While its intended 1991 release never saw fruition, the game's sequel, Mother 2, saw a 1995 American release as EarthBound on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Release on Wii U's Virtual Console Īs for the English-language version of the 1990 ROM, its eventual release is a more complicated story. Eventually, the English ROM was re-translated into Japanese and re-released on the GBA as part of the Japan-only compilation cart Mother 1+2. Nintendo would even go out of their way to sometimes pre-localize a game after its Japanese release before sending it to their international divisions. Among others, the game removed or changed violent, sexual, and copyright-infringing content and altered some areas of the game to make navigation easier.ĭespite its cancellation, the localization project was not in vain: according to Sandhop, the project motivated Nintendo of Japan to design games with an international audience in mind, to minimize localization efforts in the future. Once online, the English prototype was found to contain a plethora of changes from the Japanese version. Demeter circulated the cartridge's ROM on the internet twice, the second instance occurring after he had modified the game's data to remove an anti-piracy code. The cartridge was purchased by classic game collector Kenny Brooks, who then sold it to Steve Demeter, leader of the fan translation group "Demiforce", for $400. On January 15th, 1998, a man named Greg Mariotti published a sale offer on the forum site, offering a prototype cartridge of the English translation. By the time the project was cancelled, the localization work was completely finished and would've been ready for release that year, even featuring some publicity in gaming magazines such as Nintendo Power.įinding of Cartridge Additionally, the RPG genre lacked popularity in North America at the time, and the game would've been overshadowed anyways by the impending American release of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, the overseas variant of the Super Famicom. Due to the game's size and scope, the physical cartridge would require an unusually high amount of onboard memory and a save battery, which in combination with the planned inclusion of a strategy guide (as opposed to a traditional manual) would've made the game abnormally expensive. However, in 1991, the project was abandoned after being declared commercially nonviable by Nintendo of America. Under the direction of Phil Sandhop, the localization team went into extensive detail to modify the game to be both child-friendly and understandable to an American audience in the same vein that it would be a Japanese one. It also motivated Nintendo of America to localize the game for American audiences on the Famicom's overseas counterpart, the Nintendo Entertainment System. The game's popularity in Japan spawned two more sequels on the Super Famicom and Game Boy Advance. Among the latter, the game featured a modern setting instead of a medieval or futuristic one and featured areas seamlessly put together in full rather than utilizing a traditional overworld. Created by Japanese celebrity Shigesato Itoi, the game became a large hit due to a combination of Itoi's own fame and the game's unconventional aesthetic elements. On July 27th, 1989, the Japanese video game company Nintendo released an RPG titled Mother for their Family Computer System, a.k.a.
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