On the evening of June 26th, 2021, we lost one of the greatest talents in the video-game preservation and emulation community, Near, formerly known as Byuu.

Most may know Near for their incredible work developing what’s unquestionably the most accurate SNES emulator, Higan (Formerly BSNES). They spent several years from 2004 onward developing the software, aiming to render the original coding of the system and games as accurately as possible. Near also clean dumped the entire North American and Japan libraries for the SNES and SFC respectively – so if you’ve ever played a ROM for these systems, it’s likely you might’ve been using a copy they dumped themselves.

Near left behind a legacy very few others have achieved to the same degree in this community, but what’s most overlooked is their contribution to the MOTHER 3 Fan Translation.

Without their help, the wait for MOTHER 3 in English might’ve been much longer.

Before Near became involved in the Fan Translation, Jeffman and his team spent much time fiddling around with Goldroad in order to assemble the MOTHER 3 ROM. “It was extremely cumbersome to us and we could not possibly have been productive with it”, Jeffman reflects in retrospect. While progress was stagnant on this and they needed alternatives, Near came into the picture and added GBA support to xkas, a very fast and reliable cross-assembler they developed originally for the SNES. 

This saved the translation team months of work. Near’s contributions wouldn’t end here.

As Jeffman informed us in our previous interview with him, the toughest challenge in developing the fan translation was the game’s text. Not only did they have to create several variable-width fonts for the different menus in the game, but they faced challenges fitting the script in the game! As MOTHER 3 is originally encoded, there was no way the team could fit the English script in without further modification. Thus, Near came up with a novel technique for encoding the dialogue boxes so that the script could actually fit. This once again saved the team tons of work, preventing them from having to make compromises to the original script! 

Many who worked with Near were always so impressed with how they’d think outside the box in situations like these. All of the experimental and intuitive ideas presented by Near pushed beyond the limits of what we thought was previously possible.They were always one to try new things, like using the UPS format for MOTHER 3’s English patch!

Previously, most games used IPS, which has a 16MB limitation. Since MOTHER 3 is double the size at 32MB, it wouldn’t have been possible to use IPS. Thus, Near created the UPS file format in order to make the English patch even possible. 

Later down the road, Near would also create the BPS file format as well, which is used today to resolve a lot of the issues and limitations of both IPS and UPS before it. It’s through these patchers we are allowed to experience our favourite games in new ways, including playing games like MOTHER 3 or Bahamut Lagoon (which Near headed the translation for)  in English. 

“(Near was) a pretty stubborn person about emulation and ROM hacking to say the least,” LuigiBlood said, “but nearly everything they worked on paid off. Besides, you’ll need someone like that to even handle, against all odds, one of the first public emulators with a goal of accuracy.”

Filmmaker and editor Garrett Gilchrist, fellow retro game enthusiast who worked on the Super Mario Bros. Movie Extended Cut also reflected on Near’s achievements, saying “I spoke to Near about emulation at one point, and had nothing but respect for the outside-the-box genius they brought to everything they did.”

Although Near may no longer be with us, their achievements and legacy lives through everything they’ve left behind. Not just from their own emulators, tools and projects, but even in countless fan projects and hacks. Their contributions to the community completely changed how we approach these hacks and translations, making the impossible now possible. 

So next time you play the MOTHER 3 Fan Translation, remember just how groundbreaking everyone’s efforts were at the time, how it changed things, and the people who made that possible. 

It will never be forgotten, and neither will Near. They will be missed dearly, for the preservation and emulation scene will never be the same without their brilliant mind. May we all continue their legacy, grasping and solving each challenge with the same passion they once did! 

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