Text Expanding and Item Lengths
If you’ve been following the mini-updates I do in the comments lately, most of this is probably not-news to you, but I did make some sudden, recent progress too 🙂
First, I’ve been especially busy this week with real life work, so I haven’t had as much time as I’d have liked to focus on the game. But what I’ve been doing when I find the time is basically simplifying everything and moving stuff around. There’s not much room in the ROM, and we can’t expand the ROM as it’s already at the maximum ROM size possible. But lucky for us, we don’t need the thousands of Japanese kanji font stuff anymore, so that opens up like 150 KB to move data into. This means we don’t need to worry about space stuff as much, and we won’t need to chop text up as much to fit in the game. In fact, I expanded almost all text blocks to twice their normal size, so we can have good-sized item names, NPC names, enemy names, etc. By expanding the NPC name thing, I can now undo one of my earlier “cheating” hacks too. Anyway, you can see a pic of the latest tool that does all this moving and converting and expanding here.
I’m still not done with the above; I still need to tweak a few existing hacks, but that shouldn’t take but an hour or two.
Since everything but the script’s in 16-bit now, that made all the menus work instantly, which was one of the points of all this. But I wanted to see what else might be affected to our benefit, so I decided to try it with items. Since I expanded the item text block to allow for 20 letters, I was hoping that maybe the game would be nice this time and display them all. It didn’t go quite as planned, but it was no longer the evil crazy mess that expanded items turned into back in November. That’s very good news for me 🙂 The names still weren’t displaying in full, but they weren’t overwriting each other and causing chaos.
I followed some code backwards to manually increase the # of letters the game reads and changed it to 20. The game acted similar to how it did a few months ago, but it wasn’t doing weird printing at least.
They’re not displaying fully 🙁 
But have only one name on a row
and it prints fine
Works good here 
Not now, though
That’s not surprising though, after seeing how it does this item name stuff a few months ago, I figured it would still do this.
But what about item names on other screens? Well, first, here’s what happens when you do menu actions on an item with an extra-long name.
Nice 😀
Anyway, there are other menu screens that display item names: the equip screen displays them in a few places, and the status screen shows them too. Lucky for me, it was really easy to make the game load all 20 letters in these cases. Now these screens look awesome 😀
And here they are on the status screen in their full glory too 🙂
Notice that lowercase a 😯
I was pleasantly surprised how easy it was to get the full names working in these cases. Just a couple of individual byte changes.
However, the game does this with more than just item names — PSI names and skill names are also a part of this. But, because they’re displayed in column form like the item screen, the same problem applies.
Once item names can be fully displayed on the item screen, these things will probably be fixed too.
Anyway, I can probably knock the completion percentage for the item name hack up a little bit now.
My general goal now is to try to get a couple of the things on the hacking to-do list done a week now. There’s not much left, and a week sounds doable for many of the tougher ones. Let’s just hope there aren’t any more evil traps in store.
Every passing day, the game is looking and acting better and better. I can’t wait until it’s done 😀
Yay!
Good Work!
We can’t wait too 😉
So, at a week per hack, the project will be done in…
5 1/2 months.
nuuuu~ ;_;
woohoo!Can’t wait either!^.^
This will totally be a success!:D
Nice work. I found this when I bought SSBB and wanted to know more about Lucas. It seems I’m behind in times when I realized they did release Mother 3.
Its awesome all the work that you are putting into this and I can wait to play it. In fact I am playing through Earthbound right now because it was such and awesome game.
Nick: I probably should’ve been more detailed, one week per major hack. It won’t take a week to do the sound stuff, it won’t take a week to test all the text speeds, etc. etc. 😛
Mato: Yeah, I figured that was the case 😛
You’re doing good work here, lesser men would have crumpled up and died attempting to do half the work you’ve done. Thanks 🙂
Ha, maybe you get this done before Smash Bros. Brawl comes out in Europe (which sounds much more possible than Nintendo giving a European release date of SSBB, but whatever).
It’s nice to see this much progress done again in just a few days. You amaze me ever so often, Mato 🙂
I absolutely cannot wait until the translation is complete and released. Although I played through the game with the menu patch and translation guide, I just KNOW that it will be a completely different experience to play it complete in english without the need to look up the translation guide to know, what Guy X just said to Guy Y so that I know that I that I’ve to go to Location Z and all that stuff.
Anyway, keep up the good work!
Mato I know this is off topic, but Ive got a guidbook in my collection for mother three and on the cover he is a very tall man and had to do with grave yards is this a take off of the phatasm movies with the “tall man” just wondering
No, that guy has nothing to do with graves. Also, if you have any other story-related questions, please post them on starmen.net instead of here.
Mato, thank you very very very much for all the work you’ve put in thus far and all the work you will put in the future. It is very much apreciated!
Awesome work!
I forgot that there are two other menu-ish places where item names get displayed — shop screens and item storage screens. Shop screens were easily fixed, as you can see 🙂 Item storage screens are kind of strange, but they basically have the same problems as the main item screen.
Of course, none of this is an issue with battle menus, since the battle programmer was nice enough to malloc space for everything, meaning it automatically loads text of any size, unlike the menu programmer who hardcoded everything 🙁
Thats just freaking awesome. I’m more excited than I’ve been for awhile just seeing the beauty in those screenshots. Thanks a million Mato
Mato, sorry about posting I just figured with all of the playoffs of other people and characters he fit the bill for that one. Im building a phase distorter that you can use to send your soul back in time to with the hacking knowledge you now possess to speed up the translation (Still havnt figured out how to get your soul back so you can play smash bros.
Keep it up you guys! Every update causes more smiles in the EB community than anything else.
Except Brawl. Maybe.
I can’t wait either, and thanks again. I love following these updates, the menus really are looking good, but of course, you don’t need me to tell you that ;D
Looks awesome! I can’t wait.
Awesome. It looks almost as if you’re done. one major hack per week, plus maybe 2 or 3 minor ones a week would mean it’d be done maybe late June or July? Assuming all goes well, right?
who cares?! I’d wait untill 2011 for this game. (or not)
Well, my secret hope is that we can finish all the major hacking by May or sometime in May. There’d still be the various script drafts, debugging, and bug-fixing after that of course. But it’s the hacking stuff that’s holding everything up.
Awesome. Hey, about those sound clips… Is one of them that “okay desu ka?” thing? Cuz you don’t really need to fix that, they never did in EarthBound
No, we’re not replacing that. There’s an mp3 of them on the to-do list if you haven’t heard them already.
oh mato!
words cannot express how much we appreciate you!
Finally, Mato has revealed his secret hope for the hack 😛
After taking a look at the month old topics, it is impossible not to realize how fast you are. Good work man!
Woohoo!!! xD
Nick: Hey, dont feel down bout the how long. “I” just hope that it’ll come soon, but who knows, Maybe by December or next year it’ll be done.
Keep up the good work, Mato. Looks great so far!
Wow, May? That’s even sooner than I would of expected, considering how insane some of the hacking sounds on this thing. At that rate, sounds like a late spring/early summer release might be a possibility….
You guys are doing an awesome job, keep it up!
CrimsonNeko: That’s just the hacking. The draft editing, testing, and fixing will take a few more months.
Oh, wow!
This seems to be a lot more (okay I’m about to make up a word) progress-ful than I expected from this update since we just had a rather big one a few days ago!!
ROCK!!
So it is looking like this thing could be out around August or September… GREAT! I’ve already beaten the game in Japanese, but I’m looking forward to playing it in English. We waited years and years for Mother 3 to be released in Japan, 5-6 more months will be nothing!
my jap copy came yesterday, on my b-day! 🙂
Well, you brought it up in the update, but what exactly IS up with that lowercase a? You mentioned it in the caption… Just a random little glitch, or was something in particular the culprit for that?
Another note – Full Item Names >>>>>>>>>>>>> Abbreviated Names. =D
Some games abbreviate so bad you can’t even tell what it is anymore. 7th Saga was pretty bad with that at some points, Breath of Fire had some too IIRC. How about that Mrbl3, Kyrn Suit, Znte Sword, Anim Axe, or Xtri Armor. Or Paladin’s Quest? Things such as Lth h, Mid sw, Mid drs, pwr bmg, drem drs, or the pht cn. Stuff like that can get to me after a while, especially nowadays when we’re so spoiled by most games having full item names lately, with most companies taking the extra effort for a more professional looking product. It really does make a difference.
I salute you! =P
Whoo MAY my birthday i hope its done it would make a nice Birthday present =D
guys everey day i check this page for new outdates and finally the thingas are getting rally good for me u are like heroes of the earthbound series so keep it up the good spirit all are counting and rooting for u
How far would you say you are until completion, percentage wise?
Sheerly out of curiosity, how important (without spoilers, of course) are the sound clips that need replacing? Is it “okay desu ka” importance, or something extremely relevant to the game?
I’m going to ask this for old time’s sake; Will you be done before they release Super Smash Bros. Brawl?
necrosis: one is during a key event in the game, another is played when you use an item.
OMGWTFBBQ!?!: No, but it’ll be done before Smash Bros. Armageddon.
Honestly, now that someone mentions it, I’d be happy if they kept the japanese sound effects. It’d be almost out of place to have “Ok desu ka?” and “What’s that?” in the same game. It’s almost as weird as say, Marth and Ike in SSBB – Marth speaks in Japanese, while Ike speaks in English. While I don’t know anything about Fire Emblem and whether or not the original developers intended on this, I just find it bizarre that what did make it over here is partly in both Japanese and English. What do the majority of the fans want? Combined language voice clips or single language voice clips?
Cale, I know you probably didn’t mean anything by it, but you need to educate yourself and show a little respect: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jap. Use ‘jp’ next time and, hell, it’s even shorter 😉
Mato, for someone who has little hacking experience, I’m befuddled by how fast you’re powering through this. And if what you thought was true and tweaking those hacks not taking “but an hour or two”, you might have a mini-update coming…? That wasn’t really a question… or a statement. I don’t know what that was.
A wish?
7ucky: indeed, some good progress has been made by both me and Jeffman in the past few hours. But right now I’m taking a break so I can eat some food 😛
Unsavory Maggot: As out of place as EarthBound’s “Ok desu ka?” and “I miss you?” 😛 Anyway, it’s gonna happen, so if you’re that attached to the Japanese clips, you can refer to the Japanese version and play that MP3 on repeat until your ears fall off. 😉
Hmm, I’m trying to remember where ‘I miss you’ was in EarthBound, hmm, was it in the ending credits? I vaguely remember something in the ending credits…
The Japanese sound clips will still be in the Music Player, right? And, would it be possible to somehow add the english clips to the music player, if you guys desired it?
I have a feeling the originals are gonna be completely overwritten, so if you wanna hear the JP ones i’d suggest making your own copies of them.
The clips aren’t in the sound player to begin with, so uhh, not sure how to answer that 😛
Seriously Tomato… Have my kids. PLEASE!
Excellent job Mato and Co.! I can’t wait for this to be finished! 😀 Keep up the awesome work!
this is a great idea. i can’t beleve how dedicated you all are
THANK YOU SOO MUCH!~! THIS IS AWESOME