December 5th, 2009 | MOTHER 3 | 8 Comments

Over at Destructoid they’ve been posting a list of the top 50 games of the past decade, and MOTHER 3 got a mighty high spot at #3. Check it out here.

There are two things of interest about this: one, I think had this been a magazine or any other site, MOTHER 3 wouldn’t have even been considered, and two, unlike some of the other “best game” magazine lists that have showed up on EB Central, this list seems to be well thought-out. At least to me, anyway.

Thanks to the throngs of people who sent in news about this. Seriously, people sent in news about this more than anything else ever here

What do you think? Is MOTHER 3 deserving of that high a rank?

December 5th, 2009 | MOTHER 3, Uncommon Knowledge | 11 Comments

Brownie Brown, the developer for MOTHER 3, has a new DSiWare game in Japan called “Kappa Road”. And it looks like Ocho the octopus from MOTHER 3 makes a cameo in the title screen:

(click to enlarge)

Except for the hat, it looks like it’s the same sprite with some possible small graphical touch-ups. If you look closely, you can also see a Pigmask helmet next to him:

You can see it all in this video, at about the 1:00 mark:

Thanks to Kyven and edward for the info and Portal-Kombat for spotting the mask!

December 4th, 2009 | MOTHER 3, Uncommon Knowledge | 28 Comments

There’s a topic over on Starmen.Net that caught my eye. In it, people talk about little things they’ve noticed in MOTHER 3. It’s kind of surprising, because there are some things that not even I noticed, like the fact that the flowers at the grave have different colors throughout the game, showing that new flowers are always being brought.

(image by Aerostella)

The game took so long to develop that I suppose it’s natural that there are lots of little things like that everywhere. Some of my other favorites are:

• Ramming into the Drago from the left
• When you use the hot spring after you’re covered in soot
• The way the soot washes off when the rain starts is cool
• The town “map” of Saturn Valley
• The little text beep sounds change depending on the character talking, this is something a lot of people don’t notice right away it seems
• Duster still limps even when in disguise, Kumatora still yawns when in disguise
• Between Chapters 3 and 4, Kumatora gets three pixels taller and of course Lucas gets much taller too
• When you first meet Kumatora she throws some sort of ice thing at you, then when she joins you see she’s not at full PP because she had actually used PK Freeze
• You can meet Fassad in Chapter 1 if you go at the right time

I know there’s a lot more than that, but I can’t remember them all. Have you noticed any cool little details or tiny extra things in the game?

December 3rd, 2009 | MOTHER 1, Uncommon Knowledge | 32 Comments

In EarthBound Zero there’s an enemy in Magicant called “Groucho”. It’s an odd enemy and sometimes it will simply say “hello” and then leave, but you’ll still get experience from the battle somehow. It’s an amusing enemy, it kind of reminds me of the Walking Bushie in MOTHER 3.

Anyway, I’m sure most people know what the enemy’s name is a reference to, but here’s some info on that plus some more details courtesy of HalfmetalAlchemist:

Hey, there. I have no idea if this is official, but if not, it sure is an interesting coincidence. A while back, my mom borrowed a book from the library, titled “The Best of Groucho” if I remember correctly. I wouldn’t have thought much about it, until I noticed the man on the cover had squared eyebrows, a big moustache, and was wearing glasses. Here’s a photo of him:

I went a little deeper into this, and asked my mom if there was something about him saying “Hello” and then leaving. She responded by singing this song. I just thought I’d let you know.

Keep up the good work on EBC!

I forget what the enemy’s name is in the Japanese version, but I know it’s not Groucho. The enemy still does the same thing, though.

December 2nd, 2009 | MOTHER 3, Videos | 19 Comments

Okay, not really, but this kid does seem a lot like Claus

(click to view commercial)

Thanks to Laura for the find!

December 1st, 2009 | EarthBound, MOTHER 3 | 44 Comments

sg_06 posted a story the other day about trying to get others into the EarthBound/MOTHER series.

don’t worry, these aren’t being sold!

It’s neat the lengths people will go to try to spread their fondness for games. Have you ever tried to get someone into the EarthBound/MOTHER games? I’d love to hear other people’s stories about this

December 1st, 2009 | EarthBound, Images | 18 Comments

EarthBound fan Axl-fox writes:

There’s no much of Earthbound Merchandise around (specially if you live in a country with poor videogame culture like mine) so we have to make our very own merchandise

My manga teacher specializes at designing stickers, so I asked her to make some Earthbound related stickers and suggested to sell them at the next anime/manga expo

click for larger

Thanks for showing some love to the earthbound series teacher! (and sorry for the bad quality)

November 30th, 2009 | Fan Games, MOTHER 3, Videos | 30 Comments

A couple weeks ago I posted about the really cool Chimera Hunt GMod addon when it was still being worked on. It’s since been finished and released! You can download it here!

And here’s a new video of it:

I wish my computer wasn’t stupid so I could play this, it looks kickass

Thanks to the many people who sent in news about this all at once somehow!

November 30th, 2009 | EarthBound, Uncommon Knowledge, Videos | 31 Comments

In the Japanese anime series “Natsu no Arashi”, there’s a pretty big EarthBound cameo that includes Ness, Jeff, possibly King, and a well-endowed Starman. You can check it out here, see around the 1:25-ish mark.

EarthBound cameos in TV shows seem to be really rare, in fact the cameo in Shin-chan is the only other one I can think of off the top of my head. So a cameo this big is pretty cool to see.

Thanks to kevinchai for the tip on the forums! If you or someone you know has come across any other clear cameos in other stuff, let me know! I know there were some references in comic books, but I forget which ones.

November 29th, 2009 | Weekly Round-Up | 34 Comments

Some interesting stuff showed up on EB Central this past week, like an EarthBound Zero prototype auction, some magazine articles, and some interesting trivia. So here’s some other EarthBound stuff that’s happened elsewhere on the Internet this past week.

Community News

• Post de hoy: HOLYSHIT Earthbound
• Mozilla Fire-bound e Resultados!
• Shigesato Itoi reiterates that he’s done making Mother games
• The Morality of Perverted Pillowcases
• Mother 3 Spieletagebuch Teil 3
• Goodwill Hunting episode 1: SNES and the blank cartridge

I can’t possibly keep up with every single thing that happens in the EarthBound community, so if you’ve done something cool or if you know of something cool that belongs here, let me know!

Cool Auctions & Merchandise

The big news this week was of course the EarthBound Zero prototype that hit eBay recently, but there’ve been plenty of other cool EarthBound things as well this past week.

Remember, you can also see all the EarthBound / MOTHER stuff on eBay all gathered in one handy place here!

• MOTHER 2 choose-your-own-adventure RPG game book – this is probably the highlight of the week, not only is this rare outside of Japan, it’s only $18!
• MOTHER 3 Mr. Saturn plushie – very good price!
• MOTHER 2 4-koma manga comic book – semi-rare and a pretty decent price
• Another MOTHER 2 4-koma manga comic book – an excellent deal, I highly recommend this one
• Here’s a somewhat rare MOTHER 2 manga, quite a bit overpriced I would say, though
• Giant MOTHER 2 Mr. Saturn plush – I dunno, I think people are still asking way too much for these, but if you have some money to burn, this is a good way to go
• EarthBound complete with game, box, and guide – pretty good deal compared to the average price of complete EarthBound sets!

And here’s some cool stuff on Yahoo! Auctions Japan:

• MOTHER 1 and MOTHER 2 novels
• Used MOTHER 3 Deluxe Box
• Cool-looking ad flier for Itoi’s N64 fishing game

And stuff on Amazon:

• EarthBound carts starting at $74 this week – that’s the lowest I’ve seen it in a long while, if ever at Amazon
• MOTHER 1+2 soundtrack CDs available from Amazon – there weren’t any available a while back, I guess I didn’t notice when news ones popped up

What’s Up With Itoi

• This past week Itoi saw 2012. He said the theater was packed. He didn’t go into whether he liked the movie or not, but he did say that the progress of computer graphics is really surprising now, and that future movies about disasters on a world scale will probably always be compared to this one in terms of the way it’s shown.

Final Thought

Back by somewhat popular demand, figure out what’s wrong with this screenshot!

Today is Sunday – go play EarthBound!

EarthBound Mother 2 Manga Book RARE Nintendo Comic

MOTHER 1+2 Value Selection

See all EarthBound stuff on Amazon!