EarthBound & Mother 3

[Ryudo Lee]

EarthBound was at best a cult classic.  But there's been a fairly sizeable following since EarthBound originally came to the SNES.  I think I still have the Nintendo Power magazine that announced the game's launch, somewhere.  Even with the cancellation of EarthBound 64, fans are still clamoring for more, and many were downright upset that Mother 3 was never to be released in the US.

Well, I don't know if anyone's been following it, but there's a fan translation of Mother 3 being done that's actually making some serious progress.  All that's left so far is some miscellaneous, non-essential hacking, and the remaining drafts of the script translation.  They've got a translator who's been working his tail off on this one, and is apparantly doing a good job of it too.  They're predicting within the next four to six months, the translation will be complete and they can start beta testing.  Needless to say, there's a lot of people who are very interested in this project.

EarthBound has always been a shaky topic at Nintendo.  They never released the original Mother (dubbed EarthBound Zero when it was translated some years ago) to the NES, and Nintendo has already officially stated that they have no plans to bring Mother 3 to the US, or anywhere outside of Japan for that matter.  But these guys on Starmen.net, who are involved in the translation project, were invited to Nintendo of America last year and were told some hopeful things.  Most importantly that NoA is looking forward to the completion of the fan translation project, and that there might be a slight chance of an official translation of Mother 3 should EarthBound do well on the Wii's Virtual Console.  Whether or not that holds any water today remains to be seen, though is most likely doubtful.

Now, I already have EarthBound for my SNES, although my poor SNES is starting to show it's age.  And I've been hearing about EarthBound being released to the VC soon.  If it gets there, I intend to get it, at the very least.

What do you all think of all this?

[Eibborn]

I will buy both Earthbound and Mother 3 a thousand times over if they are released in North America. I would buy a Wii (which I still don't have, shame on me!) for those games. Can't speak for the other, because I've not actually seen anything from it.

For anyone interested in Earthbound, Zarla made screencaps of it here. For those of us not lucky enough to own the actual game. Also, tigerboat is working on some for Mother 3. Just in case anyone is curious about what they're like.

[Toric]

Something to remember: The Breath of Fire series wasn't released in America until shortly after Marth and Roy appeared in Super Smash Bros: Melee. Lucas has appeared in Brawl, and IIRC is the only non-U.S.-released character in the game. It could be coincidence, but the forecast is hopeful. Anyway, definitely picking up Earthbound on the Virtual Console.