Within the past year, fansites have taken it upon themselves to hack the ROM and translate the game themselves. Starmen.net and the Mother 3 fan translation project had previously been working independently on the task, but today have announced that they will be joining forces to bring the best possible translation to the masses as quickly as possible.
Known now as simply the Mother 3 Fan Translation team, the group hopes to pick up the pace of the so-far relatively slow process and produce a "fan-slated" version of the game within a reasonable amount of time. Interested parties can input their email address at Starmen.net's news story to be notified when the translation is complete.
The group's overall goal, as it has always been, is to see some kind of English version release of Mother 3 to the fans that want to see it. Whether it releases the fan translation, or by its actions it can convince Nintendo of America to finally conduct a proper localization, if Mother 3 (Earthbound 2) comes to America in English, it'll be mission accomplished.
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Q: What exactly are you releasing?
A: We are creating a patch that will insert translated English text into the game. This patch (called an IPS file) can be applied to a copy of Mother 3 on your computer, which can then be placed onto a writable cartridge and played on your Gameboy.
You will need to purchase a copy of the game in order to do this legally.
Q: Where can I find the Mother 3 ROM?
A: The act of downloading a ROM copy of a game you do not own is illegal. We are unable to provide you with such information, and do not offer this file for download from our website.
However, if you do own your own legal copy of Mother 3, please refer to our tutorials page for information on how you can apply the translation patch.
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I tried to contact Steven Rodriguez, but he never got back to me. If someone else can let him know that we'd love to get a copy of the books to him, that would be great, but unfortunately I've got tons of work to do so I can't backtrack.
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Because EarthBound is coming out on the Virtual Console soon, and its sales will be THE determining factor in whether MOTHER 3 is brought to America or not.
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Originally posted by: WuTangTurtle
wait so are they gonna translate the whole game and give it to Nintendo to publish or are they just gonna do it and let ppl download and emulate it?
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Dear Reggie,
We translated this for you.
Now you have no excuse.
Love,
Your fans
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Originally posted by: Smoke39
Starmen.net is having another one of their EarthBound sieges. They're encouraging fans to call Nintendo about EB, send a postcard about EB, or send EB fan art.
They've also made a huge 250+ page book full of fan art, articles about EB and its fate in the US, and music and videos that they're sending out to get media attention.
While reading through the forum thread for the news item about the anthology, I found this post by reidman in reply to someone asking about NWR:Quote
I tried to contact Steven Rodriguez, but he never got back to me. If someone else can let him know that we'd love to get a copy of the books to him, that would be great, but unfortunately I've got tons of work to do so I can't backtrack.
Finally, the news item about the anthology also states this as the reason they've been rushing these out to people just before E3:Quote
Because EarthBound is coming out on the Virtual Console soon, and its sales will be THE determining factor in whether MOTHER 3 is brought to America or not.
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Originally posted by: LuigiHannQuote
Originally posted by: WuTangTurtle
wait so are they gonna translate the whole game and give it to Nintendo to publish or are they just gonna do it and let ppl download and emulate it?
It would actually be pretty awesome to mail a translated version of Mother 3 to NOA.Quote
Dear Reggie,
We translated this for you.
Now you have no excuse.
Love,
Your fans