Why isn't there a MOTHER/Earthbound reverse engineering team?

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2fadfe
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Why isn't there a MOTHER/Earthbound reverse engineering team?

Post by 2fadfe »

Regarding these Nintendo-focused groups (https://github.com/zeldaret and https://github.com/pret), why isn't there one focused on the four EB/M games (and maybe the EB64 proto/Spaceworld demo if found)? Is it due to lack of the series' popularity or something else?

I am interested how that disassembled source code would be used. It might be possible to make a PC port of Mother 3 from it, but I don't know how EB: Beginnings and EB would be ported to PC- most people would use an emulator or other methods of playing these games.
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calima
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Re: Why isn't there a MOTHER/Earthbound reverse engineering team?

Post by calima »

Because they are terrible games? SCNR :D
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Re: Why isn't there a MOTHER/Earthbound reverse engineering team?

Post by 2fadfe »

:D
Truthfully though, I haven't finished the first two games due to how much a pain they can be... as for M3, well I finished it way too many times for now.
Last edited by 2fadfe on Fri Feb 25, 2022 7:18 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Why isn't there a MOTHER/Earthbound reverse engineering team?

Post by Nikku4211 »

calima wrote: Fri Feb 25, 2022 1:25 am Because they are terrible games? SCNR :D
That didn't stop the Pokemon Reverse Engineering Team.
2fadfe wrote: Thu Feb 24, 2022 8:42 pm Regarding these Nintendo-focused groups (https://github.com/zeldaret and https://github.com/pret), why isn't there one focused on the four EB/M games (and maybe the EB64 proto/Spaceworld demo if found)? Is it due to lack of the series' popularity or something else?
I think it's due to the lack of the series' popularity. Most people only know about the trilogy from Super Smashing their Bros.
2fadfe wrote: Thu Feb 24, 2022 8:42 pm I am interested how that disassembled source code would be used. It might be possible to make a PC port of Mother 3 from it, but I don't know how EB: Beginnings and EB would be ported to PC- most people would use an emulator or other methods of playing these games.
Please don't port the Earthbound trilogy to PC. We have enough trouble with Nintendo's lawyers, we don't need any trouble from HAL or Brownie Brown's lawyers.
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2fadfe
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Re: Why isn't there a MOTHER/Earthbound reverse engineering team?

Post by 2fadfe »

Please don't port the Earthbound trilogy to PC. We have enough trouble with Nintendo's lawyers, we don't need any trouble from HAL or Brownie Brown's lawyers.
I personally think if you found a way to "scrape" all the necessary assets from their respective legally dumped ROMs and have them in their own respective ."file_extension" or encrypted folder, it would be somewhat like how DOOM sourceports work and it probably wouldn't get this hypothetical team of reverse engineers into deep legal trouble. I wish the SM64 PC port did something like that. Did the big N try to take down the reverse engineered code or did they try to take the SM64 disassembled source down as well as the leaked PC port?
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Re: Why isn't there a MOTHER/Earthbound reverse engineering team?

Post by 2fadfe »

Also having a decompilation would help the modding scenes for all three games by having easy access to modifying things like the audio in Mother 3 playing from .flac files instead of midi so that you can listen to fan remasters of the OST in-game and make the merman air pump cutscene a-one-and-done event. Also having multiple language support in one .exe, and having a MOTHER 1+2+3 collection (if you supply it with the roms and not itself having the content in it already).
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Re: Why isn't there a MOTHER/Earthbound reverse engineering team?

Post by Pokun »

Calima is just trolling, the Mother series are fantastic and highly popular RPG-parodies that frequently appear high on all-time top lists.

But it's just 3 games none of which were released in Europe until the Wii U came along and the second game sold poorly in NA back in the day, so Starman.net, a community of hardcore fans (recognized by Itoi himself) who translated Mother 3 to English and frequently produces hacks and art of the series, is "all" that it has.
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Re: Why isn't there a MOTHER/Earthbound reverse engineering team?

Post by calima »

Only trolling as far as presentation goes. Earthbound is the only game I've ever played that I give 0/10 to, it sucks that much.
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Re: Why isn't there a MOTHER/Earthbound reverse engineering team?

Post by Nikku4211 »

2fadfe wrote: Fri Feb 25, 2022 8:11 pm modifying things like the audio in Mother 3 playing from .flac files instead of midi so that you can listen to fan remasters of the OST in-game
Or flat out just use a better, more optimised sound engine in general with better samples. Low sample rate SC-88 samples without chorus or proper reverb get old fast. And yes, I've heard the remasters, but the samples used there are still low quality, it's just mixed at a higher sample rate.
2fadfe wrote: Fri Feb 25, 2022 5:19 pm I personally think if you found a way to "scrape" all the necessary assets from their respective legally dumped ROMs and have them in their own respective ."file_extension" or encrypted folder, it would be somewhat like how DOOM sourceports work and it probably wouldn't get this hypothetical team of reverse engineers into deep legal trouble.
There's a fundamental difference. Id Software officially released the source code to Doom's Linux port. Nintendo hasn't officially released a full enough source code to any of their games.

Because of this, Nintendo would have every reason to go after people for REing their games' code, even if the release has no assets.

And now I want to imagine what a Freedoom for Earthbound would be like...
calima wrote: Sat Feb 26, 2022 9:46 am Only trolling as far as presentation goes. Earthbound is the only game I've ever played that I give 0/10 to, it sucks that much.
The first game definitely didn't age well. I'm glad there are hacks for it to improve the game.

The 2nd really starts off too hard. Difficulty curves shouldn't start off steep and get easier over time, they should be the opposite.
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2fadfe
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Re: Why isn't there a MOTHER/Earthbound reverse engineering team?

Post by 2fadfe »

Or flat out just use a better, more optimised sound engine in general with better samples. Low sample rate SC-88 samples without chorus or proper reverb get old fast. And yes, I've heard the remasters, but the samples used there are still low quality, it's just mixed at a higher sample rate.

There's a fundamental difference. Id Software officially released the source code to Doom's Linux port. Nintendo hasn't officially released a full enough source code to any of their games.

Because of this, Nintendo would have every reason to go after people for REing their games' code, even if the release has no assets.

And now I want to imagine what a Freedoom for Earthbound would be like...
Now I'm curious as to why Nintendo hasn't attacked the Zelda OOT and SM64 de-compilations and taken them down. Also why hasn't Nintendo been agressive enough to the fan remakes of MOTHER and Earthbound, and especially the fan translation of Mother 3?
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Re: Why isn't there a MOTHER/Earthbound reverse engineering team?

Post by Pokun »

Yeah the second game isn't that hard at the end, but if it's way too easy it might be because of overlevling. I think certain parts in the middle are quite hard, but not really the beginning.

The second and third games are easily superior game-mechanics-wise and balance-wise. Especially the final area (Holy Roly Mountain, AKA Mt. Itoi) in Mother 1 is notoriously hard. Itoi used to joke about how he skipped out on playtesting it with a laid back "maa iika" (translation: "I guess it's fine"). The truth is that they were out of time of course.

But as for atmosphere, music, story and characters, I'm leaning to the first game being the best one, with the second one being close behind. The series is easily up there with DQ and FF. Itoi is really a genius.


Edit: Ninja'd!
Nintendo never attacks fantranslations, I think hacks are out of their reach since they don't really contain copyrighted material. They have tried taking control over videos of their games and of Mario level hacks (when Super Mario Maker were about to be released) but I don't think they were very successful.
I'm not sure about reverse-engineering work containing leaked source code or disassembled ROMs though. But they are much less common so it might not be their focus.
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Re: Why isn't there a MOTHER/Earthbound reverse engineering team?

Post by calima »

That's what surprised me the most, they're given such high praise, and then the game was such crap. Itoi is no genius, he's a sadist.
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Re: Why isn't there a MOTHER/Earthbound reverse engineering team?

Post by Pokun »

Not everyone appreciate true art I guess. Just kidding, but on a serious note I'm curious why do you think he is a sadist? The high difficulty of Holy Roly Mountain wasn't on purpose.
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Re: Why isn't there a MOTHER/Earthbound reverse engineering team?

Post by calima »

I didn't find the difficulty that bad, though I don't remember that name, maybe it was after I quit in disgust. I played something like 5 hours I think, hoping it would get better, but no.

The designer is a sadist because he intentionally made a bad, tedious, painful game, then tries justifying it as a style choice. "Hey, let's add mechanics that just punish the player". Earthbound tries overly hard to be quirky, and yet all it achieves is tedious and painful.

"Let's force the player to listen to five minutes of monologue every time they want to save"
"Let's screw up the keybindings because you have a status condition, look how we are so le quirky"
"You'll have to run back there. No teleporting"
"Oh, you now need an item from the previous city. Chop chop"

I bet I forgot a ton, it's been years now. I do remember how I wanted my hours back, and how I've never played a game that bad. It literally had no good sides, I disliked the graphics, the setting, and the story was just plain boring and uninteresting. Every mechanic in the game sucked, and was made bad *on purpose*.
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