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dmxratedI am getting ready now to host my long-overdue Getter Love!! video, which was originally going to deal just in the very beginning with that until more stuff happened to warrant its own video (which still took me a while in turn to consider as my actual plans got increasingly overblown). Writing this to both navigate to as I record and have already available to link to from the description, in order to explain why something I promised at the end of my previous video has already taken so much longer than I expected, and how this video, which originally had little enough content that I saw fit to combine with something unrelated seemingly on the horizon, ended up hinging on something so unrelated for so long.
To begin with, it was a month before I’d host both of my previous videos when Mr. Tenda, the creator of the Earthbound ROMhacking program CoilSnake, offered to create some of the remaining changes I wanted (no, I wasn’t hacking the game myself at the time, beyond what I could already figure out how through CS).
(Like, there were two ideas amid others that I looked particularly into back in the ‘0s, but the only tutorials I could find back then were for original-NES games (no Genesis or PC-FX), and the concept beyond those seemed like it would take years to master just to accomplish what I wanted back then. I was also spending a number of years teaching myself Japanese from various sources just to translate certain games and anime, to no avail there either, and I could only imagine similar futility with revisiting ROMhacking myself in relation to Food Fantasy in 2019 (proved too hardcoded just to revert some US-censored graphics myself), to say nothing of how busy I already was at the time with a Lucky Star story* I will mention again in a bit. To some extent, that actually changed recently in context that I will cover further down, although my job (with benefits I worked too long for to forfeit now by quitting just to make time to educate myself) and the rest of my personal agenda would still likely conflict with that (I already had to delay a bunch of things for a good few days just to decipher what someone gave me for free instead of just asking him for more).)
(*Both fics and some related pictures all together on deviantArt. And no, despite some pics likely to appear under "More by DMXrated", that I specifically keep out of my Featured folder, you can rest assured that neither the project itself, nor any planned ROMhacks for Earthbound et al or anything else, are going to feature weight-gain.)
At that time, I already had someone on Upwork, Muhammad Hassaan, in charge of some changes, several of which Mr. Tenda would not be capable of, but while discussion of one change was what led me to Mr. Tenda in the first place, he had never once shown me any actual changes in action before I fired him months later, for trying to pass someone else’s decompilation in a video off as his own work. In the meantime, I had planned at the time just to showcase Mr. Tenda’s changes and someone else’s from late in ‘21, before pointing out what I still wanted changed and why in hopes that someone would offer to do them.
Sure enough, he managed to show me all the changes through savestates late in January ‘24, and I tested them directly and paid him before starting any actual playthroughs.
Take 1
2/3/24: Had to put the game on hold to test someone’s work on Marenian Tavern Story: Patty and the Hungry God, which took a few days to reach all relevant points or circumstances. I hadn’t gotten far into Earthbound, and felt inclined afterwards just to start over.
Take 2
2/25/24: As it turns out, something messed the flags up, as I could tell when people are ahead in their scripts after Jeff first joins you. Mr. Tenda decided when I brought it up, to send me a version with a little trick to check whether or not the correct flag is active.
(For additional context, I had arrived in Threed with a Chicken from Twoson (itself in context of my gaming style), and did not bother to deposit what I’d sell that for before winding up underground.)
Take 3
3/11/24: Shortly before Jeff could even appear, I spot an out-of-place enemy in the cemetery, which weirds me out badly enough to turn the game off right then and there.
And, that’s where I got tired of the game, long before it occurred to me to give anything about Getter Love!! up to that point and since its own video.
Why Earthbound is still taking so long even now:
At that time, Muhammad was still in charge of certain changes, and even after I fired him, there was someone already doing a really good job (he actually shared his work periodically) decompiling Earthbound Zero, whom I then considered my safest bet to reserve Earthbound for, in case no one else proved capable of Mother 3, Super Mario RPG, or anything else I wanted changes to by EB0’s completion. (Affonso only knew Unity, which is why he chose Marenian Tavern Story in the first place, and declined to bother with M3 or SMRPG.)
Three months later, I got a hold of two different people I initially put in charge of Adventure Bar Story and Epic Battle Fantasy 4. One thing led to another with each, and I wound up putting Raymond in charge of Earthbound after we agreed to put EBF4 on the back burner, which I’d then wound up giving to Jonathan instead late in July. Over the next few months, Raymond did manage two of the remaining changes to Earthbound, but despite that game’s priority as the very first to host as the prime† inspiration from late in ‘11 for my actual main project (still barely off the ground as I’ve only gradually figured out how to approach that), Jonathan wound up moving along much more quickly with EBF4, for much less per change, and I asked to suspend work on Earthbound for the time being just to attempt a holdover product for myself sooner.
(†Dating back to my childhood in ‘96. Although its similarities to Earthbound had also contributed, I had only checked out EB0 in ‘10, and the initial concept well over a year later for the premise of Starbound, that Lucky Star fanfic (an actual game didn’t seem feasible at the time), was what cued me then to try out Mother 3 personally after having already seen bits and pieces of that on YouTube.)
Early in October, my mother, who had been keeping track of my bank log for years with my permission, had a fit about such a deal I had been pouring so much money into (please understand that I make roughly $400 a week (I didn't even have a job for thirteen years post-college), give or take depending on how many hours are actually arranged for me each week under a flexible schedule, although I had worked long enough by that point to save up thousands). Even though I had been getting actual changes this time‡, she demanded that I end business right then and there, threatening to transfer all my money to an IRA that she had been keeping and already transferring a few hundred to every month or so. While I still have yet to resume things with EBF4 even now, this did lead me to start up a new bank account right across the street from where I work, leaving my original one open for Supplemental Security Income to transfer from.
(‡For context, Muhammad had previously scammed me after proposing a remake of Disgaea 1 Complete in 2022, almost a combined $2,000 with two others over half a year (that, in fact, is what ultimately motivated me to seek employment instead of coasting on allowance, stipends, and payments for major chores such as stacking firewood for each winter). It only seemed fair to them at the time to play along in exchange for the work they were supposedly already putting into, apparent from how well they seemed to know what they were talking about. Eventually, Muhammad offered ten changes to Earthbound in exchange for a month’s rent he claimed to be short for, and I took then to stipulate the end of all further payments for any and all reasons until he actually shows me something. Suffice to say, I have not cared since about anyone’s efforts, life circumstances, or whoever they’re paying in turn for anything.)
Jonathan offered a couple of weeks later to take over with Earthbound, although it still took him another few months to actually begin.
-----
In March this year, I managed on my own to color Paula and various other blonde girls’ hair brown. To begin with, even once the main hack is finished, I’m still going to need footage from the otherwise vanilla game, and I would also like to make it clear that it will not be part of the main hack (I do plan to test for compatibility, though). Add something my mother had pointed out months earlier, about how little actual enjoyment I seem to be getting from these ROMhacks that I had been commissioning people for by not actually playing them, and I figured I might as well make myself comfortable as I play the same old game with all its cracks having shown for years now. Next thing I know, I actually found myself hot to check it out with such a new look.
(Currently, I have left off at Deep Darkness, pretty late in the game, with a previous hiatus in Threed as well to account for how long this playthrough has been taking. I have had numerous things going on since I put the game down.)
-----
In April, Jonathan showed me a file explaining a bug that contradicts something someone explains to you early in-game about what a stat called Guts does, something I only found out about through a news update of Mother 2 DX. This took until late in May for him to actually correct tentatively before I’d give it to Mr. Tenda, only for the game to crash on him.
The next few months mostly involved refining the file and assigning a few minor changes to Mr. Tenda, before I shared the file, along with both of Raymond’s from before, on the Discord server PK Hack to make sense of before I could attempt yet another bug personally that I’ve only discovered recently. One moderator, SupremeKirb, said that people there would be willing to create such things for free, after I had mentioned who I hired to create the existing ones. Another member, pheonixbound, showed me some kind of revision code to restore the Brain Stone’s unimplemented purpose, and instead of just asking him then for subsequent changes to the game for free, I decided to start making sense of his work.
Along with what SK had shown me from before in a decompilation called ebsrc (written in D for a PC remake), and something else on GitHub that someone else shared with me, that is what led me to check out an online tutorial of 65C816, the Super NES’ assembly language, to read during breaks at my job as well as on a weekend visit my mother and I took to see Ella, my grandmother. (This also inspired an interest in MIPS, given the Sony Playstation as my target platform for Lucky Star: Day of the Beehive (usually called Starbound for short here, after the attempted fanfic), and I will likely take sessions with an electric foot massager that my sister, Marie, had sent me recently, to read about ARM and Thumb before tackling Mother 3 (my phone proved inconducive for the tutorial I found for those).)
Still on the agenda:
Before I start hosting any playthroughs on YouTube, while I do consider Getter Love!! fine as that game is, I would still like my hacks of Earthbound Zero, Mother 3, and Super Mario RPG completed (likely now by myself with any advice I can gather), even once Earthbound’s is all done to go first, before that whole series begins. However, even if all five overall were to have been ready for a while now, I had already long promised a video specifically covering the actual changes at least for Earthbound.
That is where my current playthrough comes in, before I look into implementing the remaining changes for the main hack and then playing that version through. In-between, though, I am also planning to record a vanilla playthrough of M3, mainly to switch gears but also for footage of two things late in that game to include in the Earthbound video. (Would also like to demonstrate what parts of that game I want changed, to pheonixbound and anyone else on Discord willing to help me with those, and it might also help to be able to discuss those on the sidelines through my phone when I’m not home to play the completed Earthbound hack.)
Here’s what I need to do overall, in no particular order:
To begin with, it was a month before I’d host both of my previous videos when Mr. Tenda, the creator of the Earthbound ROMhacking program CoilSnake, offered to create some of the remaining changes I wanted (no, I wasn’t hacking the game myself at the time, beyond what I could already figure out how through CS).
(Like, there were two ideas amid others that I looked particularly into back in the ‘0s, but the only tutorials I could find back then were for original-NES games (no Genesis or PC-FX), and the concept beyond those seemed like it would take years to master just to accomplish what I wanted back then. I was also spending a number of years teaching myself Japanese from various sources just to translate certain games and anime, to no avail there either, and I could only imagine similar futility with revisiting ROMhacking myself in relation to Food Fantasy in 2019 (proved too hardcoded just to revert some US-censored graphics myself), to say nothing of how busy I already was at the time with a Lucky Star story* I will mention again in a bit. To some extent, that actually changed recently in context that I will cover further down, although my job (with benefits I worked too long for to forfeit now by quitting just to make time to educate myself) and the rest of my personal agenda would still likely conflict with that (I already had to delay a bunch of things for a good few days just to decipher what someone gave me for free instead of just asking him for more).)
(*Both fics and some related pictures all together on deviantArt. And no, despite some pics likely to appear under "More by DMXrated", that I specifically keep out of my Featured folder, you can rest assured that neither the project itself, nor any planned ROMhacks for Earthbound et al or anything else, are going to feature weight-gain.)
At that time, I already had someone on Upwork, Muhammad Hassaan, in charge of some changes, several of which Mr. Tenda would not be capable of, but while discussion of one change was what led me to Mr. Tenda in the first place, he had never once shown me any actual changes in action before I fired him months later, for trying to pass someone else’s decompilation in a video off as his own work. In the meantime, I had planned at the time just to showcase Mr. Tenda’s changes and someone else’s from late in ‘21, before pointing out what I still wanted changed and why in hopes that someone would offer to do them.
Sure enough, he managed to show me all the changes through savestates late in January ‘24, and I tested them directly and paid him before starting any actual playthroughs.
Take 1
2/3/24: Had to put the game on hold to test someone’s work on Marenian Tavern Story: Patty and the Hungry God, which took a few days to reach all relevant points or circumstances. I hadn’t gotten far into Earthbound, and felt inclined afterwards just to start over.
Take 2
2/25/24: As it turns out, something messed the flags up, as I could tell when people are ahead in their scripts after Jeff first joins you. Mr. Tenda decided when I brought it up, to send me a version with a little trick to check whether or not the correct flag is active.
(For additional context, I had arrived in Threed with a Chicken from Twoson (itself in context of my gaming style), and did not bother to deposit what I’d sell that for before winding up underground.)
Take 3
3/11/24: Shortly before Jeff could even appear, I spot an out-of-place enemy in the cemetery, which weirds me out badly enough to turn the game off right then and there.
And, that’s where I got tired of the game, long before it occurred to me to give anything about Getter Love!! up to that point and since its own video.
Why Earthbound is still taking so long even now:
At that time, Muhammad was still in charge of certain changes, and even after I fired him, there was someone already doing a really good job (he actually shared his work periodically) decompiling Earthbound Zero, whom I then considered my safest bet to reserve Earthbound for, in case no one else proved capable of Mother 3, Super Mario RPG, or anything else I wanted changes to by EB0’s completion. (Affonso only knew Unity, which is why he chose Marenian Tavern Story in the first place, and declined to bother with M3 or SMRPG.)
Three months later, I got a hold of two different people I initially put in charge of Adventure Bar Story and Epic Battle Fantasy 4. One thing led to another with each, and I wound up putting Raymond in charge of Earthbound after we agreed to put EBF4 on the back burner, which I’d then wound up giving to Jonathan instead late in July. Over the next few months, Raymond did manage two of the remaining changes to Earthbound, but despite that game’s priority as the very first to host as the prime† inspiration from late in ‘11 for my actual main project (still barely off the ground as I’ve only gradually figured out how to approach that), Jonathan wound up moving along much more quickly with EBF4, for much less per change, and I asked to suspend work on Earthbound for the time being just to attempt a holdover product for myself sooner.
(†Dating back to my childhood in ‘96. Although its similarities to Earthbound had also contributed, I had only checked out EB0 in ‘10, and the initial concept well over a year later for the premise of Starbound, that Lucky Star fanfic (an actual game didn’t seem feasible at the time), was what cued me then to try out Mother 3 personally after having already seen bits and pieces of that on YouTube.)
Early in October, my mother, who had been keeping track of my bank log for years with my permission, had a fit about such a deal I had been pouring so much money into (please understand that I make roughly $400 a week (I didn't even have a job for thirteen years post-college), give or take depending on how many hours are actually arranged for me each week under a flexible schedule, although I had worked long enough by that point to save up thousands). Even though I had been getting actual changes this time‡, she demanded that I end business right then and there, threatening to transfer all my money to an IRA that she had been keeping and already transferring a few hundred to every month or so. While I still have yet to resume things with EBF4 even now, this did lead me to start up a new bank account right across the street from where I work, leaving my original one open for Supplemental Security Income to transfer from.
(‡For context, Muhammad had previously scammed me after proposing a remake of Disgaea 1 Complete in 2022, almost a combined $2,000 with two others over half a year (that, in fact, is what ultimately motivated me to seek employment instead of coasting on allowance, stipends, and payments for major chores such as stacking firewood for each winter). It only seemed fair to them at the time to play along in exchange for the work they were supposedly already putting into, apparent from how well they seemed to know what they were talking about. Eventually, Muhammad offered ten changes to Earthbound in exchange for a month’s rent he claimed to be short for, and I took then to stipulate the end of all further payments for any and all reasons until he actually shows me something. Suffice to say, I have not cared since about anyone’s efforts, life circumstances, or whoever they’re paying in turn for anything.)
Jonathan offered a couple of weeks later to take over with Earthbound, although it still took him another few months to actually begin.
-----
In March this year, I managed on my own to color Paula and various other blonde girls’ hair brown. To begin with, even once the main hack is finished, I’m still going to need footage from the otherwise vanilla game, and I would also like to make it clear that it will not be part of the main hack (I do plan to test for compatibility, though). Add something my mother had pointed out months earlier, about how little actual enjoyment I seem to be getting from these ROMhacks that I had been commissioning people for by not actually playing them, and I figured I might as well make myself comfortable as I play the same old game with all its cracks having shown for years now. Next thing I know, I actually found myself hot to check it out with such a new look.
(Currently, I have left off at Deep Darkness, pretty late in the game, with a previous hiatus in Threed as well to account for how long this playthrough has been taking. I have had numerous things going on since I put the game down.)
-----
In April, Jonathan showed me a file explaining a bug that contradicts something someone explains to you early in-game about what a stat called Guts does, something I only found out about through a news update of Mother 2 DX. This took until late in May for him to actually correct tentatively before I’d give it to Mr. Tenda, only for the game to crash on him.
The next few months mostly involved refining the file and assigning a few minor changes to Mr. Tenda, before I shared the file, along with both of Raymond’s from before, on the Discord server PK Hack to make sense of before I could attempt yet another bug personally that I’ve only discovered recently. One moderator, SupremeKirb, said that people there would be willing to create such things for free, after I had mentioned who I hired to create the existing ones. Another member, pheonixbound, showed me some kind of revision code to restore the Brain Stone’s unimplemented purpose, and instead of just asking him then for subsequent changes to the game for free, I decided to start making sense of his work.
Along with what SK had shown me from before in a decompilation called ebsrc (written in D for a PC remake), and something else on GitHub that someone else shared with me, that is what led me to check out an online tutorial of 65C816, the Super NES’ assembly language, to read during breaks at my job as well as on a weekend visit my mother and I took to see Ella, my grandmother. (This also inspired an interest in MIPS, given the Sony Playstation as my target platform for Lucky Star: Day of the Beehive (usually called Starbound for short here, after the attempted fanfic), and I will likely take sessions with an electric foot massager that my sister, Marie, had sent me recently, to read about ARM and Thumb before tackling Mother 3 (my phone proved inconducive for the tutorial I found for those).)
Still on the agenda:
Before I start hosting any playthroughs on YouTube, while I do consider Getter Love!! fine as that game is, I would still like my hacks of Earthbound Zero, Mother 3, and Super Mario RPG completed (likely now by myself with any advice I can gather), even once Earthbound’s is all done to go first, before that whole series begins. However, even if all five overall were to have been ready for a while now, I had already long promised a video specifically covering the actual changes at least for Earthbound.
That is where my current playthrough comes in, before I look into implementing the remaining changes for the main hack and then playing that version through. In-between, though, I am also planning to record a vanilla playthrough of M3, mainly to switch gears but also for footage of two things late in that game to include in the Earthbound video. (Would also like to demonstrate what parts of that game I want changed, to pheonixbound and anyone else on Discord willing to help me with those, and it might also help to be able to discuss those on the sidelines through my phone when I’m not home to play the completed Earthbound hack.)
Here’s what I need to do overall, in no particular order:
- The Getter Love!! update video [Online as of 9/14/25]
- Proofreading what started out as a list of tasks through which to determine what places I’ll need for each area in Starbound (it went on to cover the game’s story and structure in general).
- Proofreading a story outline I once hired someone on Upwork for, and determining which events need to go, that are too easy for people to default to (I am not looking for all the first places or concepts someone thinks of when thinking of other parts of the world).
- Organizing a script from there for a video through which to reach out to people actually living in the relevant parts of the world. (The description there is where I will link to stuff, and I will also embed the video on a subreddit specifically about the 2000s, in order to reach out specifically to people who actually remember that era.)
- This will also require commissioning people on sites like Upwork for some concept footage to showcase.
- Exploring images from Windows Spotlight, to decide on places for the party to visit, that are still relatively obscure but less mundane than the regular small towns of Onett, Twoson, and Threed in Earthbound, or Washimiya/Kuki and Satte, Saitama Prefecture, in Lucky Star. (Naturally, those taken in parts of the world already planned for the game will take priority.)
- A separate file for some individual ideas of mine, which will remain private until enough people contribute their own ideas first.
- Creating a video about the Earthbound brunette hack, which will detail why brown is such a significant hair color to me, to link to once I ensure a bug-free hack to upload to ROMhacking.net and ROMhack.ing. [Online as of 1/4/26]
- The comparison video, which will likely include a segment contextualizing why I seek ROMhacks in the first place.
- Finishing up my current playthrough of Earthbound. [Completed on 11/20/25]
- Testing Vadim’s most recent changes to Earthbound Zero, before I discuss any of the remaining few there.
- Vanilla playthroughs to record of EB0, Mother 3, and Super Mario RPG.
- Implementing the remaining changes to Earthbound, M3, and SMRPG, and then playing through the completed hacks to record.
- Will also need to make sense of Jonathan’s Guts-related files, so as to ensure that such a thing not directly observable through gameplay actually would work properly.
- Completing each of my planned walkthroughs as I move through each of those four games (Getter Love!!’s has been finished since '23, given the compact nature of that game and my plans then to showcase my gaming style for that game first), transferring everything currently on Google Docs to GameFAQs’ HTML editor, and formatting everything once in place there.