After almost two years of hard slog, Starmen.net's Mother 3 fan translation patch has finally been completed, and will be released at the end of this week ... a whole month ahead of schedule! That's according to the latest blog entry on the project's site, in which team member Mato records that, "Testing's pretty much over now. Some bugs did turn up over the last few days, but they were all minor and quickly remedied. Some really hard-to-spot typos were also found and fixed."
Joyous news indeed, though the patch will require a few other things before it's of any use: namely a slot-2 flashcart, a GBA emulator, and -- cough -- an entirely unauthorized ROM copy of the Japanese game. While we don't condone piracy, a western localization of Mother 3 doesn't exactly look likely at this stage, and we do condone passionate fan projects such as this one. Hit up this FAQ to learn more, and don't forget to check out some beautiful, Anglicized Mother 3 screens.
[Thanks, Joel!]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
10-14-2008 @ 4:43PM
FantomRedux said...
Might to try this, especially because of all the hype about Mother 3.
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10-14-2008 @ 4:43PM
CJC said...
This makes me a happy guy.
And articles like this one always make EB fans come out of the woodwork.
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10-14-2008 @ 4:46PM
Zack said...
I've been following this from day one. Kudos, guys! This will really stick it to Nintendo. Do they think that Earthbound still isn't as big as it was 10 years ago? How dare they release Earthbound on the Virtual Console only in Japan. :-P
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10-14-2008 @ 4:59PM
theclaw said...
No, Earthbound isn't actually on the Virtual Console in Japan (yet).
It was just one of the demos in the Japanese version of SSBB.
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10-14-2008 @ 5:12PM
Ravnos said...
I have to say, I'm pretty damn excited about this. Shame on Nintendo for not putting out an official English (or other language) version. N
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10-14-2008 @ 5:14PM
Broco Lee said...
Is it any good?
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10-15-2008 @ 4:21PM
Monodi said...
It is not good. It is incredibly well written, unique batte system, great sprite acting and beautiful music.
"Good" is a demotion.
10-14-2008 @ 5:16PM
Jihad Germ said...
I am incredibly excited to feel similar to the way I felt when playing through EarthBound for the very first time.
I've waited for years; because of dedicated people much like all of you reading this, the waiting is nearly over.
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10-14-2008 @ 5:21PM
Erik Stroud said...
I know, I want that feeling again. Even after multiple play throughs, it still makes me laugh. Can't wait for this.
10-14-2008 @ 5:16PM
Matt said...
I haven't heard anything about this, first I've heard so far. Seems interesting though.
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10-14-2008 @ 5:39PM
Nukie said...
I've been following the Mother 3 Fan Translation page for some time now. I am very excited about this. I am currently playing the Earthbound game on my DS and enjoying it a great deal, thanks to GBA emulation. Thanks for the heads up!
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10-14-2008 @ 6:01PM
Monkey Thing?!!? said...
Lucas got his ass beat by that Rhino
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10-14-2008 @ 7:32PM
EPerson said...
I have been waiting so long for this! HOORAY!!!!!!!
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10-14-2008 @ 8:21PM
Spike said...
i'll throw it on my EZV and try it when it releases, even though i have never played earthbound before
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10-14-2008 @ 9:08PM
Erik Stroud said...
EarthBound is amazing. You should play it. I have a real copy, and I play on the go with my psp. The SNES emulator on ds doesnt play to well.
10-14-2008 @ 10:51PM
WiiFTW said...
Is a slot-2 card necessary? I have an R4DS *gasp* and it runs some SNES Roms via SNEmulDS (http://www.snemul.com/ds/). It works for A Link to the Past and Super Metroid, but FF6 there's lot of texture screw-ups and Secret of Mana doesn't run. Earthbound I believe works, but maybe with some texture problems (haven't checked).
It's worth trying for those without slot-2 flash carts.
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10-14-2008 @ 11:47PM
Acceptable Risk said...
That's all nice if you were playing an SNES game. But Mother 3 is for GBA. There's no GBA emulator for DS that I know of. You're gonna be relegated to emulation on another platform or using a GBA flashcart on real hardware.
10-16-2008 @ 7:46AM
GrungeSpoo said...
It's kind of odd actually. One can use the gba slot to access the hardware required to play DS games, but one can not use the DS slot to load gba games.
10-14-2008 @ 11:38PM
JeffMan said...
Chris: note that a slot-2 flash cart is only necessary to play the game on DS or GBA hardware. You could play the game on a computer with just the emulator and no flash cart whatsoever.
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10-15-2008 @ 12:08AM
Vincent said...
ive been waiting for this for so long. the people behind this worked real hard and the translations look good enough to be official. cant wait to give it a spin.
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