Saturday, February 11, 2012

Deleted Content: Mother 64

The "Mother" series debuted in Japan in 1989.  The first game never made it to the US.  It was going to, but by the time it debuted, the NES would be pretty much dead.  While we know there is at least one beta cart floating around on e-bay (or there was at least, and it was confirmed to be legitmate)  the game was never published.

But Mother 2 (known as EarthBound) was released in Japan in August 1994, and the US in July 1995.  The game did FANTASTIC in Japan and is still very much liked. In the US it was marketed everywhere as "This Game Stinks" (and ignoring basically everything that has made the game so popular, like Ness, the amazing translation/localization, the weapons, etc), came out near the end of the SNES and...well...  the only acknowledgement Mother fans get in the US is through Super Smash Brothers and music on iTunes.

Mother 3 was originally known as Mother/Earthbound 64.  It was to be released on the Nintendo 64DD, but when the system was canned Mother 3 was transferred over to the GBA. Much like Mother 1, it came out at the end of the GBA cycle and with EarthBound's lackluster sales, Nintendo decided against bringing Mother 3 to the US.

This trailer and a few magazine scans are all that exist of Mother 64 now.  While people have managed to link Mother 64/3 scenes together there is enough differences (especially with Lucas and Claus) to wonder what could have been.

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