EarthBound Central » MOTHER 1

The Newcomer’s Guide to MOTHER

Mato — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 16:26:16 +0000

An extremely common thing I see on message boards and e-mails is:

I want to get into the Mother / EarthBound games but don’t know where to start. What do you recommend?

So I thought it’d be nice to make a short page about the topic to make everything nice and clear. I present to you The Newcomer’s Guide to the EarthBound / Mother series!

Now I know a lot of people will disagree with where I put MOTHER 1. I spent a lot of time trying to decide where to put MOTHER 1, and in the end that seemed the best place to me, but at the very least I want to bring this point across:

If you’re a newcomer and you ever decide to play the first MOTHER game, don’t bother with the unfinished NES version – play the MOTHER 1+2 translation patch version instead! I made it specifically because of the fact that the NES version is so hard for people to get into.

I feel like I’ve left some stuff out of that page, so let me know if you think I should add anything else. And if you disagree with my suggestions, please feel free to chime in with your own order of games!

Basically, I want to try to share the series with more people, so send this suggestion page far and wide! If you ever see anyone ask which game they should start with, give them this handy link for reference

EDIT: I’ve since updated the page to incorporate some of the readers’ suggestions. Keep ‘em coming!

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MOTHER Intro Redux

Mato — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 12:48:40 +0000

Riccardo sent in this video he made – it’s a really cool remake of the original MOTHER game’s intro:

Nice work, everyone involved!

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Prof. Sakamoto MOTHER Medley

Mato — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 13:14:56 +0000

I can’t remember if I’ve posted about this or not before, but just in case I haven’t, check out this great piano medley by the famous Prof. Sakamoto:

What’s cool about this is that he’s become famous enough in Japan that he’s even done stuff with Shigesato Itoi’s company. Here’s a page about a live recital he did for Itoi’s site and here’s an album that Itoi’s site helped promote.

Kinda makes me wanna stick an NES top loader on my head when I work…

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MOTHER Reviewed by Pokemon Creator

Mato — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 13:44:40 +0000

Ultra translator Chewy has come through again – this time she’s translated a review of MOTHER 1 by Satoshi Tajiri, who went on to create Pokemon in the 90s. This review actually predates Pokemon, so I wonder how much influence MOTHER 1 (and maybe MOTHER 2) had on his inspiration for Pokemon’s game design.

At any rate, it’s a long and interesting read – I like how he digs in deeper and gets a little more critical than your average Japanese game reviewer. Check out the article here!

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MOTHER 1 Strategy Guide Video (18) Read More >>>

Local Band Covers MOTHER Tunes

Mato — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 12:51:11 +0000

Evan sent this in the other day:

Greetings, Mato!

A local band a few towns over from me called Lost Woods just released their debut EP. They do rock covers of video game tunes, and I’ve been following them for a while. I suggested they cover some EarthBound tunes, and as luck would have it, they covered Snowman and Mother Earth from the MOTHER series, and they’re awesome! One can download the album from their tumblr, which features a whole heap of awesome covers from a bunch of Nintendo/Sega games.

Here’s their Snowman song, be sure to check out all their other ones here!

Download audio file (05-Snowman.mp3)

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More 8-Bit MOTHER 3 Music (31) Read More >>>

Custom MOTHER Bag

Mato — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 14:44:23 +0000

A few weeks ago LucasTizma was telling me about some vector graphics he was working on for some sort of MOTHER-related project. I just recently found out what it was:

For Christmas, I had some custom MOTHER items hand crafted for me. I got a sweet messenger bag, a MacBook Air sleeve, and an iPad sleeve. I think it turned out really well! The guy did a great job with the embroidery. Anyway, just wanted to share these awesomely unique items with the community. I’m probably the only person in the world with a bag emblazoned with the MOTHER logo!

And here they are:

So it’s like, what happens when the craziest MOTHER/EarthBound collector out there runs out of stuff to collect? He makes his own stuff! That’s that Do-It-Yourself Devotion in action again all right I don’t even own an iPad or a MacBook and kinda want these…

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Electric Guitar EarthBound Remixes

Mato — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 13:50:33 +0000

Master Chicken recently sent me news about an album of MOTHER remixes he put together, called “The EB EP”. It’s full of electric guitar goodness, here are some sample tracks for your listening pleasure:

Log-O-Type:
Download audio file (01-Log-O-Type.mp3)

Some Kind of Cave Demon:
Download audio file (08-Some-Kind-of-Cave-Demon.mp3)

You can download the full album here! Just don’t let your ears melt off.

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MOTHER Series in Spanish NGamer

Mato — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 15:39:49 +0000

Visitante sent in these scans from a Spanish-language version of NGamer. It looks like it’s an article about the history of the MOTHER series. I don’t have a translation handy (used to know Spanish but it got pushed out when I learned Japanese, doh) so hopefully some language-knowers here can help translate.

It seems like EarthBound stuff is in NGamer magazines a lot:

There’s more I’ve probably forgotten. If you come across any other stuff like this, let me know!

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EarthBound/MOTHER Let’s Plays

Mato — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 12:39:27 +0000

A few years ago the “Let’s Play” thing suddenly took off, and everywhere you look it seems like there’s a million Let’s Plays of every game imaginable. I often get asked to recommend some good EarthBound/MOTHER series Let’s Plays, but I’m sort of out of the loop when it comes to them, so I turn that question to you, loyal readers:

What are some good EarthBound and Mother series Let’s Plays that you’d recommend?

I of course know of chuggaaconroy’s work and I know poik007 did some cool stuff many years ago, but I’m certain there’s way more than that

What I’d like to do is compile a list of the best ones and then make a page for them. So share away!

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Mother 2 and a Half Comic

Mato — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 18:29:57 +0000

If you’re an EarthBound/MOTHER fan, most likely you’ve come across something PsiPaula4 has made, whether you’ve known it or not. One creation of hers is a comic called “Mother 2 and a Half” that’s meant to explain some theories on how the first two games connect.

If you’re one of those theory-followers, you’ll probably like it You can start from Chapter One here.

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