This isn’t just a Western thing though – for example earlier this month Japanese boards and sites suddenly lit up with things like:

• Is Shigesato Itoi Developing MOTHER 4? A Meeting with Nintendo Comes to Light
• Is Shigesato Itoi Revving Up to Start the Latest Game in the Series, MOTHER 4?

You can see a bunch of them here.

Anyway, this started a few days back when Itoi ended his daily post with:

Thank you for coming to Hobonichi today. I’m making a quick trip to Kyoto and then returning to Tokyo.

He also said on Twitter:

I’m staying just one night here and going back to Tokyo tomorrow.

In the past, whenever he would say that, it usually (but not always, since he has a second home/weekend home there too) meant he was visiting Nintendo. I was kind of surprised Japanese fans latched onto it. Though I like some of the responses people are saying, like:

• It’s just another bass fishing game
• please hurry and make another game third-rate copywriter
• I say it’s just for gold mining stuff
• Please make Giygas the heroine
• Bass fishing on the 3DS!
• Forget MOTHER, make another Monopoly game!
• Nah, he’s just gonna be on Iwata Asks
• What are you all freaking out about? He has a second home in Kyoto, this isn’t that big of a deal…

I really don’t think any of it points to anything. It might’ve been something with Nintendo, but he’s attended a few funerals in the past couple weeks too, it could very well have been that.

Update: his photo blog says that he was there for work reasons, so it probably was Nintendo-related. But it still seems like a huge stretch for Japanese fans to connect that with a MOTHER 4…

I think the rule of thumb with stuff like this is summed up well here

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It’s hard to hear everything, but it’s neat to see more confirmation of the door and that there are Nintendo people in there. If any new info comes out, let me know and I’ll continue to post updates here! Thanks to amy for this tip!

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The first tidbit comes from Infendo – there’s apparently a door near Nintendo’s booth at E3 that says “Dr. Andonuts” on it for some reason:

If anyone is at E3, can you confirm/deny? If it’s there, it’s possible it’s just named that for no real reason, kind of like how this room is named.

Next is this image that’s been making the rounds for weeks now. I put absolutely no stock in it, but enough people have been mailing me about it that I’ll just mention it briefly. I could swear someone admitted to making it as a joke a while back, or maybe that was a different one. Anyway:

I haven’t been following E3 much this year, I get the feeling most of that list is already wrong though.

If anyone finds more info to confirm or deny any of this stuff, let me know! And don’t forget to check out the prize-filled EarthBound playthrough going on right now!

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Here’s the article:

(click to enlarge, PS does anyone have a nicer-looking scan?)

As usual, EarthBound fans were very excited and very doubtful at the same time. The fact that the magazine couldn’t even name EarthBound’s main character correctly didn’t help matters either. In the end, we all know how this turned out, but I thought I’d dig it up again since it’s been a while.

Still, I wonder how an official translation would’ve turned out. I think I would’ve much rather have had an official release than the version we have now, if only for legitimacy’s sake. Would’ve been nice to buy (even if it meant important from Europe) a real copy of the game in English.

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Anyway, though it’s not EarthBound, its graphical style is clearly based off of EarthBound / MOTHER 3, so I though I’d show people some of the latest screenshots of the game:

In the past, I’ve heard people say that they’d like a version of EarthBound with upgraded graphics. And then there are usually people who respond to that by saying that EarthBound with upgraded graphics wouldn’t work. At least now we can kind of see what an upgraded EarthBound might look like. I’d still prefer the simple graphics myself, it adds a lot to the feel of the game, at least in my opinion.

Thanks to Phones for the tip and the pic!

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What this means exactly is anyone’s guess. But if you’re interested, you can read more here.

Thanks to R7038XX and santiagoff for the tip!

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Anyway, some more news has come out, and indeed, the EarthBound lookalike game has been confirmed to be a ROID version of The Another World, due to be released in the fall. So once and for all, that mystery is closed for sure. They sure did use EarthBoundy-style graphics though, I wonder why.

Anyway, here’s another picture:

Thanks to Shirow Wolf for the tip, and 1up for the news. If any new pictures show up, maybe I’ll post them once in a while just because they’re kind of EarthBoundy.

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But what I found most interesting in that visit to the psychic was that she predicted that MOTHER 3 would be released on the Nintendo DS.

Of course, I don’t really believe that stuff, but it’s awesome that the question was even asked

And since I know people will probably bring the topic up, here is the link where Brownie Brown said they’d love to make a DS version of MOTHER 3, Nintendo just has to say the word.

PS please Giygas, if this does come true, make it so an English version is made too, if I have to hack a DS version of MOTHER 3 I think I’ll explode

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Here’s an except from Famitsu Cube+Advance from the middle of June. I don’t know what issue # it would be, though it’d of course be awesome to somehow get a scan of this someday.

Rumor-chan: There’s word that XX company is reviving one of its past masterpiece RPGs series. And not just any masterpiece, either. The most highly-anticipated masterpieceful masterpiece series that XX company has made. But there’s something even more amazing than that. They’re going to start by selling the revived games, but then they’re going to sell a new sequel on the GBA too!

Truth-kun: Hmm, a masterpiece RPG series by XX company? No way, do you mean “XXXXXX”?! (note: it was specifically set at six blanks like that) I heard that they’re reviving the old games for the GBA, but it’s hard to believe they’d also make a GBA sequel too. But I’d be so happy if it’s true, so I want to believe it!

I could swear that I posted news about this rumor way back in 2002, or that I at least came across it, but I can’t find any old posts about it. Anyway, I’m guessing that this is what led to the rumor in EGM in September 2002 about MOTHER 3 and EarthBound on GBA:

Click to largify, ps anyone got a bigger scan of this?

After that, all was quiet until April 2003, when MOTHER 1+2 and MOTHER 3 were both announced via a TV commercial out of the blue:

I remember that day so clearly. Didn’t do any work that day, instead I spent it translating the commercial, checking for info, updating Starmen.Net like crazy, etc. Too bad it never got released outside of Japan, though

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It’s not clear why this is, it might have to do with them needing to make DRM-free versions for the iTunes Plus thing by the end of this quarter, or maybe there are licensing issues after all, or who knows what. So, for now, it looks like the only legal way to get MOTHER3+ is to get the actual CD album. There is no legal way to get MOTHER3i now, since it was an iTunes-only thing.

I get the feeling both albums will pop back up on iTunes at some point, but I thought I’d let people know for now just the same.

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