Key translators and code monkeys from Starmen.net and Mother3.org will join forces to make the game available in English, one way or another.
Nintendo has seemingly abandoned the Game Boy Advance, which means that many good games released in Japan will likely never be released in other territories. One of those games is Mother 3, the prize eyed by many an Earthbound fan. (Mother 2 was released as Earthbound for the SNES in America.) People have been asking Nintendo for an English release for quite some time, but as the months went on, it looked more and more likely that it wasn't going to happen.
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.
