Fifteen Years to Mother 3

It was late 1995 when I first found this building in Earthbound. Right then, at that very moment, Earthbound 2 became my most anticipated game. The teasey ending didn't help much either (THE END... ?).

When the sequel was announced for the Nintendo 64, called (surprise) Earthbound 64, I was excited but weary-- Ness, Onett, and Mr. Saturn were all nowhere to be found. I didn't know how the game would turn out, but what I did know was that I had to have a Nintendo 64.

So, I pushed my landmower all around town and saved up the cash for my console. Every month, I opened up the new issue of Nintendo Power, flipping through the pages looking for anything from a release date to a measley screenshot or piece of fan art. When my family first got internet access to our rural home, I scoured every last fansite for Earthbound 64 information and fellow obsessive preteen Earthbound fans.

Besides some choppy, short video and a couple of frail release dates, nothing ever came. The game was finally (and, evidently, mercifully) canceled in August of 1999. Of course, I joined in on the mournful song of nerdy forum posts and IRC chatrooms. I signed the 30,000-weak petition, I called the Nintendo hotline during Starmen.net's infamous "NPsiege", and, if I could draw, I would have sent in my own fan art to Nintendo Power.

Of course, nothing seemed to work. Why would it? 30,000 mostly internet signatures is relatively tiny, raspy-nerd phone calls only annoy, and the letter art only received a passing mention in the pages of Nintendo Power. For good reason, I lost hope.

The fan community started the cycle over in 2003 when a short commercial for Mother 1+2 aired in Japan. At the very end of the commercial, at no more than two seconds long, there was a short little bit of text that translated to: "We're making Mother 3 for the GBA, too!"

Again, months and months went by with absolutely no information about this new game. I half expected the game to be canceled again, especially after the release of the DS. There was no magazine coverage, no internet leaks, no press releases, not even a single screenshot. I let the game slip from my mind, determined not to be bitten again.

When the game was finally release in Japan, the fan community celebrated like they had won a decade-long war. The thing had to have set a record for imports. Faithful Earthbound nerds had their copies preordered for weeks in advance, but as faithful as I was, I resisted. Actually, I never understood why any english-speaking Earthbound fan would want to play the game in Japanese. The dialog is why the game was so good. And, after all of that effort and shouting, surely the game would get a North American release.

What a joke. I gave a little cheer when Starmen.net finally kicked the magazine rack over on their way out of Nintendo's good graces and announced a fan translation. In October, the translation was out and I played Mother 3.

Finally.