Earthbound creator Shigesato Itoi has told a fan via Twitter that there’s no chance we will see Mother 4. Itoi told the fan on Twitter that it is “impossible”, which clearly means that it’s never going to happen. Thankfully a bunch of Earthbound fans are working on a fan-made Mother 4 project that has been in development for several years. You can check out their progress, right here.
“Mr. Itoi, please think about a way to make Mother 4.” Itoi’s response? “Muri” (無理) or “impossible”
Clyde Mandelin, a professional translator on games including Kingdom Hearts 2, One Piece: Unlimited Adventure and The Nightmare Before Christmas: The Pumpkin King, has offered to give Nintendo the translation of Earthbound sequel Mother 3 to Nintendo for free. Mandelin says he will do whatever it takes to secure an official release of the game here in the West.
“I realize that localizing a game this size can cost a lot, so if it’ll help in even the slightest, I’ll gladly offer to let Nintendo use my text translation files for any use at all, completely for free. I’ll even edit the files to fit whatever new standards are necessary (content, formatting, memory size, etc.), completely for free. I’ll even retranslate everything from scratch if need be. Just whatever it takes to get an official release out.”
“In the end, if localizing Mother 3 should ever come up in a Nintendo business meeting or whatever and someone brings up budget concerns or it costing too much, my hope is that someone will at least mention this offer too, even if it isn’t accepted.”
Thanks, Cameron
Shigesato Itoi, the director and producer of EarthBound, has thanked the Super NES game’s fans outside Japan for requesting it to be re-released. Via the Miiverse application on Wii U, Itoi said he’s looking forward to meeting new friends when the game launches on the Wii U Virtual Console. Known as Mother 2 in Japan, this year, EarthBound will see release on Wii U in Europe and North America.
Dear Earthbound/MOTHER2 fans outside of Japan :
Thank you for all the requests. They made me very happy. Now with the re-launch, I am looking forward to meet new friends.
Potential!!!
-Shigesato Itoi
Nintendo of America has confirmed that the highly respected Earthbound will be coming to the Wii U Virtual Console sometime this year.
Indie developer Ackkstudios has announced that they’re hard at work developing a 3D RPG inspired by Earthbound and The World Ends With You for the Wii U eShop. The codename for the game is Project Y2K. Not too much is known about the game, but the developer has created a teaser site for the forthcoming RPG. Here’s what the development team have been up to.
Before we begin to show more too much from this project, we feel it’s important that people know that Two Brothers is still our main project.We began Project Y2K before we started Two Brothers and put it on hold to finish Two Brothers, as it was a smaller project.
Everyone who has completed work on Two Brothers is now working on Project Y2K… so that’s about a third of the AckkStudios Team.
Now that Two Brothers is nearing completion, we felt it was time to return to Project Y2K.
Project Y2K currently exists in a few forms… concept art, a finalized script/story line, a completed graphics/gameplay engine.
As for the title Project Y2K, we can tell you that the reason we’ve chosen this project name is because the game will begin January 1st 1999 at 12:02 AM…
Thanks, Emily
The creator of Earthbound, Shigesato Itoi, has revealed that some sort of Earthbound return is on the way. Itoi tried to make it perfectly clear that it is not Earthbound 4 which many were hoping. Speculation suggests that the team might be trying to get the Earthbound series on the Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console. Here’s a number of Tweets that Itoi shared on Twitter.
“Since I’m allowed to drop it on you all now, I’ll just go ahead and say it. The “Mother re-release” I’d mentioned a bit before, we’re making progress on that.”
“It’s not 4! We’re trying to get Mother working again right now. I still can’t mention any details, but I have to make clear that this isn’t ‘4’!”
Kotaku editor Stephen Totilo asked Nintendo president Satoru Iwata if Mother 3 would ever come to North America. Iwata replied by saying that he recently spoke to Earthbound creator Shigesato Itoi about the popularity of the Mother series in the West. During his conversation with Totilo, Iwata did not rule out the possibility of a Western release for Mother 3 – so maybe the game will eventually come to Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console.
Stephen Totilo: I would be remiss in not telling you that some of my writers would like to play another Advance Wars and they would someday like to play Mother 3 in America… [Iwata writes something down] … Whenever I ask Reggie about Mother 3, he says, ‘ask Mr. Iwata.’
Satoru Iwata: “Just yesterday, before I left from Japan, I met with Mr. Itoi, who is the creator of the Earthbound series.”
Stephen Totilo: “Oh, I know. Are we ever going to get it?”
Iwata: “And, yeah, accidentally we were discussing that there are huge fans from Western countries for the Mother series.”
Stephen Totilo: “So, someday? Someday?”
Satoru Iwata: “[laughs] Thank you. Great to see you!”
Fans have been clamouring for EarthBound to appear on the Virtual Console but Nintendo seems determined not to acknowledge its existence. Hirokazu Tanaka who created the soundtrack for the game says that the reason why the game hasn’t arrived on the Virtual Console could be down to the game’s sampling.
“The sampling issue is a little sensitive, because… well, I don’t know for sure, but it sounds like that is one of the reasons EarthBound is not able to come out in America. It’s a topic we should probably avoid.”
Earthbound Central has apparently received word from a Nintendo of America employee that Earthbound hasn’t appeared on the Virtual Console for a number of reasons. Nintendo of America basically wanted to make some changes to the game, but Nintendo Japan is reluctant to implement those changes. Here’s what apparently needs to be changed before the game can appear on the Virtual Console:
One of the graphic designers at Bits & Bytes, Armand Kossayan has created a wonderful piece of artwork, known as The Earthbound Journal. This is essentially an artist’s rendition of a journal kept by the four heroes (Ness, Paula, Jeff and Poo, though told predominantly from the viewpoint of Paula) during their adventures in the game Earthbound (Mother 2). It features beautiful artwork, as well as images taken from the game to create a wonderful retelling of this cult classic. If you would like you can download it absolutely free here.
