Now as we all know by now mother 3 was originally going to be developed for the N64 but was cancelled for whatever reasons. Now would you rather have had the developers actually finish EarthBound 64 on time or have had things turn out as they really did and have Mother 3 on the GBA.

In all honesty I was torn by this question. If EarthBound 64 was released there was a good chance it would've gotten a US release and on top of that it would have been really cool to play a 3D mother game. I think it would've been cool to play a mother game with 3D graphics and also the N64 is a more powerful system so it could've sounded different and the gameplay would probably be a bit different too (based on that spaceworld thing). Overall I would've prefered it as a GBA game. From the trailer and the screenshots, EarthBound 64 just doesn't seem to have the same feel as the previous two games, not that its bad but it seems less like an EarthBound game. Also Mother 3 is just classic, it is really fun on a less powerful system. The GBA just seems more fitting for it in my opinion.

But we would not know what the true game would have been like and if it was released people would consider it a true Earthbound game. I personally would love to play EB64 because it had so much more potential and plot than the GBA version respectively. If I remember correctly there where to be 12 chapters and way more characters. Plus because Earthbound was not so popular the game would most likely be as rare as Conkers bad furr day or be in high demand like FF7 or the SNES Earthbound we have today. Also you got to remember that it was in Beta, maybe even Alpha at the time so a lot can change, take a look at Zelda for example. If EB64 was found, move over starfox 2! The new hollyer grail is here! I would love me some EB 64 just for the experience! Plus it might tie between 64 games of the Anju and Kafei mission and Hinawa's death being the saddest things from a 64 game.

GBA. No question.

N64. No question.

Uhhhhh DS please. Since I can't have that, GBA is fine. That sprite work is godly.

I agree, the sprites looked really nice.

Is it a bad thing for me to want both? Cos i'd personally like to have both, though the latter would be executed differently... Heres how I figure it...

The N64 version of Mother 3 (Known as Earthbound 64) would be the game we all played on the N64, and would probably be the definitive version of the Mother series as it would be in 3D! I remember hearing about Earthbound 64 back in the day when I was a kid, I wanted it pretty bad because at the time when I was young, I had only rented Earthbound for the SNES from Blockbuster, and I figure getting Earthbound 64 would've gotten me schooled in the world of Mother more closely than Earthbound had done at the time. Nonetheless, I was very excited up until I had heard about its cancellation, and I was really upset to hear the news! After that time, I had wondered how I would get into the Earthbound/Mother series now... Oh man, I just went off on a tangent, back to what I was saying... so yeah, we'd have Earthbound 64, which would explain the story of Mother 3...

Then in the future, a GBA version of the game would be like Mother 3.5, a sort of remake to Mother 3 in the beautiful pixels we know of today with the story of the first N64 version, and THEN with a whole new story thrown in, so it would be kind of like a sequel, but kind of not a sequel at the same time!

Now if I absolutely had a choice to pick between Mother 3 on the N64 or the GBA, i'd probably pick the GBA because i'm more familiar with it, and that game made me tear up at the end, any game that can make me emotional at any point is a damn beautiful game IMO. Although to be honest, i'd really REALLY like to play Mother 3 on the N64 also, i'm really curious to see how that would've turned out...

Agreed. It is infinitely more difficult to make polygons look perfect like they can with sprites. The N64 most certainly did not have anywhere near the technical capabilities to do so. I think MOTHER should ALWAYS be a sprite game.

Although it's fun to fantasize about what the N64 version would be like, I still like the GBA version. Heck, most of the appeal for me was that they made the game so personal and emotional yet it almost looks like a Gameboy Color game.

The thing I wonder most about though is the music. I wish I knew what the original tracks were like aside from the 3 we already know about.

I'm going to second (third?) that opinion. They didn't need 3D to get the point across in the game. Technology is there to help the game be better, never to detract from it, and 3D very well could have detracted from EB64.
(When I'm trying to, say, avoid the Ultimate Chimera in the lab, I can't afford to have the camera glitch out and stare at the wall or anything like that. I've had stuff like that happen before.)

So I'm going to go with GBA on this one. Not that I wouldn't play EB64 if I got the chance (which will almost certainly never happen), but they did a good job with M3. I'm just sentimentally attached to visible pixels, I guess.

It's fun to think about what could have been. For all we know, EB64 would have been even better than OoT and skyrocketed sales, resulting in who knows how much recognition for the series. We'll probably never know, so we imagine instead.