This aired a few months back, and I totally forgot about it until now. There was a MOTHER reference in a Shin-chan episode a while back, which was really cool. Coincidentally, I also used to be the translator for Shin-chan, though I don’t think I did the raw translation for this particular ep. Or maybe I did, it’s been such a long time. Anyway, one of the punch-up writers showed up to post about the reference on the Starmen.Net boards here, which was pretty cool.
I haven’t watched SC in so long, I wonder what episodes they’ve been doing. I think my favorite was when the bunny gets revenge.
Saw this on the forums, buried in an art topic. I can’t believe how well-done these mockups are. The attention to insane detail rivals my own, which is why at first I was stunned for half a second while I tried to figure out how they stole all our hack code to even get the fonts and positions just right Seriously, even the part where a manual line break had to be put before Ninten’s name in the cactus screen would’ve been necessary if this was really real. Incredible.
Anyway, these are just mock pictures, showing how EarthBound Zero might look like if recreated using MOTHER 3-style stuff.
Simply amazing
Sadly, the MOTHER 3 ROM is way way unsuited for major hacks of this level. EarthBound is actually nice and flexible (albeit programmed strangely), but MOTHER 3, without a doubt, would be much much harder to hack to make new things. I really hope maybe someday Itoi or someone will see these and be like “whoaaaa” and then actually make this happen. Damn that would be awesome.
I think the closest this could ever come to reality (besides Nintendo actually making it) would be something like an RPG Maker version, and there’s already a good EB0 RPG Maker remake in the works. Though a version that looked like these pics would be a 100% incredible awesome thing to have.
I saw this on Itoi’s site just now and had a laugh. The captions for his regular photos are usually pretty funny or interesting, but this one just fit stuff well, so, yeah.
The text says something like:
Dog appeared!
Dog stared blankly!
0 damage to Dad!
5 Ricefish appeared!
The Ricefish swam!
0 damage to Dad!
Dad somehow felt empty!
Dad took a photograph!
The topic’s come up a few times recently, so I figure I’ll translate this one snippet of an Itoi interview, which can be seen here. Note that this is also the same interview where he talks about the inspiration for Giygas.
In any case, here’s the tiny excerpt. I’ll translate the entireeeeeee thing someday. A few parts are already available on my blog, though.
Itoi: Well, for example, there’s a gay person in MOTHER 2. A really passionate friend who lives in an England-like place. I designed him to be a gay child. In a normal, real-life society, there are gay children, and I have many gay friends as well. So I thought it would be nice to add one in the game, too.
Also, the Mr. Saturns are symbols of innocence. In any normal society, there are those who don’t really fit in well with ordinary people, but actually have skills that surpass those of ordinary people. I personally love that sort of “power of innocence” in things. It’s a part of “Passionate Penguin Rice”, even. (note: that’s a book Itoi wrote around 1990) Oh, and things like Forrest Gump have it, too. I wanted people to love innocent characters like that too, which is why I added them into the game. They weren’t called Mr. Saturn at first, but they gained that name during development.
So there you go. Someday I’ll have the whole huge thing translated, but at least for now there’ll be this page to refer to whenever these questions come up!
Saw this on YouTube just now and really liked it. So now I’m spreading it across the land! The video is called “I Tore Up the Letter from You”. Here’s what’s in the video.
Okay, finally got time to sit down and read some parts of this book. For those just joining us, in the 2002 novel The Three Natagiri Women (what is natagiri? anyone know? I see some possible definitions, but they don’t make sense), the very first chapter is about three women who randomly play MOTHER 2 one day and get addicted.
Anyway, I’d like to translate this chapter someday, but won’t be able to for a while, obviously. The chapter is called “Mr. Baseball Cap” and is about 50 pages long. In it, we’re introduced to three women, all around 40 years old or so. They like to chit-chat and hang out at one of the women’s houses. One day, one of them brings over a Super Famicom they got from a used game shop. None of them have really ever played video games before, so this video game stuff is like all new to them. The lady who bought the Super Famicom also just happened to see MOTHER 2 in the store and bought it too. She was originally going to buy a boring Mahjong game (there are zillions of these in Japan btw).
A quick update to this. The book arrived today, and I took a quick look at it. And I do mean quick, because the very first chapter is titled “Mr. Baseball Cap” Did a very quick skim of it, it looks like it’s going to be about three women in their 20s, one of them happens to bring over a Super Famicom and then another one who’s never been interested in games will fall in love with MOTHER 2 and get obsessed with it. At least that’s how it seems at the moment.
I’d like to translate it sometime, but no way I’m gonna have the time for that until at least the end of the year. I’ll give a good summary of it though, so keep your eyes peeled for future updates here
I saw this in one of Itoi’s recent entries and thought it was interesting. By itself, it’s nothing special, but if you apply it to the gaming industry, and especially Nintendo’s somewhat recent stance of only focusing on the really big titles and over-relying on its main brands, it becomes even more interesting. If only someone like him were pulling the strings at Nintendo, I’m sure we’d have more EB/Mother love here
…The same holds true in the workplace. “Profit” is important, but if you truly make that your #1 priority, you’ll wind up sacrificing all sorts of other important things. That’s why, “We’re here to profit off of you!” isn’t mentioned in corporate mottos or anything like that.
Even so, in the real world, when you include shareholders and other such people, the idea that “profit” *must* be the #1 priority above all else is very strong. But that could be asking for nothing but trouble. Making it the #1 priority above all else is a bad idea, I’m almost certain of it. Your stock might go up temporarily, but I think you’ll wind up losing many other things in the process. Really. This is likely the case for anything, actually.
He sounds like the anti-Nintendo every time I read it, heh.
Seriously, even the part where a manual line break had to be put before Ninten’s name in the cactus screen would’ve been necessary if this was really real. Incredible.
The topic’s come up a few times recently, so I figure I’ll translate this one snippet of an Itoi interview, which can be seen 
Okay, finally got time to sit down and read some parts of this book. For those just joining us, in the 2002 novel The Three Natagiri Women (what is natagiri? anyone know? I see some possible definitions, but they don’t make sense), the very first chapter is about three women who randomly play MOTHER 2 one day and get addicted.
