August 31st, 2010 | EarthBound, Images, Merchandise | 25 Comments

The new MOTHER figures have started to come out, and coming soon will be the MOTHER 2 ones. Banpresto recently posted a press release thing that includes a pic of some of the as-of-yet-unreleased figures:

You can grab a copy of the press release PDF here. It’s in Japanese and not especially interesting, but check it out if you’re a download maniac like me

August 30th, 2010 | EarthBound, Images, Merchandise | 16 Comments

A long while back I posted about the rare and mostly-unknown official Slot Bros. board game/dice game/card game, but at the time no one at the site had ever owned a copy, so the details were very sketchy. Then, many months ago, the ever-awesome neonix won one and scanned it all at very good quality for the rest of us to see!

I sat on the update for a while because I wanted to translate the rules… but months have passed and I still don’t have the time or energy, so for now I’ll just post the scans, which you can get here.

If someone with the skills can translate the rules, that’d help out a lot. Or maybe fans can make up their own games with it, I think that sounds cooler to be honest Anyway, if you’re interested, check it out – it’s a rare piece of official merchandise!

August 27th, 2010 | Images, MOTHER 1, Merchandise | 41 Comments

If you don’t remember, a whoooole bunch of MOTHER and MOTHER 2 figures are planned to be released in Japan slowly over the next seven months. They’re only available via those crane games in Japanese arcades, though. For more details about that, see my old news post here.

Anyway, the first batch of figures, the MOTHER 1 figures, were scheduled to be released in the late August – and it’s now late August, so here’s the very first pic I’ve seen of them!

click to see larger version

It’s nice seeing the actual figure(s) like this, the images on the official site made them seem kind of meh. If I had the money and a place to put them, I’d definitely love to have a whole set of all these figures. I just wish that 1. they sold these in stores instead of this crane game nonsense and 2. released figures for ALL the clay models made for the games.

What do you think? Are you going to try to get any of these upcoming figures? I haven’t seen any on any auction sites yet (Japanese or other), I hope they won’t be a huge pain to get. If anyone manages to collect them all over the next few months, send some pics my way!

August 25th, 2010 | EarthBound, Polls | 213 Comments

Just a very simple poll today – whenever you play EarthBound, do you play using an actual Super NES cartridge or do you play it on an emulator?

I was wondering about this earlier, I’m curious to see what the results are. Also, if you play it on an emulator, what emulator do you use?

Click here to vote!

August 23rd, 2010 | EarthBound, Uncommon Knowledge | 38 Comments

An old lady in Twoson will usually comment on how Ness and Paula make a good couple… but what happens if you only have Jeff in your party?

Fanfic writer squad, activate!

I think a lot of people know about this little oversight already – you can get it to happen after Paula gets kidnapped in the Fourside department store – but I like to document little things like this on the site anyway.

Thanks to Karl151k for posting about it on the Starmen.Net forums the other day!

August 20th, 2010 | MOTHER 3, Uncommon Knowledge | 29 Comments

In MOTHER 3 are some mice living in an attic who speak very strangely. If you’ve played the game, you’ve probably talked to them and said, “What????” If you haven’t seen them yet, here they are:

Originally, these mice spoke in an incredibly difficult-to-understand dialect of Japanese, I think it was a Nagasaki dialect but I can’t remember off the top of my head. Anyway, I wasn’t sure how to handle this in translation, but eventually felt that Cockney gave off a similar vibe in that it was technically English but almost impossible to understand if you aren’t in the know. It also seemed the most fitting for an old mouse couple living in an attic.

Anyway, if you’ve always been curious as to what they’ve been saying, their text goes something like this in standard language:

@Squeak?
(Huh? That you, Alfie? Where’ve you been and what’ve you been doing? You never came back for Thanksgiving or New Year’s, so Grams and I were so lonely.

Well? You must be hungry, right? Here’s some Nut Bread for you.)

@Squeak squeak squeeeeak.
(You should show your face around here more.)

@Squeak squeak.
(Oh. You can’t hold any more stuff. Come back to get it later.)

@Squeak squeak-squeak?
(Oh, it’s you, Alfie. You came back. Come here to talk us out of more spending money, did ya? Well, that’s okay. Grams has no better use for this. Keep it secret from Gramps, though.)

@Squeeeeak squeak.
(We’ve been waiting this whole time, wondering when you’d come back.)

@Squeeeak.
(Oh. You can’t hold any more things. That’s no good. Come back later, then.)

@Squeak squeak-squeak-squeak. Squeak squeak-squeak squeak.
(Just because me and Gramps are up here doesn’t mean we can welcome just anyone. We need to live long lives, you see. We need to be careful. We need to be careful. Do you understand?)

@Squeak?
(Right, Gramps?)

@Squeak squeak-squeak-squeak. Squeeeak squeak-squeak squeak.
(Grams is absolutely right. An old-timer like me would freak out like crazy if someone found out we’re living here. The Johnson family three doors over got exterminated that way, so you need to be careful, too. You need to be careful. Understand?

@Squeeeak?
(Right, Grams?)

Side note: the original Japanese used “Takashi” and “Yamashita” instead of “Alfie” and “Johnson”. And one of the holidays mentioned was a big Japanese holiday called “Obon”.

Anyway, I don’t know Cockney, so I asked around for some help. Zinco was kind enough to study up on the dialect and convert it for me. I would’ve liked to have advice from a native Cockney-speaker, but in the end I think the effect is more important than real-life authenticity, so I’m okay with how it is. I’m curious what real Cockney-speakers would think of it, though!

August 18th, 2010 | Audio Stuff, MOTHER 3, Videos | 10 Comments

Came across this nice version of the love theme from MOTHER 3:

Nice and relaxing

August 16th, 2010 | MOTHER 3, Uncommon Knowledge | 28 Comments

For the MOTHER 3 fan translation, Jeff and I added a couple new secrets and new features to the game. One of these is the inclusion of a “hard mode”. You could normally learn about its existence by fulfilling some other special requirements, but since it’s been almost two year since the patch’s release, it’s probably okay to spill the beans by now… besides, most everyone knows about it by now anyway

Anyway, in case you don’t know how to access the hard mode, you just have to call yourself (you, the player) HARD MODE when you’re asked at the forest temple in Chapter 1 or at the clay mine in Chapter 4. Type it in all caps, like this:

This has the most obvious effect of doubling enemies’ HP, but it also increases other less-noticeable states, like Speed and some other stuff I can’t remember offhand. Basically, it makes them tougher AND a little more aggressive. I actually didn’t test it as much as I should have, so the difficulty curve isn’t as steep in the later chapters, but it’s still a neat little challenge.

My hope with all these little extra inclusions was to give the fans more ways to enjoy the game. In terms of this hard mode, my goal was for players to fully master fighting tactics, use items in creative ways, and to just try and see new things they probably wouldn’t come across normally.

Anyway, if you haven’t tried Hard Mode yet, give it a play sometime! I had a lot of fun with it, and I hope it’ll give at least a little extra fun for the die-hard fans.

For those who’ve played through Hard Mode, what’s your opinion of it? Too easy? Too hard? Should it have been different in some way? I don’t really plan on adding any other new modes, but I’m curious to hear what ideas you can think of

August 14th, 2010 | MOTHER 3, Uncommon Knowledge | 21 Comments

This is something most people probably know, but just for those who don’t, the cover of the MOTHER 3 Handbook is based off of the U.S. Army survival manuals:

It’s obvious Jonk put a ton of work into designing the handbook, even down to the cover.

Incidentally, I recommend checking out both books, they’re both filled to the brim with interesting info!

August 12th, 2010 | MOTHER 3, Uncommon Knowledge, Videos | 17 Comments

EelSlimeTime on the MOTHER 3 GameFAQs posted about a neat little bug in MOTHER 3 I never heard about anywhere before, so I made a video of it:

Basically, go to Tanetane Island and get one of those fevers you get before learning a PSI technique. Go into the sludge pit and Boney won’t join you. Walk around until the fever goes away, then go into the PSI menu and then exit back out. Lucas will have turned into Boney!

The effect lasts until you go into any menus or get into a battle. But if you save the game and restart, the Lucas = Boney thing will still be intact. I don’t know of any helpful uses for this bug, but it’s still neat. I haven’t tested it with the Japanese version of the game, but it sounds a lot like the skull gift box glitch, so my money is it being in the original game too.

$0.99 EarthBound for SNES - Near Flawless	$8.00 SNES Super famincom MOTHER 2 JAPAN Import
$59.93 VG Nintendo GBA Mother 3 Gameboy Game boy EARTH BOUND	$39.99 Earthbound SNES in Perfect Condition
$325.00 Super Nintendo RPG Rare SNES games Earthbound Megaman	$31.72 EarthBound SNES
$27.00 Nintendo Mother Novel Book The Original Story	$13.62 Earthbound for Super Nintendo SNES

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