Shigesato Itoi, the creator of the Earthbound series (or the Mother series as it’s called in Japan), said in a new documentary that Nintendo turned down an offer for a Western translation of GameBoy Advance title Mother 3, adding that he’d love it if more people got to play it.
Itoi was interviewed as part of Earthbound U.S.A., a fan-made documentary about the history of the Earthbound series of RPGs, that’s now available to buy for $19 or rent for $7 via Fangamer.
As the one entry to not officially launch outside of Japan, the topic of Mother 3 was obviously going to be brought up and according to Itoi (as transcribed by IGN), there were at least discussions about localizing it for a Western audience. Unfortunately, Nintendo rejected a proposal to localize it, only saying “it wasn’t quite as simple as that,” which makes it sound like Nintendo thought it’d be too complicated to translate for a Western market.
Itoi still hopes the game will become more readily available someday, saying he would “love for people in the U.S. to play Mother 3.” However, any localization efforts probably won’t involve him since he’s very much done with the series: “Usually, when I’m done with something, I’m done with it for good. You can’t give up on projects you are in the middle of, but when you put an end to something, it’s best to just leave it alone.”
Itoi’s not the only one who’d love to see Mother 3 launch in the West. Last year, producer Shinichi Kameoka expressed the same sentiment, saying he’ll “continue to wait for Mother 3’s worldwide release (in English).”
Admittedly, there is an unofficial fan translation available online that Nintendo has mercifully not taken down, but it does require you to have either an official copy of the game (which isn’t easy to get hold of nowadays) or to emulate it.
Considering the very first Mother was localized as Earthbound Beginnings a whole 26 years after it launched, with both it and its sequel Mother 2 aka Earthbound easily accessible via the Nintendo Switch’s online service, it is more perplexing than ever why Nintendo doesn’t bring Mother 3 westwards. Especially now that the company’s begun adding GBA games to the Switch. But the sad reality is that Nintendo likely doesn’t think a Western release is worth spending the money needed to translate and port it to Switch.
