Starman.com? Is that the URL they said on Retronauts? Hmmm, I’m intrigued, I’ll check it out and see what’s up with this Mother 3 fan translation? Never played Earthbound, but I hope too some day. Too bad it’s going for 150 on Ebay. I guess it wouldn’t be necessary though in order to play Mother 3 It’s so cool that that there are fans like this! I definitely wanna learn Japanese some day.

Loading.

There we are- Starman.com. Oh shit, that’s not the URL.

Types Mother 3 fan translation into Google. Clicks on one of the first links.

Oh, there we are. Starmen.net I guess it was…

Clicks on Mother 3 link at the top of the webpage.

Huh, those are some sweet words. They’re trying to provide the best translation possible. I don’t know the subtleties of translation because I don’t know Japanese, but I hope they got close. Definitely wanna learn Japanese though… that would be so cool…

VirtualBoyAdvance. Huh, what’s that? Oh, it’s a GameBoyAdvance emulator. Hmm, I’m not familiar with emulators. I suppose I could try it out and see what happens. I always wondered how those emulators worked.

Clicks link to a website to download VirtualBoyAdvance. Clicks download; it appears at the bottom in my Google Chrome downloading bar. It finishes.

Guess I’ll just click run there and see what happens. It’s saving to some folder, okay… What’s that weird small black box in the top left of the screen.

X’s out.

Huh, where’s this emulator. God, this is too complicated. Why’d I get myself into this shit. There’s gotta be something I’m doing wrong. I’ll just learn this stuff, not that I’d plan on emulating much of anything anyway, but…

Googles “how to download VirtualBoyAdvanceEmulator. Clicks on link. No information. Clicks on another link.

OH! So that little black box in the corner was the GBA emulator; ha, I was wondering why it was so goddamn small.

Clicks run again on download in Google Chrome downloads bar. It appears again.

Oh, I think I get it now. So you go to file and select one of the first two options, find the ROM (is that the terminology?) in one of your folders and run it off of your computer. I get it now.

Tabs back to Mother 3 fan translation page. “Step 0: Please get a legitimate copy. We do not promote piracy, but unfortunately realize it’s necessity in a situation like this (or something along those lines.)

Oh, so I need to download the file elsewhere and then apply the translation patch. That sounds complicated. Should I try this? Fuck it, there’s no real pther way of playing the game and I’m certainly intrigued. I suppose I should at least see what Mother 3 on the GBA is going for nowadays.

Types query into address bar. Clicks on link.

Nope. Not doing that.

Types “Mother 3 download” into Google out of curiosity. First link has nothing. Click on a few other links and nothing seems right.

This link looks to be pretty good. Oh shit, there’s a catalogue of like 3000-some GBA games on here…

Digs a littler through numeric system of cataloguing to find the Mother 3 download.

I’m justified in going through with this, right? Doesn’t make me a bad person, right? “Pirating” a game, if that is even a good term in this case, is assuredly alright given the extenuating circumstances. People better than me do this all the time, no issue, just a download…

Clicks on download. Shows up in download bar at the bottom of the Google Chrome page. Saves to download folder.

It’s fucking happening. Easy sailing from here on out. Let’s test it out.

Opens VisualBoyAdvance emulator. Clicks File and Open Gameboy. Selects Mother 3 file.

Oh how I wish everything was so much more simple. Look at this folder, there’s like five different things in there. .exe and .linux. .exe is the right one I think. I’m almost assure that’s how you “execute” a file and run it.

Ha! Success! I did it, it’s actually playing in the fucking emulator.

Hits enter on “start new game” option on home screen.

Yep, those are most certainly Japanese characters. Doesn’t look too great while stretched out to fullscreen, but hey, it’s a GBA game. Looks serviceable. I could probably play it like this. Now to download that fan translation.

X’s out of the emulator. Works way back to translation patch download page. Hit download.

Let’s do this thing. God I’m excited. I’m fucking in it. Can’t wait to see just how good the Mother series is. I’m sure Mother 3 will still be enjoyable not having played Earthbound… believe it’s only a loose sequel anyway.

Hits download. Appears in the download bar at the bottom of the Google Chrome page.

OK. So it says to apply the patch by putting it in the same folder. Do I just drag the translation patch file onto the .exe file and it happens? I guessthey have to be in the same folder first.

Ah crap. Wait, what folder was the .exe in again.

Searches the system in My Computer.

Oh, there it is. So I’ll put this into the same folder as  the translation patch, drag the patch onto the file and… hopefully it’ll work?

Goes through the actions it doesn’t work. Tabs back to the Mother 3 fn translation patch download page.

Oh, I have to unzip the file? What the fuck does that mean? Oh, I see some of the folders have zips on them to indicate it, but how do I get the files, including that .exe, file out of there.

Googles “how to unzip a file in Windows XP”. Clicks link.

So, I suppose this is kind of crucial. God, I’ve never gotten this deep into my system’s files… guess I need to download this unipping software…

Tabs through terms of service and other stuff. Download is finished after a few minutes.

So how do I actually unzip the files now? Open the software and select the file? Wait, can you even open the software? Guess it’s not one of those desktop-icons, guess it’s just an invisible thing that takes place at a certain point…

Goes into My Computer. Double clicks .exe file (or something like that).

Ok, I’m in the unzipping process. So how do I unzip. Oh, there’s an extract button. That should work. Makes sense. I mean, “extract” would take the individual components of the file out of the “zipped” file, right?

Clicks on Extract. Doesn’t work. Googles “how to unzip files when you have unzipping software.”

Oh, so that’s what the Extract button is there for in My Computer. That totally makes sense now. So I click on the file and click “Extract”. Ha, dumbass.

Unzips the file.

Where’d I put that translation patch file?

Searches computer’s files.

God I hate that paperclip… there she is.

Clicks on file. Moves to folder with unzipped components of Mother 3 download file.

Same folder, good. Now what?

Tentatively clicks on translation patch file.

Hey, there’s something. It’s colorful and it doesn’t look like system data spew, so I must be onto something.

Virus warning pops up.

Oh shit. Happens all the time I guess… doubt it’s anything serious. God I hope. I’ll scan the laptop later.

X’s out. Clicks on browse in the file Clicks on the .exe file.

The patch is applying. Yeahhhhhh…

It finishes. Opens VisualBoyAdvance again and runs the newly patched file.

Wow, it’s working. Oh and look at that, it’s totally in English, too. Awesome. Ah, the wonders of technology… Hard to imagine though that years of people’s translation work boiled down into a small files that was now easily at my disposal. That’s really cool. Thinking about it, I can’t imagine how much work went into it. I mean these people are fans. Fans only. They did this in their spare time; that’s dedication.

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So, yeah. That is most certainly how it went down. Do I feel bad about pirating it? Perhaps a little, but I’ve never been one to pirate anything or torrent anything. This was really my first experience with anything of thesuch. I don’t even pirate music, and even the good ones among us still do that. That of course means that I’m totally justified.

Of course it doesn’t, but I can say that there was an immense satisfaction after 45 minutes of toil. I had pirated something; it was almost like a rush. Will I use the drug again in the future? Probably not, I’d rather track down old games on disc. I don’t like to get into this stuff too much, as I always get the feeling that my laptop’s just going to implode at any moment.

But for some games, I suppose it’s valid if you consider the circumstances. Though it really never truly is. Have you ever pirated anything? Do it on a regular basis (I’d least hope its older games…)? Did you have an experience similar to mine first time you pirated something? You know, fumbling through your system’s files.  How did it make you feel? Share your thoughts below.

Oh, and if your pirate something new, then you are a despicable human being. Just thought I’d put that out there.

Not the best writing, but I was trying to tell a story. Hope it came off as interesting. Just to let those who are curious know, this happened yesterday. I’m hoping to write every other day or so. As always, leave me feedback, I’m always looking to improve as a writer.

And P.S. : Mother 3 is pretty great so far. Definitely want to track down a copy of Earthbound and play it on the old SNES…