Mother

Mother
Developer	Ape, Inc. & Nintendo TRD
Publisher	Nintendo
System	NES, Wii U Virtual Console
Release Date	NES JP July 27, 1989 Wii U Virtual Console June 14, 2015
Rating	CERO: A

Mother is a quirky RPG that was originally released for the NES in 1989. Its original release was restricted to Japan for twenty-six years until it was officially released internationally through the Wii U's Virtual Console with the name EarthBound Beginnings. This game was known for being different from other RPGs at the time for using a contemporary setting instead of the standard medieval setting and featuring psychic abilities in place of magic.

History

Shigesato Itoi, a Japanese copywriter who was known as a television personality, was the creator of the game. The inspiration for the title and some of the game's themes come from the John Lennon song "Mother". Itoi's own father was absent for most of his life, which inspired the idea of Ninte's father (and later Ness's) only being present over the phone. Shigeru Miyamoto rejected the initial proposal for the game due to the failure of other celebrity-produced Famicom games, but he later called him back, which caused development to truly begin.

After the game was released, Nintendo of America initially planned to release the game in English with the title of Earth Bound. A localized version of the game was completed with Itoi's involvement, which saw a number of changes made to names and designs throughout the game. Many of them were for the sake of censorship or for removing Japanese references that could confuse English speakers. While the localization was made ready for release, it took long enough that marketing pushed its release window into 1991. With the Super NES coming out and without being able to properly market the game, Nintendo ultimately canceled the English release. This incident played a role in Nintendo developing more of its games with an international audience in mind and pre-localizing some games before sending them overseas.

In 1998, a fan translation group called Demiforce acquired a beta cartridge of the localized game and made a rom of it to distribute over the internet. They made minor modifications to the rom, including making the title EarthBound Zero in order to differentiate it from the Super NES sequel. The localization was not officially distributed until 2015, when it was finally released via the Wii U Virtual Console as Earthbound Beginnings.

Story

When strange things start to happen in his home, a young boy (Ninten), investigates and sets off on a journey. Along the way he learns more about his psychic powers and his family's strange past, eventually being set on a quest to collect eight melodies and foil an invasion spearheaded by an alien being known as Giygas (or Giegue in the original translation). As he journeys, he is joined by loyal friends in the form of Lloyd, Ana and Teddy.

Gameplay

The game is quite different from other RPGs. Rather than the standard RPG system in which the player moves along an overworld map and reaches towns as separate locations, everything is connected in the world of Mother; the player can talk to people, search for items, and buy stuff in the same map where enemies are fought In battle, the game used a turn based system. The player has the option to fight, use goods, attack with PSI (the game's equivalent of magic), and to run. There was also an Auto option, which lets the computer control the characters.

Legacy

The Mother series is high praised for its soundtrack The characters from the sequels, as music from all three games, also appear in the Smash Bros. games.

Sequels

Mother was followed by EarthBound (Mother 2 in Japan) for the Super NES.

Ports and Remakes

• In Japan, Mother was ported to the Game Boy Advance as part of the compilation game Mother 1 + 2.
• In June 2015, it was released for the Wii U Virtual Console as EarthBound Beginnings. This was the first time an official English translation was made available.
• In February 2022, EarthBound Beginnings was added to the selection of NES games that could be played on the Nintendo Switch by subscribers of the Nintendo Switch Online service.