Mother 3 fan translation

The "disclaimer screen" was the only original image added to the game in the fan translation.

The Mother 3 fan translation is a complete English-language localization of the 2006 Japanese video game Mother 3 by members of the EarthBound fan community led by Clyde "Tomato" Mandelin. The original game was released in Japan after a decade of development hell. When fan interest in an English localization went unanswered, the EarthBound fansite Starmen.net announced their own fan translation in November 2006.

The dozen fans who worked on the project had been vetted by Mandelin and had prior localization experience. Thousands of hours were put into the project between hacking the game data and translating the 1,000 pages of scripted dialogue. They built their own tools for the work. The final version was released in October 2008 and issued as a patch. The patch was downloaded over 100,000 times in its first week. A fan-made, full-color, 200-page, professional-quality player's guide was released alongside the translation. The Verge cited the effort as proof of the fan base's dedication.

Fan community

Main article: EarthBound fandom

After a decade of "delays, downgrades, and cancellations", Mother 3—the Game Boy Advance sequel to 1995 Super NES video game EarthBound—was released in April 2006 for Japanese audiences.[1] The American EarthBound fan community, in support of the series, had rallied support via events and petitions for the release. One such petition used custom petition software and hand-checked name verification, and the 819 pages of 31,000 signatures were sent to Nintendo's Japanese and American offices with fan art. Despite receiving the backing of the wider gaming community, Nintendo did not respond. In turn, the new release became a "rallying point" for the community.[1] 1UP.com wrote that "no other game in the history of time garnered such a rabid demand for translation".[2]

The fan community did not expect an official English localization when Mother 3 was released in April 2006. Four months later, they received news that Nintendo was not interested, and in November, received confirmation in an interview with Nintendo of America's "Treehouse" localization group. Within days, the fan translation was announced at EarthBound community site Starmen.net.[1] Reid Young, a co-founder of the site, said that a fan translation "was as much about the fans as it was about the game".[1]

Development

The Mother 3 fan translation project was announced in November 2006.[1][3] Led by Clyde "Tomato" Mandelin, a professional game translator whose previous work includes games such as Kingdom Hearts II and anime such as Dragon Ball,[4] a group of around a dozen individuals translated the game from Japanese to English in a process that took two years and thousands of work-hours. Those who worked on the localization were largely already known for their contributions to other fan translations, and Tomato's own experience in the fan translation community helped the project get the necessary resources.[1] Tomato worked on the project as "a second full-time job" in addition to his full-time job as a translator.[5] Young, who did public relations for the project and had little involvement in the process,[5] estimated Tomato to have put over 1,000 hours into the project, Jeffman to have nearly 1,000, and even the smallest contributors to have put between 50 and 100 hours into the project, though no one tracked hours. The team chose to not alter the game aside for adding a new intro screen, which meant not adding their names to the credits. The localization included two elements: hacking the game data (ROM) and translating the scripted dialogue.[1]

The ROM hacking entailed assembly-level changes to the game code. Young equated the process to teaching someone another language by slowly altering their DNA bit by bit, through trial and error. Some of the technical changes included "variable width fonts", graphics hacks, and custom software.[1] The game was coded in such a way that there was not enough system memory available to display the requisite onscreen text. Since Japanese characters all occupy the same amount of space (monospaced), the team had to custom-code the new English characters to fit properly. Tomato said that "no text display routine wound up untouched", such that the fixes for variable width fonts were useless until the team manually made room for the characters.[1] Graphics hacks included the new intro screen and images imported from the English EarthBound, so as to preserve continuity of features. For example, an octopus statue pun from Mother 2 was converted to a pencil statue in the EarthBound English localization and was changed accordingly in the Mother 3 localization. The team also built custom software to aid in the translation, such as a cross-assembler and tools for handling the script and patching.[1] Members of the hacking team included Tomato, Jeffman, byuu, and sblur, among others.[1][5]

About 1,000 pages of text were translated.[lower-alpha 1] They estimated the theoretical freelance cost of the translation at $30,000. Young described Tomato as a perfectionist, and said that he kept the translation team small so as not to bog down progress, though he did request group input for aspects such as pun translation, where more input was seen to be helpful. Some decisions made during translation included the choice to translate a character named Yokuba (similar to the Japanese word for "greed") to Fassad (similar to the English word "facade"), and the choice to convert mice characters who used a Japanese dialect to use a thick Cockney English dialect.[1]

The team reported that "the highest levels" of Nintendo of America knew about their project, though they did not intervene.[1][lower-alpha 2] Young said that their localization team transparently stated that they would curb the project if the company were to make an announcement about the future of the game.[1] Though the team acknowledged that the legality of the localization was unclear,[7][5] Young said that it would not be reasonable to call the fan translation "impetuous or unfair".[5] The team added that they were against software piracy. They directed others to import the game from Japan (or otherwise purchase official merchandise when the game began to go out-of-print), with the ultimate aim to help the franchise.[1] Tomato received encouragement from a Square Enix employee who anticipated the translation.[5] At the end of the project, the team felt that the fan translation would lead to more protection against fan translations rather than more encouragement, so as to maximize the underserved audience. Tomato said that he was unable to appreciate his work since it was so familiar to him, with every original and translated line memorized. He expected that would change in five years.[1] The project left Tomato with a greater respect for the craft of writing.[2]

Release

The localization patch was finished in October 2008.[8][9] Though Tomato predicted the game to have "a couple dozen thousand downloads total", it was downloaded over 100,000 times in its first week, not including downloads from other locations.[4] The patch requires a ROM file of the game to be used.[9] Along with the translation, the team announced the Mother 3 Handbook, an English player's guide for the game that had been in development since June 2008.[5] Wired reported the full-color, 200-page player's guide to be akin to a professional strategy guide, with quality "on par with ... Prima Games and BradyGames".[10] Tomato released an updated version in 2009. As of 2010, the patch was undergoing translation into languages including French, Italian, and Spanish.[11]

Reception

Frank Caron of Ars Technica wrote that the "massive undertaking ... stands as a massive success" and that the fan translation realized the dreams of many gamers including his own.[8] He added that "one cannot even begin to fathom" why Nintendo would not release their own English localization.[8] Kotaku's Mike Fahey wrote that he felt that the translators were wrong to suggest purchasing official merchandise where players were unable to find an import copy.[9] The Verge cited the two-year fan translation of Mother 3 as proof of the fan base's dedication.[12]

Notes and references

Notes
  1. ↑ Young described this amount of translation as large by most standards, including that of other RPGs.[1]
  2. ↑ In February 2007, Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime said that he had heard about the translation project.[6]
References
  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 Caron, Frank (October 28, 2008). "Mama's boys: the epic story of the Mother 3 fan translation". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on June 28, 2014. Retrieved June 28, 2014.
  2. 1 2 Mackey, Bob (July 2010). "Found in Translation". 1UP.com. p. 1. Archived from the original on June 28, 2014. Retrieved June 28, 2014.
  3. ↑ Arendt, Susan (November 9, 2006). "Fans Get Crackin' on Mother 3 Translation". 1UP.com. Archived from the original on June 29, 2014. Retrieved June 28, 2014.
  4. 1 2 Parkin, Simon (December 28, 2008). "You Say Tomato: A Pro on Fan-Translating Nintendo's Mother 3". Gamasutra. p. 1. Archived from the original on June 28, 2014. Retrieved June 28, 2014.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Plante, Chris (October 17, 2008). "Mother 3 in English! an Interview with Reid Young, co-founder of Starmen.Net!". UGO Networks. Archived from the original on September 15, 2011. Retrieved June 28, 2014.
  6. ↑ Totilo, Stephen (February 15, 2007). "Where Are All The Wiis, DS Lites? Nintendo Exec Has The Answer". MTV. Archived from the original on June 28, 2014. Retrieved June 28, 2014.
  7. ↑ Parkin, Simon (December 28, 2008). "You Say Tomato: A Pro on Fan-Translating Nintendo's Mother 3". Gamasutra. p. 2. Archived from the original on June 28, 2014. Retrieved June 28, 2014.
  8. 1 2 3 Caron, Frank (October 20, 2008). "Remember Earthbound? Play the sequel now, in English". Ars Technica. Archived from the original on June 28, 2014. Retrieved June 28, 2014.
  9. 1 2 3 Fahey, Mike (October 17, 2008). "Mother 3 Fan Translation Completed". Kotaku. Archived from the original on June 28, 2014. Retrieved June 28, 2014.
  10. ↑ Cavalli, Earnest (October 20, 2008). "Fans Release Gorgeous Mother 3 Companion Book". Wired. Archived from the original on June 29, 2014. Retrieved June 29, 2014.
  11. ↑ Lada, Jenni (March 5, 2010). "Important Importables: Notable fan translation projects". TechnologyTell. Archived from the original on September 8, 2014. Retrieved September 8, 2014.
  12. ↑ Webster, Andrew (July 18, 2013). "Cult classic 'Earthbound' launches today on Wii U". The Verge. Archived from the original on June 15, 2014. Retrieved June 15, 2014.

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