Mother 3 Producer Would "Love To See" GBA Entry Receive A Worldwide Release

My guess is Nintendo will announce GB/GBC for the standard subscription alongside GBA with the expansion pass within the next 2 years for NSO and one of their big sellers on GBA will be their final localisation of Mother 3.

They're very, VERY clearly aware of the demand and I think the profit side of things outweighs the ESRB battle at the end of the day. There are some things that are difficult to translate in the game which may be completely misinterpreted by an English speaking community, but I believe the sole fact that they didn't re-release a Japanese only drop is because they're staying their hand to release it worldwide.

People may not think of this as such a big deal since we have localisations for games like LiveAlive coming out left right centre, but believe me Mother 3 is a very special game. It's got a lot of very personal story telling that hits close to home which every other RPG game out there misses and is, itself, made by a really interesting man - Itoi. If you know nothing about the man I suggest at least reading him up on the Wiki. He really is a misfit game director and it's really impressive Nintendo gave him the green light to make the games he did.

It will happen. Give it time.

I don't get Nintendo sometimes...just do it already. >:c

Hopefully this means its happening, I don't mind waiting longer as long as we get it man.

Hasn't there been a fully fan translated rom for like awhile? Seems like people would just play that instead of waiting so long.

If they think some of the content wouldn’t go over well today, make a remake and change those things specifically. I would be ok with that if the alternative is not getting it at all.

Hopefully it won't be too much longer! With the first two games now on the Switch, I'm hoping they'll pave the way for 3. I'm sure Nintendo has some way to see how many people are playing them through the Switch Online apps, so I started up another playthrough of EarthBound to hopefully help bump up the numbers there.

I love these recurring Nintendo Life "would love to see game X on Nintendo platform Y" articles – they always fills me with hope... not.

Would have been interesting to see how many of these dreams ended up becoming realized. @Liam_Doolan, can you investigate? You must have written a couple of hundred articles on the subject by now?

Fans: release mother 3 in English!
Nintendo:No
Dev team:release mother 3 in English!
Nintendo:no
Also fans:don’t you want to make money?
Nintendo:yes but we don’t want to get a high ESRB rating/offend anyone!

Mother 3 is so darned rare and so darned shunned by NIntendo that it seems to be one of the only roms most folks are okay with running on their own. We would absolutely buy it if made available.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but after Earthbound Zero and Earthbound came to Wii U's VC, Nintendo started a channel/newsfeed called The Onnett Times or similar for "future Earthbound news" and then, you know, never made any Earthbound news

At this juncture I feel like even if they did officially translate it they'd probably end up butchering it in the process.

The odds of Mother 3 releasing in the West were still higher in 2006 than they are now, especially with censorship being so trendy nowadays.

At this point, it would almost be more likely to see a remake. But it is Nintendo, common sense is something alien to them.

I would suggest they hire a “common sense manager” but they would need the common sense manager to tell them to hire the common sense manager!

Probably Nintendo wants to make edits, and Itoi won't let them. It's a question of who blinks first, I guess.

Why exactly is this game so slow at getting localised? Whatever content it has, I don't imagine for a moment it's in anyway, shape or form malicious. This is probably the game I hope to play before I die the most lol.

@moodycat I suppose that's what makes it a cult?

They've localised some JRPG's most people never heard of, it's only a matter of time, but you'd think this would had been top of the list years ago.

@SirKif They could put one of those disclaimers about it being a product of its time like Disney+ does, lol.

@SirKif It's impossible to remove the suicide from Mother 3. They will never release it officially, but anyone can enjoy the fan translated version. You will understand what I mean if you do play.

I still have to beat Earthbound SNES (and Beginnings though I think that one's just a bit too rough around the edges for me), but I'd love to try Mother 3 finally if it ever does come over. They could call it "Earthbound Endings". Original, I know.

Let's be honest - it's a game in which some of the most important characters are trans women and made to be figures of fun. No - no-one really buys "ah but they're not human they're Magypsies" (a "thin ice" name in the first place) - their intent was for players to identify them as trans women and laugh at them. That doesn't fly in 2022 in the West for good reason. It wouldn't have flown 20 years ago either BTW.

The game could be reworked - Mother 2 had plenty of changes in localisation. The Magypsies could be presented as explicitly non-human, the "hot tub" scene could be reworked and the "lets laugh at gay men kissing" mermen section could be replaced with something completely innocuous. It's not impossible or a big job...

...of course then Nintendo would have to face the manufactured controversy of people claiming to be offended that they "censored" the game.

Maybe the best hope would be a full remake of the game (Link's Awakening style) in which such vital changes could be more easily accepted than a modified version of the GBA game.

If he would love to see it released, it would have happened by now. The fans of the game are the ones keeping it alive, because they are the ones that actually love it.

What if this is Wayforwards next big project they are so excited about?

@UglyCasanova There is, and it's great work. But apparently for this site, the fan patch is something to "fall back on" rather than the actual achievement it is, made by talented people who weren't even getting paid.

And frankly, anyone who actually cared about playing the game (as opposed to bandwagoning) has already played it via the patch.

@StuTwo I always thought the Magypsies were tongue in cheek references to cross dressing. They're funny in the same way a Pantomime Dame is funny, imo. Don't see anything malicious personally

Well now that we finally have the SNES one and NES one on the service there is at least a little hope it could happen someday.

Nintendo has done two real-time translations for Switch so Mother 3 is entirely possible.

These were an English translation of Mario 64 Shindo and Fire Emblem 1.

The question is, will it be a limited release like these aforementioned titles? Or wait for Wii U 3 to launch, so they can secure a hit.

How exactly did they do the Fire Emblem 30th Anniversary release? A new obstacle for Mother 3 in my mind is that Nintendo will obviously want to make it a nickel and dime release for western players, something that won't fly in Japan where it's already a virtual console game.

Would love to see a new release of Mother 3, and in English, as long they keep it true to the original.

@StuTwo People in the woke crowd, at least some of them, seems to be fans of the Mother / Eartbound franchise so you one would think they could accept getting 3 uncensored. Also, its the woke crowd that seems to manufactor outrage. Some people don't support censorship. Thinking censorship is bad does not mean one "manufactor" outrage.

@Greatluigi
fans: release Mother 3 in English!
Nintendo: alright.
fans: cool we won, already played it several times on different emulators and stuff though. I'm bored. What's next to want? What else can we demand?

@Shambo Not everyone likes or knows about emulators, official releases like this also bring these games to the general public it's an allround good thing if it happens.

@StuTwo Magypsies are not trans women, they are genderless.

Regardless of all the controversies and things that will likely push the game to be M-rated, I find it unlikely that it will ever get localised because it is simply a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation for Nintendo.

Currently a tiny minority of people complain about the game not releasing. If they do release it though, they either do a faithful adaptation and those fans are happy, but then they risk upsetting a lot of people, or they do a heavily localised adaptation and those fans are still going to be unhappy, likely even furious at the changes.

You know it's gotten bad when even the producer wants it to happen

Well there's still hope for a remastered, it wouldn't surprise me if they went back and just finished the 3D version of it back when it was originally suppose to be an N64 game.

@khululy it would definitely be a great thing if it happened, but I do think most people who know about Mother 3 and really want this to happen, would have already played it. People who don't, won't be that passionate about it. But of course there are people who'd finally get a chance to play it for the first time, which is always a good thing. I just don't think those asking for it are mainly those who haven't played a hacked rom yet.
'so, what are we demanding?'
'mother 3'
'what is a mother tree and why do we want it so badly?'
'i don't know, just demand it with us!'

If it happens and gets a physical release, despite having the original and an unofficial gba cartridge with the translated rom, I'll be first in line and glad it can reach a wider audience, don't get me wrong. And it would definitely be popular, because the internet will blow up that day.

I'm sure it will happen one day, but localizing this game is very tricky, especially with the west being woke af these days, so it's a can of worms.

@StuTwo
Completely agree on all points. There are ways of handling the Magypsie idea without resorting to cheap jokes like obvious 5 O'clock shadows and stereotypical behaviour.

And the merman scene is devoid of nuance. There are two jokes - merman giving air with deep kisses is funny because gay and it's funny that the pigman likes it because that makes him gay. There are no other levels to it; just very basic homophobia.

And it is malicious, unlike others here are saying - the humour in the game does come from a very mean place. And that kind of humour is still very mainstream in Japan. Not that the rest or the world is much better.

I do like the game otherwise and I do play through it every now and then. Honestly it is special to me and I do recommend others to check out the fan translation. But it'd be very strange to say that the game doesn't have those problems or that it's just a problem for 'wokes'. The Nintendo Life comment section continues, as always, to be a toilet in that regard.

Nintendo are in a lose lose situation with Mother 3 if they change the parts of the game that are very controversial one side of the fan base will be mad and if they don't change anything the other side will be mad

@GrailUK because its content is problematic, especially towards lgbtq people with its depiction of genders among many other unfortunate things that luckily we handle with different sensibilities now compared to 2006 (but that is still somehow “normal” in Japanese media, although change seems to be slowly coming there too and it’ll keep getting hopefully better because they are 10 years behind). Mind you, MOTHER 3 is a very special game to me and without a doubt one of my favorite of all time, and that is also thanks to its masterful fantranlation, I absolutely adore the story, the gameplay, the audiovisual, and how it handles being a “sequel”, but the script and plenty of sections do put Nintendo in a weird spot. I mean, I loved it so much that I own both the official jpn release and a repro-cart with the English patch on it, and I can’t see them ever releasing the game as it is (for god’s sake it would’ve happened by now, we got a freaking Famicom Detective Club localization!) while also knowing that changes would not sit well with the vast majority of the audience. It’s a burning hot potato to handle. I get wanting an official release, I do to and I’d pay good money for (one of the few games I’d pay for an uber expensive Collector’s Edition), but if you really are interested in playing this masterpiece then the fan-translation is of Treehouse’s quality and above 99% of what you find in official releases, it’s a labor of love by a team led by a renowned industry professional (Tomato) and it runs on a toaster. Its been available for 13 years, I’m sure by now if you’re really interested in Mother 3 then you have found a way to play it and can just look forward to a possible official release to own.

@Varkster I don’t think Mother 3 will generate much profit, but it will generate excitement from hardcore fans. That makes it a little harder to justify localization cause it is hard to estimate how much the excitement will impact Nintendo profits overall. I think they need to do things like that though.

I mean considering let's take How I Met Your Mother for example where there is a spinoff where the original series most popular character Barney probably won't ever cameo on just simply on the fact that he is a caricature of "player culture" whose entire punchline is that he is a Wallstreet bro who does over the top plays to get laid and the fact they work is the joke (and suffers repercussions for his ridiculous antics) and is played by a famous actor who is LGBTQ would not fly today... Yeah, I don't think we're going to ever get a straight translation of Mother 3. Just simply because outside of the Magypsies are genderless characters they can be perceived as either overly progressive (so you'd get rightwing trolls harassing Nintendo over them) or a harmful caricature by a number of people (which they'd get a large amount of blowback for and considering Nintendo's squeaky clean image is not good for them)... Yeah, Nintendo is in a damned if you do damned if you don't.

@Specter_of-the_OLED
With all things considered, I too would suspect that would likely be the case considering Fire Emblem took that route as well.

But if Mother 64 was transformed into a Mother 3 remake, it would only spark another fanbase to keep asking for their game...or expansion to a game...

People speculated endlessly that Earthbound wasn't showing up on the Wii Virtual Console because of music rights, content, didn't understand demand, etc, etc. It turned out Nintendo was just saving it as an ace in the hole when their sales and reputation were hurting. Same with Mother 1. They used them for the same purpose again, following the backlash on the NSO Expansion Pack. They're probably holding onto Mother 3 for the same purpose, not because someone might be offended by a joke or a Magypsy or because the kids have a mushroom trip. The Mother series is their rainy day product.

I'd like to see this and also WarioWare Twisted which never actually got a European release! It will be a good day when we get game boy games. They could easily put OG game boy on the regular service and GBA on the expansion. I just hope we don't have to wait two more years...

I've always thought, maybe in a remake or remaster they could just replace the magypsies with Mr. Saturns or something. That way you'd still have the quirky genderless race of characters, but in a form that's more palatable to current/Western audiences. They'd already be localizing the script so rewriting some dialogue entirely wouldn't be a stretch.
I completely forgot about the mermen, but replacing them with mermaids or even non humanoid sea creatures like dolphins or pufferfish seems pretty simple.
I know this kind of so called censorship (read: localisation) would upset the purists, but A) these are akin to the kind of changes that Nintendo makes to their games all the time, and B) anyone who insists on playing the game in its original form or directly translated can easily do so and likely already has.
I'm willing to bet that the number of people who would buy a heavily localized remake, remaster or even port of this game, thanks to their familiarity with EarthBound, Smash Bros, RPGs, or the Mother 3 meme itself, is greater than the number of people who would refuse to buy it to protest censorship.
The people who would complain about it on Twitter are already complaining about Nintendo every day anyway. I think some people really overestimate the impact and influence of the vocal minority. When was the last time they accomplished anything, when Nintendo removed sombrero Mario from the Odyssey box art but not from the game itself?

And before anybody @'s me, yes, I know that localization often involves censorship, but there's a difference between the kind of censorship imposed on art by external forces, such as governments, in an effort to suppress any ideological threat to their power, and the self-censorship of localization, when companies present alternate versions of the same product to different audiences in order to maximize profits.
One of these things is authoritarianism, the other is just marketing.

@Coalescence it might be more to do with Itoi rather than the other stuff. Or even due to Ape Inc as Pokemon games also tend to have a hard time appearing on virtual console. Nintendo don't solely own the rights so there are some legalities involved. About who gets paid and how they get paid etc.

Take Futurama's Bender for example, the voice actor not returning for the new Futurama over money disagreements. Think of that situation but if the voice actor actually owned the character. Itoi owns these characters which is why you see his copyright in Smash Bros. I use Bender as an example because the voice actor obviously does want to return and he does want people to hear his voice but they need to come to an agreement first which can take a while.

Not saying it's Itoi's fault but he owns it so he asks for a certain amount. And it's whether Nintendo is willing to pay. Eventually they come to an agreement. Same reason we don't have Super Mario RPG yet.

It's a shame this stuff isn't simpler really but it's better to sort this stuff out in advance rather than Nintendo release it and then get sued. Which MAYBE they could do. But then it's a whole legal battle about ownership and general unpleasantry

@UglyCasanova Nintendo curb-stomped a lot of emulation sites.

I don't see a Mother 3 English release ever happening. Frankly, I'm not sure that it should get one. I don't buy into any controversy people want to apply to it myself, but it would be a lightning rod for it (evidently).

Already got all three on my Snes mini! Sorry Nintendo I'm not sitting around waiting until hell freezes over for you to pull your non localizing heads out of your asses.

@GrailUK There i some occasional profanity, bu the biggie is Kumatora's parents, which are not only a parody of drag queens but also are collectively named after a slur agains the Rromani (though I think Shigesato intended to invoke a 'magical' vibe whe naming the group).

I really do love this game but it would need a heavy localisation for an actual Nintendo release. It’s too bloody weird and dark for Nintendo, never mind the very poor taste and malicious ‘jokes’ targeted towards LGBTQ+ people.

@GrailUK the problem is the magypsies, in Japan drag and unigender is considered a joke and they’re pretty much put into mother 3 for giggles, they’re afraid every other culture would take offense to Japan’s way of stereotyping them.

They’d have to remove/redesign them to fit with Nintendo’s overly safe standards. It’s understandable they won’t do it with how Twitter culture is in modern society, but just is what it is nowadays. Remove/change them and people will throw fits about them not being good enough for the game or unfaithful, keep them and stereotypes will take it the wrong way (or right way since this is Japan’s culture on the subject)

Grand Theft Auto is on the switch and nobody was outraged by Nintendo. Mother 3 would certainly not be a big deal. They have very questionable content on the Eshop as far as explicit and actually offensive content goes.

@nessisonett oh no not the jokes!!!
I prefer to see games as they are, like books, movies etc.
So people can see as the creator intended and can form their own opinion about it instead of having a manufactured opinion forcefed trough change and censorship.

@khululy Well when you treat an entire group of people’s very identity as a joke then it will absolutely be taken the wrong way. It’s not funny at all.

@nessisonett oh don't be so dramatic most okama depictions in japanese media are kinda lovingly silly.
Like the ones in one piece, Yakuza, Gintama and in this game from what I can tell they are the good guys.
Most 'groups' are made fun of in many ways look at middleclass husbands in cartoon shows all fat drunk idiots, no one cares.
People who like games and reading are nerds and get bullied ppl don't bat an eye.
Dave Chapelle was right...

@khululy The difference between househusbands and trans people is that househusbands don’t face overwhelming discrimination, abuse and violence in their daily lives. Saying Dave Chapelle was right is just exposing your bigotry.

@nessisonett Don't they though? maybe not for their 'identity' sure and the fact that you think I am bigotted by me saying 'Chapelle was right' exposes your bigotry.
You don't even adress the other points I made you clearly just want to do backflips while grandstanding on your highhorse.
I really hope we get an un adulterated version of this game as a translation

@LinkSword It's honestly amazing to me how on this site when Nintendo kills a fan project using their IP people get mad. Yet Mother 3, which has never had a single bit of push back from Nintendo, and made by passionate fans with nothing cut out or changed...is treated like the other option. I honestly believe most people who want it released in English wants it more so for their collection. A feel good thing to say 'I own this offical release'.

Make sure you guys support Brownies they are an amazing developer.

Dave Chapelle was right.

What was Dave Chapelle right about?

I like his stand up.

Come on, Reggie. Mother trilogy collection on Switch.

@Varkster The fact that we got an official translation/release of Earthbound Beginnings at least shows they are willing to bring some of these games to the West (also games like that Fire Emblem one the ported over). It just might take more time.

We have Smash Bros to thank for introducing Ness and Lucas to the general population.

@Losermagnet You don't see it but a lot of people do especially since Lucas is still in Smash Bros. Having Lucas in Smash Bros. means Nintendo had to give us Mother 3 at some point. The likely title for that game could be Earthbound End or Earthbound Final.

i do miss the days when you had to be careful when on "broadcast media," but pretty much everything goes when you are in the "premium" world, i e people had to opt in and pay to see. the world was certainly more prude and frightened back then but only tipper gore and evangelical types were worried about content in videogames or HBO.

even amongst any group of people, there is a minority usually that is actually offended by the jokes or content. it's not as though every trans person would be hurt or offended by mother 3, even if it somehow reached all of them. which it wont, obviously. (anecdote alert) i personally knew a trans person (RIP Jeramie ♥️✊😔) who had a great sense of humor and could totally laugh at himself and take a joke at his expense. He could dish it out too! I miss him so much.

surely, a company like Nintendo can find a way to make it work. you know, be CREATIVE. find a way to lampoon the original game while removing the homophobic content. a generation has passed while you sat on this, pretending it's impossible. there is no way that 95+ percent of this game isnt perfectly fine, family friendly content.

@Arehexes

ive owned my copy of earthbound since 3rd grade. why shouldn't i desire a copy of Mother 3 to own?

it sounds like you are saying there's something wrong with that.

im just pointing out that @khululy very tellingly dodged the actual point that @nessisonett made:

"The difference between househusbands and trans people is that househusbands don’t face overwhelming discrimination, abuse and violence in their daily lives."
(not to mention insane rape and murder rates compared to other populations.)

so, what say you to this fact? Chapelle also conveniently ignores this fact while making his last couple of (frankly unfunny by his high standard) comedy specials. (he used to be so cool!)

it's an easy tactic that self satisfies your cognitive dissonance but we can all see what you are doing.

@UglyCasanova

i played the fan translation and still want an officially localized release. i dont think theres any contradiction here.

lets not forget that there are apparently lots of nintendo fans who are adamantly against emulation (as evidenced by all the "lock him up!" comments on other articles,) these people might want to play this game too.

also there are people born every day for the last 16 years who havent yet heard of or played the mother games. they should be able to, officially, easily by now.

@Franklin I was alluding to the closure his latest netflix special.
If you haven't see it for yourself caused a lot of uproar with people of a certain ilk.

@-wc- See, my problem with this whole debacle is that as you said not everyone would be offended or even play the game.
Why can't a fictional world have 'homophobic' people in it?
Them being there does not represent the creators thoughts, maybe he want you to judge for yourself.

I give as an example, if you write a first person novel about a anti semetic nazi during WW2 and in his head that character thinks he is the hero of the story and that he does all the right things.
Then it is up to the reader to conclude wether or not the person in the story is good or bad it's not the writer telling people "Well I wrote this guy as a protaganist, therefore I think all his actions are good and just."
It represent a very two-dimensional way of seeing the world and people and is really childish way of looking at things.

A game like Earthbound is far more mature than its presentation leads you to believe which is what makes it so beautiful in my opinion.

@-wc- The fact you seemed called out because I said people who want it released just want a physical item kinda proved my point.

@Arehexes

lol right. i was saying you were calling me out over nothing. theres nothing wrong with "just" wanting a physical copy for your collection, that is my point.

agree to agree i guess? haha.

@khululy

i appreciate your thoughtful response, i think we have alot to agree about!

in my perfect world, this game would have been localized way back in 2006, i dont believe it would have actually hurt anyone and i think it is possible to translate the jokes in a way that comes off playful and not judgemental. either way i dont think it would have hurt Nintendo in a major way, quite the opposite.

but i think nessisonett has a point, too, that continues to be ignored. alas.

To anyone who has played it... is the game actually even good? Been hearing about it forever it seems but that part usually doesn't even come up. I know its coveted but is the game itself even worth it?

@-wc- While I understand where Nessisonett is coming from I cannot agree that a game should change for that purpose simply because it 'might' offend someone because they are part of a certain 'group'.
as you said we don't know how many of the gamers will play this game once released and how many trans people would be offended by it.

As far as the name Magypsies goes... easily changed to Romagi and you get the same meaning.

But I do think that the depiction are an essential part of the games presentation and japanese cultural depiction of Okama.
It's just how they are seen and people can decide for themselves if it is good or bad.
These acts of 'protection' deminishes these groups and paints them as too weak or immature to have proper judgement or handle sensitve content and I think they deserve better than that.

@redd214
the game is good. i played enough of the fan translation to know that.

it might not have the perfect earthbound magic but its an extremely charming RPG that only itoi could have made ☺️

i stopped playing it because i still felt like i was "spoiling it" by playing the fan translation. it doesnt make rational sense but its still how i feel.

@khululy

thanks for keeping things cool while we talked it out. you've given me something to chew on. 🤔

After re-releasing the localization of MOTHER 1, I'd say it's about time too. :v

@Pod

Mother 1 was localised when it was new. It was finished and ready for release but they never put it out. So, it's not really that expensive to sell on the Wii U/Switch. It's very much a Starfox 2 situation - the game was done but never released.

If Mother 3 is not already translated (it might be but maybe not), they would have to pay to have it localised. So, it's a bigger investment. Nintendo can definitely afford it but they might decide it's not worth it.

@Splodge
Ah, I did not know this, and I thought they'd genuinely localized all of the first game for the Wii U release.

@jamesRainbowBoy Probably Nintendo wants to make edits, and Itoi won't let them. It's a question of who blinks first, I guess.

You probably just made this up.

Anyway, why don't you folks just buy the repro cart of Mother 3 with the English translation and quit begging for this game? It's as bad as the Half Life 3 begging once was.

@Crono1973 I didn't say I was stating fact. Personally, if I had written and was invested so much in a game I wouldn't allow someone to change it for reasons of political correctness... but who knows the real reason.

You do know buying and playing repro carts is actually something Nintendo don't allow, right? I wouldn't risk my Nintendo Account over it.

@jamesRainbowBoy The repro cart is for the GBA. I should have made that clear.