Main Script Hacking, Part 1

16 years ago by Mato

Well, the battle against the big bad main script programming is on, and although it’s only been a little bit of progress, that last update exploded into hundreds of replies in only a few hours, so here it is for people who didn’t watch the mini-updates in real-time ๐Ÿ˜›

The main script hacking issue is actually like a huge collection of lots of different things, so it’s not something that will be suddenly done in a day. In a way, it really is kind of like the final boss of a game, what with all of the different forms you have to defeat. For now, I’ve been working on fixing one of the main issues — the game only has enough memory for 40 letters on the screen at once. Go over that and it’s glitchy crashland. So I’ve been working on a simple fix for that, which is to make it use RAM for only two letters and then just have it reuse that memory over and over.

It went surprisingly well right off the bat. But because of how the programmer implemented the various different text speed settings, things can mess up on Fast right now if there’s an odd # of letters on the first line of text and then a newline code is encountered.

Blah blah blah, anyway, regardless, things are going well, and the programming actually hasn’t been nearly as insane as the menu programming. It’s been pretty nice and straightforward. Here are some pics for your enjoyment.


Here’s a pic of what happens when text is set to Fast and there’s an odd # of text on a line. I know what the problem is, I just need to really think this through hard, it’s weird. And headachey.

But even though it works on Slow and Medium, it’s obvious there are other issues that will need to be taken care of too. Behold “Flint and the Mystery of the Missing Letters”.


Incidentally, that’s the same sparrow that used to glitch up video memory. As you can see, he’s tamer now. But I think he still causes battles to freak out after you talk to him, though not as badly as before.

Clearly the game was not intended to use more than 40 letters on the screen at once here, so some more big-time magic (perhaps from boob wizards) will be needed to make everything work.

Just for fun, here’s a line from the game (note it’s still only first draft though), you can see how I have it set to be formatted, and then a screen of it in action before and after this latest hack of mine.


  • Before

  • After

(oops they’re not of the exact same part of the same line, oh well I think you get the idea)

There’s still a LOT of hacking left to do with the main script stuff, and it’ll be tough. But we’re on our way.

Posted on Friday, May 16th, 2008 at 7:48 pm by Mato, filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Comments and pings are currently closed.

356 Responses to “Main Script Hacking, Part 1”

  1. npjpkac said 16 years ago:

    Yay, IM so excited! So close!

  2. Nessie said 16 years ago:

    Yay First!!… I love you Mato good posting… I am still waiting for jeffman to reply to me though ๐Ÿ™

  3. L-Button said 16 years ago:

    Wow, you are really fast.

    Now, finally, we, the Mother fans who don’t know japanese will be able to play and understand Mother 3 ๐Ÿ˜€

  4. PizzaPasta said 16 years ago:

    I really hope that Flint can find those missing letters.

  5. Kurizu208 said 16 years ago:

    Keep up the good work!

  6. Scubasteve said 16 years ago:

    All the pieces are coming together…excelent

    /mrburns

  7. Alerek said 16 years ago:

    So close…

    @Mato – If you could talk to yourself a year ago, would you expect to be as far along as you are at this point? You guys are doing an AMAZING job.

  8. Buck said 16 years ago:

    Holy crap. I’m so impressed at how quickly all of you have been able to bang this thing out. Many, many thanks for doing this, and unless NoA decides to reverse their decision and localize Mother 3, I cannot wait until this is completed!

  9. Nork said 16 years ago:

    I’m sparrow certain that Flint and Mato can find them. Things are really shaping up here. Great job.

  10. Animus01 said 16 years ago:

    I want a pair of Salle Pants!

    *Goes to some exotic region called Gai Fo.

    Good luck on the Main Script hacking, guys! Not much further, now!

  11. neo said 16 years ago:

    ๐Ÿ˜€

  12. Beck said 16 years ago:

    Part 1 of…?

  13. EarthBoundRules said 16 years ago:

    Hey, Mato. Uh…nice going! Sorry but I don’t know what to say…
    I’m bored.

  14. wasp2020 said 16 years ago:

    Yeah, missed some of the miniupdates cause of the size of the comment page.

    But this is great. The first steps of the final boss, eh?

  15. NovaMan XP said 16 years ago:

    Wow, this is great.. it seems like you guys are so close to finishing! ๐Ÿ˜€

  16. smitty said 16 years ago:

    wouldn’t it be easier if you put all your efforts into the script now and left the last few hacking things for jeff

  17. Dr. Meat said 16 years ago:

    Salle pant at gai fo…

    This means something… this is important.

  18. Devin said 16 years ago:

    Hey, great job Mato! Just a quick question here. Are the gray name boxes supposed to fit to the length of the name, or not? I know you’re finished with that gray name box stuff, but I don’t know if it’s supposed to or not. Thanks!

  19. Bennysaurus-Rex said 16 years ago:

    Devin: The name boxes have a minimum length they need to be… if a name is longer than that though, they grow to fit it ๐Ÿ™‚ I think Mato explained this one a month or so ago.

    Mato: With the odd/even letters problem, is it possible to do a quick and dirty hack, in which the last group of letters, if there is only one left to add a space at the end? Should give you your two letters and will help it be consistant on full speed! Dunno how the game handles spaces though…

  20. TheMetroidMan said 16 years ago:

    I like how your file for Mother 3 thing is called “Mother 3 Funland”. Ironic that you call it that for when it kicks your ass and then you yell and kick its ass when it comes to hacking. I guess its a love/hate relationship?

  21. JeffMan said 16 years ago:

    Nessie: What was your question? I can’t find any comments by you from the previous blog entry.

    smitty: One of the major reasons why Mato can’t work on the next draft of the script is because of this huge hacking issue. He needs to be able to see things in-game with character and setting context, etc., without any of the current glitches and crashes. So he can’t really do that until the text is able to be displayed correctly. I’ve been trying to find a way to link each line of text to their corresponding speaker names to help him out a bit, but it’s surprisingly difficult and will require another half-dozen headaches + tax + gas money. And gas prices these days are augh

    Mind you, I’m still hacking other stuff in the meantime. ๐Ÿ˜› Mato is just on this power surge recently and he’s plowing through a bunch of major hacks uncontrollably, but I’ll still try to help out wherever I can, of course. We share our detailed hacking progress in our dev cave anyways so it’s easy for anybody on the team to contribute.

  22. A Fan said 16 years ago:

    Hmm, it must sometimes use the ‘unused’ ones.

    Maybe hack it to use only the first four, but loop back every time you get to the second one and deal with the weirdness.

    In other words, use some extra glyph buffers as, well, a buffer against letting it goof up the rest of the stuff? ๐Ÿ™‚

    Or does that not work for some reason?

  23. PKH4X0R said 16 years ago:

    You should add a mini-game to the rom called “Flint and The Missing Letters!” and you go around the forest looking for the letters.

  24. Sparks said 16 years ago:

    Yo, been away in the UK for the past two weeks. I decided not to go to any of the internet cafes and just have a whole bunch of Mother 3 goodness stockpiled when I returned to the States. And oh boy, you guys have been busy! Congrats on all the progress; you guys never cease to amaze me!

  25. blade the mercenary said 16 years ago:

    quote PKH4X0R said 6 minutes ago:
    You should add a mini-game to the rom called โ€œFlint and The Missing Letters!โ€ and you go around the forest looking for the letters. end quote

    wow that would be nice, i coud see that XD

  26. Kumatora said 16 years ago:

    LOl do you people hang around to wait for him to post something?

    Thanks for working so hard!

  27. Bethany said 16 years ago:

    YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

    u guys rule

  28. Reanzet said 16 years ago:

    I can relate to the final boss reference. Bummer. I hope this goes better for you in the future. Take some Motrin (or some heavy-duty painkiller)! Sometimes, just lying down under a cold washcloth helps too. If it’s causing too much trouble, take a break. I think you deserve one (or a bunch!).

  29. Seffy said 16 years ago:

    Nice job guys. I’ve been looking forward to this since the start, and it seems to really be coming along lately. Keep up the great work!

  30. Itoi's love child said 16 years ago:

    The final boss battle has begun! Good luck Team! Thanks again for your dedication.

  31. Redliw said 16 years ago:

    I smell only a few months left, instead of almost half a year?
    Better get this done either in the summer, or during christmas break or something, because my grades will be screwed if this is finished during school.

  32. Andy said 16 years ago:

    You guys have got this. Homestretch, thanks so much!

  33. blueflare said 16 years ago:

    If I could send you it I’d bake you a cake of some sort.

  34. King Erik Clusters said 16 years ago:

    Booga Booga Honk…

  35. Trigin9001 said 16 years ago:

    Sweet seems close to completion. Hopefully this gets done AFTER I finish EarthBound so I can jump straight into this.

  36. Bytron said 16 years ago:

    You guys are an inspiration. Whenever I get tired of/stuck in my projects, I think about how you guys never give up, and there I go motivation!

  37. Bribo Baggins said 16 years ago:

    Well, this time I’ll be sparrow sure!

    Nothing wrong there. =P

    Keep on truckin’! You rock my proverbial rocktron.

  38. Z said 16 years ago:

    Are you going to keep the sparrow’s name “Sparrow”, or localize it to something else?

    I saw someone calling it “Tutoriole”, and I think that’s rather clever…

  39. Neo said 16 years ago:

    ……..I CANT WAIT NO MORE. MATO JUST SEND ME THE PATCH. I WILL USE SLOW OR MEDIUM TEXT. I JUST WANT TO UNDERSTAND THE GAME NOW!!!

  40. D said 16 years ago:

    Hey,

    Maybe this algorithm will help you with your problem.

    Have a check as of such:

    if (#OfChars==Odd) && (Speed==Fast)
    then text+=’ ‘

    In other words, if there is an odd number of characters and the speed if fast, just throw in an extra space to make the number of characters even.

    It’s a cheap fix but it may work…

  41. Shuri said 16 years ago:

    I hope I can find my contacts before you finish the translation. I think they may have fallen out when I was in the desert… oh well, at least I have my black and white sesame seeds.

    crap.

  42. Elizara said 16 years ago:

    I admit, it’s looking better and better all the time! I hope you kill that Mega Boss of a error soon Mato.

    I’m considering doing something I have never done; that is, I’m considering getting a flash cart so I can play this on my GBA SP (yes I have a working GBA SP) once this is done. Hopefully my RL will have fixed itself by then…Might also have a DS by then, but I’m stubborn; I’d just like to play it on the original system.

    We’ll just have to see how it goes!

  43. TheMetroidMan said 16 years ago:

    Hold the phone JeffMan. You said it cost you gas money to help figure out the problem? Does that mean you and Mato personally meet to help each other out? If so, thats really surprising since I thought you guys communicate and work with each other through the internet. Can you clarify what you mean?

  44. Rastoph said 16 years ago:

    Looks like it’s coming along nicely!

    I just wanted to take a couple seconds to thank you guys for your hard work and also your consistency in keeping us fans up-to-date on the progress you’re making. For something being done in your free time, I think it’s amazing how professional and consistent you keep it.

    So once again, thank you for your hard work! I’m quite excited to see the finished product! Keep up the good work!

  45. Magus said 16 years ago:

    So….*final boss music begins to blare* It has begun…

    You know what…Mato needs some divine intervention or a Trombe interrupt that’ll make all of the main script problems be solved real quick like.

    Ah well…we’ll get a Trombe interrupt later or something in the form of the Runaway Byuu perhaps.

  46. Lynn said 16 years ago:

    D: If they were hacking in C that might work but assembly looks very very different and it can be hard to junction a branch statement like that.

  47. CMB said 16 years ago:

    Man, it’s now the final footsetps towards the boss…..I feel like I should be helping out in some way….

    I KNOW! I’ll give you some of my rare treasures for you to destroy the evil VIRYAS!

    *gives Mato a Pwn Mallet, attack goes up 24,385,800,583*
    *gives Jeffman a Multi-potato rocket launcher, attack goes up 20,331,450,294 *

    *gives Mato a Omni Stone, Mato learned PK Hacking Omnega (it’s 5x’s better than Omega)*
    *gives Jeffman the Holy Hand Grenade from Monty Python and the Holy Grail*

    *gives both a Mr. Satrun cause they’re just so darn cute :3*

    Good luck beating these last few hurtles
    Mother 3 HERE WE COME!!!

  48. Magitek said 16 years ago:

    Main Script appears!
    You cannot grasp the missing letters of Main Script’s attack!

    In all seriousness, good luck.

  49. Mato said 16 years ago:

    Alerek: One year ago we all thought the game would be pretty standard to hack. Turns out things had to be hacked much more than anyone expected. So I probably figured we’d be done or near done by now, heh. Never expected I’d be hacking the game’s code myself, though. I don’t think Jeff or I thought we’d be doing what we’re doing now.

    Beck: Part 1 of… I dunno, but I’d like to know. If you get a chance, could you go into the future and find out and then come back and let us know? That’d rock. Some winning lottery numbers would be great too.

    Devin: There’s a minimum size the box is, and if a name happens to be bigger than that, the game will expand the box a little bit, but it’s in like 16 or 32 pixel increments or something, so it’s not pixel-perfect in relation to the name’s length. That’s how the original game does it, and the English version does the same.

    Bennysaurus-Rex: Of course that’s one of the first ideas I came up with, but that would also take a whole lot of complicated work, more than you might first think — one example is that main script control codes are a lot more complicated than anywhere else in the game and have variable lengths and variable #s of arguments and they’d all have to be taken into account. Besides, it wouldn’t be fixing the problem either, so might as well do the clean fix that will work always instead of a clunky workaround that could mess things up. Just need to destress and then think things over with a clear mind. I know what needs to be done, just gotta stare at the original code more.

    smitty: There’s the stuff Jeff said, but until we know for sure the technical limitations of the final text system, it’s probably best not to do any major work on the script. As the translator and as a hacker, I’m in a unique position where I can say, “I want to be able to do this and this with the text” and then I can go and actually try to make it happen. So it’s pretty important that I also take part in the main script hacking. It also wouldn’t make sense to ditch the hardest hack of all, and I wouldn’t wish this main script problem on anyone. Let’s just get it done, done right, and then move on instead of rushing ahead hastily.

    Dr. Meat: The M3 script is just like the Bible Code I guess ๐Ÿ˜›

    Redliw: Personally, I don’t see it being done for at least 4 or 5 more months. And who knows what could happen between now and then, so until the major hacking is done I wouldn’t make any real estimates.

    Z: Haven’t decided. There are ones that don’t act as instructional characters though.

    Neo: OK, OK, since you asked so nicely, here you go. patch Let me know if you need help installing it.

    D: Heh, so easy to treat it like that, but I doubt even if you had the source code it would work so easily. In theory that might work, and it was one of my first ideas for a workaround, but it’s not a fix. The problem is actually caused by my hack and not the game’s design, so I should fix my own problems rather than try to mend it with other hacks that might wind up not working in all cases too.

    TheMetroidMan: Nah, I never met him before. I think he’s actually an internet robot trying to trick us into thinking he’s real, like a Turing Test. It’s the only thing that would explain how he can figure all this stuff out.

  50. Bennysaurus-Rex said 16 years ago:

    Mato: True if I figured it would be that easy then you would have done it yourself right off the (cracked) bat.

    As for Jeffman – the guy is a machine at this sort of stuff, would explain a lot…

    With the patch I’ll give you a couple of pre-emptive questions that newbie’s will ask in about… 2 seconds…

    “I tried to install the patch but it keeps telling me I smell, what am I doing wrongggg?” (Translate into SMS speak)

    “#%$% don’t trick us like that! rah rah rah” (Add more swearing and less spelling)

    No offence intended to Neo

  51. Mato said 16 years ago:

    D: I see your huge post caught in moderation. It’s not like how you think it is, so I’ll leave it out to keep the place less cluttered. It’s not that big of a deal though, we’ll get it eventually. This weekend is real life work-a-thon, though ๐Ÿ™

  52. Joshua said 16 years ago:

    This is great. I check this site daily, and I like how there’s new announcements every now and then(it always gives hope to see updates). Thank you for taking time to accomplish this feat. You guys are #1

  53. D said 16 years ago:

    Mato: No problem. I was responding to Lynn’s post during the time you responded to mine. Had I’d seen your post, my post would have been rather…short, if existent. I was looking hard for that ‘edit or delete’ button to no avail after seeing your reply to not avail…

  54. EmpoleMew said 16 years ago:

    *And suddenly, Mother 3 revealed the true form of its programing!
    *Mato used PSI Super h4xorz Omega!
    *999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 HP of damage to Mother 3’s Buggy Programing!

    Everyone, lend your energy to the hacking team! Help them deal the final blow!

  55. Alyssa said 16 years ago:

    YEA! You guys can do it!! Its so inspiring seeing this actually happening. Every English reading MOTHER fan owes you such an awesome amount of props for taking the time out to do this for us! Thank you sooooo muuch <3

  56. Mato said 16 years ago:

    BTW, even though we all know the to-do list is kind of arbitrary in some ways and that the percentages for each thing are even more arbitrary and/or meaningless, I did bump up the % for this hack a tiny bit. There’s so much to do though.

  57. Earthboundpwnage said 16 years ago:

    i be a hoping that this be done by me birthday…at this rate it should hopefully…

  58. Michelle said 16 years ago:

    Everything is looking excellent! Each update makes me even more excited! Curious, are the two ใฎ I spot near the end of the sentence used as a pronoun or are they just a colloquialism that I’m not aware of? Sorry, I’m still in the mood after my final, hehe.

    Keep up the good work, guys! <3

  59. Cubear said 16 years ago:

    This whole thing seems to be going much quicker than I originally thought it would. It’s pretty exciting to say the least.

    When this is done, Mato, are you goping to translate the rest of Food Fight? Just wondering because I fell in love with that show.

  60. smitty said 16 years ago:

    you know what I love about you guys
    is that you’ve thought about everything

    anyways thank you for translating this game
    everyday I thank god for hackers
    and I love you all
    and I’m drunk as hell right now

  61. Tobias said 16 years ago:

    smitty’s a man after my own heart <3

    anyway you guys are wonderful, I’ll echo everything I’ve said before just to say that you guys are great and the Mother fanbase would be null and void without you.

  62. Near said 16 years ago:

    Man, checking for updates here everyday feels like the days of the Smash Bros Dojo….
    That were not so long ago, but whatever.

  63. Dedede said 16 years ago:

    wow a post everyday XD

    good work guys, if weren’t you… i dont want to imagine..

  64. Coolkalle said 16 years ago:

    I read ‘Boob wizards’ and forgot all about what happened in this update.

  65. Biiaru said 16 years ago:

    Salle pant at gai fo.

    <3

  66. Excitable Boy said 16 years ago:

    Go speed racer, go!

  67. Lothis said 16 years ago:

    “Flint and the Mystery of the Missing Letters”

    Reminds me of that opening scene in Kingdom Hearts 2 where they didn’t just take all our ____ but the word “____” as well!

  68. RamblinEvilMushroom said 16 years ago:

    AHHH!! I am so excited!!! When this is released, JOY will fill the world and all the hatred and killing will stop for a good 3 hours as everyone downloads and starts playing Mother 3. ๐Ÿ˜‰

  69. Neo said 16 years ago:

    WOW, thanks for the patch Mato.

  70. Nathaniel said 16 years ago:

    You guys are doing great! This challenge will fall like all the others, it sounds like you’re already doing a great job at chipping away at what needs to be done.

    I can’t wait for another update!

  71. FramerJ said 16 years ago:

    Woohoo BW2 will be out soon.
    So beyond hyped at the moment.
    Great job Mato and Jeff.
    But seriously, take a break, and go play some mini golf of something. Don’t get burnt out when we’re closing in on the final stretch.

  72. Neo said 16 years ago:

    no FramerJ dont tell them that. We need them to finish the Mother 3 patch ๐Ÿ™

  73. Jau said 16 years ago:

    I agree they have been working hard and maybe they do deserve a break, but it’s really up to them, and I don’t think they want to stop till the Project is done

  74. FramerJ said 16 years ago:

    But mini golf of something would help them rest their minds!
    Besides, it’s much harder to work with the pressure of getting the game out and everyone pushing for an exact date of the game release. We’ve waited this long, so why should they hurry and stress out over it? ๐Ÿ˜€

  75. EmpoleMew said 16 years ago:

    (Lothis said 2 hours, 28 minutes ago:

    โ€œFlint and the Mystery of the Missing Lettersโ€

    Reminds me of that opening scene in Kingdom Hearts 2 where they didnโ€™t just take all our ____ but the word โ€œ____โ€ as well!)

    I was thinking of posting the same thing, but I was too tired.

  76. Neo said 16 years ago:

    Lothis. i used to think “_” was shit or something until the filled it in

  77. Kefka_rules said 16 years ago:

    You are absolutely amazing. I must say.
    EVERYBODY SEND UNDERWEAR TO TOMATO LIKE HE SAID
    *rummages to find where you said that*

  78. BFM said 16 years ago:

    It kind of reminds me more of the grind to the final boss – you’re doing the most tedious thing ever, right? Grinding through practically every single line of text in the game to make sure it appears correctly. I mean, wow, dedication much?
    People like you make the international video game industry work.
    I<3U.

  79. Aron said 16 years ago:

    jeez, things are really coming along… looks like you still have some major problems to overcome… good luck on that!
    (I honestly would help if I could, but my hacking skills are mediocre at best)

  80. Mato said 16 years ago:

    Michelle: Here is a good explanation of “no” when used in that way.

    Cubear: Yeah, I would like to. I’d also like to go and redo the old ones since I’m much better at translating now, but I’ll probably just pick up with ep. 10 sometime. There are like 2 more eps and then the two 90-minute specials.

  81. Devin said 16 years ago:

    Hey Mato, the patch you gave Neo is messed up. It says “You Smell” when I click on it. What’s up with that?
    (sarcasm)

  82. The King and Queen of Cheese said 16 years ago:

    I recently read the update before this. I hate to be a bother, but will this patch work for “Extreme Flash Advance” carts (a.k.a. “EFA-Linker”)?
    ________________________________

    You guys will go down in history ๐Ÿ™‚

  83. dUTCHY said 16 years ago:

    oh man, i’m excited. keep up the great work guys, you guys rock

  84. hasone said 16 years ago:

    mato, though we hope that the psychic tomato has made progress, we know that he has much real life work.

    I must ask: how did a psychic tomato ever get hired by a translation company?

  85. Bribo Baggins said 16 years ago:

    This “You Smell” patch is giving me a whole new outlook on Mother 3, nay, the Mother series as a whole. Thank you for opening my eyes, true believer.

  86. Mato said 16 years ago:

    What can I say besides MOTHER 3? YEAH THIS GAME STINKS TOO

  87. Fredishungry said 16 years ago:

    …*_*

  88. Bribo Baggins said 16 years ago:

    *laughs* Win!

    Alright, I’m going to be gone for a few days.. Stay sane!

  89. PKdag ยฅ said 16 years ago:

    Hey Mato ive been saving money , ihave like 120 bucks by now and i really want to buy a flash cart to play M3 as it deserves to. So i would really apreciate if you could tell me wich FC runs MOTHER 3 without a problem.

    Thanks in advance

    Lots of love from Mexico EB community. ๐Ÿ˜€

  90. TheReaper08 said 16 years ago:

    Just when the translation team sees the bright light at the end of the cave a final evil boss shows up called the main script programming,which is a boss that has many nasty different forms,which will take more than a day to defeat but don’t worry our hero’s Mato and his partner JeffMan have lots of experience and are attacking his different forms with their powerful weapons,anyway mother 3 fans lets continue to pray for our team to destroy this evil boss and continue their quest to get the great treasure at the end of the cave.

  91. GracieBarraJitsu said 16 years ago:

    COULD U IMAGINE, that after waiting all this time for the game to be ready, we play it, and it sucks?

    I think i’d kill myself o_0

  92. Corncracker said 16 years ago:

    I imagine Tomato and Jeffman (The versions seen in various Comics here of course) fighing large monsters fromed of many numbers and letter to Chrono Triggers Frog Theme.

    Then, the sky darkens as the music Changes to Magus’s Theme as a large carniviouerous beast emerges from the horizon. (The Main Boss) and he shouts out lines of text that are missing letters and are sometimes jumbled.

  93. CRUISE CONRTROL FOR COOL said 16 years ago:

    THANK YOU FOR THE PATCH MATO, BUT I NOTICED AN SPELLING ERROR IN ONE OF THE ABOVE PICTURES. WHEN FLINT WAS TALKING TO THAT BIRD, IT LOOKS LIKE THE TEXT JUST THREW UP. I’M SURE YOU PROBABLY DIDN’T NOTICE THIS WHEN YOU UPLOADED THIS, SO I AM TAKING THE LIBERTY OF TELLING YOU. PLEASE SEND MY “THANK YOU FOR NOTICING THE THROW UP” CHECK BY MAIL IF YOU WOULD.

  94. Vagn said 16 years ago:

    When this patch comes out I’m gonna crap my pants, haha. No seriously.

    I’m still betting on a Christmas ’08 release.

  95. Anon said 16 years ago:

    Curious as in regards to cameos/sound clips; is there any chance of having Dark Force (of Dejap) making a brief appearance in someway?

  96. Arashi said 16 years ago:

    ๐Ÿ˜€

  97. XxcanyumxX said 16 years ago:

    lol…”JUST GO FOR IT”!!!..u can do it… i cant wait for this to be done

  98. Long Pants said 16 years ago:

    Reusing only the RAM required for two letters over and over again… Why not four or five?

  99. Reanzet said 16 years ago:

    Probably cuz he wants as much RAM free as possible

  100. Long Pants said 16 years ago:

    I suppose that makes sense. But didn’t he say that originally the game used up to 40 slots? I wouldn’t think that’d be a problem.

    I was just thinking that maybe reusing a larger chunk of memory less often would be a little less work for the poor GBA. Of course, he probably tried that already and has his reasons for going with two.

  101. Adam said 16 years ago:

    Good luck with the hack fellas! Take many breaks and drink plenty of water!

  102. ncsbert said 16 years ago:

    These posts make my day. It’s like being given an extra little reason to be happy about the world we live in.

  103. Nessx2 said 16 years ago:

    Hey, looking forward to the game. Is it true that you guys estimated the hack won’t be done till about september? If that’s so, I can’t wait till september XD

  104. Arashi said 16 years ago:

    Does anyone know a way to make Windows Media Player play .ogg files? Cuz I tried downloading some of the M3 music of starmen.net but it didn’t work

  105. BloodEagle said 16 years ago:

    The Combined Community Codec Pack should enable WMP to play Vorbis (.ogg) files.

  106. Dartz said 16 years ago:

    I also believe WinAmp will work with .ogg files.

    Anyway, this is my first post on this blog, after lurking for a LONG while. Keep the hard work up and don’t give up for anything that stands in your way.

    Mato & Jeffman received Gutsy Bat!

    Use this to fight the main script. I know you can do it!

    (Yes, I’m playing Earthbound right now, and for the first time as well, and it’s sweet!)

  107. Fredishungry said 16 years ago:

    Quote:Hey, looking forward to the game. Is it true that you guys estimated the hack wonโ€™t be done till about september?

    Is it?

  108. Arashi said 16 years ago:

    @BloodEagle:

    I tried that, but I haven’t been able to get it to work. What exactly do I DO with it?

  109. spam man deluxe said 16 years ago:

    I’m loving all these updates!

  110. Screaming Anal Pain said 16 years ago:

    Hey trans team,

    I gotta say I’m impressed.

    Thank god someone out there has a staunch dedication to their projects.. I honestly thought the project would peter out in the first year, and thank god you guys proved me wrong. You stand to be a blessing to the Earthbound community and a motivational inspiration to me personally in my own life. Whenever life seems hard, I just think about the trans team at Mother 3, look at my own problems, and suddenly they seem way more insignificant than hacking 282737389309838 lines of code. Talk about Think and Grow Rich.. or whatever that book’s called, its like it’s your internal bible. Your heart is the perfect quality it needs to be to make this world go round as it should. Bless you mofokaz, bless you ind33d

  111. JeffMan said 16 years ago:

    Long Pants: Changing it to 4 of 5 wouldn’t make a difference at all and would just be pointless hacking. The point of the hack is to make it keep reusing the same chunk of memory over and over and over; this way, it avoids the overflows that crash the game. Before the hack, the game would keep adding more chunks of memory until it eventually started glitching things.

    There would only need to be one chunk of memory being reused, not two, but the fastest text speed setting draws two structs at a time, so there needs to be two buffer structs.

    Everyone asking about the date: Stop asking, we don’t have any idea whatsoever of a release date. It’ll take as long as it takes. It’s pretty much impossible to gauge how long it’ll be exactly. Some hacking problems take an hour to solve, some take three weeks; this may take even longer. And then there’s everything else to do.

  112. Coconut of Enlightenment said 16 years ago:

    This bug sounds problematic.

    When the text speed is set to FAST, the game tries to process two letters at a time right? So when you’re only using two glyph buffers at a time, that would make it so that odd numbered lines of text always end with one buffer filled and the other buffer empty, right? Whereas an even numbered line would leave both buffers full, and then they are immediately cleared to make room for the next two characters, right?

    Well, if that’s the case, then maybe each control code (including [NEWLINE]s) uses up two buffers at a time. Or, in any case, they must use more than one. Otherwise, you wouldn’t encounter any problems. So when one buffer is full with a character, and the other is empty, you try to add a newline, which is two buffers long. You fill the second buffer, then both are cleared, and the second half of the [NEWLINE] gets put in the first buffer.

    So, when the game reads the first buffer, it interprets it as jibberish, and voila, jumbled text appears on the screen.

    Is this the problem that’s going on? If it’s not, then please correct me. I find this sort of stuff fascinating.

  113. Mato said 16 years ago:

    Long Pants: Because 4 or 5 wouldn’t matter. Only one would be necessary, except in the case of Fast text speed, where the game actually prints two letters at once.

    Nessx2: We’ve given no months or dates like that, so no. Somebody either told you something random or misinterpreted or read too much into something.

  114. Eaze-C said 16 years ago:

    I said this in an update, 2 updates back, just wondering if you saw it

    “HOLY CRAP!!! This will probably be finished before this month or the end of the school year.

    props to all the people who worked on hacking M3

    P.S. and about that last comment Mato said โ€ Mato said โ€˜JC: Iโ€™m not a very good hacker, and I donโ€™t think Iโ€™d be very useful. I actually never want to hack stuff like this ever again once Iโ€™m through with it. If Hell had its own Hell, this would be it.โ€, if that is so, what do you really do, if you donโ€™t hack?

    P.S.S. um i have dreams of working with games and I was hoping that you guys could maybe show me how to hack. If I knew how to hack beforehand I would have definitely lent my hacking skills to you guys”

  115. Mato said 16 years ago:

    Coconut of Enlightenment: If I knew the exact cause there wouldn’t be a problem. But it’s mostly just me not fully understanding the game’s system yet.

    Eaze-C: I’m a translator, not a hacker. I pretty much learned how to hack assembly code just for this project.

    See here for info on how to delve into the world of ROM hacking.

  116. Stillz said 16 years ago:

    if this is the final battle, make sure u brought enough lifenoodles

  117. Boundearth said 16 years ago:

    Buy the best equipment for the Final Battle and be careful!:P

  118. Eaze-C said 16 years ago:

    THANK YOU MATO!!! You shall recieve much suckage from me later on!

    Umm…another thing do you translate Jap—>Eng or are you talking about computer language?

  119. Arashi said 16 years ago:

    He translates Jap -> Eng

  120. Mato said 16 years ago:

    Uh, I don’t know what I should be expecting from you later on, but I think I’ll pass ๐Ÿ˜ฏ

    I’m a professional Japanese->English translator if that’s what you’re asking though.

  121. Eaze-C said 16 years ago:

    O,lol!

    I just assumed that since they have the dialogue translation on Gamefaqs, that there would be no need for a translator…

  122. Tarik said 16 years ago:

    lol eaze c that sounded awful.

  123. Eaze-C said 16 years ago:

    yeah no offense…………

  124. PizzaPasta said 16 years ago:

    Mato,

    Do you speak Bocce? Also, I have some moisture vaporators that are acting up, if you’re not heading to Tosche to pick up some power converters could you talk to them for me?

    Thanks,
    Uncle Owen

  125. deepo said 16 years ago:

    Hi Mato, thanks for your work on this project – i just know i would love this game and to me it is far more interesting than
    any other game or the offical nintendo-games related news.
    i guess it is because of shigesato itois genius that this game
    fascinates me so much – love his website, too, even though i sadly don’t understand any japanese.

    My question to you is this : is there stuff in the game that
    nintendo would never have translated into english because its to provocative/ a touchy issue for american consumers
    ( like they never show mammae on us – tv where that is totally normal in german tv, even advertisements )?

    Looking forward to the patch – good as gold and will be THE game to play whenever its ready!

    Thanks,
    Florian

  126. mitch said 16 years ago:

    Here’s a picture. For you. And you.

    http://i26.tinypic.com/10xbj2h.png

  127. Mato said 16 years ago:

    deepo: No, there’s nothing in the game on that level, though there are a few times when I can see people going, “Gah!”

    I’d rather not discuss this stuff here though, I’d like many of the things in the game to remain surprises for people, so feel free to move the discussion over to the starmen.net forums.

  128. A Fan said 16 years ago:

    Am I totally wrong or does it seem like the reason things aren’t printing is because they end up in the 3rd (or later) glyph buffers instead of the ones you’re using?

    At least, such are the only explanations I can think of unless the menu programmer helped code this part… ๐Ÿ™‚

  129. mitch said 16 years ago:

    Oh, DAMNIT. I left my reference in that picture. I’m a dum-dum!

  130. Eaze-C said 16 years ago:

    Hey, deepo what do you mean by “mammae”???

  131. Mato said 16 years ago:

    A Fan: No, I also checked that, but the third buffer is never touched.

    It’s the middle of the afternoon, I should be working, and I’m so sleepy argh.

  132. Brian said 16 years ago:

    damn, i can’t believe how good things are looking, when did this whole thing begin, and where do i send this blank check to? i feel like i owe you something….

  133. Coconut of Enlightenment said 16 years ago:

    Thanks for the reply, Mato.

    Anyway, I still think the control codes might be designed so they don’t fit in a single buffer. Or who knows? Maybe it’s something in the control code subroutines.

  134. Dr Haisook said 16 years ago:

    Very nice work. I’d like to see it finished as soon as possible or otherwise by next year (sorry, exams!). I’ll be playing it on my Sony PSP (gpSP).

    I’d also like to see Mother 1+2 (at least 2) translated, but I read somewhere that it’s even more difficult to hack than Mother 3.

    Anyway, I really appreciate all your hard work in this project.
    Best of luck.

  135. MrSaturn33 said 16 years ago:

    Well, now I have a better idea of what you have to do, so I guess that’s good! Anyways, as always, keep up the great work!!! ๐Ÿ™‚

  136. Exp HP said 16 years ago:

    Well RPGOne has a translation of the Mother 1 side of Mother1+2. My guess is the contrast between ease of hacking Mother 1 and hacking Mother 2 was too much, and they couldn’t get used to actually having to reprogram a game after so much time of being able to just change text.

    And thier Mother text translation is incomplete. I mean, come on, it still uses Japanese text when you use Check in a place with random encounters (like in 80% of the game). It could very easily have said something like “It isn’t safe here…” or “You feel a presence”

  137. A Fan said 16 years ago:

    > ( like they never show mammae on us – tv where that is totally normal in german tv, even advertisements )?

    You mean breasts? No one uses the scientific term outside of medical literature ๐Ÿ™‚

    Mato: Hrm, it’s CLEARLY printing every other letter sometimes. Whatever problem you have is a weird one ๐Ÿ™ Drink some Mt. Dew if you’re sleepy, or take a walk. Not moving around is the worst thing you can do when you’re tired; it always makes me fall asleep ๐Ÿ™‚

  138. A Fan said 16 years ago:

    Besides, Mammae Wizards II just doesn’t sound as cool as Boob Wizards II…

    Unless maybe she’s a nurse in that one. Hmm… I’ll have to see a cartoon from Mitch before deciding…

  139. Dr. Meat said 16 years ago:

    I’m going to lose a lot of mother3.fobby.net e-cred here, but I’ve uh, never actually played the original Boob Wizards.

  140. Golden Eevee said 16 years ago:

    Good work! All you have to do left is test it out and fight Kurata and his evil robots, then the final bosses minions, DIGIPWN: DIGITAL PWNSTERS and then the translation will be stolen by the ALMOST FINAL BOSS!! MaloMyotismon on Starmen.net who tries to replace everything Earthboundish with Digimon stuff with Kurata, Ness, Ninten and Lucas team up with you to stop him, But then he turns into his Final and most powerful form, ShigesatoItoimon, a Super Ultimate level Digimon that destroys the Earthbound Universe with a pen, Tomato and Jeffman fuse to form Omnimon and kick butt, saving the universe from those who hate Earthbound! That’s what it seems like you are doing right now!!

  141. Devin said 16 years ago:

    NO WAY! You’ve never played it?!

  142. Exp HP said 16 years ago:

    Dude, the suspense is killing me! Hurry up and finish the hack so I can play the game and watch Wes dance again!

  143. lucas1286 said 16 years ago:

    awesome, keep up the good work. mother rocks

  144. bubble-gum monkey said 16 years ago:

    (sorry for the double post!)
    nvm, I figured out the secret.
    Itoi’s a genius for coming up with it too! ๐Ÿ™‚

  145. Reanzet said 16 years ago:

    Golden Eevee: Where the HELL did all that come from?! I got it, but it’s crazy, I tell you, crazy!

  146. Saph said 16 years ago:

    Lea e Flint alo e!

    I m tired of p ople sayi g he is mi si g lett rs!

    Wh ma e you th gram ar pol ce?! Huh?! H h?!

    He’ a hum n be ng!

    You wan na m ss with him y u got a go thr ugh me!

    Well… an ways, I dunno wh’it to do, so I’m gonna tay in here again todp0y “””

    > ye no?

  147. shadowdeku said 16 years ago:

    huff…puff…im out of breath…from coming…all the way…down…here…WHEEZE!! HACKPTH! HACKPTH!

    sorry, i wanted to get that in. i’m just amazed at how far you guys have come. i bet the localization department at nintendo is drooling over what you guys have done.

  148. Coolioman said 16 years ago:

    I have a gba Extreme Flash Advance Linker with 256MB of memory. I’ve been trying to download the MOTHER 3 ROM with it, but it keeps saying “not enough space for this ROM”. How much memory does my flash cart have to be able to hold in order to download the MOTHER 3 ROM?

  149. Alato said 16 years ago:

    Oh my god, you guys are so dumb. Of course this is never gonna get completed, it’s just fake. I mean, every update is just some dumb text box fixed, or something. And they only got reknown fan hackers and translators working on it, no way it’s real. And for the videos, they’re just parts they actually DID translate. So Mato, you think I wouldn’t catch on?

    Anyway, awesome work like always. And like always, Mother 3 looks great in English, and I’m sure all of us will just feel the appreciation and effort put into this fan localization.

    Also, if my computer doesn’t blow up(it’s really, really, really bad) in the meantime, I’m gonna try my best to draw a picture. Since it’s about the only way I can contribute, even if it’s ugly. And if it’s ugly, please ignore and don’t let it discourage you… That would suck… ๐Ÿ™

    But yeah, again, great work!

  150. Devin said 16 years ago:

    hey coolioman, I have an EFA as well, and it’s 256 mbits, and it holds M3 just fine. Maybe its a bad ROM. Try another one and it might work.

  151. GrammarGuy said 16 years ago:

    Make sure you get that “Everyday” changed to “Every day.” “Everyday” is no adverb. Can’t have script errors ingame, can we?

  152. Coolioman said 16 years ago:

    [Please don’t ask where to obtain the ROM. See the FAQ section. — Ed.]

  153. bubble-gum monkey said 16 years ago:

    Hey, Mato.

    sorry if I spoiled anything in that post that didn’t make it through the filter.
    btw, I now regret finishing M3 with the menu patch. Good luck, and I hope things are going good for you in real life. I mean it.
    Mato!
    JeffMan!
    (the team as a whole)
    The enemy M3 cart is fighting just as hard against you. Don’t let Giygas have his way!

  154. mitch said 16 years ago:

    This may be the very first pictorial reply on this blog:

    http://i28.tinypic.com/wivn03.png

  155. Triple10X said 16 years ago:

    lol, fast picture Mitch

  156. Jorge said 16 years ago:

    This might be slightly off subject, but I was interested in actually buying a flash cart for this translation, and I wanted to know what the current recomendation is.

    If Mato would suggest one, I’d definitely try to get that one. My first concern is playing this game, with a pretty strong second concern of where I could get it.

    In stores would be ideal, but unlikely, so reputable websites would work too, since I have to go through my parents.

    Thanks for any replies I might get!

  157. Neo said 16 years ago:

    http://tomato.fobby.net/junk/patch/ Im working on a mother 4 and anyone who wants to give me ideas please click link

  158. Dave said 16 years ago:

    LOL mitch very nice one. i love the smiley dude next to the well haha.

    although i hate “everyday” too… i swear nobody wrote it as one word before WalMart took over the planet

    oh yeah and go go Mato awesome woot yay etc

    end of moronic post

  159. Anna said 16 years ago:

    I wrote a huge thing with some hardware recommendations but Mato didn’t like that I suggested where to get said hardware ; ;

    But basically I got a CycloDS and an EZ-Flash 3-in-1 and it works wonderfully; you’ll have to use NOR mode to load up a 32 MB ROM, but in NOR mode that means you could pop your 3-in-1 into anything and it works just like a normal GBA cartridge. Only caveat is if you want to use it on something with a larger slot than the DS lite, tracking down the larger 3-in-1 might be hard.

  160. Long Pants said 16 years ago:

    Hmm. Well, that makes sense. I’m assuming, then, that just clearing out the RAM every fortieth character and having it start over from the beginning of the memory again… wouldn’t work?

    Sorry if I’m asking dumb or irrelevant questions. I’m just really curious as to how this all works.

  161. A Fan said 16 years ago:

    Mitch: Where’s Lassie when you need him? Or was it ‘her’? I seem to remember them replacing Lassie a few times.

    Dammit, I KNEW I should’ve asked “little” Timmy something when I met him a few months back. Except for the gray hair, he looks a lot like he used to, only bigger… (true story, BTW).

  162. GoldyK said 16 years ago:

    Mitch, your sketches are,
    Mato’s Brain Food Lunch Updates:
    Jar of Delisauce

  163. Nutsjesmoar said 16 years ago:

    http://nutsjesmoar.googlepages.com/wizardry.png

    Nutsjesmoar helped!

  164. Nutsjesmoar said 16 years ago:

    ps that’s a boob wizard

  165. Vampyre Gigolo Rockstar said 16 years ago:

    woo!!! just feel the excitement in the air!! makes me want to _____ a ______ in your honor!!!!

  166. Vampyre Gigolo Rockstar said 16 years ago:

    thank god for hackers, oh my god, lets all _____ right now!!

  167. Jak1437 said 16 years ago:

    I love _____’s.

  168. Trigg said 16 years ago:

    KEEP ROCKING

  169. Light said 16 years ago:

    Just as planned!

  170. A Fan said 16 years ago:

    Just don’t say “boku no katsu!”, Light ๐Ÿ™‚

  171. Magitek said 16 years ago:

    Neo, you know that the message in there was intended for YOU, right? We ALL know what it says. And don’t be so impatient.

  172. Adolfo said 16 years ago:

    hahaha mitch, I just love your art, donยดt ever leave this nest of nerdyness,I would go crazy with all this accurate technical terms

  173. Kirk said 16 years ago:

    I believe in the Force and I believe it’s strong with Mato. May he never use his powers for the Dark Side.

  174. MotherEarth said 16 years ago:

    I should have a page for all my questions. XP Does the ROM and patch work on Macs? Seriously, though, I ask too many questions. It’s a bad habit.

  175. MotherEarth said 16 years ago:

    *Yawn* I’m bored. And tired. And waiting for EB on the VC. *Sigh*

  176. Patman said 16 years ago:

    BOOB WIZARS? WHERE?

    on a more serious note, good job and good luck

  177. Reanzet said 16 years ago:

    I wonder when Boob Wizards II is coming out ๐Ÿ˜‰
    Maybe Mato can make it as a side-project after this is done

  178. AirCommodoreSnoopy said 16 years ago:

    This is sick and awesome.

  179. Coolioman said 16 years ago:

    I seem to have a problem with my EFA linker. I have a MOTHER 3 ROM, I click search to find the card. Next, I click add ROM. I type in my MOTHER 3 ROM, then it goes into the unwritten ROM list. I click write ROM. It starts to write the ROM, but when it says “now reading card”, the ROM disappears from the list. And it’s not just the MOTHER 3 ROM, I have 5 other gba ROMs I’m trying to write, & they all don’t work, & I highly doubt that they’re all just bad ROMs. I have EFA simple card client 1.0 for windows vista. If anyone might have a fix for my problem, let me know.

  180. Devin said 16 years ago:

    Coolioman: Maybe it’s because you have Vista. I think I’ve heard of problems arising from the use of Vista. I use XP for mine, so maybe that’s why it works. If not, it may be that your driver is outdated. Try this site: http://gbatemp.net/index.php?download=2078

    I’m pretty sure the problem is Vista, though. I’ve heard the drivers work for XP only. Good luck!

  181. Deney said 16 years ago:

    Wow, this news is fantastic, I have only just got into Mother 2 and it is amazing.
    It’s great to know someone is already working of the seaquel, you guys are truly amazing!

  182. Mato said 16 years ago:

    Well, watched the code a little bit and I see why some of the letters disappear like that, but still not sure what the cause behind it is. Won’t have much time to look into it though.

  183. Neo said 16 years ago:

    i’m serious now,Mato dont try too hard. Earthbound is suppose to be coming to VC soon but nintendo is acting like bitches. While we wait try going to this video game chat room. it will give us all something to do. http//www.chat-avenue.com

  184. Coolioman said 16 years ago:

    Devin: The thing is, I got a different ROM (not MOTHER 3) to work, but that was only a test (I already had the official game). I erased the ROM & tried to rewrite it, but it disappeared from the list again. So I’m pretty sure it works, but I may have messed something up in the settings. Any ideas on what I may or may not have done?

  185. Suzi said 16 years ago:

    OMG! I can’t wait my sister loves this series and we both are excited to hear that some fans are taking the task to translate and patch it. Many thanks!

  186. Arashi said 16 years ago:

    I’ve found a new way to pass time. I’m drawing a bunch of 1 page SSBB comics, revolving around Ness and Lucas, of course.

  187. Alato said 16 years ago:

    Anna: It shouldn’t be too hard to get a large version. I mean, all you would need to do is a bit of searching on Google. Maybe Google something like, “EZ Flash 3in1 GBA”.

    I also suggest the EZ Flash 3-in-1 with a Slot 1 DS Flash card. Works perfectly for me. Can’t wait.

  188. RenStimpy said 16 years ago:

    yay! im very excited about this

  189. Arashi said 16 years ago:

    Hey Mato, do you like what your name means in Kanji?

  190. sunzo132 said 16 years ago:

    Great job. Your devotion and hard work is amazing me.

  191. Foffano said 16 years ago:

    Oh! So the sparrow is like that OLD MAN who catches a WEEDLE everytime you speak with him in Pokรฉmon Red/Blue?

    OMG! We’ll have MISSINGNO. in MOTHER 3!!! O_O

  192. G.Wicks said 16 years ago:

    Has there been much progress on the translation of the actual script itself?

  193. ForteMP3 said 16 years ago:

    You’re getting closer Mato. Don’t lose sight of your goal now! We’re all rooting for you!

    Also, I think I’ll be going ahead and writing up the second Coffee Break post once I have some material to work with, and most importantly, when you guys are in the script drafting phase.

    What can I say, I had a LOT of fun writing that coffee break post.

  194. Itoi's Love Child said 16 years ago:

    For you people looking for flash carts, if you live near one check out the video game stores in your local chinatown. They usually carry a couple brands, although not as cheap as an online store. My M3 lite plays the m3 with the menu patch well, but I’m note sure if its still in production. If your gonna buy a flash cart online find a site that is based here or in canada. They’re less prone to rip you off. And always buy the original game first and use the carts for the benefit of having all your legally owned games on one cart.

  195. Silver Streak said 16 years ago:

    Finally got byuu’s patcher to compile, but then I realized that the menu patch still had no .ups patch. I got someone to make me one using the original M3 ROM and the .ppf patched ROM, and then I tried that patch. It worked fine, so obviously byuu’s patcher seems to work well! In any case, I now have a .ups patch for people who can’t use the .ppf patch, and I can probably make a guide for people on how to compile and use byuu’s patcher. I’ll probably throw a short how-to on the forum later tonight.

  196. Devin said 16 years ago:

    Coolioman: I’m really not sure how to fix your problem. I only just got my EFA Linker on Wednesday, so I don’t know much about it. My only suggestion would be to e-mail the folks that made the EFA. Otherwise, I’m clueless. Good luck!

  197. Combo Baker said 16 years ago:

    what flash carts will this technique work on? I want to be prepared the second the patch is ready

  198. solidpit said 16 years ago:

    Um, I just want to make sure. Are you a criminal by any chance Mato? We can’t have Kira killing you. Because I’d sob everyday (lol).

  199. Jupiter-x said 16 years ago:

    Oh boy! Tenda Teatime! Thanks Forte! I loved the first coffee break post! ๐Ÿ˜€

  200. xlr0 said 16 years ago:

    200th comment!

  201. sunzo132 said 16 years ago:

    Mato, by any chance do you know how to hack the secret boss in?

  202. MotherEarth said 16 years ago:

    Ummm… I guess I didn’t post loud enough. XP Do ROMs (And the translation patches) work on Macs?

  203. wtfitsed said 16 years ago:

    MotherEarth

    roms with applied patches DO work on macs you just have to get vba or whatever for mac to play it on

  204. A Fan said 16 years ago:

    MotherEarth: Yes, if you have a working emulator. IIRC, someone posted something about getting an emulator (VBA?) working on a mac, but that was a long time ago.

    All you need is a patched ROM (you can make your own) and a working GBA emulator.

  205. sunzo132 said 16 years ago:

    Earthbound has been rated by the ESRB. That means it has a high chance of getting in to the virtual console. That still doesn’t mean that it will for sure happen. I’m not getting my hopes up that much. You people might not believe me and that’s fine but I’m just saying that it has a high chance of getting into the virtual console but might not. I am happy that earthbound has a high chance of getting to the console and I am happy that Mato is translating Mother 3 for all to enjoy

  206. Majora said 16 years ago:

    sunzo speaks the truth. while there is a high chance of Earthbound coming to the virtual console, there is still no proof that it DEFINITLY will.

    to mato: thee hasn’t been a mini-update in a while, has progress been made?

  207. Mato said 16 years ago:

    I’m doing real life work, don’t expect mini-updates for a while/days.

  208. Mato said 16 years ago:

    Actually, I should mention real quick that while I’m busy doing this stuff, Jeff’s been busy hacking stuff, he made it so we don’t need a hash function anymore for sprite text, he implemented the gold star thing, found a bug in one of my hacks, and probably many other things I’ve forgotten. Give him some Fruity Pebbles.

    I also think I have another possible idea on how to make the sprite text not do the annoying flashing thing, but I’m gonna save it for later, this main script stuff needs to die die die.

    So very sleepy but must work zzzzz

  209. Germ said 16 years ago:

    Good luck sirs.

  210. Reanzet said 16 years ago:

    wait, the gold star thing or the silver star thing on the to do list? can we (you, who am I kidding?) cross that off the to do list? or is that a different matter entirely?

  211. Devin said 16 years ago:

    Get some sleep, Mato. You deserve it.
    And Jeff deserves some Fruity Pebbles, too.
    And Trix. Because Jeff’s a kid.

  212. Eaze-C said 16 years ago:

    hey mato what is your real life work?

  213. Mato said 16 years ago:

    Reanzet: No, that thing probably won’t be crossed off for a good while, because it’s so open-ended.

    Eaze-C: I’m a porn star. Actually I translate games/anime/movies/etc. into English for a living.

  214. Eaze-C said 16 years ago:

    OOOOOOOO! So does that mean you get paid to translate in fansubs?

  215. Sandman said 16 years ago:

    No, he does actual translations for companies like Funimation or other stuff. Right, Mato?

  216. A Fan said 16 years ago:

    Just be sure to write your idea down somewhere. It would suck to forget it due to being so tired ๐Ÿ™‚

  217. starmand said 16 years ago:

    Being a porn star is kind of like translating games and movies, except you’re translating innocence and self-esteem into cold hard cash and drugs.

  218. Sly Rockin' said 16 years ago:

    I’m ever so excited about this… at each turn, this seems further and further away from realization, until I read an update, and I get all yappy again. I think my friends are sick and tired of hearing about Mother 3 at this point.

    Keep up the good work; I eagerly await completion.

  219. Mato said 16 years ago:

    outdated resume is here

    Been relying on coffee too much lately, I should cut back. It’s not even good coffee, just instant junk.

    Anyway, I have lots of ideas for stuff for the project, just no time right now. I hate when that happens, heh.

  220. Crass said 16 years ago:

    you did work on baki the grappler?
    you’re now my double hero

  221. Mato said 16 years ago:

    Ha, awesome. It’s not too often I hear that from people, usually it’s Shin-chan or One Piece or something people mention ๐Ÿ˜› Baki kicks ass, I wish they’d make some more seasons of it, I hear stuff past the tournament gets especially awesome.

  222. Dr. Meat said 16 years ago:

    I don’t watch anime much but that is quite an impressive resume nonetheless. Gives me a lot of faith in the quality of the translation we’ll be getting for this thing… not that I doubted it in the first place.

  223. Tom said 16 years ago:

    That’s a big no-no.

  224. Mato said 16 years ago:

    It’s okay, I took care of it. Yeesh.

  225. Apteryx said 16 years ago:

    Sweet, you did some work with KH2? Never seen that resume before, good schtuff. I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you, but keep your real life work first; we’re just a bunch of self-centered greedy piggies who want their mother 3.

  226. Vagn said 16 years ago:

    Hey Mato do you think you doing fan translations for roms has helped you at all in your career? Just curious.

  227. Magus said 16 years ago:

    You did work on Lupin stuff? Awesome.

  228. Mato said 16 years ago:

    Vagn: No, not career-wise. Experience-wise, sure. I did tons of ROM translations and fansubs before hitting the real world, I did it specifically to gain experience. So it’s kind of interesting to be going back to the less-than-legal world for this project after years of pro experience.

  229. Duffman247 said 16 years ago:

    Hey i was curious, but what games have you played that you enjoyed that are only in japan?

    Mainly i was curious if you played policenaughts… from the looks of it, i’ll never get to play that in english

  230. Jorge said 16 years ago:

    That KH2 is amazing. But I don’t really understand what he did, care to elaborate (mato or anybody)?

  231. Mato said 16 years ago:

    Jorge: For KH2 I only did a few days worth of work, which I did through an agency. I had to translate the script direction, you know, the boring stuff that’s not dialogue. Stuff like “blah blah walks wistfully toward blah blah then exits stage right”. Except I had no context and they had weird mistakes in there. Seeing the entire script (with dialogue) kinda killed my desire to play the game though, I bought it when it came out and haven’t gotten past the part where you gotta stick stickers on everything in town, heh. Same with the other games I’ve done actually, I play a little bit and then it just gets meh. Weird how that happens.

  232. Long Pants said 16 years ago:

    Since you worked on One Piece, you must be able to answer a question I’ve been wanting to ask for a very long while. Where in the world did they find such a talented team to handle the voice-overs for the English dub?

  233. D said 16 years ago:

    Mato: I have an idea of how to fix the bug.

    It reminds me of a racing game we made in openGL. Basically, if any of the CPU players reached the finish line first, the game crashed. One of my team mates replied, “Well, if you lose, everybody loses.” Quite an interesting idea, no? Now, granted, we DID fix that bug but…that doesn’t mean you have to…

    ๐Ÿ™‚

  234. Douglas said 16 years ago:

    You did Speed Grapher? Awesome, i’ve got to say. I’ve been watching each episode via iTunes and it’s been great. Great to see someone with a resume like that doing Mother 3.

  235. ok said 16 years ago:

    Mato sit At Computer Chair.. he Look at Monitor.. Go.. “Huh…”.. stare at the Code.. Very Confused!.. But not becaues He Not Understand.. No.. Mato Too Brilliant For that.. he Confues as to Where to Apply his Mind.. so Mato Snort some Meth off His Desk and Go “Ahhhhh”.. then It Become Clear.. He must hack the Main Script !

  236. mitch said 16 years ago:

    Ahahaha.

    ‘ok’ is my favorite commenter.

  237. GoldyK said 16 years ago:

    You did Negima!
    I ordered the set last week.
    You are a hero

  238. MaiXu said 16 years ago:

    I, too, love ok. He is as much the part of a good update as anything Mato or Jeff do.

    Not really. But he’s like the extra pennies in the pocket when you go to buy something with exact change and forgot to add tax in your head.

  239. dave said 16 years ago:

    mato, when you translate anime, do you have to match the wording up to the mouth movements in the animation, or do you just translate the meaning and other writers make it fit?

  240. dave said 16 years ago:

    uh, or is that what “timing” means on your resume

  241. G.Wicks said 16 years ago:

    Wow Mato, you were involved with Kingdom Hearts 2’s translation? That’s awesome… I love that game.

  242. JC said 16 years ago:

    I thought kingdom hearts 2 sucked. First one was much better, in my opinion. Of course, I had no issues with the translation.

  243. Simmo44 said 16 years ago:

    HOLY Mother F*%@ing sh*t. You did Dragonball !!!!

    OMG Mother 3 and Dragonball damn Mato you rock!!!

  244. bubble-gum monkey said 16 years ago:

    YOU HELPED TRANSLATE DB? AWESOME! Anyways, just wanted to say this’ll probably be my last post for now.
    As for NOA, they’re taking a while with EB for VC. I sense a disturbance in the force…

  245. Inzoum said 16 years ago:

    Rather than fixing the garbled text, you could try filling the holes with “smurf” or “smurfing” or “smurfed”, I’m sure it would produce pretty satisfactory amusement…

    This year we celebrate the Smurfs’ 50th anniversary.

  246. Reanzet said 16 years ago:

    Sorry for the late post, but if it’s not the thing on the list, then what IS the gold star thing?

  247. Reanzet said 16 years ago:

    and the kingdom hearts series is epic awesome. it makes me even happier that you were a part of it

  248. SHINE GET 64 said 16 years ago:

    oh mans One Piece: Unlimited Adventure too? Fun fun game

  249. Hamster said 16 years ago:

    You mentioned that it would take several months before you expect to be done. I think you said something like 4 or 5 months. Is that including the multiple drafts, extra hacks, playing through the game looking for bugs, main script hack, etc…? Or is it just basically the main script hack?

  250. Mato said 16 years ago:

    Duffman247: I don’t really have time to play games anymore (kind of ironic, huh) so I can’t think of any such games off the top of my head. And usually the Super Famicom games I wish had come out here I’ve done fan translations for or have had a helping hand in. Haven’t played Policenauts.

    Long Pants: I’m only the translator, so none of that is in my scope of knowledge. But I know they did tons of casting work and even asked the Japanese creator and the Japanese company for approval a bunch of times in terms of casting. Also, they’re not 4Kids, so that’s a big plus already ๐Ÿ˜›

    dave: My work is used as the subtitles and as the basis for dub scripts. But it’s the writers who have to rewrite everything to sound better for the dub, and one of the things that includes is the lip-flap matching. Luckily that’s not important when doing subs. “Timing” is making it so subtitles appear at certain times. You gotta write down a time code for each line, it’s tedious.

    Reanzet: The last thing on the hacking list is a general “add/polish stuff as we see fit”. So it’s not something that will be crossed out until near the very end. The star stuff was just one example.

    Hamster: Careful now, don’t misread things — I said that in my opinion it’d take at *least* 4 or 5 months more. That’s the entire process, not just the main script hacking. If I can find some free time (getting hard, the real life work is piling up daily) then I can see that being done sometime in June.

  251. hasone said 16 years ago:

    mato: has there been any progress on the main script hack?

    I’m afraid you’ll be defeated by the final boss. Say it ain’t so! Say you’ll be able to fix it eventually!

  252. Mato said 16 years ago:

    hasone: No new breakthroughs yet, if that’s what you’re asking.

  253. skipsandwich said 16 years ago:

    4 or 5 months – that will be near election time – i’m probably going to forget to vote because of this game… oh well!

  254. Jak1437 said 16 years ago:

    PK FORGET TO VOTE ฮฉ!!!

  255. Vagn said 16 years ago:

    Gomer3a:

    Dude man be careful. Stuff like that shouldn’t be posted here. Thats treading on spoiler land. Most of us here HAVN’T played the game yet because we are waiting for the translation.

  256. Mato said 16 years ago:

    Vagn: It’s okay, I got it. People need to be more considerate of others. And they need to read more.

  257. Lieutenant Dan said 16 years ago:

    ugh… i saw it… i didn’t need to know that. mother 3 is completely ruined… ๐Ÿ˜‰

  258. Vagn said 16 years ago:

    Thanks Mato, I suppose it could have been worse.

  259. Tulki said 16 years ago:

    I’m so pleased with how you’re all pulling this together. It’s simply amazing. Most unofficial translation teams just change the text to get the main points across, but you’re keeping the real Earthbound feeling; the humour is still fully intact.

    I… can’t…. wait!

  260. A Fan said 16 years ago:

    “Tomato Genetically Modified to be More Expensive”
    http://www.theonion.com/content/news_briefs/tomato_genetically_modified

    Noooo! Where will we get more translators now? ๐Ÿ™‚

  261. Reanzet said 16 years ago:

    oy, so what’s the difference between what Jeffman did(the “gold star thing”) and whats on the list(silver star thing)?

  262. Karuvitomsk said 16 years ago:

    Whether the team says the hack may take a certain amount of time, we should be optimistic about it. The hack’s one of the biggest in the game, but we should have faith in ’em, right? ;D

    Also. After seeing these new shots, I’ve gotten a localization craving. ;3;

  263. Will said 16 years ago:

    Uh… I think gold stars are gold and silver stars are silver.

  264. Mato said 16 years ago:

    Reanzet: Come on now, it’s not THAT hard. The “add things/polish things as we see fit” list item is just that — we add things and polish things as we feel it’s necessary. The recent gold star thing is just one of those things. The gold star shows up if you get all the backwards enemy entries. The silver star shows up if you get all enemies in your log book.

  265. buttfrenzy said 16 years ago:

    Mato, your outdated resume is impressive! I had no clue that you were a bad enough dude to save the president!

    Either way, know that your prayers won’t be absorbed into the darkness. While you’re battling in that snazzy robo-mato suit, we’re all sending our prayers TO THE MOON. (or some crap like that.)

  266. Arashi said 16 years ago:

    Take all the time you need. I can wait until 2056 for this if I have to. Though by then, i would have most likely mastered Japanese and played it some 40 years before that

  267. Mato said 16 years ago:

    The missing text appears to happen 34 letters after each time the text needs to scroll up, and lasts for 11 letters. Very weird stuff. I can see what’s happening but I can’t tell the root cause yet.

  268. Arashi said 16 years ago:

    How exactly do you uncover the problems so quickly?

  269. Habiib said 16 years ago:

    Wow, so many strike outs in the To-Do List. We’re all cheering for you Tomato and JeffMan! …and anyone else whom I don’t know about.

    buttfrenzy: Bad Dudes is such an awesome game.

  270. Coconut of Enlightenment said 16 years ago:

    I certainly hope you’re not hacking the main script until June. Instead, I hope all the tangles in the programming come undone and the perfect way to display the main script in English with a VWF falls into your lap.

    Good things sometimes do happen, after all ๐Ÿ™‚

  271. linkdude said 16 years ago:

    Wow. I forgot you translated Burst Angel. That’s the reason I haven’t finished it yet. I was watching it fansubed, but then I saw FUNimation lisenced it and you were doing the translating. I still haven’t gotten around to getting it though.

    Tomato, did you translate the first 13 episodes of Dragon Ball too?

  272. Can0fMean said 16 years ago:

    A lot happened in the past 15 days. 2 weeks ago I thought that there was still like 3 months more, but when I think now, 2 months remains at most! ๐Ÿ˜€

    I also envy you, your RL is translating and ur PC life is also translating from Japaneese. But you should really take a rest once in a while and shouldn’t drink that much coffee. Really unhealthy if used a lot :/

  273. ty said 16 years ago:

    Well done sir’s. Well done.

  274. Mato said 16 years ago:

    linkdude: You should get it, there’s already like been a box set release, and then a re-release with the extra OVA, which I think is probably a pretty good deal altogether. Plus it all has tons of extras.

    And yeah, I did the first 13 eps of DB too, man, that was like what, 5 or 6 years ago. So long ago now. Too bad they haven’t been released here, but I think they were released in Australia a good while back.

  275. ILoveUGuys said 16 years ago:

    lol seriously, this is so amazing what you guys are doing. i give you the up-most respect for sacrificing all this time so that we can all enjoy the greatest game/story of all-time.

  276. Myotis said 16 years ago:

    This is superb work. I’m really looking forward to the completed project!

  277. Duffman said 16 years ago:

    I always kinda of imagined you kicking back and playing those games that get rave reviews but never come over here. Afterwards you laugh and say how great it was, and tell everyone they have to play it. How well where you in Japanese before entering it as a major in college?

  278. sunzo132 said 16 years ago:

    I heard that the plot of Mother 3 will make people cry. Not to be spoiling or anything, I heard that it was sad.

  279. edracon said 16 years ago:

    Mato and Jeffman, this is looking great.

    Also, Mato, do you work or did you used to work at BabelMedia?
    I mean, according to their site they translate for Nintendo and Sony (Well, their Europe routes.). So, do you still work there, or no?

  280. TraumaSK said 16 years ago:

    Sparrows are bad bad people.

  281. loren said 16 years ago:

    i love you. i can’t believe how much progress this is making in such short time, i remember following the early attempts at translating this and i’m so SO glad that you’re so close to completion. such regular updates, such a professional website, i can’t imagine how you find the time. i’d love to donate or help in any other way i can, and i know you guys say buying the japanese version is the best way to help, but it’s out of stock and i really feel you deserve something for all your hard work, let me know how i can help ๐Ÿ™‚

    -loren

  282. A Fan said 16 years ago:

    > The missing text appears to happen 34 letters after each time the text needs to scroll up, and lasts for 11 letters. Very weird stuff. I can see whatโ€™s happening but I canโ€™t tell the root cause yet.

    Weird, because the Japanese script seems to have 14-character lines (not counting any line breaks or control codes) from your translation tool screenshot, but those aren’t quite even multiples.

    It still feels like some errant newline code, but… hmmm…

  283. Arashi said 16 years ago:

    hey Mato, if you weren’t going for such awesome quality ( and make no mistake, I’m glad you are), would this patch maybe be done already?

  284. Majora said 16 years ago:

    sunzo: this is not the place

  285. Mato said 16 years ago:

    Arashi: That’s a very vague question and I can only see it leading to people complaining one way or another.

    edracon: Yeah, but I haven’t done anything with them in a long long long time.

  286. Arashi said 16 years ago:

    Oh, sorry for asking then

  287. Penguinguy said 16 years ago:

    Pretty sweet that you posted your (however old) resume. I was wondering how many years you had taken Japanese. Compared to my dad who has taken four years you are certainly much more skilled. 2000 kanji memorized? Very commendable.

  288. Super3dcow said 16 years ago:

    I love how the mother series can make such a strong connection with the players that it can make them cry. Only the truly best games do that, and I have no doubt that Mother 3/EB2 will do the same thing to players. I absolutely cannot wait for this translation to be finished.

  289. Mato said 16 years ago:

    Blargh. The main script programmer’s problem is that 1. his code is spread out allll over the place and 2. he uses too many bit flags for everything, and that’s the kind of stuff you REALLY need documentation for or else it takes 5000 years to figure out what each bit of every special byte does.

    I’ve at least followed things further back to where the game determines if text needs to scroll up or not. But so little free time ๐Ÿ™

  290. A Fan said 16 years ago:

    Ouch. Weird bit flags set wrongly == massive pain … ๐Ÿ™

  291. TLS1988 said 16 years ago:

    Why can’t people be more organized, am I right?
    Anyway, keep up the graet work!!

  292. FERNANDO PANDO said 16 years ago:

    Oh come now, do you really expect the crazy Japanese dudes who make a psychotic mixed-up game like Mother to be organized?

  293. Arashi said 16 years ago:

    Can someone help me? I downloaded the EB0 ROM, made a copy and patched that one, but none of them work on any NES emulator. What’s the best Emulator for Windows XP 03? NesTopia, FCE Ultra, and NESticle all didn’t work…

  294. hasone said 16 years ago:

    I can see his see code

    /*global*/ int this = 1;
    int that =0;
    int theOther = 1;
    int theThird = 1;


    int theFiftyThird = 0;

    And the main script programmer mis-set number 38.
    This is the type of situation when you need well-written functions. seriously.

  295. Reanzet said 16 years ago:

    *face-palms at self-stupidity and ignorance*

  296. Bubble_gum monkey said 16 years ago:

    (ok… apparently this wasn’t my last post.)
    also:

    naruto132: No, it’s not really that sad. There’s a secret. Play and see for yourself ๐Ÿ˜‰
    mato: oh man. I hope it’s nothing too serious. Bugs are annoying. I’m starting to think that nintendo made this glitchy on purpose so no one could localize it. Or maybe they didn’t care and just threw everything together. My Web1 teacher would always take off points if she saw any glitches. I wonder what grade these guys would get? All those errors in the jp m3: O_O

  297. sunzo132 said 16 years ago:

    Majora: I’m just trying to mark the feeling of the game.

    Bubble_gum monkey: I’m not trying to convince other people it’s sad but I heard that the plot was sad.

  298. Anna said 16 years ago:

    Oh geez. That sounds like hell, Mato. ๐Ÿ™ Just start keeping lots and lots of copious notes any time you figure out anything about any of the flags. I’m sure you do that already though, but if it helps, let me be the nagging voice in the back of your head that says that no, you will not remember what bit 3 of #FC0F:AAC7 set 5 minutes from now, nevermind a week or more, and that you had best jot down that revelation right now before the velociraptors get you for bad practice:

    http://xkcd.com/292/

  299. A Fan said 16 years ago:

    Arashi: You probably have a bad dump. IIRC, there are several bad ones and I do not know the hash of the good one ๐Ÿ™‚

    That’s one of the reasons the new patching system is so nice, because it checks to make sure the game it’s patching is the one it thinks it should be.

  300. A Fan said 16 years ago:

    And if that wasn’t clear, the fix is to find a new copy of the ROM and try to patch it. I use Nesticle mostly, FCE Ultra is good, too. If those don’t play it, it’s bad.

  301. SoreThumb said 16 years ago:

    Mowhawk man’s line is so dramatic.. I never realized how powerful even the NPC’s texts were.

    I’m glad you’re doing this. Spookychee’s text is great, but not 100%.

  302. A Fan said 16 years ago:

    I wonder if it’s possible for you to pay that guy’s hotel bill?

    *ponder*

    I’ll have to try it in game… once it’s translated, that is ๐Ÿ™‚

  303. NecrosaroIII said 16 years ago:

    Tomato, if you don’t mind me asking, how old were you when you first started studying Japanese?

  304. Reanzet said 16 years ago:

    hmmm xkcd… the possibilities open! I found a couple…
    hmm http://xkcd.com/303/
    http://xkcd.com/323/
    and wierdly enough, http://xkcd.com/349/
    oh noes! http://xkcd.com/388/
    just a few comics to brighten you up ๐Ÿ˜‰

  305. Mato said 16 years ago:

    Duffman: I studied Japanese at college during summer breaks during high school. Then I went into college and majored in Computer Science, dropped that about 2 years later, spent a year in Japan, came back and majored in Japanese. So it’s hard to answer your question.

    A Fan: You still use Nesticle? ๐Ÿ˜ฏ ๐Ÿ˜ฏ Also, NPCs have their own little changes throughout the game, so you can see what happens to him over time. It’s neat stuff. Even tiny inanimate objects have their own stories by the end of the game.

    NecrosaroIII: At 16 or 17, somewhere around there.

  306. TheMetroidMan said 16 years ago:

    Hey Mato are we gonna get a picture of you punching your computer or keyboard when the patch is complete? You know, to show dominance over the one thing that not even a whole corporation could do; translate Mother 3! Also it would be the icing on the cake to see the one hero to all of us Mother fans! Do it for us!!!

  307. A Fan said 16 years ago:

    I confused Nesticle with Nestopia, my bad. I use Nestopia, not Nesticle ๐Ÿ™‚

    It’s cool to know that even the inanimate objects have a story, but that’s got to be something of a pain in the ass for the translator…

    Speaking of translating, how long did it take you to get to where the JLPT level 1 was doable? I’ve heard of reasonably fluent foreigners having trouble because they’ve neglected their kanji study a little and get thrown by kanji for things like ‘indigo’ (err, I don’t know that one, either).

    On the plus side, I finally got something that has stroke orders for more than just the kana. God help me if I have to look up what tone each mota of some word is supposed to be in, though. I don’t have any of those damn $500 dictionaries ๐Ÿ™‚

    And I still have to practice saying them properly without sounding like that guy with the afro in Hayate the Combat Butler (even I can hear how WRONG it sounds, it’s almost painful to listen to). Not to mention weird uses of tsu. How can you have a glottal stop (small tsu) at the *start* of a word o_0 … At least I think I’ve managed to slur my R/Ls correctly, but still. And I probably need to listen more carefully, because I honestly though uso would be written muso until I saw it in writing, and that’s not the only syllable I’ve misheard by any means… Maybe it would help if I watched more dramas so I could see the lips of actual people moving? Hmm…

  308. Sellitus said 16 years ago:

    Just an idea for the even/odd character issue. Why don’t you try mapping a blank, and even maybe not a blank letter in at the end or beginning of the text boxes to stay having even numbers of letters. Just remake an unused character as blank or something. I’m not a programmer, it was just an idea that I thought of when I saw the problem.

  309. Mato said 16 years ago:

    OK, finally think I got a good lead on the missing letters problem. Except now there’s another problem, it’s negative 5000 o’clock in the morning. Someone win the lottery so I can take off work for a few months ๐Ÿ˜›

  310. A Fan said 16 years ago:

    Just use Dr. Andonut’s instant revitalization machine and you’ll be fine within seconds… ๐Ÿ™‚

  311. Duffman247 said 16 years ago:

    Thats cool, i hate carrying a conversation in such an open environment, but why did you leave for japan.

    I mean, after college it was a big thing for me to leave my parents house and move 3 hours away. How did you come to moving to another country?

    Sorry for the spill your guts life story stuff, its just so fascinating, if you want we can trade crazy stories.

  312. thethirdman said 16 years ago:

    wow, I leave for 3 days and you’ve done a LOT!

  313. Sinaqui said 16 years ago:

    You know, the June issue of PiQ magazine ran an article on the subject of game-translating, and it immediately reminded me of the work going in right here. They even commented on how long fans of Mother 3 have been trying to translate the game, with “little” to show for it, though every time I turn around, I see the blogs you leave behind about the difficulties coming through, not necessarily in the translation itself, but in the process of coding the translation into the game (something that wasn’t touched on in the article). I may be new here, and longwinded, but I’m watching your efforts with appreciation for your dedication to the project, keep up the good fight!

  314. Anna said 16 years ago:

    Little to show for it seems a bit harsh :3 Like 97% of the work has to be done before there’s anything to “show”, especially when it’s a stated goal to have ONE patch to avoid complaints and issues for people confused by the existence of more than one patch. ๐Ÿ˜› The script has been through a good first draft afaik, and almost all of the “auxillary” text works great and even as-is it sounds like the main script is even playable at times! There is quite a lot to “show” it’s just that this project is chosing to release it all at once instead of something like trying to get a few chapters working at a time or some such.

  315. Vinnie said 16 years ago:

    hey mato. i downloaded your earthbound zero hack and applied it with both SNESTL12 and Lunar IPS but it didnt do anything. im using the FCEUltra emulator and the Demiforce hack rom. please help!

    love vinnie

  316. Vinnie said 16 years ago:

    NEVER MIND IM AN IDIOT!!!!

  317. Bubble-gum monkey said 16 years ago:

    @ possibility of a working full english M3: YES! YES! THIS IS DELICIOUS! One by one the glitches are dissappearing. This is just like playing a Pokรฉmon game. And it’s only a matter of time before the team becomes the M3 Glitch Finding Masters!
    WE’RE GOING FOR THE WORLD RECORD (cause we gotta catch ’em all before Team Roc- er…
    Nintendo releases their ULTIMATZ WEPONZ: the cease and desist order.)
    TO CATCH THEM IS OUR REAL TEST…

  318. Schlupi said 16 years ago:

    Good work, Mato. I can’t wait for this to be finished.

    I really comend you for all your team’s work on this translation.

    I wanted to ask, though- what is the order in which you are doing the “script drafts” and “implementing the text into the game”?

    Because it’s confusing to me how the 2,3, & final drafts arent complete yet but the game is already translated (and you’re putting the text into the game).

    are you going to put it into the game and then edit it according to script changes?

    -Schlupi

  319. Mato said 16 years ago:

    The current screens and videos use the first draft text file. The text file will be polished and fixed over time, these are the revisions/drafts. Your last question doesn’t seem to make much sense though. I’m guessing your idea of how the process works is a little off.

    Anyway, if that PiQ magazine did say that, then screw them for not understanding the process or doing any research.

  320. Neat said 16 years ago:

    Nessie = NOT FIRST :3

    Anyway, very nice work guys. Keep it up. After you’re finished.. I’ll give you a cookie… really, if you want one, I’ll mail it.

  321. GoldyK said 16 years ago:

    Any magazine,
    Says there is no work to show,
    Can kiss Mato’s ass.

  322. tzeentch said 16 years ago:

    nice Haiku, GoldyK ^^

  323. GoldyK said 16 years ago:

    Thank you very much,
    This is now how I reply.
    Well… most of the time.

  324. A Fan said 16 years ago:

    You guys who can’t play EB0 probably have broken ROMs. There are lots of bad versions out there, find a new, better one.

    Lunar IPS + Nestopia always worked fine for me. If you’re using both of those and it won’t work, the ROM you have is a bad dump.

    Make sure to read the patch notes, too. I don’t remember if it applies to NES games as well as SNES games, but sometimes I’ve had to remove the header on SNES games. It’s been a long time since I’ve tried to patch a NES game.

  325. Mandabar said 16 years ago:

    I love you all

  326. noble said 16 years ago:

    I really dig what you’re doing here. Keep up the good work!

    It seems like the end’s in sight!

  327. Joseph said 16 years ago:

    Hey where can i download the Battle Translation Patch At? Please Msg Me when everything is done too ty

  328. Arashi said 16 years ago:

    Now that you mention it…

    The EB0 ROM said NES file, but the patch said SNES game patch file. Is that supposed to happen?

    I’ll try NEStopia again with a new EB0 dump anyway

  329. Coconut of Enlightenment said 16 years ago:

    Umm…why do you need software to apply the patch to the NES rom? With all the NES roms I’ve ever used, including Nestopia, I just drag the patch onto Nestopia, and when it asks me which file to use it with, I select the ROM file. It always works.

  330. Arashi said 16 years ago:

    Yeah, I got it to work, thx

  331. Mato said 16 years ago:

    wtf @ so many responses, I hadn’t even noticed the #.

    Haven’t had time to look into stuff today, I’ll try to sneak in a few hours. Like I mentioned before, last night I finally found a good lead that eventually results in the mystery of the disappearing letters. I gotta follow it back now. Not sure why it’s doing what it does, but it should only be a matter of time until the cause is found now.

  332. Arashi said 16 years ago:

    Hey Mato, why don’t you delete the first 135+ responses? make it easier for everyone

  333. Mato said 16 years ago:

    Mostly I wish people wouldn’t use the blog as a question forum on how to use patches for other games, etc. ๐Ÿ˜‰

  334. Eaze-C said 16 years ago:

    Holy shit Mato!!! I just looked at your resume…YOU ARE THE SHIT!!!

  335. Arashi said 16 years ago:

    are you trying to make me feel guilty? ๐Ÿ™

  336. Mato said 16 years ago:

    Mostly teasing ๐Ÿ˜› But in general I think most non-related posts are best suited for the starmen.net boards.

  337. Eaze-C said 16 years ago:

    BTW mato, today at school someone had graffitied the words in romanji “Boku ga kido da” on one of my friends’ locker. What does that mean?

    I know it means “I something” …I assume its something like I suck since it IS school.

  338. Mato said 16 years ago:

    Heh I dunno, maybe it’s someone’s name? Or someone is trying to say, “I am the gate”? “I am the respiratory tract”? “I am the orbit”? Hard to say if it’s just romaji, the fact it was in romaji probably means they didn’t know what they were saying anyway. Maybe they were going for ใ‚ญใƒƒใƒ‰, or “kid”. I dunno.

  339. Arashi said 16 years ago:

    Unless maybe his NAME was Kido? anythings possible…

    Anyway, Mato, I’ve discovered your greatest fear! Anything that eats tomatos! Rabbits! rats! How do you feel when you see tomato paste at the supermarket?

  340. Majora said 16 years ago:

    “I am the gate”
    badass

  341. Eaze-C said 16 years ago:

    OOO yea seeing as how everyone at my school is into anime, knowing basic Japanese must have made them eager enough to write that “I am a kid” on someone’s locker.

    I’m a little rusty with my Japanese since I stopped studying. BTW do you watch fansubs Mato? Also I didn’t see your name in the back of the Kingdom Hearts 2 instruction manual what’s up with that?

  342. Eaze-C said 16 years ago:

    O, lol then it would probably have been “I am the gate” since it was written on a locker.

  343. Will said 16 years ago:

    I think this blog has blown up because of others (like myself) who picked up SSBB and were intrigued by the Lucas character. I loved Earthbound and followed the N64 release with some anticipation. We all know what happened next. I am just so happy that I’ll get the chance to finally play this installment (which I have heard is a modified version of what was to be on the 64). Counting on you, Mato! (No pressure… okay, some pressure).

  344. Mato said 16 years ago:

    Stuff I do through agencies usually means I don’t get in credits. Even with FUNimation, I rarely get in credits — if I do, it’s in the end credits of the DVD, not the normal credits of a show. It’s a curse.

    I don’t watch fansubs, there’s kind of no reason to ๐Ÿ˜› Plus I have no time. I used to fansub shows here and there that I liked, that’s what this is all about. here’s a recent fansub, actually

  345. Reanzet said 16 years ago:

    Yeah, I hope that lead you found helps clear this mystery.

  346. Eaze-C said 16 years ago:

    The only reason I watch fansubs is because I like to have accurate translations of dialogue in my anime. I don’t like having edited footage and I would actually buy dvds if I had a job, but I don’t. (I am 17 in High School)

    Also I don’t get what sexybeam is for…and is the second link subbed by you?

  347. LokixFreya said 16 years ago:

    I think Mato meant that he doesn’t watch fansubs because he can understand the language ๐Ÿ˜€

  348. Devin said 16 years ago:

    *Looks at time since last update*
    3…3 days…
    *sweats*
    I’m…getting…a…little…anxious…
    Just kidding. Take as long as you want, Mato. As long as you want…just make sure it’s by tomorrow morning. ๐Ÿ˜›

  349. Vagn said 16 years ago:

    Lol get a job then Eaze-C; you’re 17 and in high school!

  350. Coconut of Enlightenment said 16 years ago:

    Sometimes, the thing that surprises me is not that this game is getting an English translation, but the fact that it exists at all. I mean, back around the time EarthBound 64 got cancelled, I used to dream about it getting released and me finally being able to play it. How am I supposed to know that I’m not going to wake up right after submitting this message to discover that it’s ten years ago and the 64DD has been cancelled and EarthBound 64 is a lost cause?

  351. Drรผ said 16 years ago:

    Somebody pinch CoE

  352. Eaze-C said 16 years ago:

    O…….yeah I forgot Mato can understand Japanese…I am so jealous. Well I guess then I’d have to change the question to “Do you watch anime RAWS?”…

  353. A Fan said 16 years ago:

    Maybe someone was trying to write the sentence from Death Note (“Boku ga Kira da”) and heard it wrong? It doesn’t sound like they know what the hell they’re doing, or they’d have at least managed a simple sentence like that. Hell, even I understand it (except for the ‘kido’ part). Boku is the mail pronoun, used by young men. Ga is the ‘identifier’ particle, so they’re identifying themselves as ‘kido’. Da is the informal present tense version of the verb ‘desu’, which is one of the three ways to say ‘is’ in Japanese (all three mean different things). This is the is in the sense of “He is a doctor” (vs. “He is in Japan” [which would use iru] or “It is in Japan” [which uses aru]) so you can think of it like an equals sign (you can’t say he == Japan, so you know to use iru). The difference between aru and iru, BTW, is that iru is only used for living things and aru is used for objects. You can speak of a person as an object, but it’s incredibly insulting and haughty. Imagine a princess or someone saying ‘Get that THING away from me.’ about a person to understand the feeling.

    Anyhow, based on the recent news I’ve seen of Kira-related nonsense (people getting suspended for notebooks with names in them because it’s now a “threat” or something), I have to believe it’s something like that, but they suck at Japanese, even more than I do ๐Ÿ™‚

    That or they really want to say that they’re the kid for some reason (what kid?) or are horribly confused by some other Japanese word they heard very, very wrong. But who am I to talk? I would’ve sworn that uso (‘no way!’ when used as an interjection, lit. ‘lie’) was pronounced muso from the way people were saying it for a very long time ๐Ÿ™‚ And that even extended to thinking usotsuki (liar, lit. ‘lie user’) was pronounced musotsuki. Good thing I looked it up ๐Ÿ™‚

    —–

    Oh, and for the patch people, IPS patches can patch both SNES games and NES games (depending on what the IPS is *supposed* to patch). Heck, you could probably use it to ‘patch’ any other random small file, whether it was a game or something else.

    You almost certainly have bad ROM dumps. It happens. Look for more ๐Ÿ™‚ You can try the GoodNES tool to verify them, too. Anything with [b1], [b2] (etc.) on the end is a bad dump, anything with [o1] or [o2] (etc.) is an overdump, and [h1], [h2] (etc.) is a hacked version. You want a nice [!] on the end for known good dump, unless the patch notes in the TXT file that probably came with the patch specify something else ๐Ÿ™‚

  354. Redlandsman87 said 16 years ago:

    What’s with the blue, Mato?

  355. A Fan said 16 years ago:

    > O yeah I forgot Mato can understand Japanese…

    Now this is just crazy. Remember when you were ‘just’ the translator (and not the main hacker), Mato? ๐Ÿ™‚

    Uhh, if I remember correctly, he prefers J-Dramas now. I downloaded one on the hopes of picking up more Japanese from it, but I haven’t watched it yet. Somehow, they’re just not as interesting to me so I didn’t get much beyond some lady asking a local granny to predict her future and tell her if there was any romance in it. Japanese TV is weird ๐Ÿ™‚

  356. Eaze-C said 16 years ago:

    Lol so true A Fan.