Starmen.Net

Download the early demo here.

And download the MSU/PCM files here.
Please note that the files contained in that .rar must be in the same folder as your patched ROM once you extract them, and be sure that your patched ROM is named “MotherTensei,” no spaces and all.

Synopsis
Two years have passed since Giygas’ fall, and things have been relatively peaceful, for the most part. The chosen four have enjoyed living normal lives again, and the same could be said about almost everyone involved. Two young men, Cole and Ren, are contacted by an alleged government agent, and invited to meet with him in the Monotoli Building to discuss the details of a job. They’re almost nobodies, despite being higher ups in a street gang that operates primarily in Fourside. What makes them notable is their ability to wield magic, much like three of the chosen four were psychic. They’d be able to keep a low profile, making them perfect for the job.

Character Profiles
Cole
Age: 19
Occupation: Batter (officially), Street Gang Courier (unofficially)
Basic Info: Known for being a bit of a loudmouth, Cole’s definitely the type to speak his mind without any sort of filter. While this has garnered him some respect among his peers, it has also gotten him into a fair share of trouble as well.

Ren
Age: 20
Occupation: Mechanic (officially), Street Gang Associate (unofficially)
Basic Info: The Yin to Cole’s Yang; where Cole is a loudmouth, and quick to his own temper, Ren is more calm, and collected mentally. While not much smarter than his friend, Ren is more capable of analyzing a situation from a logical standpoint and better assess.

Reina
Age: 18
Occupation: Unknown
Basic Info: Not much is known about Reina, other than her being from another country. No one has quite been able to place her accent, the best guess being that it’s European. She comes off as the spiritual type, believing that the universe assigns fates to everyone from the day they’re born. Despite all this though, one can’t help but feel that there’s a shroud of mystery around her.

Shaw
Age: Unknown, aprox. early 20s
Occupation: Ranger
Basic Info: Uncharismatic yet social, Shaw often comes across as childish and impulsive. However, that only serves to hide a perceptive and adaptable mind earned from years of experience. He is honest and forward to a fault, but takes his job of helping society seriously. Although he doesn’t lie, isn’t there a feeling in the air that he is hiding a thing or two?

Demo Details

• 4MB ROM
• .ebp patch
• Demo ends after Matador boss.

Known Bugs and Issues

• Issues with balancing in combat (some enemies are teeth gritingly hard, while others are ridiculously easy). (fixed.)
• Leveling up is too easy. (fixed.)
• PSI/Magic names don’t display when used by enemies.
• Window for using Magic overlaps HP/PP boxes, which causes minor graphical glitches. (fixed.)
• The Healer repeats her introduction dialogue. (fixed.)
• Dying during the boss battle in Shaw’s chapter creates a GRAPHICAL MESS, but it’s not game breaking, as everything is fixed after you respawn. (fixed.)
• Ren’s diagonal sprites are glitchy (fixed.)
• Title screen graphics are buggy.

Current Features

• Custom enemies.
• Custom music.
• PSI is now Magic.
• Misc battle text has been edited.
• Run button.
• Shaw.
• MSU1 Integration. (big big thanks to ShadowOne333!)
• Multiple endings.
• Bosses get multiple actions in one turn phase. (big thanks to JakeTheShrimp!)
• More battle actions and PSI/Magic abilities than comes standard in EB. (big thanks to D-Man!)

Planned Features

• Increase difficulty. (done.)
• Balance combat overall.
• Two routes with their own endings. (almost done.)
• Extra Turn system; landing a critical or inflicting a status ailment (be it friend or foe) garners their side one extra turn during the next phase.
• Removal of the “Attract Mode.” (done.)
• Custom overworld sprites for custom enemies.
• And more.

The Big Requirement
Highly recommend you use Snes9x or bsnes as your emulator when playing this hack, since those are the only known emulators that have MSU support. Otherwise, the game will freeze when it tries to load up certain track IDs.

Trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJtjI6LsIs4

Minor update, because I couldn’t not share this.

One of the many instances of Shawnanigans you’ll come across once the full version of Mother Tensei is out:

Mr.Ninten:

Hello! I just wanted to say that I’m loving your hack so far; and I would also like to report on some bugs I found.

Thank you! I’m glad to hear that.

Mr.Ninten

The first bug I found was whenever the character “Ren” would walk “down-left” a green bar would appear above him.

I have noticed that, yes, but thank you for telling me anyway. As of now the problem is fixed, and shouldn’t be present when the full version of the hack is released.

Mr.Ninten

The second one was when I talked to a guard and he told me that what he was saying, was in fact, placeholder text; and that I should tell you, the ROM hack maker, ASAP.

You’ve activated my trap card.

That’s actually just joke I put in, meant to confuse people. A joke cracked at my own expense, yes, but a joke nonetheless.

Mr.Ninten

But other then that, the hack ran just fine. So yeah, I had fun playing this demo and I can’t wait to see the rest of it!

Thank you! I greatly appreciate the feedback.

Apologies for the radio silence. I haven’t been able to put in much physical work into this hack due to recent events in my personal life. I won’t go into detail, but it’s prevented me from getting much work done. However I’m still thinking on it, and constantly forming new ideas. Apologies for the delay, and thank you to those who have been patient and held interest in this project despite progress going cold.

Alright! So after this break, I can safely say I’ll be getting back to work on this ROM hack. Again, thanks for the patience. I should have another progress report soon.

Update time!

Here’s a video showcasing intergration of the MSU1 module, translated to CCScript. It’d be complex to go into detail about, so I’ll abridge it as such; with this, music hacking in this ROM has just excelled to the nth degree, allowing for use of long PCM samples being played via an MSU file in tangent with the script, as opposed to the traditional SPCs. Special thanks to ShadowOne333 for this script, and helping me figure out how to work it, as it’s already proving to be a big help. I intend to use this script to use higher quality music with larger depth and instrument coverage, along with some of my own original and remix music that I just wouldn’t be able to translate to EBMusEd 100% accurately.

It was shared with me by the person who made it, and as much as I’d love to hand it out like cookies at a bake sale, I’d rather leave it to him to do so, since it’s his code.

As the for the audio, that’s a a result of the volume overall. The song itself is too loud, so when sound effects are trying to climb on top of it, the audio peaks and crackles like that. It’s a simple fix of reexporting the audio with lowered volume and converting it again.

Glad the project has caught your interest though!

Edit: Ah, I took another listen and realized what you were actually talking about. That’s actually either the recording itself, or the emulator lagging here and there.

Bacon or Sausage?

(23 votes by 23 people)

1. Bacon
2. Sausage

Vote! View Results

Hullo! It’s time for your regularly scheduled update.

Gotten more done in the field of music, both on the MSU and SPC side of things.

I’ve also done some “heavy” map editing, and by that I mean I did a neat little palette edit to make it look like sunset in Onett, as seen below.

Furthermore, I’d like to poll everyone here. Which do you like more, bacon or sausage? (I swear this relates to the hack.)

Overdue update in bound!

Things are going along great. I’ve made it into the next segment of the hack, which I’m already having a lot of fun with, which means I should be getting more done within a shorter span of time. I’ve also submitted a trailer for Mother Tensei for the upcoming F3 (Fangame E3) being hosted by Kaze Emanuar, and once that event is over I’ll be posting said trailer here. Here’s more Shaw to hold you guys over.

Late night update! (Starmen.net @ Nite)

I decided to upload the trailer earlier than I had stated prior, you can view it here, and I’ll also be attaching it to the main post.

Along with that, I’d like to share some art that had been done of two of the characters; Cole and Shaw! The latter’s artwork has been done for sometime now, whereas Cole’s I commissioned only a week or two ago, and yes, they were done by two separate artists. Cole’s art was done by Naomi Skye, whom I’ll link to here, and Shaw’s was done by @helianthuspetal. Along with this the hack now has an “official” cover done for it, which you’ll be able to find in the main post as well.

Other than that, progress on the hack is coming along smoothly! A lot has been done gameplay-wise via ASM hacking (big thanks to D-Man), and whittling my through the story aspect. So stay tuned for more updates, as I’ll continue to provide them.

So, I’ve been thinking about this off and on. I realize at this point that the demo provided in the OP is very outdated at this point. I’m considering replacing it with a new one so that you guys are actually able to have a more accurate interactive idea of what to expect from this hack. I have a few things to tweak here and there, but once that’s done I’ll have the new demo ready.

Thanks again for your patience, to all those who have been eager to play this hack.

I really do have a bad habit of just going dark on everyone, don’t I? I’m real sorry about that. I’ve been distracted as of late, and especially now my current computer is on its last legs. So I’ve got all my project files backed up, and I’m gonna hold off on working on MT until I get a new one, which could be anywhere from a few weeks to over a month. Again, real sorry for having to delay this, and the continued wait. I appreciate everyone’s continued patience, and hope you’re still looking forward to the completion of this hack.

In the mean time, for those who don’t follow me on my YouTube channel, a few weeks ago I posted another track that will be featured in Mother Tensei. Some may even be pleasantly surprised as to what it is! So here you go.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jHhqF8nYcI

Salutations buds.

Apologies for the lack of communication, but I figure I should break the silence rather than leave everyone in the dark.

Almost a year ago now, I created the first post in the thread for this hack, under the assumption that it wouldn’t be too hard to make, and that I could accomplish it by the end of 2018. But as my imagination tends to do with any project I have involvement in, it ran pretty wild, and steadily Mother Tensei became something very different from what it is now. I’ve devoted countless hours into it, with a lot of help from our resident D-Man, who has helped in implementing a lot of the new features like four digit HP/PP windows. However, my day to day life has been incredibly busy, leaving me with little free time to do the things I enjoy doing. But that’s not to say that I’m giving up on this project. That’s not at all what I’m saying. Mother Tensei is still being worked on, and I have full intent of releasing it as I’ve promised, but that won’t happen until it’s close enough to what I’ve envisioned. Along with this, I’ve also been cooking a few other ideas I’ve had on the back burner.

One of these ideas, which in the meantime I’ll be releasing just minutes after this post goes live, is a small little hack I put together for everyone to enjoy while they wait for Mother Tensei. I call it “Shaw is Missing!” Yes, the title is parodying the infamous “Mario is Missing” game, and the concept is derived from that. But I did things differently, rather than making it some boring search for the titular Shaw, and only being that, there will be combat involved, and some actual plot that presents itself through the gameplay and the hack’s progression.

The thread for that is right here.

Thank you for the seemingly bottomless patience you’ve all had with me on this project. I don’t know if that’s because no one cares enough to be super bothered by this, and just has a mentality of “if it happens it happens, if it doesn’t it doesn’t,” or because you’re all as genuinely excited to see the completion of this process as I am. Either way, I plan to make good on my word in providing a good, decent-length, Shin Megami Tensei style hack of EarthBound for you all to enjoy.