Never ever got into Earthbound and have never really understood it's appeal. To me it's sort of like a popular sitcom (I'd name one, but there are so many of them) that everyone thinks is so clever and funny but that I just think completely fails for trying too hard. I know that Earthbound is supposed to be cute and clever as it pokes fun at itself and the genre as a whole.. but it just comes across to me as not funny or pleasing in any way.
Now that I think about it, Earthbound reminds me of that Matt Hazard game that was released not too long ago. The main thrust of the game was how it made fun of various game archetypes and tropes in the context of a standard 3rd person shooter, but the jokes were too obvious to be funny and the gameplay too run of the mill to be enjoyable so all you were left with was a shoddy version of what it was trying to imitate.
It's true that mechanically, Earthbound's core is a simple Dragon Quest rip-off. But aesthetically and narratively, it's a few steps beyond Matt Hazard. I found it - and it's predecessor, Mother - best played using an emulator, so the Fast-Forward function is available. But only to rush through the tiresome JRPG menu-combat when the quirky enemies stop being so humorous and/or challenging.
Despite having a vocal fanbase, the Mother series have yet to see an official translation, or a virtual rerelease. The reasons for this are partly pedestrian, hinging on difficulties in copyright - as it turns out, imagining an America of Coca-Cola and McDonalds is a really great way of running afoul with those actual trademarks, and the localization of such a property may have people skittish.
I'd argue that there's more to it than that. It seems that Nintendo of Japan just doesn't give a damn about the Mother franchise anymore. If they did, then why was Mother 3 released on the GameBoy Advance in 2006 instead of the Nintendo DS? And why aren't any of the Mother games on Virtual Console in Japan, where the legal issues are much less of a problem (or rather, no one cares about them). The fact that the franchise was never a big seller to begin with probably doesn't help either.
It's a bit of a shame, but I think we just have to accept that the whole franchise is in a limbo that it's never getting out of.
Funny that this article came out today because I've been watching chuggaconroy's Let's Play Earthbound on Youtube as well as playing that Mother 3 translation.
Have you played the Sailor Moon series of RPGs? They're a pre-cursor - halfway between Earthbound and Final Fantasy that uses makeup to replenish their magic power.
Officially, Earthbound and Breath of Fire are tied on my list of top JRPGs ever. Seriously though, the SNES has the best RPGs out of any console generation thus far IMO.
Despite having a vocal fanbase, the Mother series have yet to see an official translation, or a virtual rerelease. The reasons for this are partly pedestrian, hinging on difficulties in copyright - as it turns out, imagining an America of Coca-Cola and McDonalds is a really great way of running afoul with those actual trademarks, and the localization of such a property may have people skittish.
I'd argue that there's more to it than that. It seems that Nintendo of Japan just doesn't give a damn about the Mother franchise anymore. If they did, then why was Mother 3 released on the GameBoy Advance in 2006 instead of the Nintendo DS? And why aren't any of the Mother games on Virtual Console in Japan, where the legal issues are much less of a problem (or rather, no one cares about them). The fact that the franchise was never a big seller to begin with probably doesn't help either.
It's a bit of a shame, but I think we just have to accept that the whole franchise is in a limbo that it's never getting out of.
It's not because of copyright/trademark issues, which any decent localization team would be able to work around - it's certainly no more difficult that the changes that regularly had to be made to games to get around Nintendo of America's censorship policies in the 8- and 16-bit eras.
It's not because Earthbound flopped in the US; it sold 140,000 copies in the US, which is in the same league as other JRPGs of the era (in the US, Final Fantasy 2 sold 240,000, Chrono Trigger sold 280,000, and Final Fantasy 3 sold 870,000), even though it certainly wasn't in their league in Japan (Mother 2 sold about 300,000 copies in Japan, compared to 1.4 million for Final Fantasy 4, 2 million for Chrono Trigger, and 2.5 million for Final Fantasy 6). Earthbound sold more copies the the US release of Breath of Fire, a franchise for which every single game, including re-releases, has been released in the US.
And they didn't cancel the US release of Mother because Dragon Warrior flopped in the US - in fact, it seems the main reason the first Mother was never released in the US is that Nintendo decided it would be to expensive to market it properly following the release of the SNES (because if they were discouraged by the relatively poor performance of Dragon Warrior, they never would have started localization in the first place).
Never mind that part of the reason that Dragon Warrior sold so poorly (to the point have having to give away most of the 500,000 copies that were made in a stunning overestimation of the market) was that, while a great game in 1986, it was looking very dated in 1989 when it was finally released stateside. The relatively more modern-looking and graphically-enhanced-over-the-Japanese-original Dragon Warrior 2 had sold 150,000 copies, Final Fantasy sold roughly 100,000 in the US, and Dragon Warrior 3 would go on to sell 100,000 copies despite coming out after the SNES. All decent numbers for a genre represented on the American NES by exactly 7 games (Final Fantasy, Dragon Warriors 1-4, Destiny of an Emperor, and Ghost Lion - 10 if you want to include the ports of Ultimas 3-5, as JRPGs had not yet diverged heavily from their western forbears).
The simple fact of the matter is that Nintendo simply does not care about the Mother franchise outside of Japan.
Despite having a vocal fanbase, the Mother series have yet to see an official translation, or a virtual rerelease. The reasons for this are partly pedestrian, hinging on difficulties in copyright - as it turns out, imagining an America of Coca-Cola and McDonalds is a really great way of running afoul with those actual trademarks, and the localization of such a property may have people skittish.
I'd argue that there's more to it than that. It seems that Nintendo of Japan just doesn't give a damn about the Mother franchise anymore. If they did, then why was Mother 3 released on the GameBoy Advance in 2006 instead of the Nintendo DS? And why aren't any of the Mother games on Virtual Console in Japan, where the legal issues are much less of a problem (or rather, no one cares about them). The fact that the franchise was never a big seller to begin with probably doesn't help either.
It's a bit of a shame, but I think we just have to accept that the whole franchise is in a limbo that it's never getting out of.
It's not because of copyright/trademark issues, which any decent localization team would be able to work around - it's certainly no more difficult that the changes that regularly had to be made to games to get around Nintendo of America's censorship policies in the 8- and 16-bit eras.
It's not because Earthbound flopped in the US; it sold 140,000 copies in the US, which is in the same league as other JRPGs of the era (in the US, Final Fantasy 2 sold 240,000, Chrono Trigger sold 280,000, and Final Fantasy 3 sold 870,000), even though it certainly wasn't in their league in Japan (Mother 2 sold about 300,000 copies in Japan, compared to 1.4 million for Final Fantasy 4, 2 million for Chrono Trigger, and 2.5 million for Final Fantasy 6). Earthbound sold more copies the the US release of Breath of Fire, a franchise for which every single game, including re-releases, has been released in the US.
And they didn't cancel the US release of Mother because Dragon Warrior flopped in the US - in fact, it seems the main reason the first Mother was never released in the US is that Nintendo decided it would be to expensive to market it properly following the release of the SNES (because if they were discouraged by the relatively poor performance of Dragon Warrior, they never would have started localization in the first place).
Never mind that part of the reason that Dragon Warrior sold so poorly (to the point have having to give away most of the 500,000 copies that were made in a stunning overestimation of the market) was that, while a great game in 1986, it was looking very dated in 1989 when it was finally released stateside. The relatively more modern-looking and graphically-enhanced-over-the-Japanese-original Dragon Warrior 2 had sold 150,000 copies, Final Fantasy sold roughly 100,000 in the US, and Dragon Warrior 3 would go on to sell 100,000 copies despite coming out after the SNES. All decent numbers for a genre represented on the American NES by exactly 7 games (Final Fantasy, Dragon Warriors 1-4, Destiny of an Emperor, and Ghost Lion - 10 if you want to include the ports of Ultimas 3-5, as JRPGs had not yet diverged heavily from their western forbears).
The simple fact of the matter is that Nintendo simply does not care about the Mother franchise outside of Japan.
I've never played Earthbound, but I'm all too familiar with the games ultimate encounter - it's actually really refreshing to see a take on Earthbound that's not about Giygas. It's a pity that I'm fundamentally incompatible with the JRPG format (never finished one I didn't cheat through) as it seems a poignant moment in gaming history that I'm a little bit lesser for having missed out on. Thanks for your thoughts on it.
. I believe I tried to play through it twice, the first time I stopped because I got distracted by something else, and the second time I believe I got to the last boss, couldn't beat him for some reason, got angry, and quit.
I love the series, and one of the things I like, while it might seem kind of minor, is just how different the final boss fights are compared to most other RPG games. In each game, the final boss is more of an endurance round where you fight to survive while you rely on something other than the strength of your attacks in order to win.
In Mother 1, you have to sing the song you've learned while traveling, which has a special significance.
In Mother 3, you just have to trust that eventually the enemy will come to his senses.
In Earthbound, I won't give it away for you if you're going to try playing again, but as a hint let's just say you need faith more that PSI...
After I read this thread I feel ashamed of myself, as I have never played Earthbound.
And this JRPG talk, speacially about Mother, made me think about Terranigma.
The graphical style might look innocent and childish, but once you get a whiff of the musical stuff they did, fight a couple of fights with absolutely weird foes in front of wobbly psychedelic pixel art and get a grip on what ATMs do for you, you might already be hooked on the unique excellent experience that is Earthbound.
In a way, this one game impressed me more than a fistful of Final Fantasies.
It's no Secret of Mana. It's no Chrono Trigger. But for me, it's right up there with them, even though it's so brutally odd and completely different in its humour and style.
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