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15 posts tagged mother
Earthbound will be on Wii U’s Virtual Console in the West this year
itshappening.gif, guys. itshappening.gif. Nintendo of America has not only acknowledged that a game called Earthbound exists — it has decided that humans in North America and Europe should be allowed to play this game on a modern console. We did it.
Also, I love this fanart from Sakusama.
BUY Mother 3/Earthbound, Hobonichi Techo 2013
Let’s watch some Earthbound
There are two new and awesome Earthbound/Mother 2 playthroughs you can watch this weekend:
- Shinya Arino plays through Mother 2 in this Game Center CX episode subtitled by Last Continue GCCX - you can download it or stream it
- Series creator Shigesato Itoi recently played through Mother 2 too — watch the 4+ hour broadcast here
Shout outs to Maple Leaf for the Mother 3 GIF.
BUY Retro Game Challenge, Retro Game Master DVD set
Satoru Iwata’s killer Mother 2/Earthbound jacket
Before we get into this amazing piece, here’s a real quick follow-up to yesterday’s Japanese Mother 2 interview — someone’s translating it! They’re translating the interview, that is, not localizing the Wii U Virtual Console release. Just want to make that clear.
Anyway, Nintendo’s CEO and president tweeted this photo last night of a special gift he (and the rest of the Mother 2 team) received after working on the RPG. As you can imagine, this is an extremely rare item, but one actually showed up in an online auction a few years ago!
I’m envisioning Iwata spending the evening cruising through Shinjuku streets, wearing this jacket and a pair of leather gloves to complete the Ryan Gosling/Drive image. Iwata’s giving you a night call to tell you how he feels.
BUY Mother 3/Earthbound, Hobonichi Techo 2013
Shigesato Itoi + Satoru Iwata
I know that a number of you have crushes on these middle-aged Japanese men, so I’m sure you’re squealing over this photo of them together, thumbs barely touching, two hearts becoming one.
Mother 2 releases on Japan’s Wii U Virtual Console this week, which means we get this great photo of Nintendo’s boss and Mother’s creator introducing a conversation between the two today (hoping for a translation soon).
Wii U’s Miiverse has also kicked off a special Mother 2 community that’s filled with Western fans begging for a Virtual Console release outside of Japan, and endearing comments from Itoi like these:
“Ahh Ahh Can you hear me? This is Shigesato Itoi. Please give me something. Please give me Test Test”
“I’m about to eat a banana that’s been sitting in 50 degree celsius water for 15 minutes straight. ….Yum! Mother 2 is nice, but so is this banana.”
On a related note, awesome Japanese design site PingMag is back — here’s a great interview they had with Itoi about advertising and t-shirts from seven years ago.
BUY Mother 3/Earthbound, Hobonichi Techo 2013
Need this: Planners from Itoi’s company
This is going to be the year, right? This is going to be the year when you finally get your shit together, when you get your life organized and make a mark on this world. This is your breakout year.
All you need are some GTD tools to make it happen, you tell yourself. And it just so happens that Hobonichi, the Japanese company headed by Mother/Earthbound series creator Shigesato Itoi produces a popular planner, and it’s now available in English.
The Hobonichi Planners are like a combination schedule book, diary, notebook, and scrapbook, and they are filled with eclectic quotes and “fun items of interest about Japan and countries around the world.” And come December 31, you can pop the book on your shelf, and pick up the next year’s planner, creating a multi-volume chronicle of your life.
The planners run for around $29, but the fancy leather covers cost $168 — that’s how they get ya. Shipping will set you back another $14 to $17, too. There are also fancy limited edition covers on the Japanese site, and some of them even let you slip in a custom design like the official Mother 3 jacket.
Lindsay Nelson, who helped translate the English edition, has put up some handy instructions for the ordering process.
BUY Mother 3, Earthbound
“The ‘Mother republication’ thing I mentioned briefly before is making progress.
It’s not Mother 4, though! This has to do with making Mother playable. I can’t give out any details just yet, but I do at least need to say that it isn’t 4.”
Cryptic tweets from Mother/Earthbound creator Shigesato Itoi about a new project he’s working on for the series. Earthbound Central, which translated and posted the tweets, warns fans not to get too hopeful, but I think it’s pretty clear that an enhanced port of Mother 3 is finally releasing in the West through the eShop.
There’s also an update for the fanmade Mother 3 GBA English patch on the way, though it may see a delay depending on whatever Itoi’s working on (Mother 3 on U.S. eShop).
“And we never got tired. And we never got old. We just ran through the streets forever. And everything was perfect.”
Nintendo comic maker Zac Gorman is selling 13”x19” prints of his moonstruck Earthbound comic, but he’s only making 50 signed and numbered copies ($30 each), so order one before this sells out in the next hour.
So, uh, did I mention my birthday is next week?
Buy: Earthbound
See also: More Zac Gorman comics
It likely won’t receive the attention that the Mother 3 fan translation enjoyed, but Tomato has put out an English patch for Mother 1+2, Nintendo’s Japan-only compilation released for the Game Boy Advance in 2003.
Though Mother 1 has an English NES prototype floating around, this version, this version features a retranslated script, bug fixes, and various tweaks, as well as some enhancements by Tomato. The Mother 2 script is still in Japanese (menus have been translated), but it’s not like you can’t already play it in English with Earthbound.
You’ll need a copy of Mother 1+2’s ROM (one you acquire through relatively legal methods, we hope) to install the patch before running it on a flashcart or emulator.
Import: Mother 1+2
Find: Nintendo DS/3DS release dates, discounts, & more
See also: More Mother/Earthbound posts
Negative Man figures by Camille Young. Presumably, this signed and numbered set for the downtrodden Mother 3 enemy will show up for sale on Fangamer.net.
Negative Man is one of the most pitiful characters you can come across in any game, even more so than Pokemon’s notoriously puny Magikarp. At least Magikarp can look forward to one day evolving into a fearsome Gyarados. With Negative Man, “it’s always the same…”
See also: Ness resin figure by Camille Young, Barrier Trio
“What is Mother?” by Bob. Goofy animation, I know!
On an unrelated note, check out what JC picked up at TGS. I’ve wanted one of these Level-5 preview carts for years! Inazuma Eleven 2! Ni no Kuni! Soooo jealous.
Ness resin figure by Camille Young.
If you haven’t seen Camille’s Mother/Earthbound sculptures before, you should get familiar — they’re fab.
On a related note (literally, hur hur hur), her husband Reid Young, of Starmen.net and Fangamer fame, once told me about an old Iron Chef episode that featured Mother creator Shigesato Itoi as a guest judge. I finally watched that “Battle Bell Pepper” episode this morning:
I know most people consider the dubbed voices cheesy, but I love them! JC tells me that some of Iron Chef’s voice actors lent their talents to Shenmue, which I find brilliant.
See also: The exhausted Barrier Trio
[Via Camille Young, Select Button]
“The gaming industry seems to be on-the-fence about how they want to handle fan translations, but the fact that no one has said, ‘Hey, there is a legitimate business opportunity here,’ kind of surprises me.
We’ve got 30,000 people signed up to get an email when the translation is released; Nintendo’s marketing department would pay untold sums of money to get their hands on an email list that huge and highly targeted.
The fans have huge potential, which has gone largely ignored by the industry, something we’re hoping to change. Starmen.net has proven, beyond a doubt, that there is a giant pool of amazing talent in well-managed fan communities.”
