The Mother series was very successful in Japan, but enjoyed a more niche status overseas. As the first game had not been released stateside, EarthBound (and Shigesato Itoi) were unfamiliar to Western consumers, at least at first. Over the years EarthBound garnered a small but devoted and vocal following, as more and more players were introduced to the game’s quirky world. Thanks to the same fan fervor that resurrected Family Guy and helped greenlight Joss Whedon’s Serenity, the cult classic was eventually given new life on Nintendo’s Virtual Console and with its inclusion in the Super NES Classic.
EarthBound 64
Nintendo 64 (canceled)
Development of the third Mother game began immediately after the completion of Mother 2. Mother 2 had sold well enough to greenlight the next game, with Mr. Itoi helming the project creatively and Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto and HAL Laboratory’s Satoru Iwata in the producer’s chairs. Mother 3 was expected to wrap development in 1996. Taking inspiration from Super Mario 64, Mr. Itoi intended to make an end result that was as much Hollywood film as it was video game.
The project bounced from the Super Famicom to the Nintendo 64 Disk Drive add-on, and finally as a standard Nintendo 64 cartridge-based game. It was announced as EarthBound 64 in the West, and a playable version was on display at the 1999 Space World trade show. In 2000, Nintendo canceled EarthBound 64, which they estimated being 60% complete at the time, in order to move staff and resources to Project Dolphin (the codename for the Nintendo GameCube console).
Mother 3
2006, Game Boy Advance
Twelve years after development started on Mother 3, the game was finally released as a Game Boy Advance title featuring pixel art graphics similar to Mother 2. The story had not changed from the game’s earlier 64-bit iteration, and featured a new protagonist, Lucas, along with all new characters and a few familiar faces, such as Mr. Saturn, and Ness’s next door neighbor, who now serves as the primary antagonist.
Along with Game Boy Advance ports of Mother 1 and 2, the game sold very well in Japan, yet was not released in other regions. The complete story of Mother 3’s road to release is a long and winding one. But that’s a tale for another time. Boing!
EarthBound Beginnings
2015, Wii U
A quarter of a century after its debut on the Famicom, the original Mother was released outside of Japan as EarthBound Beginnings, available via the Wii U’s Virtual Console. The English localization of the game had been complete all this time, but was never released.