March 11th, 2010 | EarthBound, Images, Uncommon Knowledge | 11 Comments

All this really old and rare merchandise lately has me reminiscing about when EarthBound was first announced. While the actual advertising for the game was dumb, the articles for it in Nintendo Power were awesome and completely the reason I bought the game.

So I thought it’d be neat to take a look back at some of that early Nintendo Power stuff. Here’s a big preview for the game they put in issue 70.

Seeing a lot of the unfinished localization stuff in there is interesting in its own way, like Giygas almost being called “The Geek” and the different gas station screen. But more than anything, the feeling the preview captured was really interesting and unique, and as a kid at the time I was instantly convinced to get this game after seeing this.

A few issues later, Issue #73, had an equally as big article about EarthBound that was really cool. It even talked about Shigesato Itoi and his unusual-ness. I’ll post that full article in the near future. For now, check out this preview and relive the past

March 10th, 2010 | Hacking, MOTHER 3, Uncommon Knowledge | 11 Comments

MOTHER 3 was released in Japan almost four years ago now… and released nowhere else. So fans came together to translate the game into English, French, Spanish, and many other languages. But I don’t think most Western fans know that there’s also been a completely separate project to translate the game into Chinese and that the project is almost nearly complete now.

Here are some screenshots:

If you know Chinese, you can check out more details here. You can also download the latest version from Dec. 25, 2009 here:

• MOTHER 3 Chinese Translation

According to the site, the progress stands at this:

• Hacking: 95% done
• Translation: 100% done
• Editing: 100% done
• Art/graphics: 0% done

Having worked on the hacking and translation of the English version, my many hats go off to this team. It’s a LOT of work. And difficult work. So they rock

BTW, the game is known there as “地球冒险”, which is something like “Earth Adventure”. I’m fairly certain there’ve never been any official Chinese versions of any of the games in the series, though I did come across this a while back.

I studied Chinese many years ago but it’s almost all forgotten now. I can’t even tell which kind of Chinese this translation uses. Can anyone provide more details?

March 10th, 2010 | EarthBound, Food, Interviews, Itoi, Uncommon Knowledge | 11 Comments

I’m not sure what magazine this is from, but it’s from way back when MOTHER 2 was released in Japan.

Basically, the magazine people made some Strawberry Tofu for Itoi to try, and he said:

This is really something! It has a profound flavor that makes me feel sad. (laugh) I thought this would be something an American with an unusual understanding of foreign cultures might make, but this is actually terrible!

Strawberry Tofu appeared in all three MOTHER games, but the EarthBound localizers changed it to Trout Yogurt before releasing the game in English. But if you want to see someone actually make Trout Yogurt, see here

I remember Itoi talking briefly about Strawberry Tofu during the MOTHER 1+2 event, though it didn’t get included in that mini-documentary. As I recall, he said he came up with the idea thinking it was so crazy that nobody would ever make it, but years later he found out that some places in France or Italy (I forget) had been making a strawberry tofu dish for some time, just by coincidence.

March 9th, 2010 | EarthBound, Fan Games, Hacking | 20 Comments

Not too long ago Bozo posted a really cool hack on the PK Hack message board. Basically, the idea is this:

• You gain a level with every 1 EXP.
• Every enemy gives 1 EXP.
• At level 99, your game ends.

The challenge is to try to get as far as you can, defeating as few enemies as possible. This is difficult because you’re gonna get hurt running away, and you’re not going to get very much money at all.

After some tests and some fixing, the final patch was posted, and you can download it here!

I haven’t tried it myself, but the concept sounds really cool and I hope I can find time to play it sometime. If you try it out, be sure to post your experiences you have here or on the PK Hack forum thread!

March 9th, 2010 | EarthBound, Images, Merchandise | 6 Comments

EBchamp won the super-rare EarthBound ruler that was on eBay a few weeks back, and he was kind enough to take some more photos of it for the rest of us.

(caution! huge pics!)

It’s just a ruler, but it’s also really rare so it’s always good to have some more pics of one after all these years

The seller also included a Nintendo Power thingy that talked about EarthBound 64, which I’ll post about another day.

March 9th, 2010 | Auctions, EarthBound | 19 Comments

Remember those official EarthBound Pogs that hit eBay a week or two ago? The auction finally ended and the final price was $255.

Hopefully they’ve found a good home, possibly as part of an EarthBound shrine

March 8th, 2010 | Audio Stuff, MOTHER 3 | 11 Comments

katanaswordfish sent this in the other day:

This past weekend I threw together two Mother3/DCMC covers. Both of them are versions of the “Theme of DCMC”, and are stylistically quite different. The quality is not bad (nothing to write home about but certainly not terrible either) if i may say so myself…

Nothing super amazing or revolutionary here. But, I thought i’d upload them and share them with my fellow EB/Mother3 fans. The music of Mother2/3 have been (and continue to be) a constant source of joy and inspiration to me. I enjoyed slapping these two songs together, and I hope others will enjoy listening to them as well.

They are both up on my new youtube account. With a bit of customized mother3 sprite modifications as a background.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

(download MP3)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

(download MP3)

Thanks again. The tracks are were mostly improvised, aside from the characteristic themes and motives that are part of the main melodies of the songs. I know my these aren’t perfect, but I hope they are well received! =)

I really like these remixes. It’s a shame they’re not available in MP3 form – I could rip some from the videos but they wouldn’t be very good quality I bet. Maybe sometime down the road downloadable versions will be available?

MP3 versions are now up. Thanks for the files, katanaswordfish!

March 7th, 2010 | Weekly Round-Up | 22 Comments

Gonna be another short weekly round-up this week, I’m mighty busy indeed. We did have some interesting stuff happen this past week, though. Here’s some other stuff from around the net that was EarthBound-related too:

Community News

• tattoos
• Eiffel 65 – Is That You?
• Important Importables: Notable fan translation projects
• Top 25 Favourite Games! (10-6)
• MOTHER 3: Ajuda dos fãs!

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

Things were a little slower this past week merchandise-wise. There were still some neat things and good deals, and here they are!

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

• Official EarthBound Pogs – this auction’s STILL going? I wonder how much it’ll go for. I’d love to have more info on these, if anyone happens to get ahold of them
• MOTHER 2 Cartridge for only $10! – maybe even elss if you make a lower offer
• Official Mr. Saturn phone strap – the rare MOTHER 1+2 preorder bonus
• Extremely rare Mr. Saturn Art Book in mint condition + the plushie + insert!
• EarthBound, EarthBound Player’s Guide, and many other Super NES games!
• EarthBound complete with guide, box, cart, and various inserts
• More official mini Mr. Saturn plushies!

BTW, I’ve also noticed that MOTHER 3 Deluxe Boxes are getting very scarce on eBay and on Japanese sites. I checked, and the average price for them on eBay rose quite a bit in the past month. If you ever come across one for cheap, be sure to get it. They’ll probably only get more expensive as time goes on, much like EarthBound has.

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

• A set of 10 mini Mr. Saturn plushes!
• Some rare Japanese Monopoly guide overseen by Itoi and APE

And stuff on Amazon:

• EarthBound prices down to $85 this week!
• EarthBound Player’s Guides also starting at $85

Interesting how the game’s guide can fetch as much as the game itself!

What’s Up With Itoi

• This past week Itoi and everyone at his office went on a big trip. I didn’t pay too much attention, but it sounds like they might’ve gone to Kyoto this time. Last year they spent a lot of money and flew out to some islands. The trips are for letting off steam but also meant to give the employees ideas for stuff to write about or do projects about in the upcoming months.

Final Thought

If you haven’t yet, check out the Postcards for EarthBound thing!

And of course check out the new EarthBound Central forum!

Yesterday I hooked up my Super NES and played a little bit more of my game of EarthBound (using my crazy save file of course) and once again noticed how much better it felt playing the game on an actual system rather than emulation. I don’t know why that is, though. Anybody else been struck by this feeling? Or just the opposite?

March 7th, 2010 | MOTHER 1, Uncommon Knowledge, Videos | 25 Comments

As you may remember, an EarthBound Zero prototype cart was put on eBay last month and was won buy our own fellow fan Roo for $1100. Roo is also an avid researcher and video-making guy, so naturally he made a detailed video about the prototype and information about all the EB0 prototypes. It’s interesting stuff, check it out!

For $1100, I would’ve hoped the prototype could also clean your house and make breakfast and stuff. Also: cat boxes are not good storage places for rare games

March 6th, 2010 | Misc. | 23 Comments

I recently added a basic forum to the site, you can visit it here.

It isn’t meant to be a humongo forum, it’s more like a small place for visitors to talk and a place for mini-projects, mini-updates, and stuff like that that I don’t want to clog the blog front page with. The manga translation project I mentioned in the last update would best be organized on a forum, for example.

I tried to find a way to link blog accounts with forum accounts by using WP-United, but with no luck. If anyone has suggestions, let me know.

$104.95 EARTHBOUND super nintendo snes rpg rare EARTH BOUND	$23.99 EarthBound MOTHER 2 Doujinshi (All characters) Dear My
$9.99 SFC SNES Unboxed Super Famicom MOTHER 2 earthbound	$40.00 Mother (video game) ★NES FC NINTENDO★1989 JAPAN
$19.56 Nintendo GBA Mother 1+2 Perfect Guide Book Earthbound	$19.56 Nintendo GBA Mother 3 Guide Book Earthbound
$29.99 EarthBound MOTHER 3 FAN Doujinshi (Lucas, Claus) KBIN	$59.00 GBA MOTHER 3 EARTHBOUND Import Japan Gameboy Advance

See all 240 auctions here!