mother12.earthboundcentral.comThe MOTHER 1+2 Fan Translation

v1.01 Released April 30, 2011 This is a free, unofficial fan-made translation of MOTHER 1+2 for the Game Boy Advance. In this version, MOTHER 1 has been given a complete English retranslation intended to make the game more accessible to EarthBound fans ( details here ), while MOTHER 2 has basic menu and name translations. Download the translation patch - if you don’t know how to use IPS patches, see here . Before playing , read these tips and suggestions - they’ll help you get more enjoyment out of the game! Download the files, tools, and source code - these are optional; you can use these to create your own translations or text-based hacks! Screenshots Game Start-up: MOTHER 1: MOTHER 2: Frequently Asked Questions What’s different about the MOTHER 1 translation? Why should I care? For many (most?) Western fans, the first game in the series is really hard to get into. My goal was to create a translation of the game that tries to make the game more palatable. Some of the things I did were: Retranslated the script from scratch. The EarthBound Zero ROM has a good number of changes, censoring, and mistakes with plot details and dialog. The text in the EarthBound Zero ROM is also very dry due to limited NES resources. Doing a retranslation with this GBA version allowed for a lot more text, and censoring/changes weren’t necessary. The result is a script that should hopefully be more engaging and natural-sounding. Expanded many text boxes, allowing for more dialog text at a time, making the text more natural, more presentable, and easier to read Expanded menus and names wherever possible, allowing for more natural-sounding text Improved the font for better readability Added a gift box with an "Easy Ring" to Ninten’s room for those who don’t like to grind for experience and money. This item, when equipped, greatly increases the experience and money you win from enemies while also reducing the amount of random battles. It makes the game much less of a chore, which is one of the main reasons EarthBound fans have a hard time getting into the game. The GBA port already included a number of extra features - for example, the L Button acts as a shortcut key now, just as it did in EarthBound Some of the bugs in the Japanese GBA version have been fixed Connections with EarthBound and MOTHER 3 have been left intact, so fans of the series will surely appreciate that. The EarthBound Zero translation had changed a lot of things, which broke many of these connections. This WAS just a Famicom game originally, so it’s not as if all of this will suddenly make it an entirely new game, but my hope is that it will at least make it easier for fans to get into and enjoy. Why didn’t you translate the MOTHER 2 part too? Can’t you just stick EarthBound’s translation into the ROM? Short answer: if it were that easy, it would have already been done a long time ago. Long answer: It’s a LOT more complicated than what you can imagine. It would probably take me just as much time - if not more - than the MOTHER 3 project took. I don’t think it would be worth the effort; the GBA version of MOTHER 2 has a bunch of bugs, the music and sound effects are significantly inferior, the programming is a nightmare, etc. etc. Still, if I had a lot of free time and/or money I’d love to work on the MOTHER 2 side of the game so we could have all three GBA games fan-translated. But I don’t think that’ll ever happen. For more details, I wrote up a thing about it here . I equipped the Easy Ring in MOTHER 1. How do I take it off? The only way to unequip items is to equip something in its place. I want to translate this into my own language! I’ve released all the files, tools, and source code I used to make this translation. I designed this project with other languages in mind, so it should be very easy for anyone to translate the MOTHER 1 part! You can download the tools here . I found a bug and/or a typo! First, be extra sure that you’re not the one mistaken. If you’re really sure it’s a bug or a typo, then let me know here . Tips and Suggestions When Playing MOTHER 1 It’s usually hard for EarthBound fans to go back and play the first game, I understand that all too well. I was excited when the beta ROM was released, but was very quickly disappointed - it seemed bland, grindy, and hardly like EarthBound at all. It was frustrating. Over the years - and through this project - I’ve come to appreciate the game a lot more, so here are some personal tips and suggestions for trying to get into the game: First, DO NOT COMPARE THIS GAME TO EARTHBOUND . When you’re playing this game, don’t even think about EarthBound. This game was made BEFORE EarthBound, so it logically goes that EarthBound wasn’t in mind when this game was made. Forget entirely about EarthBound and let this game stand as its own thing. This is one of the biggest hurdles people run into, but if you can see it as its own game of its own time, it’s much easier to appreciate. If you really have to compare it to something, then think about the other NES games and RPGs that came out during the late 80s / early 90s as you’re playing the game. Following that same thought, it’s important to realize this game was released in 1989. Of course it’s going to be tough to get into if you use a 2011 (or whatever year this is) mindset. So do this: Imagine you’re a kid in 1989. You have an 8-bit NES with a couple games. On a Friday afternoon on the way home from school, you stop by a video store and rent a random game called "MOTHER". Usually when you rented games back then it was always a very hit-or-miss thing, so whatever game you got, you were stuck with it for the whole weekend. Try playing this game with that mindset - that you’re a kid in the late 80s with a weekend ahead of you to play this game. Do that, and you might start to appreciate it in new ways! If you’ve played the EarthBound Zero beta NES ROM before - push it away from your thoughts. Pretend you’re playing the game for the first time now. The beta ROM had a lot of localization changes, censorship changes, and just no-real-reason changes. This translation doesn’t include those, so it’s going to be different - that’s the point of the project, after all. Basically, don’t go in expecting the EarthBound Zero names and text to be used. Use the Easy Ring! It increases the experience and money you get from enemies by a ton, and it also reduces the number of random battles. I tested it out a lot and got a lot of feedback to make sure it all balances out. As long as you play right (instead of constantly running away) it’ll make the game a lot easier. It won’t make it SUPER easy, just less annoying and generally more enjoyable. Use the map! The Start Button opens up your world map. It’s very easy to get lost in this game or not know where to go next. Basically, if you see a town nearby, head there. Or, if you see any black dots on the map nearby, go check them out! It’s a crappy-looking map, but it really will take away all the random wandering! Use the R Button to run around more quickly than normal. When you’re walking around outside, you can tell if there are random enemies where you are by pressing the L Button or using "Check". If there are enemies around, it’ll say something about danger lurking nearby. Otherwise it’ll say the default line of something like, "There’s nothing here." Turn the battle text speed up all the way. You can do this during battles or from the file select screen. Having the battle text at maximum speed makes it less frustrating somehow. If you’re using an emulator, try not to use things like cheats or save states. If you can, I recommend playing the game on actual hardware. If you’re not sure where to go, talk to everyone and/or try to visit any nearby black dots on your map. If you go through the game normally, without consulting any guides or rushing through, you’ll almost always be at a decent level for each new area. Still, if you really need help from a walkthrough or...