The Mother / Earthbound Zero GBA Translation Patch is out!

[Jorpho]

I've been waiting for this for a long, long time!
http://earthboundcentral.com/

It comes with a handy list of tips and suggestions regarding how to best enjoy the experience, too. (It's entirely spoiler-free. Really.)

Now I just need to decide if I want to use the Easy Ring or not. It does seem to be strongly recommended.

[Satoshi_Matrix]

Wow, this is great news! I hope this version fixes the ending bug in Mother 1 on GBA that made it crash in the old translation! Can anyone confirm if this is fixed?

Also yeah, go for the easy ring. Mother 1 comes from a time when you were expected to spend many long hours level grinding. The game is also rather unbalanced with difficulty spikes cropping up all over the place.

[Jorpho]

Wow, this is great news! I hope this version fixes the ending bug in Mother 1 on GBA that made it crash in the old translation! Can anyone confirm if this is fixed?

The old translation (which wasn't so much a translation as it was a reinsertion of the NES Earthbound Zero text) was a rather quick-and-dirty job as these things go, or so I understand. 'Twould be a rather glaring omission if that problem was left unfixed. (It's probably going to be a week before I get around to playing this, actually, which is just as well if there's still a bugfix released in that time.)

[geezuzkhrist119]

yeeeees cant wait to try this out

thanks for the info

[Classicgamesdepot]

Great news.

For those of you who enjoyed Earthbound on Snes but never got around to trying Mother 1 for Famicom, this should be a great opportunity. Mother 1 is great, but yes, required a lot of grinding.

[c0ldb33r]

Awesome.

Stupid question - how can I play this on original GBA hardware? Worst case scenario I guess I could stick it on an R4

edit: actually forget it if I can't get it on actual GBA hardware this is a case for the PSP Go

[iDub]

I'm also playing it on my psp now thanks for the info!

[Jorpho]

Stupid question - how can I play this on original GBA hardware?

You would need a proper GBA flashcart, like an EZ Flash IV.

Worst case scenario I guess I could stick it on an R4

You would still need an EZ Flash 3-in-1 in that case.

[fahlim003]

Is this appealing for the prospect of getting a differently translated and potentially easier version as opposed to EarthBound Zero? It's nice and all but I'm not that excited about this.

[geezuzkhrist119]

Is mother 2 translated too? Or is it just mother?

[vrikkgwj]

So how exactly is this different from the Earthbound Zero translation that Tomato at starmen.net completed years ago?

[Jorpho]

Is mother 2 translated too? Or is it just mother?

As is clearly explained at the link, Mother 2 only has a rudimentary menu patch. Attempting to insert a full English translation for Mother 2 is extremely difficult owing to how the data is stored.

I never knew before that the soundtrack for Mother 2 actually got thoroughly butchered in the porting process.

So how exactly is this different from the Earthbound Zero translation that Tomato at starmen.net completed years ago?

I don't know what you're talking about. No one ever "completed" a translation, and certainly not Tomato: the only translation that has existed up until now was the one contained in the leaked EBZ NES prototype from Nintendo, which apparently wasn't very accurate and lacked some of the nuance of the original script. Some years ago someone did make a patch that inserted the text from the prototype into the GBA game, but as per the above, it renders the final boss battle unplayable.

[exit]

I don't know what you're talking about. No one ever "completed" a translation, and certainly not Tomato: the only translation that has existed up until now was the one contained in the leaked EBZ NES prototype from Nintendo, which apparently wasn't very accurate and lacked some of the nuance of the original script. Some years ago someone did make a patch that inserted the text from the prototype into the GBA game, but as per the above, it renders the final boss battle unplayable.

If I'm correct, the Tomato patch just made leveling up easier, but you still had to grind. The only translation that I remember was from Demiforce and the fact that the original Mother was an FDS made it difficult at the time to translate it, since that was when the translation scene was just starting to gain some legs.

I remember when the prototype was discovered and they scrambled to get donations just to borrow it, I was in 9th grade at the time and I wasn't able to donate being as I had no money. Man those were the days, people would wait months, sometimes year for a project to finally finish and then there was the drama that surrounded it all.

Man talking about Earthbound Zero always makes me nostalgic.

[Jorpho]

If I'm correct, the Tomato patch just made leveling up easier, but you still had to grind.

He did release a patch for the NES EBZ prototype, yes.

The only translation that I remember was from Demiforce and the fact that the original Mother was an FDS made it difficult at the time to translate it, since that was when the translation scene was just starting to gain some legs.

No.

Really, the whole history is quite nicely detailed somewhere over at Earthboundcentral.com , so I'm not going to try to summarize it here.
Here we are.