Naming Progress
While I was busy farting around with sprite text welding and junk, Jeffman was hard at work on fixing up some naming screen re-programming. The biggest thing is that he made it so that “Don’t Care” is no longer selectable on naming screens where it isn’t an option, that was a little bug we had of our own. Also, he thought up a better letter arrangement, so here that is here:
I’d cross that naming stuff off the to-do list now, but I think he wants to tinker with some of the player-naming screens a bit first, so I guess I’ll set that to-do list item to something like 90% or so.
The naming screen relies almost entirely on sprite text, and 8×8 sprite text at that, so my current sprite text hacks play a big role in it. Right now, because the game constantly writes and rewrites text to OBJ memory, and because we have to do all kinds of bit shifting and whatnot, the game slows down when there’s lots of sprite text. That’s another little thing I’ll have to take care of soon here. Probably it’ll involve setting a flag after text is written the first time, and after that, the game’ll check the flag and not bother with re-writing the same text over and over until text changes. That should fix that problem, the issue is knowing when and where to set this flag. But alas, first I must finish the rest of the sprite text hack to make it work fully, then I can optimize it. It’s various things like this that make me think they didn’t consider translations into other languages.
Anyway, some more slight progress since my update yesterday, but still more to do. Can’t wait until this sprite welding is done though. Can’t wait unti the hacking’s all over so I can focus on the translation side of things, which is my real forte. Hacking is exhausting 😉
BTW, while I’m here, I urge EB fans to check this out. Help our cult grow ever bigger 😛
How weird. I’ve had the naming screen song stuck in my head all morning.
Glad to see Jeffman is still at work too 🙂
The results of that poll will be intriguing. I’m certain EB will make the other games sweat.
I do like the new arrangement of the letters.
Please continue to a great job on translating and fixing bugs.
Why would the game re-write the text over and over in the first place? Shouldn’t those ‘flags’ already be apart of the code? Sorry, I’m not that well-versed in any of this, but I’m doing my best to understand the technical talk. :\
What the hell. 12 minutes after a post and people have made comments?!
That is indeed a fine letter arrangement.
I bet Nintendo Power’s mailbox is already nearing capacity because of starmen.net members. I’m off to annoy magazine staff I’ve never met.
EarthBound would definitely be my first pick, with Super Mario RPG second and Secret of Mana third. Let’s deluge nintendo with Emails, people!
Great work! Keep it up!
Mackincheese: Because doing it that way means you don’t have to worry about flags. I don’t know if I have the time or skill to explain it well, but in a way it’s smart, but in a way it’s lazy.
Anyway, not that it matters, but I decided to do some easy tweaks of my own with some stuff that’s been bothering me for a while 😉
Ah ok, roger that. 🙂
Wow Mato! Nice progress. I can’t believe how good most if not all these screenies are looking. Your team’s persistent is amazing! Good luck with the rest of your project!
Great work! I really find following this project interesting and the technical “blabla” is interesting as well.
I really appreciate that you are getting this game translated. 😀
I’m glad the technical stuff is being explained, I think it’s good to see all the effort going into this hack, which will no doubt be impressive.
I wonder how many other translators go out of their way to make the translations *better* than the originals? 🙂
Not many, I think.
It’s nice to see a real english naming screen instead of the moonspeak ^_^
I’ve been following your progress and it’s really amazing, I’m really looking forward to it.
And even though I’m not North American (I’m from Chile, in america xD sorry I HAD to do that joke xD) I sent the poll to NP to help MOTHER fans all over the world.
Mato you’re Bawesome!
greetings
Mato, This is a bit off subject, but I was curious if you or any of the rest of the translation/hacking team are members of UG, and if any of you will be uploading it to there.
Not that it’s incredibly important, I’m just worried that when this patch comes out, I’ll be getting the “Bandwidth Exceeded” page here for weeks.
First off, great work on the translation so far. I also loved the title of the byuu update. That’s mainly my reason for posting actually. The other reason is to thank you for pointing out the Virtual Console survey. It beats dragging out my yellowed SNES or playing on an emulator. Let’s hope for the best on that.
I’ve been following this project from the start and I’m highly impressed with the progress and how you take the time out of your day to explain the technical aspects of it.
At first I started playing Mother3 with one of the translation guides but I felt like I was doing a walkthrough instead of exploring on my own. So keep up the great work.
Second_Prize: We should be more than fine bandwidth-wise. I once hosted a 700 MB video file on my site and it was downloaded by many. We have a dedicated server and I’m pretty sure we have way more than enough bandwidth available. When the patch comes out, I’ll probably turn mother3.fobby.net into a static plain HTML page with simple links for a little while, but we should be okay. reid can give details about our server specs and all that, I don’t have them handy. If we do too much bandwidth I think we just pay for the extra anyway.
Its good that Jeffman fixed the bug problem of the don’t care option in the name screen and hopefully Mato you can fix the problem of the game slowing down when there’s lots of sprite text showing.Also I already send my email list of my top 5 choices of nintendo classics that I would like to see on the wii’s virtual console and of course my top two picks were earthbound and earthbound zero and to every one reading this sent your email list of the top 5 games you want to see release on wii’s virtual console at vcpoll@futureus.com and guys and girls lets vote for earthbound as the #1 pick so NOA can really hear us and bring earthbound games to america.
I don’t believe in making Earthbound in VC. I believe it should be a private gem to those who so happened to step on to this beautiful game called Earthbound. Making it public would just lose some magic. I mean wouldn’t you hate to hear someone brag about how cool they are because they bought it off VC and they are like you should check it out. I don’t like people joining the bandwagon on anything, and especially my favorite videogame of all time. Plus Earthbound should be played on the SNES for the full effect. And if it was up to my abilities I would be playing Mother 3 on it’s exclusive gameboy micro, but I don’t know Japanese. LONG LIVE THE TRUE GAMER
Heh yeah this isn’t a geocities blog, Second Prize. 🙂 Even if it was an issue (and it really isn’t, a dedicated server nowadays can handle quite a lot) there’d be a ton of people like me with webspace and bandwidth to donate and throwing up some kind of mirror switch would be cake. I doubt that will even be necessary.
Also Mato, I have a wordpress on a crapass VPS that I run too many things on, making it incredibly slow and causing page generation times upwards of 10 seconds. I think the average is six. Regardless, it is a very budget VPS that is very slow which is the point. I got linked to by the star of a minor cable TV show on her blog, and while it wasn’t a ridiculous amount of traffic by any means, considering I was having trouble with ONE concurrent user I had to do something to make sure apache didn’t get so overloaded it brought down the irc daemon with it. 😀 After considering lighttpd and other nutty drastic solutions, I got the idea to try installing the wp-cache plugin. I had it running in like 5 minutes and it worked like a dream.
I also was wondering if wp-cache made comments not show up for some time, which would be a problem here, and assumed it did according to huge warnings I added to my comments section but looking it up it’s smart enough to regenerate the page when a comment is added. So it might even be smart to install now, since wordpress is a CPU muncher and would prepare this blog for any sudden attention very well.
http://blogs.tech-recipes.com/johnny/2006/09/17/handling-the-digg-effect-with-wordpress-caching/
Then again you might already have this, Reid Young seems to know what he’s doing :3 If you do you will likely never have problems ever and nobody should worry.
Rozgabound: I dunno, that seems a little elitist to me. Not to mention some people weren’t even alive back then or were too young to be gamers or just didn’t get into games in time.
I think it’d be cool to have more people enjoy the game. And it’s not like having new fans of the game nowaday will take away your memories of when you first played it. If anything, new gamers will get their chance to experience it for the first time, and 10 years from now will be able to say, “Man, EarthBound. What a great game. I have fond memories of it.”
“LONG LIVE THE TRUE GAMER”? Games are about fun and entertainment.
Rozuga I really hope you’re kidding. I mean during my morning commute I was musing on how Earthbound is really one of the better examples of fine art in video games, but keeping something underground for the sake of being underground is dumb.
I could go on but you’re probably either trolling or are gonna be fed anyway 🙁 Either way I’m gonna try and convert some of my friends to the cult extra hard, because I wanted to anyway and just because it might spite you if you’re serious 😀
Ironically, after Earthbound and Super Mario RPG, I couldn’t think of any other games to ask for. LOL I included Terranigma in my list… They include Japanese imports, so why not European? XD
And as always, awesome work, guys. I’ll think about Jeffman’s hard work on the naming screen every time I’m trying to figure out what to name my guys. ^___^
Well written, Tomato. 🙂 It’s good to be a part of a community that doesn’t think every single game has to have awesome graphics to be a great or even a legendary game, such as EarthBound.
Yes games are about having fun mato. I agree 100%, but I like it how you meet someone who has played earthbound outside, the forum world, and you can sit down and chat about how this amazing game changed your concept on rpgs or videogames for that matter. and i believe if they make it into the VC it will lose some of it’s magic. It really is hard to explain. I just don’t like things going mainstream. “The true gamer” statement was to give kodos for those who hear of this game. Do research on it. Find it either on ebay or the web. Play it. Enjoy it. Then they can join the cult. I just believe if they put it on VC that people who shouldn’t play it will, and they will ruin it.
I am very excited at how far along the project is! And I just got in my EFA Linker cart, so I’m ready to take my Mother 3 translated game on the go when the project is finished. I could have just learned how to read Japanese, but who has the time these days, unless you’re studying it in school of course.
I have to disagree with you also, Rozgabound. I don’t think there is such a thing as a person who “shouldn’t” play a game, nor do I find that others’ experience with games (or music, or whatever) lessens my own enjoyment. If there are gamers who don’t interpret or “get” EarthBound in the same way you or I do, what effect does that have, exactly?
Hey Mato which five did you e-mail in for top 5 wanted VC games?
Then don’t buy it, Rozga?
I’m more sad when I play Smash with my younger cousins, and I watch them pick Ness all the time and like the character, but they have no clue who he even is (I ask, of course!) Should this generation be kept from such an amazing game just because they were still crawling on their hands and knees when the Big Box came out, assuming they were even alive? Screw that, I want to gift them the game for their VCs on holidays with a message that says like, “this is my favorite game ever, and I know you like Ness… this is a very special game for old farts like me, please enjoy it!”
And ok this is childish but I pasted your comment into my IRC, and my irl friend in there that is a game developer had some choice words to say about your attitude. I was going to summarize but I may as well just let her speak for herself:
17:52 tell rozgabound is fail and a disgrace to true gamers
17:52 and that a developer said so
17:52 so he is made of ultimate fail
17:55 ugh if someone said that kind of idiocy about a game i worked on i would smack them silly
So there you have it. I’d like to think that Itoi would be pretty pissed too; he had Mother 1+2 made because he wanted the game to be accessible to everyone, old and new fans, which if you have to dust off the ol’ super famicom to play it it’s just not right.
Mother is a wonderful series because it is a masterfully created game, not because it’s an underground secret. Liking anything just because it’s underground (or its inverse, hating things because they’re popular regardless of quality) is silly and immature.
Haha it thought the name in those chatlogs was an HTML tag and removed them. I changed it anyway so it doesn’t matter but on the off chance anyone is confused, the chatlog had the name in angle brackets after the timestamp 🙂 so use your imagination!
also testing if I can use HTML escape characters or not right here: <>
wow anna, but I guess gossiping about my opinion to other people isn’t immature and silly?
Interrupting the drama for this drawing:
http://i32.tinypic.com/2rhogeo.png
Well good luck with the project mato.
Yes Rozugabound, your comments are a private matter on an exclusive medium and not on a popular blog where it’s easy to copy and paste stuff.
Oh wait.
Mitch. I love you. You are amazing.
haha love you anna.
Yes, I admit It is a tad too ignorant for not wanting others to play it. I guess I am caught up on a childish method of not wanting what I like to be liked by the masses and for the magic to be lost. Forgive me fellow bloggers for speaking my opinion.
mitch: always love your style and your use of colors 😀 If by some crazy chance I ever make a game of my own in the MOTHER style, I’ll be sure to look you up. I’ve actually been toying with the idea of a project like MOTHER, but the other way around, an outsider’s view of Japan rather than an outsider’s view of America. I think that graphic style would suit it awesome too 😛
this is stupid.. haha I didn’t even want to fight (electronically) with anyone. haha only love flows through the veins of Earthbound friends.
well, i myself am one of the people who was to young to be a gamer when earthbound/earthobound zero came out. but i do have the two games now. my friend mentioned it to me, so i started playing it, after 10 minutes maybe i came to the conclusion that this is one of the best games i ever played (and i think of myself as a big gamer not to brag). when i discovererd that there was mother 3, i was completely upset at the fact that it was a ”japan only title”. so i looked up a few websites in the hopes to find something on a international release, that is how i found this website. i dont know if im ”cult” material but i really appreciate these people who are taking the time to translate this game. im really looking forward to it. thanks people.
Wow! I haven’t been a lurker on the site for long. I thought it was just all you (Mato) at this point. So it makes me glad to know that there are others who are supporting you besides the fans. I think it puts you and us (fans) at ease when we see Byuu and Jeff, helping and posting stuff. Thanks for the sacrifice Mato get some rest man!
It’s all love Rozuga, we gotta keep everyone on the path. Much like the happyhappyists allow the Green, Green man into the fold we welcome you… so long as you keep trying to chant Blue, Blue 😉
Mato: that would be an amazing game. Having been to Japan twice and having lived in Korea for some time, not only would I love playing it I would love to, at the very least, contribute my experiences and ideas for game events should you ever undertake this project. 🙂 You would have my axe with coding help, as well! (I know you don’t know me very well yet, but I assume this would happen a few years and thousand or two blog comments and forum posts later and we hadn’t gotten sick of each other. :D)
Also oh man I’d love to see some WIP videos of some of this stuff, it’s to the point where it looks like the remaining errors and missing functionality does a lot more amusing things than crash and screech. 😀 Unfortunately I don’t want to ask for one since I’m sure you’d rather spend time coding than making/editing a video. Pox on me again for not getting into this starmen.net business earlier to where I’d be in a position to be able to do this for you!
who cares about that NP poll stuff, they aren’t Nintendo and they DON’T decide what goes up on the VC. their poll is just playtime fun for results.
that aside, keep up the good work.
It’s true they don’t decide what goes up on VC, but being the official magazine and being a widely-seen and official poll, it’ll be something that can be referenced. It may also show some people in the business that there IS demand for the game and the series. Or not. It’s better than nothing, though.
Sweet! This translation project keeps getting better and better with every update. Keep up the awesomeness, guys!
I saw the thread about the poll, and I also made my five choices:
1) Earthbound
2) Mother
3) Kirby Super Star (for release date purposes)
4) Ys Book I & II
5) Vigilante 8
It’s good to see some of the games I didn’t choose were chosen by others.
Yup, even though it really won’t help, it’s good to know that lots of people love Earthbound.
THat aside, it’s good that the translation is progressing nicely.
@ Animus01
Yes!!! I Loved Kirby Super Star!
ooh, ooh, as long as people are throwing in their hats to be part of the hypothetical “MOTHER4: Japan” dream team, can i help write the soundtrack? I could write original pieces, and im sure a heartrending arrangement of ‘pollyanna’ would be in order as well.. 😛 it’s nice to dream
Masque: it isn’t like Starmen.net hasn’t been using official lines of communication for years to show their support or anything like that 😛 Seriously, look up the PK Callins on starmen.net, there’s been organized efforts to do everything from submit fanart to Nintendo Power in droves and call Nintendo’s customer support line to politely ask for a Mother 3 translation, to sending top Nintendo brass and Itoi himself hundreds of dollars and thousands of hours worth of letters, petitions, and fan creations. Emailing a Nintendo power poll in an organized fashion is Just Another Day at starmen. ;D
So no, that poll won’t change anything with the suits most likely, but it DOES generate buzz and interest about Earthbound among Nintendo fans serious enough to subscribe to NP–and I know several of said fans who haven’t even played the game but will probably become ONE OF US once they play it. When NP shows Earthbound art or mentions how dedicated the fans are, people notice, and in a good way. I generally hate fandoms, but EB’s is unique and just… different, and I like being here and don’t mind being associated with this fandom at all.
I write so much here, ha. I wish I knew Tomato and the other project members better so I could be like the Smash Bros. Dojo guy and do a daily Mother 3 translation update based on their crib notes so they can spend more time coding and less time making pretty blog entries and explaining things. 🙂
Mitch: this blog wouldn´t be the same without you man, you´re awesome, hope some day you upload a zip file with all your posters.
and about the update, everything´s been said now so I´ll have to make a cliche comment: “Great work guys, Cant wait for the translation to be done, keep it up”
(Ugh of course there’s no way I could be in that position because not only do I not know anyone, but that last post was a consistency trainwreck and I’ll never earn anyone’s trust with schlocky writing like that, yikes. Not to mention being so argumentative!)
(Seriously as a warning to my fellow ADDers out there, beware of Adderall and blogs, ugh. If I can’t start controlling myself I’m going to have to make a “no blogs during business hours” rule. Something about it makes me prone to writing overly long and numerous comments and blog entries. If you have ADD and are thinking, “gee, I really wish this Anna person would shut up already” let that be a warning: avoid blogs like the plague while under the influence of Adderall.)
Wow, that cult link…haha…
Anyways, thanks for updating. 😀
I have a question…mato, what happened to the other “hackers” that are doing or helping out with the site? Do they just do their thing and then tell you it’s updated or do are they busy?
I don’t know, but I hope you aren’t overworking yourself.
Take care and don’t let stress from work get to you. 🙂
Reading between the lines zLeed, they’re all busy and hacking away (either directly or through tangentally connected projects like the UPS patcher) and just aren’t as loquacious as Tomato is. Tomato is exceptionally good at reporting/PR and keeping everyone updated on progress while making actual progress. Even in professional companies, if they want to be so open, they generally hire staff where that is their sole job–collecting the developers and designers’ progress and comments and posting them (like many parts of Microsoft’s MSDN, or the Smash Bros. Dojo). The vast majority of fan projects like this end up either being very very internal with infrequent updates, or being all talk and PR while nobody actually gets anything done.
That last situation reminds me of some of the earlier Mother 3 translation attempts, ugh….
Oh and by “all talk and PR” I mean mostly drama and infighting about who does what while someone with a lynchpin skill (usually coding, or translating the script in the cases of translations) completely fails to come forth with any work despite big promises.
I wish I had an edit button :3
Ah, I see and thanks for answering.
Darn my spelling/grammar…
“or do are they busy?” to “or are they busy?”
Just marking my place.
In the words of Leslie Nielsen: “I just want to tell you both good luck, we’re all counting on you.”
Haha it’s cool, I would go back and rewrite pretty much every post I made today if I could, ugh. If I had a dime for every time today I forgot to add something and realized this just after hitting submit, or wanted to edit a comment of mine to make it not suck so bad, I’d have something like 70 cents today. Maybe even $1.30.
Wow, Anna’s a big poster today :O
The big poster I care the most about though is you, Tomato 8) <3 Woo, new content! Very slick as usual. I wonder if part of the reason M3 was never localized is because of how bad it was coded.
You think so?
My top 5 were: (because I know everybody cares)
Earthbound
Mother
Super Mario RPG (MALLOW! =3)
Majora’s Mask
Harvest Moon 64
I grew up with the N64 (and Gameboy Colour, which I wish was on VC already). I’ve already downloaded Pokemon Snap (<3) and Paper Mario (<3<3) and am seriously considering downloading Yoshi’s Story, Ocarina of Time and Mario 64. I would have asked for Mario Party 1 (I had like a blister on my palm an inch and a half in diameter after renting that one) but… only 5 games. Alas. =P
Also: [*Generic Translation Praise*]
Haha I’ll take the hint and try to shut up more 🙂
I just really like keeping up with this, and read all the entries and comments and as many people have things like a “life” or “hobbies” don’t have time to do the same, so I try to answer repeat questions or ones where I can infer the answer from various sources.
Today is reaaaaaaaly boring at work and my other distractions are failing me. Ultimately, I’m doing a terrible job of self-control, heh. ^^;
*and as many people have things like a “life” or “hobbies” don’t have time to do the same, they ask the same questions quite frequently, so I try…
we’re up to $1.40 or something now 😛
zLeed: It’s pretty much just me and Jeffman doing all the hacking now. The game is very annoying to hack, and difficult. And I think under normal circumstances, a ROM this annoying to hack wouldn’t be hacked at all for many years. A ROM hacker would take a look at it, see it’s not set up nicely, and move on to another game to hack. The fact it’s a MOTHER/EB game changes that though. Most of the other hackers on the project lended their help one way or another and then vanished due to extreme busy-ness/lack of interest in the game or project/wanting to avoid spoilers.
My List:
1. Earthbound( Snes )
2. Mother( Nes ) – Translated Please!
3. Kirby Super Star( Snes )
4. Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island( Snes )
5. Super Mario RPG( Snes )
Mato, did you send your list to Nintendo Power?
If you did, what was on your list?
I have a question, I don’t know if it’s a spoiler or not but it has to do with an Item name.
Your menu patch called it the “New Year’s Eve Bomb” while a trophy in Super Smash Bros. Brawl Just Calls it “New Year’s Eve”, What Will you name it in the final translation?
I also have another question, if all three mother games were to be released would they rename earthbound just to keep the titles consistent?
Example: Rename “Earthbound” to “Mother 2: Earthbound”
And now my final question:
How old were you when you first played Earthbound?
NP seems to be fans of Earthbound anyways, so requesting seems like a really good idea. It’s sales on it might be the best message fans can send to the higher ups. I’m also really big on Kirby Superstar, even though it’s getting a DS release, but since I don’t have one…
Progress is looking awesome so far. I was “What!? Already another update?”. Even though it’s fairly minor it’s still cool to see regardless. And yeah, especially seeing the sprite welding progress, it’s really evident how weird this game seemed to have been programmed…
The new naming screen looks absolutely amazing!
Since everyone else is doing it, my favorite games are probably:
1. Earthbound
2. Chrono Trigger
3. Pokemon Crystal version (lol, awesome game)
Anyway that arrangement looks great! Thanks Jeffman and Mato, and the rest of the team, good luck with the rest of the hack. You have my full support and gratitude.
Best one yet Mitch:)
RC5: that is what i’m talking about. Harvest moon 64! Back to nature for ps1 was boss too, but Harvest moon 64 hahah great game
1)—earthbound— ( after rethinking preschool.. sharing is nice)
2)Robotrek (snes)
3)Harvest Moon 64
4)Secret of Evermore
5)Clayfighters 63 1/3 ….. haha
Erase-secret of evermore and place Super Mario RPG ( dooh How could I forget!)
I cheated and sent a couple different lists, heh. How can I pick just 5? 😀
But yeah mine would be:
1) Earthbound
2) Aerobiz I/II (nobody would buy this but me but I can dream can’t I?)
3) Super Mario RPG
4) Kirby Super Star
5) Majora’s Mask
Runners up include Super Mario World 2, Star Fox, Chrono Trigger, and probably about a billion others I’m not thinking of now. Nintendo really needs to release a “run VC games from SD” patch already, my Wii’s tiny memory is seriously hampering my ability to shovel my cash into Nintendo’s bank account. 🙂
hahaha
Edgar… my love of my life
1-earthbound
2-chrono trigger
3-kirby 3(the one thats animated like its in colored pencil)
4-secret of mana
5-clayfighter 63&1/3(i remember playing that…hilarious)
Thank God, I thought JeffMan had died or something from lack of response.
Anyway, do you think we’d get luckier if we put:
1)Earthbound
2)Earthbound
3)Earthbound
4)Earthbound
5)Earthbound
I took a Japanese class, mostly for the purpose of playing this game! 🙂 The game is pretty kind to Japanese learners. They don’t use kanji in any of the dialogue. They put spaces between words and use question marks after questions (In Japanese, it’s not strictly necessary to do these things).
Here’s an interesting question: when translating the game from Japanese to English, do you feel like you’re taking away anything from the original? Or do you feel like you have to make up new stuff to better express the character’s moods and intentions?
I suppose you’re not planning to make any changes to the menu controls, but there are a few annoying things I noticed while struggling through the Japanese version:
1) I want to be able to press select for the HP/PP bar even while my character is moving.
2) I wish I could just equip things in the Goods menu. Right now I can read the item description in the Goods menu, but I have to go all the way to the Equip menu to equip it!
3) If all your characters inventories are full, you can’t give an item to another. At least, I can’t tell if there’s any command that lets you select two items and SWAP them. Actually, adding a function like this would probably change the game’s experience too much from the Japanese version. Oh well.
Agree with Anna on this one.
I sent the following:
1. Earthbound
2. Mother (US translation)
3. Kirby Super Star(FOR SURE, even if I already own it.)
4. Super Mario RPG (Same as Kirby Super Star.)
5. Mario Tennis 64… Great game. I love it.
This is going to be interesting… And I wonder how many Earthbound votes they’ve been getting these past hours? 😛
Mitch: I love reading the comments, and always seeing your update-ly images.
Rozgabound: Pretty dumb how your opinion got ‘killed’ so quickly. I can definitely see where you come from, because it sounds like my brother… But in his case it’s Lufia, but he wouldn’t mind it anymore since there the fanbase is pretty much gone, anyway. I agree with Mato, though. It’s just getting a tad serious when you restrict(bad word, but the best I can think of) others from possibly enjoying one of the greatest games ever.
Anna: NOW I see! You’re the reason the comments are filled up so quickly! But then again, it’s probably just because this is really popular now…
Response to Update: That’s amazing. I mean, how professional is that? I’m going to have to try to remember it’s a fan translation. Not so I forget that it’s professional, but so I can appreciate it that much more.
Oops… That was kind of long…
And I need to correct myself:
“Not so I forget that it’s NOT professional”
Nice work you guys, the naming screen look alot better.
Also here were my top five picks for VC.
1. Earthbound (A.K.A.: Mother2)
2. Earthbound ZERO (A.K.A.: Mother)
3. Earthbound 64(A.K.A: Mother3 64)(never finished or released)
4. Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask
5. Dr. Mario 64
To those few earthbound fans that think that the NP top 5 means nothing think again.Its true that a top 5 spot on the NP most wanted games for wii’s virtual console does not mean a release of the game but I really do think that the games that end up being in the NP top 5 most wanted games,NOA will surely take notes of the NP top 5 and keep these games in mind,which could mean a release of the game for the wii virtual console or if not the game could be release as a remake or just as a port for a future gaming system.So just take 10 seconds of your life and vote for earthbound in the NP top 5 and hopefully it gets a wii release,so earthbound fans don’t have to either dust off their snes systems or blow air into their earthbound carts anymore to play this great game.
1) Earthbound
2) Chrono Trigger
3) Fire Emblem 4: Seisen no Kifu (the one translation of it is still broken in many places, but semi-playable if you don’t mind occasional gibberish screens; they even have a zip file with all the tools they made for the game when they gave up, but I know zilch about SNES hacking)
4) Secret of Evermore
5) Super Mario RPG
Hope that dumb naming screen finally works out! Given that ALL of that text, except the name itself (and probably the cursor) is static now (no alphabets to switch between), I’d think it would be easier to just move the letters to a nice, static BG layer and make it skip drawing all of those useless sprites. But that’s just me, and I haven’t seen the menu code.
But it should be mostly self-contained, no? I dunno, I’m sure he’ll do whatever makes the most sense 🙂
Cudnt chek any updates during the week cuz Work sux xD. but Awesome update ^.^
A Fan: Actually, the naming screen stuff, the area where you move the cursor around, is all done with raw graphics, like a big image file.
anyone remember when earthbound first came out and you thought you were the only person who knew about the game?
as far as i knew in my entire middle school at the time no one new what the hell game it was, and this was a big middle school too.
it really wasnt until i found out about the mother 3 translation did i realize how HUGE this series really is.
BTW, i was bored and i know this doesnt show how much work is left in terms of time.
i added all the remaining things on the to-do list that had active percentages (so not 100%) and divided them for the average.
it comes out to ~62.5%. so of the remaining things to-do, they are ~62.5% done.
adding in the completed things to come out to roughly ~83%.
this is going to be awesome.
KEEP WORKING HARD, EVERYONE LOVES YOU GUYS!!!!!!!!
It would be a sweet taste of irony if Earthbound got released on VC thanks in large part due to a Nintendo Power poll I voted on, considering Nintendo Power was the reason I got the game in the first place. Heh.
Here’s my top five picks for VC:
1. Earthbound, Nintendo, SNES
2. Chrono Trigger, Square, SNES
3. Rocket Knight Adventures, Konami, SEGA Genesis
4. Super Mario RPG, developer unknown, SNES
5. Ristar, developer unknown, SEGA Genesis
I really regret putting Ristar on there. I mean, after the first four, I just couldn’t think of anything. I should’ve looked at some of the picks here first!
Well, I did have something in mind. I’ve always wanted to play Ikaruga (by Treasure), but the problem is . . . that’s for SEGA Dreamcast, and last time I checked, Dreamcast isn’t a VC console yet.
1. Earthbound (SNES)
2. Mother/Earthbound Zero (NES)
3. Terranigma (SNES)
4. Super Mario RPG (SNES)
5. Super Metroid (SNES)
Then I checked, and they already have Super Metroid on Virtual Console. D’oh! Well, I got the most important ones anyway. I should’ve done Tales of Phantasia.
I voted for righteousNess
1 Earthbound
2 Earthbound zero
3 Super Mario RPG
4 Mario Party 3
5 Mario Party
Does anyone think that “Psy’s” Mother savior stands a chance
If you dont know what I am talking about go to youtube and search Mother savior
Anna: It’s cool, don’t sweat it so much. I understand as I have to avoid digital and personal socializing when I forget to take my Depakote. Otherwise I get all vicious and want to bite everyone’s heads off. (Oddly enough, I’m hungry now.)
Of course, I’m guessing Tomato likely doesn’t want too many cigarette/medication/non-translation/non-Tomato/non-Mother-3 comments in his blog. Of course, I’m sorry that I have and continued to contribute to these posts, this blog looks more and more like a social battleground each day. Honestly though, everyone loves you (in a “totally retro hetero, non-man-loving, comfortable enough with our own sexualities to say we do” way) Tomato, and everything you’ve done for all of us. 🙂
What kind of comments do you really look for in our posts? I know it’s been asked before, but I don’t remember and it’d take years for me to dig through the archives and find out. (28k modem, dude…)
Playing as Earthworm Jim or Booger man!
that should be added to the list
rc5: finally someone who likes harvest moon 64, you are awesome!!! and keep up the good work trans. team
I gave out some props to harvest moon 64… that is a sweet series
my list had earthbound, mother, Illusion of gaia and two ones I just threw in for fun. my predictions are as follows for other top-picked games:
1. Majora’s Mask
2. Chrono Trigger
3. SM: RPG
And with luck and effort, Earthbound will make it big on their lists too!
Ristar has already been released on the VC. It was actually one of the first games up, as I recall.
Mato, I give it 4-5 months. If you keep busting your ass like you have been lately, I’m sure you could get everything done. I’m surprised at how much progress you’ve made in the last month.
Mato, what do you expect to be finished next: the main script, menu, or battle stuff hacking?
Great Job by the way.
Hmmm I’ve got a question. If I download the patch that is finished right now, and while I am playing through the mostly Japanese Mother 3, what if this site releases the full patch? Can I patch my game, and will my saves still work?
So does that mean there isn’t gonna be a dont care button anymore? I love that don’t care button.
by the way: you cult website scares the crap out of me!!!
i wonder if nintendo knows about the translation?
I’m sure Nintendo is aware.
Good to know they did that part of the naming screen sensibly, I thought it would be hell if there were 60+ sprites on screen.
Anyhow, I hope that once you get the sprite text all fixed it solves all 1.5 things you hope it will and that the other hacks play nicely with it 🙂
I’m sure you’d be glad to have the game not crash constantly while testing, too.
thehitmanguava: In other words, will saved games from the Japanese Mother 3 work with the English patched Mother 3? As I understand it, there will be a converter tool for the save-files, correct?
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/99925#
funny
This post made me gitty with excitement! Keep up the great work guys, Thank you!
favorite songs are the naming screen, the opening, and one that would reveal a spoiler
Long time lurker first time poster:
It’s weird that the majority of my time online for the past few weeks has been hitting the refresh button on this page. It’s intriguing to see this all coming together bit by bit.. like a mystery or a overly long novel. I’m hooked and can’t get away.
VC is weird for me.. mainly since i’ve been collecting games since I got my SNES and original GB when I was a kid… and I still have all the classics… Including Earthbound. So there’s very few game’s I would re-buy. I will buy Earthbound again to support the cause when it happens. Hell a 3d remake in the style used for Ness and Lucas in Brawl would be awesome as well.
1. Earthbound
2. Mother 3
3. Yoshi’s Island
4. Kirby Superstar
5. Smash bros 64
Very tired, will have to look through comments later. I’m still racking my brain to come up with a way to optimize the sprite code, I have one idea for possibly making it only draw stuff once and then not redrawing until necessary, but it’s slightly more complicated than I would like. But I’ll mess with it later.
So very busy with real work. I might have to block this site by editing my hosts file so I can get some major work done this weekend 😉
Meanwhile, Jeff’s still been at it with the naming screen stuff and made some good breakthroughs with the player naming stuff. It looks like we’ll be able to cross that naming screen stuff off the to-do list pretty soon now 🙂
Now to sleep and dream about hacking. Stupid brain :/
Glee! More progress!
And I’m sad that not many said they were voting for Chrono Trigger. 🙁
My list:
1.) EarthBound
2.) Chrono Trigger
3.) EarthBound Zero
4.) Super Mario RPG
5.) The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask
And I am curious, what did you vote for, Mato?
YOU GUYS ARE AMAZING THANK YOU SO MUCH! KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!
Jeffrey: It’s still there in the screenshots; why’d you think we were gonna remove it…? There were just a couple issues with two other naming screens (that come later in the game) where the Don’t care option isn’t supposed to be selectable. There were some instances where you could still select it after I hacked the regular naming screens to get rid of the alphabet selectors, and that’s what I fixed up.
Marking my place.
I’m glad a lot of people chose Secret of Evermore as one of their five. A lot of people didn’t like it (and I agree that it was too short and the ending stank), but I loved it.
Of course, EarthBound is always my number one pick. I hope Itoi reconsiders and decides to make a Mother 4, because Psy’s attempt at the so-called “Mother Savior” appears to be a bit…misdirected, if you ask me.
Everyone on this project: thank you. Just…thank you, for all you’ve done.
computerkefka: I haven’t made up my list yet. I dunno really, my head is too full of stuff to think right now. I don’t play games very much anymore too, so there’s nothing I really look forward to except the obvious EB/EB0 😉
SoreThumb: No, if *we* could figure this stuff out without documentation and by analyzing assembly code, professional programmers (and ones that do this exact kind of stuff for a living) could have figured most of it out easily enough and fixed things with the source code.
Unown: Don’t know. Don’t know. Trying to figure out how old I am now, huh? 😛 I was in high school when it came out, I don’t remember how old I was.
Checkmate: No, not really. The main thing is that I’m not quite as good a wordsmith as Itoi, but I don’t think it’s really possible to do what he does with Japanese in English. You can read more about my translation feelings here. The changes you ask for really aren’t something one would do in a translation project. Those are huge features that maybe someone with the source code could try. But that’s not us.
Unsavory Maggot: I’ll admit, it’s weird how the blog’s turned into a mini-message board for a few people these last few days/weeks. But I just chalk that up to people being excited. This morning in my super drowsy state I checked out some game site and saw pics they posted from this site and suddenly I was like, “Whoa, this is crazy.” I think if none of this had happened and back in 2005/2006 some of these screens had appeared in a Nintendo Power or something, I’d be freaking out with excitement. That must be what it’s like for people watching this blog I bet. Anyway, then I had coffee and then realized I have so much real work to do 🙁
brandnizzlebaby!!!: I don’t really have a good estimate myself yet. It mostly depends on this last hacking. I only know it won’t be in the first half of this year. Probably this year though. I can’t keep this up for too much longer or I’ll explode 😯
Poo: I don’t know. I don’t look forward to any of it 😉
thehitmanguava: Your saves will work, your names will be all screwed up though. I think Jeffman’s going to have a program available that’ll let you fix your name if you’re using saves from the original game or from a menu patch game.
Penguin2888: It’s a long read, but yes, they know.
Everyone else is doing it:
1. Earthbound (SNES)
2. E.V.O.: Search for Eden (SNES)
3. Mario Kart (SNES)
4. Flashback (SNES)
5. Chrono Trigger (SNES)
I loved the SNES, as it were…
1)Earthbound (Mother 2)(SNES)
2)Earthbound (Mother)(NES)
3)Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars(SNES)
4)Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time(SNES)
5)Star Fox(SNES)
I love the SNES as well. I just got Super Mario All-Star and Super Mario Kart for my old one that I bought from a friend a few months ago.
Oh rock on.
Short on time! I’ll make it quick!
Thanks to whoever posted that NP link! Wowee!
Mato, thanks for the hard work and posts. There are those of us who LOVE to hear about your huge upgrade in tools and stuff. It’s one thing to watch a house being built; it’s another to find out someone building a house bought a nail gun and a bulldozer!
Jeffman, rock on with the naming. OK desu ka?
byuu, dude! How can I express the satisfactory gratitude as a person who’s never communicated with you at all? *whew* Good job, cool stuff, thanks, etc.!
And that’s it for me. Lunch and work time!
Hmm, I would tend to expect that you’d move on to the main script next, due to the overlap the sprite nonsense has with what you’re already doing. Though I guess there were more things you had to test after changing all of this? I recall that you predicted that the sprite hacks would be the ones with the potential to goof up a bunch of other things.
Then you could probably go down the list and lengthen everything remaining once you have the sprite stuff all worked out, and that won’t leave very much to do on the list 🙂
Okay, so “very much” is relative, and one menu item can be a week’s work or more, but you’re still making great progress!
Hey everyone,new member here!
Id just like to start off saying that I really appreciate all the work you(and others involved) are doing to get this game released in English.
I have been keeping up with the new developments for around 2 weeks now,checking it daily.It came at great surprise to see the website in N.gamer(a popular UK gaming magazine) and the writers of it are very happy you are doing this.
I would also like to say that EB for the VC is a great idea,as I was too young to get it at the time.I have began MOTHER 1 and i am enjoying it greatly,I wont start EB till I have completed MOTHER 1.
Thank you,for all the time and effort you have put into this project.
There was some cool stuff in your links that I hadn’t managed to find yet, Mato, thanks! I think the most insane thing is that whole Magical Starsign business. I saw the ads, I read the reviews, but an old-school style chibi-kawaii-supaa-powaa jrpg just isn’t my cup of tea nor is it for pretty much every one of my friends that would buy Mother 3 lickety-split. While I understand why they’d think that Magical Starsign would indicate Mother 3 potential, since marketer types like to break things down into neat little categories of stereotypes, it’s also incredibly lame for reasons hopefully obvious to everyone here.
Ugh so frustrating, yet I also had no idea how many Mother fans were on the inside making me wonder if the Jesus-Buddha Scenario of this patch being released officially is more like one in a trillion instead of one in a zillion. It seems at the very least that the chances are closer to 100% that someone, somewhere is going to pitch the idea internally. Of course, it would require so much approval for things that are incredibly convention-breaking, something business people really hate dealing with, and involve solving problems that range from obvious, not obvious, to most of us would never think that would even be an issue.
But hey Nintendo, if you ever took the plunge, I’d buy two 😉
My top 5 Virtual Console Requests
1. Earthbound (Super Nintendo)
2. Kirby Super Star (Super Nintendo)
3. Castlevania Dracula X: Rondo of Blood (Turbo CD)
4. Mother/Earthbound Zero (NES)
5. Fire Emblem: Seisen no Keifu (SNES)
Didn’t bother nominating Mother 3 since VC doesn’t even support the GBA. I want Rondo of Blood badly. The PSP version is all well and dandy, but I want the original console version to play on my Wii.
(In response to Anna)
Nintendo would never release this patch officially, because it would mean acknowledging emulation, roms, and rom hacking. That would be an awful thing legally, because if they don’t take action to stop things like this often enough, they lose their right to do so.
The only reason Mato & crew have been able to get away with it thus far is simple: Nintendo is turning a blind eye to it. I personally like to believe this is a gift from all the Mother fans at NoA. They’re either keeping it away from the higher-ups, or there are higher-ups at NoA that like M3 and want to see it in English, but for some reason couldn’t justify an official translation. (Probably due to it being at the end of the GBA’s life.)
Besides, I don’t think it would be cool for Nintendo to swoop in and say, “thanks for doing all the work for us, now we’re going to profit off of it.” Sure, we’d see an official M3 release, which would rock, but all the hard work of Mato, Jeffman, and the rest would (likely) go without credit, meaning all the Mother fans who didn’t know about the patch would think, “yay, Nintendo finally translated Mother 3!” Which wouldn’t really be fair.
Besides, I don’t think it would be cool for Nintendo to swoop in and say, “thanks for doing all the work for us, now we’re going to profit off of it.” Sure, we’d see an official M3 release, which would rock, but all the hard work of Mato, Jeffman, and the rest would (likely) go without credit, meaning all the Mother fans who didn’t know about the patch would think, “yay, Nintendo finally translated Mother 3!” Which wouldn’t really be fair.
I wouldn’t be surprised though.
there’s all kinds of reasons why NOA won’t bring M3 to America. they’re not really in the business of releasing game *patches*, but i think luckily they don’t seem to want to squash this project, if anything they might be watching from afar out the corner of their eyes in vague unvoiced approval. Maybe. Prolly not tho’. I still think that the supposed failure of earthbound here has jinxed the whole series in a way. But Nintendo honestly has no one to blame for that but themselves. If I may quote the first line from the infamous North American ad for EB:
“As if life didn’t stink enough already. Now you’ve got to be prepared for EarthBound – the first role playing game with B.O.”
Wow. I so want to play that game. Awesome. Wonder how many thousands of dollars they paid their marketing guys to come up with that little gem?
I laughed when I saw a poster of Earthworm Jim on a particular imageboard that said “This game doesn’t stink!” Yeah, EarthBound serves as an example of how not to market a game.
lol, html enabled
For all the people who voted for MOTHER and/or Earth Bound (a.k.a. EarthBound Zero):
http:// boards . gamefaqs . com / gfaqs / genmessage . php? board = 914622 & topic = 42355098
Copy, paste, and remove the spaces.
Check my, um . . . I think it’s my third post. It starts out with “Hey, who said Mother 1 hasn’t officially been released?” (I was addressing EBnessonic with that statement). It’s a long read, but it presents some very good reasons that the NES Mother game, be it MOTHER or Earth Bound [Zero], cannot be released on VC.
There’s still the arguement that you can vote for MOTHER just to raise awareness, but for all those who vote actually hoping it might come to VC, I really believe that you’re wasting a vote.
Of course, ignore the hyperlink. It goes nowhere, as it’s the result of spacing to bypass the filter.
I guess because it also starts with “Earth”…
I don’t care, as long as I have Mother 3.. In English. I wonder how confused NOA is with the whole Mother thing. I mean, they have to label the the M3 stage from brawl with the Earthbound label, then they also have the trademark of Mother 3, and Earthbound again, here, there…
I see where you’re coming from MasterInsan but you’re being a bit fatalistic. Nintendo would get absolutely reamed by not just the fans here but the mainstream media if they tried to steal the patch outright. Plagarism is serious business and could actually open Nintendo up to a heap of trouble that not even their vicious shark tank full of lawyers could defend themselves against. If it being highly unethical wasn’t bad enough (and there ARE people at Nintendo with souls) the fact that they’d get in a heap of trouble for it means that basically don’t even worry about that possibility, it won’t happen.
What makes things rough is that striking a licensing deal with a fan group is very tough. Who do you pay, how much, are there residuals, what do you do about the 16 year old on the project (this would require getting their legal guardian involved), how do you even hammer all of this out via official legal means when the team is spread across the country or world, what if one member goes on a white knight rampage and demands more or unusual things, and a million other things you or I wouldn’t even think of. Solvable problems, and believe it or not it’s been done before, but difficult ones.
You are kind of right about the legitimization issue but for different reasons than you think, and it goes far deeper. Of course on their public face, Nintendo’s response to emulation and commercial ROMs is no, no, no, and absolutely not. They don’t want piracy of their commercial games for quite obvious reasons. In order to be consistent they, by extension, can’t even hint that it’s “ok” to use emulators for modified (translated/hacked) versions of copyrighted ROMs. And while they’ll talk trash about emulators for totally homebrew projects they know that legally they can’t do anything about it and that’s why emulator authors don’t ever get sued unless they distribute the official firmware or something (ever used a Playstation emulator and had to find rip the BIOS yourself?) Their PR, public face, and legal department has to maintain a hard line.
BUT… people who can program video game consoles don’t come out of nowhere, and they know this very well. The good ones have been hacking around with hacking ROMs and homebrew and writing emulators since puberty (or before). It’s a far more common practice than you’d think for video game companies to employ seasoned hackers, and from my experience with being on a team trying to make and publish a commercial GBC/GBA game, showing up with a handful of demos in NO$GB is not just permitted but more or less expected. A mere (and possibly teenage) mortal, or even a startup company, can’t afford the official devkits and aren’t expected to. An individual or team that can do amazing things with hobbyist tools WILL get noticed–keep in mind one of the best ways to break into the industry right now is to create a popular and well-done mod for a commercial game. That’s how Counter-Strike and Garry’s Mod got started, after all. Nintendo would in no way “legitimize” emulators/romhacks if they licensed and published this translation, in fact if they intercepted this before it was released as a patch to do an official one, it’d only make their stance stronger. “We love the game, and its fans, and we did not want to put them in a position where they had to do something GREY MARKET to play the game they love, also pay attention to our amazing Wii download service for making this kind of thing possible, as it is amazing and you should give us piles of your money” is more or less how Nintendo will spin it. So you’re right that done the wrong way it could be seen as giving fans the green light to pirate, but they will spin it right. But–remember that they don’t really have a beef with rom hackers partially because the best of the best of those is one of their most promising recruiting pools whether they’re hired outright or after going to DigiPen or some such (which I’m fairly certain is much easier to get into if you show off some professional-quality hacks and homebrew).
So yeah, translations are odd because they tend to come out years after the fact and on obsolete hardware, as my friend in the industry that has actually been involved in attempts to market fan translations mentioned. This is why they just don’t get picked up and licensed nearly as often as things like source mods. The market is niche, and the company wants to push their new stuff not bother with old stuff they stopped supporting long ago. This is a big problem for Mother 3, and why I think it only even has a chance on the Virtual Console/WiiWare even though that brings a whole other slew of issues. While this is a barrier here as well, keep in mind there aren’t throngs of good translators out there either and if you’ve ever been looking for a job you know that experience and proof you can do things is extremely important. After the patch Tomato will have an impressive crown jewel in his portfolio, and I’d be very surprised if he did not end up at Nintendo, a major publisher, or at minimum a larger localization house sometime in his career.
Anyway, I have gone on far too long as usual 🙂 So I will end on this. It’s off topic but I get the feeling that many of the types who would hang out at a translation blog would find it highly amusing: http://youtube.com/watch?v=UjHsNpdcyt0 😀
Holy Moses lookit that giant wall of text
Aye, but it’s an incredibly interesting wall of text (which of course are the best kind).
I think the worst thing that can happen is that they wait until this project is about to get released to axe it, and still don’t do anything about localizing Mother 3. But that’s being a bit too pessimistic.
Anna what are you talking about…
He was right – they know and are turning a blind eye… there’s no shot of this being taken in as ‘official’ when all is said and done.
NOA passed on the project, and it was decent of these guys to wait until they knew for sure that they had. And even more respectable for simply doing this in the first place.
I seriously doubt that Nintendo would even care for a second that the game is being fan translated. It’s a game that came out in Japan only that they’ve decided to pass on, for a handheld they don’t make games for anymore. I’m sure the only time they even think of it is when some random fan/journalist at a convention or something asks “HEY WHAT’S UP WITH MOTHER 3” and they go “Uh heh heh welp maybe keep your fingers crossed :)” or when starmen.net sends them giant books full of reasons why they’re retarded for not releasing it.
They certainly aren’t going to swoop down from the sky, go “here’s a bucket of money! Thanks for the translation, suckers!” and start printing Mother 3 in English. As has already been said, that opens a lot of doorways they don’t want to go down.
However, I can see there being a tiny glimmer of hope for the game being released as a WiiWare/VC game. Not much of a glimmer, though.
C’mon, Nintendo. I want to buy your game 🙁 (well, I already did, but in English this time would be nice).
Anna good message but I think that Mato has stated in the past that he wont ever add any of his past translation projects to his career portfolio,which is a sad thing but its because company’s like NOA and other major gaming companies don’t like hiring people who have been known to hack and released patches of games.
That’s not true at all Reaper, it’s not seen by Nintendo as nearly as black hat as many people seem to think it is. It takes incredible skill and dedication to be able to make a patch like this, there’s nothing ethically wrong with it, and generally speaking companies are much faster to hire someone with a portfolio of finished (this is important–shows dedication) and professional-quality work than someone with just a degree or related but different technical skills. This is why a school like DigiPen or any reputable “video game degree” program (most are, obviously, anywhere from worthless to an outright sham) focuses far more on making a polished portfolio to show potential employers than doing well on tests and getting a fancy piece of paper. Nintendo is made up of nerds and devotees just like us, don’t be fooled by the false front put forth by soulless lawyers. 😀 Those in charge of hiring and various projects don’t consider months to years of unpaid hard work and dedication the same as running a ROM site (which WOULD get you in trouble, ha) by any means.
As such it’s a bit foolish in my opinion for Tomato to not include things like this (and I assume Bahamut Lagoon, etc.) in his portfolio although if he has enough stuff to show off from Funimation, etc. to impress then I guess it’s not particularly necessary. Tomato is a rare breed; very few people can translate AND rom hack AND actually bring projects to completion, and someone in the game industry will notice him because of projects like this regardless of whether or not he shows it off, it will just take longer.
And Meat, Nintendo is pretty protective of their IP and I’m sure that they DO care to some degree, and their legal department’s response would be that it’s their right to release or not release something in consideration of a future release. It’s not a dead property to them by any means. This isn’t entirely them being legal jerks, but also true–Nintendo DOES reserve the right to wait until 2017 to translate the Japanese Quad-Screen remake of Mother 3 or release it for the Quad-Screen’s Virtual Handheld service. ;P As such they’ve been very cool to be aware of this and not ruffle any feathers. In 5 minutes one of the lawyers could whip up a C&D and this would all be shut down even if the C&D had no legal basis, and they know this. But remember–it’s the legal department that is the attack dogs–not the majority of other departments. There are people in NOA cubicles right now who will be rushing home the day this patch is released. 🙂 This is why I’m certain that, internally, there WILL be talk of considering the possibility of them publishing this translation in some form, if there hasn’t been already. What’s doubtful is that it will become more than just talk and an exploratory committee.
Mitch, don’t forget Mato isn’t the only person working on the hack!
poor mato have to hack and read all this stuff….
Harveyjames: You name Jeffman after Tomato. His description is: “A handsome lad with a mustache to match”
Mitch, just a suggestion, draw Kumatora as a tomato (Kumato, haha). It’d be awesome. 🙂
My list was
1. EarthBound
2. Super Mario RPG
3. Zelda: Majora’s Mask
4: Kirby Super Star
5: Pokemon Stadium
I didn’t put Mother on the list because I figured that if they put it on VC it would be in Japanese. Otherwise it would be number 2 on my list 🙂
Paint my house mitch, and then do my dishes
That’s a shame. All this talk of hacking and programming and all makes me want to learn how to do it early… Even if it might not be my career choice. I was starting to(By starting with simple test homebrew projects on the DS) but devkitarm doesn’t work on Windows 98.. What is a good computer for hacking/programming and what is the ideal system?
All I know how to use is Flash, now. Hell, maybe if I have the time I might even a short Mother 3 ‘Thank You’ video. I just thought of it…
And I believe this is the most awkward post(as in weird ordering of subjects) I have posted in a long time, just because I’m too tired. Agh, thanks again as always.
In regards to rom translation ethics:
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b282/thesalmonofdoubt/Ezekiel03-16-20081.jpg
Alato: Tandy 1000 PC with Windows 2.11 and Hangman game
Hey Mato, Long time lurker first time poster. Wanted to say how glad I am that you are doing this translation. I’m a big fan from back in the dejap days.
Everyone else posted lists so here goes:
1. Mother(Nes)
2.Star Ocean(SNES) Not gonna happen but whatever
3.Earthbound(SNES) Duh
4. Seiken Densetsu 3(SNES) impossible
5.Perfect Dark(N64)
That’s why it’s a “wish” list I guess…
It’s unfortunate that they don’t even translate the titles they put up on the VC. I almost feel bad for recommending Ganbare Goemon 3 and 4, as they are text heavy and almost REQUIRE a FAQ to beat! 🙁
Very busy and very tired today, so not too much done, mostly some figuring out how to best organize the sprite welding hacks and how to improve the main hack better so that it might make the main script and normal menu text act slightly better automatically. So sleepy and I got a ton of work to do this weekend. I’ll try and do stuff when I get the chance still.
Jeff’s been doing a lot of awesome work on the naming screen stuff today though. I dreaded messing with the naming screens and its programming, so it’s really cool that he’s working on it so willingly 😉 I think we make a good team when it comes to stuff like this 😀
Haven’t had time to read today’s comments, I’ll check ’em out tomorrows. In the meantime, here and here are some more quick distractions. My personal blog is basically about the EB series, so check it out if you like EB stuff you probably never noticed before or knew before.
Zzz
Alato, if you just want to kick it old skool there’s probably plenty of stuff that works well for the Game Boy/Game Boy Color for Windows 98. I learned a lot of my assembly and handheld device programming in the Windows 98 era with TI calculator stuff (the original ones have the same processor the Game Boy does, more or less). If you can find the hardware laying around or whatever, you could get a lot more mileage out of XP though ^^; Or just use Linux, that’s what the real programmers use 🙂
Marking my place.
Anna, I love your comments. It’s weird, though. Every time you post, it’s like a Platonic dialogue breaks out. And then you have people talk about hacking and the video game business and ethics as though we’re stranded in some classic forum on the shores of the Aegean. Do people enjoy playing EarthBound for the pleasure of the game, or is it just to savor a game few have tasted? What say you, Glaucon?
Seriously, I need to play this game before my sanity unravels any more.
Great. Thanks for keeping constant updates on the project.
I have a question:
Are you going to change the title screen so it is
“EarthBound 2” or leave “MOTHER 3” like that ?
I believe the MOTHER3/Earthbound 2 decision right now is that they’re going to actually decide when it’s almost done, but I could be wrong.
Action 52: This has been asked before. He just linked to the FAQ and I think he said that he would decide when the time comes. He might call it MOTHER3 and give it an EarthBound 2 subtitle.
Coconut: I personally enjoy playing EarthBound because it’s a good game. It would be incorrect to say not a lot of people have played it; it was much bigger in Japan than it was in America.
Mato: Wha?
I really think that if its easy and not time consuming they should try to change the title screen from mother 3 to earthbound 2 but if its a hell lot of work to just change the title screen I think the team should not even bother and leave it as mother 3.
The blog is very entertaining this time….razgabound…lol. Anyhoo I just wanted to toss mt two cents in and say that Anna is absolutely right, not to mention a h00t! (h00t, copyright TonE sierra 2008) Earthbound and its sequel/prequel are all great games and in my opinion, tie into a much larger grand scheme that is the whole story. Hopefully when “that time” comes, we will have a clearer picture revealed to us…and THAT is what makes Mother so great. Endless room to insert your own imagination and find your own answers (i know i have mine) as to what made the world end and how ness and lucas are entwined. This is an experience I felt obligated to share with my family and made sure to obtain every version of the games I could so that my little brothers could join in the fun. I even shelled out 80 bux on amazon to get him his own copy, and got a nes repro of MOTHER(english). with this said, VC is our unseen beacon of hope. With a sudden surge of availability of Earthbound and maybe Zero to the masses, we WILL generate the neccesary numbers to then warrant an american mother 3.no longer will it be a treasure hunt, or take upwards of 400 dollars to own all of them or play them. the problem now is that earthbound is so ug. the initial release was so breathtakingly pathetic that most of my friends (age 18-35) dont even know about it, but would love it if they did. rozgabound or any other person who makes those claims is just being selfish and shortsighted. If america catches on and manages to get an actual english cart then TWO whole nations (us and japan) will be into itoi’s groove. Who knows, maybe then we’ll see more Mother merchandise, maybe shows or manga and perhaps even more games to flesh out the story, answer questions and put ness and lucas in the same world. Wouldn’t be cool to see a Dark Ness, or find out the origin of Giygas? I think so…and so so you. As always, you’re ultra awesome go! go!, Mato. I finally got my flash cart and figured out how to get those two blocks for a save on Mother 3 so Im super psyched now!! keep up the awesome work!!
-Note for new flash cart users-
If you’re a ditz like me you’ll need to know this…
If you have a flash cart under 1G of memory you’ll have to write the rom at a reduced sized. you wont have to kill the intro, just write at 1mb and reduce the size. otherwise the mother 3 file will take the entire cart and you wont be able to save. If you haven’t got one already, look for a 1g cart
The american versions dont come with the software or driver cds so you’ll have to download the appropriate ones from that site. just make sure it matches the description of the cart you have and use the win2kxp (i think…lol) or win9xp files when prompted in the “found new hardware” installation process.
thank you for listening, that was alot wasn’nt it? that was my story… did you understand?
>yes No
…..
…
I knew you would. You’ve gotten so strong…
I like it better as Mother 3
I mean, EarthBound was like my favorite rpg of all time, but the title never made much sense… I mean, aren’t they already on Earth?
uh
i have a question
for the patch, if you’ve played a little bit of the Japenese version on a rom, then you use the patch, do you lose the save data?
I spent some time the other day looking at some cool EB stuff over on Starmen, and my god, I want to replay EarthBound. But I just replayed it not to long ago, and don’t especially feel like doing it again … I want something new. Which is why I must have this game. The wait is driving me insane.
Not to sound like a jerk, guys, you are doing amazing work and all out of a dedication I admire immensely … I just won’t play the game with a translation guide, I’m waiting until your game is finished, and man it’s making me nuts waiting.
For what it is worth, I prefer Mother 3 over Earthbound 2.
Wait, Mato…. You translated Shin-Chan for Adult Swim? That’s amazing, I love that show.
On another note, I now have ANOTHER Mother related thing to keep an eye on once this is done- the EB style EBZ that you’re making Mato. Do you plan on continuing it once this is done, or do you have another big project you’re working on?
Howdy, Ms. Anna, for what it’s worth, Tomato posted a long while back in this blog that he applied for Nintendo and went in for an interview and all that; they knew exactly who he was, had some sort of portfolio on him (figuratively if not literally) and turned him squat down. Little scary on one hand. And on the other hand, this WAS an interesting thought by MasterInsan0, paraphrased: Nintendo NOT finding some loophole somewhere in Fair Use and declaring Cease and Desist — and NOT just simply declaring Cease and Desist with knowledge that N can pay for lawyers where a ragtag team of unlikely hackers most likely can’t — very well might be Nintendo’s unofficial, nonapproving, winked-over, unspoken gift to all the Mother fans OUTside of Japan.
Inside Japan, Mother fans have all the wonderful purchasable gifts they can muster a desire for. M. M2. SSB. SSBM. M1+2. M3. M3 Deluxe Box. M3 GBAM. SSBB. Not to mention toys, shirts, probably play time on the radio, etc.
In the meantime,
1. EarthBound (NES, “Mother” unreleased outside Japan)
2. EarthBound (SNES, “Mother 2”)
3. StarFox (SNES)
4. StarFox 2 (SF/SNES, unreleased anywhere)
5. Super Mario RPG: The Legend of the Seven Stars (SNES)
And I haven’t called Nintendo in several months about Mother 3. Since I’ve played Brawl some now, I believe I shall ring them up!
It’s obvious (at least to me) that Nintendo is being nice and turning a blind eye to this stuff. My only real concern is that some hot-shot new guy their legal dept. hires might stupidly do something. I think by now we’re in the clear, though I anticipate that once we have a good release date estimate in a few weeks/months that it’ll hit big news sites. That’d probably be the last test, after that we’d be under the radar again.
I sincerely doubt the company would care enough about the game to use our work. The people really in charge don’t know or care about the game or series anymore I’m pretty sure. If something *were* to happen, it’d possibly be them approaching me/us for the actual translated text only, but even then it’s so unlikely that I’d be more likely to spontaneously turn into a flying purple butt. So I place the chances of getting an official release at 1%, and the chances of getting an official released based on the fan translation’s work at .000000000000000000000000000015666%, repeating of course.
In short, the best gift they can give us now is to ignore us and not sue our faces off.
Anna: When i first stepped into the real world to find work, I used my ROM stuff as part of my portfolio, but now I no longer use it. Even with MOTHER 3 I don’t think I’ll put it anywhere. If in the future some employer asks about leadership stuff or other stuff, maybe I’ll mention this stuff quickly, but most likely I’ll be self-employed most of my life anyway so it’ll probably never come up.
Also, I hope there are people who play the patch INSIDE Nintendo the day it’s released. Man, that would make my month 😀 You people at Nintendo reading this, you know what to do now 😉
ParodyKnaveBob: I know they got a file on me and all kinds of notes and stuff, but I think I just wasn’t office-y enough. I’m also very laid back to the point that I often sound uninterested in everything 😛 I think they also interviewed one of the guys who did a MOTHER 3 translation guide on GameFAQs. I *think* in the end they chose some lady, possibly hot. I applied mostly on a lark, because I had a friend working there and he put in a good word for me so I was like guess I’ll give it a try. But maybe I should learn to stop being so mellow on the outside 😉 Or maybe it’s a good thing, I dunno.
Alato: Learn how to program in something like C, from there you can branch into most of the major languages, and C is like one step up from assembly. So if you don’t know C stuff, check it out, learn how to do stuff, learn the basics of programming and all that, and then you’ll be able to do all kinds of stuff. And you can move on to other things easily too.
Action 52: See the FAQs page.
bobrocks: yeah, that was already like 2 years ago though. Damn, how time flies. I was also the guy who had to watch like 90000 mini-eps of a set and write up reports and recommend a certain # of them for Adult Swim. So the ones you see on TV are ones I selected and recommended from the big batch we were given. I don’t work on the show anymore though, I’m too busy with other shows and projects and this project :/
mozzy: This has already been brought up several times, so I guess I should add it to the FAQ page. The saves will be compatible, but the names of your characters and other stuff will be messed up. Jeffman will be making a program to convert names to the correct format at some point, just for people in your situation.
————–
BTW, I won’t be around much the next few days, just letting people know. Got a killer deadline coming up.
Whoa. Just checked, the show ran for around 15 years with over 600 episodes. I didn’t know it was in development for so long.
This is my first time commenting on this incredible project.
I’ve never played a Mother/EarthBound game before, but I have had a great interest in this series ever since Super Smash Bros. I have yet to play EathBound due to its outrageous asking price on eBay, but maybe one of these days I’ll have an opportunity to play this classic.
Playing Super Smash Bros. Brawl made me discover Mother 3, and ever since then Lucas has been my main character next to Sonic. I’ve been anxious to know of an english release of Mother 3, and this project has me even more excited about the Mother series.
I’m honestly willing to purchase a flash cart just for this game. I’m that anxious to play it. This is an incredible undertaking in videogame history, and I can’t wait to get my hands on the final release. Good luck, guys!
You won’t even have to buy a flash cart, unless you want to play it on the go. You really just need a GBA emulator and a Mother 3 ROM. Google is your friend.
TonE: I don’t know what kind of flash cart you have but those numbers are way off..
Mother 3 is only (256 megabit/32 megabytes) and as it’s been stated before the patch wont make it any bigger. It just replaces data. There are some 512 megabit Gba Flash cards that will work with Mother 3 that are under $25.00. But I won’t name names of products unless its ok with Mato. Also I don’t wanna make some flash company rich and or promote piracy. Also for those of you that know how to use google, there is a way to play Mother 3 on a custom PSP…but that also falls into a gray area. If this post violates anything please delete it.
@bobrocks
I know, but nothing beats the experience of playing the actual game on the actual system. That’s why I haven’t played EarthBound yet.
(Sorry, double-post. Bah, I wish I could edit.)
Of course, “actual game” may not be accurate since it is the ROM inside a cartridge, but you know what I’m saying.
Holy crap. You did Shin Chan, Mato?! That show is unusually near and dear to my heart, and on top of that I was always amazed at how-well done the translations are considering how tough it is to translate comedy. I’ve read some of the original comics–there’s a lot of use of language that require creativity and cleverness to translate and be funny.
For example in one of them Shin runs up to the first American he sees in Guam and blurts out “LOBUU ME TENDOO!! CHIKIN TENDOO!!!” This cracked me up really hard but trying to make it nearly as funny in English is extremely difficult.
Anyway, dang. As if you weren’t already my personal hero enough, now this!
Ya, I know what you mean. If only EB wasn’t so expensive on eBay, the cartridge alone can go to around 60 bucks upwards, with the game, original box, and manual/guide going anywhere to around $250, depending on the condition and how many people notice the auction itself.
NintendoBrad: OMG, I use the opposite order, Lucas then Sonic. Also, you can play Earthbound on an emulator. That’s what I did 😉
Lucas is like Ness only better in SSBB. I myself use either Lucas as first choice or Pit as second.
You know, I’m from Europe, so I’m someone who never got to experience EarthBound when it was “new”, because I may have already played games, but I didn’t import them (I didn’t understand English).
I later played it on an Emulator (They need to translate Mother 1+2) and I loved it. I’m playing Mother3 now, with your Menu patch and I’m loving it.
My Japanese sucks, I don’t really know any kanji beside the basic stuff, but since there are nearly none I get enough to play it without a translation guide and look into one when I want to read up on what they said EXACTLY.
I really like the game and I’m looking forward to this patch 🙂
By the way, I really love it when you talk about the technical stuff! I’m studying computer science, so it’s really interesting for me. The only language I can write in a bit is Java though… I always feel so inferior when I read stuff like yours, but it’s impressive 😉
I’m already failing when I try to rip sprites from M3.
Well, since everyone is posting what they voted for I guess I’ll put up the two I voted for.
1. Earthbound
2. Final Fantasy III (VI)
I highly doubt Final Fantasy III (VI) will come to the VC, considering Square Enix and what I understand of their relationship with Nintendo. I only voted for those two because I couldn’t think of anything else, but I saw others vote for things I would have (like Super Mario RPG).
Also, the game costs $60 on Ebay? Wow. I’m glad I own a cart. Sadly, I never got to own a box or book, so I might just fork over $200+ dollars…
*Maggot prays for the safety of Tomato and friends* Please don’t turn into a purple butt. 🙁
Kamion: If you want to be hardcore I recommend running through some intro docs on programming assembly for your favorite handheld device. You don’t even have to get good at it, but learning how to do a “hello world” type thing in assembly and getting an idea of how things work at the machine level will make you a far better computer scientist. It’s really helped me a lot 🙂
Mato: Just figured I would give props to the carpainter of this happy happy village. Your hard work and frequent updates give this old dork something to look forward to. I almost think I’ll be a little bit disappointed when the patch is released. It’s fun checking on the site every day and reading the updates, comments, and whatnot. Maybe when you finish, you can pretend you’re translating some other game and just occasionally post some technical stuff… I’ll bite… Ok, I was just kidding there, but regardless, thank you for busting your tail so hard. This is quite some cult you’ve amassed here. What you’re doing is extremely selfless and you deserve a hell of a lot more than some 6hp cookie for doing so. Blue, blue…
Anna: Aerobiz Supersonic is an awesome game and would be in my top five hands down. Long live PoopAir and our mysterious brown Soviet aircraft.
Anna: The REAL hardcore thing to do is to make your own hardware that prints out messages, and then input a set of 0s and 1s to output “Hello, World!”
Of course, Damn Impressed, but that’s if you’re an EE major. 😀
I keep looking back and wondering if taking BASIC classes was really so bright. It didn’t seem to be all that powerful. Then again, I may be a dunce when it comes to that sort of thing.
bobrocks: Forgot to answer your other question. I don’t know what I’m going to do after this project is over. Lord knows I have 5000 other things I can work on, but I’m going to be so burnt out that I’ll probably not mess with my EB0 hack for a while. Maybe I’ll disappear and go live like a hermit in the mountains and meditate under waterfalls or something. I also gotta move on with my life, I can’t keep doing 20 internet projects every year until I’m old and wrinkly, there’s a lot I wanna do before then. But I do know my EB0 hack will probably take years, as it’s just a pet project for myself mostly.
Unsavory Maggot: BASIC was the first language I learned, back when I was a young kid. But I’d honestly just suggest (to no one in particular) starting with C, that’ll teach you a ton and it’ll help teach certain programming practices and concepts better than BASIC.
Speaking of BASIC, here is a semi-EarthBound-inspired RPG programmed in QBASIC by me and a good friend about 15 years ago. It’s a DOS game though, but check it out if you’re bored. I’ve always wanted to remake it with newfangled graphics and sound and stuff to help teach myself Windows game programming, but I’ve never had the time. I did write this DirectX game though, which led me to create EarthBound.Net and eventually Starmen.Net, but that was in C++.
Anyway, got sidetracked. Must return to work now.
I was going to start with C. I wouldn’t start with basic, since there’s just about nothing done in basic anymore(as far as I know). I’m happy I’ve learned quite a bit in flash actionscript(even though it’s pretty easy, so it’s not that much to be proud of) since I just wanted to make my own online flash games and stuff a while ago.
Anyway, apparently it’s quite simple to compile a C application in just about any operating system. I’m definitely going to focus some more once homework slows down a bit… Perhaps I’ll start this summer.
as far as m numbers, i read them off the box and site…
so if you are computer illiterate like me and dont know tech stuff, following what i said would get you going. I dont know what flash card YOU use…lol.anyway im not trying to promote anything, and it kinda bugs me you would burn me like that over trying to be helpful. I just know this flash cart stuff is kinda screwy. may i also add that so everyone’s clear i DO own a copy of the japnese game so it’s perfectly legal.
P.S. the reason i adressed the size of mother three is because when i test-wrote it the first time on a 256m card, it left no blocks free to save while playing. to fix this, i just saved it as 1mb (special) then reduced rom size. that gave me exactly two free blocks and enough to save. the particular cart i use only comes in
64m 128m 256m 512m and 1GB, so i assumed you should aim for the biggest memory, at least if u wanted more than just mother 3…
so there it is, and goodnite all….
tonE: No burn intended. I once bought a Flash cart for a project and it didn’t work out.. trying to return it lead to overstocking fees and annoyances. I just know that all cards are not created equal(quality and compatibility wise).
Yeah there’s a C compiler for just about every platform and OS you can think of that can compile for almost any programmable machine in existence. C has stood the test of time because although its features are sparse and it doesn’t hold your hand for you much, it is mostly the same for every platform and allows programmers to program new hardware without having to learn that hardware’s assembly language. Plus while it’s still pretty low-level, it abstracts and simplifies a lot of things so the programmer can concentrate on what they’re doing rather than the minute details of shifting bits around. Declaring a variable, adding an arbitrary value, then printing the result is 3 lines of C code, while in assembly you’re looking at at least 20 or so instructions (hundreds if you don’t have a system routine to call to write to display and you have to do THAT yourself, too).
Who has time for that, and learning each machine’s quirks before even getting started? 😀 It’s easier to jump in with C and use sound coding practices, then get to the machine’s innards and diddle with assembly code to optimize further after things work if that’s necessary (often is for things like handheld games, old consoles, and even newer games when dealing with routines that get called thousands of times per second). That’s why C is a great place to get started.
I learned BASIC as a kid and played around with but QBASIC an TI-BASIC lot, then did C++ and Z80 assembly once I got serious. I wish I spent less time on idle chatting and more on programming back then 🙂
Dont click on meestameesta’s site. 😡
Crashed my computer. Lost all my info in open programs. Funny stuff.
I thought most flash cards these days use seperate save memory. Are they still making those ones that use USB linkers or whatever?
and i, too, wish i had more programming knowledge. i’ve always dreamed of designing games since i was a kid, but then i also wanted to be a cartoonist.. and a stand up comic.. and a composer.. and a rock star.. and now i’m none of those things. A.D.D’s a b****. what was i talking about?
Haha yeah Nuts, that is my problem too. If you read some of my earlier comments, part of the reason I go on so much is Adderall. It’s amazing stuff, really, if you seriously have ADD (otherwise it just makes you high and drugs are bad, mmmkay). I highly recommend to all my fellow space cadets to ask about it if they haven’t tried it. 🙂
Not all of us who have ADD are highly distracta-Oo, what’s that over there?! :p
And Mato, that farm game you posted a download to is quite funny.
My knowledge of programming is limited to TI-BASIC. I’m not even sure what all the commands do, exactly…
Well, at least I was able to get an A+ in Biology by making a presentation on animal cells on my calculator. It was really just a slide show of sorts. It displayed text, and then waited until the person using it hit enter. And then, it went to an image of a cell I created on my calculator. Then, I had a flashing effect by displaying the full cell and then just one part of the cell back and forth a few times, ending on the image of the part. It would then go to the next bit of text.
But, I think I’ve gone off on a bit of a tangent, so I think I’ll stop while I’m ahead…
lol.. i’m watching shin-chan right now. The one with the deflowerer. so funny. even better knowing our hero mato made it possible.
I went to Starmen.net and I went wait, something is out of place. Why is Team Fortress 2 on a site for Earthbound? Oh well, I love Team Fortress 2. Who want’s to gets rocked while we wait for the translation?
I’m toughing it out without meds for ADD. I have more complicated problems at hand, such as being bipolar. I mean, it’s nothing against you folks who DO take meds for it, (Infact, I encourage it.) but I think just one brain drug is fine for me. Keeps me from whacking out on my friends and family. (I’m now a hermit, so things never worked out with my buds.) So while I may change subjects not-so-smoothly and ramble on and on menacingly, at least I’m not punching holes in walls, or going at the throats of many. 😉 Not to mention all the shopping splurging I tend to do when I get all meh and decide “I need something to cheer me up” and then when I get the stuff, it’s like “why the hell did I buy all this crap?”…
…oh, right, Mother 3. HEY! 😀 Mother 3 people! It’s coming out in English! Woohoo! ^_^
well well well Mato another great Breakthrough My Friend..
How much Methamphetamine Did You SMoking to Produce this One?
amen sistah! just dropping in to check out the updates…i learn somethin new everyday. keep it up! ugh…its early….
Anna: Yeah, I wanted to try Assembly for the DS or the GBA, just for fun, and the experience can only help 😉
I’m just a bit disappointed, that we’re studying Java (and later a bit of OCAML…) in University, while C is far more important and widely used. So next thing I’m gonna do for myself is studying C. It’s not THAT different from Java (it handles things differently of course), so it shouldn’t be hard to get started.
So Mato…you have a deadline this coming Thursday for your real work. Does that mean once your deadline is gone that you will have more time to work on this? Or are there multiple deadlines you have this month? Keep up the great work!
I generally always have deadlines, just this one’s tighter than usual as of late.
Jeffman’s been doing some awesome work with the naming screen stuff though. Not too long until we can cross that naming stuff off the to-do list 🙂
@TonE
Usually, GBA flashcarts are formed by two different parts: SRAM (where the saves go) and NOR Flash (where the games go). SRAM is usually battery-backed. So even if you did fill up the NOR with the 32MB goodness of Mother3, you would still have free space in your SRAM (usually 32KB to 128KB) to save.
Also “reducing” the game size would inevitably corrupt the game in the later parts.
That’s right. However, trimming the ROM doesn’t corrupt it at all. Mother 3 is 32MB, but that’s because GBA carts only come in certain sizes(8MB, 16MB, 32MB, etc.). Let’s say Mother 3 is actually 30MB(I don’t know the actual exact size), it would go on a 32MB cartridge. Trimming just gets rid of that extra unused 2MB of space on the cart, so it doesn’t corrupt the game itself.
Unless when you say reducing, you mean something else.
Kamion: Java is a good intro language and very common for CS 101 classes because it has C-like syntax which is common and makes it easier to pick up on other languages, and also introduces other concepts while being designed to be a bit more assertive about proper usage. It really is a good place to start if you dig deeper from there.
Hey Mato, this is going a bit back, but I’m wondering what you did about the Mole Cricket back when you were working on the battle script. I think the main problem with saying “Encountered the Mole Cricket” is that, well . . .
Let me compare to programming. I always find these comparisons useful, as you can easily represent anything in English with a program (but how you make the class heirarchy is up to you). This would be the Visual Basic equivalent of “encountered the mole cricket” (I would like to use C++, but it’s been a whole year since I last used it).
Dim MoleCricket As Character = New Character
MoleCricket.Alliance = “Hostile”
Notice the word “Dim” in there. “Dim” is a declaration keyword, the VB equivalent to the English “establish.” So what I’m trying to say here is that the word “Encounter” always establishes the object. And you can’t declare something twice in a program; if you were to also have “Dim MoleCricket” anywhere before those two lines, you would get an “Already declared” compiler error. So, likewise, establishing something twice is confusing, and that’s exactly what happens when we have a Mole Cricket before battle and then we “encounter” it.
Can you change the way boss battles open? Most bosses are established prior to battle, so can’t you have something like “The ____ attacks!” specifically for boss battles?
@Alato: I do agree, because my Mother 3 ROM had about 30MB.
Yeah, but Mato has said that they’re probably going to have to end up using every last scrap of the 32MB max that Mother 3 comes as, the rom won’t be expanded any further and he’s made several comments about having to conserve space as much as he can.
Really, why bother trimming it if you put it on a flash card anyway, is cutting out a meg or two really going to make much of a difference when you’ve probably got a Gigabyte of space on your card anyway?
Jeffman update coming soon 😉
Anyway, if I were you, I would NOT trim the ROM at all. That would not be a good idea. Remember when the EPA guy shuts down the Ghostbusters’ containment unit even though they say that’s a bad idea? That’s the same deal here. Your ROM will explode and ghosts will come out if you’re not careful. Plus even if there IS some spare room at the end of the ROM (which there isn’t, we’d have put the script there in 16-bit format if there was) we’d probably be using that empty area for stuff for our hack.
you cant access the sram unless playing on the computer with my cart (beleive me, I tried everything before messing with rom size, and even still it works fine and looks the same)…just thought id throw that out there.I didnt mean to open such a big can ‘o’ worms…once again, thats what i had to do to get it to work on MY cart.
it just boils down to this: I got a crappy cart…at least it somewhat works 🙂