HEY NO SPOILERS!
This is a Mother 3 thread for the English release, meaning these people didn't play the Japanese version, meaning those of us who did shouldn't be talking about and passing around pictures that contain spoilers, if you want to do that, I made a M3 appreciation thread a few months ago you can use.
Whoooaaahh what? Yeah that's right the translation and hacking of Mother 3 is finished, which means that the ROM is currently being tested and will almost certainly be out this October. It could be out any day now! Now is the time for hype and preparation for GOTY 2008!
EDIT: THE GAME IS OUT DOWNLOAD NOW and SURPRISE! There's a Mother 3 fan made players guide in production!
Mother 3 is an RPG developed by Shigesato Itoi and HAL and published by Nintendo for the Gameboy Advance. It was released in 2006 in Japan. The game is a traditional Dragon Quest like JRPG in gameplay, though with several distinguishing features, such as real time rolling hit points, on screen enemies, instant win combat and music combo based combat. Another key difference from traditional JRPGs is the Western, modern day setting and the excellently written, witty story and humorous dialogue.
Mother 3 is the sequel to Mother 2, which was released in NA as Earthbound. The game was critically very well received and achieved a massive cult following, despite mediocre sales. Nintendo of America spent quite a bit of marketing money on Earthbound and so the relative failure likely soured them on the series, which leads us to...
Well I don't hate Nintendo, I'm just extremely, extremely disappointed in them.
Despite the critical acclaim of Mother 3, and an extreme, unparalleled showing of support from fans, Nintendo decided to not release the title in NA. Even though sales of the GBA were exceptionally strong in NA, Nintendo artificially killed off the GBA and didn't release Mother 3 as well as several other late GBA titles, such as Rhythm Tengoku.
In addition Nintendo of America has seemingly gone out of their way in pretending that Earthbound/Mother doesn't exist, ignoring Earthbound on the Wii VC, removing the Earthbound demo from Smash Bros Brawl and not releasing the Mother 1+2 compilation for the GBA.
Fortunately the game has been given an excellent translation and we can all enjoy it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgbI8FK63xU
(Many answers copied from the Mother 3 translation site)
What's left to do?
Nothing! Download it at http://mother3.fobby.net/
How will this translation thing work?
When completed, there will be a translation patch for download. When this patch is applied to a Japanese MOTHER 3 ROM, it will change all of the games Japanese text into English. You can then play it on the Game Boy Advance emulator of your choice.
The patch will use the new UPS format, developed by byuu. IPS patches only work on files up to 16 MB in size. The MOTHER 3 ROM is twice that size, so were using this new format. The patching programs will also be extremely straightforward to use, and PC, Mac, and Linux versions will be available.
I own a Japanese MOTHER 3 cartridge. Will I be able to put the final translation on it?
No, there is no way to delete or replace the data on a cartridge. If you want to play the translation on a real system, youll need whats called a flash cart or flash card. You can also use an emulator.
Will I be able to use my flash cart to play it on a real system?
Most likely. ROM hacking is tricky business, and sometimes hacks that work on emulators dont work on the actual systems. But this translation will most likely work on a real system.
Where can I buy MOTHER 3 for GBA? I want to play it in Japanese.
It seems to be sold out at the usual spots like Play asia and NCSX. Try Japan.
Who's that dude in the title?!
That's Shigesato Itoi the creator of the Mother series. He's a famous Japanese writer and is known for a number of other projects.
Has Mother 4 been announced
Nope. I haven't read any definite quotes regarding the future of the series, but folks seem to think that Mother 3 is the end of the series.
Your graphics suck. Can I make new ones?
Yes.
Mother 3 Translation - Download the translation patch here!
Starmen.net - The main Mother/Earthbound fan community on the internet. Considering that their game franchise of choice is continously ignored and there hasn't been a major update in over 10 years, this community is extremely strong and vibrant.
Mother 3 World - A Japanese Mother 3 promotion site translated by Starmen.net
Learn more about Mother 2/Earthbound, the legendary fan favourite SNES game.
Pre-order the Fanmade Mother 3 players guide!
