Download EarthBound: MSU-1 Hip Hop Journey ROM Hack

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           ~~Proudly making rom hacks about once every 20 years~~


EarthBound: MSU-1 Hip Hop Journey
Version 1.0 (08-14-2019)
by Ballz

This rom hack adds CD-quality audio and some other features to the 1995 game 
"EarthBound" for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. When used with my 
custom-made PCM music pack (downloaded separately) the original soundtrack is 
replaced with all-new music sourced from (mostly) rap and hip hop beats.


~~==INSTALLATION==~~
Apply this patch using your favorite IPS patching tool onto a clean
EarthBound US rom that does *NOT* have a header. 

Put this newly patched rom into the same folder where you extracted the PCM music files, which can be downloaded here:

https://mega.nz/#F!thAkyYxJ!huyyjwS5Djpyk25Ci-iWsA

Make sure the rom's file name matches the PCM files. It should be 
"eb_msu1.sfc"  Also make sure you have "eb_msu1.msu" which is included in the
download with the PCM files.

This game is compatible with the sd2snes flash drive and with the most recent
versions of Snes9x (1.55 and up), bsnes, and higan.


~~==NEW FEATURES==~~
- Full MSU-1 soundtrack implemented (thanks Conn for original MSU-1 IPS patch
  and ShadowOne333 for the CCS script conversion which I tweaked a bit)
- Press "Y" to run (thanks ShadowOne333)
- Music player hidden somewhere in the game. It's not that hard to find, so 
  you should stumble on it by accident sooner or later (big thanks to
  Phoenixbound for fixing a major game crash issue with it)
- Greek alphabet has been redrawn and some letters have accents, sourced from
  MaternalBound


~~==TYPO CORRECTIONS==~~
Too many spelling/typo changes to fully list, but some highlights:
- "unverse" to "universe"
- Paula now "prays from [the] bottom of her heart"
- "Mashroomized" now "Mushroomized" 
- "bologne" is now "bologna"
- "cappuccino" spelled correctly
- The "Club Stoic" graphic on the building in Summers now reads "Stoic Club,"
  matching the in-game dialogue.
- Using the protractor now gives a gender-neutral response (avoiding pronoun
  misuse if Paula uses it)
- A lot of names are now consistent throughout the game. Some examples:
    -- Brick Road (no more Brickroad)
    -- Master Barf (no more Master Puke)
    -- Lumine Hall (no more Lumine Hole)
    -- Lilliput Steps (no more Liliput Step)
- Not a typo per se, but Pokey is now Porky, his canonical name. At least
  I'm pretty sure it's canonical...


~~==SCRIPT CHANGES==~~
So I actually wanted to leave the original Marcus Lindblom translation alone
as much as possible. Because it's actually a pretty darned good for its time
and has held up well these past 25+ years. I also figured if you wanted a
more thorough relocalization, there are already projects out there for that
(MaternalBound, among others). 

Having said that, there are a handful of occasions where I tweaked or 
reworded something to make it clearer.  For example, the Tessie watcher who 
talks about UFO's originally made it sound like Tessie itself abducted a kid 
and then flew to Stonehenge. That's been fixed. Another example was with the
bellboy reading the newspaper in Scaraba. His line after reading the
newspaper has been reworked to make it clear the newspaper gets its info from 
rumors. 

Overall it's pretty minor stuff like that, which I would only expect the most
eagle-eyed player to ever notice.


~~==BUG FIXES==~~
- The song order for Milky Well/Rainy Circle melodies has been fixed. They
  were originally out of order.
- Two NPCs originally missing from Threed are now restored and in their 
  proper place (thanks ShadowOne333 and TragicManner). This bug was present 
  in both Japanese and English releases.
- The music in the Monotoli Building elevator ends abruptly shortly after the
  elevator comes to a complete stop. I now have it properly looping (MSU-1
  only).
- Two cops in Onett had their dialogue swapped from Mother 2. This really
  doesn't change anything in-game, but now they're in line with the original
  Japanese version.
- Lucky coin and Charm coin are now the same thing (I went with the "Lucky
  coin" for both). In Mother 2 they are the same item, just one was meant to
  be ridiculously overpriced in Summers. They have the exact same stats 
  otherwise.
- An old lady in Twoson gives some different dialogue options, depending on 
  who is in your party. It kind of got messed up in the original game, but 
  has been fixed here (thanks ShadowOne333)


~~==ITEM NAME CHANGES==~~
Some items have been renamed to avoid grammatical errors like "Ness found a
Insecticide spray." The full list of changed items is below, in case you're
using a guide or something and need to know what it was originally called.

ORIGINAL NAME              NEW NAME
Insecticide spray          Can of bug spray
Xterminator spray          Super bug spray
Insignificant item         Worthless item
HP-sucker                  Modest HP-sucker
IQ capsule                 Genius capsule
Charm coin                 Lucky coin


~~==FURTHER DISCUSSION==~~
Hopefully at whatever point in time in the future that you're reading this 
readme file, at least one of the following places will still exist and 
theoretically will have the latest version of this rom hack and music files 
linked somewhere on them:

PK Hack Forum:
https://secure.fangamer.com/forum/Community/PKHack

Zeldix.net Forum:
https://www.zeldix.net/t1931-earthbound-msu-1

Romhacking.net:
https://www.romhacking.net


~~==SPECIAL THANKS==~~
- My wife, Patton, for humoring me and giving encouragement all these months.
- Conn for the original EarthBound MSU-1 patch that jump-started my project 
  in fall of 2018.
- The PK Hack Slack crew, but Phoenixbound and ShadowOne333 especially for
  helping me with numerous little things (and a few big things) here and 
  there.
- Yatsuha for finding me the perfect Fat Jon song for the game's opening 
  scene, which probably is what officially turned this from "futzing around 
  to kill some boredom" into a full-blown rom hacking project.
- Tomato. His Legends of Localization EarthBound book was invaluable in
  finding text oddities.
- byuu for creating MSU-1 and Ikari for implementing it in sd2snes. This
  project literally would not exist without you guys.
- The makers of Coilsnake. You know what you did.