#shigesato itoi rocks

[betagrove]

Akiko Yano literally is what a little girl with unexplained psychic powers would love to listen to

[1-800-wiishopbling]

"Everyone's waiting to throw rocks at you, spit on you, and make your life hell. Who's "everyone"...? Everyone you love." ~ Tanetane Island ~ Mother 3 (2006) Game Boy Advance Written by Shigesato Itoi Developed by HAL Laboratory

[greatscaleuproar]

MOTHER 3 at SpaceWorld 1997 - Part 3: The Claymen Mines

“I like this one. Claymen. Poor people…” - Shigesato Itoi (Famimanga, February 1998)

These shots here would be the world’s first introduction to the Claymen, a species of clay-like people created by the Pig Warriors to assist them with their mission. The design featured here are much more human-like in comparison to the designs found in the Gameboy Advance version.

The scene is a great example of the Pig Warrior’s cruelty, forcing them to work heavy machinery & attacking them if they do not perform up to standards. One on the very left of the first shot can be seen cowering away from a Pig Warrior, stabbing their spear at them. Much like in the released Gameboy Advance version, the Claymen here are digging, likely for the needles. The first room of the mines in the Nintendo 64 version is much more vertical, with the screen constantly busy from all the action happening (Claymen bringing rocks, being lifted/brought back down via a lift, moving a crane), with Lucas walking along the rafters of the place.

[legiongamerrd]

#Gamefemerides

Hace 30 años se lanzó en Japón Mother 2: ギーグの逆襲 (Mother 2 Gyigas Contratataca,o Earthbound en Occidente). Se trata de un RPG desarrollado por Ape Inc., y HAL Labs, y publicado por Nintendo para el Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Como Ness y su grupo de cuatro, los jugadores viajan por el mundo para conseguir 8 melodías con el fin de vencer a la fuerza alien malvada Giygas. Es el segundo juego de la serie Mother y, hasta 2015, el único lanzado en inglés. En Japón es conocido como Mother 2.

El juego tuvo un periodo de desarrollo extenso, de hasta 5 años. El staff que vuelve del primer Mother, incluyen al director y escrito Shigesato Itoi, el programador líder, Satoru Iwata (D.E.P., ex-presidente de Ninty), y los compositores Keiichi Suzuki (co-fundador de la banda de rock Moonriders), y Hirokazu Tanaka (Metroid, Dr. Mario, Tetris).

#LegionGamerRD #ElGamingnosune #Videojuegos #Gaming #RetroGaming #RetroGamer #CulturaGaming #CulturaGamer #GamingHistory #HistoriaGaming #GamerDominicano #GamingPodcast #Podcast #ApeInc #HalLabs #Mother2 #Earthbound #Ness #Iwata #Nintendo #SuperNES #SNES #WiiU #3DS #NintendoSwitch #JRPG #RPG

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[fancypantsrecords]

Keiichi Suzuki - MOTHER Music Revisited | Better Days | 2021 | Black

[weirdmageddon]

something that nobody really talks about....“Let’s switch places. Let’s switch places. Lucas. Lucas. Let’s switch places. You’re more… You’re more…” is the hardest tanetane island shroom trip quote to swallow and probably the most fucked line in mother 3

since the shrooms they take pull up all their insecurities and fears, “lets switch places” means lucas deep down thought he shouldve been the one to die instead. “youre more... youre more...”, we dont know what lucas more of but its definitely something negative he feels about himself. something that he thought made him more worthy of dying than claus. what right does lucas have to be the one who lived? it’s pure survivors guilt

for this reason i find it even worse than “im gonna beat you boy. daddys gonna beat you” (which i think was triggered by lucas seeing his father react to hinawa’s death by beating the townsfolk), or his dead brother telling him “everyones waiting to throw rocks at you, spit on you, and make your life hell”, and “touch my heart, see how it beats in and out?“

but still even these are all very “you know, for kids!”

i understand now why this game probably will never be localized in the west without cutting too many corners or released at all for that matter lol. shigesato itoi more like shigesato itai. apparently there was a much darker ending that was cut so dark he scared himself with his own script

but ah

[megamoses]

Backblog #2 - Mother (GBA)

Despite the ending of my last post a couple of months ago, my next targets did not end up being Famicom Wars and/or Mendel Palace.  I did give them both the old college try, but didn't make much progress in either of them.  Famicom Wars, with me already being pretty bad at strategy games, was just too fucking hard for me.  I managed to get a few maps in before the difficulty spiked into the stratosphere and I temporarily threw in the towel.  And Mendel Palace just didn’t hold my interest for very long.  I do intend to circle back to them at a later date, but for the time being, in the interest of keeping everything moving, I just went to the next item down the list: Mother a.k.a. EarthBound Zero as the leaked prototype of the English localization became known a.k.a. EarthBound Beginnings on the Virtual Console.

Originally released for the Famicom in Japan on July 27th, 1989, Mother was developed by Ape Inc. (later known as Creatures Inc.), a second-party developer for Nintendo headed by Shigesato Itoi, who was already well-known in Japan as an eccentric essayist.  It was originally planned for an English release, which was pretty much 100% done, including new features over the Japanese version such as the addition of a run button and an expanded ending, but due to the impracticality of distributing it coupled with the upcoming release of the Super Nintendo, it was simply never released.  This English version was however leaked to the Internet and was eventually officially released on the Wii U Virtual Console.  It was also used as a base for the version of the game in the Mother 1+2 compilation for the Game Boy Advance, which is the version I played.

Specifically, I played a fan translation of Mother 1+2 by Tomato (of Starmen.Net) and Jeffman.  This patch uses a completely re-translated script which remains much more faithful to the original Japanese and throws out many script changes present in the official translation that were made due to localization, censorship, or just NES limitations.  The new script also restores some connections between games (for example, the final boss, ギーグ, is now translated as Giygas as it was in EarthBound, rather than Giegue as it was in the official translation of Mother).  It also includes some quality of life changes like the addition of an Easy Ring which increases EXP and gold and reduces the encounter rate.  But I didn't use that 'cause I ain't no bitch.  It also includes some basic menu translations for Mother 2, the other game on the cart.  But that half of the compilation will probably remain untranslated in favor of the official version for the Super Nintendo owing to numerous bugs on the GBA version that make it overall a worse experience.

Mother stars a young boy named Ninten (who may or may not actually be the same kid as Ness from the sequel, that’s kept intentionally vague) with strange psychic powers who lives outside of Mother's Day (or Podunk, if you’re using the official translation) in America.  After a paranormal event rocks his home, he's tasked by his constantly absent father over the phone to go on an adventure to figure out just what the hell is going on all over the country.

It's a game which, despite being Japanese, evokes a kind of timeless American nostalgia both through its setting and the kind of story it tells, what with the children going on a journey that's much bigger than them and emerging as small town heroes.  It also probably owes some of this timeless nostalgia factor to the fact that a lot of the characters look like they'd fit right into Peanuts in terms of artstyle, all the way down to their walk animations.

It also manages to very naturally shift gears from being lighthearted and funny (where it stays most of the time) to at times being emotionally resonant or even creepy.  This is due in no small part to the fantastic musical direction.  Hell, Itoi being a lyricist, the melodies that you collect throughout the game even have lyrics on the official soundtrack, which can also be heard in the commercial for the game.

Gameplay-wise... it's a Famicom-era JRPG.  Expect some grinding to be had (unless you elect to use the Easy Ring to make your life a little easier, that's what it's there for after all).  But this didn't really bother me any, since I'm used to playing these kinds of games.  Also, with the way I like to obsessively explore every nook and cranny of every area and try to do every possible thing in games like this and my compulsion to run from battles as little as possible tends to keep me at a sufficiently high level to breeze through these games.  But I could definitely see this being a turnoff for a lot of people, especially those who played the later games first.

But I am in a unique position where I am one of maybe two other people on the planet who is both interested in retro games but has not played EarthBound, so this is actually the first game in the Mother series that I've played.  Because of this I was able to enjoy this game without constantly thinking of unfavorable comparisons to that game.  I, of course, know that EarthBound improved upon this game in pretty much every possible way.  And since I already enjoyed this game a lot in its original context, that's definitely something I'm looking forward to.  And hell, things like this are why I'm enjoying playing games in this way.  Overall, it was enjoyable experience, with a lot of funny and cute moments that was a pretty significant departure tonally from a lot of the other JRPGs I've played from this era, which is a huge part of what made it unique when it was brand new.

Next time, if I don't backtrack back to either Famicom Wars or Mendel Palace, I'll be doing something from yet another second-party developer for Nintendo, HAL Laboratory.  But it sure as shit won't be any of the games of theirs anyone might expect to be covered.  Until then, take it easy~

Links:

Starmen.Net

The Mother 1+2 Fan Translation

[ladystylestores]

Homebound with EarthBound | Ars Technica

EarthBound got a nice Nintendo Power push. But in retrospect, Nintendo of America, you could’ve tried a lot harder with this trailer.

Give me 10 minutes. I need to defeat five giant moles so the miner can find the gold… which I need to get $1 million and bail out the rock band… who can arrange a meeting with the evil real-estate-developer-turned-mayor I need to beat down.

My partner doesn’t get it, which I completely understand. When I first tried EarthBound, I didn’t either. The now-cult-classic SNES title first arrived in the United States in June 1995. And I, a nine-year-old, had no chance. I craved action as a kid gamer, and that largely meant co-op, multiplayer, and sports titles (a lot of NBA Jam, Street Fighter, and Turtles in Time). Nothing about EarthBound, particularly when only experienced piecemeal through a weekend rental window, would ever speak to me. As one of the most high-profile JRPGs of the early SNES era, it embodied all the stereotypes eventually associated with the genre: at-times batshit fantastical storylines; slow, s l o w pacing; virtually non-existent action mechanics.

Frankly, I wasn’t alone. Based on its sales, not many gamers seemed to understand EarthBound, and it’s not clear Nintendo did, either. What on Earth does the trailer above say to you? In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the company again and again (and again) tried to find a hit JRPG in the States without much success. Nintendo literally gave away games like Dragon Warrior—as a Nintendo Power pack-in—and still couldn’t find an audience. Even the heralded Final Fantasy franchise struggled initially, as Nintendo brought it stateside with a big, splashy map-filled box that no one seemed to care about in the moment.

But a quarter-century later, I can’t stop pushing the power switch on my SNES Classic to spend time with Ness and company. Part of it is me; I’m much older and, in theory, have more patience despite how things like social media and smartphones may be slowly destroying our collective ability to focus. People liked EarthBound better in 2013, too, when Nintendo finally re-released the game for the first time in decades on the WiiU Virtual Console. But part of my newfound appreciation is inevitably the timing of this recent play-through. The compounding pandemics of 2020 have changed the way we all approach the world; FOMO has all but evaporated. (Do I need to constantly doomscroll on Twitter to get all the depressing news as it happens? Should I plan a vacation so I can sit inside doing nothing particularly active somewhere more scenic?) In some ways, there is nothing but time, meaning an indulgent, leisurely, complex game suddenly offers a new value proposition.

More than any of that, however, all my time spent homebound with EarthBound—nearly 20 hours and counting despite a newborn and no work stoppages around the Orbital HQ—comes down to the game itself. To a subset of modern gamers, EarthBound‘s legacy may simply be introducing Ness to legions of Super Smash Bros. disciples. But on the 25th anniversary of this game’s arrival, it actually seems more suited for our current moment than ever.

My parents had no idea what kind of game I was renting at age 9.

Nathan Mattise (yes, photographing his living room TV)

Excuse me, what is happening here?

This cop has watched way too much Elliot Stabler in his life.

Nathan Mattise (yes, photographing his living room TV)

At least the pro at the Onett Times captured the moment: “Police attack innocent boy!!” Evidently it was caught on videotape by a bystander and will air on the local news.

The Insane Cultists are obsessed with blue but really look like they prefer white.

Does Scientology involve beatdowns?

Nathan Mattise (yes, photographing his living room TV)

Why are the kinda crazy ones obsessed with having their name on the building?

Nathan Mattise (yes, photographing his living room TV)

A plot for 1995, a plot for 2020

If it’s been a while or (like me) you never bothered in the first place, EarthBound takes place in a not-so-subtly veiled version of the US, literally called Eagleland in-game. Our hero (whose name defaults to “Ness” but can be changed as you see fit) grew up in the sleepy and seemingly mundane suburb Onett. Other “numbered” suburbs like Twoson soon follow.

Things are not as idealistic as they first appear. In these shining cities on various hills, an alien called Giygas has landed and seeped an evil influence into everything. You have to fight Runaway Dogs and Cranky Bag Ladies now. And post-invasion, every town has developed a problem for you to work through, each feeling eerily prescient in 2020.

In Onett, for example, bad cops feature prominently. Even after you rid the town of a pogostick-riding gang called the Sharks, you can’t just leave Onett because Captain Strong and his police force instead threaten to beat you down for trying. EarthBound originally came out within years of the beating of Rodney King, and it features four cops ganging up on a kid. Captain Strong literally attacks you with submission chokeholds. Nine-year-old me must have been confused if I even got this far, but adult me did a double take as society continues to grapple with the tragic deaths of Black Americans like George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Rayshard Brooks, and Elijah McClain at the hands of police.

The cops of Onett merely come first, but that’s far from the only blunt observation on American life awaiting EarthBound players. In Twoson, your future friend and squadmate Paula has been abducted by a religious cult called the Happy Happy Religious Group. The group obsesses over turning everything blue, but, uh, they resemble a much whiter real-world analogue and maintain a similar disposition toward others (“Your existence is a problem for me and my religion,” says cult leader Mr. Carpainter before he attempts to dismantle you). EarthBound‘s creator Shigesato Itoi may have again been responding to events of his day, as the Boss Fights Book on EarthBound points out the game was developed during the feds’ siege on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco.

But with their character design and dialogue (“I think those who won’t paint everything blue are opposed to peace,” another says), the Happy Happy Religious Group probably doesn’t remind players of David Koresh anymore. Instead, my mind wandered to a much different modern-day cult, draped in white sheets or Stars and Bars, that pushes red on everyone instead. (As EarthBound’s subtle commentary-cherry on top, Paula’s “pray” ability during battle proves unpredictable and often detrimental if used.)

These storylines, rich in social commentary, come up again and again, and I’m barely approaching EarthBound‘s halfway mark. In fact, I just arrived in the big city of Fourside where a “regular unattractive real estate” developer named Geldegarde Monotoli has risen up the political ranks to become mayor. The guy’s name has been emblazoned on a big skyscraper acting as a de facto city hall. He takes political and economic advice from a privileged, bratty neighborhood kid. And Monotoli tries (and apparently succeeds) at both forcing police to do his bidding and manipulating the media in his favor—The Fourside Post’s lead story when I entered town was “Over 70% of Fourside citizens support Monotoli.” Hmm. Perhaps, as Cord Jefferson (a writer on HBO’s Watchmen) recently put it on a podcast: “History is prescient. The things we touch on are just things that have been complaints of my parents, my grandparents, and my great-grandparents.”

Listing image by Nathan Mattise (yes, photographing his living room TV)

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[legiongamerrd]

#Gamefemerides Hace 27 años se lanzó en América Earthbound. Se trata de un RPG desarrollado por Ape Inc., y HAL Laboratory, y publicado por @nintendo para el Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Como Ness y su grupo de cuatro, los jugadores viajan por el mundo para conseguir 8 melodías con el fin de vencer a la fuerza alien malvada Giygas. Es el segundo juego de la serie Mother y, hasta 2015, el único lanzado en inglés. En Japón es conocido como Mother 2. El juego tuvo un periodo de desarrollo extenso, de hasta 5 años. El staff que vuelve del primer Mother, incluyen al director y escrito Shigesato Itoi, el programador líder, Satoru Iwata (D.E.P., ex-presidente de Ninty), y los compositores Keiichi Suzuki (co-fundador de la banda de rock Moonriders), y Hirokazu Tanaka (Metroid, Dr. Mario, Tetris). Suzuki y Tanaka incorporaron un diverso rango de estilos populares y exóticos a la banda sonora, incluyendo salsa, reggae, dub, y música como para completar dos discos compactos. La mayoría del staff no habían trabajado en el primer juego, y estuvo bajo amenaza de cancelación hasta que Iwata se unió al equipo. En Japón, el juego salió más de un año después de la fecha original. #LegionGamerRD #ElGamingnosune #Videojuegos #Gaming #RetroGaming #RetroGamer #CulturaGaming #CulturaGamer #GamingHistory #HistoriaGaming #GamerDominicano #GamingPodcast #Podcast #ApeInc #HalLabs #Mother2 #Earthbound #Ness #Iwata #Nintendo #SuperNES #SNES #WiiU #3DS #NintendoSwitch #JRPG #RPG https://www.instagram.com/p/CebFhiYpExy/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=