Weekly Round-Up #24

June 28th, 2009 | Weekly Round-Up

Wow, it’s already the end of June. In a few days the monthly site theme will automatically change. Since it’s July, and since that’s a hot time of the year, I think the theme is somewhere hot. I don’t remember exactly where though. Guess we’ll find out!

The biggest thing this week was that there’s an EarthBound Zero prototype cartridge up for auction. If I were rich and/or a collector, I’d be all over that. But hopefully someone who really like ths game will win it.

All right, let’s have a look at what else has happened this week!

Site News

• MOTHER 3 translation patch v1.1 testing is pretty much done. I just need to write a readme and also get the patcher program slightly updated. Also sounds like the online version of the guide WILL be up soon, probably around the same time. Barring any unforeseen events, the new patch will be out in a few days. It fixes typos and most of the known bugs. It’s been tested a lot and no new issues have popped up, so that’s good 😀
• MOTHER 1+2 translation hasn’t been progressing much while I worked on the above and also been trying to find time to rest/relax. Right now I’m in the translation-checking/text-polishing phase. I don’t know what’s going to happen with the MOTHER 2 side of the translation, but when I finish the MOTHER 1 side I’ll make a patch and also include basic translations for the MOTHER 2 menus and such. Next month is MOTHER 1’s 20th anniversary, and although it’d be really cool to have the patch ready by then (I think it was released on the 20th), it’s not a goal of mine. I wonder if Nintendo will release the game for Japan’s virtual console next month, that’d be neat.

EarthBound News

• EarthBound Zero prototype being auctioned off – I also include a few details in the comments
• REALLY good Itoi interview just after MOTHER 2’s release – translated into English!
• Aloysius Minch is the worst dad!
• A Tribute to Ness’s Dad for Father’s Day
• A school in Japan has an RPG-like website that also has an EarthBound/MOTHER 3 feel to it
• New Age Retro Hippie stuff!
• Spider Mechs are real!
• A cool MOTHER 3 Winamp theme
• A wtf-worthy Japanese video with Giygas battle music

Cool Auctions & Merchandise

The big merchandise news this week was the EarthBound Zero prototype cart of course. A couple other goodies snuck in under the radar though, and the general # of EarthBound carts this week was higher than usual for some reason. I saw a few selling for $65 or less this week, even.

If you want to keep tabs on what EarthBound/MOTHER-related stuff is on eBay at any time, just check here. It updates throughout the day and makes it easy to see everything in one place.

Anyway, here’s some stuff from this week:

• MOTHER 2 strategy guide – rare and a great price!
• A different MOTHER 2 stratedy guide – also rare and same price 😯
• And yet another MOTHER 2 strategy guide – this one’s also rare and cheap!
• MOTHER 1+2 for $25
• MOTHER 3 Deluxe Box
• WTF, why does an EarthBound cart cost this much all by itself???

MOTHER Encyclopedia, MOTHER 2 Soundtrack CD, MOTHER 2 cart for $8.99, EarthBound bundle

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

• A good deal on the MOTHER 1 and MOTHER 2 novels
• Rare MOTHER 1+2 Ana screen cleaner
• Super rare Mr. Saturn shirt – by King of Games
• Unopened, first-edition MOTHER 1+2 Mr. Saturn Art Book w/ Mr. Saturn plush inside!

And some stuff on Amazon:

• For those of you who want to play Super Famicom import games like MOTHER 2 on your Super NES but don’t want to risk modifying your system, these Super Famicom->Super NES adaptors should do the trick.

Community News

• Some updates with “Unearthed”, one of the coolest-looking EarthBound hacks in existence!
• Cool article on gameplay vs. story – lots of MOTHER 3 and EarthBound in here
• Five games you MUST play before you die
• Cool EarthBound pic
• ManBound?
• Top 10 Raw Deals for Gamers
• The CCScript text program for EarthBound hacking got some awesome new abilities like custom variables
• Heroes of Mother 3 forum game
• Super Starmen Bros. Brawl – Smash Bros. Brawl tournament
• Adventure of Pigmask forum game
• Pigmask Quest forum game
• Tree From My Youth MOTHER 3 radio play updated
• The Chosen Four comic seris updated
• Adventures of Birdy and Chimera comic series updated
• Ness and Jeff do the Gallon – drinking lots of milk!
• “Name” – a new comic series
• Of Pigs and Masks comic series updated

Arghoazoi blkzx. 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

• Itoi saw the movie “Up” this past week and he really liked it a lot. He said you could feel the hard work, enthusiasm, and ideas of everyone involved.
• The Japanese word for diarrhea is “geri”, which sounds like the name Gary. So Itoi was talking about people’s experiences when “meeting Gary”. He talking about his personal observations and how men treat encounters with Gary differently than women do. The following day, he made another post about how he got a lot of reader replies (usually talking about their own observations/experiences) on the subject, much to his surprise.
• Itoi also said that lately he feels unhappy/disappointed with himself lately. He mentioned something similar last week (which I think I mentioned in last week’s round-up), it sounds like he’s just not feeling relaxed when he has free time. He does seem to be a workaholic, at least.

Upcoming Stuff

My queue of updates was getting very unorganized, so I cleaned it up today and now there’s plenty of stuff to post about. Expect a Swedish/Finnish review of EarthBound from 1995 sometime this week for sure. Got some audio updates in mind as well. And it’s likely the updated MOTHER 3 patch will be out too. I’ve also got a few cool videos in mind. So I think this week will be pretty cool.

End

I was randomly wondering today: it’s almost a sure deal that if EarthBound 64 hadn’t been ultra-delayed and canceled that it would’ve been released in English too. I wonder if that would’ve kept the series alive outside of Japan, resulting in MOTHER 1+2 also being released here. We’d be without the GBA MOTHER 3 we know, but then we’d have all three games released and Nintendo probably wouldn’t view the series as evil stuff that should be avoided.