Mother (video game)

Mother
Box art of MOTHER
Developer(s)	Ape, Inc. Pax Softnica Nintendo Tokyo R&D Products
Publisher(s)	Nintendo
Designer(s)	Shigesato Itoi (director) Shigeru Miyamoto (producer) Hiroshi Yamauchi (executive producer)
Artist(s)	Shinbo Minami (character designer) Tatsuya Ishii (character designer)
Writer(s)	Shigesato Itoi
Composer(s)	Keiichi Suzuki Hirokazu Tanaka
Series	EarthBound
Platform(s)	Famicom
Genre(s)	Console role-playing
Mode(s)	Single player

Mother (マザー, Mazā) is a console role-playing game (RPG) developed by Ape, Inc., Pax Softnica and Nintendo Tokyo R&D Products and published by Nintendo for the Family Computer (Famicom) video game console. It was designed and directed by Shigesato Itoi and produced by Shigeru Miyamoto, with music by Keiichi Suzuki and Hirokazu Tanaka. It is the first game in the Mother video game series (otherwise known as the EarthBound series), and was never released outside of Japan. In 2003, the game was re-released in a compilation with its sequel as Mother 1+2. The game's taglines are "No crying until the end" and "Guaranteed masterpiece".

Mother tells the story of a psychic boy from Mother's Day (Podunk in Earth Bound), a fictional town. The boy, referred to as Ninten, sets out on a journey to discover the cause of the mysterious phenomenon that occurred in his home one day. As the story develops, he meets friends along the way and they fight their way to the source of all their troubles. At the time, most RPGs took place in similar overall settings; worlds modeled after the Middle Ages and focusing on swords and magic, with very few exceptions (among them Square's Tom Sawyer). Mother takes place during a more modern time (1980's) in the United States and has equipment like baseball bats instead of swords and psionic powers (PSI) instead of magic.

It was to be released in North America as Earth Bound, but owing to a late release for the NES, it was cancelled despite being nearly completed at the time. An English-release copy of the game was purchased on Usenet, and was dumped onto the Internet as a ROM and retitled EarthBound Zero to discern it from its equally named sequel, EarthBound, which was released in Japan as Mother 2: Gyiyg no Gyakushū ("Mother 2: Gyiyg Strikes Back!").

Gameplay

File:Mother battle.png

Mother's gameplay is divided into two main parts: field maps and the game's battle system. Mother does not use a small-scale overworld map and instead connects towns, dungeons, and other places together by large outdoor areas. When in towns on the field map, players can talk with other non-playable characters, go to stores to buy equipment or items, rest in hotels, or enter other various buildings. By using any telephone in the game, the protagonist Ninten can talk to his father, who deposits money into Ninten's bank account and offers to record his progress.

When outside of towns on the field map or inside dungeons, the party will be attacked by enemies, at which point the game shifts into battle mode. When in battle, the game switches to a first-person view, only showing the enemies and a menu system used to issue commands. Actions are chosen for each character by the player, and then characters and enemies take turns doing them in an order determined by their speed statistics. Winning battles awards experience points, which characters require to level up. Leveling up increases a character's stats and lets them learn more abilities. If a character loses all of their hit points, they will die and the player must go to a hospital and pay to revive them. If every character dies, no progress is lost, but the party is transported back to the last area they saved at, only Ninten is left alive, and the amount of money they had on hand is halved.

Plot

Mother begins by telling the story of a young married couple from rural America who mysteriously vanished after a dark shadow covered their small country town. Two years later, the husband, George, returned as mysteriously as he vanished, and began a strange study in complete seclusion. His wife, Maria, was never heard from again.

The story forwards eighty years later, focusing on a 12-year-old boy whose home is attacked in a paranormal event, referred to as Ninten (にんてん). His father calls him and explains how Ninten's great-grandfather studied PSI, and asks him to to investigate a crisis occurring across the world. After a series of short quests in his hometown of Mother's Day (Podunk in Earth Bound), Ninten discovers the worldwide phenomenon is the work of an invading alien race. Ninten is then warped to the world of Magicant, where the land's ruler, Queen Mary, asks Ninten to find her song, the Eight Melodies, and play them to her.

After returning to the real world, Ninten visits an elementary school in Thanksgiving (Merrysville in Earth Bound) and meets a 11-year-old boy who is constantly teased for being a weakling, referred to as Lloyd (ロイド, Roido). Ninten befriends Lloyd, and Lloyd joins Ninten on his adventure to find the Eight Melodies. The two then travel to the town of Snowman to deliver a lost hat to a girl with PSI power, referred to as Ana (アナ), who tells Ninten she saw him in a dream, and joins the party in hopes of finding her missing mother.

After finding most of the Melodies, the party travels to the city of Valentine (Ellay in Earth Bound), and performs karaoke at The Live Show theater. Ninten is then harassed by the boss of the local Blah-Blah Gang, referred to as Teddy (テディ), for attacking his gang members, and challenges him to a duel. After realizing Ninten is a formidable opponent, Teddy surrenders and joins Ninten's party in hopes of avenging his parents, who were killed at Mount Itoi. Teddy replaces Lloyd in the party, who rests at The Live Show theater.

The party reaches a cottage at the base of Mount Itoi, where Teddy goes to make some phone calls. Ana pulls Ninten into another room and asks him to be with her always. The two dance and confess their love to each other. Teddy enters the room, and the party begins to leave, when they're attacked by a powerful robot. The robot knocks out the entire party, but Lloyd arrives with a tank and destroys the robot, but accidentally attacks the party as well. Teddy is critically wounded, and stays at the cottage to heal, while Lloyd rejoins the party.

The newly formed party takes a motor boat out on Lake Itoi, where they are pulled into a whirlpool into an underwater laboratory. There, they find a robot named Eve, who tells Ninten that she was built by George, who was taken to the ends of the universe and later returned. He built Eve with the purpose of protecting Ninten. The laboratory becomes flooded and the party is whisked back to the base of Mount Itoi, where, with the aid of Eve, they climb the mountain. Near the summit, another robot attacks the party. Eve destroys the robot, but Eve is destroyed in the battle as well. Eve's scrapped remains sing Ninten the second-to-last Melody.

The party reaches the summit to find George's grave. George's spirit visits Ninten, and tells him that Ninten's great-grandmother, Maria, scattered her love in the form of the Melodies, and teaches him the final Melody before vanishing forever. Ninten and the party warp back to Magicant, where Ninten plays the Eight Melodies to Queen Mary. With her memory regained, Queen Mary reveals she is Maria, and explains that she raised an infant alien named Gyiyg (ギーグ, Gīgu, Giegue in Earth Bound, Giygas in EarthBound). She tells Ninten that she loved Gyiyg like her own child, and that he was always wagging his tail, and would only stop when she sang her lullabies to him. With her purpose complete, Maria vanishes and returns to George's side, and Magicant, being only a mirage created by her conscience, vanishes with her.

The party is warped back to George's grave, where the consciousness of Maria uses the last of her power to unearth a cave inside Mount Itoi. There they find a large group of prisoners sealed within glass tubes, of which included Ana's mother. The party moves to the very peak of Mount Itoi, where they encounter the Mother Ship, and Gyiyg. Gyiyg expresses his gratefulness to Ninten's family, as Ninten's great-grandparents raised him in his infancy, but explained that George stole information from his planet that could have been used to betray his people, then stated that Ninten, George's great-grandson, was interfering with their plans and must be stopped. Gyiyg tells Ninten that he can not be defeated by Ninten's "meager" powers, but offers to save Ninten alone if he boards the Mother Ship. After Ninten declines, Gyiyg tells Ninten to fall into a long sleep with the rest of the "ugly Earth People". The party begins to sing the Eight Melodies, but Gyiyg attacks the party to quiet them. After several attempts, the party finishes the lullaby, and Gyiyg, unable to bear Maria's motherly love for him, surrenders, swearing he and Ninten will meet again. The Mother Ship flies off, and Ninten, Ana, and Lloyd walk away.

In the English-release copy of Earth Bound, as well as in Mother 1+2, the story continues to explain what became of the characters after the game. Ana is reunited with her mother, Lloyd returns to his school as a hero, and Teddy makes a full recovery and performs regularly at The Live Show theater. Ana returns to her home in Snowman, but promises she would not forget Ninten, and that they would meet again. Ninten returns to his home in Mother's Day, and takes a well deserved rest. After the credits finish, a finial image shows Ninten's father trying to reach Ninten by phone, saying "Something new has come up", setting up for a sequel.

Connections to Sequel

A sequel to Mother was released in Japan in 1994 for the Super Famicom, or Super Nintendo Entertainment System as it is known elsewhere, titled Mother 2: Gyiyg no Gyakushū (MOTHER2ギーグの逆襲, Mazā Tsū Gīgu no Gyakushū, lit. "Mother 2: Gyiyg Strikes Back"), released in North America as EarthBound in 1995. While the story connections between Mother and Mother 2 are loose, they do share several themes and motifs.

One of the more noticeable similarities between Mother and Mother 2 is that three of the main characters of Mother, referred to as Ninten, Lloyd, and Ana, and three of the main characters of Mother 2, referred to as Ness, Jeff, and Paula, respectively share very similar personalities and appearances. While it may be assumed they are the same characters, no such connection is either stated or implied.

The games also share similar stories. Both games follow the story of four children searching for the power to defeat an invading alien race bent on destroying their world. The same race of aliens threatens the Earth in both games, and the subtitle of Mother 2 does imply that the alien race had attacked the Earth previously, but the game does not otherwise refer to any of the events of it's prequel.

Mother and Mother 2 also share similar environments. Mother takes place in a rural district of America in the 1980's, while Mother 2 takes place in Eagleland, a fictional environment strongly resembling suburban America, in the 1990's. Some of the areas of these environments share similar themes, such as a large city, a zombie-infested graveyard, and a world created by the subconscious of one's mind (called Magicant in both games).

Many of the enemy characters of Mother return in Mother 2, including members of the alien race attacking the Earth, known as Starmen in both games. Most of these returning enemies were renamed in the localization of EarthBound, including the main antagonist of both games, Gyiyg, renamed Giygas in EarthBound.

Development

Mother was designed and directed by Japanese copywriter and television personality Shigesato Itoi. One of the inspirations for the name was John Lennon's song "Mother." He also wanted the name to be something that wasn't game-like.

Shigesato Itoi, the game's designer, said that the last parts of Mother were not tested for bugs and balance issues. When talking about this at a Mother 1 + 2 promotional event, Itoi humorously stated, "When we got to fine-tuning the difficulty there, I was like, 'Whatever!'".

Planned United States release

Nintendo of America had translated and originally planned to release Mother in the United States under the title Earth Bound. The localization was completed in 1990, but marketing pushed the release into fall of 1991, and it was eventually canceled. The Localization Producer and English Script Writer for Earth Bound, Phil Sandhop, explained, "Once the Super NES squatted in the pipeline and shoved the game aside from its appointed time, I believe that the marketing execs just decided that the game would be too expensive to produce and unsuccessful without marketing, and that's why it fell into oblivion." During localization some changes were made to the game, such as removing blood from enemy sprites (in accordance to Nintendo of America's censorship guidelines of the time) or changing town names.

On January 15th 1998, the fan translation group Demiforce found a beta cartridge of the game on Usenet, and organized an effort to collect enough money to buy the game. The project was a success, and soon after, the game was dumped into a ROM and circulated around the internet. As the unmodified game did not work properly on emulators at that time, Demiforce released modified versions of Earth Bound with the copy protection disabled, and appended "Zero" onto the title to retroactively discern it from its sequel, EarthBound. Since Demiforce had built its reputation on releasing its English translations out of the blue, some fans debated whether the cartridge had been translated by Nintendo or by Demiforce itself. However the release was confirmed as legitimate by Phil Sandhop, producer of the cancelled English localization, as well as the compilation release Mother 1 + 2 which contains all of the changes found in the beta cartridge.

Music

See also: Discography of the EarthBound series § Mother

Mother's soundtrack was composed by Keiichi Suzuki and Hirokazu Tanaka. The music was released on compact disc and cassette tape by Sony Records on August 21, 1989. It consists of eleven tracks, seven of which have vocals. Some of the game's notable pieces include "Eight Melodies", which plays a heavy role in the story, and "Pollyanna". Both have lyrical versions on the album, sung by St. Paul's Cathedinal Choir and Catherine Warwick, respectively. On February 18, 2004 the soundtrack was re-released with digitally remastered tracks. Songs from Mother appear in EarthBound, Mother 3, Super Smash Bros. Melee and Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

Reception

Mother was successful in Japan, selling approximately 400,000 copies. In two polls conducted by Famitsu, it was rated as the 9th best game on the Famicom and the 38th best game of all time. The game was listed as the fourth most-wanted Virtual Console release in a poll in the June 2008 issue of Nintendo Power, and in the following issue it moved up to second most-wanted. In a Mother 1 + 2 review, Netjak praised Mother's modern setting and broad themes, calling the game, "quite dark and mature." Jeremy Parish from 1UP.com states, "the game balance is completely ridiculous, relying far too heavily on picking up better weapons and grinding for far too long."

External links

• Starmen.net: Mother 1 - Website with information and fan works on Mother.
• Mother Party (Mother-jp.net): Mother - Japanese fan site with information on Mother. Template:Ja icon
• Mother at EarthBound Wiki