Let's Talk Video Games: EarthBound 64 (Nintendo 64/Disk Drive) · 6:08pm Aug 22nd, 2012
In this type of blog I will talk about unreleased or cancelled games and consoles, games I like, or whatever I want in the world of video games. This time is a game many looked forward to: EarthBound 64 for the N64.
Man Behind the Games
The man behind this series was Shigesato Itoi, along with HAL Laboratory and Ape Inc. (later to become Creatures and make the Pokemon series). In EarthBound the final boss, Giygas, stemmed from Itoi accidentally walking in on what he thought was a rape scene as a child. The movie "Kenpei to barabara shibijin" or "The Military Policeman and the Dismembered Beauty" had no rape scene.
Mother
Mother or EarthBound as it is known in the U.S. was first released for the Famicom on July 29, 1989 in Japan, the game was fully translated and ready for an export release, but the NES was near the end of its lifespan and the Super NES was ready as well, so it was not released. It was to be called Earth Bound. The second game entitled EarthBound, was released on August 27, 1994 in Japan (Mother 2) and North America on June 5, 1995 on the SNES. It did not go well in the US, maybe because of "this game stinks" and its high cost due to having: a complete strategy guide, a bigger box than most games due to the guide, and scratch and sniff stickers. The game did something most RPG's don't have, a battle begins when physical contact is made, no random encounters. The game at the time of release was not received well in the US, but now it is considered a SNES classic. As soon as this was released the team began work on Mother 3 for the Super Famicom, but then moved to the Nintendo 64DD or Disk Drive and was called Mother 3: Chimera no Mori (translated as Forrest of the Chimera) but this was dropped due to a dispute over using Chimera.
EarthBound 64
When the game was moved to the Disk Drive, it was given cool features: customize the player character using the Mario Artist and use of the internal clock. But the N64DD didn't do well in Japan (and therefore would not make it outside of Japan) and the game was moved to a cartridge. The Mother 3 team had help from the Pokemon Stadium team as well. It was shown at Spaceworld 1999 as a playable demo and also a trailer was shown.
People were amazed by the Minecart stage. But on April 18 it was noted that the game would not appear at E3 2000 in any form. After several delays the game was finally cancelled. But why well the team had trouble with the 3-D models. The game was mostly done and the ending was going to be "much much darker". The game looked great and from people who demoed the game it controlled just fine as well.
Itoi was so disheartened by the failure that he stated there would be no Mother 4.
Eventual Release
In Japan, at the end of a Mother 1+2 commercial was an ad for Mother 3, this one for the GameBoy Advanced. It lacked the 3-D graphics of its N64 version and a few of the features. It was finally released on April 20, 2006, but only in Japan. The game retained the EarthBound 64 story and most of the characters. It is unlikely to see official release outside of Japan. But it can be downloaded via a patch here is a link if you have a legit copy of Mother 3. Earth Bound/Mother is also available by patch as EarthBound Zero.
What I Think
The game looked fun and the graphics were good looking. It is bullshit that Mother 3 was not released abroad. I would have loved to see this game, unfortunately all we will ever see of this game is screenshots and the trailer, along with some music. It is sad really.
