Anniversary: Mother 3 For Game Boy Advance Is Now 15 Years Old

I feel like it probably won't happen. It's been so long since the game initially came out, and I feel like people would probably take offense to some of the game's content. Not to mention it's apparently not really made with english text in mind, with the fan translation team having trouble fitting everything into the text boxes.

I feel like the Fan translation is probably the only way people will really be able to play it.

C’mon Bowser, give us Mother 3!

It really is fantastic. I’m not sure it’s possible for people in the West to truly ‘support’ Nintendo through the fan translation but I have a patched repro cart which is as close as you can really get.

will Nintendo really do this. I doubt it

This game is one of my favorite rpgs ever. It’s a shame there hasn’t been an official way to play it in English, but there could be hope. I mean, we are finally getting famicom detective club.

Love that big beefy gamepad. If only the screen wasn’t so cheap, but it was

I think I just might have to jump on that fan translation huh. I mean come on Nintendo, Lucas is just a big tease on Smash Bros. Release the game, make it M rated if ya have to. But whatever.

I know there are people who are genuine fans of these games, but I really feel like this is much more just a meme at this point. There's no way the game lives up to all the hype after all this time. Don't get me wrong, it's probably a great GBA JRPG and a fun time, but I feel like it's been blown way out of proportion by this point because of memes.

And it's never coming to America.

@Heavyarms55 I wouldn’t be so sure. On Glitchwave it fluctuates between 1st, 2nd and 3rd, competing with Bloodborne and Silent Hill 2. It really is that well-regarded by people who’ve played it.

Game boy advance online and mother 3 would help fix online

even if they do release it, it will only be limited time

At this point, I think they should just make a remastered trilogy, like crash and Spyro

@Alpha008 If they did, I bet it would sell like hotcakes and should include a player’s guide with clay models too modeled after a travel log too. I still have my player’s guide and the scratch and sniff adverts in magazines tucked in the back next to the one the guide has.

Buy it on ebay. It's great.

@Heavyarms55 I bought an english fan translation copy less than a year ago because I had bought a GBA SP 101 about a year ago. It was definitely an amazing game. I have certain taste though. Celeste is one of my favourite games of the last 10 years.

@VoidofLight
Very probably, but, recently we received the original Panel de Pon (Tetris Attack) and soon we will receive the remakes of Famicom Tantei Detective club, games that very, but very few people think in play them here in the west, then, why not still keep the hope that this game (mother 3) will come some day?

Remember how Nintendo had localized Mother 1, and then waited another 24 years to actually RELEASE it (officially)?
Don't expect to it see it anytime soon.

Jesus Reggie, get your butt in there and localize Mother 3!

@SakuraHaruka Because Nintendo wouldn't want to localize something that'd potentially offend customers. I know they localize old games, like what they did with fire emblem.. but I doubt they'll localize a game that 1) wasn't made with localization in mind due to the text boxes, and 2) depicts things that modern audiences wouldn't like seeing.

It’s money being left on the table at this point. Why would they not just do it? Thus makes no sense. It’s their IP so they don’t have to go through lots of legal hurdles.

since this site likes to talk about hacks and mods so much heck you might as well post a link to the sites with the translated rom! Oh i forgot it's only against policy if users mention that stuff.
It's all good. I already bought my repro cart years ago. You people still waiting for an official release might be toothless old farts by the time Nintendo localises it. Good luck with that!

But the fan translated carts are pirated products right?

@Don
Technically yes but If you're not using the roms for personal gain who's gonna know? Just don't try to sell them or distribute them and you're good. Unless you really have a moral objection.

@Zeldafan79 @Don yes, but at the same time, it’s the kind of piracy that isn’t actually affecting Nintendo’s bottom line - it’s not depriving them of income, as it’s not something they have ever actually sold in translated form.

Not that this makes it any more legal, just more morally justifiable to the pirates and the people who buy from them.

@Don Depends where you get them. Some places actually flash their own carts, so at that point you're getting more into reproduction territory than piracy. The fan-translation took years to make, so that's more work that someone other than Nintendo is doing. The end-product is so heavily modified that it feels difficult to call it piracy.

NINJA APPROVED

This is starting to look like Bethesda's Elder Scrolls games. If you've played any of them, you know they are riddled with bugs, and that there are patches made by fans that unofficially fix the bugs. I was disappointed when I got Skyrim for my Switch, only to find that it has the same horrible bugs from last decade that fan-patches have already fixed on PS4, Xbox and PC.

My point: Bethesda seems to rely on the fans to fix hundreds of thousands of bugs, so they don't have to. Why would Nintendo put the time and energy into translating a game that the fans already did for them?

@GameOtaku Probably the time consumption. I think it took the original fan translation something like 5 years, due to the amount of text involved. That would be my best guess. Or maybe they think it wouldn't be popular enough to justify the effort, and to be frank, I suspect they may be right.

It is too infuriating to me to even consider that my favorite story driven game of all time wouldn't be localized because of "controversial" elements, especially the rumors on what some of those specific "controversial" elements are. So I reject that theory.

I think the more reasonable theory is that the timing of Mother 3's release has not been good for localization. It has been released twice in Japan, once in 2006 on GBA and again on Wii U VC at the end of 2015. Simple reality is that by the time those versions would come out in America, both would've been the year later. 2007 GBA and 2016 Wii U are bad times to put out your game. And the rumor is that that limited time Fire Emblem localization on Switch was made for Wii U and just didn't come out for it, so that seems really consistent with my theory if true. (I don't think an official NOA translation of Mother 3 exists btw, not remotely complete at least)

I did’nt realise the game had already been made, so all nintendo need to do is hire a localisation team at the least, they could have use switch online to fun it and bring it to that service? Or even port the series to switch and sell it like fire emblem.
Damn I no longer feel sorry for Reggie, Mother fans must be long time fans by now, this is quite a statement by nintendo! They simply do mot care if their long time fans get to play a sequel or not! Poor effort in my opinion!

I feel like the game would not sell all that well if it were to actually get released at this point in time, the modern young players may not appreciate this game very well.

I would love for others to be able to play this game, and to be able to support it...sure, I can play it on my flash cart, but I've already bought EarthBound on SNES and eShop, and EarthBound Zero on the eshop, so I would definitely put my money where my mouth is (again) if they released it officially.

@Heavyarms55 Idunno, the game is pretty darn good. Is it as good as EarthBound? I'm not sure. But it is pretty darn good.

I do not want to play this on switch online. No D-Pad, a Rom locked behind a subscription pay wall. Having to 'check in' online to be able to play it offline for a week, killing spontaneous play. No thanks. I'll play my fan-translation on my GBAsp.

no relevance for this article appearing for umpteenth time!!

I'd prefer an article requesting the vocal online people to shut up about some niche game that not even limited run would bother with.

I never tried this one but I played earthbound for the first time last year and altough I am a JRPG fan I really did not like the game. It is grindy as heck, the characters are boring and the game is too damm long and criptic on where to go

a new update to the translation patch also dropped

I always thought it would happen because of Beginnings and the few jokes/references they pulled. (like the E3 Robot Chicken collab) But at this point...yeah it's not happening...

And still not released in English officially.

Seriously, this game is just brilliant, sooo powerful, and it really needs to be played by more people:

https://inceptionalnews.wordpress.com/2015/05/11/mother-3-is-brilliant/

Nintendo releasing the Mother 3 Fan Translation as an official product would be like their equivalent of Sonic Mania. Unfortunately I still don't see that happening.

@Heavyarms55 Play it for yourself and make your own mind up:

https://inceptionalnews.wordpress.com/2015/05/11/mother-3-is-brilliant/

@Balta666 Mother 3 is better than Earthbound all round imo, particularly regarding many of the issues you have with Earthbound. I've never felt compelled to go past the first hour or two of Earthbound, but Mother 3 had me hooked after the first half hour or so and kept me thoroughly engaged all the way until the end. And it turned out to be one of the most powerful experiences I've had in gaming in nearly 30 years. You really should give it a go if you're remotely interested. And you can get an English patch for it and play it in all its glory pretty easy these days too: https://inceptionalnews.wordpress.com/2015/05/11/mother-3-is-brilliant/

@impurekind ok, I will try to emulated it at certain point

Our best bet was with the Wii U. Remember how you could follow channels? One was 'The Onett Times' which was to be our source for all Earthbound news. And, you know, nothing got posted. This is our emulation freebie. No matter where you come down on it, the fan translation is the way to go. It even runs on original hardware with a flash cart.

Not gonna happen. Just emulate it, nerds

@BloodNinja
And a limited time translated Fire Emblem sold relatively well. The only other way for English speaking audiences to play Mother 3 is via illegal means through emulation.

15 years in and I still haven't played it. I've decided that enough is enough and have literally just ordered the fan translation off eBay.

If only i could play it in my language officially

I gotta admit I do find it odd people want to buy, and support an offical release. Yet they buy a repro cart for a free fan translation. Those things are made solely to steal, and profit off others work from the community...

text of this game is very special.
It will take some time to translate because of the rather unique wording.

@Arehexes i hawked mine off of some dude on etsy just because i wanted the ability to play it portably (flashcart was not in the cards), but i've bought both of tomato's Legends of Localization books so maybe that makes up for it
the very first thing you see says to support an official release if it happens so maybe that had an effect on some people, who knows

You think you want it localized, but you don't. It'll be censored like crazy, have memes shoved into it, have dialogue removed because it's "problematic," and won't be the same game you played using the fan translation. You're better off playing the fan patch and getting a flash cart if you want to play it on physical hardware THAT badly.

Well, I have the fan translation installed on several devices, and even on a GBA cartridge, as well as the original Japanese game CIB,...
But it's in another castle.
It's stored safely at my mother's house.
How fitting.

@somebread How are those? I've been wanting to get some of his books. Also yeah it's always weird when going to cons and see people spend like 20+ bucks for a flash cart of a fan patch. More so when the quality will be questionable (roommate had a mario cart that corrupted saves). Rather drop the cash for a flash cart or retro device that can play more than one game.

I would like to hope people would be willing to buy an offical release as a put up or shut up. However I see a few times when that happens the complaint of price comes up. Earthbound being released for 10 bucks caused people to freakout and complain it's too much (Never mind offical carts are expensive). Not to mention it will go through the Nintendo filter. Or Nintendo will pull a Fire Emblem NES on Switch. Which if they do I'm giving it a hard pass.

Given how Nintendo has treated their more popular retro stuff. I doubt they will do good by Mother 3. It honestly makes me think do people want to collect it more so than play it. Or people who take emulation bad to a unhealthy level to where they don't know what that even is.

@Arehexes the LoL books are fantastic reads, they're basically his website but expanded and polished to the utmost for zelda and earthbound and take a fair chunk of time to fully wade through. no idea about his other two books though
i think most people would probably go for it if they don't do what they would do and sell it for an outrageous price just because they hadnt before (I think 40 is my top limit for just Mother 3 alone) along with, as you mentioned, either making it limited, filtering the graphics, etc.
there's also definitely some degree of people who are so used to the fan translation that a potential official one's differences would just be too much to take. its a tricky situation overall

There's a better chance we'd be getting the cancelled Mother 64 as a "remake" of Mother 3, just like how the first Fire Emblem game got a real remake for the DS which was released worldwide.

I wonder how much did the first one sell in the west.

None of the Mother/Earthbound games are on Switch right now.

When it happens it will probably be a limited time deal like Fire Emblem.

@somebread That's cool, I love his website. After the Collection of Mana which was in the same boat as Mother 3 was released for 40 bucks and people complained...idk. Earthbound was released for 10 dollars and people were mad. Honestly Nintendo is known to shut down any fan project tied to a IP they have a interest in. The fact that the Mother 3 fan patch site is still up is telling more so than anything else.

The Mother series has been kept alive by the fans. It's so fitting the final game in this series has been brought to the masses by the fans. That is a spirit you don't see that often in games.

15 years wasted, not a single memorable thing from the game came out at all for the rest of the world.

Never going to happen. We don't even have GBA games on Switch (and I doubt we ever will at this point).

@VoidofLight
Famicom detective club were also not designed for the West, if I remember correctly, the text boxes were also designed for Japanese writing, and they could fix that for the remakes.
In addition, those games, if I remember correctly, talk about a murder of a young girl, and being an investigation and mystery game (since I have not played it), I think, it can have moments not pleasant for a certain audience.

Mother 3 is a 10/10 - even in 2021 - I highly recommend it.

@GameOtaku I would imagine that sold well due to it being limited, and not it being what it is. There are reproduction websites that sell good quality copies of Mother 3, translated. OCDReproductions has been producing and selling excellent quality copies for years. Leave the legal debate up to the lawyer and law makers.

Well, it'd be nice if they localized it, maybe even remastered it! But for those who want to play it now, the fan translation seems good enough. I may play it myself, if I ever want to. But I don't think Nintendo will do anything with it for say five or ten years or so.

@SakuraHaruka But murder of a small girl isn’t anything as bad as something like the magypsies or a boy taking his own life to be with his mom, a man beating innocent people because his wife died, and people getting high off shrooms.

@Donnerkebab They do when the time is part of the joke.

As someone not in the know, could anyone please tell me what exactly is so controversial about the story in Mother 3? Just reading the wikipedia page, I don't see anything that stands out.

Finally just folded and downloaded it on my phone. I'll happily purchase a localized version should it release.

Seeing this article, It reminded me of playing Earthbound for the first time on Wii U 8 years ago. It was such a wonderful experience that it got me eager to play Mother 3 and finally see why it's so loved by many people. But, after all this waiting, I decided F*** it and downloaded the translated rom since Nintendo obviously is never going to localize Mother 3 or even wants to in the first place.

Played a little over 2 hours, and I'm already in love it's extremely well written and unique characters and engaging story. I can't wait to get back into it.

@Ratchet916

They’re worried about stuff like the magypsies, which are gender neutral but modeled as drag queens, it’s more of a joke for Japan but western culture would more likely be offended, or only takes 1 social group to get offended.

Making anything about stereotypes is pointing a gun at your foot in cultures that push equality and Nintendo is a very safe company. It’s different if indie companies do it occasionally but Nintendo’s profile really tries to stay clean of controversy and has a broader audience to target them.

EDIT: oh ya, and the whole “pig mask are basically nazis” thing since they made chimeras and basically removed anything they didn’t see good in porky’s eyes, and had labs to experiment on people and animals.

@Ratchet916 From what I've seen, it's mainly just the Magypsies, which are "offensive" because most Americans are ____ :S Imagine all the terrible things people say about Tingle, and then multiply that.

Knowing NOA, they would probably just pull an Animal Crossing and turn them into females. "Feminine boys?? Not in -my- country!"

I don't even like RPG's generally, and not a huge fan of Mother 1 and 2, but I loved this, just couldn't put it down. I hope they port it to Switch or remake it, because people who haven't played don't know what they're missing.

@Heavyarms55
like with Chrono trigger, I thought it couldn't possibly be as good as they said.

Chrono trigger actually is. And this comes pretty close. That's why we're all so frustrated. We don't want to oversell the game, we don't want to spoil anything. But it's still a blast to play with some amazing music and magical moments.

(And an industry professional has already offered you his translation work for free, all the coding has been done! )