Mother (EarthBound) Games
From LoveToKnow VideoGames
Mother, or EarthBound outside of Japan, is a series of role playing games created by Shigesato Itoi. Rather than featuring fantasy themes with sword-weilding characters, Mother is set in a modern-day town where characters equip bats, frying pans and slingshots to fight stray dogs, cranky old ladies and other weirder foes. The quirky humor and deep RPG gameplay has made Mother a huge hit in Japan. And although the EarthBound series has a strong following outside of the country, the fanbase is relatively small in comparison to, say, Final Fantasy.
Mother - EarthBound Zero
The original Mother game was created as a response to stuffy role playing games like Dragon Quest. Here's what a typical dialogue in the translated version sounds like:
Thine enemy approacheth. What action shall thee take? >Aghast! I must flee! >Mine foes shall suffer.
It gets old. Although the game is a classic, Itoi felt something remarkably different could be offered in a role playing game. So, he created Mother.
The story centers around a young boy named Ninten. His world is disrupted by the greatest evil in the galaxy, and he must go on a journey of exploration - not just of his town and surrounding towns, but of himself. He meets other friends along the way, eats hotdogs to increase his health, gets an allowance from dad to buy yo-yos to use in battle, and so on. The game features many traditional elements presented in a new fashion.
The original Mother game was never released outside of Japan. A group of fans managed to get a ROM and translate it, which is how the English-speaking gamers managed to indulge themselves.
Mother 2 - EarthBound
The sequel to Mother was released outside of Japan as EarthBound. The game's plot and characters were very similar to the original game but featured numerous upgrades and tweaks thanks to the superior power of the Super NES.
This game was fortunate enough to enjoy a release outside of Japan. Packaged with a strategy guide, scratch and sniff stickers, and other neat bonuses, the game sold well upon its release. But the real hook was the deep, meaningful gameplay and storyline that captured gamers' attention even from the beginning. Here was an RPG that wasn't pretending to be Dragon Quest. This was something unique.
EarthBound 64
The ill-fated Nintendo 64DD (disk drive) was never released outside of Japan and offered only a few games in its home country. A sequel to EarthBound (Mother 2) was planned, screenshots were released and fans began to get excited. After the 64DD was canned, the future of EarthBound 64 was uncertain. The game just fizzled without an official cancellation notice. But the fans didn't forget.
Mother 1 + 2
This compilation cart was never released outside of Japan. It contains the first and second games in the Mother series in their original format for the Game Boy Advance.
Mother 3
Mother 3 is the child of EarthBound 64, taking the unused bits and re-working them to make a new, complete game. After just over 10 years in the making, the game was recently unveiled on Shigesato Itoi's website (in Japanese), where he reveals a new tidbit of information approximately each week in the form of gift boxes.
The boxes revealed so far:
- Gift 1: Slogan revealed - Strange, Funny, Heartrending
- Gift 2: Mother 3 theme song
- Gift 3: Screenshots!
- Gift 4: Mother 3 ringtone (Japan only)
- Gift 5: Three more screenshots!
- Gift 7: More screenshots.
- Gift 8: Map of the Mother 3 world.
Mother 3 will be released in Japan on April 20. No outside date has been announced. You can check out an English mirror of Shigesato Itoi's website, courtesy of Starmen.net.
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