I figure most people interested in this know about it already, but to be on the safe side I'd thought I'd post it here.

Last November the long-awaited Mother 3 fan translation was completed. Mother 3 is the third game in the series, and the sequel to the cult-hit SNES RPG Earthbound. The third game was released for the GBA in 2006, exclusively in Japan. Since Nintendo decided against releasing an English version (assholes), a group of dedicated fans took it upon themselves to do the job. Anyway, the translation patch can be found here. All you need to find is a ROM of the Japanese game (easy as pie, just do a Google search), and a GBA emulator (like VisualBoy Advance if you're running Windows). If you feel you have to pay for the game, you could order the Japanese version, and then that's taken care of.

The translation itself is top-notch, probably even better than an official one would've been, since these guys are total fanatics who really took their time to get things right. Anyone have any clue why Earthbound/Mother fans are so hardcore? They're even going to print up and sell an unofficial guide book for the game! Crazy.

The game itself is excellent, I'm well into the second chapter, and am enjoying it immensely so far. Its definitely a different feel for a RPG, and the quirky humour and childish, zen-like insights from the previous games are present, although so far, it does have a darker tone than the other two had. Has anyone else played it, and if so, what's your opinion? This game gets my seal of approval, so check it out. And free is a small price to pay for one of the best RPGs in recent memory (basically, Nintendo screwed up royally by not bringing this over).

Never was a fanatic of the Mother/Earthbound series, but the fan base for Mother 3 is so rabid, that I'd be willing to give it a try out of sheer curiosity.  I've got both ROM and patch sitting on my hard drive since late last year - guess now's a good a time as any to fire it up.

I already played through my Japanese copy a few years back, but I've also been enjoying the heck out of this fan-translated version for the past couple months.  Highly recommended to any and all gamers out there!

Have been playing it more today, half the way through chapter 3 now. This game is totally sucking me in, its like the hours disappear in some kind of vacuum. The story and style is completely unlike anything else, it really feels like there's a lot of thought and care behind everything in the game (well, if you keep in mind that it was in development for 12 years as a project that originally began on the N64, that's hardly surprising).

The only thing I'm not completely enamoured with yet is the soundtrack. IMO, the first two games had better music with a lot more character to it (especially the first game on the NES, its my favourite Mother score by far). Shogo Sakai, the new composer, isn't doing that great a job at impressing me so far. But maybe that'll pick up soon.

I've been going through the game pretty slowly and I'm only up to Chapter 3. The writing is unlike most JRPGs I've ever played (in that it's actually pretty GOOD and well-translated). When tragedy strikes (and believe me, it does), it's handled in an appropriate manner and has great emotional power.

At least from what I've played, it's a great game with an awesome battle system, quirky characters and much depth. It should have been localized.

Not all the songs are classics but even the worst are always appropriate for the scenes and the best have been stuck in my head for weeks.

Just finished this, took me 32 hours all-in-all (basically almost all my spare time between starting the game and now). What an awesome, awesome experience, it started out good but just got better and better. Seriously, this is without a doubt the best RPG I've played in my 20+ years as a gamer. I'm not kidding. The Personas, MegaTens, Shadow Hearts', Final Fantasies, Chronos, Manas, Phantasy Stars... This beats them all, hands-down. I really liked Mother 1 and Earthbound, but the series was never among my favourite game series until now, they were more like fun and oddball anti-cliché RPGs. After playing Mother 3, I'm ready to join the cult, for real.

If I'm not doing a big write-up for this its only because I don't feel I could ever do it justice. Like many others have mentioned, the style and the way the story is built up and conveyed felt really original and fresh. With many games I play - even many of the ones I like a lot - I often feel that, even though its a fun way to spend your time, there is also the sensation that you're wasting a lot of time and money that could be spent on other activities in life. Mother 3 is (or at least was for me) one of the very rare exceptions, a very rewarding experience that like the very best books, movies, or albums makes you feel that the creators had a higher purpose and that that purpose was conveyed to you. And yes, during the very emotional final battle, I actually did cry. There, I said it, you guys can file that away and stick it in my face the next time I start acting up.

But don't take my word for it, listen to this chick instead. So yeah, Nintendo screwed up big-time by not bringing this over... Although when I played it, I did notice that some parts would have been troublesome to localize.

Terrific. I get emotional easily and when I get to that part, I'll probably be a blubbering mess.

I need to play the game more...

Also forgot: I did change my mind about the music! I suspect the fact that there was so much music in the game and that many of the tracks flew by so fast is what initially made it hard to stick in my mind. There's really a lot of music in this game: that they managed to cram in 280 compositions that together form over 7 hours of music into a GBA game and still managed to keep the sound quality so high is an achievement in itself (come to think of it, Mother games always have an obscene amount of music for the systems they're on - the first game on the NES had almost 50 tracks and the second on the SNES had around 180). Kind of makes you wonder what the hell Konami were doing when they had to reduce Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance's measly 25-track soundtrack to NES-level synth in order to fit it into the GBA cart.

Anyway, the music fits the game like a glove, and it has a very heartwarming quality to it. It makes you feel good just listening to it. Just downloaded the Mother 3+ arrange album, and its awesome (although pretty short - 28 minutes). Also did a little research on Shogo Sakai (the composer), and it seems he's a VGM veteran, starting in the biz in the 80s at Data East. His first soundtrack was apparently RoboCop for the NES, one of my old favourites. Imagine that.