We are still patiently waiting for an English translation for Mother 3 and it seems we will have to continue waiting. In a recent documentary titled Earthbound, USA, series creator Shigesato Itoi explained why the Kyoto-based company has not translated the game into English. Mr. Itoi says that they presented Nintendo with an offer of an English translation, but as with all things, it wasn’t quite as simple. Mr. Itoi hopes that one day Nintendo will decide to take up the offer. Here’s what Shigesato Itoi said in the documentary, which is available now.
“I’ve talked about it with Nintendo before. Apparently they were presented with the offer to use the translation, but they said it wasn’t quite as simple as that. I think it’d be really interesting if they took up the offer. It’d be hard to make something like, say, an automobile with fans. But doing it with software, I believe there’d be a chance to make something that would be better than what the company could have made on their own.”
“Usually, when I’m done with something, I’m done with it for good. You can’t give up on projects you are in the middle of, but when you put an end to something, it’s best to just leave it alone. The older you get, the more stories there are for you.”
So… what’s the reason Mother 3 hasn’t been translated? Didn’t really find it in the text above. 🤔
A better headline might have been “he attempts to explain” I don’t think we will ever find out for sure.
Dated game that honestly wouldn’t make money, despite how much copium Mother fans are on at all times.
There’s a fan translation but Nintendo won’t use fan translations for legal reasons
That explains nothing. We already knew more than this from the wii U era.
Part of it the nonexistent modern audience that will go Broly if they play the game if it were translated and will call Nintendo every label under the sun cuz they were “offended”. Other part is they don’t wanna localize something that people will not buy so it’s not worth it. Honestly they should just to shut people up about it and this is coming from someone who wants them to localize it.
I’m positive the reason has something to do with the game’s soundtrack falling under copyright issues
I’m not so sure, since we got Earthbound which also samples from other songs/licensed music (a snippet of Star-Spangled Banner can be heard in a bar in Fourside, a battle theme used when fighting hippies and Frankie sounds very close to the song Johnny B. Goode, the Sky Runner theme sounds very similar to the instrumentals of Won’t Get Fooled Again by The Who, I could go on a bit more). If that were truly a problem, I don’t think Earthbound would’ve ever gotten on the NA Virtual Console catalog or NSO.
From what I gather, Earthbound was just in that grey area with it’s sampling and even then they were extremely hesitant since they initially wanted to put it on Wii Virtual Console but held off. But Mother 3 pushed things too hard and might’ve crossed that sampling “grey area” into plagiarism. I know not everyone has time for a 38 minute video but this explains it better than I can especially since it’s from the perspective of a lawyer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=if64VlLa5Oc
It would appear the reasoning for why Mother 3 has yet to be translated has been lost in translation.
This answer is oddly fitting for how weird the Mother series is.
“Why is it this way?”
“Ah, well, there’s reasons for things like this, but sometimes you just go off and do other things entirely.”
“Ahh, OK- wait, huh?”
Errr….what is the reason?
Where’s my Mother 3 Automobile, Nintendo?
Meanwhile, a very famous fan translation exists, complete with repro carts.
And for those concerned about the legality, well it’s Nintendo own fault. People can’t be expected to wait for as long as some people are STILL waiting.
In the time its taken since release, ive learned enough Japanese to just play the original. Cant say i care anymore.
We’re soon going to have high school seniors that weren’t even born when Mother 3 released. Smh.
I’ll give you the reason why: because fuck you, that’s why.
Wow, love that you barely reported anything about the context this was said in. The source linked is IGN but there’s no mention of the recent documentary that contains the interview and this could have just been copied/pasted.