More naming progress

16 years ago by JeffMan

Hey, it’s me: that other guy who’s working on the project. I heard that Tomato’s head imploded from all the sprite welding so I’ll be doing this update.

First of all, the naming screens are all done. Spick-and-span, clean, and working. 100% full power.

Remember in Earthbound when Tony would call you up and ask for YOUR name? The person holding the controller? Well, you can name yourself in MOTHER 3 as well. Later on in Earthbound you get a chance to confirm or change the name you had originally inputted. But here’s something you may not have known: in MOTHER 2, when you get asked for the second time to input your name, you’re only allowed to use English letters. As a result, you actually have two player names by the end; the English one gets shown in the credits because there simply isn’t enough room for an entire Japanese credits font.

Click onward for some juicy screenshots and programming talk!

This was paralleled in MOTHER 3: two different names, the second one is English-only, and only the second one is shown in the credits. We could have left it that way, but it was sort of lame because you could only have like 9 letters for the English one, and the alphabet selection was so limited. So a couple days ago I decided I wanted to make it like Earthbound where you have one name that’s extra long and with a full alphabet!

For the sake of undisclosing certain spoilers, let’s refer to the first name as the nickname, and the second one as the player name. The first item on the agenda was to increase the letter limit from 9 letters to 16 letters on the nickname screen. sblur had already conveniently found the fix for this a while ago, so it wasn’t too tough. Here’s a before and after comparison of that screen:

sanc_j.png sanc_e.png

As you can see, it uses the same full letter selection from the regular naming screen. I’ve also extended the upper box to accomodate a full 16-W name. We tend to max out nameable things with the letter W because it has the largest width and it lets us predict how much room we have to make for things. On that note, here’s what that screen looks like when it’s maxed out with W’s:

longname1.png

So that was pretty cool. The next part, the player name screen, was a challenge. For one, the screen only lets you select the 26 letters of the English alphabet. My goal was to make this screen look identical to the nickname one (well, except for the background, but the rest was to be exact). The first thing I did was I allowed the cursor to move everywhere on the screen as if it were on the nickname screen. This was actually a one-line fix, thankfully! That made me glad because the routine that decides where to move the cursor when you navigate around is a huge scary bug-infested land of all that has ever haunted you in your sleep. After that, I needed to actually make it display all of the letters at the bottom, but that was a simple matter of copying the nickname screen arrangement over the player name one. Here’s what that one looks like now:

fact_j.png fact_e.png

Another nifty feature I added to this screen is the ability to have the pre-selected name from the nickname screen already show up when you first see the player name screen. That’s hard to show you guys through just pictures, so you’ll have to wait until the patch is done until you can see that in action. After I did that, I contracted the upper boxes to match the nickname screen. Here’s a 16-W pic of this screen:

longname2.png

The last hurdle turned out to be a big one: displaying the name in the ending credits. Remember how the player name screens in MOTHER 2 and 3 only let you choose the 26 capital English letters? Well, as it turned out, the credits font also only had those 26 letters, meaning I had to go through and painstakingly draw each and every other possible letter that could appear. Luckily the credits programmer wasted a lot of tile space here and I didn’t have to suffer another migraine of extending the tileset, so I drew those letters this morning and I was up and away.

At first, the name didn’t show up properly, because A) it was reading the player name from the old, wrong memory location, and B) it was stuck on the old letter format and would require a letter-to-tile lookup table. Those weren’t too hard to fix, actually, and it worked on the first try!

name_credits.png

Whoever this Mr. Ato guy is, I bet he’s darn proud.

Well, that’s one more thing crossed off the To-Do List. Man, every time I look at that list, I get goosebumps because I’m beginning to realize that the light at the end of the hack-tunnel may appear soon. Both Tomato and I are very busy right now, though, so it’s still going to be a long while before we polish off the list. Tomato’s still going at it with the sprite welding, and he’s finding that a lot of it is intertwined with code that will affect the main dialogue and item length issues as well, so let’s all hope for the best and hope that his head gets better soon.

Posted on Sunday, April 6th, 2008 at 4:12 pm by JeffMan, filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Comments and pings are currently closed.

341 Responses to “More naming progress”

  1. jsuied said 16 years ago:

    thug love baby
    empty the clip
    i love earthbound

  2. Von Krieger said 16 years ago:

    His head imploded? As in fell in on itself? Strange, I thought ruptured blood vessels caused by incompitant coding means heads EX-plode.

  3. Rodolfo said 16 years ago:

    Congrats on finishing the Naming Screen Jeffman! Another one bites the dust.

  4. Jeffrey said 16 years ago:

    This is pretty cool!
    16 letters huh? that’s…. a lot! lol

  5. Pike said 16 years ago:

    Earthbound 2 lives!

  6. Xemion said 16 years ago:

    but mother 3 is better than earthbound(or mother 2 XD)

  7. NintendoBrad said 16 years ago:

    Awesome, another big step closer to completion. 😀

  8. PSI Supernova said 16 years ago:

    This is totally BAWESOME!!! I’ve never really played Mother 3 so if it is better than EarthBound… but thanks to the Tomato of Enlightenment, I can finally decide! When they’re done.

  9. PSI Supernova said 16 years ago:

    And all you other guys too are also awesome.

  10. NintendoBrad said 16 years ago:

    Wow. Mother fans are nice.

  11. ZeroTrig said 16 years ago:

    That’s cool and all, but… my name (first and last) is 17 letters. 🙁
    Doesn’t really matter, though.
    Keep up the good work! I’m looking forward to the patch’s completion!

  12. Rozgabound said 16 years ago:

    Jeffman… the baby is yours!

    ARN’T YOU HAPPY FOR US?

  13. Stef said 16 years ago:

    Wow!! One step closer to M3 in English!

    Reminds me, i was playing Wario Land 3 today and when i started it asked if i wanted to display in English or Japanese. Oh, how i wish Mother 3 was like that…

  14. honeymustard said 16 years ago:

    Great job Jeffman, looks ace.

  15. wasp2020 said 16 years ago:

    Awesome. Hell, we’re all getting goosebumps looking at that list.

    and tomato sauce, everywhere! oh, the humanity…

  16. rusty said 16 years ago:

    Awesome work jeffman! I do have a nagging question though:

    How come the y in “Please enter your name” is all bunched up (as in, the “hook” doesn’t actually hang below the rest of the letters)? Is that the way they are going to look throughout the game or is this just another case of goofy menu programming?

  17. Gamer Geek said 16 years ago:

    I will never figure out as to why Mother 2 was the only game to make it here. I had e-mailed Nintendo about this and they said that there simply wasn’t enough of a fan base for them to see the GBA games as worthy of bringing to the states. I have just looked into the story of mother 3 and have had the roms of mothers 1 & 2 and this is easily one of my favorite series EVER. I really wish that the U.S.A. would get out of this faze of games that consist of you simply running around, shooting things and dying every five seconds. Although we do get some winners like Devil may cry, GTA, and Grandia, our game library has been riddled with the same thing: games that were rushed out for a quick buck. Just look at Sonic 2006. We need something new, something exciting, something that hasn’t been explored before, and as one list note, I couldn’t think of any better way of seeing the GBA out than with the Mother trilogy.

  18. Mato said 16 years ago:

    rusty: There are two fonts in the game, the 16×16 normal font, and a small 8×8 font. The naming screen uses the 8×8 font everywhere it prints text pretty much. You can also see the 8×8 font in the enemy description pics and in a few other places, like the gray name boxes when you talk to people, name boxes, the character name boxes in battle, etc.

  19. JeffMan said 16 years ago:

    rusty: The game is still using two different-sized fonts. At some parts, like that area of the naming screen, the programmers decided to use the smaller, 8×8 font. We aren’t able to have letter hooks actually go underneath the bottom line in those cases. Tomato has actually been looking into it a tiny bit to see if we can get the game to treat the 8×8 mode as the 16×16 mode, but for now we’re going to leave it as it is. Another common place it appears is on the HP/PP boxes.

    EDIT: Hah, perfect timing. 😛

  20. Mato said 16 years ago:

    Hey you, they’re gonna think we’re the same person 😯 😛

  21. ArashiSai said 16 years ago:

    Perfect, Both my names together are 15 letters with space!

  22. Daves said 16 years ago:

    haha that’s pretty hilarious. you damn robots.

    and good work you two!

  23. Papermariofan said 16 years ago:

    Hey, this is the first time I was actually able to see an entry within 2 hours. :O

    When I saw the entry, I was like, “It’s Jeffman, that guy whose name is always associated with ‘awesome’!” ..Then I started reading. I enjoy reading about how far the project’s going along.. Well, even though I don’t exactly know how difficult this is.

    The 16-W thing is pretty clever. I’ll keep it in mind. 😛

  24. Tonto said 16 years ago:

    What I want to see is how the 16-W name would look it the credits. ;D

  25. ali said 16 years ago:

    !!!عودتي

    !!!بحبّك يا ماتو

  26. Rod. said 16 years ago:

    Guys……
    …… .. ..diligence…. you both have it 🙂

  27. starman_373 said 16 years ago:

    I’m a retard. I sat there for like 5 minutes wondering if “Tom Ato” was Jeffman’s real name or something. :p

  28. Reanzet said 16 years ago:

    so will both naming screens have only english letters, or will the other letters/characters be available(like the very first naming screen)…or will that just waste more space?

  29. Reanzet said 16 years ago:

    oh, and you guys DESERVE a good night’s sleep or two! oh, and i’ll have to bake Jeffman a pie too!

  30. Adam said 16 years ago:

    Wow great job gang! One step closer 🙂

  31. JeffMan said 16 years ago:

    Reanzet: All naming screens in the game have the exact same letter selection, which is what you see in the screenshots.

  32. Dr. Meat said 16 years ago:

    That is wicked cool.

  33. FMArthur said 16 years ago:

    Aw, the Japanese version gets cool PSI-related Greek alphabet characters and we get punctuation? 😉

  34. Moulinoski said 16 years ago:

    [insert screams of glee and joy]

    Although for a second, I thought the author of this post was Tomato! XD Jeffman has come to the stage again! But most likely, he’ll remain back stage again. >:( DON’T BE SHY YOU!!!

    Actually, I don’t remember you entering your name twice in Mother 2… or 3. O_o I did remember doing it in Mother 1. Hmm… I now have an excuse to player M2 again.

  35. Moulinoski said 16 years ago:

    Errr… I meant to write in “play M2” not “player M2”. XD

  36. Vyre said 16 years ago:

    This is amazing. My name is exactly 15 letters long, actually, so brownie points for me! And also, having your head implode is the closest thing to eating your own head. That, my friends, is a feat in itself.

  37. TheReaper08 said 16 years ago:

    I finally got my lazy self to update my computer and its great to read that the naming screens are all done one less thing on the to do list and I hope Mato is ok from all this hard work.

  38. ArashiSai said 16 years ago:

    I wish I could eat my own head…

  39. Aphrodine said 16 years ago:

    I WISH I COULD EXPRESS MY FEELINGS IN WORDS BETTER!

    INSTEAD I’LL JUST TYPE IN CAPS TO INDICATE THE JOY THAT I AM FEELING!!11one

  40. Aphrodine said 16 years ago:

    “# Mato said 2 hours, 36 minutes ago:

    Hey you, they’re gonna think we’re the same person 😯 :P”

    Come on people. Have you ever seen JeffMan and Mato in the same room before? Nooo? THAT’S BECAUSE THEY ARE THE SAME PERSON!11eleventy

    /just kidding!

  41. Aphrodine said 16 years ago:

    @starman_373: That’s ok. -___-;; I’m too embarrassed to admit how long it took me to understand the “Cattlesnake” pun.

  42. MightyOne said 16 years ago:

    I hope mitch gives us a comic about mato’s head implosion… on second thought that sounds rather creepy.
    Keep up the good work all the same, can’t wait to finally play M3!

  43. TimeSpaceMage said 16 years ago:

    ZeroTrig: I feel your pain; my first+last is 17 letters too. =P
    Wow, a JeffMan post for once. Mindgames!

  44. bubble-gum monkey said 16 years ago:

    This hack is true greatness! Hopefully the US will finally see that it isn’t all about platformers and shoot-’em-ups. I’d love to see the next EB in the series get released here for the DS in 3-D 🙂

  45. GIANTSTEP said 16 years ago:

    YAY!!! Good Job Jeffman!!!

    Mato: Dude u need a break, want a Kit-Kat Chocolate Bar?
    “Gimme a Break! Gimme a Break! Gimme a Break on that KIT-KAT BAR!!! DO DOO~!!” XD
    but yea dude take a nice long nap if u need it xD

  46. Unsavory Maggot said 16 years ago:

    Ahhh… I too, just realized my name (first name, space, last name) is 17 letters.

    …but of course, that’s why I’ve always used my screen name as my player name! 😉

  47. Mato said 16 years ago:

    Tonto: See here:

  48. Dr. Meat said 16 years ago:

    Thanks Giantstep, now I’m going to have that stuck in my head all day…

    Break me off a piece of that… Chrystler car.

    Break me off a piece of that… Mother Three.

    WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

  49. neo said 16 years ago:

    # Xemion said 4 hours ago:

    but mother 3 is better than earthbound(or mother 2 XD)
    ———-
    I wouldn’t go that far. Nothing beats Mother2/Earthbound. Nothing.

  50. Derrek said 16 years ago:

    i guess i’m the only one who feels it kind of ruined the experience of finding out that there was a point in this title too where you were asked for your real name, aka personal spoilers i guess. 🙁

  51. Mato said 16 years ago:

    Derrek: Yeah, if you’re that sensitive to things (I’d probably be in the same boat myself to be honest) then you probably shouldn’t even be watching this blog. We’re avoiding the big stuff and a good deal of the lesser stuff, but there’s a point where you gotta expect people really sensitive to the slightest things to not hang around. That’s one reason we have the email list thing; people can sign up there and not bother with the site until it’s done.

  52. Snoop said 16 years ago:

    one step closer to the edge

    AND I’M ABOUT TO BREAK

  53. Anna said 16 years ago:

    Awesome! 😀 I love you guys!

    Man I remember this feature in the original EB. The way it was used at the part of the game they used it was totally WHAAAAAA and blew my 13 year old mind 🙂

  54. mitch said 16 years ago:

    I started out doing this as a quick thing but it ended up being colored terribly.

    JEFFMAN EDITION:

    http://i30.tinypic.com/xf7rf6.png

  55. Anna said 16 years ago:

    LOOK OUT MATO YOU GON GET RAPED D:

  56. Jon said 16 years ago:

    Hey mitch, I think it’s good. You use photoshop?

  57. joeymartin64 said 16 years ago:

    Hm. So, you hacked the credits font to include lowercases? Will all the names in the credits be altered to take that into account, or will you just leave those in all caps?

  58. Gaiabeam said 16 years ago:

    Well, I’ve been keeping up with the site for the past 4-6 months and I felt this was an appropriate time to say thanks to mato and jeffman and everyone working on this patch out there for all of us mother fans.

    Mitch: Nice picture, seen some of your others and I love them.

    Well for now I’ll just have to keep pwning ppl in brawl with Lucas.

  59. Tonto said 16 years ago:

    Anna: Totally thinking the exact same thing about the picture!

  60. mitch said 16 years ago:

    Thanks for kind words, everyone. 🙂

    Jon: Yeah, I use Photoshop. Just layers and brush tool.

  61. A Fan said 16 years ago:

    I hear that the “infinite free time” cheat for real life was 0xDEADBEEF. Now, where on earth can we find a Gameshark you can insert into a person and who wants to be the guinea pig? 🙂

  62. TheFreak said 16 years ago:

    Tomato:

    I’ve had a question on my mind that I’m pretty darn sure is spoiler-material…It’s about the name of one of the characters. You’ve probably answered it before though, but is there some way I can ask without ruining anything here?

  63. Dave said 16 years ago:

    TheFreak: i’m pretty sure you can post spoilery stuff on the starmen.net forums

  64. Castform said 16 years ago:

    I love this game!! Its gonna become my favorite, I already ate the ending thanks so much for this news!

  65. TheReaper08 said 16 years ago:

    LOL mitch your pics are the greatest.

  66. Captain Bozo said 16 years ago:

    Mitch your picture didn’t make Jeffman MANLY enough. It looks like a Jeffguy.

    I demand a do-over 😛

    (kidding I really liked it ^-^)

  67. Kamon said 16 years ago:

    Nice, Jeffman! Names are a nice thing to have 😉

  68. Shuri said 16 years ago:

    So close… Man. I cannot wait.

  69. Kamon said 16 years ago:

    @Captain Bozo: All I could think of after your post was Jefflypuff. O.o

  70. evilphox said 16 years ago:

    You guys always busy yet are still able to pull off amazing and timely updates. I love it! You guys inspired me to dabble in ds homebrew using palib (still new to it 🙂

  71. GIANTSTEP said 16 years ago:

    Dr. Meat: Cmon dude, that theme was awesome, and they dont even make comercials like that any more. and its indeed a good Candy Bar :p

  72. MaiXu said 16 years ago:

    Sixteen letters long
    My name in my Mother game
    Makes me write haikus.

  73. JeffMan said 16 years ago:

    mitch: Wahaha, you’re too awesome, dude. Keep ’em coming, I love the pics you make. 😀

    joeymartin64: Nah, we’re going to leave the staffer names in upper-case; they’re actually stored as map tiles, not text data, so it would take quite a while to convert them.

  74. Moulinoski said 16 years ago:

    Kamon… Jefflypuff?

    That HAS to be included as a secret enemy…

  75. Rozgabound said 16 years ago:

    The apocalypse is coming!!!

    Hurry Mato and Jeffman hide with me under the covers in my bed!!!

    …..? lol

  76. hasone said 16 years ago:

    I’ve calculated, based on an arbitrary rating system and the to-do list, that the project is currently ….,
    wait for it….

    59.6%. including testing, which I gave lots of weight to. if I give testing and translation less weight, then we’re…

    72.6% done

    Mato refuse to give you a completion percentage? Fear not! For I, hasone, will make up a number for you!

  77. ty said 16 years ago:

    *backflips and claps hands*

  78. Nutsjesmoar said 16 years ago:

    If I may…
    http://nutsjesmoar.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/jefflypuff1.png

  79. Damn Impressed said 16 years ago:

    Glad to see Mato isn’t the only one doing this project – he’s just the most talkative one. Great job, JeffMan; it looks like you’ve done a very thorough job.

  80. 7ucky said 16 years ago:

    Jeffman – great to hear from you and that is damn fine work! Also, glad to hear you haven’t gone the way of the buffalo as it seems so many of the other hackers have. I can’t blame them, though. I too know the strains of having a LIFE outside of this project and I’m just a reader! 😀

    My gf just finished EB this weekend, so add another one to list of many eagerly anticipating this patch.

  81. p-drizzle said 16 years ago:

    what are you gonna work on next, jeffman

  82. joeymartin64 said 16 years ago:

    Is it possible to fix it up so that the player’s name is displayed with both uppercase and lowercase when used in game text, but all uppercase in the credits? I mean, if all the other names are in all caps, having lowercase in the player’s name would look a bit awkward.

  83. A Fan said 16 years ago:

    My programmer’s intuition says Jeffman will reorder “menus1” next, because it’s probably the last thing left that won’t affect what Mato is doing or cause them to duplicate any work.

    Then again, he mentioned that they both have lots of RL work to work on, so they may have to do that before they worry about Mother3.

    Someone who needs translations needs to convince their company to give Mato a month-long, high-paying contract to translate a few pages worth of text so he has more free time 😉

  84. blueblue2 said 16 years ago:

    double post sorry but i got banned at starman. net so can someone help

  85. Shujinco said 16 years ago:

    Just wondering, will all the glitches from the original Mother 3 still be in the English Version of the game? Cause I’m a sucker for glitches! 🙂

  86. Edrees said 16 years ago:

    NICE JOB!

  87. Rod. said 16 years ago:

    joeymartin64: Dude…… no offense at all, but that would be such a waste of time, unless they already know how to do it and it’s just a minor change that needs to be done…. but in my opinion, seeing my name in all caps would look more weird than seeing it normal while everything else is in caps….

    just my 2 cents…

  88. Nutsjesmoar said 16 years ago:

    The continuing adventures of Jefflypuff!…

    http://nutsjesmoar.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/jefflypuff2.png
    http://nutsjesmoar.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/jefflypuff3.png
    http://nutsjesmoar.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/jefflypuff4.png
    http://nutsjesmoar.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/jefflypuff5.png

  89. Anna said 16 years ago:

    I agree with Rod here. All that effort going into getting the full character set for your name, I’d like to see it used!

  90. Anna said 16 years ago:

    Oh god Nutsjesmoar that’s awesome you rock <3

  91. Chuck said 16 years ago:

    I cannot wait to play this game! Rock on with the fixes 😀

  92. blueblue2 said 16 years ago:

    Help me please mato T_T

  93. Vyre said 16 years ago:

    Lol at the Jeff pics! xD.
    Nutsjesmoar and mitch, you’re both awesome.

  94. blueblue2 said 16 years ago:

    All right I really need some help because I don’t know what I did wrong please this is the only place I can post this please help.
    PS:I did not break any rules so tell me if I’m the only one or not.

  95. joeymartin64 said 16 years ago:

    Well, EarthBound has it the way I’m suggesting. If it’s all that complex, no big deal, but it’s a polish thing. Take FF6/3 on SNES. You’ve either got the characters’ names in all caps during normal text, or battle-screen inconsistency when guest characters like Banon are in the party (Terra, Edgar, Sabin, BANON.)

    But, again, if it’s too much effort for what it’s worth, no big.

  96. blueblue2 said 16 years ago:

    Oh by the way I’m glad that you guys are almost done 😀

  97. Mighty Bear Seven said 16 years ago:

    Haha, those Jeffy Puff pictures are great. The great thing about Earthbound was I always had corresponding friends to name the characters after. One of my friends is an electrical engineer, the other is into martial arts, and of course there’s always the girlfriend…

  98. Coconut of Enlightenment said 16 years ago:

    Marking my place…again.

    Wow, that to-do list is tiny. And it’s nice to see an entire category crossed off. Hopefully, these last few fixes will put an end to all the hacking work and we can all get down to what we’re really looking forward to: the translation.

    Let me know as soon as the sprite-welding hack is finished. I can’t wait to see all the different things it fixes.

  99. mitch said 16 years ago:

    breaking bread with the jefflypuff camp with a poor doodle:

    http://i32.tinypic.com/33mbolk.jpg

  100. ArashiSai said 16 years ago:

    JefflyPuff… how about PaulaChu or PooThoot or NessElia?
    (Pikachu) (hoothoot) (Cresselia)

  101. G.Wicks said 16 years ago:

    You know, I never came across the second naming screen in all my plays of the game, as far as I can recall. I can’t wait to play this in English and REALLY explore every bit and piece of the “World of Mother 3”. I also seem to remember earthbound’s naming screen allowing a heckuva lot of letters, as I could fit all 20 letters of my name, with 2 spaces! All that space is unnecessary though.

    You guys are truly going above and beyond expectations. I truly believe this “fanslation” will be better than anything NOA could have come up with. Can’t wait… can’t wait can’t wait!

    And Mato: take some aspirin for that head implosion.

  102. Mato said 16 years ago:

    G.Wicks: No, you’d have to have done the second naming screen. Can’t progress unless you do that part. It probably just didn’t seem memorable enough or something. I know I forgot about it after a while too.

    ———

    Took like an hour out last night to tinker with stuff. It looks like the very lowest glyph buffer function is what’s shared by the various text routines, and that will probably be shareable, but some extra code will be needed for each type of text. Those things actually seem a lot less scary now, though 🙂 At least for now.

    Meanwhile, I think Jeff’s been planning out/writing that quick little app so people can use their Japanese ROM/Menu Patch saves with the eventual final translation. byuu’s offered to help out with that, he’s written a really nice GUI library. Also, Jeff’s been messing around with switching 8×8 stuff to 16×16 stuff, not sure if it’ll be helpful or usable yet though. He also looked more into this other bug involving map names on the file menus.

    I also ate some Dora the Explorer animal crackers.

    Also, I think all this recent stuff means Jeff needs to start maining as Jigglypuff 😛

  103. Husky_Washu said 16 years ago:

    Speaking of WWWWWWWWWWWW, I see Japanese folks using w’s a lot in comments on youtube and dA and such. I have a feeling it’s akin to our “lol” or something similar, any idea what it means, exactly?

    Awesome to see Jeffman posts every one in a while :b You guys are really coming along! It’s all looking so beautiful…! ;u;

  104. Mato said 16 years ago:

    I’m not Japanese internet savvy, but I believe wwwwww comes from “warau”, which means “to laugh”. So yeah, it’s like our lol/rofl/rofdwfm3/etc.

  105. JeffMan said 16 years ago:

    I should also note that with the save converter I’ll be making, there’s a 99.99% chance that it’ll only be compatible with battery saves, which would be the .sav (or .sa1 with VBA) files. This means that save states (.sg1 with VBA, for example) will NOT be compatible. So if you’ve been playing the game on an emulator using only save states, find the nearest save frog so that you have a battery save file to use.

  106. Zip Code Ness said 16 years ago:

    Wow, that looks like a lot of work was done. I’m very proud to say that the elite are working on this project.

    But I would like to comment on something. Don’t you think it would be better if the Player Name screen (not the nickname one) did NOT have the lower case letters. If I remember correctly, all the other names on the credits screen (Japanese transliterations of the originals) were all in capital letters like: SHIGESATO ITOI. So it would look better if the Player’s name was as well in capital letters like: TOM ATO.

  107. DIGI01 said 16 years ago:

    About the two naming screens in the first earthbound-

    The first one you had to run into (it was in the Port in summers) to progress in the game, but you only got the second one after you drank coffee in the Tenda cave (either that or if you talked to the chief of the Tenda tribe after you cured the tribe’s shyness, I don’t remember which). The second naming screen looked almost exactly like the first, except for the changes Jeffman and Mato mentioned.

  108. Mother 3 bound said 16 years ago:

    so are most people following this translation project in the 19- 22 maybe 23 age range? just wondering

    Circa survive- the greatest lie
    listen to it if your kinda bored. good song.

  109. SAM-E-BOI said 16 years ago:

    WHOOOOO!!!!! NEW UPDATE!!!!

  110. Kamon said 16 years ago:

    I started something with the Jefflypuff thing, didn’t I…

    Those pics are great, though!

  111. NT said 16 years ago:

    I’m not going to play Brawl until the patch is out.

    Gotta keep my priorities straight, y’know? 😛

    That being said, best of luck!!

  112. ArashiSai said 16 years ago:

    Mother 3 bound: maybe. I’m not, just turned 13 like a month ago

  113. Daemoncollector said 16 years ago:

    @jeffman:
    Speaking of the save converter, if you need an OSX port (because most people don’t have Macs to make them) let me know and I’d be happy to make it happen.

  114. wingzero98 said 16 years ago:

    I’m 23 this year. I’ve been waitin for the next mother game since earthbound dropped over a decade ago. Go MATO! GO JEFFMAN!

  115. Rod. said 16 years ago:

    rofdwfm3 = rolling on floor dying waiting for mother 3 ?

    and yeppp im 22.. in a few months

  116. TheMetroidMan said 16 years ago:

    I think most of the people here are older since most of us may have grown up with EarthBound and obviously are awaiting to play the sequel. I am 20 and I grew up with the game when I was pretty young. Its good to see younger people actually being able to play this game. For anyone that is under, lets say 16 or 17 because thats around the time people could have played EarthBound in 1994, how did you hear of EarthBound and when did you play it? The first time I played it, my stepdad rented it for me when I was 6 and I was extremely confused on what the hell was going on. I still fell in love with it though haha. How about everyone else?

  117. ViciousGamer04 said 16 years ago:

    Good luck to you guys on finishing the project! =D

  118. squarepox said 16 years ago:

    Perhaps your right.. I was 10 when Earth Bound 2 come out, but didn’t discover the series till 2002. When I look through my mustyold gaming mags, I see only two adverts for EB 2 spanning 20 magazines (’94-95). Old or young, i believe a huge fraction of the mother fan base is a new community–it’s larger size a result of emulation spreading the series over a wider range of people..

  119. JeffMan said 16 years ago:

    I remember getting the game, along with Sim Ant, for my birthday the year after it came out. I still have the first file I ever made on my cart. Looking back at my equipment screen, I can tell how awful I was at playing RPGs since I barely had any equipment with me. 😛 I’m pretty sure that was my 6th birthday, so that would make me 17 now, almost 18.

  120. Vagn said 16 years ago:

    Mother 3 bound:

    I am 21 years old and have been an avid Earthbound fan since I first rented the game back when it first came out. Its interesting to play the game now and understand a lot of the humor that I missed when I was a child (for example that the blue blue guys were members of a cult). I check this site at least once everyday it helps distract me from my Electrical Engineering homework (sometimes too well).

    Long live Earthbound (I grew up with Earthbound, not Mother 🙂 ) Also you kick ass Mato, same to Jeff and Byuu and even Nintendo who might not have taken the time to release it themselves, but at least they are respectful enough of their fans to turn a blind eye to this project.

  121. A Fan said 16 years ago:

    > I also ate some Dora the Explorer animal crackers.

    Why didn’t you tell us important news like that earlier!!! 🙂

    Seriously, though, I hope those nasty glyphs all fall into place, then you’ll be a long ways towards crossing off some of the most evil-looking items on the to-do list.

    In the mean time, I’ll be having nightmares about a Jefflypuff trying to sing or doodle on my face. Ghaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

  122. someone said 16 years ago:

    I am six months older than the Earthbound and finished it at six.

    My friends cousin gave it to him with the guide, and then gave it to me. I love that game like teens love doing stupid stuff.

    Oh and (Remember that joke) Jeffman you are the third strongest hacker on the team (next to Mato and the Mondo Mole.)

    Got to love/hate freeze/burn/shosk with lightning that mole even if he is not ahacker but an evil mole embodied with power

  123. NecrosaroIII said 16 years ago:

    Vagn, I grew up with EarthBound too, but I still prefer the title “Mother”. It has more meaning and purpose than EB does.

  124. Reanzet said 16 years ago:

    so…after eating those crackers, how much HP/PP did u recover? XD

  125. Jupiter-x said 16 years ago:

    16 here, I think the first time I heard about Earthbound was when I listened to the music on OCRemix.org. I’m one of those freeks who knows more about games he’s never played then some of the ones he owns. For instance, Chrono Trigger. Never played it. Never even seen a cart or ROM of it in my life. But, I watched a guy on YouTube play the entire game, 100%.

    Earthbound was like that for me. I downloaded a PDF of the Player’s guide, and since I didn’t care about spoilers really, a friend of mine showed me the entire final battle scene on a ROM. I also knew a guy and he turned out to like Earthbound too, and he bought me a cart as a gift! Needless to say, I was hooked since the moment I first heard those magic melodies…

  126. Jupiter-x said 16 years ago:

    Oh, man, it’s horrible to say, but back in the day, I thought Ness was an original character to Super Smash Brothers (N64, I’m not THAT young.) and his logo was the Earth because he was supposed to be from the “real world” or something. xP and sorry for the postx2

  127. necrosis said 16 years ago:

    Mother3bound: I’m 16. I first played the game about 10 years ago, had no idea what I was doing, gave up. Played it again about two years ago (go smash brothers, nice job thar), was like “ok this isn’t so bad” and never touched it again for some reason. Much earlier this year I decided it’s about time to just get playing Earthbound Zero since thinking I really want to won’t get it played, and I LOVED it, so here I am, now most of the way through Mother 3.

    I really do love it though, I’m hyping it up like crazy everywhere… that and Arcana Heart (it comes out in the USA tomorrow! Check it out!).

    Little side note, I just got MOTHER3+ and MOTHER3i. Good stuff. I’m with Mato on this one, but I’ll throw in that they’re both pretty great overall.

  128. TheReaper08 said 16 years ago:

    Can you imagine earthbound being released on the wii the same day as the mother 3 English patch is release by Mato.

  129. baxter said 16 years ago:

    this is more of a starmen.net forum question, but anyway.. I’m 21, making the transition to real life reality and about to end college soon. so the mother 3 translation comes at just the right time in my life, where the right kind of meaningful escapism (mother 3) becomes all the more poignant.

  130. mitch said 16 years ago:

    20 on this end. Played the game when I was either 8 or 9. I also split Starmen.net and Earthbound.net by accident. True story.

  131. Mato said 16 years ago:

    To be honest, it was probably gonna happen anyway 😛

    EDIT: BTW, they’re together again if you haven’t noticed.

  132. Anna said 16 years ago:

    I read a bunch of the history stuff. It would have been cooler if you managed to get moonsi.de somehow imo XD

  133. TBird said 16 years ago:

    A app for converting Japanese saves to English would be great, but I’ll probably just restart since I’m probably missing so much of the Mother/Earthbound humor by playing with the story translation script.

  134. madlobster said 16 years ago:

    31 here. Been waiting since I was 17, I guess.

  135. flclrocks07 said 16 years ago:

    Mato: Have you been working on Shin Wars for Adult Swim? Cos I know you said you worked on Shin in the past and I just saw the commercial. I’m really glad you guys are so close to crossing an evil hack off of the list. Don’t work too hard. 😀

  136. Eddward said 16 years ago:

    I can’t rember when I first got Earthbound. I rember downloading the ROM on dialup and saying, “This is so cool. It’s not cliche fantasy.” A few months later I got the big box, game and guide at a garage sale for only $30. Loved it since. Still own that big box too. Earthbound beats out Final Fantasy for me. I prefer the silly modern setting versus the Fantasy enviroments that most people seem to love.

    Mato: You eat Dora the Explorer animal crackers? Cool! I do to. They are fun! Sometimes I like to say, “Swiper, no swiping” when I eat em. I love those looks I get when I do that.

  137. sonicflames said 16 years ago:

    im 15 and i loved super smash bros series and i liked to play as ness and read all the trophies then i wanted to play earthbound but i couldnt find a Snes and a cartridge of earthbound so i could play it until 2005 where my friend showed me emulators and roms

  138. Naki said 16 years ago:

    I’m about to turn 19 and I used to watch my mom playing when I was 6 and her friends lent it to her.. she bought it a week later and I took over..
    ironically I thought the game was very amazing because she told me “Now I have to beat frank!”(“tenho de derrotar o frank” in portuguese) and I misunderstood.. I thought she said “Now I have to steal a chicken!”(“tenho de roubar um frango”) hahahaha

    without knowing any english, beating it was a hard task..
    but I eventually got it done in one year or so! lol

  139. Naki said 16 years ago:

    ps, if you’re wondering, I used to live in azores, in the military area.. so we bought the game from the american shops we had there

  140. Lena said 16 years ago:

    Ahhh… I was in 5th Grade back in 1995. I played the big box after one of my friends pointed me to it. I was a huge Chrono Trigger fan, and after beating it, I was totally starved for another RPG. My friend Tommy started telling me about Earthbound (I believe he sold it as “It’s awesome. You get to run around and beat up old ladies with bats, and taxi cabs attack you and stuff!”). He showed me the game, and my first reaction was “…wt..f…?” LOL

    It took until I got to about Twoson for me to really fall in love. Once I hit that point… Ha ha, I couldn’t stop playing.

  141. Bologna? said 16 years ago:

    Mitch, you are quite talented with your photoshop skills, makes reading the comments a lot more joyful, keep it up. 😀 As for you Mato and Jefflypuff, you keep on rockin. I’m with you all the way my friends.

  142. Unsavory Maggot said 16 years ago:

    I’m 21. I rented EarthBound when I was 13. Eventually, I got it for my mom for her birthday (a true “Mother’s Day”) and we’ve both been in love with the series ever since. You can imagine my astonishment when I realized a few years ago that the series’ true name overseas is actually Mother. This series has always held a special place in my heart.

  143. Unsavory Maggot said 16 years ago:

    Eeep… that is, I’m 20… about to turn 21 in two months. Ah, what’s it matter? 😉 I may as well be 21 now. 😀 The time in a man’s life when he doesn’t have to feel like a kid and live in the past anymore. Nope. Now I can smoke, and drink all I want. Woohoo!

    …man, I keep forgetting that I’m still 20 inbetween sentences. 😮

    To Mother 1, 2 and 3. To being young at heart and loving every minute of it. I LOVE YOU SHIGESATO ITOI!!!

    …oh, and of course Tomato and Jeffman too. 😉 You guys are awesome! Keep it up! Wooooo!

  144. Von Krieger said 16 years ago:

    I’m 24, never owned Earthbound, but considering all the times I’ve rented it, I probably ought to have just bought myself a copy. I did the same thing with Final Fantasy 2.

  145. TimeSpaceMage said 16 years ago:

    Jupiter-X: Yeah, the problem with some ROMs is that they don’t emulate sound correctly, like with Mario RPG and (if I remember right) Chrono Trigger as well.

    Also, I’m 23. We were at some game store in Germany and saw the huge EB box on a top shelf, so we got it and I fell in love since. I’ve seen the ending in speed runs, but keep forgetting to beat it X)

    …wait, what was that about Arcana Heart being released here tomorrow?! *spazzes out and runs around the room, shouting and whooping*

  146. Adolfo said 16 years ago:

    I just turned 26, I bought earthbound when I was like 12? 13? RPGS were my favorite genre and that HUGE BOX definitely got my attention, that´s why I decided to buy it, I loved it back then, and re-playing it now as an adult makes me appreciate even more the game and all those little details (talking to a tiny sesame seed in the middle of the desert, Pincho, Pancho, and Thomas Jefferson resembling Mexican immigrants), by the way I´m Mexican and I don´t like stereotypes of my beautiful country but I found that hilarious.

  147. Unsavory Maggot said 16 years ago:

    Hey Tomato, (and everyone else here) since you translate Japanese texts aplenty and exhibit a genuine interest in the subject, I was curious if you currently or previously enjoyed Japanese music? I’m totally in love with “Maximum the Hormone”, their tracks are hip and off the wall — they’re so heavy and they jam like they mean it… and obviously they have a lot of fun while doing so. They seem to endulge in a wide variety of rock and metal, (in such a fun and cool way, might I add) much like our now deceased “System of a Down”. So what Japanese artists do you listen to and why? Wouldn’t you agree that there are plenty of legends in the making over there?

  148. akfgk said 16 years ago:

    As Usual.. Much Respect.. Wish You Weere Mato (as I Do Not Know you JeffMan.. but Still I respect your Works !Very Interest to Me).. Maybe You can Solve Mystery for me which Has Gone Unanswered..
    I Constant Ask Mato “My Boy.. How muhc Methamphetamine You Do To Get this Much Work Done on Mother Translation Project” But he Never answer My Ask..
    JeffMan… How Much Methamphetamine Do Mato Smoking?

  149. ArashiSai said 16 years ago:

    @MetroidMan: I played EarthBound because I played smash when I was 4 and I loved Ness, so I played it on an emulator. I’ve been a fan for less than a yar

  150. ArashiSai said 16 years ago:

    year, not yar (PIRATE!!!)

  151. Unsavory Maggot said 16 years ago:

    Wow… it’s so weird. I just noticed how weird this is. I feel so old, even though I’m so young. I grew up with the Atari 2600, Intellivision and NES systems to start, and just now I realize that the new gen kids started with the 64… not to mention the ones starting with the GCN, Wii and otherwise recent systems. This blows my mind. I hope the young ones won’t be dissing and missing out on our generation, and our ancestors’ generations of gaming. Why, back in their day, they just made shadow puppets in front of a camp fire and called it good. I know this shouldn’t be any kind of shocking news to me or anything, but dang… still so weird in many ways.

  152. Apteryx said 16 years ago:

    Yeah, I know what you mean. A couple years ago, I found a bunch of old casette tapes I used to have, and my younger sister (9 years my junior) asked me “What’s that thing?” That was such a weird feeling. Growing up on NES with these other kids growing up on PS2 and PS3 is just nuts.

    <3 Mother 3 translation, keep up the awesome work!

  153. PureRok said 16 years ago:

    I remember when I was wee little kid. Going down the Hollywood Video and walking down the SNES aisle and seeing this giant box with a odd robot thing on it. I remember pointing right at, looking at my dad and saying “I want to play that!”

    So, I played it… and loved every second of it. I got it for my birthday several years later (sadly without the box or book) on my 12th or so birthday. I’m 18 now, 19 in a few months.

    I love the whole series. Long live Mother/Earthbound!

  154. hectorious said 16 years ago:

    this is looking amazing, cant wait 🙂

  155. Alaska Nebraska said 16 years ago:

    Let’s get married when you’re done, m’dear.

  156. TheMetroidMan said 16 years ago:

    I posted that question about ages when you played EarthBound to see if my hunch was right, and it was. It seems more or less people that are over 17 seemed to have played the game when we saw it in stores when we were wee lads. However it seems the younger generation (people 13 and under now) caught wind of the game through Smash Bros, a friend or just finding it randomly on the internet. Doesn’t that mean the fanbase for the series has drastically grown over the past 14 years since EarthBound has been out? Why doesn’t Nintendo factor that into sales for Mother 3 or putting EB on virtual console? Sometimes Nintendo is quite stupid with banking on certain stupid franchises (Custom Robo, Chibi-Robo ect. Also this is just my opinion) and by doing so, shafts others (Giftpia, how I wish I coulda played you…sigh). Discuss if you want.

  157. A Fan said 16 years ago:

    A PootHoot? Okay, now the pokemon crossovers are getting weird…er 🙂

    As for me, I saw Earthbound in Nintendo Power, and being an RPG freak, I even wrote them asking about inconsistencies in some of the screen shots 🙂 (It’s not just you, Mato.) Then I had a local video place that I was a frequent renter from order it for me. They were quite nice. And I was also one of those people who knew entirely too much about games they’d never seen (e.g. Golgo 13). Got a free rental by answering a question about a game I had never seen before out of that once, though 🙂 But I’ll never live down the infamy of the call that started with the phrase “Is this the Nintendo nut?” … *heh*

    I got the game around when I was first able to drive, because I remember driving down there to get it, whereas I had to walk most of the time I rented from them before that. It was also cool to get the strategy guide with it for once. Nintendo Power didn’t have much in the way of useful info, as I recall.

  158. Karol said 16 years ago:

    27… I saw the game in Np when I was in my teens. I wanted it but didn’t have money. Eventually I found a loose copy a few years later. Played till the end…but I sucked at rpgs so I didn’t quite understand leveling and I was never able to beat the boss. I have a copy of Zero coming in. Once I get it I’m gonna play them all in order.
    The little I’ve played of 3 patched has been awesome. Great details.
    Someone mentioned Brawl… 3694-9717-7450

  159. rc5 said 16 years ago:

    I’m 17 and played it cause my older siblings said it was good. =P Which was great cause I got to explain to all my friends who Ness was when the first Smash Bros came out, cause almost nobody else my age had heard of Earthbound. (And again for Lucas in the new one, incidentally)

    I’d post my friend code for brawl but I have no idea what it is… I’m never online anyway. =P

  160. ArashiSai said 16 years ago:

    @Karol: 2492-3951-6523

  161. A Fan said 16 years ago:

    Heh, anyone who hasn’t played Chrono Trigger should. I had no trouble emulating it 🙂 If for some reason it doesn’t work on the latest zSNES, try an older version. I think I have to try that with Super Mario RPG anyhow, thanks to that one crazy chip.

    Oh, and Naki, I think you CAN actually steal chicken in Earthbound, when you can swipe from that store 🙂 Of course, you have to raise them from eggs, but…

    It’s funny sometimes to read things that sound the same in one language once you translate them to another 🙂

  162. wingzero98 said 16 years ago:

    Actually i have a good story with it IMO. my friend had bought it at the time, and he told me a little about it. He lent it to me, and then i picked it up, ran through the first hour or so, from the meteor to the death of buzz buzz, to the start of the journey and i was hooked for life. so i knew i HAD to buy it off him. He wanted, what, 65 bucks for it. the gianormous box was missing and the nintendo player’s guide (which IMO were the greatest strategy guides money could buy, i have a collection of em cause i like to read em for fun, not really for strategy, wat can i say, imma 20 something dude who played a lot of videogames in the good ol days) was a little beat up but i had to. My love for the game has yet to wane. man, i spent 65 bucks on a used game, which in inflation must be like 100 bucks. wow i overpaid NOT! it was money well spent. I still have the cartridge. Specially because it’s the only rpg in the world where it’s hero’s greatest weapon was a bat, and his archnemesis was a fat one eyed kid named pokey, and the great ol subtle difference in King if you take/don’t take him with you during the opening hour. I remember my first play through and thinking, what the hell, why’s King just sleeping? He’s supposed to be AWAKE like in the pictures!!! LOL. my mistake.

  163. MaiXu said 16 years ago:

    I remember hearing about EarthBound, and in my old neighborhood I had a friend who I must’ve played through Onett with (read: watched him play). I found the game so bizarre and funny and charming and fun. Then I moved.

    One day, must’ve been in middle school or beginning high school, I walked into a local K-Mart and they had about six or seven somewhat beat-up but otherwise intact boxed copies of EarthBound. We’re talking complete with strategy guide and all. It looked like a clearance item, but wasn’t especially cheap, and I bought it as soon as I had the cash and it has been a prized possession in my SNES collection since.

    Oddly enough, I had to download an emulator and finish the game on my PC. The cart works, I just never got around to beating it (never made it past Fourside) until my SNES was out of reach.

  164. MaiXu said 16 years ago:

    You’d think Nintendo would do something as risk-free as selling EarthBound on the Virtual Console. Enough people have fond memories of EarthBound, and enough people who weren’t around for the SNES days have caught wind of the series from Smash Bros., that they could easily make some money that way, not to mention test the waters. And it would be entirely painless to release Mother 1+2+3 as a single DS cart and break even, let alone reap huge profits from putting a whole series on a single cart.

    Nintendo might not be sitting on a gold mine wit EarthBound, but they do seem content to sit on a solid little pile of cash.

  165. Alato said 16 years ago:

    Agh, DS froze… And on such a long post.

    Anyway, basically, I’m fourteen, I had to sneak every night before my curfew to play some Earthbound because my brother didn’t want me playing it. I got addicted. This was about eight-ish years ago just before the Gamecube came out… So I was… six-ish… Yeah, there was another kid I became friends with, too, because he played Earthbound, too. He was 3 years older than me, but we’d help each other out(I told him how to get to Threed, he told me about the Zombie Chick, etc.).

    Yeah, I loved the game, so I started searching everywhere for the cart, but they weren’t being sold anymore. A while later I joined starmen.net as Steely(I just realized how stupid I was when I first joined, I guess because I wanted to prove I’m smart, or something. I had just gotten internet). I still haven’t beaten Mother 1, honestly. I was somewhere around Magicant…

    Anyway, you guys are doing great- amazing! And mitch has a good way to show his appreciation. lol

    I might just try to make a picture but I barely can draw….

  166. necrosis said 16 years ago:

    I just finished Mother 3.

    I wept.

  167. Kumatora said 16 years ago:

    I’m so happy for this, glad to know it’s all done, the naming screen that is. Not long now before we see it in English I bet.

  168. BKeez said 16 years ago:

    Keep up the good work guys. I am currently listening to “Great Guy theme” from mother 3 as I type and I can’t wait to play it. You guys are great. After finising Mother 2 again today I can’t wait to see what happens next. Good Luck you guys.

  169. Derrek said 16 years ago:

    it figures the moment i start looking for updates daily. they stop showing up daily

  170. Church said 16 years ago:

    Hey methinx this is my first post, but i’m a huge fan of the mother series and what you guys are doing is awesome. especially with regular updates because few people actually post play by plays of whats going on. i played through mother 3 with the patch that you guys had a while back and that was months ago, but you guys are still hard at work. keep up the great work, can’t wait to try out the finished product.

  171. Inzoum said 16 years ago:

    Just a quick question… any way to ban posts containing the words “smoke” and “methamphetamine”? that poster’s driving me crazy

  172. Cubear said 16 years ago:

    You’re just fueling the fire, Inzoum. It’s better to just ignore it and move on, what’s one post in 200 or so?

    Besides, if Mato was really all that bothered by it, he’d probably just IP ban.

  173. Yoshistar said 16 years ago:

    19 here (going on 20 in a month)… Like Jupiter-x, though, I also thought Ness was an exclusive character to the Smash Bros. series… until I saw his profile. I discovered EarthBound’s existence and… well, I’ve been a devoted fan ever since!

    I’m a proud owner of both EarthBound and MOTHER 3 carts, and I’ve been paying attention to this translation project for quite some time now. You guys are phenomenal! Keep up the awesome work (and take your time, too; it’s never good to rush)!

  174. Unsavory Maggot said 16 years ago:

    Doot doo, dee doo doo! Phenomenon!
    Doot doo do doo! Phenomenon!
    Doot doo, dee doo doo, dee doo doo, dee doo doo do do doo doo do do doo!

    …I would personally have to thank the person who said phenomenon and came up with that catchy (yet annoying) song.

  175. Nodal said 16 years ago:

    Haha, it’s from a Swedish porn movie. Which was then stolen by the Muppets. Which really explains a lot.

  176. Coconut of Enlightenment said 16 years ago:

    I first learned about EarthBound from Nintendo Power and became obsessed with it before I even started playing. I was ten years old. I bought it as soon as it came out. My brother also got into it, but not as crazily and obsessively as I did. I waited with eager anticipation for EarthBound 64. When that failed, I hoped they would release it for gamecube (I wanted them to call it EarthBound^3 (EarthBound cubed :))).
    I was surprised when I tried downloading a ROM of EarthBound, only to find out that it was for the NES and not the Super NES. And when I played it on a NES emulator, it turned out to be EarthBound Zero, an entirely different game. This was in High School.
    I nearly died when I heard that Mother 3 for the GBA was going to be released. I had found Starmen.net while looking for information on EarthBound 64 and participated in that first petition. I’ve been a regular ever since(though I’ve never actually registered on the site).

    Just wanted you to know, you’re my heroes.

  177. 7ucky said 16 years ago:

    Man, so many comments to read… I feel an update drawing ever closer, though (mini or otherwise). 😀

  178. TheReaper08 said 16 years ago:

    I think also feel that their might be a mini update soon they just have been working really hard.

  179. Action 52 said 16 years ago:

    Simple question that probably has already been answered:
    Will you release the tool you’re using to translate (M3 Funland, I believe) to the public ? When you’re done, I’d like to (try) translate MOTHER 3 in French. I know some people who I told that I’d try to translate EB, but shoot, you did that already.
    So how about translating MOTHER 3 into French, then. Heh.
    Also, [dreams] I’d sent the ROM to Nintendo of Europe and tell them “JUST RELEASE IT, YOU NOOBS”. [/dreams]

  180. Mato said 16 years ago:

    No mini-updates from me at least. Still got a few days left of work.

    Action 52: I’ve already talked about this in updates. At some point I (maybe we?) plan to work with people to translate it into other languages after the English patch is out. Check some of the recent updates, I talked about this.

  181. Mato said 16 years ago:

    I added the “other languages” thing to the FAQ page, for those who are interested. I dunno if Jeff’ll be for it, but at the very least I’ll offer my help to competent translators of other languages. Most of our hacks should work fine with most European languages (we’ll need to add font stuff and modify our insertors mostly) but things that are too different from English might not work so well. Most European languages should be fine, mostly I’m worried there might not be enough font space for languages with tons of extra letters.

  182. Reznik said 16 years ago:

    I dont know what it says in mother 3 when it asks for your name but it would be funny if you added “or the one with their hands on the keyboard” after “the one holding the controller” since many people will probably play this translation on a rom.

  183. Jupiter-x said 16 years ago:

    Reznik, I considered that myself, too, but then I remembered that I wanted to load the ROM to a flash cart and play it on a system. There’s probably a number of people who’re planning that, too.

  184. necrosis said 16 years ago:

    When I did play Mother 3, I was playing a ROM (so the translation was always nearby on my computer), and I was actually playing it on a PS2 controller via Pelican converter.

    Keyboard really is just about the worst option IMO.

  185. Twitches said 16 years ago:

    hey mato what flash cart would you recommend i get to to the full translation i know its not done yet but from your point of view which do you think would work the best

  186. 7ucky said 16 years ago:

    I’m not one to demand many changes or anything, but if you guys are worried about that why not, “the one looking at the screen”? It’s applicable to all the situations that I can think of… until M3 gets translated into braille.

  187. Mr.vort said 16 years ago:

    Who IS this mystery man?

    Will we ever know?

  188. seedvt said 16 years ago:

    Twitches: I’m thinking that an EZ-Flash V 3-in-1 expansion pack will work, as long as you have a compatible Slot-1 flashcart (i.e. M3 Simply/R4DS and most of it’s clones, CycloDS, EZ-Flash V) It’s also pretty cheap, ~$20 online.

  189. Twitches said 16 years ago:

    cool thanks

  190. Alato said 16 years ago:

    Mato, I think you should put it on the FAQ.

    If you plan to use it on DS, I suggest on of the following:
    – R4 + EZ Flash V 3in1
    – M3 Real + M3 Real GBA Expansion

    For GBA/GBAplayer/Micro:
    – Probably an M3 Perfect or something.
    – If you have the R4 with the EZ Flash 3in1(GBA-size), you can load games onto it.

  191. Twitches said 16 years ago:

    just a heads up… but i have been doing some reading and the r4 is no longer being produced due to some kinda of factory buyout junk

  192. tehasdf said 16 years ago:

    I wouldn’t get into recommending any particular flash cart until the game is actually done and tested.

    I am however, eagerly awaiting a new update. GO GO GO GO.

  193. Rozgabound said 16 years ago:

    Is it even worth it to buy a flash cart? I mean the playability would be more comfortable. But is it hard to set up? or is it like a flash drive?

  194. Unsavory Maggot said 16 years ago:

    “The one looking at the screen”… hmmm… what if I’m playing it on the computer or on the GameBoy Player while I have company over? 😉 Anyone who’s looking is going to assume it’s talking to them, haha.

    I’m just teasing, of course. 🙂

  195. Kirby Phelps (PK) said 16 years ago:

    Tom Ato? ROFL!! I remember that from Pokemon! 😀

  196. napoleon solo said 16 years ago:

    Mother 3 works great on the psp. i can play it on my “fat” psp with the newest hombrew firmware.

  197. ArashiSai said 16 years ago:

    I feel like an idiot cuz everyone else is like 19 and up

  198. Reanzet said 16 years ago:

    false!

  199. ArashiSai said 16 years ago:

    oh really?

  200. Reanzet said 16 years ago:

    yes, really, but age really shouldn’t matter…to me, the older, the more time you have probably spent loving the Mother series. To note, I have Earthbound(Mother 2) on ZSNES emulator, and it was(and still is!) awesome

  201. bubble-gum monkey said 16 years ago:

    To be honest, I’m 18 and only just started getting into EB. My first consoles that I played on were the NES and the Sega consoles. I always wanted an SNES but my mom would never let me get one, and they had them all the time at the day care I went to when I was 5. I’m actually suprised that EB wasn’t a part of that place’s SNES collection. I know i’m still sort of young, but I miss the days of cart blowing when trying desperately to get Mario 3 to work.

  202. Rod. said 16 years ago:

    lol, cart blowing,…

    i actually blow on the CDs sometimes….

  203. Dr. Meat said 16 years ago:

    Boom 22 yrs right here got the EB cart with guide (unfortunately missing pages toward the end and no box, to my great shame), got Mother 3 too, but not the deluxe version because I don’t care. Would’ve liked the Franklin Badge though. It’s way better to play these things on a TV, instead of a computer screen.

    Also I’m not an early EB player either, I didn’t get my copy until about 2004. Kind of funny, I actually rented it as a kid (big box) and while I enjoyed the players guide I hated the actual game since all I had played up until then was platformers and stuff like that so I had no idea what was going on.

    Eventually I traded a Super NES for it years later (I had two). I didn’t scam the girl who gave it to me, though, I swear. I let her know it was a pretty popular game and that she could probably buy 10 used SNESes with the money from selling it and the guidebook on ebay. Got it anyway though. Whatever, she didn’t like it and I’ve since played it through like five times.

  204. dramere said 16 years ago:

    i feel like an idiot for just getting the tom ato thing

  205. Mother 3 bound said 16 years ago:

    metroid man: that was my question silly. I made the original hypothesis, only i assumed it was like 17- 24 and im seeing numbers in the 30’s. i guess the game just reaches out to people, and most everyone seems to share the same unexplainable feeling toward it.

    good question if you had asked it before this thread.

  206. dramere said 16 years ago:

    my best friend(in the day) was getting eb from his mother for christmas. he would always find his gifts and we would play them months earlier than we would’ve. this was also done with chrono trigger. he’d let me borrow it and i wouldn’t give it back, which i admit was not cool. but this is how a love began thirteen years ago. btw Tom Ato rocks the socks.

  207. Dr. Meat said 16 years ago:

    Oh hey look we’re talking about flash cards again. Just putting my quick two cents in, if all you want is playing GBA games, (i.e., just the Mother 3 translation, you dirty pirate) then I think it’d be worth looking into the EZ-Flash IV, which is what I have and it’s worked great so far for GBA games. Everyone’s probably going to recommend either an R4 and M3 or whatever, but that’s more expensive than you need to get if playing Mother 3 on a real system is all you want.

    Plus I made a kickin rad Mother 3-themed EZ-Flash IV skin, which you can’t use with an R4 or whatever.

  208. OMGZ said 16 years ago:

    great…i love earthbound and im looking FORWARD to playing this in full obsession mood hehe.

  209. shawnji_us said 16 years ago:

    I just want to say how terribly impressed I am with all the both of you have done for the fan community in the past years.

    I’m 23 (24 this Saturday) and I’m happy to say I’ve had the distinct pleasure of enjoying many of your previous endeavors including Bahamut Lagoon, Star Ocean, Famicom Tantei Club II, and others from since I was back in my teens. You’ve always done professional quality work and continue to do so, often with no reward other than a few “thank you”‘s. The amount of dedication you have to projects like this is amazing to me, mostly because I don’t think I’d be capable of it myself. I’m sure you already know how much meaning the work you do has to all of us, but I just want to add my thanks for providing so much wonderful entertainment for so many years.

    Hard to believe it’s been that long, but five years ago I spent a year in Japan as an exchange student, and it was the most wonderful experience of my life, and one of the things that helped my learning of the language along was your patch of Bahamut Lagoon. I used to sit in my room at the foreign student dormitory and play it simultaneously on my PC and Super Famicom and compare versions while I studied new Kanji.

    Even though I am now able to play through many Japanese games with little need for assistance (save the occasional use of my Kanji dictionary), I’m saving my first experience with Mother 3 to be in English just as it was with Mother 2, and later, Mother. I’m just glad to know that so many people will be able to enjoy a quality English version of the game thanks to all the hard work you’re doing. Thanks and best wishes in every regard.

    – A Fan

  210. zLeed said 16 years ago:

    I know what you mean shawnji.
    Although, I just couldn’t wait for the English version and just went on and played it with a guide.

    Just, excellent. Sometimes I wonder why this isn’t in the U.S.
    I love the music, though, Earthbound had great music.
    The last part was quite surprising. But it was fun. I wish there was still more to do. 🙁
    I feel sad now that I’ve gone through the 3 games, but I’ll go through Mother 3 again when it’s in English.

  211. Unsavory Maggot said 16 years ago:

    Alright… any second now… yes, any second now… Tomato’s gonna come out and open up a mini update…

    …what?

    😉 I know, I’m kidding of course. I wouldn’t do that to you man. Seeing all these updates gather like flies though is such an amazing experience. If only past-you could’ve had a time machine, and read all of these posts… you’d be very very proud of yourself! 🙂 Well!! You should be!

  212. Mato said 16 years ago:

    Unsavory Maggot: I think if I had a time machine and saw all this now, I’d first be like, “Oh god what have I gotten myself into now” and then “wtf they finally made the third game?!” and then I’d look up winning lottery numbers before going back.

  213. Inzoum said 16 years ago:

    Future lottery numbers FTW!

  214. BOBBY_A said 16 years ago:

    mato, having just gone through a similar expereince of knowing what true exhaustion means, i can honestly say “thanks” and mean it from the bottom of my heart because I know what you have gone through.

    so “thanks”!!

  215. Rozgabound said 16 years ago:

    napolean I’ve had homebrews for the fat psp, but can you get them for the newest psp.. or did they fix that

  216. SAM-E-BOI said 16 years ago:

    Yes, there is at least 1gba emulator on the psp slim, i believe.

  217. Christian Groff said 16 years ago:

    Wow, this is getting awesome. I’ve been following this page from the get-go, and it looks like we’re going to see the hack in full. Mother 3 deserves to be translated, because it is a shame that we see Lucas in Brawl, but not in his original element.

    I can’t wait to play an emulated Mother 3 rom with this patch when it’s done. I already came up with a name for the monkey, “Wheeler.” (If you don’t get the reference, you haven’t seen Yu-Gi-Oh GX.)

  218. Alato said 16 years ago:

    Twitches: I don’t think so, but even so, you can still buy them, or just Me Simply’s or something.

    Dr. Meat: Yeah, EZ Flash IV is great for use on gba. I don’t know how much it costs, but I know you can get an R4, EZ Flash 3in1 and a 1gb microSD for ~65$, now. Whatever is cheaper is best, unless you don’t only want Mother 3 or gba games. You could even get a normal GBA-sized EZ Flash 3in1 for use on Gameboy player, or something(which I might consider).

    I really hope they release Earthbound on VC, soon. And this might not be the best place to ask(I might ask again later on starmen.net), but could we have a Smash tournament, then the winner would get Earthbound, free? 🙂

    Anyway, take it easy. Mother 3 is looking more beautiful than ever… Actually, I’m in the mood for some Earthbound…

  219. Dr. Meat said 16 years ago:

    Mine cost around $30. I think it’d be a good deal for someone just looking to play the patch on the real hardware, without needing to get into DS homebrew.

  220. ArashiSai said 16 years ago:

    I like the smash tournament idea! Even if I can’t win, I’ll make my bro do it for me, cuz no one ever, EVER beats him (muahaha!)

    Not that anyone in the house but me would PLAY Earthbound…

  221. Reanzet said 16 years ago:

    heh, i’d take him on, but my wifi runs like molasses moving uphill in the middle of winter, blahblah(and i could go on). once i get that sorted out, ill face people.
    -i just wish i could learn advanced programming skills. Then, i could help this project along too, although im probably not the only one with that wish…

  222. eedracon said 16 years ago:

    I’d join the tournament if there was one… but someone would have to e-mail me the time and day of the tounament.. and everything.

  223. Moulinoski said 16 years ago:

    Hey, Tomato, I’d kinda be interested in helping translate Mother 3 into Spanish. Spanish is like tied with English being my first language, so yeah. There’s only 6 extra letters in Spanish, ñ (which is pronounced ehn-yeh), and the accented vowels (á, é, ó, ú, and í). And although ll (double l) is considered its own letter, its really just that, a double l with a y sound.

    Woo. How’d I get off on that? I’m not so sure on when to use accented vowels though, but fortunately my father is a Spanish literature major, so any doubts, I can ask him (and pray he won’t get angry at me for being too much of a “Yankee” >_> Stupid racial differences wtf).

    Aaaaaaaanyhow, Tomato, I have a question. It has nothing to do with Mother 3, its actually just a curiosity, but I figured it best to ask a professional translator…

    How do the Japanese know when they’re reading the katakana “ka” and the kanji for power? They look they same, right? Do they usually write kanji bigger than kana?

    I never noticed it until my friend pointed it out (he’s taking Japanese classes, I’m learning it by myself, but I’m thinking of taking some classes too and minoring in Japanese). X_x Sorry for the ol’ block of text.

  224. Mato said 16 years ago:

    Well, I’m gonna wait until after the patch is out before considering who to work with for other languages. Don’t want to start any international translation drama at the moment 😛

    As for how to tell the difference between 力 and カ, one, they’re drawn every so slightly differently, and two, context. It’d be very rare to see the katakana カ would be used where 力 would be expected. It’s a lot like “read” (I will read the book) and “read” (I read the book yesterday). We native English speakers don’t have much trouble knowing which pronunciation to use, we almost automatically, without even needing to think about it, analyze the context and use the corresponding pronunciation. So it’s mostly just getting the flow of things ingrained into your brain to the point where you don’t need to even think about it. It’s been a while since I thought of the two of looking alike, for example 😛

  225. Damn Impressed said 16 years ago:

    I actually just gave a presentation on how speech recognition software knows you mean “time” when you say “You are on time” — Because “thyme” would rarely if ever be used in the context of “You are on”. Likewise, we as humans instantly know which is meant. So that’s not non-sequiterish at all. Give me a break, you guys are 2 and a half days overdue for an update.

  226. Unsavory Maggot said 16 years ago:

    Let’s not forget, one kanji has a longer “swoosh” than the other. It takes a keen, attentive eye looking at the first vertical strokes of each kanji to recognize that difference.

    I have the worst handwriting though, so if I end up writing in kanji, I’ll most likely have to write *big* to make the kanji easier to distinguish.

  227. A Fan said 16 years ago:

    Actually, what impresses me more is when they can read kanji written in those tiny fonts, where they look like a tiny Rorschach ink blot test 🙁

    I’ve had to increase the font size to ridiculous just to tell a daikuten from a maru, and the tiny blotch kanji are all the worse 🙁

    If you don’t know what I mean, think 齢, 療, 調, 課, 織, 職, 機, 構, 題, 警, 賞, or 滅 which I copied somewhat randomly from the Japanese version of Google news. I can barely make out the radicals on most of those. To read them, I’d have to paste them into word and change the font size to 72 or something. I bet Mato can read them, but he’s probably gone through secret ninja training or something… 😉

  228. Mato said 16 years ago:

    Yeah, even with my tired, old, probably needing-glasses eyes, I could read them easily from a few feet back. Familiarity goes a long way to recognizing things, kanji included.

    Anyway soon, soon I’ll be able to do some more hacking stuff. Can’t wait to get sprite text welding done and out of the way.

  229. G.Wicks said 16 years ago:

    MATO: Okay, I think I vaguely remember the second naming screen now. I probably skipped through it quickly because I didn’t realize what it was for.

  230. Caleb said 16 years ago:

    I wish I was intelligent enough to help you guys.

  231. Rozgabound said 16 years ago:

    I’m debating whether to go MR HACKER man, and put a GBA emulator on my SLIM PSP…. (It was so much easier back in the day)… But it would be so worth it to play Mother 3 on my 60 inch HDTV… ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh lol… And if anyone understands what i’m talking about, I have some questions about upgrading to a 3.71M33-2 and if anyone has a spare Magic Stick and Pandora Battery that would be SUPER. Respond and I’ll send you my email… and if you aren’t familiar with hacking a psp you should look it up on google. It really is fascinating to watch/read how brilliant people are. Especially when it’s 4 in the morning…

    All for the love of the game…

    lol

    should make a movie haha

  232. Rozgabound said 16 years ago:

    And just trying to deal with how-to tutorials makes my head spin, I can’t imagine how resilient and patient you would have to be to HACK A ROM! not even mentioning translating the game (which is dedication in itself). Thank you Mato,Jeffman, and all the others who are brave enough to take the long stressful ride to give us,the fans, a chance t0 play this game.

    I heart you all long time

  233. ok said 16 years ago:

    w2ell Nothing from JeffMan or Mato for some time
    I guess they All out of Methamphetamine
    So No Hack Today !

    SadNess for the Mother Project 🙁

  234. Apteryx said 16 years ago:

    Rofl, ^^^^^^ that guy kills me. For non obvious reasons.

    Keep up the good work! I’m just happy this didn’t turn into one of those projects that starts but never takes off. Luckily, you guys are a couple of resilient SOBs! Just take it easy!

  235. MaiXu said 16 years ago:

    Oh dear me, it’s been four days.

    Hope there’s some great news for the next update!

  236. Moulinoski said 16 years ago:

    Thanks for answering my question, Tomato! And don’t worry, I won’t start any translation drama- I’m not into dramas. XD Unless if its Gundam. O.O

    I guess because I haven’t looked too much into kanji, I couldn’t tell the difference… But dangit, my friend should’ve! XD (I’ve only been learning katakana through hacking Super Robot Pinball and playing Super Robot Wars games… Woo!)

  237. MasterInsan0 said 16 years ago:

    Rozgabound, don’t forget that they too are fans of the game. You’d have to be a pretty fanatical fan to say “alright, I’m going to spend a lot of time and effort hacking this game into English so that the English-speaking Mother fans can enjoy this game as I have.”

    Anyway, I’m honestly surprised how many people in the comments know some Japanese. Considering how different it is from English, and how ridiculously difficult it is to learn, I applaud anyone who knows even a little kana. The most Japanese I know is a few words, and even then I couldn’t write them out to save my life.

  238. Jack said 16 years ago:

    Since the topic of flash carts is on the table, I got a question for you guys. If the unpatched rom works on my flash cart if that a good indicator that it’ll work patched? Hope my m3 lite can stand up the challenge.

  239. seedvt said 16 years ago:

    I know a bit of Japanese. I can’t read most of the Kanji, and having it in extra extra small font isn’t helping.

  240. MaiXu said 16 years ago:

    Hehe, I guess I chose the wrong language for a Mother fan. I speak intermediate Chinese, and I’ve been living, teaching (English), and studying in China for over a year and a half.
    I’ve had my full now and am looking to move back to the states by the fall, but it’s been a hell of a ride. I urge anyone with an interest in any language to study it, and after you get your degree (nearly any degree), take a year or two off to go teach English in that country and immerse yourself there. The money isn’t good, but the experience is phenomenal. I’ve got friends who have used their status as a native speaker to get jobs in China, Japan (he was a Pokemanic, actually), Korea, Thailand, Hong Kong, and Singapore. So all you people with an itch to study Japanese, go for it!

    And studying Chinese isn’t all a loss re: Mother/EarthBound, because I can read the kanji (in Chinese, “han zi”) just fine.

  241. PK Peanut Butter said 16 years ago:

    I’m totally pumped for the final patch. Light at the end of the tunnel!

    You guys are awesome, keep at it.

  242. Mato said 16 years ago:

    Woo, finally finished that huge batch of work, and on time. Meant cutting sleeping hours out of every day of the week though. Anyway, I’m going to do the following over the next 2 or 3 days:

    – Catch up on sleeeeeeeeep
    – Hack that one game, I forget its name
    – Clean house
    – Do my review thingy of that movie that traumatized Itoi
    – Eat and drink and be merry
    – Sleep

    Actually, while working on this latest show, I realized that the story has many things in common with MOTHER 3’s story, which was neat. When the show comes out/gets announced I’ll give more details. It was awesome fun working on it, although tiring 😉

  243. Jupiter-x said 16 years ago:

    Checking this over lunch was the best idea I’ve had today! Get some good rest, and you’ll be back on your game in no time, Mato.

  244. zLeed said 16 years ago:

    lol mato

    Great to see that you finished that work you’ve been telling us for the past week. Get some needed rest for now. 🙂
    I bet if you “Refresh” yourself, you’ll be able to do more stuffs sooner with the translation hacking. 😛

  245. A Fan said 16 years ago:

    Well, just get your sleep FIRST. We don’t want to have to start calling it “that movie that traumatized Mato” just because you couldn’t sleep due to strange nightmares after it 🙂

  246. Coconut of Enlightenment said 16 years ago:

    See you next update!!!

  247. hasone said 16 years ago:

    well, my calculations state that mato can spend part of friday and all of saturday sleeping, do his weird movie thing sunday morning, and then, since I’ve decided that I’m so impatient that Mato has no life outside work and mother 3, he’ll have all day sunday to whip up some major Hax0rz.

    I mean, how could it be any other way, right? Because I’ve never heard of someone having a real life.

    *small voice* I don’t */small voice*

  248. Anna said 16 years ago:

    Yay mato, congrats! 😀 Always feels good to finish a big project. Hoping to do something similar today, myself!

    I can’t wait to hear what you worked on, hopefully it’s something I’ll want to watch as a non-animu fan! 😀 If I may ask a quick but slightly off topic question, since you’ve worked on shin chan, do you have any idea if the series is doing well? As I’ve mentioned before it is very near, dear, and special to me and I want nothing more than to see more and more episodes 🙂 As such I just don’t have an unbiased enough lens of popularity; my friends (many of whom are also not into animu) seem to love it but commercially speaking, is it doing well? No trade secrets or hard numbers required, just want to know whether or not it’s likely ol’ Ted Turner is interested in ordering more episodes or if I’ll have yet another obsession relegated to Mother-style treatment 😀

    Oh and for those not aware–it seems a lot of people are under the impression that Shin Chan is some kids’ cartoon that Adult Swim/Funimation thought would be fun to overlay dirty jokes. But I can assure you that in the original (Korean, anyway) is exactly the same. All that’s changed is retooling some of the humor to make it funny in English and to American (and European?) audiences.

    I read the comic books so it’s interesting to see the simultaneous adaptation to TV and English all at once. I really hope the animated version covers the trip to Guam at some point as I want to see how/if a particular joke I find forever amusing but difficult to explain makes it through. 🙂 The first American Shin encounters in Guam he runs up to and blurts out “LOBUU MEE TENDOO! CHIKIN TENDOO!”

  249. Alato said 16 years ago:

    Heh, I have a feeling we’re in for some more beautiful english Mother 3!

    Glad to hear you finished what you were working on. But now I feel as if I’m being selfish.

  250. ArashiSai said 16 years ago:

    @A Fan – I have to go to Word and change it to 72 or something….

    I SO know what you mean. I have to do that with 95% of the kanji I encounter online

  251. Bribo Baggins said 16 years ago:

    Now, now, Mato. Go upstairs and rest and I’ll fix you some STEAK.

  252. Pilot said 16 years ago:

    Alato:about the flash carts.I also use the R4+EZ 3-in-1 and any patches i put onto the GBA ROMs have worked fine so the MOTHER 3 patch should work fine as well.

  253. TheReaper08 said 16 years ago:

    Mato now I know you are human.

  254. A Fan said 16 years ago:

    ArashiSai: I know. But it’s even worse when I can’t tell daikuten from maru 🙁 Do fonts HAVE to make them so tiny? And it’s not even context. I can’t tell the difference even when it’s katakana being used to write out an English word, and I can very easily render English words into Japanese syllables by now.

    Anna: What’s animu? 🙂 Anyhow, I do like anime, but I use it to study Japanese. That way, I can enjoy myself while studying (otherwise I probably wouldn’t do so much.) I never cared for Shin-chan, personally, although Action Bastard was a little funny. Right now, I’m watching Bamboo Blade, and I’ve finished more series than I can remember, though some were better than others. Death Note, Naruto (manga or pre-filler material), Bleach, Detective Academy Q, and Hikaru no Go are among my favorites 🙂

  255. Alato said 16 years ago:

    Pilot: Did I say it wouldn’t work? If so, whoops. If not, it’s good you can play Mother 3. lol

    Yeah, I don’t really watch anime. I find most just annoying. And I mean, there’s just too much. I don’t see how people can watch what is essentially the same thing, over, and over…

    And although it’s random, I REALLY need to clean out my hard drive… It keeps FREEZING. Like, every freakin hour. I was drawing(trying to) some little picture thing to show a little appreciation for this project, but my computer froze right before I finished. ARGH.
    I just have to wait until my brother gives me the Windows 98SE CD. I just hope it works, because my CD drive has been screwy. If the CD drive doesn’t work, I’m screwed…

    … ARGH.

  256. ArashiSai said 16 years ago:

    NARUTO ROCKS!!!!

    Damn, I am itching so bad for a new update. I get my hopes up just to see ” more naming progress” is it at least possible to change the update name so i don’t get so tired of it? 🙂

  257. Unsavory Maggot said 16 years ago:

    Death Note is my absolute favorite. I’m a little saddened by the fact that it’s so short, and even more saddened by the fact that some countries have had to ban it the moment someone plots a murder and makes their own “Death Note”, or mentions some crap about being Kira. I mean for the love of bob, don’t you dare spoil it for the rest of us by blaming your psycho tendancies on Anime!

    Besides, Death Note’s what got me into Maximum the Hormone / Makishimamu Za Horumon!

  258. ArashiSai said 16 years ago:

    Can someone PLEASE add me on Brawl? it’s not fun with my friends anymore, I own them too badly

  259. ArashiSai said 16 years ago:

    yeah, I probably should have mentioned…: 2492-3951-6523

  260. neo said 16 years ago:

    I still need to buy brawl, I’ve been playing at my friend’s house for the past three weeks @_@

  261. hasone said 16 years ago:

    arashisai, I’ll add you. i’ll leave my fc here 2morrow.

  262. ArashiSai said 16 years ago:

    thx, hasone

  263. seedvt said 16 years ago:

    since everyone’s posting Brawl FC’s here

    mine’s 3694-9318-0389

  264. mother 3 rocks! said 16 years ago:

    fimally!! I’ll actually be able to understand what these retarded 8-bit people are blabbing outta their face-holes!!!!!!! YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  265. mother 3 rocks! said 16 years ago:

    ps idont know my brawl fc but ill post later cuz im writing this using my wii

  266. Exp HP said 16 years ago:

    Graaah, I still haven’t checked my FC! I’ve only done Wifi on With Anyone so far, so I’ve never needed to find out my number.

    Mato . . . Oh, you’re injured. I’ll cook BABIES.

    That’s also my favorite food (on MOTHER). I for some odd reason had thought that your favorite food was WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW. But your video on the sidebar says otherwise.

    YOU ME LIKE TASTE SAME. BOING!!

  267. ok said 16 years ago:

    mATO my Favourite Man I AM Glad That He is Human To Be Having Such Relatable Goals of Living and Lifestyle.. Except Mato no Say the Big COnsumer of Life and Energy.. Methamphetamine.. IN order to Produce Such Quality hackings of game Mother (And Mato is VERY talented Hacker Make ZERO mistake my Readers)… Mato must Ingest Unspeakable Volume of the Drug Methamphetamine.. I simply Refuse to Believing Otherwise.. Mato still not answer ym Question Yet.. Despite my Devotion to Hack and My Constant Compliments of Mato Prowess and Skills as Hacker… How much Meth Do you using my Friend??

  268. seedvt said 16 years ago:

    ^^^^ I didn’t really understand that.

  269. A Fan said 16 years ago:

    > Yeah, I don’t really watch anime. I find most just annoying. And I mean, there’s just too much. I don’t see how people can watch what is essentially the same thing, over, and over…

    You’re watching the wrong series, then 🙂 Yes, there are tons of derivative ones. I often quit watching those half way through or less and go for the thrilling ones. It’s even better when you can get the whole series at once, so you don’t have the agonizing wait each week… 🙂 Death Note, for example, isn’t really the same as anything else. But many of the ‘harem’ or ‘love sim game’ based anime are nearly identical, not to mention sentai squads (think Power Rangers) or too many robot anime. The trick is to sample lots of very different ones until you find out what you like. Oh, and you almost have to see the unlicensed series. Some aren’t licensed for good reason, I grant you, but others are gems that just never make it to America.

    > And although it’s random, I REALLY need to clean out my hard drive… It keeps FREEZING. Like, every freakin hour. I was drawing(trying to) some little picture thing to show a little appreciation for this project, but my computer froze right before I finished. ARGH.

    > I just have to wait until my brother gives me the Windows 98SE CD. I just hope it works, because my CD drive has been screwy. If the CD drive doesn’t work, I’m screwed…

    I assume you mean to reinstall, because just emptying space won’t help, of course. You might want to upgrade to Windows XP Pro if you can, or Ubuntu if you’re willing to learn to use it. I used to reinstall 98SE on my previous computer all the time until I got completely sick of it and its lack of support for modern hardware (not to mention the constant reinstalls). Of course, I found a deal where I could get the version that doesn’t require activation, so… Also, if your hardware is that old, it might be the hardware that’s the problem… You can put together a pretty decent ‘budget box’ for about $500 if you can assemble it yourself and don’t mind shopping around. I don’t like the pre-made ones because they skimp on things like the power supply or the quality of the RAM; things most people do not know to look for.

    Actually, if it’s doing it every hour, and you haven’t installed new software that’s running all the time (device drivers? something that starts automatically? something with a virus?), it really sounds like your hardware might be going bad 🙁

  270. MaiXu said 16 years ago:

    So who uses the default names for games like this? I love playing through EB as Ness and doin’ my PSI Rockin, my friend will only be happy if his character is called Cockballs and he performs PSI Shitting.

    Some people are weird that way. What about you?

    Seeing all this work going into the naming screen, I’d feel bad if I didn’t manually enter a name …

  271. Unsavory Maggot said 16 years ago:

    Does Lunar Legend Tsukihime / Shingetsutan Tsukihime fit into the category of identical harem / love sim game based anime? I always thought it was nifty and unique, if only awesome for the fact that Shiki can slice anything and everything he wants into dozens of little pieces with nary but a pocket knife, mostly the variety of vampires he stumbles upon. Nero / Nrvnqsr (How the hell do you pronounce that, anyway?!) Chaos and Shiki Roa are among my favorite baddies of any anime. Also, those familiar with Ciel-senpai and Tohno’s story of the PC game Tsukihime can also note simialarities with Death Note. Then there’s the Melty Blood games… ohhh, those were the best fighting games! I’m still waiting for the english translations of the PC versions.

  272. TimeSpaceMage said 16 years ago:

    Back on an old subject, I really don’t want to think of how Arashi was 4 when SSB came out. I really don’t want to feel that old.

    I was in high school at the time and had grown up with every SSB series except Falcon. It’s hard enough trying to comprehend how someone wouldn’t know the depth of Mario and Sonic’s rivalry, and hadn’t grown up with the amazing multiplayer games on the NES (Tetris, Bubble Bobble, Dr. Mario, Trog!, Ms. Pacman, Mario 3) or SNES (Super Bomberman, Kirby Superstar, Secret of Mana, the original Mario Kart before there were powerslides), or even knowing something like who the Spice Girls are.

    I’m not mad at all, just blown away that my childhood has gone over an entire generation’s heads. I could be someone’s father by now! *winces*

  273. BOBBY_A said 16 years ago:

    I feel you. I’m in my early 20s now and I feel like an absolute geezer.

  274. Vague Rant said 16 years ago:

    I’ve only recently got my head around the idea that people were still being born in the ’90s. I haven’t gotten to the ’00s yet, but I can tell that’s going to be an ordeal.

  275. ArashiSai said 16 years ago:

    oh, come on, it’s not THAT surprising. You’ve got like 30,000 people posting on this site, I can’t be the only one under 18 (or can I?)

    I know a lot of people are posting FC’s, but is anyone but me ADDING them? sorry, I don’t mean to be a prick

    umm… err… keep working hard?

  276. Durelle said 16 years ago:

    im under 18 ^^

  277. Zeruel 21 said 16 years ago:

    I’m only 16…
    I played Earthbound for the first time when I was 6, in 1997. I loved its weird humor and the strange enemies from the start, and although I didn’t get past Peaceful Rest Valley, I still had tons of fun. Keep up the good work, JeffMan and Mato! We all appreciate your hard work!

  278. someone said 16 years ago:

    i am very proud of you, WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW, for hacking this game to allow your name to fit on naming screens.

    I NEED AN UPDATE
    “PK DEATH”

    The opponents shield reflected the attack.

    OMFG Y.S.O.A.b………………….

  279. someone said 16 years ago:

    sorry meant to backspace the b

  280. A Fan said 16 years ago:

    > Does Lunar Legend Tsukihime / Shingetsutan Tsukihime fit into the category of identical harem / love sim game based anime?

    I’ve never seen that one. Moon princess, huh? Might have to look it up. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t saying I dislike all harem anime (I did watch Tenchi and read some Love Hina, I’ve also seen a few others that escape me now), but a lot of it is similar. I just haven’t seen as many unique ones 🙂 I was going to say Onegai Teacher, but it’s not really a harem. Heck, there’s maybe one love triangle? And not much of one at that once they pair the two off with their teachers.

    > Then there’s the Melty Blood games…

    Never seen those, either, but the title puts me off a little.

    I guess a lot of us are fans of our respective genres of anime, huh? There is a lot of it out there to enjoy, after all.

  281. Mato said 16 years ago:

    OK, time to eat these burgers and then I’ll start messing with sprite text hacking again hurray

  282. Darkmark said 16 years ago:

    You guys are heroes. Not just you (though you especially), but everyone who’s helped translate Japan-only games, to bring us beautiful titles we’d never get the chance to enjoy playing otherwise – Bahamut Lagoon and Tales of Phantasia, to name a couple, with such flawless dialogue it’s like it was always in English.

    The amount of time and effort you put into this stuff is incredible, and this site is letting me appreciate what has to go on behind the scenes to make a translation happen. Even three years into a computer science degree, I don’t know if I could handle this stuff, so you have my utmost respect and admiration. So thanks, for everything you’ve already done, and everything you continue to do.

  283. ArashiSai said 16 years ago:

    is PK Hack a PSI technique? cuz you guys should learn it

  284. zLeed said 16 years ago:

    Mato you lucky person D:
    I want a burger…

  285. Pilot said 16 years ago:

    Alato:Sorry about that,I didn’t mean it to sound like you said it wouldn’t work(if that made any sense to you),i was just kind of telling you that i have the same combo as you,and then saying to other people that it’ll work.Sorry.

    This is getting better and better every day,because it gets closer and closer to being completed.

  286. seedvt said 16 years ago:

    Arashi Sai: They’ve already mastered PK Hack.

  287. Exp HP said 16 years ago:

    I’m surprised MaiXu’s question failed like that. I’m interested in people’s answers.

    Myself, I always use the default names, but I change the favorites. They’re listed below. Oh, and when I say stuff like EB(old), I’m talking about my files:
    EB(old): Stuck at Stonehedge (since ~14 months ago). Never do a low level challenge on your first playthough.
    M3(old): At chapter 3 indefinitely (since ~5 months ago). Waiting for patch.
    M1: My MOTHER1 file. Just completed yesterday
    EB(new): Just started yesterday after I beat M1
    M3(new): Will be started when the patch comes out

    Favorite foods:
    EB(old): Pie
    M3(old): Flan
    M1/M3(new)/EB(new): Babies

    PSI attack:
    EB(old): PSI Gaming
    M3(old): I forgot what I input… and I haven’t gotten the PSI yet
    EB(new): PSI Flux
    M3(new): Not sure yet. It was going to be PK Flux, but I couldn’t wait, so I used Flux in EB(new)

  288. ArashiSai said 16 years ago:

    seedvt: you’re good at Brawl

  289. ArashiSai said 16 years ago:

    I was STORM ( Arashi haha)

  290. Mato said 16 years ago:

    mini update: I’m still burned out, but also I dreaded working on the sprite text hack more because it’s already in like 7 different parts that all needs to be edited, compiled, cut, pasted, saved, etc. by hand each time I make a change, so it’s such an incredible pain. So I’m right now giving byuu’s new program a shot, I’ll probably be writing all the sprite text hack using his assembler. It’s got its good and bad points, but the ultimate good point is that all — ALLLL — the code used in this entire project can be stored in a single text file, and his program will assemble it and place each hack in its appropriate location in the ROM. Right now there are 100 different files that get inserted into the ROM, his program will probably cut that in half, so that only raw data files (like new font gfx, game text, etc.) need to remain. Much easier to organize the hack this way, and should make hacking some of these harder things a good deal more convenient for us.

    Also, I’m out of Dora crackers noooooo

  291. ArashiSai said 16 years ago:

    NOT THE DORA CRACKERS!!!!

  292. Coconut of Enlightenment said 16 years ago:

    Looks like lots of good stuff is comin’ our way. I’m not worried that it’s been a few days since the last update. We all knew that we couldn’t keep up this daily update thing. Though I do prefer some news at least once a week.
    If I have been catching Mato’s drift correctly (and I’ve been watching this project from the beginning), it should be all downhill after the sprite welder is completed. Man, I don’t want to wait another minute for this game, but patience is an art we all must learn.

  293. seedvt said 16 years ago:

    Arashi: gg lag on NP

  294. Dr. Meat said 16 years ago:

    You should go “explore” yourself some new crackers.

    *rimshot*

  295. Keroro Squad Leader said 16 years ago:

    I Just started posting. Yah er are some of us getting off topic?
    Seriously? how does anime relate to this. Related to mother and brawl.. why do they say pk in smash bros. but it is actually psi? Yeah and non related. I watch keroro gunso which is frickin hilarious though I heard the manga is better. Dont think me as kiddish I am also really into D3aTh N0te

    Oh and mato can you post a blog since you said you did so much. There are so many comments on this one and the blog may be extra big which jeffman seems to dislike
    Well kudos, it must be hard to do two websites AND stick to normal life (0 * 0)

  296. seedvt said 16 years ago:

    Arashi: I should use someone else, PK thunder lag is really killing me.

  297. ArashiSai said 16 years ago:

    Yeah. Btw, the wolf dude was my bro. He says you’re pretty good.

  298. Keroro Squad Leader said 16 years ago:

    srry double post but who plays as ness or lucas here. I do

  299. ArashiSai said 16 years ago:

    EVERYONE plays as Lucas and Ness, dude

    seedvt: Nice one

  300. Keroro Squad Leader said 16 years ago:

    Cool everyone at my school says they suck, and on the net (xept here)hardly anyone plays as him. Also no editors or reviewers put them on their top five. So I wasn’t sure that there was that many. I’m under 18…

  301. Dr. Meat said 16 years ago:

    I like Lucas a lot but mostly I play as Snake/Ganon/Wario.

    also 300th post

  302. Dr. Meat said 16 years ago:

    Sorry for the double post (missed it) but out of curiosity is this the most posts an update has ever had?

  303. seedvt said 16 years ago:

    Arashi: I got used to the delay. 😛

  304. Keroro Squad Leader said 16 years ago:

    Wow who just stays here and refreshes this page(guilty) for new posts and I wonder if Dora crackers would fit in fav food for earthbound.

  305. ArashiSai said 16 years ago:

    Anyone else want to exchange brawl codes? A couple of Ness and Lucas battles?

  306. Mato said 16 years ago:

    Well, I guess this is the first update to go over 300 replies, though it’s because it turned into a kind of message board somehow 😯 😛

  307. Keroro Squad Leader said 16 years ago:

    I WOULD but I am away from my router for a while

  308. Kakaroto said 16 years ago:

    i vote for new post with another item of the “to do ” list ^_^
    anyway you guyz rulez!…keep the good work

  309. Kakaroto said 16 years ago:

    i mean item OFF the “to do list” …another cleaned item…

  310. seedvt said 16 years ago:

    Arashi: my god, that was close. Stage gimmicks FTL

  311. ArashiSai said 16 years ago:

    Seed: Sorry, I have to go…Ive gotta go wash my dog

  312. seedvt said 16 years ago:

    alright, good game

  313. Keroro Squad Leader said 16 years ago:

    wat is there left on the to-do list?

  314. Keroro Squad Leader said 16 years ago:

    double post buuut who the hell is reid young? This isn’t random, look who the site is from… at the bottom, Any way is this you mato? because he sounds a bit familiar.

  315. Moonside Starman said 16 years ago:

    @Mato: Blame someone for not doing a new update *cough* 😛

  316. Keroro Squad Leader said 16 years ago:

    It isn’t a board yet. You’d have to do this
    to make it a board… bump

  317. seedvt said 16 years ago:

    Reid Young is reidman, he’s one of the Starmen.net staff. He designed this blog layout and I believe Starmen.net’s layout.

  318. BOBBY_A said 16 years ago:

    uuhhhhhh reid young is reidman.

    that other guy who founded this site.

  319. Keroro Squad Leader said 16 years ago:

    thanks seed vt… well if reid WAS mato I’d track him down and
    give him a gift. Curse you mato for being so secretive ;_;

  320. Triple10X said 16 years ago:

    Keroro – The the to-do list is in the FAQs. Reid Young = reidman, site guru and admin.

    Mato – Would ‘Go Diego Go’ crackers sate your appetite for crackers based off of children’s TV shows?

  321. BOBBY_A said 16 years ago:

    and mato told us his real name too…. but knowing some of you guys you will try and find his house to send him crudely fashioned phallic sculptures to show your appreciation for his hacking (plus theres that crazy meth guy).

    not to mention its just weird to call someone by his real name. i would be pooping my pants if someone started calling me by my real name on this blog……

  322. Keroro Squad Leader said 16 years ago:

    Yes Enough already I get that reid is reidman >_<
    I just been reading the blogs ‘k? cause I’m short on time (cept for today)
    In fact I’m going to go to FAQ and about to clear things up for me
    oh yah srry for my questions

    damn you school and homework for wasting my time

  323. G.Wicks said 16 years ago:

    Um… someone should stop this thread. I don’t know how, but this page turned into a really awful forum without any subject matter. (i.e. see the dude’s comment above me).

    Please guys, don’t leave comments unless it pertains to the mother 3 fan translation project. It’s a pain to have to go through all the unrelated, stupid comments just to find interesting ones.

  324. Keroro Squad Leader said 16 years ago:

    found his name… Its Clyde M. right? hmmm <_< >_>

  325. Mato said 16 years ago:

    Yeah, I’ll try and be more watchful of the comments here. The starmen.net forums are good for all this other extraneous off-topic stuff. I might even just make a “we’re still alive” update so I can close this one 😉

  326. Mato said 16 years ago:

    Keroro Squad Leader: Yes, that’s my name, it’s not a big secret though. But I’d prefer to keep it off of this blog itself.

  327. Slash said 16 years ago:

    Me: Mato-san, hey, Mato-san!

    Me: If I give you my email address, will you let me play the translated game before everyone else?

    Mato:NO. THE GAME WILL BE DONE WHEN IT’S DONE. ALSO I SHAGGED YOUR MOM, LOL.

    Me:nyoro~n…

  328. Keroro Squad Leader said 16 years ago:

    Shoot mato beated me to say starman.net forum for this place and sorry for spelling out your full last name… Forgot you didn’t want to be stalked well see ya I’ll go to the forums

  329. Dr. Meat said 16 years ago:

    I don’t think it’s necessarily bad that people are posting a lot in here… this is a little extreme, though. I’m probably not helping.

  330. seedvt said 16 years ago:

    better yet, try to get an IRC channel somewhere.

  331. npjpkac said 16 years ago:

    I want to play so badly…

  332. zalmatra said 16 years ago:

    keep up the good work mato ^-^ i has been watching the development for quite a while and this is my first posty so keep up the good work and stuff wootness and stuff.

  333. seedvt said 16 years ago:

    irc://irc.he.net/tomato

    if Mato or JeffMan goes in, I’ll make them an OP 😛

  334. Hasone said 16 years ago:

    all join tomatochat!

  335. Kornucas said 16 years ago:

    😀 Can’t wait! I think I’m going to explode from excitement TT___TT :D!!!

  336. Keroro Squad Leader said 16 years ago:

    seed vt: what is that link for?
    (just curious since I can’t go to it)

  337. seedvt said 16 years ago:

    it’s the link to the IRC server

    To access it you’ll either need a IRC client like mIRC or if you use Firefox, Chatzilla plugin.

  338. Exp HP said 16 years ago:

    Can I use the preview images as reference on another forum? I want to show some of the funny things in MOTHER3, and these are among the only English MOTHER3 photos I’ll find.

  339. insania said 16 years ago:

    I joined, man, this chatroom is epic!

  340. insania said 16 years ago:

    https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/16

  341. song texts said 16 years ago:

    song texts…

    Some hotels don’t conforms the descriptions, that is why real reviews of people who stayed there are very useful….