December 13th, 2011 | Interviews, Itoi | 14 Comments

A little while back Shigesato Itoi, Shigeru Miyamoto, and Satoru Iwata had another one of their discussions about games, creativity, and all that stuff for another installment of “Iwata Asks”. This one is meant to be about the new Zelda Skyward Sword game, but it applies to stuff in general more than anything. You can check out the discussion in English here. Thanks to Gill for the ti...Read More »

November 7th, 2011 | EarthBound 64, Interviews, Itoi | 5 Comments

Once again the flood of Itoi interview translation continues as Chewy blasts through her NaNoTraMo stuff! This time we’re treated to an interview in the January 31, 1997 issue of Famitsu. In it, Shigesato Itoi and Satoru Iwata discuss stuff from the ill-fated Nintendo 64 version of MOTHER 3. Here’s an excerpt: Nagata Moving on, what’s the deal with the battles that Itoi’s always ra...Read More »

November 5th, 2011 | Interviews, Itoi, MOTHER 3, Uncommon Knowledge | 3 Comments

It sounds like Chewy’s on a Japanese magazine article translation binge, so here’s another big Shigesato Itoi interview, this time from the November 1996 issue of 64Dream. The article discusses (among other things): Itoi’s aversion to assigning “themes” to video games Itoi’s original intent to make MOTHER 3 in 2-D The extent of completion of MOTHER 3 even by the fall of 1996 I...Read More »

November 4th, 2011 | EarthBound, Interviews, Itoi | 3 Comments

Translator extraordinaire and resident 1101 expert Chewy has translated an old Shigesato Itoi interview from 1994 – 17 years ago yesterday, in fact. This particular interview was in a magazine called Hippon Super!, which was a gaming magazine with a more mature twist than conventional gaming magazines at the time. That might be why this particular interview sounds so different from the rest...Read More »

September 13th, 2011 | EarthBound, Interviews | 16 Comments

You might know Hirokazu Tanaka as one of the two lead musicians for the first two MOTHER games – he also did the music programming for both if I recall. He later went on to do other great things, too. Anyway, 1UP.com has an interesting article up in which Tanaka talks about EarthBound/MOTHER and its fanbase, with quotes like: “Mother fans are pretty unique. They don’t really ove...Read More »

August 3rd, 2011 | Interviews, Itoi, Uncommon Knowledge | 11 Comments

In the latest thing of Iwata Asks, the script writer briefly mention that they consulted with Itoi a little bit when working on Star Fox 64′s text. Takano: Each character has his or her own role. For example, if you help Peppy the hare, he’ll give you hints here and there, so it works out to your advantage. But if you help Falco the falcon… Miyamoto: He’s like, “CanR...Read More »

July 19th, 2011 | EarthBound, Interviews, Itoi | 10 Comments

Shigesato Itoi’s main job nowadays is mostly just chatting with and interviewing all kinds of people, and today I stumbled across a recent multi-part discussion he had with an illustrator and book designer (Ayumi Ohashi), and at one point he briefly brings up some MOTHER stuff. (context: Ohashi is talking about working with different types of people and how different people will act differ...Read More »

June 13th, 2011 | Events, Interviews, MOTHER 1+2, Videos | 5 Comments

Years ago I went on a hunt for all sorts of EarthBound/MOTHER-related videos to add to the Starmen.Net YouTube page. One thing I managed to miraculously uncover was raw footage of the MOTHER 1+2 release party in 2003. It’s only of the talk show portion of the event (most of which I already translated here), but if you want to see the whole thing, here you go! Part 1: Part 2: It’s a...Read More »

May 2nd, 2011 | Interviews, Itoi, MOTHER 1, Uncommon Knowledge | 10 Comments

I’m a little late to the party, but some weeks back Chewy posted her translation of an interview Shigesato Itoi did months before MOTHER 1′s release in 1989. Check it out here! Here’s a random snippet: Plans for MOTHER first took shape two years ago, but at that time all I was thinking about was whether I’d be able to have someone make a game for me. I called up a friend and a...Read More »

April 9th, 2011 | EarthBound, Interviews, Uncommon Knowledge, Videos | 8 Comments

Recently, Roo (the cool dude who made that EarthBound documentary and currently owns an EarthBound Zero prototype) met up with Reid, the co-founder of Starmen.Net and the guy behind Fangamer to talk about EarthBound, the EarthBound community, and all sorts of stuff. Some of the topics include: Nintendo Power’s coverage of EarthBound and buying EarthBound on release day How Starmen.Net came...Read More »