Mother 3 English translation
MOTHER3 · マザー3 · EarthBound 2
The famous fan translation of Mother 3, the Japan-only sequel to EarthBound, made by Tomato, Jeffman and their team and refined over more than a decade.
What it is
When it became clear that Mother 3 would not be released in the West, fans started their own translation project in late 2006. Tomato led the translation and localization, Jeffman led the hacking, and a team of translators, hackers, artists and testers worked on it for about two years while blogging about their progress. Version 1.0 came out on 17 October 2008 and drew a huge audience; version 1.1 followed in 2009 with typo and bug fixes.
What's translated
The whole game is in English: dialogue, menus, items, enemies, battle text and graphics with writing on them. The team aimed for a careful localization that keeps the game's mix of weird jokes and sad moments. Version 1.3, from April 2021, brings many more bug fixes and technical improvements.
Extras
The project site also hosts a README with troubleshooting and known issues, Tomato's commentary notes on the script, a look at unused content found in the game, a translated handbook and tools for people who want to translate Mother 3 into other languages.
Playing it
The download includes patching programs for Windows, Mac and Linux; apply it to your own copy of the Japanese game as the site explains.