May 18th, 2013 | Hacking, MOTHER 1+2 | 6 Comments

A fan by the name of broomweed has started on a hack of MOTHER 1+2 to make MOTHER 1 very Mr. Saturn-like, as inspired by comments years ago on EB Central! Here’s a description of the project:

Hey, you! Do any of the following apply to you:

• Haven’t played Mother 1 because of the lack of Mr. Saturns in it
• Always wondered what the Mr. Saturns would be like in Mother 1
• Love trying to decipher what the Mr. Saturns are trying to say

If you answered “yes” to any of the above, then, um, that’s pretty weird. But your prayers have been answered! SaturnBound Zero is a text/cosmetic hack that adds ONE HUNDRED PERCENT more Mr. Saturns to MOTHER 1+2!

And here are the features:

• A surprisingly handsome recreation of the Mr. Saturns and their font in 16×16 and 8×8, respectively
• Changes human NPCs are into Mr. Saturns, with various features to differentiate them (sometimes)
• Changes dialogue (so far, in only Mother’s Day and some of Magicant) into a Mr. Saturn-sounding style.
• Accounts for weird shifting of the bottom half in some — but not all — NPC sprites, so they don’t look weird and off-kilter
• Accounts for up-and-down motion in player sprites (this is why their feet look so weird, sorry)
• Changes a couple of item names and descriptions
• Changes some of the battle text
• Changes the ATM to look like the Mr. Saturn ATM (kind of)
• Changes PSI into “science” (because, you know, the Mr. Saturns are good at that…)

There’s still a good amount of work that needs to be done, but you can check out the current version and keep up with progress here!

May 16th, 2013 | EarthBound | 28 Comments

For years and years, maybe even as far back as the late 90s, I always wanted to make a Game Genie code that would make enemies drop items 100% of the time. I always pushed it off for another day… until yesterday, when I was like, “You know, I think I’ll come up with that code today.” It took a few hours since I didn’t know what I was doing, but in the end I got it!

So here’s a Game Genie code that will make enemies drop their items 100% of the time in battle:

There are some things to note about this code:

• This code doesn’t seem to work with the insta-wins, it only works when you actually get into battle. I guess the instant win stuff uses its own separate programming for item drops.
• Also, the game programmers designed it so you’ll only win one item at the end of a battle, so if you have a group of enemies you’ll only get one item from them.

As a crazy programmer guy I still secretly hope to find a way to turn the above codes into just one Game Genie code, but I dunno how possible that’ll be.

Anyway, now if you’re ever frustrated from trying to get certain items from enemies, you have this new code to tempt you to the dark side! Mwahaha!

UPDATE! Nitrodon has improved stuff and made it so you only need to input one code:

DB08-5FA8 (100% item drops in normal battles)
DB16-77DB (100% item drops in instant win battles)

May 15th, 2013 | EarthBound, Food | 18 Comments

A fan by the name of Chris sent me an e-mail about a video game-themed restaurant/bar in Canada called “EXP”. It has Triforce Burgers, Super Smash Nachos, and all sorts of other stuff. It even has “Mach Pizza Fries”:

If you’re in Vancouver, check it out and let me know how it is! The website and restaurant info is here.

May 14th, 2013 | EarthBound | 42 Comments

A little while back Chris Saturn sent me this about a podcast episode centered around EarthBound:

So, I’m a long-time lurker in the EB community… been following this site since its inception (thanks to the links in the Mother 3 translation page), and Starmen.net for what feels like my entire adult life and some of my adolescence, but I never really gave anything back… mostly because I don’t really have any talent… <_<

Anyway, this feels dirty, and self-promotional, but a podcast that I'm a member of recently did an episode that was (mostly) all about Earthbound. My co-host told me we were doing it, I prepared some notes (mostly from memory... <_<), and jumped right in, only to find out that he'd never played the game before... I did my best to spend the better part of the next hour convincing him as to WHY he needed to play the series. However, I'm sure I got something wrong somewhere...

Anyway, I feel dirty trying to submit a story about a podcast that I myself contribute to, but I'd love to hear what the Earthbound community at large has to say about my argument, and if they have any better suggestions that I could use in the future in trying to spread the love, and recruit more soldiers in the Earthbound army.

Podcast page

Even if you don’t post this, thanks for taking the time to read it. I don’t think people can thank you enough for your hard work here, and on the Mother 3 translation, but, thanks again anyway.

I feel like trying to convince people to play or do something new is usually a tough task, whether it’s playing EarthBound or trying some weird food or whatever else. The best method in my experience is to simply nudge people to try something or give them an idea to try something then let them try it at their own leisure on their own. So I try to avoid going, “DUUUUUDE YOU GOTTA PLAY THIS GAME CALLED EARTHBOUND!” or “HOLY CRAP YOU GOTTA TRY THIS (insert whatever here)!” I mean, I used to be like that, but it rarely worked

So, what are your experiences with this sort of thing? What’s the best way to convince people to try something without scaring them away or over-hyping it? What about EarthBound, specifically? Is there some way to convince people to try it out without hitting them over the head with a baseball bat? Share your thoughts in the comments!

May 13th, 2013 | EarthBound, Itoi, MOTHER 1 | 10 Comments

Yesterday was Mother’s Day, and to commemorate it Shigesato Itoi tweeted something MOTHER-related:

The first town in MOTHER 2 is “Onet”, but the first town in MOTHER is called, yes, “Mothersday”.

It’s nothing much, but I thought I’d share it anyway. I’m more surprised at his misspellings than anything, but it’s somewhat common for Japanese creators to misspell their own English words now that I think about it.

May 11th, 2013 | MOTHER 3 | 13 Comments

I’ve been slowly updating my Legends of Localization site lately, and it’s time to get back into the swing of the MOTHER 3 translation notes too!

Before I start major work on each section, I’ll probably ask fans what questions they might have for the next part of the game, that way I can be sure to cover the topics people might want to know about.

I’m basically breaking the game up into the same sections that this walkthrough uses, so the current section I’m working on starts where everyone goes to the inn after saving Lighter, all the way up to Flint getting knocked out after freaking out by the campfire.

So if you have any questions you’ve wanted to ask about this specific part of the game, let me know in the comments and I’ll try to get to them in the translation notes! If you have questions about other parts of the game, hold off until we get that far in the translation notes.

It takes me a lot of time to put these pages together, so it’ll be a long while until the update is actually ready. I want to make sure it’s worth the wait, though, so share your questions if you have any!

May 10th, 2013 | MOTHER 3, Videos | 23 Comments

Here’s a look at a MOTHER 3 song and video put together by a Japanese fan:

I’ll just leave it at that!

May 9th, 2013 | EarthBound, Misc. | 10 Comments

Josh recently sent me this e-mail about visiting Japan:

Hello, Mato!

I am a long-time fan and reader of your work (over a decade now), and my friend and I will be taking a trip to Japan this summer. We are both big Earthbound fans. I know that you have some experience with Japan and Earthbound, so I was wondering if you might recommend anything Earthbound-related for us to see while we’re there. We’ll be in Tokyo and Kyoto.

I understand you’re busy and of course, if you can’t get to this, I will understand. Still, I would be interested to hear from you. Thank you very much!

This is a topic that I’d always hoped to compile info about but never got around to it. The only locations that I can think of off the top of my head are:

• Katsuman (more info, although I think the actual place Itoi liked changed its name to Yamaichi)
• Antendo bakery
• Naniwaya

Other than that, I can’t really think of any locations that an EarthBound/MOTHER fan might want to visit. Does anyone have any feasible suggestions or places you think would be good to include in a tour like this? Share your thoughts in the comments!

May 8th, 2013 | Audio Stuff, MOTHER 1 | 40 Comments

Skotein sent me this e-mail a while back and it sounds like a pretty neat project!

Hi, Tomato! I’m a big fan of both Pokémon and MOTHER and have been running the Pokémon Reorchestrated project on YouTube and Facebook. Basically, I orchestrate and arrange music from the Pokémon games with emphasis on weaving a game’s story/narrative into the music itself. I’ve also enjoyed the success of having my first full-length album, ‘Pokémon Reorchestrated: Kanto Symphony,’ reach the top 25 best-selling albums on the iTunes charts in all categories. (here’s a preview of the album)

Right now I’m trying to get feedback on whether or not enough people would want to hear beautifully orchestrated versions of music from MOTHER 1, which is one of my favorite soundtracks of all time (*especially* the dreadful 80′s vocal arrange album). If there’s enough of a demand, I would like to hold a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for hiring a.) an actual orchestral ensemble to play the music, and b.) a local children’s choir to sing the iconic ‘Eight Melodies’ theme.

I was wondering if you might be able to help me get the word out–I’m currently gathering Likes over at my personal Facebook page, but I figured it might be more effective to go straight to the MOTHER/EarthBound community and ask them directly. Any help is sincerely appreciated!

~Skotein

P.S. Attached is a piece of MOTHER fan art I drew about 4 years ago that I’ve been using to promote my post on Facebook, which may or may not also be used as an inspiration for the album cover.

I think the 80s soundtrack has its own charm, but it’d definitely be cool to hear something more orchestral too, especially if it sounds like that Pokemon reorchestrated album!

May 7th, 2013 | EarthBound | 8 Comments

By now it’s pretty old news that EarthBound had been rated by the ESRB back in 2007 for the Wii. What I never knew was that it had also been rated by Germany’s ratings board:

To see it for yourself go here and enter “earth bound” where it says “titel”.

As you can see, it, too, was classified as a Wii release. It got a rating of “6+” and received this rating in 2007. So it sounds like the original plan for EarthBound was a worldwide release on the original Wii, not just a North American release like back in 1995.

Thanks to KingDarian for digging this info up!

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