Weekly Round-Up #15

April 26th, 2009 | Weekly Round-Up

This week turned out to be a slower one than I expected, but I guess it’s crazy to expect a lot to constantly go on in the EarthBound world 😛

Probably the two big things this week were MOTHER 3’s third year anniversary and the discussion between Itoi and Iwata about early ideas for MOTHER 3. Right now, I don’t see any other big news on the horizon, but let’s hope that some stuff comes out of the blue soon.

Anyway, let’s have a look at what all has transpired this past week!

Site News

• This week I started looking at some logs and have been trying to betterfy the site based on trends I’ve seen. What’s most disconcerting is that a search for “EarthBound” will only bring this site up on the 3rd page (2nd if the stars are aligned), but it’s on the first page for a search for “earthbound porn”. Whoops, now it’s going to be even higher on the list.
• I’ve been messing with the auctions stuff lately. The main thing now is that you can see the five newest auctions on the right sidebar at any time, and you can also see how many auctions there are at any one time total. When I first started EB Central, the number used to hover in the 120-130 range on a good day. These days, it often gets near the 200 mark.
• Still working on the MOTHER 1+2 stuff, almost done with the first draft of the script, which is the most work-filled part of the project.

EarthBound News

• Itoi and Iwata talk about early ideas for EarthBound 64
• Three years after MOTHER 3! Fans give their impressions.
• Weekly Famitsu’s review of MOTHER 3
• MOTHER 2 vs. EarthBound: Threed #4 & Winters #2
• The history of EarthBound Zero!
• EarthBound: The Story of My Life
• Destructoid’s RetroforceGO! podcast all about EarthBound
• EarthBound battle background screensaver program 😀
• Awesome Etch-a-Sketch of Giegue
• Awesome MOTHER jazz medley!
• EarthBound with MOTHER 2’s intro/title screen

Cool Auctions & Merchandise

I’ve been tinkering with the auction listing stuff on the site this past week, and I’ve seen some cool stuff show up. There were two EarthBound strategy guides for $3 each at one point, but they quickly got snatched up after I posted about them on Twitter. Anyway, here are some more cool items recently listed on eBay.

Remember that you can check to see what EarthBound/MOTHER stuff is currently on eBay at any time here!

• Fan-made Mr. Saturn plushie! – looks like good quality too 😀
• Official MOTHER 2 manga
• Rare manga collection that includes MOTHER stuff – first I’ve seen it on ebay 😯
• Super NES + EarthBound (complete) + lots of other awesome stuff!
• MOTHER 3 cart for a nice price! – lacks the box, but it’s just a box
• MOTHER 1+2 and MOTHER 3 in one auction
• EarthBound cart with a very WTF label
• EarthBound cart for $79 with buy-it-now

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

• MOTHER 2 store advertisement flier – it’s been listed since EB Central began 😯
• Unopened MOTHER 1+2 keychain figure, going for like $10!

I recently updated the list of EarthBound-related stuff that’s on Amazon with a whole bunch of stuff. Check it out!

• EarthBound games, guides, misc. stuff on Amazon!

Community News

• Progression in Mother 3
• Earthbound and down
• plants are not water
• EarthBound and roadblocks
• Exquisite Mother 3 statues
• Shark Punk Figurines for sale!
• Of Pigs and Masks comic updated
• Re-creation of MOTHER 3’s final battle in 3D
• The Chosen Four comic updated
• Forgiven comic updated
• Office Bound comic updated
• Pig Mask Peril forum game

I’m not in a robotic body, meaning I can’t 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

I actually took some notes throughout the week for once! Here’s some stuff Itoi talked about this week:

• He talked about copywriting, and how coming up with good slogans isn’t just a matter of coming up with hundreds of ideas and hoping the client will like one of them – it’s about digging deep and trying to find what has “it”.
• Itoi talked about flowers, and how he wonders sometimes that maybe they’re there for us to look at, and that if they could look back at us and talk, they’d think similarly.
• Itoi ponders the slang word “ikemen”, how it came to be, and how long it will last as compared to other similar slang words that went out of style.
• Another day, he discussed how he thinks that economic hardship probably helps people’s creativity grow in new ways.

Upcoming Stuff

I’m starting to feel the effects of “updates are harder to come up with”-iosis, I hope it’s just a passing thing though 😛 This next week, though, I plan to talk a little about The Sirens of Titan, which inspired some things in EarthBound. I also want to put up the Summers page for my MOTHER 2 vs. EarthBound stuff sometime, but it’s going to be a pretty huge page so I hope I can find the time for it. We might look at another foreign magazine’s take on the EarthBound/MOTHER games. Then we’ll have the usual cool, unexpected stuff too I’m sure.

End

I’ve been trying to improve the site little by little whenever I have the time. I know it can be a lot better. If you have any ideas/suggestions, let me know!