I was disappointed that the Mother 2 side wasn't fully translated when Tomato translated the Mother 1 side, so I decided to start on the project. Here's some screenshots:


And some videos:

http://youtu.be/PliM6emLnWw
http://youtu.be/sMWUOa46JGI
http://youtu.be/i4VwAzWCSwc

There is a website for the translation, but it's pretty much dead. If you want to check it out, here's a link:
http://m2trans.webs.com

Here's a link to the Facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Mother-2- ... 2216883157

And a link to the Romhacking.net topic:
http://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.p ... 769.0.html

The Team:

• TheZunar123 - Team Leader and Text Inserter
• Pranavmeno - Text Inserter and Leader Assistant; has mysteriously disappeared for unknown reasons
• Naito - Text Inserter and Graphics Editor
• RadicOmega - Translator
• BB Gang Zombie - Text Reviser
• Lestat (romhacking.net) - Item Icon Designer

Help Wanted:

• VWF Programmer

Its really cool seeing the mother 2 part of M1+2 getting a translation. Keep at it since I'd be interested in playing it. My reccomendation would be that you might just want to use the text from EarthBound since the text in the sample shots looks kinda blocky. I'm sure you plan on fixing that for the final version of the translation. I'm just wondering will this be uncensored like the original Mother 2? I know nothing major was changed but I still think it would be cool to play through the game without any altered graphics or characters.

Off topic but I noticed that japanese letter after a character's name is the character "wa" and its used as a topic indicator in japanese grammer. I'm sure you already knew that since you are translating the game, its just that I started studying japanese a little and I thought it was cool that I was able to recognize something.

Exactly what do you mean by using the text from EarthBound? As in use the actual text as a VWF? Well, how quickly I can do that depends on how quickly Jeffman can send me his work on that so far. I asked him about it, and he said he's get it to me in a few days and that was a few days ago.

And no censoring will be done unless Mato or Jeffman hacks it into the game. I'm not experienced enough to do that kind of hacking work.

And, exactly what do you mean by "topic indicator"?

When I said the text from EarthBound I didn't mean the text itself, I meant the font. I guess that was just a spelling error on my part. The font in EarthBound always looked nice to me, it was neat, fairly compact and legible. I think mato actually used the EarthBound font in the mother 3 translation.

By topic indicator, I meant grammar wise, like the topic indicator in a sentence. I'm still new at this so I'm a bit unfamiliar with what a topic indicator does, thats just what I've read.

Edit: I found an example of this. watashi wa ninten to iimasu. Which means I am called ninten, the wa is indicates the topic which I think is either the name ninten or it's the word I. I've only been studying for about a month so someone else on this site would know for sure if thats right.

Well, the EB font is a VWF (Variable Width Font) and the fonts used in M2 are FWF (Fixed Width Font) like the font Mato used in the M1 part. If I put in the EB font, I'd have to hack it to be used as a VWF, otherwise it would look very weird. There would be a ton of space between some letters, and stuff like that. I'm hoping Jeffman will send me what he has on the VWF soon so I can see if I can hack the rest of the game to be the EB VWF.

And, I didn't know that. Cool. I'm fairly new to Japanese writing , so I don't know much; just a few katakana. I'm really not "translating" it in the sense of translating the text and inserting the translation of it; I'm translating it in a sense of replacing the japanese characters with english characters, and I'm taking the text ideas from EarthBound. I mean, I COULD translate the text, but I'm too lazy.

Sorry for double post, but I have something to say.

Jeffman's computer is unusable, but he said he'd get his work to me about next week. Hopefully the sooner the better. And, hopefully I can successfully use the font in the hack, because that would be awesome!

Of course, Jeffman gets credit, since he make the VWF, and Mato gets credit too, because he made the tools for his translation, which has made it much easier to do this translation.

Argh, triple post!

Anyways, let me get to the point.

I've been asking Mato some questions via PM, and he suggested I put them here, since it would help some guys out and that there is a limit to how many PM's can be in an inbox.

We were talking about pointers, and here's what he said:

"Since we're dealing with the GBA, here's something that should help: http://ximwix.net/mirrors/rhdn/index.ph ... 265.0.html

You have two options - you can either repoint the pointers directly or you can use the equivalent of the "GOTO" control code (not sure what it is in M2) to make the game load text from a new custom address.

First option is the cleanest way but also the hardest way. Find the start of a line of text, then try to locate the pointer(s) to that line. So if your line is at address "123456" in the ROM, that's actually addres 08123456 in the GBA's eyes. So that's the pointer you're looking for. But, like that link above points out, pointer addresses are stored in reverse on the GBA, so instead of looking for the bytes "08 12 34 56" in the ROM, you gotta search for the reverse: "56 34 12 08". Once you find it, you can write a new address in there to a blank area of the ROM, then stick your text at that address.

The GOTO control code method is similar, except at the start of the line you want to replace, you insert a [GOTO ADDRESS] control code, so that when that line of text is loaded, it'll hit that control code and then jump to whatever address you give it.

Both are a little bit advanced, so it might still be hard for you to figure out. Sometimes, pointers aren't stored in normal formats either, and that's when you get to the really hard stuff. I think most of the lines in M2 use standard pointers though."

Mato just suggested we start communicating via this topic instead of PM as to help other people.

Now Mato, I have a question about what you said here. The "you can write a new address in there to a blank area of the ROM, then stick your text at that address." part I don't quite understand. What do you mean by that?

First, I've got something to say...

Neeeaaat!!!



Mmm.... I think he meant that, instead of editing the MOTHER 1+2 text, you should add your own strings in the blank area of the ROM. That would mean that the japanese text would remain untouched, and you will be adding a new script for the game, in english.
How is that for a guess?

Ok, I understand that, but how would you stick the new line into the place you want it to be?

Well, I'm not 100% sure, but I'm guessing that, for example, let's assume address 1234567 is blank. Address 7654321 has text on it. Then, you could add text to address 1234567: "WE ALL LOOK LIKE SAME". Address 7654321 says the same thing, just that in japanese. So, instead of squeezing the text to fit in address 7654321, you would write the control code "GOTO" (or whatever it is in M1+2), so that, when the game tries to read address 7654321, the control code tells the game to read 1234567 instead. So, the text you wrote "WE ALL LOOK LIKE SAME" appears.
I hope Mato can tell what I'm saying is correct.

EDIT: I don't think I made myself clear enough.

For example, this is the m2_misc_text.txt file:

// MR. SATURN SPEECH
//=================================================================

7654321 (GOTO 1234567)

Then.....

// ENGLISH SATURN SPEECH
//=================================================================

1234567 WE ALL LOOK LIKE SAME

As I said, I don't know if the GOTO control code works in MOTHER 1+2.
On the other side, I'm not sure if this is the right way to do it. Mato could be able to clarify this a bit.