The Mother Remake aims to remake the first game in the Mother series using EarthBound’s engine. Originally started by Tomato in 2007, the project is now being continued by members of the Starmen.net forums, and is progressing smoothly. I love EarthBound and it'd be awesome if they released the trilogy on Switch so I can play EarthBound Beginnings and everyone can finally play Mother 3. I doubt they'd re-release/remake them though.
Mother: 25th Anniversary Edition aims to make Mother much more enjoyable for both Earthbound fans and those playing it for the first time.
Mother 1 Fan Remake
All enemy graphics, NPC sprites and tiles are be redrawn from scratch to be more faithful to the clay models. The goofy enemies are goofier and the creepy enemies are creepier. A shiny new font and title screen was added, too!
The overworld has been tweaked to be much less bleak and repetitive, so it’s harder to get lost. There is more scenery, areas are more colorful and confusing areas like Duncan’s factory have been simplified. On the other hand, tiny areas like the Cemetery or Snowman have been expanded.
Mother 1 Fan Remake
There are also a lot of changes under the hood. Enemies will yield slightly more exp and the encounter rate has been readjusted. The “Dangerous Foe” battle theme is used less often and party members will be met at a higher level. DragonDePlatino’s goal in creating this hack was to make Mother less challenging, but still quite difficult.
And last but not least, this hack uses Tomato’s official Mother 1 + 2 translation, adapted for the NES. Over 1400 lines of text have been altered to create connections with the rest of the series, improve clarity and shorten reading time. This hack will also feature much quicker battle text courtesy of vince94. Battles progress almost twice as quickly!
Mother 3 has never officially made its way to North America, but a new tease is giving fans hope. Nintendo showing off a commemorative book for the series and teasing a further announcement has made a Nintendo Switch port of Mother 3 seem more likely than ever.
The announcement is question is that of Hobonichi Mother Project, a book that contains all the text from Mother, Mother 2, and Mother 3, or as we know them in the United States: Earthbound Beginnings, Earthbound, and Mother 3. Clyde Mandelin, the main translator behind Mother 3's famous English fan localization, retweeted the announcement and revealed that the video teases 'there'll be other news' before its release later in 2020.
What is Mother 3? While you may not know about Mother 3, you might know about Earthbound, a beloved SNES JRPG that has gained a large following. Earthbound's quirky humor and art styledirectly inspired the 2015 indie smash Undertale, along with countless more games. Earthbound was ported to the Wii U and New Nintendo 3DS during the 2010s, but hasn't yet been ported to Switch. (You can play it on the SNES Mini, however.) Earthbound's Japanese title is Mother 2, which makes Mother 3 the sequel that never came out here.
Fans have been asking for Mother 3 for so long and so persistently, the game has its own Know Your Meme page. Earthbound diehards pestered former Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aimé for the game throughout his tenure at the company. Some of them still haven't stopped bugging him about it.
Mother 3 came out for Game Boy Advance in Japan on April 20, 2006, but unfortunately never made it to North America or Europe. It follows the adventures of a psychic boy named Lucas who is fighting the evil organization that corrupts his once idealistic village. You may recognize Lucas as a fighter in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
While it never came out in the west, Mandelin and some other fans created a robust fan translation for the game in the late 2000s, which has allowed the game to garner some American fans.
Mother 1 Fan Remake
Why do fans want a Nintendo Switch port so badly? Fans want Mother 3 to be ported to Nintendo Switch as it would finally mean that the game would probably get a North American release. As a text-heavy release in a niche for the Game Boy Advance late in the series' lifespan, Nintendo decided to not port the original over to North America.
Mother 1 Rom Download
Ever since Nintendo started to pay more attention to Earthbound in the west, fans have been clamoring for a port. Unfortunately, outside some brief acknowledgments from the likes of Reggie Fils-Amie and some rumors that it was coming to Switch, nothing about a Mother 3 port has officially surfaced. Fans are hoping that the release of Hobonichi Mother Project would finally give Nintendo the push it needs to re-release Mother 3.
Why would porting it in 2020 make sense? June 2020 marks the 25th anniversary of Earthbound's U.S. release. This is one of the reasons we are seeing the likes of Hobonichi Mother Project at the moment. Don't be surprised to see more from the Mother series this year, even if it's just merchandise.
The Inverse Analysis — I'll be the first in line to buy several copies of Mother 3 if it ever does release for Nintendo Switch, though I'm trying not to get my hopes up too much. Earthbound fans have waited long enough – Nintendo should release Mother 3 in the West. Mandelin has even offered up his fan translation, but so far nothing has come from it. If nothing else, we will hopefully get some awesome new Mother-themed merch this year in celebration of Earthbound's 25th anniversary.