Mother (series) facts for kids

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Quick facts for kids Mother

Genres	Role-playing
Developers	Ape, HAL Laboratory, Brownie Brown
Publishers	Nintendo
Creators	Shigesato Itoi
Composers	Keiichi Suzuki, Hirokazu Tanaka, Shogo Sakai
Platforms	Family Computer, Super NES, Game Boy Advance
First release	Mother July 27, 1989
Latest release	Mother 3 April 20, 2006

Mother (known as EarthBound outside Japan) is a video game series that consists of three role-playing video games: Mother (1989), known as EarthBound Beginnings outside Japan, for the Family Computer; Mother 2 (1994), known as EarthBound outside Japan, for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System; and Mother 3 (2006) for the Game Boy Advance.

Written by Shigesato Itoi, published by Nintendo, and featuring game mechanics modeled on the Dragon Quest series, Mother is known for its sense of humor, originality, and parody. The player uses weapons and psychic powers to fight hostile enemies, which include animated everyday objects, aliens and brainwashed people. Signature elements of the series include a lighthearted approach to plot, battle sequences with psychedelic backgrounds, and the "rolling HP meter": player health ticks down like an odometer rather than instantly being subtracted, allowing the player to take preventative action, such as healing or finishing the battle, before the damage is fully dealt. While the franchise is popular in Japan, in the Anglosphere it is best associated with the cult following behind EarthBound.

While visiting Nintendo for other business, Itoi approached Shigeru Miyamoto about making Mother. When approved for a sequel, Itoi increased his involvement in the design process over the five-year development of EarthBound. When the project began to flounder, producer and later Nintendo president Satoru Iwata rescued the game. EarthBound's English localizers were given great liberties when translating the Japanese game's cultural allusions. The American version sold poorly despite a multimillion-dollar marketing budget. Mother 3 was originally slated for release on the Nintendo 64 and its 64DD disk drive accessory, but was cancelled in 2000. Three years later, the project was reannounced for the Game Boy Advance alongside a rerelease of Mother and Mother 2 in the combined cartridge Mother 1 + 2. Mother 3 abandoned the 3D graphics progress for a 2D style, and became a bestseller upon its release. EarthBound was rereleased for the Wii U Virtual Console in 2013, and Mother received its English-language debut for the same platform in 2015, retitled EarthBound Beginnings. On February 9, 2022, Nintendo announced and later released Mother 1 and 2 to their Nintendo Switch Online service.

EarthBound is widely regarded as a video game classic, and is included in multiple top-ten lists. In absence of continued official support for the series, members of the EarthBound fan community organized online to advocate for further series releases through petitions and fan art. Their projects include a full fan translation of Mother 3, a full-length documentary, and a fangame sequel-turned-spiritual successor called Oddity. Ness, the protagonist of EarthBound, received exposure from his inclusion in all five entries of the Super Smash Bros. series. Other Mother series locations and characters have made appearances in the fighting games.

Plot
- Setting
Games
Legacy
Images for kids
See also

Plot

Setting

The series takes place by travelling in western directions for the most part, but it also goes to other places like deserts, a prehistoric world, and a dream world.

Games

Mother

Mother series cosplayers

Mother is the first title in the EarthBound series. It was made by Ape, Inc. and designed by Shigesato Itoi for the NES. It was going to be called EarthBound in the United States, and Nintendo of America completed the translation of the game, but they decided that role-playing video games weren't very worth releasing, and that it was too late in the NES' life to release.

EarthBound

EarthBound (known as Mother 2 in Japan) is the second title in the series. It's the most well-known because it was the only one released outside of Japan. It was made by Ape, Inc. for the Super NES. It stars a boy named Ness, a girl named Paula, a boy named Jeff, and a boy named Poo, who have to work together to defeat an evil alien called Giygas, who conquers the Earth 10 years in the future.

Mother 3

Mother 3 is the third and latest EarthBound game. It was made by Brownie Brown and released for the Game Boy Advance. It started on the Nintendo 64 as EarthBound 64, but got canceled since the N64 was almost done. It was announced in 2003 that it was going to move to the Game Boy Advance, and came out in 2006. It changed from 3D to 2D, but it kept the same characters and story. It never came outside of Japan because of EarthBound's low sales in the United States, though there have been a lot of rumors, including one in Electronic Gaming Monthly about a game called Mother Compilation for the Nintendo DS which would include all three games. Mother 3 is about the adventures of a boy named Lucas and his dog Boney, who joins up with a princess named Kumatora and a thief named Duster who have to fight the Pig Mask Army. Shigesato Itoi, the creator, has no plans to make a sequel.

Other releases

Nintendo made a collection of Mother and EarthBound for the Game Boy Advance called Mother 1 + 2. It never came out of Japan. There has not been another re-release of any of the games since, but EarthBound was rated by the ESRB for a Virtual Console release.

EarthBound has always been in the Super Smash Bros. series. In Super Smash Bros., Ness (from EarthBound) is a playable character, using special PSI moves and attacks from EarthBound. He appeared again in Super Smash Bros. Melee with some new moves, and was going to be replaced by Lucas because he was going to be the star of EarthBound 64, but since it was canceled, he kept Ness instead. Melee also added stages from EarthBound based on two of the towns from the second game, and collectible trophies of characters and items from it. Super Smash Bros. Brawl brought Ness back, but also added Lucas since Mother 3 came out. It also added a stage from Mother 3 and new trophies too.

Legacy

The series has a legacy as both "one of Japan's most beloved" and the video game cognoscenti's "sacred cow", and is known for its long-lasting, resilient fan community. At one point leading up to Mother 3's release, the series' "Love Theme" played as music on hold for the Japan Post. Similarly, the Eight Melodies theme used throughout the series has been incorporated into Japanese elementary school music classrooms. Donlan of 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die wrote that EarthBound is "name-checked by the video gaming cognoscenti more often than it's actually been played".

Critics consider EarthBound a "classic" or "must-play" among video games. The game was included in multiple top 50 games of all time lists, including that of Famitsu readers in 2006 and IGN readers in 2005 and 2006. IGN ranks the game 13th in its top 100 SNES games and 26th among all games for its in-game world, which was "distinct and unforgettable" for its take on Americanism, unconventional settings, and 1960s music. And Gamasutra named it one of its 20 "essential" Japanese role-playing games. The rerelease was Justin Haywald of GameSpot's game of the year, and Nintendo Life's Virtual Console game of the year. GameZone said it "would be a great disservice" to merely call EarthBound "a gem". In the United Kingdom, where EarthBound had been previously unreleased, GamesTM noted how it had been "anecdotally heralded as a retro classic". IGN's Scott Thompson said the game was "the true definition of a classic". Kotaku wrote that the game was content to make the player "feel lonely", and, overall, was special not for any individual aspect but for its method of using the video game medium to explore ideas impossible to explore in other media.

Multiple critics wrote that Mother 3 was one of the best role-playing games for the Game Boy Advance. GamePro's Jeremy Signor listed it among his "best unreleased Japanese role-playing games" for its script and attention to detail. Video game journalist Tim Rogers posited that Mother 3 was "the closest games have yet come to literature". There are no plans for an official Mother 4.

The series, and specifically EarthBound, is known for having a cult following that developed over time well after its release. Colin Campbell of Polygon wrote that "few gaming communities are as passionate and active" as EarthBound's, and 1UP.com's Bob Mackey wrote that no game was as poised to have a cult following. Starmen.net hosted a Mother 25th Anniversary Fanfest in 2014 with a livestream of the game and plans for a remixed soundtrack. Later that year, fans released a 25th Anniversary Edition ROM hack that updated the game's graphics, script, and gameplay balance. The Verge cited the two-year-long Mother 3 fan translation as proof of the fan base's dedication, and Jenni Lada of TechnologyTell called it "undoubtably one of the best known fan translations in existence", with active retranslations into other languages. Frank Caron of Ars Technica said that the fan translation's "massive undertaking ... stands as a massive success", and that "one cannot even begin to fathom" why Nintendo would not release their own English localization.

Images for kids

A Famicom cartridge for the first game in the Mother series.
A signed, boxed copy of Mother 1 + 2.