Does the EarthBound series have a future?

[nintendofan85]

Thoughts?

 

[Bread Kennedys]

In terms of, will there be more Mother/Earthbound games, probably not. There's a chance that Mother 3 could get localized at some point, or even remakes of Mother 1, 2 or 3, or maybe even all of them, but we probably will never see another new entry in the series. The original creator seemed intent on making Mother 3 the last game. However, this series definitely has a future in the way of online fandoms and communities. This fandom is perhaps one of the most dedicated I've ever seen to their respective series. The good folks over on Starmen.net are constantly working on fan projects, they're even responsible for the first big (and best) Mother 3 fan translation. They translated that whole game into English themselves just so they could play it without having to learn Japanese. That takes a lot of passion. Not only that but as long as Ness and Lucas are in Smash, even kids who never got to play these games at least know something about them. We may never see a new entry in the franchise again, but as long as the passion and the love for the franchise is there, in my eyes, it has a future. They say when a person dies, on average, they're remembered for about 70-something years after their death. This is called a second death. Mother will never truly "die" until it's no longer remembered by anyone. Those are my thoughts, anyway.

god I'm such a nerd

 

[MBaku]

Itoi has stated multiple times that he has no intention to make new MOTHER games. There's a team making a MOTHER-like game that was originally called MOTHER 4, but they rebranded because they were worried they would receive backlash from Nintendo though that has yet to happen with any of the MOTHER franchises, since I think Itoi has also stated he's OK with fan creations. So an "official" game is highly unlikely but fans make tributes all the time!

 

[nintendofan85]

I was aware that Shigesato Itoi did not intend on making a fourth game in the series in an interview around the time of Mother 3's release in 2006. I guess I was more asking about remakes or re-releases. It just seems to be a crime shame that a franchise of Nintendo's like this is this way. On the other hand, if there were to somehow be more games, the only way I can see that happening would possibly be if someone decided to take Itoi's role and develop a game of their own (which, as you've mentioned, seems to be what fans are doing, although I don't know if Itoi would care or not if someone else at Nintendo wanted to make another game).

EarthBound, nevertheless, seems to be about the most dormant Nintendo franchise there is, right behind F-Zero.

 

[Geoni]

No to the main question at hand which is unfortunate because of how amazing all these games were and how well I think they could have done as a franchise. I think this should have been Nintendo's regular turn-based RPG, if you don't count Pokemon as one.

Mother 3 has one of the best stories in gaming imo and is one of the most emotional 2D games ever made. One of the most impressive soundtracks. Great characters and personality. The series got better with each game. But it...had such a hard time with development and then localization and didn't flourish to this day because of it.

I also read somewhere that at this point Nintendo is okay with the fan translation but I don't remember why. I think it was Reggie finally talking about it after retiring.

Man do I love the series though. Been thinking about getting a Mr Saturn or Save Frog tattoo.

 

[Halloqueen]

I don't really think they'll ever actually bother to officially release Mother 3 outside of Japan, and to be honest I don't think I want them to either. It seems like they would have to absolutely ravage that game to avoid rights issues with the music, not to mention how much they might need to change in localization. I can see the Magypsies causing an uproar on both sides of America's (and likely other nations') political spectrum for different reasons, and they are quite important to the plot. I would want an international Mother 3 release to be as unaltered as possible, and that's a longshot. As much as I love the game and despite the fact that it's one of my favorite games of all time and that I would love for it to reach a wider audience, Nintendo is saving itself a lot of headaches and hassle. I feel like the fan translation would end up being far more faithful than whatever Nintendo would churn out, and since Nintendo likely isn't just going to use a fan translation in their official release for myriad reasons, their not cracking down on the fan translation and letting non-Japanese fans experience the game in this roundabout way is as close to an ideal situation as is possible. The intent of the art is maintained as closely as possible this way, and that's the most important thing in my eyes.

We've already had re-releases of Mother and Mother 2/EarthBound 0 and EarthBound in recent years, so that's taken care of. As far as a remake goes, I am not altogether interested unless it was extremely faithful and kept all the idiosyncrasies. But even then, I neither need nor very much want a remake. The originals are fine as they are.

Just as Shigesato Itoi is content to leave Mother 3 as the final Mother game, so too am I content with his decision. I'm not particularly fond of the concept of franchises on a base level. It's nice to have a sequel to a game, a movie, or whatever else it is that you like, but as a writer I tend to feel that a work shouldn't be created unless there's a purpose, a drive, and a love for the work you're creating. This applies doubly so to a successive work/sequel, and it continues to multiply for each work in a series thereafter. If Mr. Itoi doesn't have another Mother game in him, then it is what it is, and I am none too interested in anyone else taking the reins considering how baked he is into the framework of the series. We have the 3 games through one means or another, and that's more than good enough for me.

I feel NoUsernameHere has the right of it when they say:

We may never see a new entry in the franchise again, but as long as the passion and the love for the franchise is there, in my eyes, it has a future. They say when a person dies, on average, they're remembered for about 70-something years after their death. This is called a second death. Mother will never truly "die" until it's no longer remembered by anyone. Those are my thoughts, anyway.