Weekly Round-Up #11

March 29th, 2009 | Weekly Round-Up

Week 11… double digits and a palindrome The stars have also aligned this week, to bring us some interesting news-ish stuff and plenty of other EarthBound-related goodies!

From mystery screenshots that look WAY too much like EarthBound to the awesome MOTHER 3 Handbook’s release to super EarthBound speedruns to tons of other things, the EarthBound world is really active lately.

Anyway, with all that babbling out of the way, let’s have a look at what happened this very busy week!

Site News

• This will probably the last week for the easy avatar/badge offer. Details here!
• I’ve been contemplating adding some very simple things to add to the user experience. I don’t know when I’ll go about trying it, but I thought I’d make a mention now anyway.
• I’ve also been thinking of changing how this page looks and acts. If anyone has suggestions on what might look better or what might be more useful, let me know!

EarthBound News

• Mysterious EarthBound-like screenshot is in this week’s Famitsu
• The next day, Dengeki posts a much clearer screenshot online
• Looks like the EB-ish game is actually a ROID version of “The Another World”…
• The MOTHER 3 Handbooks are shipped out! We also took a quick inside look at how they came to be.
• A snazzy ad video for the MOTHER 3 Handbook is made!
• The giant Mr. Saturn plushies have started to arrive, some are immediately sold with high markups
• pirohiko finishes EarthBound in just over an hour!
• We took a quick look at Shigesato Itoi’s connection with Studio Ghibli
• Some awesome handmade MOTHER 3 plushies
• xfis is a giant rapping EarthBound cartridge
• We took a look at the playable EarthBound 64 demo
• Mitch offers a comic to commemorate the latest tidbit of non-MOTHER-gameness
• People see EarthBound everywhere they go (cue Somebody’s Watching Me)

Cool Auctions & Merchandise

There’s been a surge in EarthBound-related stuff on eBay. There’s been maybe a 25%+ increase since just a week or two ago. Here are just a few of the cool things that’ve shown up this week. Don’t forget you can also always check the latest listings in one easy spot here if you’re looking for a good deal!

• Awesome deal on a MOTHER 3 Deluxe Box!
• Seriously, compare that one with this Deluxe Box
• MOTHER 1+2 AND MOTHER 3 – good deal and with free shipping!
• EarthBound Player’s Guide at a nice price!
• Rare MOTHER 2 strategy guide
• Rare MOTHER 1/EB0 strategy guide
• Very nicely priced EarthBound cart w/ Buy It Now!
• Here’s another good deal on an EarthBound cart – free shipping!
• Ness and Paula doujinshi manga
• EarthBound doujinshi manga: Wonderful Frypan

Here’s some cool stuff from Yahoo! Auctions Japan:

• Giant Mr. Saturn plushie
• Another giant Mr. Saturn plush
• A set of three rare MOTHER 2 strategy guides
• A really weird-looking MOTHER 1 cart

And here’s some stuff I found on Amazon and Play-Asia:

• MOTHER 1 Soundtrack CD – a lot cheaper than you see on eBay too!
• MP3 of Gymnopedie No. 1 – this appears in MOTHER 3 and is super-relaxing
• The Sirens of Titan – Itoi loves this book, and it inspired a lot of things when he made EarthBound

Community News

• Just one of many blogs out there about the ROID EarthBound thing
• Jeremy Parish gets M3 Handbook, decides to play MOTHER 3 finally
• Scary Womanizing Pig Mask gets a MOTHER 3 Handbook
• The “what if Ness was a girl” thread is STILL going?
• Is the Porky statue unbeatable without the NYE Bomb or PK Flash?
• Mathematical analysis of the construction workforce in MOTHER 3
• Forum game: Pig Mask Peril
• Comic: Of Pigs and Masks
• Let’s all sing Pollyanna together!
• The Chosen Four comic is updated! – love this so much
• The ever-popular comic “Broken” is alive again!
• Birdy & Chimera is updated! – and we see what’s on the Happy Boxes finally
• Tree From My Youth (MOTHER 3 radio play) updated

I’m still clinging on to my last shreds of being a non-robot, so 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!

What’s Up With Itoi

This week, Itoi was busy with stuff so much that he didn’t talk as much about what he’s up to. Instead, he posted lots of thoughts and such. Sometimes a little too TMI in some cases too

Anyway, since it’s cherry blossom season in Japan right now, he’s of course been talking about them a bit. There was also the World Baseball Classic recently, and Japan won it for the second year in a row, and he loves baseball to death, so he was definitely happy that Japan won. He didn’t get to see the game though, he was busy with work. Meanwhile, everyone else in his office watched the game

Here are some pics of stuff: Itoi’s office is very laid-back – Itoi and fire – Itoi working at home – now he won’t have to chew on his MOTHER 3 Mr. Saturn plush anymore

Upcoming Stuff

I had some things planned for this past week, but with all the news and stuff going on, I didn’t get time to get to it all. So I’ll probably do some of that stuff this week. I have a lot of ideas for new sections of the site, and I have tons of ideas for updates, but I get the feeling this week will be just as unpredictable as the last one, so I’ll just play things by ear this week. I’ll try to get a MOTHER 1+2 update in if I can, too.

End

Eleven weeks later and these roundups still take such a long time to make. I feel they’re pretty important in many different ways though, so I plan to keep it going. I do need to find a better format or a better process for writing it up.

Anyway, that’s just me babbling on. I say it almost every week, but it always amazes me that there’s enough going on in the world of EarthBound that this blog can even exist, much less get 7 or so updates a day on some days! Just think if any of the other games finally did get released outside of Japan. KABOOM

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Latest EarthBound Stuff on eBay:

$30.00 NEW EarthBound Mother 2 plush ball & chain Mr. Saturn	$56.88 FAMICOM NES FC"MOTHER"EARTHBOUND ZERO NINTENDO BOX JP-2
$164.88 "MOTHER 2 GYIYG STRIKES BACK COMIC"BOOK EARTHBOUND JPN	$74.99 MOTHER (Earthbound) FIGURE COLLECTION 1 - NINTEN
$22.00 Mother 2 Super Famicom Nintendo complete boxed	$39.88 SFC SNES"MOTHER 2"SUPER FAMICOM NINTENDO EARTHBOUND -3
$70.00 Earthbound Stratedgy Guide	$97.99 EarthBound (Super Nintendo, 1995)

See all 294 auctions here!