this is fantastic news. Keep the ingenuity streaming!
Hmm, I’m getting better at anticipating these. Good luck with this; it’s looking really sexy =o
Keep on Rockin Mato!
I love the Kangashark
11th post!
dur, i ben wathin since befor BEFOR teh unifid tranlashun. gr8 joob m8o. lol.
12th!!! Everybody always wants to be 12th, and I did it! ME!
Anyways, this is looking better and better every week. Tomato, your work is much appreciated by numerous people.
Thanks for all your hard work, Mato and everyone else on the project. I can’t wait to play Mother 3 in English thanks to everything you’ve done. =)
Wow, it’s also using the full name instead of “Recon. Caribou” – that’s awesome! That line break problem was one of the few things that kind of bugged me so I’m happy you knocked it out, Mato. In such little time, too! (not that an ENTIRE weekend is little time :D).
Looks like I also missed some pretty nasty/pointless flame war in the comments, too. I thought people outgrew that by now, but it’d be pretty unrealistic to assume the internet has grown free of low-life loser lamers at this point. (that’s my alliteration zing!)
Man, this is the first depressing post I’ve seen in a while. And to top it off, I’ve got the flu! π
I’m going to bed…
(Good job guys. It may be kinda depressing, but at least there’s progress)
My hands are shaking.
Good to hear that one of the toughest parts is almost out of the way. Props to all of you guys working on this.
now if only i had my old earthbound copy to pass time
hey mato. you seem to be putting a lot of time in this project. all for us earthbound fans. i love you man!!!!
Amazing! π Can’t wait until you guys are done! Keep up the good work!
I love you Mato
Quite the bugger, eh?
You guys are pretty much the most awesome people on the internet. Keep up the great work guys. ^_^
But Mato, if you keep up the consistently awesome hacking, we won’t be impressed by all the hard work you’re doing. I thought you were gonna do some tough hacks occasionally just to keep us interested, but all this effort is just getting tiresome.
Great, great. I see things are coming along very nicely. I can’t wait to play this.
Thanks, really.
shadowdeku: Wait, what? Why is it depressing? Probably the hardest thing to fix is nearly fixed now. No comprendo π―
Anyway, got the routine working really well now π Pretty soon I think I’ll have it done, unless any evil gremlins show up. I got two bugs fixed, and things look good. Next step is to see why it gets stuck in an infinite loop after the user presses a button, but shouldn’t be too tough I don’t think.
Mato, I don’t think you have any idea how awesome you are.
Is it just me…. Or is the project pretty much done…?
I mean it sure looks the part and all that is left is little things behind the curtain… Hell you do not even need to fix those things, This patch seems perfectly fine for us fans
Nessie,
the patch may be pretty much done, but releasing it now would mean that many people would download the unpolished version, play through it, and not play it again when it’s truly finished
mato et al are professionals, and probably don’t want anything less than perfect out there with their names on it, either
Vague Rant: Dude, ease up, they’re doing everything they can.
Mato: Keep up the effort!^_^
Tomato, you are truly a man among men.
Nessie: It only seems that way because things are looking nicer than before. There’s still a good deal left, like finishing this battle text stuff, expanding item names, doing the sprite font-welding so that we can put item & other descriptions back in the main menu, fixing the rest of the main script tile errors. If you tried to play the game right now, it would freeze probably 5 minutes into the game.
I even got this to happen recently π
I guess I didn’t anticipate that people would start getting antsy as things start to look better and better π
omg… the suspense is killing me
οΌ GRAVITY I know! >.>
Hi there, I am from Venezuela so maybe I wouldn’t talk properly about these thing, but the only thing I got to say is that I swear that I’m the biggest fan of Mother in Venezuela, and when I found information about your project I almost cry. So I hope you’ll mail me back to tell me about your progress, keep at the good work because you’re working for people all around the world. Good Luck
Wow it’s been sooo long since i checked back on this, amazing how it progressed, to all who have worked on/is working on this patch are geniuses, i’ impressed. Thank for all you have done and will eventually acomplish π
Oh yeah mato will you be able to fit in your own credits? Just wondering cause you seem to be finding a lot of limits to things and wondered if there was for credits too.
The final version dont have a release date but, could you at least give us a month like august or something please.
Maybe you guys should reverse engineer the battle system to make it all work?
Complicated words are complicated. Doing it is even harder, I bet. XD
Keep it up!
Keep it up.
You guys are doing a great job. You are very much appreciated by many people who do not speak Japanese. Keep up the great work!
You guys are doing awesome, please keep up the great work!
I also love this site. You guys are handling this project in a way that I haven’t ever seen before, i.e. documenting almost everything about the work you do and making that available to the public. Unlike a certain other translation project that is going on right now, followers of your work know exactly what needs to be done, how much effort needs to go into that, and have already seen the fruits of your efforts.
So, yeah, just wanted to drop in and say thanks for all of the work and thanks for letting us know what’s going on. It is a whole lot easier to be patient when we can see not only that work is being done, but how much work needs to go into a project like this. And it shows that you care for your fans when you tell them everything that’s going on rather than censoring information and letting it trickle out as slowly as you possibly can (I’m sure it also stops a lot of those redundant “OMG WHENS IT GONNA BE DONE” e-mails you probably get).
So, yeah. I’m excited.
Mato I love seeing those happy faces alot in the updates lately which means great news and its really great progress for working on and fixing the battle text vwf and letters per line problem,after seeing those screen shots things are starting to look neat and complete.
Wow, I just found this web site. I’ve coveted my earthbound cartridge for years and years. I’ll keep checking back cause the fact that this was never released in the U.S. was really disappointing. Rock on man, best of luck to ya for this project.
I think i speak in the name of everyone that cant read japanese or crack anything except an egg : Please do not drop the project and discourage yourselves ! I love what u are doing and i think all of us here feels the same . I think if u really make this to work we would all be ready to send like 10 bucks to you for doing this . Well i would . Keep it up ! π
I love reading these updates. XD It’s always so amazing to see the before and after results. You guys are the best. Keep up the good work! We’re all cheering for you!
oh sorry I misunderstood the post
You guys are doing a great job! I’ve been waiting for this game since it was Earthbound 64. I can wait much longer.
Truly you do what Nintendon’t!
awesome dude, we really appreciate your hard work
thank you thank you. these updates keep me alive.
“why it gets stuck in an infinite loop after the user presses a button” – Mato
lol, epic bug ahoy!