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• Talkin' RPGs With Itoi

  Shigesato Itoi, a true Renaissance Man of Japan's entertainment world, is mostly known to us gamers as the mastermind behind the Mother RPG series. And it's his iconoclastic, "outsider" view of the video game medium that makes his projects so unique and cult-friendly; someone deeply entrenched in the world of RPG development is far more likely to make a derivative Tales of game than anything approaching the level of Itoi's imagination. With how creatively successful the Mother games have been, it's surprising that developers haven't tried bringing in more outside artists to derail the tunnel-vision quite a few franchises and genres currently suffer from. Thanks to Itoi, I was deeply engrossed in Mother 3 over the fall and winter months of 2008, mainly because it took such a different approach than the other Mother games; rather than having a huge, worldwide scope (the usual method of most RPGs), the final entry in the Mother trilogy scaled things down to a much smaller and more detailed world that eventually changed (for the worse) over time. It was a fascinating approach that led me to care more about the game's world and inhabitants, all the way up until the heartbreaking ending. The reason I've been thinking about Itoi lately--aside from the fact that he's so dreamy--relates to a few translated interviews with the jack of all trades posted by the equally-dreamy Tomato over at Earthbound Central. The interviews may be framed by a larger discussion of Animal Crossing, but Itoi still has a few interesting things to say about RPG game design. Read More... Posted Apr 22 2009, 04:05 PM by Bob Mackey with | with no comments Filed under: earthbound, mother 3, mother 2, bob mackey, mother, shigesato itoi

• Excitement Time: A New EarthBound on the Way?

  We here at 61FPS looove Earthbound. And from personal experience I can tell you that being a mega-fan of the series is an extremely bi-polar experience; we have our good moments, such as the recent Mother 3 translation, but we also have our bad moments, like every time Nintendo completely ignores the possibility of us seeing any Mother games on the Wii's Virtual Console. Now, we Mother fans are seemingly beset with more bad than good news, but a recent report from Earthbound Central may contain some of the best news we've heard in a looong time. In an article in the latest Weekly Famitsu about developer Level 5's unfortunately-named digital download service, Roid, the magazine hints at a possible new Mother game--though it doesn't drop any names. Here's what the amazing man behind EBC has to say about all of this: The article doesn’t say anything about the screenshot in particular, except asking, “Could this be THAT RPG?!” and that really big-title names are scheduled to be released on it. It’s not clear if this screenshot is just concept art or what, though. If you know Japanese, you can do an interactive demo of how the Roid interface works here, but there are no game demos or anything of interest in relation to this image. People didn't seem to believe Tomato's initial post, so, in Earthbound Central tradition, he overanalyzed the single, blurry picture of this mystery game to show how much of it was similar to EarthBound. Read More... Posted Mar 26 2009, 11:00 AM by Bob Mackey with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: earthbound, mother 3, mother 2, bob mackey, famitsu, mother, roid, level 5

• The Earthbound Legal Conundrum In-Depth

  The recent news about Earthbound never coming to the Virtual Console because of legal reasons has struck up a chorus of “But--” and “How come--”. People are understandably upset that Ness's adventure is going to remain in eBay Hell forever, and they want solid answers about why this wretched thing is happening. There still aren't any solid answers, but the good man in charge of Mother 3's recent fan translation, Tomato, has put together an incredibly in-depth list of reasons why Nintendo is erring on the side of caution. Put in simplest terms, the Internet has made it easier than ever to conjure reasons for an IP lawsuit, and Nintendo already has numerous lawsuits hanging off it at any one time like parasitic fish on the belly of a whale. Even a company like Capcom likely doesn't see half the number of lawsuits Nintendo does, thus explaining why it shrugged off the release of Mega Man and Mega Man 2 on the Virtual Console, despite numerous musical “tributes” in both games. As Tomato put it: To avoid crap lawsuits, Nintendo has a team of legal people who have to go through everything Nintendo plans to release and look for anything that can cause potential lawsuits. Then these things are fixed if necessary. The point is: they’re trying to avoid lawsuits in the first place. It doesn’t matter if they could clearly successfully win lawsuits brought against them; they’d still lose money in the process. Having this team of legal people is cheaper than putting up with every lawsuit that every crazy money-hungry company hits them with. Remember Star Tropics, an 8-bit RPG by Nintendo? When we were kids, Mike pelted his enemies with a Yo-Yo. On the Virtual Console, his Yo-Yo became a “Star” because some Canadian company owns the rights to the Yo-Yo name. Likely said Canadians are too busy drinking and racing moose to care about an old Nintendo game, but Nintendo figures, why take the risk? Read More... Posted Feb 17 2009, 11:13 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: snes, rpg, mega man, earthbound, mother 2, fan stuff, nadia oxford, mother, legal issues

• My Top 10 of 2008 in No Particular Order: Mother 3

  It's the end of another year, and that can only mean one thing: it's list season. Inevitably, you're going to see top ten lists by the thousands; and, as an official member of the enthusiast press, I'm afraid I can't violate my directive. But, to make things a little more interesting, I've decided to assemble my 10 favorite games of this year in non-hierarchical form because--let's face facts--it's hard to pick a favorite. And unlike other top 10 lists, this one will be doled out to you in piecemeal for--oh wait, we've reach the end of the list! Thanks for playing. I know, I know; Mother 3 didn't come out in 2008--its Japanese release date was April of 2006.  But none of that matters when you're a love-starved Earthbound fan looking for his next fix--and besides, who's writing this list, you or me?  Sorry for getting a bit emotional there, but I can't help it; Mother 3 is a game worth getting emotional about.  Finally getting a sequel to something you've loved for over thirteen years is a pretty monumental event, especially when said sequel doesn't pee all over what made its predecessor good in the first place.  Mother 3 may be tad different than Earthbound, but in keeping with the tradition of the series, it's completely unlike any game out there--despite being built on a very old, Dragon Quest-y foundation.  And thanks to the heroic efforts of Tomato and his translation team, Mother 3 might just be my favorite game of the year.  I now regret never ranking my list entries. Read More... Posted Dec 23 2008, 12:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: earthbound, mother 3, mother 2, bob mackey, mother, top 10, top 10 of 2008

• The Mother GBA Translation: Tomato is a Crazy Mofo

  No, not that Mother translation.  I'm talking about the first Mother: released in Japan in 1989, translated by Nintendo of America, abandoned, discovered, and re-released by the ROM hacking community in 1998 as Earthbound Zero.  Mother was also ported to the Game Boy Advance along with its sequel (AKA Earthbound) in 2003; unfortunately, this game fell victim to Nintendo's policy of Earthbound fans not having nice things.  Fortunately we have dudes like Tomato, whose amazing hacking/translating skills will one day give us the privilege of playing the first Mother on the go.  Here's a video of his progress so far: Of course, this isn't quite as monumental as the Mother 3 translation--after all, an English script for this game already exists--but Tomato plans on making quite a few interesting changes this time around. Read More... Posted Dec 08 2008, 11:00 AM by Bob Mackey with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: fan project, mother 3, translation, mother 2, bob mackey, mother, rom hacks

• OST: Mother

  Everyone knows that Earthbound has some godly music, and we've all recently come to discover that Mother 3 is no slouch in this department, either. But what about the first Mother, AKA Earthbound Zero? Sadly, this is the one game in the trilogy that's almost always overlooked; it may be the least fun to play out of all three Mothers, but the soundtrack by Keiichi Suzuki and Hirokazu Tanaka helped lay the foundation for some of Earthbound's best tracks. American gamers had no idea back in 1995, but the sleepy, heartwarming music of Ness' house is a direct callback to one of the overworld themes of the first Mother; makes sense, given the connection with childhood homes and nostalgia. The greatest--and at the same time, strangest--thing about the first Mother is without a doubt its Japan-only (duh) soundtrack.  Instead of putting out the simple NES tunes on a CD, the producers went one step further by creating "complete" versions of Suzuki and Tanaka's songs with full instrumentation and lyrics.  I'm not going to lie; most of these lyrics are pure Velveeta straight out of the late 80s--but at least a native English speaker is singing them.  Embarrassing or not, these songs give us a peek into an alternate universe where Mother was a Disney musical instead of a Japanese 8-bit video game. And notably, two of the OST's songs are far more sweeping and epic than any Celine Dion Titanic single could ever be. Read More... Posted Nov 21 2008, 11:00 AM by Bob Mackey with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: ost, earthbound, mother 3, mother 2, bob mackey, mother

• "Have You Heard the News? He's Gay!"

  I'm still not done with Mother 3. You could say I'm savouring it (something Mackey can surely appreciate). I'm coming close to the end though, so I'm in an adequate position to talk about the game on message boards. This is an especially fun way to waste time because Mother's papa, Shigesato Itoi, never struck me as a convential game designer. He's a writer first, something that I think comes out clearly in his games. For instance, I was talking with a dapper gentleman in a tophat about some of Itoi's characters in Earthbound and Mother 3. Both games feature at least one gay character. This is nothing new in Japanese-developed games and anime, where gays and transvestites serve the same function as our own laughtracks. Everyone laugh at the flamboyant man fretting over his shoes and dress! It's funny 'cause men aren't supposed to do that! The difference with Itoi's characters is that the player is not really supposed to laugh at them. They're vital to the plot, but they just so happen to be gay. Read More... Posted Nov 13 2008, 07:19 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 7 comment(s) Filed under: earthbound, mother 3, mother 2, nadia oxford, homosexuality, shigesato itoi, gay characters, gay

• Earthbound in 3D

  With writer Shigesato Itoi calling it quits with the Mother franchise after Mother 3, it won't be long until we start seeing remakes--or maybe that's just wishful thinking. As charming as the original Earthbound (Mother 2) was, those 3D renders of in-games towns Onett and Fourside in Super Smash Bros. Melee were enough to make any EB fan squeal with glee. In my wildest of video game-related daydreams, I've often thought of an Earthbound remake, made completely in 3D, with the characters looking just like their little clay models did in the strategy guide. Some men dream, while others do; like YouTube user cswavely, who has painstakingly rendered a few of Earthbound's town in glorious 3D. Even with that whole new axis, they feel completely authentic to the original game's stubby sprites; but I'll let you judge for yourself: More videos after the cut. Read More... Posted Oct 28 2008, 04:00 PM by Bob Mackey with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: earthbound, mother 3, fan projects, mother 2, fan stuff, fandom, remakes, bob mackey, mother, shigesato itoi

• Earthbound and Back Again

  If you've never played Earthbound, known to the pure as Mother 2, I sincerely hope you'll give it a try someday, somehow. Most of America overlooked the title when it was released towards the end of the Super Nintendo's lifespan: the world was awash with Playstation-Saturn-N64 hype and nobody had any time for a (deceptively) primitive-looking Crayola adventure. Having only just recently experienced Earthbound myself, I know that the love and care put into the game's characters, atmosphere and story won't leave me for a long, long time. Seriously, I'll be rocking on the porch of Pine Box Acres and rasping for my grandson, Ness, to bring granny her cigarettes. I'll slowly draw one out and take a large drag after three shaky attempts with the lighter, producing nothing but sparks until I finally put flint to steel. And Ness will watch me patiently with his hands behind his back while I talk about the time his namesake took down three Krakens in the Sea of Eden. And then I'll die and Ness will steal my wallet and never look back. If you're insane like myself, you'll want to check out Earthbound and Back Again. It's a list of the Japanese enemy names used in Mother 2 compared side-by-side with their english translations from Earthbound. The list is compiled by Tomato, the gentleman in charge of the Mother 3 fan translation project. Write to your local Pope and elect him for Sainthood. Read More... Posted Jul 29 2008, 06:08 PM by Nadia Oxford with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: earthbound, mother 3, translation, mother 2, enemies, fan translation, ness, tomato