Mother (video game)
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Mother
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| Developer(s) | Ape, Inc.[citation needed] Pax Softnica[citation needed] Nintendo Tokyo R&D Products[citation needed] |
| Publisher(s) | Nintendo |
| Designer(s) | Shigesato Itoi (director) Shigeru Miyamoto (producer) Hiroshi Yamauchi (executive producer) |
| Writer(s) | Shigesato Itoi |
| Artist(s) | Shinbo Minami (character designer) Tatsuya Ishii (character designer) |
| Composer(s) | Keiichi Suzuki Hirokazu Tanaka |
| Series | EarthBound |
| Platform(s) | Famicom |
| Release date(s) | JP July 27, 1989 |
| Genre(s) | Console role-playing |
| Mode(s) | Single player |
| Media | 3-megabit cartridge |
Mother (マザー, Mazā?) (otherwise known as "EarthBound Zero") is a console role-playing game developed by Ape, Inc., Pax Softnica and Nintendo Tokyo R&D Products and published by Nintendo for the Famicom video game console. It was designed and directed by Shigesato Itoi and produced by Shigeru Miyamoto, with music by Keiichi Suzuki and Hirokazu Tanaka. It is the first game in the EarthBound video game series, and was never released outside of Japan. Mother tells the story of Ninten, a 12-year-old boy with psionic powers who journeys around the world to collect eight melodies in order to save the planet from an evil race of mind-controlling aliens.
The game was later re-released in a compilation with its sequel, EarthBound, on the Game Boy Advance as Mother 1 + 2.
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Gameplay
Mother's gameplay is divided into two main parts: field maps and the game's battle system. Mother does not use a small-scale overworld map and instead connects towns, dungeons, and other places together by large outdoor areas. When in towns on the field map, players can talk with other non-playable characters, go to stores to buy equipment or items, rest in hotels, or enter other various buildings. By using any telephone in the game, Ninten can talk to his dad, who deposits money into Ninten's bank account and offers to record his progress.
When outside of towns on the field map or inside dungeons, the party will be attacked by enemies, at which point the game shifts into its battle system. When in battle, the game switches to a first-person view, only showing the enemies and a menu system used to issue commands. Actions are chosen for each character by the player, and then characters and enemies take turns doing them in an order determined by their speed statistics. Winning battles awards experience points, which characters require to level up. Leveling up increases a character's stats and lets them learn more abilities. If a character loses all of their hit points, they will die and the player must go to a hospital and pay to revive them. If every character dies, no progress is lost, but the party is transported back to the last area they saved at, only Ninten is left alive, and the amount of money they had on hand is halved.
Plot
Mother tells the story of Ninten (ニンテン, Ninten?), a 12-year-old boy with psionic powers who journeys around the world to collect eight melodies in order to save the planet from an evil race of mind-controlling aliens. He is first joined by Loid (ロイド, Roido?), who is picked on at his school due to being nerdy. He uses guns to make up for his weak physical strength and lack of PSI abilities. He is joined afterward by Ana (アナ, Ana?), a young girl who uses frying pans along with many powerful PSI attacks. After fighting Ninten one on one, Teddy (テディ, Tedi?) temporarily takes Loid's place in the party. After being orphaned after his parents are killed by mountain beasts, he becomes self reliant and boasts extreme physical strength. He initially leads a gang before joining with Ninten, so that he can avenge his parents. Loid later joins again after Teddy is also injured. EVE, a robot created by Niten's great-grandfather also accompanies them at points.
Ninten's power, PSI, is originally utilized by an alien race that abducts George and Maria, his great-grandmother and great-grandfather. George steals the secrets to the power while living among the aliens, and researches it further upon returning to Earth. Maria takes care of of one of the aliens, Giegue (ギーグ, Gīgu?, Gyiyg in the Japanese version), before returning. Giygas is charged with stopping PSI from spreading, which leads to his assault on Earth. He forces himself to become detached from George and Maria in order to accomplish his mission, though a song taught to him by Maria causes the memories to resurface.
Development
Mother was designed and directed by Japanese copywriter and television personality Shigesato Itoi. One of the inspirations for the name was John Lennon's song "Mother."[1]
Shigesato Itoi, the game's designer, said that the last parts of Mother were not tested for bugs and balance issues.[citation needed] When talking about this at a Mother 1 + 2 promotional event, Itoi humorously stated, "When we got to fine-tuning the difficulty there, I was like, 'Whatever!'".[1]
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Planned United States release
Nintendo of America had translated and originally planned to release Mother in the United States under the title Earth Bound.[2] The localization was completed in 1990, but marketing pushed the release into fall of 1991, and it was eventually canceled.[3] The Localization Producer and English Script Writer for Earth Bound, Phil Sandhop, explained, "Once the Super NES squatted in the pipeline and shoved the game aside from its appointed time, I believe that the marketing execs just decided that the game would be too expensive to produce and unsuccessful without marketing, and that's why it fell into oblivion."[3] During localization some changes were made to the game, such as removing blood from enemy sprites or changing town names.[4]
On January 15, 1998, the fan translation group Demiforce found a beta cartridge of the game on Usenet, and organized an effort to collect enough money to buy the game.[3] The project was a success, and soon after, the game was dumped into a ROM and circulated around the internet.[3] As the unmodified game did not work properly on emulators at that time, Demiforce released modified versions of Earth Bound with the copy protection disabled, and appended "Zero" onto the title to retroactively discern it from its sequel, EarthBound. Since Demiforce had built its reputation on releasing their English translations out of the blue, some fans debated whether the cartridge had been translated by Nintendo or by Demiforce themselves. However the release was confirmed as legitimate by Phil Sandhop, producer of the cancelled English localization, as well as the compilation release Mother 1 + 2 which contains all of the changes found in the beta cartridge.[3]
Music
Mother's soundtrack was composed by Keiichi Suzuki and Hirokazu Tanaka. The music was released on compact disc and cassette tape by Sony Records on 1989-08-21. It consists of eleven tracks, seven of which have vocals. Some of the game's notable pieces include "Eight Melodies", which plays a heavy role in the story, and "Pollyanna". Both have lyrical versions on the album, sung by St. Paul's Cathedinal Choir and Catherine Warwick, respectively. On 2004-02-18 the soundtrack was re-released with digitally remastered tracks.[5] Songs from Mother appear in EarthBound, Mother 3, Super Smash Bros. Melee and Super Smash Bros. Brawl.
| Mother track listing | |||||||||
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| # | Title | Length | |||||||
| 1. | "Pollyanna (I Believe In You)" | ||||||||
| 2. | "Bein' Friends" | ||||||||
| 3. | "The Paradise Line" | ||||||||
| 4. | "Magicant" | ||||||||
| 5. | "Wisdom of the World" | ||||||||
| 6. | "Flying Man" | ||||||||
| 7. | "Snow Man" | ||||||||
| 8. | "All That I Needed (Was You)" | ||||||||
| 9. | "Fallin' Love, and" | ||||||||
| 10. | "Eight Melodies" | ||||||||
| 11. | "The World of Mother" | ||||||||
Reception
Mother was successful in Japan, selling approximately 400,000 copies.[6] In two polls conducted by Famitsu, it was rated as the 9th best game on the Famicom and the 38th best game of all time.[7][8] The game was listed as the fourth most-wanted Virtual Console release in a poll in the June 2008 issue of Nintendo Power,[9] and in the following issue it moved up to second most-wanted.[10] In a Mother 1 + 2 review, Netjak praised Mother's modern setting and broad themes, calling the game, "quite dark and mature."[11] Jeremy Parish from 1UP.com states, "the game balance is completely ridiculous, relying far too heavily on picking up better weapons and grinding for far too long."[12]
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Please help improve this section by expanding it. Further information might be found on the talk page. (June 2008) |
References
- ^ a b A Mother 1 + 2 promotional event with Shigesato Itoi. (2003) YouTube link with subtitles
- ^ "Nintendo Power's Pak Watch". Nintendo Power 18: 92. November 1990, http://www.lostlevels.org/200407/earth-06.shtml.
- ^ a b c d e Jonathan Wirth (2004-07-31). "Spotlight: EarthBound". Lost Levels. Retrieved on 15 December 2007.
- ^ "Spotlight: EarthBound - Violence". Lost Levels (2004-07-31). Retrieved on 8 May 2008.
- ^ IGN Staff (2004-01-13). "Mother Soundtrack". IGN. Retrieved on 6 February 2008.
- ^ Hiroyuki Nakada. 1990. Nintendō daisenryaku: Mario ga Toyota o koeru hi! : handōtai sedai no sakusesu shinwa. JICC Shuppankyoku. ISBN 4796600639
- ^ John Szczepaniak. "Form is Superior to Mass: Famicom History". NTSC-uk. Retrieved on 18 December 2007.
- ^ Colin Campbell (2006-03-03). "Japan Votes on All Time Top 100". Next Generation. Retrieved on 15 December 2007.
- ^ Nintendo Power June, 2008, Future US. 2008. pp.25.
- ^ Nintendo Power July, 2008, Future US. 2008.
- ^ Rick "32_footsteps" Healey. "Mother 1+2 (EarthBound and EarthBound Zero)". Netjak. Retrieved on 16 January 2008.
- ^ Jeremy Parish (2006-04-22). "Retronauts Hall of Fame: Earthbound Zero". 1UP.com. Retrieved on 16 December 2007.
External links
- Starmen.net: Mother 1 - Website with information and fan works on Mother.
- Mother Party (Mother-jp.net): Mother - Japanese fan site with information on Mother. (Japanese)
- Mother at EarthBound Wiki
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