MOTHER 3 Translation Comparison

Welcome to the MOTHER 3 entry into my Legends of Localization series. For the uninitiated, MOTHER 3 is the sequel to what was known as “EarthBound” outside of Japan. Unfortunately, MOTHER 3 was never officially localized and released outside of Japan.

In 2008, a group of fans and I created an unofficial MOTHER 3 translation, which you can find here. For years people have been asking me to write up translation notes for the project, so doing it as a part of Legends of Localization seemed like a perfect fit. Together, we’ll look at the actual localization process, what difficulties arose, what solutions were found, what would’ve been better (or worse) in an official localization, and even the common pitfalls that face translations done by fans. It’s bound to be an interesting and enlightening read.

In previous entries of Legends of Localization I would regularly point out odd translations and basically ask, “What were they thinking?” This time, though, that won’t be the case – I’m the one who translated the game. So this should give a little more insight into the localization / translation process than usual.