Hacking To-Do + New Guy?!

16 years ago by Mato

Broke my streak of daily updates, but oh well. It had to end sometime πŸ˜›

Haven’t done too much in the last two days hacking-wise, busy with real life. Will be pretty busy the next few days too 😐

People keep asking each update if I’m the only guy working on the project now. I’m not really — the rest of the team is busy with real life stuff, school finals/final projects, work, holiday stuff, burned out-ness, etc. I know that last one all too well 😯 Only reason I can put this much work into the project is because I don’t work the standard 9-to-5 job. Plus the game’s not gonna hack itself, so things continue on, slowly but steadily.

The other day, super hacker Gemini contacted me about possibly helping out the project. We chatted a bit and it looks like he’s gonna help out with some stuff, which is cool. But as I sat down today to make a list of all the hacking that still needs to be done, my brain turned off. Even though the last few weeks have seen a flurry of hacking progress, so so much remains. Here’s the current list I have, with some ocassional screenshots showing what I’m talking about. I might be forgetting stuff, though.


Main Script Hacking:

  • Figure out why the game ignores control codes after 33 characters.

  • Figure out a way to fix the above. Might require completely redoing many major routines from scratch.
  • Figure out why long text can really screw things up on occasion.
  • Figure out a fix for the above. Might require major reprogramming.
  • Figure out why the main script routine sometimes crashes the game outright.
  • Figure out a fix for the above.
  • Figure out why sometimes chunks of text don’t get displayed on the screen.
  • Figure out a fix for the above.
  • Figure out why the game prints stuff incorrectly sometimes, even without long lines.

  • Figure out a fix for the above.
  • Figure out why sometimes there are weird colored spots around text.
  • Figure out a fix for the above.
  • Test all these fixes with the various text speeds to ensure they still work as intended.
  • Figure out how to get more space for the main script. Running very low as it is.
  • Update the previewer tool so that text won’t overlap the cursor arrow thing on screen.
  • Fix some stuff with menus with 3+ options. Currently broken at the moment.
  • Find a way to move the menu cursor down a couple pixels to match the new text positioning.
  • Figure out how menu cursor positions work, then find a way to edit them easily so that menus don’t look stupid.
  • Reinsert sblur’s hacks for the intro text and the scrolly text stuff.
  • Find a way to make it so that scrolly text displays the full lines of text. This is somehow connected with the main script stuff, so it’s an ugly mess.
  • Find a way to make it so that scrolly text doesn’t make things blink as the text is scrolling. For some reason this happens with English text but not the original game, and it’s annoying and weird. Probably sprite memory related.
  • Find and reinsert the hack that lets the game print the 8-bit enemy names correctly too.
  • Make the [CENTER] code work correctly.
  • Add in new control codes that will handle “a”, “an”, “the”, “some”, etc. and put them before item names as appropriate.
  • Possibly do the same for “he”, “she”, etc. And things related to the # of characters in your party. Not required though. But would be nice.

Gray Name Box Hacking:

  • See if we can allow longer names, just one or two more letters would be nice.
  • Hack the routine to read names pulled from the enemy name list correctly. Kind of a pain but not hard hopefully.
  • Redo the 8×8 font. We’re planning to use a slightly modified version of the EB font here.
  • Also make sure we got the width table right for the above.
  • Possibly fix bugs in the current VWF for this.
  • Snap the gray box to the names correctly. Even the original game didn’t do this too well, but right now it thinks each letter is 8 pixels wide.
  • Try to hack it so that 8 letter player names are printed correctly. This especially affects “Kumatora”. This is probably the one and only thing holding us back from allowing 8-letter names for main characters.

Menu Hacking:

  • Pull up all the text by 3 or 4 pixels. Possibly a pain.
  • Get the game to center menu titles correctly, both inside and outside menus.
  • Write a difficult VWF — this will VWFify pretty much everything else in the game though, so this will magically make so much of the game look better instantly.
  • Allow for item names that are at LEAST 18 letters long. A real pain. But it turns out even skill names like the simple PK Thunder need this hack, so it’s important.
  • Figure out why item descriptions over 42 characters crash the game.
  • Figure out a fix for the above.
  • Figure out why item names get chopped up at the bottom, even though according to emulator debuggers, everything SHOULD be displayed. Possibly related to scanline interrupts?
  • Hack any menu-updating routines, which might cause the above to happen every time you move the cursor anyway. Not fun.
  • Hack skill name routines in the same way that the item name routines need to be hacked.
  • Possibly connected to the above, figure out why PSI names don’t get fully displayed if they’re on the left side of the menu.
  • Hack the key item menu to work and act correctly. This menu lets you scroll up and down, so it’s got plenty of issues of its own.
  • Hack the positioning of map names in the file loading/saving menus.
  • Figure out more about the file loading/saving menu stuff, and see why text acts weird at certain lengths.
  • Possibly fix the above if it’s absolutely necessary.
  • If the music player’s [CENTER] uses a different routine than the main script, then hack it to work correctly now. More than likely, it shares that code with something else in the game anyway.
  • Hack 8×8 VWF font for things like the monster list screen and naming screen (though the latter is less important).
  • Possibly 8 bit-ify the enemy descriptions so we don’t have to chop up Itoi’s descriptions.
  • If enemy names are too long for the battle memory menu, then hack the game to use a list of names that are shortened to fit in the available screen space.
  • Figure out how to relocate text blocks so that some of these blocks don’t have to be so tiny and chopped up. Other blocks are full of room, so it’d be nice to use that free space.
  • Fix the naming screen, for some reason you have to hit B a lot before you name a character right now.
  • Allow for 8-letter-names possibly.
  • Rearrange and organize the alphabet menu.
  • Disable the hiragana and katakana menus.
  • Create and insert the proper new graphics for the alphabet menu.

Battle Stuff Hacking:

  • Get the names in the character boxes to center correctly.
  • Pull all the non-8×8 font text up 3 or 4 pixels.
  • Possibly figure out why items that aren’t equipped are pushed all over to the left.
  • Fix the above.
  • Figure out that NASTY menu-updating routine that uglifies the menu each time you move the cursor. Not fun at all.
  • Figure out why long item/PSI/skill descriptions result in empty name boxes.
  • Try to fix the above. (Don’t forget to pray)
  • Add a control code for “he”, “she”, “it”, “a”, “an”, etc. for enemies and such.
  • Allow for more than 21 characters per line. Very not fun.
  • Make a properly-working VWF.

  • Fix it so numbers appear correctly. Shouldn’t be too hard, just gotta trace stuff.
  • Hack the special text boxes that appear in the latter half of the game when people are talking/special stuff is happening.

Misc. Hacking:

  • Hack a 1-second sound clip found halfway in the game into English. Hopefully someone good with GBA hardware will be around when we get to this.
  • Get the character names in the outside status boxes to center correctly. The game currently assumes 8 pixels per letter and prints everything more off-center the longer the name is.
  • Fix stuff in the ending. Only seen it once in English, but there was weird stuff. Even the menu patch sorta made it look strange, too. Or so I hear.
  • Insert some sort of intro screen/disclaimer screen thing.
  • Possibly add in whatever hacks are needed to make the game work properly on emulators and real systems. For some reason, some emus and flash cards have trouble with MOTHER 3, but I think sblur found a fix or something. I forget.

😯

😯

πŸ˜₯

Not to mention that while working on any single hack/fix on this list, any number of other things might break, as we’ve seen first-hand the past 2 or 3 weeks. And of course, this list doesn’t even touch on any of the 2 or 3 more script drafts. Ouch πŸ™

I know it seems like I’m being a downer, but whenever I would say, “…But there’s still sooooo much more to do πŸ™ ” now you know what I mean πŸ™

Which leads me back to Mr. Gemini. I can’t possibly ask one guy to take on allll that, but it’ll definitely be great to have more help hacking the game πŸ˜€ He’s got some ideas for some of the more complicated stuff too, and skills that FAR surpass mine. I’m not a very good assembly hacker, as is obvious from the past few weeks 😳 He’s still finishing up his Tales of Phantasia PSX project and should be done in the next few weeks. It’s looking pretty cool in itself, and apparently Playstation coding is equally as crazy as this game’s, so there may be hope!

Pray nine times and welcome the new guy πŸ˜€

Posted on Friday, December 7th, 2007 at 10:39 pm by Mato, filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Comments and pings are currently closed.

98 Responses to “Hacking To-Do + New Guy?!”

  1. Jackalope said 16 years ago:

    Aw, quit updating right when I post, eh? It always gives me the feeling you’ll never see what I said because you’ll have your hands full with questions on the new post.

    Now please get me off my Osohe Highhorse and slap me in the face. I’ve got some kind of nerve.

  2. wow said 16 years ago:

    Im the first!!!!!
    anyway, if there wasn’t you guys

    I had to learn japanese

    thanks

  3. wow said 16 years ago:

    oh, I’m not the first

    aw…

  4. Mato said 16 years ago:

    I never understood why people care about being the first reply on this blog. It’s not like this is a huge giant famous site or vital that one be the first poster or anything. Oh well.

  5. Kasumi said 16 years ago:

    Good luck with all this. And good to know you’re getting another hacker, since that seems to be what’s left for the most part.

  6. mitch said 16 years ago:

    Mato: chicks dig a big e-penis.

  7. A Fan said 16 years ago:

    Mato: It’s ridiculous, but I’d just take the first posting as a sign that this has become a popular read for all the EB fans out there who are waiting πŸ™‚

    Now I just have to figure out where to get a copy of that ζ–°ε’Œθ‹±ε€§θΎžε…Έ, εΊƒθΎžθ‹‘ you mentioned before. Naturally, every link I find in Google is in Japanese… πŸ™‚

  8. Mato said 16 years ago:

    A Fan: Well, it sounds like you’re just starting out learning the language, so both dictionaries are probably beyond your abilities, though the first one (pronounced shin waei daijiten, the other one is koujien) might still be of good use down the road, and if you know Japanese alphabetical order, you can look stuff up just fine. Here’s a link where to buy it: here

  9. Dr. Hobo said 16 years ago:

    When you have all the hacking done, CAN I BE A BETA-TESTER?

  10. Charles Surge said 16 years ago:

    Your are loved, Tomato!
    Take it nice and easy, man!

  11. Steve said 16 years ago:

    mitch: Studies show (read: logic) that women prefer a real penis to an e-penis by 10-to-1.

    Dr. Hobo: See the FAQ (hint: No).

    Thanks for posting that list. If I get in a hacking mood, maybe I’ll try to gain some insight on one/some of those problems. I have had luck expanding text boxes and moving around text in the Mother 1+2 ROM so who knows?

  12. Dr. Hobo said 16 years ago:

    Steve: Semi-inside joke.

  13. Jackalope said 16 years ago:

    Dr. Hobo: Nope. I asked that same question a long time ago, but subtler, and got the same answer, but longer.

    For Mato: Apologies about… (Scrolls up, copies) 1 hour, 15 minutes ago. What I posted in the previous post was something I’ve wondered for awhile. Since I can’t get an account yet and can’t seem to find your email anywhere, this is the only means for me to ask about it. I made it about the translation so it wasn’t off-topic. Then you posted this update, and that bothered me for the reason said… (Copies again) 1 hour, 22 minutes ago. But you have better things to do than to answer a question that I’ll see the answer to in the translation. Apologies again, and you don’t have to look back and answer.

    (I like the sound of my own fingers typing, apparently.)

  14. Ruduen said 16 years ago:

    Wow. Just looking at that list gives me a headache.

    Ah, well. I’m just happy that everything’s still going on. You guys really work hard on this, so even if it takes time, I’m fine with waiting.

    Wish I could say more, but all I can really give is moral support.

    Hooray, moral support!

    Well, good luck, and I hope that you guys get the breakthroughs you need.

  15. Dr. Hobo said 16 years ago:

    Inside Joke!

  16. Mirablu said 16 years ago:

    I was just wondering what, exactly, was left to be done.
    I know it’s a lot, but I’m sure you all can do it. I just hope you (and everyone else on the team) gets enough rest.
    I’m really looking forward to the project’s completion (like everyone else here, I guess!), and… thanks for working on it so hard. Really, thanks! I just finished Earthbound for the first time the other day (I almost beat it once or twice before, but my game glitched up and was erased both times. :|), so I might still be riding on that high, but it gives me a warm fuzzy feeling to know that “hey, there’s another one! and there are people working really hard to make it playable to a larger segment of the populace!” Plus, I really just like reading these updates. It’s nice to see what exactly is going on, you know?
    Just be careful not to overdo it! πŸ˜€

  17. Jackalope said 16 years ago:

    Dr. Hobo: Injoke, right. I get it now.

    For Mato: (Bows) Much thanks for the reply. Say hi to the new guy for me, by the way.

  18. A Fan said 16 years ago:

    No wonder I haven’t seen that book at places like Borders. $500!? Well, I’ll have to wait until I have more cash πŸ™‚

    And yeah, I probably do qualify as a beginner. After all, I have no formal training and I had no choice but taking French in college. Anything else would’ve set me back a full year.

    Guess I’ll just have to ι ‘εΌ΅γ‚‹ πŸ™‚

  19. Poe said 16 years ago:

    Welcome, Mr. New Guy! Please save us from the crazy moon language!

  20. A Fan said 16 years ago:

    Ack! It might help if I had written that correctly (i.e. ι ‘εΌ΅γ‚Œ), but I suspect you knew what I meant πŸ™‚

    Yeah, I’m definitely still a n00b…

  21. Mato said 16 years ago:

    Actually you got it right the first time πŸ˜›

  22. Steve said 16 years ago:

    Dr. Hobo: Thanks for the link, I don’t sit at the cool kids table.

  23. Roll said 16 years ago:

    Oh my God……
    ……………
    *Blacks Out*

    I really wish I knew lots of hacking abilities, to help a little D:

  24. Aasimov said 16 years ago:

    πŸ˜€ The progress looks pretty damn kickass.
    But the list of stuff to do is staggering.
    It seriously took me like 10 minutes to read all that, and I’m a quick reader usually. :O

    Wow, I’m pretty impressed with myself.
    I consider myself quite out of the loop, and I’ve actually heard of Gemini! ;D It’s pretty cool for me to know something like that, silly as it sounds.

    So Mato… I may just be asking a stupid question that’s common knowledge here, but from where stems your extensive Japanese knowledge? Are you actually Japanese and awesomely bilingual, or is it your mad 1337 language-learning skills? ;D

  25. Steve said 16 years ago:

    WOW, that Tales of Phantasia hacking work looks amazing! The PSX game was the first game I ever imported, but without dialogue, I lost interest. I will definitely check this out when it’s done.

    Props to Gemini for wanting to help, especially right after completing such a huge project!

  26. Torin said 16 years ago:

    I have a feeling as you fix some of these problems that you will find related solutions for other problems,

    try and fix similar problems first, though difficult, it may help in the long run.

    This project has given me new perspective on rom hacking, I can only imagine how difficult ps or ps2 hacking and translating is (I assume its actually EASIER from a cartridge)

    FIGHT ON MY FRIEND!!!!!!!!!
    when you succeed your name will be echoed throughout the internet.

    Good luck on your eb0 project too.

  27. Beck said 16 years ago:

    There really is quite a lot more to do. Good luck and don’t give up.

  28. BallsFace said 16 years ago:

    you guys rule. have my babies. (I am a man.)

  29. Raj said 16 years ago:

    Hey,

    That’s some progress mate. I bet Gemini will help a great deal with the project.

  30. viz said 16 years ago:

    thats quite the list…good luck

  31. Xelchan said 16 years ago:

    I want to do something to say THANKS.
    Are fanarts accepted?

    …because I don’t know anything about hacking…:(

  32. Moulinoski said 16 years ago:

    Woo hoo! With Gemini on the team, hacking will probably go alot faster! I’ve seen some of his stuff over at RomHacking.net. (I’ve been waiting on the ToP translation for a little while now, although not the entire time he’s been hacking it, just… like a few months ago).

    Well, good luck to you Tomato! And good luck to Gemini and the rest of the team!

  33. tibbs said 16 years ago:

    Yup, that’s a lot left to do… but the more you are, the quicker it will be done!

    Welcome to Gemini, and good luck to all of you!

  34. Mato said 16 years ago:

    Aasimov: I’m just some normal American guy. Just took time and work to learn the language. It’s not that hard if you enjoy learning πŸ™‚

    Torin: Yeah, I’m hoping that fixing the very first thing on the list will fix 90% of the crazy memory death problems, though I know it won’t fix them all. But once we get that fixed (though this is probably the #1 bug/issue in the entire game), then fixing many of the other script problems may be as simple as moving where the game prints into memory. Though nothing is ever easy, so I don’t have my fingers crossed.

  35. Alaska Nebraska said 16 years ago:

    You guys. ;_; Welcome, new hacker!! And man, that list is excruciating. I wish I could help…ugh. I’d love to be a beta tester when the time comes, though. I’m such a perfectionist, I spot minisvule errors with ease…and after playing through M3 four times, well… XD

  36. A Fan said 16 years ago:

    Heh, good point. Though it’s hard to merge two languages in one sentence (not that it stops the Japanese, heh).

    Wasn’t Tales of Phantasia ported to the GBA already, though? Or was the PSX version better (e.g. like Final Fantasy Tactics vs. Final Fantasy Tactics Advance; and I know they’re not even remotely the same save in name)?

    Oh well, hopefully he finishes it soon. After all, there’s finally a good PSX emulator out there, though you still need your old BIOS images: http://psxemulator.gazaxian.com/

  37. Steve said 16 years ago:

    A Fan: There are three versions of Tales of Phantasia, one on Super Famicom, one on PlayStation, and one on GBA. The SFC version was updated with some new content, better battle sprites, more voiced dialogue, a 3D overworld, and a new animation opening. I believe the GBA version had the first two items added in, but retained the SFC opening, overworld, and amount of voiced dialogue. The GBA translation was apparently not that good (and likely censored). So, I suspect this translation project was designed to properly localize the best version of the game. I do own the GBA version, though, and it doesn’t seem bad.

  38. G.Wicks said 16 years ago:

    This is somewhat unrelated, but I just noticed that in some of the battle screens the party order is Lucas, Duster, Kumatora, and Boney. Whenever I played through on my GBA it was Lucas, Kumatora, Duster, and Boney. Why is this different?

  39. Mato said 16 years ago:

    It can change depending on the order you do things, I think. That, or maybe the debug menu does a different order sometimes. But I think it’s more likely up to what the player does, though Boney always seems to be on the far right.

  40. Jerry "The King" Lawler said 16 years ago:

    The game ends when Eddie Murphy hands Lucas the Star Beam after collecting all 7 star spirits so Lucas can overrule Chris Rock’s star rod that he stole from star haven.

  41. cant wait to play-_- said 16 years ago:

    Hey cant wait to play-hey mato this might seem off topic but it seems like youve been gettin lots of questions already so i thought i should ask mine before you get sick *vomiting noise* of anwering them 1. how long each day should i study japanese 2.to learn kanji should i just write them out a bunch of times oh yah keep on rockin n rom hacking

  42. butt said 16 years ago:

    I hope things go well for you Tomato.

    .
    .
    .
    .
    .
    .
    .
    .
    .
    Now on to Gemini, if you happen to read this I know we all would appreciate it very much if you choose to help the team work on the game it would certainly bring a lot of happiness to the little community we have going on here. Best of luck finishing up Tales of Phantasia.

  43. KMeist said 16 years ago:

    It’s things like this that makes me wish I spent less time learning high-level languages and more time learning low-level assembly.

    At least the game doesn’t have self-modifying code.

  44. Fire Geno said 16 years ago:

    This is the greatest translation team.
    Ever. All the big faces are here.

  45. Matthew Balousek said 16 years ago:

    Hmm… Admittedly I have a limited knowledge of the dark and arcane workings of GBA code, but wouldn’t a lot of the memory issues be resolved by changing the size of the cart to a bigger one? There are probably various reasons this wouldn’t work, though…

  46. Mato said 16 years ago:

    The ROM can’t be expanded any further, and that wouldn’t really affect the memory problems, as that’s more of a RAM thing than a storage thing 😐

  47. TheReaper said 16 years ago:

    First let may say I had no idea of how much work needs to be done on this game and I really hope Gemini can help Mato out with all the crazy hacking that needs to be done in this game.

  48. Ixis said 16 years ago:

    Play Aquaria while you wait.

  49. Ketchup said 16 years ago:

    Are you saying that you’d have to increase the ram required for this rom? I hope not because I bought an EZ Flash 3 in 1 for when the patch is released, and that can only do 32 MB at maximum for ram. I don’t want to have wasted my money.

  50. Mato said 16 years ago:

    Increasing RAM? I don’t even know if/think that’s possible 😯

  51. Yadda said 16 years ago:

    Mato, I noticed something… the weird colored spots are actually tiles used for the map and scenery of the game (I think it’s the top for a bush or something). If this is the case, you broke something big time. Not good.

  52. Yadda said 16 years ago:

    and no, I don’t think you can expand RAM. if a GBA works anything like a PC, the RAM’d be stored on the GBA, not the cart. so screw that idea. no expanding the RAM.

  53. Yadda said 16 years ago:

    and sorry for triple post, but forgot to add… the no increasing ram is only a hypothetical, I dunno if the GBA works like a PC, this is only a guess. you could still look into RAM alterations in lieu of expansion

  54. Yadda said 16 years ago:

    agh, thought about it for a while… if you pull up the font by 3px, it’d fix both the arrow issue and menu issue. it won’t exactly look pretty, but it’d work. and we want this to WORK over anything else.

    Also, if I were you, I’d get a fresh, unhacked Mother 3 ROM and apply the hacks and patches you have access to, such as sblur’s stuff, then reintroduce your modifications into the new ROM, but with some modified or removed accordingly; if you put the hacks meant to be applied to the original ROM onto this heavily modified, rescripted train wreck, it could just screw it up even MORE.

  55. KMeist said 16 years ago:

    Mato: I think he means the save memory on the cart… or he’s talking about ROM Extention, which we’ve already said is impossible.

    I had some theories about the 33-characters-or-more-per-line-are-bad-for-your-rom’s-health bug. I’m thinking it’s probably some strange conditional to prevent it from reading control codes too far ahead or something. Meh. It does look like it’s causing some other bugs, since it causes some of the memory corruption that breaks other stuff. Regardless, I shouldn’t be backseat programming since I have no clue how the script loader and printer works anyway.

  56. KMeist said 16 years ago:

    Yadda: They already have the tools in place to build a translated ROM from scratch. A few weeks ago they told us they were using it to organize their hacks. It’s really nice, they can remove and insert hacks as needed to test only certain parts of the game.

  57. butt said 16 years ago:

    @KMeist I am not Mr gba but it seems the text is get save over a routine in the gba RAM and when the gba goes looking to use it, it finds text and freaks out

  58. Mato said 16 years ago:

    Yadda: I appreciate the suggestions and stuff, but if things were that easy, we’d have already have done it. And we CAN build the latest version from a fresh ROM, I’m guessing you’re new to the blog πŸ˜› And pulling up the text 3 pixels to match the menu cursor isn’t an option, since we purposely pushed down the text on that line in the first place πŸ˜› So the thought is appreciated, but we got stuff of that level under control.

  59. Jackalope said 16 years ago:

    So I was wandering about aimlessly, and I came across a page that transcripted all of Mother 3, including when they list all the characters. So I went “cool” because I need one of those. I went to one of those free translators so I could have their names translated for reference. Well, that didn’t work, because the images didn’t show, but I looked through anyway, and where Wes’ name is supposed to be…

    “Rag”

    Rag? Rag?! As in, Rag and Duster? I was incapacitated for the next few seconds (rolling on the floor laughing), and I wonder, has everyone been translating his name wrong, or is it just the translator? ‘Cause everyone knows the latter are rarely right… But could this be one of those rare cases?

  60. Smitty said 16 years ago:

    a lot of that stuff sounds nitpicky

  61. Rafael Castro said 16 years ago:

    Good job. Go ahead!

  62. Dko said 16 years ago:

    Man this really makes you understand and appreciate all the work you all are going thru to get this game translated for us. Plus even though you consider your self not very good at assembly you are still tons more experienced then most people here. Its a hard skill to learn (I know, I’ve tried) πŸ˜›

  63. Mato said 16 years ago:

    cant wait to play: Everyone’s different, so I dunno what to tell you. I don’t think simply writing them a ton will help though. It’s good to have a working knowledge of Japanese to begin with, that way you can learn and use kanji in a useful manner. There are also helpful kanji workbooks you can buy, most people use these during school at some point.

    Jackalope: The term actually comes from our English word “waste”. Like many loanwords though, its usage wound up being different from the original language, so it’s an old timey term for a rag for cleaning I think.

  64. Super Bubble-Gum-Monkey said 16 years ago:

    This is amazing. You did quite a job of hacking this. It almost looks finished, but I know there’s probably a lot more to be done. I wish Nintendo would officially release this game. Then again, with the politically correctness in America going on right now, i’m not sure how much they’d censor, so maybe that’s not a good idea. But when the patch gets set up and fixed, I am so playing it in English. Thank you very much. You’re doing a big service to all fans of the series.

  65. psirocker said 16 years ago:

    I downloaded your latest patch, but the numbers and things aren’t centered.

    Anyway, good luck! πŸ™‚

  66. EliotAndrews said 16 years ago:

    I’m floored by the number of tasks left! You really are dedicated. Don’t overdo it, though – Take time for yourself. We’ll wait, of course.

    I have to say, everything you’ve done so far looks amazing – Nintendo quality. (“Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time” Nintendo quality, not “Yoshi’s Story” Nintendo quality.)

  67. Seiru said 16 years ago:

    Amazing work, man.

    But uh…maybe..you can tone down the “hacking” usage, and all of its derivatives?

    It’s just…you use it every single sentence and it’s unnecessary and slightly distracting >_>

    Anyways…keep up the good work.

    *salute*

  68. DeadNight said 16 years ago:

    Now, that’s a to-do list !

    A few months ago I was searching for info about an English version for Mother 3. I’m learning Japanese at the university right now, but it’ll be some time before I can really enjoy Mother 3 in its Japanese form.

    My lost hope for seeing an English version of this game came right back to life When I’ve come across this project. I didn’t register to the blog or comment on anything at that time.

    Now I’ve decided to check what’s going on around here, and seeing this to-do list makes me want to offer my help, if you want it.

    I have really basic knowledge of assembly, but I’m a fast learner. I’ve read Nintendo’s “AGB Programming Manual”‘s first 85 pages without any problems, and it seems that I’ll be able to catch up really quick.

    I think that for now I can help with fixing these two things:

    # Find a way to move the menu cursor down a couple pixels to match the new text positioning.

    # Figure out how menu cursor positions work, then find a way to edit them easily so that menus don’t look stupid.

  69. Mato said 16 years ago:

    DeadNight: You’re free to try if you want – that’s stuff you could figure out on your own with just the Japanese ROM. Moving the cursor down is probably just a one-byte change, and the menu cursor position thing is probably stored in some special table somewhere, just gotta find it and find how it works.

  70. Brian said 16 years ago:

    Once again, keep it up bro, hope the ‘new’ guy helps a bunch!

  71. moo said 16 years ago:

    A Mother 3 translation!?! Holy crap I can’t believe I haven’t noticed this. I guess I just gave up on Mother 3 since there was no chance that Nintendo or whoever does the translating would do it. You guys seem to be really diligent with this project. It’s amazing. Good luck fixing all those problems. I never knew that hacking a game was this hard.

  72. baxter said 16 years ago:

    It’s great how many people are still discovering the existence of this project. That and the proliferations of comments on this blog, even after weeks of slow progress, just goes to show how much interest there is in this.

  73. 7ucky said 16 years ago:

    Another great update Mato! Frankly, I’m just glad you took a day off – I hope it was restful enough for you πŸ˜€

    Judging by all the comments on here, it sounds like a lot of people are interested in getting in on the ROM hacking action. It seems with all of the new media nowadays it could be rapidly becoming a lost art. I hope that’s not the case and you guys (and you, too, Gemini!) realize how valuable you are to everyone πŸ˜€

    Keep up the M3 goodness!

  74. DeadNight said 16 years ago:

    Mato: Yes, that’s exactly what I thought. I don’t have any tools to work with though. Then again, this is an easy thing to fix πŸ™‚

  75. Mato said 16 years ago:

    Tools can be had here

  76. DeadNight said 16 years ago:

    Great, now all I’m missing is a cup of coffee (I find that programming without a nice cup of coffee, and/or some quiet background music, is giving me a headache).

    Then, I can dive right into it.

  77. Roan said 16 years ago:

    Is the sound clip “ok s ka,” or what, don’t say if it spoils anything.

  78. Mato said 16 years ago:

    No, it’s not that. It’s a voice clip that’s played about halfway through the game during the story.

  79. cant wait to play-_- said 16 years ago:

    changing a voice clip,i dont know to much about this kind of stuff but it sounds tricky oh well good luck doing it when the time comes

  80. Snowman Jr. said 16 years ago:

    Keep up the good work guys. Big pats on backs all around. Your devotion will pay off.

  81. A Fan said 16 years ago:

    Heh, Mato. At this point, you should probably add those links to the GBA assembly & tools to the FAQs page. People have sure started asking about it enough πŸ™‚

  82. A Fan said 16 years ago:

    Oh yeah, if you choose to add to the FAQ page, here’s another people might like:

    http://www.romhacking.net/trans/868/

    It’s a half-finished translation of Mother 1+2.

  83. butt said 16 years ago:

    if you ever get to the point where you need real hardware testing I could help with that. I have 3 differint types of GBA flashcarts witch could be put to good use

  84. Stephen said 16 years ago:

    Welcome Mr.Gemini

  85. mking13 said 16 years ago:

    YOU CAN DO IT! I BELIEVE IN U! WE BELIEVE IN U!

  86. ArashiSai said 16 years ago:

    Hey, I’ve been studying Japanese for over a year now. I can help translate all the hiragana and katakana text into english words, and I can help translate them, if you need it. problem is, I don’t know how to hack… Anyway, if you need help, please tell

  87. baxter said 16 years ago:

    Mato’s a professional translator, so I’m sure that portion of this project was by far the easiest. Hacking is a whole different beast, and that’s what’s needs all the work.

  88. pigger said 16 years ago:

    Dude……looks like it might’ve been easier to have recoded the game from scratch.

  89. Mario said 16 years ago:

    hey mato its bugger than you think alright D$&% face? how about you chill out before i get Nintendopower on your ass alright man? NINTENDOPOWER thats WORSE than Nintendo, theyll straight raid you house .NINTENDOPOWER invented the internet imagine what they could do to your pathetic chatroom . ok ? trust me i used to work for them , i was doing a lot of drugs then , mostly mushrooms but i know what NINTENDO POWER is capable of . i quit that job when they stated to kill innocent people . i mostly plumb now and hang with my bro. BUT anyway stop being such a baby cry.

  90. cant wait to play-_- said 16 years ago:

    ?

  91. SimonBob said 16 years ago:

    I think “NINTENDO POWER” is code-slang for “heroin.”

  92. Moulinoski said 16 years ago:

    Its people like that Mario guy that gets people angry and make us write little codes and whatnot and have to make us wait years for comments to be approved. πŸ™ Mario, GTFO and stop roleplaying on other people’s websites… not that you’ll ever come back here again anyhow. >_>

  93. 7ucky said 16 years ago:

    That’s funny, Mario, because NP did a piece on Starmen.net when no one else was taking notice.

  94. butt said 16 years ago:

    to be fair that was old nintendo power I dout new nintendo power (a huge publishing company) would will ever mention starmen

  95. Husky_Washu said 16 years ago:

    Holy cooow that list. It’s pretty much all mumbo jumbo to me so all I can really do is wish you luck…and try not to stress yourself out too much in the process. You guys’ve already done so much so far, we can wait a little while longer I’m sure. Take care and keep up the great work. o/’

  96. SoreThumb said 16 years ago:

    Wow.

    Wow.
    Wow. Wow. Wow. THAT MUCh. That’s ridiculous. Maybe you’d feel better if you posted another entry that showed all the FIXED problems? πŸ™‚

  97. IheartSCOOPS said 16 years ago:

    @butt,

    This was about 3 months ago. I’ll try to find a link.

  98. butt said 16 years ago:

    yes I know Nintendo power just recentley gotten taken over they have onley had about 3 issues with the new guys.

    I am a subscriber I might send you a copy of the email we got at that time if you want it