Progress on Multiple Fronts
Even though we just got done with that hellish sprite text hack, things aren’t gonna get themselves done, so Jeff and I’ve been hard at work on other hacks that need doing.
First, Jeff’s been taking a look at some of the menu messages that need fixing, reordering, repositioning, and all that stuff. This all ties in really closely with the sprite text hack, so it’s fitting that this is one of the next things we work on. He had to redo the entire routine, which is pretty impressive. Anyway, you can see the before and after here.
Before 
After
There are a couple of other lines that need fixing like this. Once that stuff + a few little other things are done, we’ll be able to cross another thing off the to-do list. Jeff’s done an awesome job on this stuff so far.
Meanwhile, I decided to move on to another big part of menus, non-sprite text. This mostly has to do with item name text, skill name text, etc. As usual, the menu programmer was really weird, this time implementing a sort of simulated grid system in internal memory. Wherever the game sticks a letter in the grid, the game will later print that letter to the screen in the corresponding spot on the screen. Dunno if this explains it, but here’s a mockup of how the game handles stuff.
The menu programmer had to be bleh and not implement a very basic PrintText(string, x, y) thing, but instead had to do this lameo grid system. The battle programmer was at least awesome enough to do a PrintLetter(letter, x, y) thing. What a pain. BTW, the sprite text doesn’t have to obey the grid system, so that’s why the item description and stuff doesn’t fit in with it.
Anyway, given this design, there’s a very limited amount of data you can have on a line (since the # of boxes is unchangeable), and this is what tripped me up a few months back when working on item text. But now I got no$gba and better skills, so the other night it suddenly occurred to me that a clever way to keep the game’s coordinate system but allow longer lines was to print all the text elsewhere in RAM, and in the grid area, store pointers to the text rather than the text itself. So I got that working, and here’s a before and after.
Before 
After
Very nice. This also allows for item names (and other non-sprite text) to be almost however long we want, really. Not bad for a few hours’ work. What’s even better is that this affected not only item text, but all the skill text, PSi text, equip/status screen text, and even the key items menu, which I was certain would be a pain and would be separate from all this. So that’s a huge bonus and a lot less time and work needed.
Before 
After 
Before 
After
As we saw a few months back though, there appears to be some sort of weird limit related to the # of letters per screen. Go over it, and weird extra stuff gets printed all over the screen. This is probably one of two things, and I’ve already started looking into both. There’s also another tiny little bug where it prints on the file load screen a row too high, not sure why. Little bugs like that will creep up and get squashed though.
Full inventory, screen OK 
Lots of letters = barf
Around this time, both Jeff and I started getting worried about hack space. All these code hacks have to be stored in the ROM, and within close proximity to the game’s original code (otherwise things get REAL messy and complicated and breaky), and so far we’ve been using a tiny block of seemingly blank space. This space is nearly filled-up now, and it’s possible the game actually uses those zeros for PSI-related data stuff, so our next step before anything else is to carve out some blank space for all our hacks. Relocating sound clips is the easiest way, so we’re going to relocate a few sound clips (probably the ones we put into English) to a blank spot near the end of the ROM, and this should free up about 30+ KB for hack space. Just think, like 1 second of sound data is more than the amount of new code we’ll be adding to the game ๐ฏ
Anyway, relocating stuff and moving stuff over to xkas is the next step, then we can rest easy and keep working on hacks. I figure it’ll take a few days. Could probably do it in a day, but real life stuff and all that, you know how it is. I know we all know they’re pretty arbitrary and stuff, but we can probably bump up a few of the percentages on the to-do list now.
All in all, things are moving at a nice pace. I thought this week would be a slow week, it’s been the exact opposite ๐
Impressive!! Love to see so much progress! Keep up the great work!
Keep up the good work.
I really can’t wait till you guys are done with this thing. Everyday I thank god for hackers and programmers.
Anyways thank you for doing what your doing.
Heh… Lighter’s Eggser…
Awesome! This is a true man’s progress update!
P.S. I’m not familiar with software development but is it common for so many unnecessarily complicated programming things to be used in creating the game, or is that just a function of the game never being intended for localization? It just seems like a miracle to me that they managed patch so many different things together to produce a coherent, functioning game.
Hooray! I’m glad whenever I hear about things unexpectedly working, it makes me feel like the final patch has moved up by a week ๐
I want a shot of StrengthenToughen Up. O:
Thank you Jeff. Thank you Mato.
All right! I’m so glad to hear that some of the nasty bugs have been squashed. We’re all routing for you!
You just made my day, Mato and Jeffman.
My c2? Skip the sounds
Hey Mato and Jeff! I admire your skills and your patience. You two guys (not from Andromeda ๐ are really awesome! Thank you so much!! ๐ (Oh, and wouldn’t it be great to have a beer or two with the original programmers? Well… on the other hand, maybe not for them ^_* )
*nods* Ok, I’ve seen what I needed to see, time for Sleep for the D.
Great work! Keep it up! You’re giving hope to a ton of fans.
Awesome, that’s a quick new update, thanks for all your hard work guys
You know, I’m totally psyched about the abundance of new updates, but…
There’s been a great lack of SEXY BEAM lately…
Imagine if we contacted the menu programmer from the credits and asked what he was thinking. He’d probably be too high to reply.
…I hate unintentional rhymes.
Big City Fresh Egg…lol!
Yay! Progress! Go team! Defeat the opponent! Maybe you could make room for the hack by removing all instances of the word pork. How important could it be?
Oh baby!
Mato’s hacking skills went up by 100!!!
You guys rock. Amazing job.
Hahah scary masktickle stick is scary ๐
Great job! Keep it up!
/generic comment I use everytime
Yay! I cannot wait!
Well done, gents.
Its looking better and better every day!
dedication. damn mato, keep it up bro
Which software do you use for hacking?
That pointer thing you did was genius
YAY!!!!! With all thats going on we could have the patch by the time the uk gets brawl.
thanks to mato and of course jeffman (btw when can he do an update i think its his turn now) we will be playing in english (i mean who doesnt want to play it in f********* english).
Hey, I have a suggestion-well, not really a suggesstion, more like a “it-would-be-cool-if.” Remember when Demiforce found that one Mother English prototype copy? They hacked the title screen to make it say EARTHBOUND ZERO instead of EARTHBOUND. I just figured it would be cool if you could change Mother 3’s title screen to say “EarthBound 2” or something of the sort. I know some people would prefer it unchanged. (I know effectively nothing about hacking, so I don’t know if that would be too time-consuming or too hard or something.)
“Lots of letters = barf” LOL. That one’s funny. You’ve made my day Tomato. It’s great progress. Keep it up!
I also want it to be called Earthbound 2.
It would be nice if you could change the title screen so it says: “EARTHBBOUND 2” instead of “MOTHER 3”.
I don’t care if this game is called “DOGSHIT 3” as long as I can play it in English. You rock my world, Mato.
It IS Mother 3. Everyone who knows about the hack calls it Mother 3. Leave it the way it is Mato.
its funny you say the original programers seem to not have any rhyme or reason tosome of the things they did. I would not be surprised if this is why some of the games aren’t translated in the first place. Nintendo just doesn’t care enough. Unlike us die hard fans. Keep up the good work.
Mato, do you anticipate needing a mirrored host for the patch once the project is complete? I have a host available if so.
You guys are doing an amazing job!
Clearly the hacking needs to stop until we can all agree on whether the game should be called EarthBound 2 or Mother 3. ๐
I think making a new title screen calling the game EarthBound 2 would be amazing, but it really shouldn’t be a priority.
Jock
Hey Mato and Jeff! I admire your skills and your patience. You two guys (not from Andromeda ๐
—
Hey Jock, are you referencing the Space Quest series? It is a scientific FACT that people who have played Space Quest are totally awesome. FACT.
Carry on, good sir.
This is getting exciting! I can’t wait until this is done, but I guess I have to, and your updates are the only thing helping me get through the waiting. BTW, I had a dream where I checked this site, and it had a thing on the front page saying, “Sorry. This project is cancelled. Jeffman left, and then I got into legal troubles.” That would suck, and I wonder if that was a coincidence that you got into legal troubles right after Jeffman left in that dream.
There always seems to be encouraging news whenever there is a new entry.
We hope that this trend continues.
Good luck, once again, and please know that we appreciate all your hard work!
i TOLD you I can’t do anything without missing another update! Now I can’t even go to SLEEP! not that I’m complaining…
Keep up the good work, guys.
Mato and Jeffman!!!!
I’m a long time lurker, first time poster. I’ve been going to Starmen.net for a long time (but never participating or anything) and when I first heard about Mother 3 not being released in America, I didn’t believe it for about two months. I mean, Nintendo has made a lot of riskier and more costly decisions than to translate ONE game. Just look at the Virtual Boy (which I actually like) or the GB Micro. Who would pay MORE money for a smaller screen and less game compatibility?
Sorry, I digress. Anyway, when I first read the “Devotion” page, I was SO excited, and although I’m not really a participating member of Starmen (or many other sites) I visit this page frequently to see how far along the project is. I’m amazed by your dedication to this game. All of you who are working hard on this. I know there are a lot of people (whether they make themselves known or not) who are 100% behind this project and we all eagerly await the release.
Also, my two cents on the M3/EB2 issue: It should stay Mother 3. It’s not necessary to change it, and it would delay the release of the final patch. We want it SOON, people! Let the masters work. They know what they’re doing (I hope). ๐
As far as I can tell, people who have played these games for a long time want it to stay as Mother 3, since that’s what it was originally and what they think it should stay as. People who are newer to these games tend to think that it makes more sense to call it Earthbound 2. Earthbound Zero is to Mother as Earthbound is to Mother 2 as ____________ is to Mother 3? I don’t really have an opinion since they both make sense, but it seems like Mato and Jeffman should get to pick. “Most likely itโll either stay as MOTHER 3 or get EarthBound 2 as a subtitle.”
Man its so close to being done now i can taste it. MMM Tastes like Big City Fresh Egg.
keep it Mother 3….
I agree, Mother 3! (haha, stupid rhyme)
god job there…keep up the good work!!
i think it should be called earthbound3 and that earthbound should be changed to earthbound2 and that earthbound zero should be changed to earthbound. it would make so much more sense that way. actually, no, screw it, just get it done. i don’t care how pretty it looks as long as it doesn’t glitch. when you finish, i will be casting high-polished bronze starman figurines for you and the team so give me an adress to send them to.
This aught to end this dumb M3/EB2 discussion…
Whatever Mato and team choose as the title (seems like Mother 3 to me since that’s the only title used on this blog), somebody can surely create a quick patch to change the title screen to the other. Problem solved, take your pick, quit posting about this as it’s a non-issue.
I don’t even want to know what Rail ana is. Or maybe I do.
A person: They use the XKAS assembler and the developers version of no$gba to be able to step through & debug code.
I’m glad we have such dedicated hackers here who are moving this forward ๐
Flint’s got himself a lot of nut bread. And a hat. Fantastic.
lol@Lighter’s Eggser and Scary MaskTickle Stick.
Vanasto, Mato has already said there will be only 1 patch available with one title screen to prevent different patches floating around the internet. If you look back to Mother when it was put up, you can find both EarthBound and EarthBound Zero title screens for the rom. I think that it should stay Mother 3, with a small subtitle underneath it. EarthBound 2 sounds too weird in my opinion and we all know it as Mother 3, so why change it? Just my two cents. Great work Jeffman and Mato!!!
good work menz….keep it up
TheMetroidMan: Mato doesn’t necessarily have to make the patch
I’d rather it was just left as Mother 3, and if someone made a cool Earthbound 2 patch for the translated-patched version, I’d use it ๐
To quote the song, “Life keeps getting better all the time, so much better…”
That Mother song fits this Mother project. It’s really coming together now! You all working on this translation amaze me. You guys are really doing something fantastic.
for the love of god keep it mother 3
oh please oh please =/
* Happy dance of Hack Progress *
I would say call it Earthbound 2, if there was a choice. In my head from the beginning of when I found out about the N64 version and how it was scrapped it’s been Earthbound 2.
I dunno, I guess the thought line is just that Mother=Japanese and Earthbound=English. So when switching Japanese to English, one would have to switch Mother to Earthbound.
Of course, that being said, I wouldn’t exactly be sobbing in the corner if you guys left it as is. I’ll enjoy the awesome translation either way. =P
thanks for the great job your doing. few questions, where can i get this hack? how do i use it so i can play it? do i need a GBA or can i use it on my computer?
and your doing a magnificent job
MOTHER3>Captain Falcon>Majora’s Mask>Chuck Norris>>>>>Mediocrety>>>>>>Magicarp>Wand of Gamelon>Earthbound2
Moving across the state special:
http://i32.tinypic.com/1taue1.png
y’know..its always “we’ve had a breakthrough!” or “this hack affected other parts, too(in a good way)” and several “now we can cross THAT off the to-do list”. you guys are making a lot of good progress! And very few problems have arisen as a result. *knocks on wood* here’s to great game hacking! cheers, you deserve it for what you’ve done so far.
btw, i lol’d at the picture. boob wizards!
great work
I agree, lets scrap both “Mother 3” and “EarthBound 2” and just call the game Boob Wizards. I can guarantee a lot of people will play this game if you change the title screen to that.
Wow, I think the developers went out of their way to make this game as hack-proof as possible, but of course you guys always find a way.
To quote Bioshock: “Sure, they can make it hack-proof, but it don’t mean we ain’t gonna hack it.”
And I’d personally prefer the title to remain “Mother 3”, though it’d be cool if you were able to include an option to display “Earthbound 2” instead.
Yay,fast progress!
Great Job! You seriously deserve a break.
The updates are going, like, at lightspeed O_o
Yay, thanks jeffman and Mato I really appreciate what you’r doing for us. the fans. Thanks a ton!!!
*seconds mitch’s idea*
JUNE 17, 2008….
“So when’s the Boob Wizards II hack coming out?”
“It’s getting pretty close to completion, should only be a few months from now…”
“Excellent! I can’t wait to play me some Boob Wizards!”
Thank you guys for all of the awesome work you’ve been putting into this translation and for also keeping us so up to date on the project. It’s a lot of fun to see it happen as you progress and gives us non-computer tech people a nice bit of insight!
In my opinion, you guys should make a seperate “addon” title screen with the custom EB2 logo. No idea how it would be executed, but maybe as a seperate ups patch?
My vote goes to EarthBound 2. It just seems to me like that would be the final cherry on the localization cake. That is, in whatever hypothetical alternate universe in which the damn thing does get an official release, they’d almost certainly rename it to go along with the other game in the series that got an official release. Plus, the sign in Fourside that mentions Mother 3 in Mother 2 mentions EarthBound 2 in EarthBound.
Dear Mato,
Will you please change the title screen to Taco Bell Jr.?
Link to Boob Wizards I download plz tia
WHOOOOOO!!! PROGRESS!!!!!!
Zeruel 21: I see your question trapped in there. To answer your question, it’s normal.
I also agree with Boob Wizards II, because not only is that awesome, people will wonder what happened to the first one…… Then some idiot will have to create it. ๐
^^^
XD
That’s all I can say
Words cannot describe how grateful I am for this project. Gamers looking out for gamers is a great thing, I wish everyone did the same.
:O You can say “Your favorite thing can be XX letters long.” but it doesn’t really hit home until Lucas tries PK Boob Wizards.
It’s funny. I read the update, then scroll down to find Mitch’s picture.
For all those people complaining, I propose a compromise (if it isn’t too much work)
TWO versions of the patch. Both identical, with the exception of the fact that the second patch has the title screen and ending screen changed from MOTHER 3 to EarthBound II.
If it isn’t too much work, of course, as in nothing beyond exchanging the two sprites in the game.
thats already been suggested… and.. no.
But Mato…was PK Boob Wizards super effective?
…or did it fail?
wanna see that psi, mmm yeah
can we please stop this increbly stupid fight over eb2 and m3 ya dang imbeciles(my new word of the day)i dont mean to ask too much of mato but can you solve this problem for them please its getting annoying ๐ so very annoying ): thanx mato
*_* ur so cool
btw again when can jeffman blog.
“Plus, the sign in Fourside that mentions Mother 3 in Mother 2 mentions EarthBound 2 in EarthBound.”
I was gonna say that!! Now I have nothing relevant to add to this conversation! D=
… Boob Wizards. Tee hee.
Great job Mato and jeffman. This site is the first thing I go to when I get on the internet. Getting very excited ๐
http://starmen.net/mother2/images/screenshots/foursideMeeting.png
Great job on the progress guys. Once again I appreciate your sacrifices for the community.
I don’t understand all this fuss about the stupid title screen. We’re all gonna look it for less then a second and then start playing the game. Who honestly cares about that? Do we really need two versions of the patch!? Devour more of Mato’s time just for that? I just want to play eb2/m3 in english.
awesome.
Wow, that item grid looked complicated with nearly all the sprite text not even in the boxes, luckily you managed to get it done…plus you figured out that it worked for all other text in that kind of format
Two questions, one technical and one…well…random
First question, so you’re moving the music for a bit so the rest of the data could be hacked with no problems of memory right? (I don’t know a thing about computers so I’m trying to figure out what you did…or trying to do)
Well, will there be two parts of the translated data, the one with the main hacking and one with the music, or will you combine the music last after the rest of the main hacking is done and it’ll be one big file?
Secondly, are you keeping the PSI powers PK ***** or PSI ***** . I just want to know this because I like PK better than PSI, it rolls off the tounge (don’t kill me for saying said random question )
lol Boob Wizards….*snicker*
Oh Love Child of Itoi, we complain because we are fans.
I mean, EarthBound came out about thirteen years ago and we’re STILL biatching about localization changes.
^__^ Only uber geeks get their panties in a bunch over such minor details… but we’re all uber geeks here so there you go!
I remember when I make my freeware games and I come across this apparently insurmountable obstacle, there’s no better feeling in the world than testing your creation and finding everything working flawlessly due to something that only you came up with.
For some reason I thought “I’m sure Mato had this feeling all over the place when writing this entry”. Doesn’t it make you feel great to have that feeling, Mato? I’m sure that’s what keeps you going with this hack sometimes. For that giddy feeling of coding something flawlessly.
Unrelated note: I thought “I’m gonna check the Mother 3 site! No…there was one just earlier this week. There’s not gonna be another one” and BAM! It’s here. I love pleasant surprises ๐
Mato, you and the crew are gods among men. Nerdy, sexy, gods.
CMB: The music (it’s a sound sample, actually) thing isn’t temporary, it’s permanent. We’re permanently relocating it to a later part of the ROM because we need some more early space for hacking code. You see, there is some free space near the end of the rom (about 350KB of it) where we could theoretically put our hacking code without moving the sound, but unfortunately it’s out of range of what’s called a Branch Link instruction. What that means is that our hacks would be a lot harder to access in an area that’s out of normal range. I actually tried to do it this way and it was just a total mess so we decided not to continue in that fashion.
The sound data is in the Branch Link range, however, and it’s very fortunate for us for two reasons: one, because the sound data table is very simple and relocating the sound is very easy to do; and two, because we can fit all of our hacks in that space with no trouble.
The translated text and the music data aren’t in separate files. This game is one single file continaing a direct copy of what’s on the real cartridge. So the final patch will of course be one single file.
As for your second question, we will definitely most likely be going with PK. The term PSI still shows up, though, like when you’re selecting the PSI menu it’ll say “PSI” but then have your individual powers listed as “PK (whatever)”.
Mini-update: Jeff looked in more detail at some of the sound clips, and we relocated a 94 KB one to a big blank area at the end of the ROM. We need a bunch of blank area at the start of the ROM to put all our hacks. Moving the sound clip (it was a 2 second clip of wind blowing) to the blank area near the end was ROM Hacking 101 stuff. Anyway, this opens up 94 KB of hack space, more than we’ll ever ever need for our code.
So we’ve spent most of the afternoon porting stuff over to byuu’s xkas thing. It’s been pretty fun actually, but tiring. Along the way, I’ve been able to revisit code from what seems like ancient times and spiffed it up, sped it up, and documented it all better. In some cases I improved things a little more too. It’s been a neat experience. But very tiring. We’re probably only halfway through moving everything over. But already it’s so amazing to be able to write these hacks, not have to worry about space limits, and be able to assemble and test a hack in less than a second. Such a huge leap over what tools we had before. In more normal terms, it’s like having to fight hordes of zombies with a crowbar, but then someone just hands you a lightsaber. It’s something like that ๐
Actually I’m curious about the slowdown that occurs in the “final name check” screen during fadeout. Is it redrawing all that text with every “level” of fade or something? I know you mentioned you had cut down on redraws to only do it when text changes, but does that fadeout count as a text change (as in darkening the font repeatedly)? Maybe if when you hit the button it went to a different methed, saving the whole screen as one static image in RAM and just fading out that one big image instead of the elements in it? Is there room in RAM during that one part of the game to pull that off, or would it cause issues I’m not thinking of? Maybe that’s already what it does but you’d know better.
oh hey guess what. naming it earthbound 2 is the worst idea ever.
yeah, earthbound was titled earthbound, but he didn’t translate it himself. obviously tons of stuff was changed in the US version, but these bros aren’t changing character names, or item names, or anything. why would they take the liberty to completely change the name of the game ?
it’s not like mother 3 means earthbound 2 in english.
mr. itoi gave it a title, so that’s the title.
that’s the title !
Anony: Your gigantor reply got caught in the spam thing. I’d have let it through, except there was slight spoiler stuff. Ah well.
Does the title screen we’ll see for like 2 seconds really matter?
I think I know what the slight spoiler was. I’m altering that part of my big arse post here to see if it gets through. Sorry about that. Should have recognized that not everyone here’s played SSBB (and I slightly regret doing so myself, but only slightly).
Apparently a lot of people want it called Earthbound 2.
Look at it this way. For one, Nintendo knows at this point that all the major fans, or the vast majority, are fully aware that it was called Mother 2. Secondly, with Smash Bros. Brawl and all it’s information, the majority of people playing that game are going to see that Lucas is from Mother 3. I think that if Nintendo actually released it, there’s a good chance they would call it Mother 3. Companies have renamed series in the past to avoid confusion, and numbering this as “2” would certainly make for some confusion if they put Mother up on the VC.
As for it being “localized”, here’s a bit of information. After digging around, I’ve discovered that “Mother” is not a Japanese word. In fact, and this may surprise a lot of people, it’s an english word. Sorry for that but seriously the title is already in english.
In terms of it making sense, I have learned the story behind Mother 1, and have concluded for myself that the title of “Mother” makes an incredible amount of sense. Sure it’s weird at first, but considering the nature of the series, that’s a plus too! No, nothing to do with mother nature or anything, but everything to do with motherhood. I don’t want to spoil much, but there it is. Also, the codec conversation with Snake in SSBB spoiled some of Lucas’ story, and now the title of “Mother” makes even more sense! Now on the other hand, let’s consider “Earthbound”. How much sense does that title ever really make? In Mother 2/Earthbound, it actually kinda makes sense, because we’re talking about an alien invasion. To the best of my knowledge, no such invasion is taking place in Mother 3. Further, the character doesn’t really travel the whole earth but rather an island chain, so it wouldn’t make sense there either. Mother makes more sense than Earthbound, and 3 makes more sense than 2 (it’s a 3 part story after all).
Nintendo seems to officially recognize it by the title of Mother 3. Also, consider this. Sure that sign says “watch out for Earthbound 2” but if the game was renamed anyway, that doesn’t say much. An important kid in the first one has officially been renamed in SSBB, and Mato seems to be going with that.
There’s the argument that “more people would want to play a game called Earthbound”. Really? What’s that based on? Asking a few friends? Somehow I think that in “asking” the well might have been poisoned, as in “do you like the cool name Earthbound or the stupid name Mother more?” And further, screw marketting. I really don’t care about a title’s “marketability”. Changing things based on what will “sell” more often sacrifices meaning. I also dispute that it would sell the title mroe anyway. I think that a name like “Mother” is weird enough to at least get someone to read the back of the box. A name like “Earthbound” might not grab as much. Of course, this is all hypothetical. Without proper testing, we can’t say which one would grab more attention. Oh, let’s not forget that the same marketting team that changed the title also thought that the best way to market it was to advertise “ooh gross stinky guy” Belch as an insult to gamer’s intelligence thinking only “grooooosssness” would sell the game. Sure Belch was cool but they had a lot more to work with and it was swing and a miss there. Let’s also not forget one thing. Even with the name changed to Earthbound and constantly featuring Belch, the game made much worse sales than expected.
There is one argument I can actually agree with, naustalgia. For most people here, the series was introduced under the name Earthbound, and it makes sense to want to keep the name you remember from your youth. My own case is a little different. I first heard about the mother series in an issue of Nintendo Power. One article talked about how a game called Mother in Japan was being brought here as Earthbound. I thought the Japanese title was weird, but right from the start I’ve known what it’s Japanese name was. Further, I had more articles as years went by in that magazine talk about “games never released here” show up and they all refer to that NES game they never actually did bring over as “Mother”. Of course this only applies to some of us, so let me offer you one other thing. I first knew Final Fantasy 6 as Final Fantasy 3, but years later they released it (twice eventually) as Final Fantasy 6 and I found out the whole story behind that naming thing. The same thing happened when they decided to rename the US Dragon Warrior games to the Japanese name, Dragon Quest. Well, over time, being exposed to FF6 as long as I have, it’s locked in now. I now can’t think of the game as FF3 any more, especially having played the DS remake of the real FF3. I instantly think of it’s true name now, and that’s how I remember it. The same thing can happen with Earthbound/Mother 2. If you don’t like doing that, consider “Earthbound” a subtitle for Mother 2 instead of it’s major title. Does that work for you? Think of it as Mother 2: Earthbound. I think it works pretty well, as well as “Metroid 3: Super Metroid” anyway (which is actually that Meroid game’s proper name if you watch the startup sequence).
If you really can’t stand ahy of that, remember this one thing. Keeping it as Mother 3 is more accurate, and Mato has decided, at least for now, that that’s what he’s going to go with, saying he sees it as more fitting with the story too. So, that’s what you’re going to be getting, BUT, there’s no reason you can’t develop your own custom hack to change the title to Earthbound 2. If you really want it altered, what I’m saying is, you can alter it yourself. You may not have the skills, but I’m sure at least one of those who would rather have the title as EB2 has the skills you want. The only trick is making sure that hack is compatible with this one (and works when applied in any order).
I hope that this deals with the whole argument right out, and let’s not really get uptight about it that much.
That out of the way, Mato, other guy who’s nickname I forget, and what’s his face, great jorb! It’s amazing what you’ve managed to do. I really think that the development team could have used a little more standardization in their development process and more talking between them to reuse text display methods instead of having 20 of them and that weird inefficient buffering grid mess in place of a proper string display method, but somehow you guys are managing through it. Of course I’m sure everyone holds out hope that those last bits of slowdown can be eliminated (certainly more important than a title screen change), but I for one completely understand if there’s just no way. In the end it would be the original programmer’s fault. As it stands, you’ve made crazy progress in spite of it and the end product is still going to be amazing.
Haha, guess it was still stuck in your pool filter even after trying again. Oh well. I was just trying to argue it’s silly to change the title of the game when Mother makes more sense than Earthbound anyway.
I really wish people would drop the EB2/M3 subject for now. This isn’t the time for it, and we probably won’t decide on what to do for many months to come. And I dread this argument going back and forth until then (and even after). I would also suggest to people who haven’t played the game yet that the title is actually obviously relevant to the game in many ways this time around.
I will mention this, though. The logistics are tough. You can’t just import a bitmap into a ROM to change the title screen. I’ll also give a spoiler and mention that the title also appears at the end of the game, but in a different way, and that’s even more work. The title also animates and does stuff after the prologue, as can be seen at the end of the video here. That = insane amount of work, if it’s even possible to edit that and store everything in what little space is left in the ROM.
I’ll save any further talk about this stuff until the proper time. I don’t know what I want, I don’t know what any of the other guys want. But we’ll make the decision as a team, and whatever it winds up being, that’s what it’ll be.
The two-patch idea would be nice in theory, but if you’re the one having to maintain these different patches, it gets a lot messier and aggravating. For example, there are at least three types of EB0 roms out there, and you have NO idea how incredibly annoying it is when people use my old old hack on the wrong one. It’s ARGH EOIUW:LAKJ. There’ll also inevitably be bug fix etc. revisions of this patch, multiple “forks” of the patch into other languages, etc. etc. Having to keep track of all that will be annoying enough as it is. Having to keep track of that x 2 is not good. Twice as much time working and testing, and twice as many chances for bugs to creep in. Jeff and I’ll probably be the ones maintaining all this stuff, and I don’t know about him, but when this project is done, I want as little hassle as possible. So let’s just keep it nice and simple and as one patch.
Mato,
It would be really nice if you changed the name to Taco Bell Jr. or Arby’s II.
Thanks,
Pizza baby.
Dang you guys have done so much. It looks pretty playable.
Well why didn’t you just SAY so?
Kidding. Mostly.
=P
Great work Mato and Jeff
LOL PK boob wizards
PLEASE NOTE!
* We do not have an estimated release date for the final patch
* There’s no way to tell what percentage the project is at
* Please post story-related questions on the starmen.net forums
* Talk about changing the title to Mother 2 (or not) and we’ll fucking cut you
I, for one, think that all discussion amongst people belongs in the forum, and all comments about the blog should be left in the comment section, thus all lengthy and unnecessary discussion should be banned from the comments (including mine?).
It makes it hard to read the mini-updates, especially since some of these comments are so long you need an abstract to get the point of it.
You guys are internet superheroes. Your magical exploits will be sung by bards everywhere, but in hushed, possessive voices. Uttering them louder would certainly waken the gods’ avarice and spirit your feats from our mortal thoughts forever.
Ness used PK Noob Warlocks!
Tomato: do you suppose these original programmers used these weird menu programs to cut down on ( for lack of a better term ) loading time? or maybe because of the limited amount space?
how is it different from most other games? ive developed an interest, although im probably way over in left field.
Mato, am I misremembering something about your new patch format, or was it actually able to recognize and patch (and possibly fix) several different ROM versions?
Or am I misremembering and it instead just knows how to recognize a good ROM from a bad dump? ๐
ah! just remembered a question and i dont want to forget it. in the original text of the game , is it the tower of “peace and love” or ” love and peace”
thanks
Completely off topic: I have a new baby sister!!!!
On Topic: Great Job gang! I have a new obsession other than this blog. SVO Alpha testing! Huzzah!!!
Did you ever know, that you’re my hero? You’re everything i would like to be! You can fly higher, than an eagle. Cause you are the wind beneath my wings…
My apologies for continuing it Mato. I just was attempting to calm down those asking for this.
Thanks for enlightening me on the sheer difficulties such a change would entail, and the realities of the trouble having two versions of the patch would create. I certainly wouldn’t bother with this for my own reasons and further you just now saying it’s even more relevant to the story now than I had suspected.
The very fact that you are even still considering a title change after all that really speaks to how much you care about the opinions of those on this site though. It’s really amazing. This will be the last I have to say on the subject, as per your wishes. Further, if you wish to delete any and all posts and make a rule to not bother discussing such a thing (including my own posts), I would fully understand. It’s best left to a forum.
Great to see progress, and great to see the M3/EB2 argument resolved! ๐
Well I guess that ended the whole naming screen debate, thanks Mato. Got a question now, with that sound clip being moved in the rom to make room for more hacking, will the patch relocate the clip or will we need a special version on the rom?
anony *cries a bit* that speech was just what everyone needed, good job. like mato said we dont have time for this now. plus we shouldnt put anymore work on mato or jeffman they have jobs too for gods sake. we dont have to worry about anything because they already have it taken care of. so no more about the title issue mato (or jeffman) will bring that topic up when they need/want to. theres a time for everything and its not now
flclrocks07: Your parents have been having dirty, dirty sex in the same house as you!
Hahahaha, I’m mean.
I know we’ve been told to shut up about the M3/EB2 thing, but just quickly, I know it’s been suggested that EarthBound 2 be a subtitle of some sort, but I’m sure that anyone with any aesthetic sense can tell that “Mother 3: EarthBound 2” looks and sounds awful. Just thought I’d throw that out there.
The patch will take care of everything. Consider the sound clip relocation itself as a hack like any other.
@flclrocks07:
Hey man, I’ve seen you on SVO.
‘Grats on the new baby sister. ^_^; I’m the youngest in my family (and therefore the self-proclaimed favorite) so I have no idea what it’s like to have younger siblings. I *do* remember being a total terror to my older brother and sister, though. Please don’t hate your little sister if she knocks down your My Little Pony collection/take apart your LEGO pirate ship set/try to secretly help you with your art homework with Crayola crayons. Sometimes younger siblings can be a pain in the butt, but we will love you unconditionally.
See you again sometime on SVO.
Thanks Jeff, I’ve had some frustrating moments in the past with extra patches/mod/fixes that had to be applied to make certain roms work on flash carts.
congrats Mato and Jeff.
Three cheers for our saviors.
Hip Hip Hurrayyyy
Hip Hip Hurrayyyy
Hip Hip Hurrayyyy
@Derrek: Isn’t that the Sonata Arctica song?
A bit off topic, but Earthbound was recently rated by the ESRB meaning that it will probably see a Virtual Console release in the near future!
http://www.vooks.net/images/earthboundvc.jpg
If y’all want something about the VC to hit Digg on:
http://digg.com/nintendo/Earthbound_re_classified_by_ESRB_for_Wii_n_Coming_to_VC
This is great news! Can’t wait to get my hopes crushed again! ๐
Mato, you are mighty!
http://mato.youaremighty.com/
I know! I just read the announcement a moment ago!!
I am so happy! I was beginning to lose faith that EB would EVAH appear on the VC.
Hate to be a realist but they did that for Zombies Ate my Neighbors a year ago and it still hasn’t been released.
So, even if it’s been ESRB’d it still might not come out for a very long time
Amazing news! The Mother community has finally found nintendo’s weakness: profits with practically no overhead costs! I’m all for EB on VC, but not sure whether I’ll buy or not, my EB cart still works. Although I guess its better to support nintendo if they finally do succumb to our will. I’d still rather have Mato’s translation of M3, I’m certain he’d do a better job at it. Please finish the job before the cease and desist arrives!
Great news– Tomato makes big progress, Nintendo re ESRBs the game 8D
Excellent, excellent work Jeff and Mato. Keep this up! Heh, if you guys keep going at this rate, I may have to post the second coffee break soon…
@insania, umm that was awesome!
You guys are super talented and never cease to amaze me. Keep up the good work!
Good update Mato and JeffMan and this news about Earthbound on the wii is not a surprise at all.
I heard the good news and thought I’d come post it here, but man was I WAAAYYYY late to the party…
Holy crow I didn’t expect EB would actually come out even after being #1 on that VC poll (I did my part). This is definitely good news and I’ll buy it again even though I already have the cart, just to support the series.
that video with 0,0001 spoiler is awesome menz… (except for those letters missin ^_^ )
keep the great work
Magus, while that may be true about Zombies Ate My Neighbors (as well as a couple of other VC games), Nintendo’s usually pretty good about getting their own rated games out in a timely fashion. I really wouldn’t be surprised if we see it before summer.
Thank goodness for NP contests!!!
Anyway, you already know where I stand on the game name debate, so I won’t go into that.
What was I going to ask now? That ESRB news made me forget.
Super Mario RPG and Kirby Super Star were rated for ESRB and said to come out in 2007.
it’s 2008.
HOORAY!
๐
yeah those two were “rated” when the wii came out actually then taken down. I really wonder if they were ever really rated at all.
:[ I never got passed the Tremors level (“Invasion of the Snakeoids” or somethings like that) in Zombies Ate My Neighbors.
Still an awesome game, though.
If/when Earthbound comes out for the VC, I encourage everyone to buy it (of course!) and then gift it to as many friends you can find and afford who you don’t think would buy it on their own, especially if they’d play it just because it was a free game/gift ๐
Hey Mato, just playing devil’s advocate…what if Nintendo DOES release EB very soon after today, and it DOES really well, and they DO consider bringing M3, which by your statements, means that you’ll have to completely stop your hack?
NO! I don’t want any crappy censoring/changing in the name! Not to put pressure on you, but this could endanger the patch! (REALISM CHECK: Yeah, right. LIke 1:1000000000 chance of that actually happening.)
I would welcome an official translation with such open arms you have no idea.
like, so open they’d rip?
I support the translation project. You guys are doing good.
Thanks, Mato. My computer’s been acting screwy since I downloaded Fire Emblem: Fuuin no Tsurugi. ๐ At least Nintendo heard us! Major victory for Earthbound/Mother fans! ๐
To be honest. While an official translation would be awesome…I almost thing I’d like to see Mato’s version too.
Shine Get: As for that whole VC thing…if that’s the case then that’s awesome then. I wouldn’t mind playing Earthbound on the Wii.
@Vague Rant: I know, but dad got a vasectomy so no more babies!(This is the 4th, he is 46, and mom is 42.)
@Aphrodine: I doubt she will bother me too much. I’m 19. She’ll just be cute and bother my 16 and 14 year old sisters. Yeah see you on SVO. Alpha testing is da shiz. ๐
@SuperSlickGuy: Square has been reluctant on putting ANYTHING on the virtual console, mostly because it would hurt their campaign of reselling upgraded versions later at a higher price (seeFF1-6).
Also, KSS was pulled due to the fact that a 3D remake is in development.
So yeah, that isn’t quite a valid argument.
I still can’t see why everyone thinks Nintendo would inappropriately censor a Mother 3 translation. You are claiming that the same Nintendo who made and localized Earthbound, the very game you’ll defend to the death, is going to commit unspeakable acts that will render their hypothetical translation of Mother 3 heinous garbage. If they deem that Mother 3 would do well in the North American market, they’re sure to put in the loving detail and care that they do every other game they release.
@Anzua: The KSS remake isn’t in 3D, it has 3D cutscenes. The actual game part is in 2D!
@J: But there’s a difference here. EarthBound didn’t have a lot of questionable content. Mother 3 DOES.
flclrocks07: Nice, vasectomies are awesome. Kudos to your dad.
With regards to EB on VC, I’ll be damned if I’m buying it. Living in Australia, we have ganked Virtual Console; I’m talking games running 17% too slow and with pathetic stretched graphics. Sure, some games have been sped up, but the vast majority play like it’s 1993 all over again. Now that I’ve experienced SNES emulation on PC, with games running and looking closer to the developers’ original intention than they do on a PAL Wii, there’s no way I can go back. As much as I love EarthBound, I’m not paying for an inferior product.
I also would not mind a official release at all. But, I really doubt it’s going to happen. The way I see it we have Mato and Jeffman and other very bright people who know what they are doing and really, really understand the game’s story, feel and so many details. I actually think this might turn out better than an official translation.. I thank you guys deeply. I, as many people here am really looking forward to it!
http://kotaku.com/386606/esrb-rates-earthbound-for-wii-vc
“With a compelling humor, an original setting, and some damn fine graphics for a Super Nintendo game, EarthBound is widely considered to be one of the greatest role-playing games of all time…and now it is rated E for Everyone.”
Hahahahahaha, what? Damn fine graphics? Personally, I love how EarthBound looks, but its graphics were one of the major issues people had with the game when it first came out.
Yeah that was pretty crazy, but I will say this. I’m pretty sure the graphics were meant to look as simplistic as they did. It was the art style.
Yes the graphics are an art style
they look perfect for the game to me
if they tried complicating it too much
it would look weird in my opinion
@Kosaku: Mother 2 had plenty of questionable content
@Kosaku: Sorry, I was distracted and messed up.
Also, I consider a loose allusion to the KKK and similar clans, religious reference, rape reference, child abuse reference, and other major things of that sort to be classified under “questionable content”.
At least, that’s what American Soccer-Moms think.
I was thinking an Earthbound 2 Logo would be cool too, mostly because Mother 3 is called Earthbound 2 in Earthbound. As for the super secret ending picture, there is still an “O” in Earthbound… so you could make it similar to the EarthBound Zero logo with the Earth pic, if you catch my drift (trying to avoid spoilers).
Anyway, it was just an idea that occurred to me. I’ve played Mother 3 so many times that it would be weird to see it called anything else. But it could be cool.
Keep up the amazing job you guys are doing and just heard about the great news about a possible earthbound release on vc.Also its very true that earthbound has lots of what strict parents might think as questionable content like stated above so I think that NOA might sensor some things in a earthbound re-release on vc.
@Anzua: Earthbound 2 will forever be remembered as the discontinued N64 version, to me at least. I’m sure others as well.
Also, seeing as how the ESRB added Earthbound to their ratings and put Wii as the system, it might appear that Nintendo plans to actually release it for the VC. And since there’s no third parties to deal with, it might happen soon. Maybe if they see how big the fanbase is based on the sales of the VC release, they might consider an official English Mother 3 release. You never know ๐
http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j146/mynameiscats/HEALTHSAFETY.png?t=1209790866
The health and warning screen, US version. It just occured to me I’d wanted to get this over here. It behaves in the same way the Japanese version does.
I don’t remember “Earthbound 2” as the cancelled Nintendo 64 version because it was always called “Earthbound 64.”
Karuvitomsk: Yes, that’s already in the hack. It’s been there since before the group merge, actually. I guess it was easy to hack or something.
Does anyone ever read that thing?
Nice VGCats Reference, and no. No one ever reads that stupid health warning.
flclrocks07: Don’t be so sure. Keep your game collection safe, out of reach, etc. — whatever you can do, do it. I remember back when my niece was around, she terrorized my gamecube and playstation collections — disks all over the floor!! Don’t let that happen to you! Move out or put them in a safe place whenever possible! God knows my apartment wasn’t child-proof. Current todo list? A lobotomy and a vasectomy. *nods* Best two things that’ll ever happen to me. ๐
EB will forever hold a place in my heart as one of my most beloved games of all-time. I first received Earthbound on Christmas day when I was 13. I’m going to be 24 in exactly two days. Mother 3, to me, represents possibly recapturing the excitement, enjoyment, and sense of wonder that EB gave me 11 years ago.
Seeing this project move along the way it is… it gives me some real hope of realizing that possibility.
And, as a side note, should Nintendo EVER begin a translation of this game, by all means, DO NOT simply throw all of this effort away. Should Nintendo suddenly chicken out, I think I can speak for many of us here by saying, we want you to finish the job that they didn’t have the Guts stat to finish.
Mato and JeffMan, keep fighting the good fight! I’m behind you (insert number obscenely higher than 100, then tack on a few more zeroes at the end) percent!
I’m so glad for this project. I’ve just recently finished Earthbound, and playing that has made my love of this series sky rocket. I’ve known about this site for a long time, having seen it discussed in numerous other places, but never felt the need to go here myself.
Boy, did Earthbound change that. I’d give anything to be able to play Mother 3 (which I think it should be called), and you guys are helping me with that.
Keep up the good work, thanks again, and good luck in the future!
Also, if you slip in PK Boob Wizards and not tell anyone, I’ll fall on the floor laughing. Especially if it’s like the Final Boss’s attack XD
Hey, mitch, is there any way you could link to all the pictures you’ve done so far? I THINK I’ve seen them all, but I’m not sure. They’re always cool.
Oh, yeah, Mato. You’re cool too.
Way to go Mato.
BTW, if this translation was a EBZ, EB, or M3 boss, which would it be?
thank you if you answer this question, but that might give spoilers.
UnsavoryMaggot:
Ack! When my nephew was little he used to take out all my games out of their cases and put crushed goldfish crackers in them.
… I never could understand what the thought process behind that was.
@neo: When did I ever say anything about EB2? I think you’re confusing me with G. Wicks.
Mato, which Mother game was your favorite?
Second one’s my favorite.
Mato: Oh? Well, hey, when something nags at me I’m inclined to do it. If it’s in already, awesome! =D
flclrocks07: Yes. Yes, it does rock.
Unsavory Maggot: I’m fairly sure it has more to do with epilepsy than someone trying to steal your games.
OY, can’t the EB2/M3 naming debate go in its own thread?!
I swear i’m reading one every 5th post!
You should add an option to the naming screen: “What do you want this game to be called?”
@ Poo:
What difference would that make? You’d have to edit the whole game to have a reason for the name, like below the title screen or something; there’s no point in naming your game, just your characters.
I was just kidding
That’s some impressive reverse-engineering you’ve done there, keep up the good work!
yus!!! I just beat EB for the second time. on the other hand, now what do I do until the patch is done?
Just outta curiosity, When it is finished will their be an extended part in the credits containing the names of people who worked on the translation? :q
Dunno, it’s too early to worry about that too. I personally don’t care about adding us to credits.
Anyway, we’ve finally moved everything over to xkas, so my old hack insertion tool is no longer needed. Farewell, old friend ๐
But that means it’ll be oh so much nicer to write hacks now. Also, Jeff’s done a whole bunch of great work on one of the things on the to-do list, I just need to write some more code for it and then we *should* be able to cross it off soon.
YAY! Mini update, one more thing off the list! I’m so addicted to this website I need to stop checking it like a million times a day.
I know you don’t want to hear any more stuff about the EB2/M3 debate, but I’m going to share this anyway. I’m sorry if I just totally pissed you off, Mato ๐
I’m going to take back what I said earlier; it should just be left as Mother 3. Then perhaps if Nintendo ever rereleases EB, they could rename it “EarthBound: Mother 2” or “Mother 2: EarthBound” or whatever. Then EB Zero/Mother would be Mother, and Mother 3 wouldn’t change, and everyone would be sort of happy. There could be a title screen change (just add mother 2 in small text underneath “earthbound”) or something, or they could leave it but list it as “Earthbound: mother 2” etc. on the VC listing, in a similar way they released the Japanese version of SMB2, listed it as “SMB: The Lost Levels” but didn’t change the title screen graphics.
That’s all.
I just remembered a question I had for you — are you going to change any of the graphics and/or texts which were already written in english, such as the welcome message? I’m just curious, it’s seriously insignificant aside from the initial shock and awe seeing said welcome message had bestowed upon us. ๐
so what was that “thing” that Jeff was working on?
OK, for like the third time, how about we keep the discussion of the patch’s name ONLY to the boards? Mato isn’t asking for all discussion to be stopped. He just wants the discussion of the name IN THIS COMMENTS SECTION to be stopped. The name discussion hasn’t been relevant to any of the blog entires in which it has been.
All Mato wants is for the name discussion to be kept in the boards, and the comments for the actual blog entires to be kept in the comments for the actual blog entries section. Is that too much to ask?
Not trying to be a prick, but I’m just noticing a ton of people saying “I know you specifically told us to drop the subject here, but I don’t care. Here it is anyway” and completely ignoring what Mato has asked us to do. I mean, he COULD just start deleting every message having to do with it without telling anybody about it. In fact, I’m surprised that he hasn’t been doing that already.
Didn’t your old insertion tool do some bounds checking, too? Does XKAS take care of that, as well?
Alternatively, it could be a word filter. I’m sure nobody wants that. ๐
I love you guys! ๐
Keep up the baller work, seriously.
I’m sure we will make something special in Saturn Valley Online just for you if you grace us with your presence.
<33333333333
Reanzet: Some main menu/shop menu message stuff.
A Fan: No, that’s my conversion tool. The old insertion tool didn’t do anything like that, nor does xkas. Which is fine though.
That’s good ๐ Because stupid little stuff like that is what usually comes out to bite me in the ass, later.
Keep up the good work guys. I’m liking these blogs you do for us, to keep us informed on what is going on with the hacks and what is causing the problems.
Mother 3!
I wonder what jeffman’s mystery item is! ๐ “Main script hacking”? XD
For anybody who wants to see all of my pictures so far, just go back into the comments section of the last bunch of entries in this blog.
But, don’t worry. When the project finishes, I’m going to collect all of them together in one big webpage or something. Maybe sm.net can publish it as a book. And maybe I’ll grow gold plated chest hair. Hehe.
Hey Mato, I just had a worrisome thought. While to most of us it makes most sense to either release Mother 3 as a GBA cartridge despite it probably hurting sales (current-gen hardware has a slot for it, after all) or Wii Ware so that it has better visibility, well, let’s say Earthbound sells smashingly well on the VC (thanks to PK Buy’n, buy one for yourself, and 10 for friends!) and they decide to bring Mother 3… to the DS. This means that being Nintendo and having to follow their own policies, the game has to be refitted with all manner of touchscreen gimmickry and god knows what else. If Itoi isn’t involved (or is minimally involved) and there isn’t a critically acclaimed parallel Japanese version that is “like Mother 3 only gooder!” and instead it is basically a gimmicky censored hack of Mother 3 created with the express intention of Nintendo to kill every last non-Japanese Mother fan’s hopes and dreams….
please promise me you’ll keep what you’re working on, silently keep finishing it up in a less rushed manner, and consider releasing it after “Earthbound DS” runs its course for a year or two and it would no longer cannibalize any sales. Please? :3
Hey, I had a question:
I was going through the FAQ, when I saw the “Does Super smash.Bros. Brawl really spoil the plot of Mother 3.”
Well my friend has the game and we were planning on playing the game after the exams (only 3 weeks left ^^).
How can we avoid spoiler? Is it possible if we avoid using Lucas or Ness and the worlds in Mother 3? Or is it really unavoidable?
Im pretty sure I can convince my friends not to use them ๐
Euh PS:
When I said we were gonna play the game, i was referring to SSBB ofc ๐
So yea, anyone suggest maybe: Dont play single player adventure? or dont use XXXXX in multi? or ….
HevYn:
ur not gonna too many spoilers but dont do snakes special taunt for lucas. two, in emisarry you will have to play as lucas but just dont think too much just fight your way to the next characters and you should be ok. three dont read lucas trophy. four have fun. btw do u mean officially because you could have probbably gotten a us version, but its probbably expensive right? its fun all the same anyway.
Alright! thanks
(yes my friend got Brawl from the US)
Hey Tomato…COMPLETELY off topic…but can you tell me what this says?
FF10ใFCๅใใใใ็ฅ่ชๅฎ
ไปใฏ็กใใใกใ10็ปๅ๏ฝฅBGMไฟ็ฎกๅบซใฎGIFใขใใกใผใทใงใณใ ใ
The thing about an official translation is that many of the hacks this team is doing, like extending player character names, variable width fonts, and so on would all have to be done by Nintendo. Even with the source code, they’d still have the maximum limit for sprites that messed with sprite text and resulted in Mato having to do text welding. Even with the source code (making the thing about 1000 times faster and easier to port) that still takes time, effort, and therefore, money.
That said, and no offense to this wonderful team of hackers and translators, but an official translation would be better for everyone. For the players, we can play the game on the proper hardware, and we can (reasonably) expect no strange bugs to creep up anywhere as a result of a translation patch. The less tech-savvy players wouldn’t need to worry about patching, and nobody’s conscience would be bothered by downloading a ROM. We’d probably see it sooner (their translation team would have the source code and more people). For Starmen.net, the game would get out to more people and (hopefully, anyway) increase the Mother/Earthbound fanbase. Plus they could help encourage people to buy the game and give another statement to show Nintendo that yes, there are Earthbound fans in America. And from Nintendo’s side of things, they make money. Everybody wins from an official translation.
Whereas with this patch, it only gets out to a dedicated few thousand fans who follow the site, instead of the millions it could reach if it were released to the whole of North America and Europe. Nintendo gets nothing, and the game only gets out to existing fans through less-than-legal means.
However, this site is here for a reason available for everyone to see at the top-right of the page: “Nintendo has made it clear that they do not intend to translate the game, so we, the fans, have begun our own translation.” We’re here because given the choice between no patch and this team’s patch, the choice is obvious.
Sure, Nintendo pulled censorship and edited parts of Earthbound. But as we all recall, Earthbound was still an excellent game, whether or not the Happy-Happyists had little white puffy things on the ends of their hats or not.
That’s my 1.96 US cents, take it or leave it, and curse that exchange rate for going down again.
hm, so donating money is out of the question, i know. but what about pie? It’ll be fobby flavored! :3
I finally had my first dream about this site last night with a new post saying it was done. I didn’t think it would happen to me haha!
I wonder… if Mother 3 had made it to the N64, would you guys still be trying to do this?
I can’t wait! It sounds like this will be even quicker to finish the hacking, which means another “Giant Step” closer to finishing the translation.
Maybe after the 500,000 people download this patch, then you should inform Nintendo, Mato, and then they’ll realize that they lost so much money from not translation Mother 3.
If nintendo does allow EB\Mother to come over here, the first thing i’ll be doing is deleting the rom(& saves) off of my PC and getting it for the VC. I would love nothing more than to legally purchase a copy of it for my Wii.
btw, if they release a DS version, i’d buy that too. So long as they don’t detract from the fun. In fact, NOA could start the programming from scratch and make a long awaited 3-D version with tons of mini-games and localization support. (if they ever do remake M3 for DS though i’m hoping people would like it though.)
Mato, I have a question. I just decided I’d play EB Zero out of extreme boredom. I downloaded your patch but is says SNES game file. I know mother was for NES. Which emulator do I use?
ArashiSai: What says it’s a SNES game file?
——–
Mini-mini update: I was feeling sluggish when I got up this morning, so as a mental workout I fixed this little thing Jeff and I noticed yesterday. It only took like 15 minutes. The problem was that battle text doesn’t use sprites, so the item descriptions that included status icons don’t use them. I never would’ve noticed this unless I’d been hacking the game like I am now. Anyway, you can see how this is here:
A few easy hacks (especially thanks to xkas!) and I got that worked around.
Today, although I really don’t look forward to it, I’ll probably be writing some custom control code junk we can use for main menu text. I’ll merge that with Jeff’s recent hacks and we’ll be able to cross off the menu message text thing off the to-do list soon. The menu programmer was on drugs though, so who knows how easy or hard this will be…
Good work my dear sir!
Mato: sorry, not game file. Your PATCH says SNES game patch
Yay! mini-mini-updates rule!
Arashi, there are no patches for Earthbound Zero, the version floating around is a ROM dump from a completed prototype.
ArashiSai: Wait, which patch did you download? This one, or one of my beta patches for my EB0 remake? Cause the first patch is the one you need to download. I don’t know how a patch can say “SNES game patch”, though.
Download the patch I linked to, get an EB0 ROM (I forget which one you need, all hail the happy fun time of multiple ROMs argh) and then patch it either using your emulator’s soft-patch feature or use a tool to hard-patch it. Details here.
EDIT: And yes, you don’t NEED my patch to play EB0 in English. In fact, I’m not even sure I recommend it, unless you get the exact right ROM, and I’m not sure which one of the three+ is the right one anymore.
Got it, thx
Another mini-mini update. There were some small memory-management issues with main menu messages. I fixed that now, wasn’t too tough. The main menu messages are in like many different separate routines though, so there are a few more places that still need this fix applied. It’s so lame how the game does the same thing 5000000 times and we gotta hack each and every one and hope we don’t miss any ๐ At least with the main menu stuff, anyway, barf.
Before and after
Ah Main Menu programmer. What won’t your drug induced coding do?
Maybe it was…
………
…….
………
…..
…….
…… meth.
Oh yeah, while I’m here:
Omg Mato Plz Dont Do Meth. Think Of Family! Your Health!
…
<______>
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aWrhjTxpDs the official song of the Mother 3 Translation Project!
Also what are you thinking there Mato trying to use gloves GLOVES IS EQUIPMENT
Pleese Mato, Don’t Do Meth There Are Plenty Of Better Drugs Out There Don’t Do Meth. ๐
I’m Serious, If You Use Meth During The Translation I Will Kill A Baby Seal. Innocent Baby Seals Don’t Have to Die Tomato.
OK, fixed a crashing bug related to menu messages. But blaaa the main menu programmer ARRRRGH why aaaaaaaaaaaargh what was he thinking????? This guy did like NO planning whatsoever beforehand and just started coding and never looked back. When we’re through here, we’ll have practically reprogrammed the entire menu system. The frustration knows no words!
Remember kinderchilds, meth may make you hyperactive, but it doesn’t “give you energy” any more than caffinated “energy drinks” like coffee or red bull do, it just makes you spend what you’ve got a lot faster. Also, meth may increase quantity of work, but quality is likely to diminish significantly.
It doesn’t so much “expand” conciousness so much as disable various parts of the brain that regulate certain things like being able to differentiate between objects, and further it being unregulated doesn’t help much either.
To put it simply, there’s a reason they call it dope… meth… they call it meth.
…PLAY THE VIOLIN JONNY!
Mato: Would you say translating your future MOTHER 3 into Portuguese could be possible for someone who never messed with those strange named programs like C+ (or something like that)?
Oh, and you are awesome… Earthbound is my life! ^_^
Fixed another small menu bug. You can actually see this bug in action in that recent video, at around the 5:45 mark here. It’s hard to explain so you’d just have to see it to understand it.
Before and after
Foffano: I mentioned it in the FAQ page and elsewhere, but down the road, a little while after the English patch is out (it’d be nice to have a short break ๐ ) Jeff and I are going to help people translate the game into other languages. All the hacks and hard work will be taken care of — all the translators will need to do is translate and test. They won’t need to know how to program.
Mato, when this is over, you deserve a HUUUUUUUUUGE break
Remember a couple months back when this came up? I looked and looked, but couldn’t find the post that had tons of comments about how to word this stuff. A few months back I wound up accidentally reverting whatever it was I chose, and my old brain can’t remember what I decided on. The pics above were just a test, looks like the wording will need to be a bit different to fit on the line there. Don’t want to bother with auto-line wrap with menu messages; the menu programming is already scary and complicated to the max ๐ฏ
Oh oh! Mato! Let me translate it to Portuguese! I’ve really been thinking of doing some helpful translation work! ๐ Anyway, I love what you and Jeffman have been doing. Keep it up!
Does taking out the “bag of” and just making it “big city fries” work?
sooo, who exactly WAS the menu programmer? *prepares Mato’s angry mob*
-Since when does looking at a chick make it disappear from your inventory? in the menu patch thing it said that “the chick made Lucas feel good.” then it disappeared.(awkward, much?)
-lol, gloves is *coughAREcough* equipment
Yay! That’s incredible! With your help, maybe finally the brazilians would know Earthbound!
And, lolwut, are you willing to translate it to Brazilian Portuguese or another one? If it is the Brazilian one, we can work together! ^_^
It’s Portuguese from Portugal, Foffano, but it’s almost the same, although some expressions are a bit different. So yeah, we could work together.
Yes, great! I can understand the Portuguese from Portugal very well. Let’s only wait for the game, play it and, after Mato take a deserved break, start doing our translation!
Why not change it from
Bag of Big City Fries – Boney doesn’t have this item.
to
Bag of Big City Fries – Boney doesn’t have this.
?
Just some thoughts on how the sentences could be worded, to maximize both space and linguistic fluidity:
Bag of Big City Fries — Boney doesnโt have this item
Bag of Big City Fries — Boney doesnโt have any
Bag of Big City Fries — Boney doesnโt have this
Bag of Big City Fries — Boney lacks this item
Boney doesnโt have a Bag of Big City Fries
Bag of Big City Fries — Lucas has 1 of this item
Bag of Big City Fries — Lucas has this item (x#)
Lucas has a Bag of Big City Fries (x#)
You could change it from:
“Bag of Big City Fries – Boney doesn’t have this item.”
To
“Bag of Big City Fries – Boney Doesn’t Have Any.”
OR
“Bag of Big City Fries – Boney has none.”
Is the “Bag of Big City Fries” the only item that causes this problem, or are there others?
If it is the only item that causes this, couldn’t you shorten the item name? I must admit that I know nothing about hacking, So you may ignore my suggestions if you wish.
“Bag of Big City Fries – Lucas has # of these”
“Bag of Big City Fries – Boney doesn’t have any.”
I think you decided on these a few months ago, but I’m not sure…
Just for clarification, is the message the same no matter what the item? Because then you’d have to consider not only the items you can have in bulk, but the items that there’s only one of, right?
Still not done…
All this talk about big city fries makes me want to go to McDonalds XD
How about:
Big City Fries – *** has ### of this
Big City Fries – *** doesn’t have any
I only used the fries example because it’s one of the longest names. Also gotta take 8-letter character names into account. It’s not a big deal, I’ll figure something out, just stealing your brain waves for inspiration ๐
EDIT: I actually recently added the “bag of” thing, because tense issues were showing up a lot. The EB localizers had the same problem, so they got around this by making the plural names singular, ie “Life Noodles” became “Cup of Lifenoodles”, etc. Though it sucks that in M3 shoes and gloves are very common items, bah. Anyway, next up is some more bug-fixing in the menus.
Would pronouns be too ambiguous?
I think it’d be more work than I’d prefer, plus it would sound kind of strange I think.
what about just calling them a “pair of gloves” and “pair of shoes”
“Pair of gloves is equipment” isn’t much better.
You’d almost have to say “Glove pair is equipment”. Does that sound good?
The names get long as they are already, in some cases there might not be room for all those extra letters. Anyway, it’s not a big deal, I’ll probably write an is/are custom control code for certain main menu messages anyway.
dude…not like you would do this, but you realize that if you were to sell the english copy of this game for say…$5 a copy, you would make at least a million dollars
Yeah! That’s a great idea. Then he could net lose 100 million when Nintendo sues him for that!
Stop with the money comments!
Just keep going Mato (and Jeff), pace yourself!
I remember this issue! Didn’t we discuss it on or around the post regarding the Mole Cricket? ๐ That’d be your best bet if you want to recall what you decided. ๐