So I’m planning to put together a handy little page about that, but first I kinda want to hear other folks’ thoughts on the subject, how you personally got into EarthBound (or any of the other games), and what about the games was the “hook” for you.

If you got into the series via Smash Bros., what game in the Mother series hooked you first?

I’ll grind up all this info in a big meatball and then make a handy-dandy FAQ page for newcomers. So share your comments below! Also check out the poll!

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For reference, here’s what I put in the readme about his name:

Pokey, a character from EarthBound, makes an appearance in this game. However, the translators for EarthBound were unsure of how to romanize his name and wound up naming him incorrectly. It’s clear from this game that Itoi intended his name to be spelled “Porky” all along. This left me with a problem: which name do I use? I mulled it over for maybe 8 months or so, and decided to go with how the creator intended it, rather than go with what was a mistake. Additionally, Nintendo of America also seems to take this stance, as he’s now referred to as Porky in Super Smash Bros. Brawl in many places. The name “Porky” also fits in with the big “pig” theme of this game. Leaving it as “Porky” also meant we didn’t have to go through the trouble of hacking a large number of compressed graphics.

I considered trying to add in a little line somewhere saying that maybe Pokey changed his name to Porky at some point, but that didn’t seem quite right. I decided I’d just cover the issue briefly in the translation notes. I hope this helps explain some of this issue. It’s one of those things where whatever choice you make, someone won’t be happy. It’s funny though, because between EarthBound Zero and EarthBound, the antagonist’s name changed from Giegue to Giygas, despite being the same character with the same spelling in Japanese. And now something similar has happened again.

So what do you think? Would you have preferred Pokey or Porky? Were you for one or the other at first but since changed your mind? As a translator, I’m curious to know since it’s so rare to be able to get any feedback at all.

Also, for fun, I’ve added a little poll to this post

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EarthBound’s ranking in the poll isn’t surprising, the game pretty much dominated all the previous Virtual Console polls, as you can see here.

Many thanks to The Great Morgil for the scans and the info!

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What interests you more, playing the MOTHER 1 part of MOTHER 1+2 with my retranslation/extra features/uncensoring, or being able to play the MOTHER 2 part of MOTHER 1+2 in English? Click here to vote!

I’ve been surprised by how many people are interested in the MOTHER 1 stuff I’m working on, but I’m curious to know if they’re just a small minority compared to people who only care about the MOTHER 2 part. I’d really like to work on the MOTHER 2 part, it’s just that it’d probably be as much work as the MOTHER 3 project (if not more) for what would be very little gain, as the Super NES version is already in English, has superior audio, has fewer bugs, etc.

Anyway, let me know what you think!

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This month, some official Runaway Five figures are being released, and that’s brought up some questions about the members’ names. This was always a bit of a fuzzy area for me, since I’ve heard conflicting info but never looked into it much. Here’s a quick rundown of their names though, for the especially die-hard fans!

First, we didn’t even know the Runaway Five/Tonzura Bros. had names until sometime in late 1999. We found out by looking at some tiny, obscure Japanese homepage – as I recall, one .gif image was called lucky.gif and one was called gojasu.gif. So the tiny community at EarthBound.Net/Starmen.Net knew the fat Runaway Five member as Gojasu for a while. Eventually, we realized Gojasu is just the Japanese way of the English word “Gorgeous”, though to this day some of the old folks still instinctively call him Gojasu

Over time, we would occasionally find old magazine articles and such that called him “Gorgeous” as well, like this old Famitsu from 1994:

As the community got bigger and we started reaching out to Japanese sites a little bit, we started to notice that some (but not all) Japanese fans were calling the fat Runaway Five guy something else: “Nice”. Then, as it became easier to import old Japanese stuff, fans started noticing that the fat guy was also called Nice in other magazines and guide, like this official MOTHER 2 guide:

So there’s always been a lot of confusion about what to call this guy. The majority of English-speaking fans know him as “Gorgeous”, simply because that was what we ran into first. But it could very well be that his official name might be “Nice”. It’s also interesting to note that a company (or group) named Lucky Nice is in the game’s credits:

In any case, the supposed names of the Runaway Five are (according to Japanese sites): Lucky, Nice, Gorgeous, Okay, and Groovy. Which one the fat one is is still unclear, but maybe the upcoming Runaway Five figures will have their names on their boxes to help clear up (or deepen) this mystery!

Thanks to KingDarian for the scan and photo!

UPDATE: The figures have since come out, and the results have made things even more confusing! According to the figures the fat one is called “Lucky” and the skinny one is called “Nice”. I think this is one mystery that’s never gonna get solved

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So the first set of MOTHER 1 and MOTHER 2 figures has been released, and some have started to hit eBay. Already from the start the asking prices are very high, at $100 for each of the MOTHER 1 ones. It seems like there’s always price gouging when it comes to this series’ merchandise, so it’s not too surprising.

Still, I’m curious to know what fans would consider reasonable prices for these figures. Is $50 better? Or would that still be too high? $25? Keeping in mind that they do cost a lot of money to win and that import costs add up quickly, of course.

I’ve posted a poll about this, so click here to vote!

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Ness Figure Unboxing (14) Read More >>>

I was wondering about this earlier, I’m curious to see what the results are. Also, if you play it on an emulator, what emulator do you use?

Click here to vote!

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Nintendo & EarthBound: What If? (86) Read More >>>

I already sort of covered memory lane stuff the past few years, on here and on the M3 translation blog, so I won’t rehash all that. Instead, I’ll point out these two old forum threads that might rehash those old feelings instead!

• Some possible news on Mother 3 – begins in 2005
• Mother 3 screenshot discussion

Check ‘em out and see how in the dark we were about things and how right or wrong our guesses and assumptions were!

And while we’re here, I’ll ask this. What was your favorite chapter in MOTHER 3? Click here to answer!

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By now we all know the story and history of the series (if you don’t, see here), so I won’t go into that. But we can still play the “what if” game

So today’s poll question is this: What if EarthBound Zero, or EarthBound 64, or MOTHER 1+2 HAD been officialy released in English? Would the series have gone on to be big enough for Nintendo to treat it like its other franchises? Or would those games have flopped and caused the series to be ignored just as it is today (or worse, if that’s even possible)?

What answereth thee? Click here to vote!

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