Going for the Record….

In EarthBound, the police officer guarding a road block at the beginning of the game says, “We are going for the world record…” when talking about Onett’s claim to fame: putting up roadblocks.

In MOTHER 2, he says, “We’re challenging the Guinness record.” This very slight change was probably made to avoid any legal issues, however small they may be. You know how uptight legal department people can be.

---

Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire!

In EarthBound, a strange recluse known as Lier X. Agerate discovers the Mani Mani statue.In MOTHER 2, this same guy is called Lier Horando.In Japanese, “hora” means something like “exaggeration”.

---

I Hate Knock-Knock Jokes

When Pokey’s pounding on the door in MOTHER 2, the little text bubble says, “DON”. EarthBound’s text bubble just has a big exclamation mark.

“DON” is a sound effect in Japanese, often used for loud pounding. It’d be hard to fit anything in English in such a small space and make it look good, so the localizers chose to put an exclamation mark in there instead.

---

So Strict

In MOTHER 2, Pokey’s freaking out because Picky’s missing and if their parents find out, he’ll “get spanked 100 times”.

In EarthBound, they wrote around this by just using a vague phrase that still gets the general idea across while avoiding the idea of child abuse/violence. The localizers actually did this “writing-around stuff with vaguer phrases” trick a lot, as we’ll see soon enough.

---

EXCLAMATION.

In EarthBound, if you take your dog up to the meteorite, he’ll get scared and run away, but not before saying, “Awooooof!” and then some other stuff in parentheses. In MOTHER 2, He doesn’t make any sort of dog noise, he just makes a bunch of exclamations (which are in parentheses, just as this parenthetical note is) then says his stuff. Not a big deal, and in fact, the English version seems to be cooler/funnier in this case.

---

Buzz No More

In EarthBound, the helpful bee (or not a bee) that starts your quest is actually a rhinoceros beetle (or not) in MOTHER 2.

In addition, his name is Bunbuun in MOTHER 2, which is the buzzing sound that flying insects make.

---

Starman Speech

In Japanese, all the Starman characters who talk use only katakana in their speech. This is a common way to denote robotic-style voices, and in English translations, it’s often common to translate stuff like that in all-caps. In EarthBound, they kept Starman speech in the normal style, so it’s not as obvious they should be talking non-standardly. The only clues we get in translation are the occasional *click* and *whirr*, but those were also in the original Japanese. So if it weren’t for those, players might think Starmen talk and act like regular people :O

---

Abusive Parents

Pokey and Picky get in trouble for being out so late, so their father punishes them. The sound made to signify this is different between MOTHER 2 and EarthBound. MOTHER 2′s version sounds like some kind of crazy beating sound effect, while EarthBound uses the “angry yelling” sound effect there. This change also connects to the next thing down below.

---

Stop With the Hurting

After Pokey is punished by his father, if you go talk to him in MOTHER 2, he says, “I was really scolded by my father.Aa, my butt hurts.”But, in EarthBound, he says, “My dad really got after me.He said I get no dessert for the rest of the decade…”

There are many more examples in this part of the game where the localizers wrote around mentions of punishment by using vague phrases and altered text. It’s nothing too big, but it’s obvious they made a conscious effort to write around stuff like this, since Nintendo games were supposed to be absolutely-family friendly back in those days.

---

Money Money

In MOTHER 2, Pokey’s dad says they might’ve lent Ness’ family hundreds of trillions of dollars. In EarthBound, he says it was maybe a hundred thousand dollars or so.

The phrasing of the Japanese number, though, is equivalent to saying something like “a hundred million jillion dollars” in English. Why they edited it to be 100,000, which is a very realistic amount of money isn’t clear. It might’ve been a localization goof.

---

Dung Slapping

When Lardna freaks out in MOTHER 2, she screams, “Eeeeek! A pesky toilet fly! Die and go to Hell!” In EarthBound, she screams, “Ayaaaeee! I think it’s a dung beetle! I’ll smash your guts out!”

Obviously, the last part of the original line had to be changed to meet Nintendo’s standards. I feel the change to “dung beetle” made it funnier than the original, though.

---

Death is Dying

Also a common theme to EarthBound’s localization was the “writing around” of references to death and dying. In Buzz Buzz’s final speech, he mentions how he’s about to die, how death is near, etc. but in the English version, they use colorful phrases to write around the actual words of “death” and “dying”. The original text wasn’t dark or anything, so this isn’t a big deal, but you can tell the writers purposely used different phrases to talk about the death stuff in a less direct way.

In the picture below, Japanese Buzz Buzz is saying something like, “Then… Aaa, the pain… I think I’m about to die… ugh…”

---

Fuzzy… Sandwiches?

In EarthBound, the photographer’s famous line is, “Say, ‘Fuzzy Pickles!’” In MOTHER 2, it’s, “Say, ‘Cheese Sandwich!’”.

In the years since EarthBound’s release, many fans have noted that real photographers have been saying the fuzzy pickles line. Was this started by EarthBound, or is this a real, but lesser-known phrase that photographers have always used? Quick, to the book depository!

---

The Blue Button

When you pick up the town map from the librarian, she tells you how to use it.In MOTHER 2, she tells you that if you press the X button, the map will pop up.She then tells you that the X button is the same as the blue button.In EarthBound, she doesn’t mention blue buttons at all.

This is because in Japan, the buttons on the controllers are color-coded. But in North America, they’re not color-coded. Instead, the X and Y buttons are concave, and the A and B buttons are convex.

---

Where’s Mapson When You Need Him?

When you do press the blue button in MOTHER 2, or the X Button in EarthBound, a map of the current town will pop up. As you can see, the localizers made some slight changes to the EarthBound map. “DRUG” has been changed to “SHOP”. I’m not sure why, as the store in the Dusty Dunes Desert has a big sign that says “DRUGS”, so why fix this tiny instance of “DRUG”?

Also changed is the red cross pointing to the hospital. Red cross changes are a big part of the changes made to EarthBound, as we’ll see soon enough.

Lastly, if you look reaaaaaally closely, you can see that the Os in “FOOD” in the EarthBound map are larger than the Os in “FOOD” in the MOTHER 2 map. Somebody was probably just being nitpicky when editing this stuff real quick.

---

The Mayor with Many Names

In MOTHER 2, the mayor of Onett is named G. H. Pirkle, but in EarthBound, his name is B. H. Pirkle. He must’ve had an identity crisis during the localization process. But seriously, what could’ve caused them to want to change that?

The only barely logical theory I can think up is that there was the American president G. H. Bush, who was made instantly famous in Japan after vomiting on the Japanese prime minister in the early 90s, which coincides with the time MOTHER 2′s development began. The fact there’s also a Bush Hospital in Onett seems possibly related too, but it really does sound like a stretch. But what other reason could there be?

---

This Game is Demonic

In EarthBound, Ruffini the Dog is possessed by the spirit of the game designer, then gives the player some gameplay tips. In MOTHER 2, the dog’s name is “Itako Dog”. An “itako” is a type of Japanese spirit shaman or summoner or medium. It’s tough to explain, so see this for more detailed information.

It’s not clear where the name Ruffini comes from, but perhaps it’s a combination of “ruff”, a barking sound, and the name Houdini? Any other theories?

---

Trick Questions

In EarthBound, one of the residents of Onett gives you a pop quiz:

“OK, pop quiz!’A Beatles song, XXXterday. Can you fill in the blanks?”

Your choices are “Yes” and “No”.

In MOTHER 2, the same guy asks this:

“OK, quiz.’OOji, Girl of the Alps’.What goes in the place of OO?”

You get to pick from “hai” or “iie”.

The answer, “Haiji”, is the Japanese name for Heidi, Girl of the Alps, whose story became incredibly popular in Japan decades ago after an animated TV drama of it was aired there.

---

Delivery Trucks

In MOTHER 2, the logo on the red delivery truck has the word “Come” and a little swoosh underneath it. In EarthBound, the logo is of a stickman running.

Why this change was made is open to conjecture, however, the most likely cause is that the swoosh-like logo looked too much like Coca-Cola’s logo.

---

No Crosses Allowed!!!

The signs on the hospitals in Onett are different.The MOTHER 2 hospital has a red cross on it, while the EarthBound version does not.To make the change less obvious, there is a bunch of scribbling added to the EarthBound sign.But who would be able to read such small text that is on the top of a tall building?EarthBound truly is weird.

The reason for this change is to avoid any legal problems with the Red Cross organization. The red cross symbol is actually a copyrighted logo, not a generic symbol. The legal guys at NOA probably were aware of this and told the localizers to ditch the red crosses on the hospitals and anywhere else.

In fact, just very recently even, the Canadian Red Cross has started to go after game creators for misuse of the logo. Related Link Here

---

Nurses Eat Purses

Just as the red crosses on the hospitals have been removed, so too have the red crosses on the nurses’ head things. What are those things called anyway?

---

Poor Superman

In MOTHER 2, one of the cops you fight says something like, “Policemen are even stronger than Superman, you know!” In EarthBound, he says, “Your average policeman is stronger than any super hero!” The legal guys at NOA probably didn’t want to risk any mentions of copyrighted characters in this game, and thus had the localizers write around it with “super hero”.

This same cop also gives a quite unexpected martial arts war cry, often used in things like sumo wrestling.

---

Captain Strong’s Moves

In EarthBound, Captain Strong of the Onett police force threatens to use his “Super Ultra Mambo-Tango-Foxtrot martial arts”.In MOTHER 2, he threatens to use his “Super Ultra Sambo Mambo martial arts”.

---

Mouse House

This is a bit nitpicky, but it’s probably worth a quick mention.

In MOTHER 2, the scuzzy guy in the mouse house says something like, “I’m taking the liberty of living in the mice’s home and mooching off of them.” In EarthBound, he says, “I live rent-free in the mouse’s house.”

The problem here is that the translation sort of glossed over a joke that’s obvious in the Japanese version. The idea in the Japanese version is that this is a juxtaposition of roles — usually mice live in people’s homes and mooch off of them and are pests, but this house is the opposite — mice live here and a bummish scuzzy guy lives there and mooches off of them and is a pest.

The problem is that the Japanese word used isn’t easy to translate into a single English word, so the translators probably said something like, “I live here without paying the mice”, and then the non-Japanese-knowing editors turned that into the rent-free line. The joke is still there, though, but not as obvious. So now you know!

Hmm, that wasn’t a quick mention, was it?

Check out this stuff to add to your EarthBound collection!

Featured Item on eBay:


EarthBound MOTHER 3 FAN Doujinshi (Lucas, Claus) MOON
Other Stuff:



FC Twin System - Plays NES and SNES games

The Worst of Moonriders

My Neighbor Totoro (father is voiced by Shigesato Itoi)