NSO Mother 3 is out on Nintendo Switch Online today...in Japan.

[Stilt Village]

The game is good, but there's absolutely going to be this weird "oh that's it?" effect similar to Geno in SMRPG if it ever does get localized in some capacity.

With Geno, I can understand expecting there to be more to it than just "he has guns" with the decades of fervor behind him. But unless your expectations for Mother 3 are completely detached from reality or were heavily colored by EarthBound (but how many EarthBound diehards have never played it at this point?), I'm not sure how you come away from it with "that's it?" I find it difficult to imagine finishing it and being so underwhelmed by what it actually was, like what the hell were you building up in your head that makes this game mundane? But it's been a while since I've seen anyone actually talk the game up instead of just mourning its absence, so maybe the way people describe it really is just that exaggerated.

Glad I don't have this bias. What I played of the Mother 3 fan translation was impeccable. Also, AM2R is a better game than the official Metroid 2 remake we got. Nobody dare @ me.

True and accurate.

 

[Mekanos]

With Geno, I can understand expecting there to be more to it than just "he has guns" with the decades of fervor behind him. But unless your expectations for Mother 3 are completely detached from reality or were heavily colored by EarthBound (but how many EarthBound diehards have never played it at this point?), I'm not sure how you come away from it with "that's it?" I find it difficult to imagine finishing it and being so underwhelmed by what it actually was, like what the hell were you building up in your head that makes this game mundane? But it's been a while since I've seen anyone actually talk the game up instead of just mourning its absence, so maybe the way people describe it really is just that exaggerated.

I think there's a bit of a forbidden fruit element with Mother 3. For western fans it feels like a "secret" game that they discovered for themselves. When it came out in Japan, general fan consensus that it was good but it wasn't this amazing lifechanging RPG (with many preferring EarthBound). It's my favorite of the trilogy, and has what I think is one of the best stories I've seen in a video game, but I can see to an extent it being put on a pedestal by the decades of discussion around it.

 

[Stilt Village]

I think there's a bit of a forbidden fruit element with Mother 3. For western fans it feels like a "secret" game that they discovered for themselves. When it came out in Japan, general fan consensus that it was good but it wasn't this amazing lifechanging RPG (with many preferring EarthBound). It's my favorite of the trilogy, and has what I think is one of the best stories I've seen in a video game, but I can see to an extent it being put on a pedestal by the decades of discussion around it.

I know I'm biased because it's also my favorite, and I'm also aware that it seems more revered here than in Japan despite that being the country where it actually released, but I'm wary of giving credence to "the Sonic CD effect", where a game's reputation gets "blown out of proportion" because few people actually got to play it. I've mostly seen it used as an easy excuse to discredit something's acclaim. (I also don't even remember a time when Sonic CD was the "secret best Sonic game", which means if it happened it was decades ago when it was actually still possible for a game to have some inaccessible mystique before things like Steam, YouTube, and emulators became omnipresent. But I digress.)

I feel like it is worth mentioning though that the experience of the Mother trilogy is pretty different when it doesn't revolve around EarthBound as the base? I first played them all one after the other back in high school, and in that context, EarthBound feels like the odd one out tonally. Honestly, I didn't really like it much until I replayed it alongside the Legends of Localizations book years later and could just appreciate the dialogue and the whole vibe it was going for instead of focusing on the kind of weak storyline compared to the other two. I've always wondered if the west was somewhat more prepared to welcome Mother 3 because EarthBound was only a cult classic here, and most people who played Mother 3 didn't have a decade of expectations for a sequel built up by that game. It's very different from the rest of the series, and EarthBound especially, so getting put on a more even playing field may have benefited it.

 

[topsekret]

2) That isn’t my main point at all. I didn’t say that or anything to that effect at all. Did you even read my post? What I said was “there is clearly some reason, legal or otherwise, that we are never going to get Mother 3 in English in an official capacity.” I genuinely have zero idea how you got… that from my post.

I’ll reiterate my points again, as clearly as I can

-If we could have gotten Mother 3 in English, we would have by now. There is clearly something holding it back that Nintendo won’t say.
-It’s not tone deaf to release Mother 3 icons on NSO. They’ve released icons of Japan-only things to North Americans before.

Essentially it comes down to it feeling like you and other users are policing what we're allowed to ask for.

It seems like there's two camps of Mother fans:

1. The fans that used to ask for it, got tired of waiting, and played the fan translation. They now don't really see the need for it to be brought over officially.
2. The fans who still continue to ask for it and chose to not play the fan translation for one reason or another and maintain some hope that one day Nintendo will bring it over officially.

It seems like fans in group 1 get annoyed with fans in group 2 because fans in group 2 didn't take the same path that they did. I can see why that may be. Maybe fans in group 1 just wanna talk about the game itself with other fans in group 1 that have played the game and they don't want their conversations to always devolve into, "Why won't Nintendo bring it over? Where's the the game, Nintendo?" Fair enough. Based on the title of this thread, I came in thinking this was mostly gonna be a place for group 2 fans to come together and bond over asking for this game for nearly 20 years.

Yes, I know there's potential legal issues, controversial issues, or financial issues that have caused the game to stay in Japan all these years. But, as you said, it's all speculation, no one really knows the official definitive reason. And I think that's a fine thing to speculate about. But please don't use that speculation to shut down people that are earnestly expressing disappointment that they can't play this game, even if it seems trivial to you (ex: "just emulate it, bro"). We're all fans of the same video game series, no need to get nasty about it.

To use your example of Endless Ocean, just imagine someone going on this forum and in every Direct Speculation thread and posting about how much they want a Endless Ocean on the Switch in some way. But everyone jumps on that person saying things like: "Oh, it can't happen because it didn't sell enough." "Oh, it can't happen because this guy that worked on it no longer works at the company." "Oh, it can't happen cause it's been more than 10 years." "Bro, why do you even care? I play it in the Dolphin emulator in 4K with ray tracing on my PC with this HD texture pack and a sick mod where you can turn all the fish into Skibidi Toilets. What's stopping you from doing that?" And then yesterday's Direct happens, and despite everyone saying it couldn't happen or it didn't need to happen...it does.

I'll end by saying I can see why my comment about hoping we don't get the NSO icons rubbed people in group 1 the wrong way, and I apologize for that. You guys already played the game, so you want the opportunity to use those icons to express your love for the game. But I hope you can also see why people in group 2 might be a little annoyed by that gesture as it feels like a cheap consolation prize to us.

If you managed to read my wall of text, thanks! Anyways, I'm off to play more Side Order. Have a good one!

 

[Fuffelpups]

It seems like there's two camps of Mother fans:

1. The fans that used to ask for it, got tired of waiting, and played the fan translation. They now don't really see the need for it to be brought over officially.
2. The fans who still continue to ask for it and chose to not play the fan translation for one reason or another and maintain some hope that one day Nintendo will bring it over officially.

Three: Fans who played the fan translation and would play an official translation again.

I played the english fan translation multiple times and one time in german. I would love to have an official release from Nintendo and see how they would translate it. And maybe they would translate more languages for the europan and us market.

The best way would be an updated version like Super Mario RPG.

 

[topsekret]

Three: Fans who played the fan translation and would play an official translation again.

I played the english fan translation multiple times and one time in german. I would love to have an official release from Nintendo and see how they would translate it. And maybe they would translate more languages for the europan and us market.

The best way would be an updated version like Super Mario RPG.

I see you, group 3ers! We definitely need group 3 to keep the peace between groups 1 and 2.

 

[wiill64]

Three: Fans who played the fan translation and would play an official translation again.

That's the group I'm in
Played the fan translation twice but would absolutely love an official release so that it's more easily accessible to people and to see what changes Nintendo would make in an official localisation

 

[BassForever]

I don't even like the Mother/Earthbound franchise, I've had the fan translation for years. I still want this game to be officially localized the same way I want Fire Emblem The Binding Blade to be. When characters/locations/items/etc from these unlocalized games continue to be used in one of your biggest franchises (Smash Bros), it feels like a massive missed opportunity to not let people go out and buy/play the source games. This is especially true in the NSO era with everything being a subscription.

On another topic, other niche series continue to get official first time localizations that make Mother 3 look mainstream.

The Famicom Detective Club remakes
The Rhapsody sequels
The Crossbell Trails duology

And as others have said, Nintendo has been giving the green light to remakes & sequels for niche series like Another Code and Endless Ocean. Even if it's specifical problematic content, you can easily add a boot warning "this game contains elements that have aged poorly, that have been presented as originally designed" ala old Looney Toons.

 

[JB2448]

 

[9-Volt]

I don't even like the Mother/Earthbound franchise, I've had the fan translation for years. I still want this game to be officially localized the same way I want Fire Emblem The Binding Blade to be. When characters/locations/items/etc from these unlocalized games continue to be used in one of your biggest franchises (Smash Bros), it feels like a massive missed opportunity to not let people go out and buy/play the source games. This is especially true in the NSO era with everything being a subscription.

On another topic, other niche series continue to get official first time localizations that make Mother 3 look mainstream.

The Famicom Detective Club remakes
The Rhapsody sequels
The Crossbell Trails duology

And as others have said, Nintendo has been giving the green light to remakes & sequels for niche series like Another Code and Endless Ocean. Even if it's specifical problematic content, you can easily add a boot warning "this game contains elements that have aged poorly, that have been presented as originally designed" ala old Looney Toons.

Mother 3 and Binding Blade aren't the only GBA games Nintendo refused to localize. There are two more RPG's and I want them more than any Earthbound game:

Magical Vacation is even made by the same devs who did Mother 3. As someone who absolutely loved Magical Starsign, I'm one of very few people championing for the localization (or remake) of the first.

Nintendo literally one of the worst Japanese publishers in terms of localizing their games. So many Japan exclusive stuff in their library and they had only very small effort to bring them to worldwide audience. I can make a pretty big list on top of the above two. What infuriates me is they seem to be ok with that, while others do their best to not leave any game there. DQ had all of their mainline games localized, for Tales only 3 left. And as you mentioned NIS and falcom are doing much better than anyone else.

 

[Beanstar40]

I know people have dumped the fan translation onto real gameboy carts and are selling them on eBay. I may be getting an analogue pocket soon, if I do is it worth getting an unofficial cart

 

[BassForever]

Mother 3 and Binding Blade aren't the only GBA games Nintendo refused to localize. There are two more RPG's and I want them more than any Earthbound game:

Magical Vacation is even made by the same devs who did Mother 3. As someone who absolutely loved Magical Starsign, I'm one of very few people championing for the localization (or remake) of the first.

Nintendo literally one of the worst Japanese publishers in terms of localizing their games. So many Japan exclusive stuff in their library and they had only very small effort to bring them to worldwide audience. I can make a pretty big list on top of the above two. What infuriates me is they seem to be ok with that, while others do their best to not leave any game there. DQ had all of their mainline games localized, for Tales only 3 left. And as you mentioned NIS and falcom are doing much better than anyone else.

I've wanted Magical Vacation localized since I saw it covered in Nintendo Power back in the day. I didn't even know Starsign existed until I saw it at gamestop randomly and lost my mind, buying it instantly. I don't want to derail this thread further with talk of localizations I want to happen or covering the history of why things were or weren't localized, I'll just say modern NoA is still way better then late 00's Nintendo who were the absolute worst.

 

[Gingerbread Man]

Mother 3 and Binding Blade aren't the only GBA games Nintendo refused to localize. There are two more RPG's and I want them more than any Earthbound game:

Magical Vacation is even made by the same devs who did Mother 3. As someone who absolutely loved Magical Starsign, I'm one of very few people championing for the localization (or remake) of the first.

Nintendo literally one of the worst Japanese publishers in terms of localizing their games. So many Japan exclusive stuff in their library and they had only very small effort to bring them to worldwide audience. I can make a pretty big list on top of the above two. What infuriates me is they seem to be ok with that, while others do their best to not leave any game there. DQ had all of their mainline games localized, for Tales only 3 left. And as you mentioned NIS and falcom are doing much better than anyone else.

In case you are not aware, Magical has an almost complete translation, and both Tomato Adventure and its GBC prototype (Gimmick Land) have been fan-localized recently.

Personally, I really want Nintendo to bring the Card Hero games, the community does not seem very interested in translating them...

I know people have dumped the fan translation onto real gameboy carts and are selling them on eBay. I may be getting an analogue pocket soon, if I do is it worth getting an unofficial cart

The Pocket can now play GBA roms, so I'd say no.

 

[Zellia]

I'd like to see (and would probably play) an official release even though I've played the fan translation. I'd actually be really interested to see what Nintendo does differently to Mato's script - assuming they fully localise in-house and don't acquire his script as a base. The fan translation was actually made to mimic an official localisation (something it does very well, because Mato is a professional translator and localiser) rather than a more simple and direct translation of the text, so there's a more 1:1 comparison to be made.

Hopefully, if it ever happens, Mato himself will write about it on his site Legends of Localization.

 

[Leviraps]

Here come the waterworks

 

[Dinoman96]

I feel like a lot of people have a bias, conscious or unconscious, against anything "unofficial". It doesn't matter if it's something like Sonic where nobody involved in its creation works there anymore and the company that owns it doesn't care at all what you do with it, any fan creation is never going to be given the same respect and recognition as even the most garbage officially licensed product. Too many squares.

I think in cases like these, there's definitely a desire for validation or recognition officially.

Like for example, you still have tons of people begging for Waluigi, Geno, etc to be made playable in Smash Bros., even though when you really sit down and think about it, there already dozens of Smash mods and fan games that include them, like Super Smash Flash, PMEX, Smash Crusade, etc. And yet people still push for them to be in an official Smash game, because obviously it feels more validating to have them be officially recognized in the real deal that's obviously going to have more eyes on it than a fan project. Same reason people are rallying for something like Diddy Kong Racing to be brought back through NSO, even though in theory you can just emulate it.

It's like that with Mother 3, it doesn't really matter if there's a perfectly valid fan translation, because it's not an official thing you can easily play on the Switch.

 

[joveroy]

 

[jnWake]

Missing Negative Man icon hurts.