Mum’s the word - Mother 3 fan translation one year on

In April 2006 Nintendo released Mother 3 for the Gameboy Advance in Japan. The sometimes whimsical, sometimes picaresque RPG had already gained a cult following in the US following the release of Earthbound (i.e. Mother 2) on the Super Nintendo, so a lot of eager, dedicated fans were waiting with baited breath for the announcement of an international release. Sadly, nothing.

(Don’t just pity Americans, though. We’re even more starved here in Europe, having received absolutely nothing here apart from a couple of characters in Super Smash Bros. Melee and Brawl that mean nothing to us.)

Instead of weeping into their Giygas-embroidered hankies, however, a bunch of fans decided to take the matter into their own hands. No official localisation? Well, they’ll jolly well go anddo it themselves. That was one year ago, and now Starmen.net, the website behind the translation have written an article detailing the trials and tribulations of this task. Apparently it isn’t just a matter of slapping the text in Babelfish and spending the rest of the time arguing over whose name is going to go first in the credits. No, there’s a lot of technical jiggery-pokery to jig and poke.

So while they’ve already completed the first draft of the English translation for the game, actually wedging all those Anglo-Saxon words into the cartridge’s software hole is proving a little tricky. Coming in the back end, and without an official warrant to boot is leading to all kinds of glitches that need to be ironed out.

There’s no word on when it’ll be done, and those working on it are promising nothing. Yet with all the latest screenshots and videos they’ve shown, we’d optimistically predict it won’t be long now. The only thing standing in their way is a cease and desist letter from Nintendo, but given the length of time and the work already invested in the project, only a grumpy sourpuss jobsworth would ban it now after all that hard work. Ideal world situation: Nintendo pays them handsomely for their efforts and releases the translation on their rumoured Wii to DS flash card download service. Hooray!

Source: 4colorrebellion

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