Old and New
I did a ton of work yesterday, as I mentioned in this mini-update, but I’m still not done with that stuff, so this isn’t a real update. Instead, I played a little bit of my Japanese MOTHER 3 cart last night and was like whoa. I’ve gotten so used to seeing everything either in good English now, or at least garbage English that I forgot what the game looks like in Japanese π
It was pretty neat, so I thought I’d show some before and after things again. We’ve come a long way in a short time!
Crazy space language 
Less crazy space language
Battle text 
I think this looks much cooler 
Status screen 
Hurray 
Equipping stuff 
Now you won’t try to equip
that cookie you bought
Enemy list 
Very tough to fit a translation
in under 80 letters π―
I could go on and on, but I’ll just do those ones π It’s really cool to look back and think that only a few months ago, we were at what you see on the left there. We’re getting there!
In other news, one of my recent hacks from the past day or two, not sure which one yet, killed the debug room. I think I know what’s up, though, so it’s not a concern. Will update whenever I get the next stuff done, just gotta find the time to work on it some more first. So stay tuned!
I agree about the coolness of the english battle text.
Keep up the good work
I would have to agree, I would prefer to play it the way it looks on the right side π
Keep going, Mato! You guys are going to go down in MOTHER history! (As if you haven’t already :P)
I thank you so much! I am not going to play smash brothers brawl (I am going to buy it) until I beat this game in English. You Rock!
amazing! i, too, checked out the previous updates and since the VWF, everything’s looking way more earthbound-ish.
keep up the good job!
lol @ equipping the cookie.
What does Wan Sum Dung literally translate to from the Japanese?
It’s word play with the Japanese word for “dung beetle” and “I want to roll dung”.
Amazin!
Kickass, never again will I have to attempt to defeat evil wih food-related items! ^_^
Breaking the debug room? Sounds pretty odd given the circumstances…
iluvu
Sweet! I love seeing the “before/ after” pictures!
This looks amazing, one quick question: will you continue to work on the game as much as you are now after Smash Bros. comes out? or will you be to busy playing Smash Bros.?
GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH it must be a pain in the ass translating without kanji. I mean, in a language built around a set of a few thousand meaning-characters, as long as you know the damn things, you not only can tell what’s going on, but you also have nice sentence flow markers to tell you where this and that end. Reading just the hiragana is like… tryingtoreadenglishwithoutspacespunctuationorcapitalletters. It can be done, but it hurts.
This reminds me why, even tho I have the Japanese cart, I’ve been waiting for the patch anyway.
Jeffrey: I probably won’t play it for a while, no time and I’m very meh about games at the moment.
Apterous: It’s not that hard at all if you’re used to the way people talk. I remember when I was first learning the language though and tried to play some kana-only games, I was like wtf where do the words start and end??? Then I went to Japan, and just a few months later everything made so much more sense. That’s not something you can really learn in class or by self-teaching, though. Maybe by watching tons of normal Japanese TV you could, though (by which I mean TV TV, not anime).
Ahh, good to see you relaxing for a change. Please, just take it easy for a while; I was starting to worry about your health last week…
Heh, actually I’m just really busy with real life translation work π I’d be hacking more if I could.
lol, crazy space languages.
Based on the comments previous, apparently we rely more on kanji than the Japanese? That’s a surprise, especially considering how difficult it is to actually LEARN them. O.o
Well, not exactly, but what I was trying to say is that if you know how the spoken language flows, reading things in kana isn’t hard at all. Reading all-katakana sentences is still pretty tough for me personally, though, at least π Native Japanese people still find it easier to read when there’s kanji around. If you only ever wrote in kana in Japan, you’d almost seem illiterate or at least childish. There are even weird rules and weird people who make rules about how to balance the # of kanji and kana in your writing to make it flow nicely.
Keep up the awesome work!
You people are awesome! Rock on! I can’t wait to actually understand why Kumatora was yelling a Butch. =D
Ah jeez, thanks so much for helping us all with the moonspeak
Hey, Mato, could you update the To-Do List? That thing gets me even more hopeful.
Oops. Sorry, I was supposes to post “A WINNER IS YOU” image ^_^”
So amazing. I think that when it’s finished this fan translation is going to go down in the history books.
It’ll be legendary, y’all, LEGENDARY!!
Ness is feeling homesick..
Boomerang78: Update it how?
The Japanese status screen seems so squished. However, the English side seems awesomer.
Keep up the good work, mato. π
I think reading katakana only is actually a lot easier. I don’t really have trouble with it. I actually have a hell lot of trouble with kanji, I’ve only memorized like, 80, and 15 of em are waaay beyond my level that I learden only cuz I was curious O.o
learned, not learden π
ArashiSai: γ³γ¬γγγ©γ¬γγ¨γͺγ¨γγ€γΉγ€γγ€γ¦γγ«οΌ
Anyway, I updated the to-do list very slightly by putting rough percentages on some of the things.
Percentages!! I thought those were forbidden!
π j/k
Everythings awesome.
So awesome it’s awesomer than awesome.
Tomato is a god.
A tomato-god.
Kay-oh, Boing zoom!
MATO’S A ROBOT
It took me forever to read all the lines in katakana. I wonder how easy it is for the Japanese since they’re so much more used to the alphabet? Does it even register as ‘weird’ to them to see all-katakana sentences?
I really like the fact that Itoi wrote the games solely in hiragana in order to get the players to read aloud..I tried it a little bit and ehe, well, for me it’s good practice at least. I had one of my friends start a file on EarthBound and I guess he normally reads the dialogue for the games he plays, I thought that was cool because it reminded me of that article I read about Mother 3…but uh, anyway!
Liking the before and after shots too! You’ve done such awesomely amazing work in such a short amount of time. Thank you. :]
Good work! history in the making here! Keep it up Mato!
Very interesting. Funny how I spend a few minutes on each Japanese screenshot trying to pronounce the words even though I don’t know what they mean. Good practice after years of not taking a Japanese class. π Keep on going Mato, you truly are awesome.
I like how you referred to the Japanese text as crazy space language- it might as well be as far as I’m concerned! I really like how you’re using the same Earthbound font for the English text!
I figured the top would be japanese pun…
Does anyone else wonder whether the lack of a proper English release is due to the all these subtleties in the game’s writing; that Itoi feels too much of the game would be lost regardless of the translations’ quality?
Ps: Not that I’m not highly supportive and in awe of your work and effort! π
Another update!
Great job Mato keep up the good work. You might find it interesting to know that the game I am looking forward to most in 2008 is your translation of mother 3, can’t wait till it is done.
> Then I went to Japan, and just a few months later everything made so much more sense. Thatβs not something you can really learn in class or by self-teaching, though. Maybe by watching tons of normal Japanese TV you could, though (by which I mean TV TV, not anime).
Damn! You mean being able to talk about reiki and youkai isn’t useful in daily Japanese life? π And you can’t shout out about how things are “OVER 9000!” without people giving you strange looks?
Actually, hell, I’m assuming that telling anyone you learned most of the Japanese you know from anime is likely to get you weird looks. God help you if that leads them to incorrectly assume that you’re some kind of loner, super pervert even by Japanese standards (I’m not even convinced that’s _possible_, given that tale I read about some kid giving people anime-inspired “chidori” kanchos, which is absolutely wrong on so many levels).
> γ³γ¬γγγ©γ¬γγ¨γͺγ¨γγ€γΉγ€γγ€γ¦γγ«οΌ
Kore wa hiragana yori yomi yasui to iuno ka?
Did I divide those correctly? Hmm, I think I know most of those words… Literal translation being something like “these hiragana (yori?) read easy and (iuno?)” With the “ka” at the end being the question particle which I like to call a verbal question mark. Except those are katakana, not hiragana… right? I’m definitely missing something, and I didn’t realize you COULD write the topic particle in katakana to begin with… I kept reading it as ‘ha’ but that made no sense whatsoever, but I know that when ‘wa’ is the topic particle it’s written as ‘ha’ but read as ‘wa’…
Well, given that I can’t read most kanji at all, I guess that does make it (slightly) easier to read, though less comprehensible over all. After all, if you told me that the ‘hashi’ is broken, it might be hard to tell if you were talking about a bridge collapse or your favorite chopsticks getting broken…
Anyhow, I did learn that ‘defense’ has a ‘w’ sound in it in Japanese. I guess that makes it [de][w-e][n][su], using that weird small-vowel substitution thingy they do with the katakana to form the unnatural (to them) ‘we’ sound… which still isn’t close enough to an ‘f’ to me that I would understand it until I tried to pronounce it π
The more I look at those screenshots, the more surprised I am that the Japanese don’t find it harder to read when so many things are weirdly-rendered English.
How do you even figure out the weird substitutions they use? Heck, I would hardly even know when to use a small tsu to double consonants, but I guess that they don’t have to match things that closely to the English to begin with (mostly because they can’t).
Seeing [de][w-e][n][su] as ‘defense’ still confuses me π
Hey Mato,
I was wondering if the title screen would say Mother 3 or Earthbound 2. I know I would have a warm feeling just seeing Earthbound on the title screen… OHHHHH speaking of a warm feeling!!!!!
(trips on carpet while running to the nearest bathroom)
…
(returns wearing new slacks)
Much better… anyways, just a thought.
Keep up the good work
LoL, “try to equip that cookie you bought”
the wittiness i tell ‘ya,…
its so great π
**stays tuned*
A Fan seems like he actually knows what he’s talking about (besides the other people who post at this blog).
Tomato, this site is my favorite news site currently. It’s because things are slowly getting better. 8) You can’t say that for all news. :3
BTW, love that video from a few blogs ago.
I’m sure it’s just nostalgia but your english screens beat the aesthetic dung out of the originals!
Hey Mato, maybe you should put a disclaimer in the PLEASE NOTE! thing that says you won’t be hacking the title screen to say Earthbound 2 so people will stop asking.
Also echoing the sentiment that the EB font really makes M3 looks “EarthBoundy”. It’s very cool. Ah I want to ask you a question too but I can’t because of spoilers π
Paul: I don’t think so. I don’t think he even knows (well until now) that there’s a good-sized fanbase outside of Japan, so he just never thought about it. But to be honest, it’s not like his text is untranslatable, and it’s not like puns and wordplay don’t exist in other games. I have to translate puns, jokes, word gags, etc. on a daily basis, it’s nothing too out of the ordinary. He’s not really a pun guy or a joke guy anyway. It’s what he writes and how he writes it that makes his stuff so strangely unique π
A Fan: Close. Actually, how you divide Japanese text up is up to personal opinion, but I personally would’ve done it as such:
“Kore wa hiragana yori yomiyasui to iu no ka”
BTW, defense in Japanese is γγ£γγ§γ³γΉ, there’s no u sound in there, I think you’re confusing γ¦ with γ π
lawtey_boy: don’t know yet. I’m guessing it’ll either stay as is, or if we do anything, it’ll probably be to add a small “EarthBound 2” subtitle underneath it. One of those two. I prefer the former, but it’s a team project so we’ll probably vote or something.
Dr. Meat: You can ask on the sm.net forums, or my forum, or my blog, or in a private message at starmen.net, or e-mail, etc. etc. I’m not only at this blog you know π
Nah it’s cool. I’ll find out either on this blog or when the patch is done.
Hmm, you’re right, but that’s a full-size ‘i’ after the ‘de’, isn’t it? Which isn’t so bad, because that makes an ‘ay’ sound when those two are next to each other.
I did misread the other syllable, though. I guess I haven’t run that kana flashcard program in a while.
> βKore wa hiragana yori yomiyasui to iu no kaβ
Hmm, ‘yomiyasui’? That does mean something like ‘easy to read’, doesn’t it? I guess I’ve only seen those words separately, but not together. I have a fairly good guess at the meaning of that sentence thanks to context and knowing many of the words (‘Is this easier to read than hiragana?’) but I don’t really understand grammatical nuances. Things like ‘ga’ vs. ‘wa’ have only barely sunk in despite my having read pages and pages about those crazy moon language particles π “Wa draws a contrast”, “Ga is used to identify unknown things, wa introduces new things”, “You can leave the damn things out entirely if they can be understood from context. This is a good thing. Until you’re forced to try and understand what the hell other people are talking about when THEY do it.”
Actually, ‘un-translating’ the phrases in anime can be kinda fun sometimes. Figure out the words actually spoken, then ask yourself “how the HELL did they get that from what the people said??” π
Great work. I have been following from when you guys first announced this project. I am glad it is going smoothly (for the most part…)
First time I post here but I’ve been following your progress for a looooong time… and I must say I’m very impressed by your work! Everything that’s done in the translation looks very professionnal and I think it shows how dedicated you guys are to Mother.
I can’t wait to get to fully appreciate this game, thx to you.
Just checked out the to-do list… Thud* The progress is amazing. I can almost taste it. You realize mato that you and the rest of the team are my favorite people on the planet.
@Mato: Hmm… About the title screen, why don’t you make two different versions (for the title change) available for download?
Like if it’s going to be in a download page, next to links, in paranthesis, you can tell that there is no difference at the gameplay or at the translation. Also if possible, add a download counter for each of below, so you’ll have an idea which fans like it most.
A Fan: No, that’s a small “i” there in the game. It’s only by a few pixels, but it’s smaller π
Can0fMean: In my experience — and probably the other guys have had similar experiences — multiple patches and multiple versions of things are something you want to avoid whenever possible. Even a quick example you might be familiar with is EB0 — I can’t tell you how much annoyance and confusion’s been caused by there being at least 3 different versions of that ROM out there. So whatever we do, it’ll probably only be in one patch.
We already have download trackers (we’ve had 6047 menu patch dloads total, for example), but I’d rather not have them visible, as it might encourage people to download stuff multiple times just to raise the count, and I’d like as an accurate count as possible.
Actually even though there isn’t kanji they knonw that even Japanese people would have the same issue of not being able to easily read so they do at least space words out more. Kanji itself is impossible to recognize in video games… all scrunched up … lol
Oh also, this is awesome. Keep up the good work. : D
I finally got Mother 3 today… been playing it for a while, pretty damn fun. But I can’t wait for the translation too!
Wow, how does one even recognize that it’s a small ‘i’? I guess the descender is a TINY bit above the baseline? It sure doesn’t look that small…
Also, I guess I translated that sentence correctly, then? Because I have a lot more vocabulary than I do knowledge of grammar π Japanese particles can easily drive me crazy…
You are so amazing! I can’t believe how much progress has been made, the game looks professionally translated. Keep it up, don’t overwork yourself. I really appreciate what you are doing for the EB community!
‘grats on the updates. I remember back in the day when a translation was just a sparkle in the near future, and mother 3 had just been released. The translation has been really fast, truly, and I can’t wait to finally play through this game. Keep up the good work.
This will get lost in the comments, but have you seen this? Some guy made a 3d version of Onett… it’s probably all over Starmen.net, but I know there’s a few people who came over from the other translation and don’t spend much time there. Anyway:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABgTgSnRsYo
Haha nevermind those videos are on the starman.net front page, really should of checked that first >_>
Really like what your doing for the community. π
Is there any chance that you would try translating something else after Mother 3?
Great job Mato and team! You’re really hacking up that To-Do list shorter and shorter… I can’t wait!
Hi, my name is eight bit(even though I am equally a fan of 16 bit games). I have ordered the original MOTHER cartridge for famicom for 20$. I found Eartthbound(mother 2) for 25 at a local store, and I must say it is the greatest game I’ve EVER played. I really want MOTHER3…
Are you going to send this in to Nintendo whe you’re done
ooooh, percentages! been busy all day, had no idea what was going on. THX!
English looks so nice, doesn’t it? But Japanese does, too… Or maybe it’s just because Mother 3 is such a great game!
But ofcourse, it’s so cool seeing Mother 3 in english.
Also, I know some Japanese, too!
“OK desu ka” means “Is this okay?”!!!
About the only thing I know, but thanks to A fan, I can actually make sense of it;
OK… Meaning OK, desu, I guess like being the verb ‘to be’ and ka, which I just found out makes it into a question…
It would be cool to learn Japanese, so I can play some Japanese games and understand it a bit. I don’t watch any anime, though.
Heh, watch more anime in Japanese with subtitles, and it sinks in if you’re paying any attention to what they say π
That’s exactly how I would translate OK desu ka, too, BTW. Desu is indeed the verb “to be” … well, actually, it’s a little more complex because there’s _more than one_ version of ‘is’ … but we mostly don’t care when translating desu, iru and aru into English. If you’re wondering, desu is the “coupula” version of is, as in “he is a doctor” [think of it as being like ‘equals’, e.g. he == doctor], whereas iru and aru are the “exists” version of is, as in “he is in France” which is not the same as claiming that he “is” France… Why two verbs for that? One is used on objects (aru), the other on people/animals (iru).
And yeah, “ka” is probably the easiest particle they have, because it means nothing more than “This is a question” which is why I call it a spoken question mark π Well, you can use “ne” as well, but that’s for prompting the other person for a reply, not asking a question per se…
Nice work onces again! π
Btw… I had this question I was thinking about.. This is a stupid question but I must know just to make sure. But… When this is all done and ready for downloads or however you’ll put it as… Will it be free? Or will it cost? Just a small question and a stupid one… But I’m just making sure and I’m not sure if this question was already said. sorry…
eh eh eh…t-t-t-t-the s-s-s-s-s-s-suspension i-i-i-i-i-i-is k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-killing m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-m-me.
I think you can also use “no” instead of “ka”, but I’m pretty sure that’s a bit more informal. Not sure
BTW, this is getting to me, is “Mato” pronounced “Maito” or “Mahto”?
A Fan: It means something like, “You’re saying this is easier to read than hiragana?”
Also, the reason I suggest watching non-anime Japanese TV is because they add captions to what people are saying all the time, so you learn new words, grammar, quirks, AND the flow of the language pretty quickly. And how to read faster. There’s so much more to Japanese TV than anime, I wish people’d pay more attention to that stuff too. Of course, like most things, there’s a lot of crap to wade through to get to the good stuff, but oh well.
EIGHT BIT: Uhhhh, no. Why would we do that?
Dragonice315: It will be free. There’s no money involved with this.
Earthboundpwnage: Suspension? I hate when that kills people.
ArashiSai: Dunno, don’t really care π
I have a BIG favor to ask of you guys. Could you PLEASE post the videos on the website? Youtube.com is blocked at my house, so I can’t watch any of these…..
[A Fan: “Well, you can use βneβ as well, but thatβs for prompting the other person for a reply, not asking a question per se⦔]
But I’ve seen that used in a response to a question as well, it appears to be used as an exclamation in some instances.
Mato: Well, it -is- pretty hard to get any non-anime Japanese TV online or off, at least that I’ve seen. I guess it’s possible that there’s some on YouTube, but that’s not exactly easy access π Though if you have any recommendations for where to find good subtitled Japanese TV, I’m listening… I’m already at the point where _most_ of the TV I watch is in Japanese.
I know what you mean about them adding captions, though (although they don’t usually seem to be quite the same thing as was said?). They had a lot of that in the Go lessons at the end of Hikaru no Go. Although I felt like I figured out more from the show itself, but who knows? I’m still trying to read that “DON’T EVEN TRY TO READ THIS” line on Adult Swim, but I’m not fast enough to get past “Adult Swim wa …” before it flashes off, which doesn’t tell me a hell of a lot. I’m betting they’re looking for translators or something. And like in your sentence, for some reason, all katakana feels like I’m reading a sentence in all caps :/ Particles just look weird to me when they’re not in hiragana, and I feel like it makes them harder to pick out for some reason. Maybe I’m just not used to it.
ArashiSai: I understand that it’s the short form of tomato. Then again, that doesn’t answer your question, does it? Tomayto, tomahto… π
Unsavory: Actually, I’ve always understood responses like “sou ne” to be more of an expression of agreement than an exclamation. But I’m not exactly authoritative on this π
I’ve still got a long way to go before I can claim even basic literacy. Mere knowledge of the kana puts me somewhere below a first grader in terms of literacy :/
Ooohhhh, so “Nan desu ka?!” and “So desu ka?” make a lot more sense when you understand things like ‘desu’ and ‘ka’ a little better. (Please forgive my spelling, I don’t know Japanese well enough to spell things well based off of how they sound)
What is the rule with the letter “u”? Why is that usually silent as in the case of “desu”? I’ve noticed this in other words like proper names (Samanosuke).
Mato, I think you’re right on with the non-Anime recommendation, but where are such programs available to people who live in the states?
Looks amazing *_*
Can’t wait.
Yeah, those spellings look about right. It’s easier to figure out what they’re saying once you learn kana, though, and divide up the sounds, but even still it’s hard, because ei -> an ay sound, though e itself is sort of like the a in way, but with more of an ‘h’ than a ‘y’ at the end (‘dipthong’ I think they call it).
As for when ‘u’ becomes silent, I think it varies by speaker π Because sometimes they pronounce it all out when they’re trying to emphasize something, but mostly they leave it off whenever it’s easier to say (especially when there’s a ‘u’ sound at the end of the word or phrase). I understand that other vowels can be silent, too, though in more limited circumstances. Then there’s that whole thing where kanji compounds voice the first syllable of the second (and maybe third) kanji, but again, it feels like the rule is ‘whatever is easier to say’ (try saying hitohito vs. hitobito [hitobito means people, hito means person]), and that’s a different kind of voicing–adding a ” mark that changes the consonant to one that vibrates the vocal cords (e.g. ka -> ga, ha -> ba, ta -> da), not where you put no breath behind the vowel, making desu sound like dess.
But this is all from my self-study of random books and things online, so by all means listen to experts like Mato if they correct me π
Less posting more working… haha. just kidding, keep up the good work, My thirst for english mother 3.
I think you can just say the “u” if you want to or not.
Mato, Lucas’s name in JP is Ryuka, right? Well, using the kanjis “ιΎ – ryu” and “η« – ka”, wouldn’t that make “Ryuka” mean “dragon(‘s) fire”?
What that’s called is ateji ε½γ¦ε, and it’s usually done by native speakers for fun or by people just learning the language trying to find extra meaning where there’s nothing π Using ateji you can make anything mean anything. ζ΅ can also be read as “ryu”, and η‘ can be read as “ka”, so ζ΅η‘ = Ryuka. Except I don’t think Itoi intended his name to mean “flowing scabs”.
Anyways, γͺγ₯γ« comes from that one French book Itoi read anyway, so I wouldn’t look for any extra meaning, to be honest.
I should also point out thatγιΎ would be γͺγ₯γ¦γand not γͺγ₯ anyway.
oh
η‘«εγ- “sulphuration”? not sure about it
still ryuuka though XD
The battle text looks much better using the whole width of the screen. I’m surprised they didn’t do that in the JP version. Kudos on that.
Mato: Care to make any recommendations on shows? To save us some of the crap-wading? Have you had any good books that focus on learning the grammar and writing? I’m sick of Romaji but nothing else seems to cover sentence structures etc.
“Except I donβt think Itoi intended his name to mean βflowing scabsβ.”
Actually, now that you mention it. Flowing scabs could be another way of describing that he’s a wounded boy. That he’s a bit of a crybaby. It’s probably a bit of a stretch given the Japanese -> English connotation, but still uncanny.
looking good guys! keep up the good work.
Am I being blocked from posting for some reason? The site doesn’t seem to let me post anymore.
Wait: problem apparently solved, I guess.
Nah, it’s just that long posts seem to take longer to go through or something. Maybe they get flagged for moderation? I dunno. But they seem to show up eventually…
Sometimes WordPress will either flag something for moderation for whatever reasons or think it’s spam and keep it from getting posted. So much spam tries to get onto this blog, it’s crazy. Sometimes real stuff gets caught though.
Hey, Mato. What combination of things should I use to learn japanease. My Comcast has a Japanese News channel.. And they speak Japanese of course, but they have some weird cartoon cat flying by the screen in between parts of the news, and its yelling something.
forgot to mention. YOU GUYS ARE DOING AWESOME!!!
There are lots of people asking about Japanese TV and learning materials — that’s not really the topic this blog is about, but here are a few quick links to video-ish stuff.
Let’s Learn Japanese — if you ever study Japanese in school, you’ll likely run into this. Some of the videos on my matosan youtube account also come from this. Very recommended for beginners.
hi
Japanese “variety” shows, these are pretty goofy and use lots of captions
hi
Japanese “comedy”, and I put the quotes there for a reason π
hi
Japanese documentaries
hi
Japanese TV in general
hi
But best of all is this site, you can get recent shows from Japan, dramas, comedy shows, educational shows, etc. etc. I love this place.
hi
Another mini-update, got a few hours to do some more work on the menu text messages. Fixed some crashing, but the really bizarre code just goes deeper and deeper. It’s almost to the point where I’d rather just undo all my menu hacks from the last week and leave everything 16-bit but try stuff from another direction. But there are still a few ways left to try to fix this mess. There are two main problems, one is how the game copies the menu text from ROM to the stack, then from stack to the memory, it’s a really weird non-standard way, and then it looks like there’s a very small limit on the length these menu messages can be anyway. Like only 18 letters or something. So expanding that might be necessary too. What a pain. Insert your swear words of choice if you like π
EDIT: Actually, now that I think about it, this might be the only way. Undoing everything and trying a different way could very well lead to the same code and the same fixes. Harmony said that a long time ago he ran into a problem that made him realize 8-bit text wasn’t going to work, but he couldn’t remember what that problem was. I think this is the reason. Fixing it isn’t going to be easy or pretty, just getting this far required like 10 separate hacks to begin with π
Oh yeah, just thought I’d let you know, after being turned down by my dream college the 2nd year in a row, this and Brawl is the only thing keeping me going. Kinda sad.
kickass
On the scale from bad to terrible news, Mato, where would you place that?
In the pics on Smash bros. Dojo, it shows Claus. Either he is just Lucas in a different color/outfit, or he’s an assist trophy, but he’s there.
Whoa, this looks AWESOME! I, like many others, can’t wait for the final patch! You guys rock! Seriously…
Vague Rant: It’s not bad per se, just REALLY REALLY annoying. I have some ideas for ways around it, but damn this stupid game π
*sigh..
Damn this stupid game….
… or more accurately: Damn this game’s stupid coding…:(
— but all the battle text work is still safe and secure right?
Would it be possible to “translate” the 16bit text to 8bit on load or on display through an additional routine somewhere? I suppose this is the general idea, but finding out how to make these calls only when necessary is probably harder =/… Best of luck, Mato!
Oh man, you must be getting so sick of that Mato. When I think of all the times trying to fix broken WEB coding (and how that is roughly 567,128 times less complex than assembly/ARM/THUMB/etc.), I can’t even imagine what it’d be like to have to fix a translation hack code.
And the fact that this particular code is so rigid and fickle…! Ugh…
I’ll drink one for you this Friday evening, Mato, and to all your hard work and perseverance!
Well, what it looks like I’m gonna wind up doing is keeping most menu text in 8-bit, except for the few lines that are horrible and would require 2000 hacks to fix. Those will be in 16-bit, and I’ll try to hack the control code routines so that 8-bit item names, etc. get loaded correctly. That’s what the whole point of this was anyway, but it’s not made any easier by the fact that we’ll have to manually test each and every line to see if they should be stored in 8 bit or 16 bit. The programming design behind these menus is insane. The battle programmer was at least awesome because he’d malloc space for text, this menu stuff is just all over the place and uses the stack, a handful of RAM copies, swi 0B, and I think a bong among other things.
I wish this project would hurry up and be done already π
Get some sleep, eat plenty of junk food, and take a deep breath. Everything will be okay.
I agree with Coconut, sleep..junk food.. breathe… it will be fine eventually π — not that you’re freaking out or anything…
and now.. when you say “bong”…
.. hmmmm…… lol,
Another mini-update.
Here, you can see I’ve fixed two things: One, I have the text loading in 16-bit again while most other menu text is in 8-bit now, and two, I got control codes like [ITEMNAME] and [NAME] to work properly in this text. So that’s a big part of what was being a bother the last day or two. I wish I could fix them a nicer way, but whatever. The game’s programming gets too complicated to make all the menu text be stored in 8-bit, and the players won’t notice or care anyway.
That leaves us with the other big problem though. There seems to be a limit of something like 16 letters or something that some menu text messages can be. Go over that and weird stuff happens. I need to take a better look at the code that handles this stuff. It could be an easy fix of manually adding an 0xFFFF at the end, from what I’ve seen. Or it could be very sucko and I’ll have to try to repoint everything to a block of RAM that we’ll have to pray never gets used.
Once I can figure out that though, we’ll be able to cross off another thing from the list. Maybe. I thik Kumatora’s 8-letter name also causes trouble in menus now too. I might just undo all my 8-bit menu hacks and do a cheating hack to make the battle memory names work again. They started this whole mess, those jerks!
What I want to know is, what’s going to happen to the credits? Are the big letters staying? What modifications need to be made during that process? Somehow, I don’t expect it to be an easy change.
Crazy space language sucks for us Earthbound folk.
Unsavory Maggot: I’m not sure what you mean. Credits and ending stuff probably shouldn’t be discussed here anyway though.
Anyway, I’ve basically decided to throw out my work the last few days and handle the menu text from a different direction. If I kept going down that rabbit hole it’d be probably a few weeks until I got everything barely working. This way things should still work right, save headache, and require less hacks. Still pretty ugly though.
Got this funny pic just now, thought I’d share it for whatever reason.
I just mean the non-spoiler stuff, like the big text. It came to me after I beat it (yet again, on the cartridge this time) that player selected names and the like probably wouldn’t look too extravagant in VWF during scenes which use large amounts of scrolling text. I was wondering if they were going to be handled more like EarthBound, (where normally tiny text is written in very big letters) and maybe a tiny nonconclusive guess as to how difficult that may be.
I still don’t know what you mean by “big text”. But maybe this video from 2 or 3 months ago (CAUTION! BIG SPOILERS!) will answer your question.
It sounds like you’re worrying about nothing though, whatever it is π
Hey Mah-toe, I was just on starmen.net and looked at the cast of characters for M3 and noticed that some of them have have english names and and some have japanese names. It seems that a couple with asian names don’t look asian, like lucas’s mom and kumatora. Are going you going to give them western names?
We’re keeping them the same, but since you’re allowed to name those characters, you can name them whatever you want in the game. Also, the English version of SSBB calls her Kumatora, if that means anything.
Hmm…any game with a character named wan sum dung is a good game(talking about japanese tv(non anime)does anyone know the name of a good show preferably a βcomedyβ thanks
Wow. Well I have no complaints, looks like you’re way ahead of me. Very, very nicely done!
Bleh, well, after reverting stuff back and doing a couple other hacks, my fears came true — fixing the other things basically meant redoing the exact same hacks I just turned off. So that leaves 2 choices (maybe 3, I dunno). Either try to hack this very weirdly-designed code somehow (probably would take weeks and a few bottles of booze) or keep pretty much everything in the game in 16-bit format.
The latter isn’t too bad of an idea, we’d be able to take out a huge # of our hacks used throughout all parts of the game, we’d have more consistency, and it’d be much easier to do. Only bad thing is we’d have to rearrange all the stuff to fit in the ROM right, which isn’t too bad, but I’m worried about the battle text, as that’d be like 70 or 80 KB. Could probably move it to the unused font area if we’re lucky, but it might not be possible. Or it might be possible to leave just the main script and the battle text in 8-bit and everything else in 16-bit. But somehow I don’t think that’ll work either, putting the script in 8-bit might affect other stuff we want in 16-bit. In short, bleh. I preferred the battle hacking over this to be honest π
Haha love the two guys named Bud and Lou. I have a soft spot for those movies.
Also that video answered the question I didn’t ask before because of spoilers. Looks good.
Why don’t you just drink a few more IQ capsules and spend a few nights in the hotel? Won’t that fix this stupid game? π
Or you can try rock candy and some sugar packets, but it takes a lot longer to pump up your IQ that way…
Hey, Mato, couldn’t you do something like store the script in 8-bit format and then add a little translator at runtime that expands it to 16-bit at runtime or something? Or am I just talking stupid?
That’s what we’ve been doing this whole time π link It’s always been an easy problem to get around though, just a few basic hacks makes it load 8-bit ROM data and store it as 16-bit RAM data while still loading 16-bit RAM data as 16-bit data, but things have gotten too twisted and complicated here at this part in the menu programming, so keeping stuff 16-bit is best probably.
I’ve been doing a lot of work on our basic insertion tool and also reorganizing our hacks, a whole bunch can probably come out now that we gotta undo a few things. Then I’ll have to modify the text file convertor tools too.
Then, even after that, we’re gonna have to find a way to allow for longer menu text messages. Such a pain, this game is.
Oops, I see my post got edited there. Sorry about that, Mato.
I would like to add that it doesn’t help when trying to conceal spoilers if you just go and spoil it anyway like a moron
so.. these parts that are left in 16 bit.. does this mean there’s no VWF on them?
if so, that’s ok by me! i just wanna play the gmae
maybe Jeffman or harmony will come to the rescue and fix the problem in seconds π
Amazing work as always Mato!!
Nah, whether something’s in 8-bit or 16-bit has no connection to whether it has a VWF or not. Pretty much everything is VWFed now.
I realize your hackers are rather busy at the moment, but I just wonder how much more quickly the project would move if they were here…
Addendum:
Not that I don’t appreciate all your effort you’ve put in already. It’s inspiring to see such a dedicated individual as yourself.
There’s still the issue of text length restrictions, and I still have a lot of work left moving blocks of text around, but things are progressing well. There’s still a bit of that left, and I’m pretty tired now so we’re still in mini-update land π
EDIT: While that screenshot is up, what do you guys suggest for that numbering thing? “Flint has # Whatever(s).” looks ugly, especially with items that already end in an S or already plural, like if you named your favorite food Babies, it’d say “1 Babies(s).” So I wanna do something different. Any suggestions?
mini-update land is pretty cool π
…an update is sweet in any form it comes π
Hmmmm….. my suggestion.. i donno..
this:
Item: Whatever – Flint has # of these
so it looks…poorly decent.. :
Item: Nut — Flint already has 1 of these)
Item: Nut — Flint already has 2 of these)
Item: Nuts — Flint already has 1 of these)
Item: Nuts — Flint already has 2 of these)
But what does it say if they have none?
hmmmm….
bolding it would look better
Item: Nuts — Flint already has 1 of these
hmmmmmmm..
“Hat is equipment”
i kinda think it would be a bit better if you could write something like:
“Just a normal hat that can provide a little protection for you during a battle.”
I’m curious, is it possible Mole Cricket’s description is meant to be a joke? “Whether flat broke or squished flat.”
To Rod.: I’m pretty sure “Hat is equipment” is a blanket statement, not the description for “Hat”, e.g. “Cricket Bat is equipment,” “Ribbon is equipment.”
This is looking good, and I’m somewhat suprised that you’re able to explain coding problems in such a way that somebody who knows absolutely squat about the subject can understand.
I’m sure you’re tired of hearing it, but I’m looking extremely forward to a release on this patch.
Vague Rant: ohhh…. yeah that would make a lot more sense,**smacks hand on forehead**
:)thanks dude
Flint has 1 nut!LOL
wow took for ever to read through all these replys, cant wait as always
These screens are nice to see. π
I agree with Rod, oddly enough. Unless you can fix the pluralizing process like the he/she/it/its/cohort/cohorts thingy, his suggestion so far seems the best.
It could be shortened to “Nut – you have 2 left.”
“you” could be replaced by Flint, etc; replacing have with has.
“Nut – Flint has 2 left.”
This eliminates the need for pluralizing.
The thing is, it’s not about how much is left. It’s about how many of said item the person selected has in their inventory. So if you were going to have Lucas give Boney a Nut, and Boney had 4 of them, it would tell you there that Boney has four of them. It’s not about “left” or “already”, it’s just there to simply inform you. Dunno if that makes sense. But then most stuff here doesn’t π
what about ” Give nut flint has 2 of them “
“item” ; “character” has “number”
would be my suggestion.
I’d go for the “Nut – (character) has (amount) of these” formulation, otherwise you’ll have to start dealing with the possibilities of having plural/singular forms for each item name, which will either look bad, or be complicated to implement
And since the majority appears to like this way of things, it’s probably not worth putting tons of effort in there π
Save your sweat for when you’ll need it.
Conglaturations π on all you’ve accomplished Mato!
Good progress being made in a bunch of ways, though I still don’t wanna do a front page update about it. Anyway, I think something along these lines would be good π
Using the above suggestions, allow me to come up with an example of instances where items need to be pluralized, and don’t need to be pluralized.
Nut – Flint currently has 1
Nut – Flint has 1 of these
Omelette – Flint currently has 2
Omelette – Flint has 2 of these
It doesn’t seem plausible to come up with a work-around. To say that Flint currently has 2 – or to elaborate, Flint currently has 2 Omelette, it would still have a wonky sound to it. So somehow, it has to be mentioned as though you have several multiples of one, while keeping it singular. The problem is, none of the above suggestions seem to make it sound any less noticable. Not even mine.
Unless… following the give item routine, you shouldn’t even have to mention the item name; the player knows what they want to give to Boney/Flint/whomever, so just avoid it altogether.
Nut
Menu
Give
To whom?
Boney
“Boney currently has 4 of these.”
…and it sounds good singular too!
“Boney currently has 1 of these.”
Even still, what does the game say if he doesn’t have one? Would it say “Boney currently has 0 of them.”? Does the game have an alternate routine, saying “Boney doesn’t have one.”?
Without mentioning the item name during the give process, you eliminate the need to pluralize and singularize the item.
Of course, with your mini-update I dunno, I have mixed feelings. It doesn’t look as bad as it did in my head… but I’ve always lived on the idea that there’s always room for improvement.
Couldn’t it just say:
“Flint has 1 Omelette(s)” ?
It might be a lazy way to do it, but it works and I’ve seen it in other games.
For the menu patch, I had it ignore the item name there because of space issues. But I think it’d still be nice to have the name there, because like in those pics, the item you’re giving is obscured by the subwindow.
Food_Eater: But what if you named your favorite food something like Eggs or Moss? You’d have Flint has 1 Eggs(s)/1 Moss(s). That’s the point I was trying to make last night or whenever π
Ha, Flint is a nut
Decided to look at this again, thinking it would slowly die out… I could never be so wrong π
Wan sum dung = Want some dung?
Heh.
Of course, the player is able to do all sorts of names which would look weird depending on the circumstances. What if you named your favorite food “crap”? If you had a plural code, it’d be pluralized as craps. “Flint has 2 Crap(s).” I dunno, that just looks akward. “Crap — Flint has 2 of these.” Given how that looks, I’m gonna have to retract my previous statement. π Keep it the way you want to keep it. The latest mini-update you did actually grew on me.
I completely LOLd like a little girl when I read that “Flint is a nut”.
“Ness, You must be tired! Here, have some WANG and go to bed”
I think you could make a YouTube compilation of stupid namings like that… I saw a signature in a forum once that said something like “Sometimes I like to name Link ‘I Say’ because it makes everyone speak like Foghorn Leghorn”, and trust me, it’s so true.
Argh, sorry for double posting but I had a problem with posting :/
So, @ MATO:
Hmm, maybe it is possible to say:
Boney does not/doesnβt have any of them ?
Boney has none of these/those ?
Still, why canβt you also say βBoney doesnβt have one.β? (the one you mentioned it at your post)
The game loads a different line if a character has 0 of the item you’re trying to give, so no need to fret.
Naming Link “I farted” indeed yields strange results. I believe though topics of this nature should be saved for the starmen.net forums, not the Mother 3 blog. I certainly came up with some interesting Mother screenshots, which I’ve been saving for starmen forum posts later.
It seems Mr. Tomato’s been working like a dog. Do you ever sleep? We appreciate you working hard for the community, but you need to take care of yourself. Don’t get sick on us, man.
Make it something like “Nut – Flint is already carrying 1.” so that it sounds less like it’s referring to his bollocks π
(Yes, I do need to grow up) :p
Couldn’t you just write a for/else loop? I don’t know if you can do this within the software you use to hack the game but. . .
ex. Flint has 2 Nuts
n=number of nuts
if n==1
print: “Flint has 1 nut”
else
print: “Flint has ‘n’ nuts”
end
Flint is a nut! π
Here’s an idea. Correct the singular/plural thing yourself in your head. As long as it’s in decent English why make it that much more a PITA? It’s not like EB by Nintendo themselves was perfect. I mean unless ur going to be in an audicne that woul;d be offended by “XXXX has 1 nut.” I mean who really cares? There’s total polishing then there’s insanity. This is a project by those doing this for free. And I understand how say a singular vs. a plural could be a hacking issue. (IF ITEM = 1 then IT$ stays the same. if ITEM = 0 OR ITEM > 1 than IT$+”s” or “es” comes into play.
I dunno. sorry just defending. Keep it up mato. and if it does indeed get THAT beautiful…. WOW! Masterpiece it will be. Just upset about the pickiness.
Did anyone else notice that waaaaaaayyy up there when Mato was talking about moving to 16 Bit text and how he would have to reroute the ROM he said, “And then we have to PRAY that it doesn’t get used.”
Heh heh, Paula, get it?
Just trying to lighten things up a bit…
Nice work, btw.
This is looking so close to what Earthbound is! I tip my hat to you.
Also, What forms do you plan on releasing the final version as because I have problems with ROMs.