- 1,323
- Posts
- 16
- Years
- Seen Dec 9, 2023
As some of you may know, a lot of GBA games have brightened, washed out colors in order to make it easier to see on an unlit GBA. This is a patch for *Mother 1+2* for GBA that restores the colors back to what they were on NES (just the Mother 1 side of the ROM, I have not bothered with the Mother 2 side and don't have any plans to)
...except I've made several patches. Because there are no true NES colors because of the way it handles colors. To my knowledge, NES games don't have any palette data, they just have 'color assignments' choosing from the NES's 64 different color 'slots'. But the way these colors appear can be different from one TV to another, whether it's between NTSC and PAL, or RF/AV cables... so really there are no 'true' NES palettes. Which is why I made two patches, one patch using a supposedly 'accurate' NES palette I found on a NES dev forum, and another patch using the palette that Nintendo uses for NES Virtual Console games on Wii & Wii U (credit to SuperrSonic and Daxtsu from GBAtemp for ripping the VC palette).
When they ported Mother 1 to the GBA, they adapted the NES 64 color limit to it, and came up with their own unique color palette that was clearly optimized for the original model GBA and nothing else. Unfortunately that palette they used makes trees look neon-green on backlit displays.
Screenshots/Comparison:
Yes, Magicant does look brighter in the original NES version using NTSC colors, but that's just how it is.
These patches can be used in conjunction to any of the translation patches out there. You can patch it to a clean ROM (which means you'll play it in Japanese), or you can patch it to an already-patched translated ROM, either way it doesn't matter, as the only data these patches touch is the 64 colors that the game uses as its palette data.
I recommend using the standard NTSC color patch. Only use the Virtual Console color patch if you're playing it on a really bright display, such as an HDTV, or a DS Lite on max brightness.
I believe this combined with Mato's translation patch to be the closest way to playing the definitive version of Mother 1 in English. One reason why some people prefer the NES version over the GBA version is because the GBA version has a bright color palette, but this patch will remedy that. Some day I hope that a NES hack of Mother 1 containing Mato's translated script fully (I know an abridged one exists, but it has simplified text to fit, and doesn't cover item or enemy names), but until then, this will do.
Link to patches: https://www.mediafire.com/?6k02mgzj501on8a
The .zip file contains:
1. "M1 Color Restoration - NTSC.ips" (RECOMMENDED)
-makes color palette look close to an NTSC signal
2. "M1 Color Restoration - VC Brightened"
-makes color palette look like the one that Nintendo uses on their Virtual Console releases for NES games on Wii and Wii U, but brightened enough so that white is actually white instead of gray.
3. "M1 Color Restoration - VC Official"
-makes color palette look like the one that Nintendo uses on their Virtual Console releases for NES games on Wii and Wii U.
4. "BootToM1.ips"
-the game will immediately boot to Mother 1, and will skip the 'choose game' menu entirely. It essentially turns "Mother 1+2" into just "Mother 1".
5. "SkipSplashScreen.ips"
-ONLY USE THIS ONE IF YOU HAVE ALREADY APPLIED MATO'S TRANSLATION PATCH. What this patch does is it removes the splash info screen from Mato's translation patch. I wanted to remove it because in order to make a standalone Mother 1 for GBA, and Mato's splash screen mentions his Mother 2 hacks which is redundant if you're also going to use the 'BootToM1' patch.
...except I've made several patches. Because there are no true NES colors because of the way it handles colors. To my knowledge, NES games don't have any palette data, they just have 'color assignments' choosing from the NES's 64 different color 'slots'. But the way these colors appear can be different from one TV to another, whether it's between NTSC and PAL, or RF/AV cables... so really there are no 'true' NES palettes. Which is why I made two patches, one patch using a supposedly 'accurate' NES palette I found on a NES dev forum, and another patch using the palette that Nintendo uses for NES Virtual Console games on Wii & Wii U (credit to SuperrSonic and Daxtsu from GBAtemp for ripping the VC palette).
When they ported Mother 1 to the GBA, they adapted the NES 64 color limit to it, and came up with their own unique color palette that was clearly optimized for the original model GBA and nothing else. Unfortunately that palette they used makes trees look neon-green on backlit displays.
Screenshots/Comparison:
Yes, Magicant does look brighter in the original NES version using NTSC colors, but that's just how it is.
These patches can be used in conjunction to any of the translation patches out there. You can patch it to a clean ROM (which means you'll play it in Japanese), or you can patch it to an already-patched translated ROM, either way it doesn't matter, as the only data these patches touch is the 64 colors that the game uses as its palette data.
I recommend using the standard NTSC color patch. Only use the Virtual Console color patch if you're playing it on a really bright display, such as an HDTV, or a DS Lite on max brightness.
I believe this combined with Mato's translation patch to be the closest way to playing the definitive version of Mother 1 in English. One reason why some people prefer the NES version over the GBA version is because the GBA version has a bright color palette, but this patch will remedy that. Some day I hope that a NES hack of Mother 1 containing Mato's translated script fully (I know an abridged one exists, but it has simplified text to fit, and doesn't cover item or enemy names), but until then, this will do.
Link to patches: https://www.mediafire.com/?6k02mgzj501on8a
The .zip file contains:
1. "M1 Color Restoration - NTSC.ips" (RECOMMENDED)
-makes color palette look close to an NTSC signal
2. "M1 Color Restoration - VC Brightened"
-makes color palette look like the one that Nintendo uses on their Virtual Console releases for NES games on Wii and Wii U, but brightened enough so that white is actually white instead of gray.
3. "M1 Color Restoration - VC Official"
-makes color palette look like the one that Nintendo uses on their Virtual Console releases for NES games on Wii and Wii U.
4. "BootToM1.ips"
-the game will immediately boot to Mother 1, and will skip the 'choose game' menu entirely. It essentially turns "Mother 1+2" into just "Mother 1".
5. "SkipSplashScreen.ips"
-ONLY USE THIS ONE IF YOU HAVE ALREADY APPLIED MATO'S TRANSLATION PATCH. What this patch does is it removes the splash info screen from Mato's translation patch. I wanted to remove it because in order to make a standalone Mother 1 for GBA, and Mato's splash screen mentions his Mother 2 hacks which is redundant if you're also going to use the 'BootToM1' patch.
Last edited:
