Mother / Earthbound

[bakudon]

"Ending made na kun ja nai."
Even though spaces in Japanese can be a bit iffy at times, I don't really see the justification in cutting the verb "naku" in two like that.

[iwant]

My skills in Japanese are more than limited, so I thought this "na" was actually a particle. Thanks for pointing that out, we'll correct it.

Besides, it's cool to see the article is "officially" available at last. There are just a few oversights I should point out:

- The intro about Itoi lacks a picture, but just adding an image HTML entry will do the trick ('cause the pics are already here in the img folder);

- The Mother 2 article doesn't have an "end paragraph", the conclusion just stands in the main column (probably due to a </p> that disappeared in a copy/paste operation or something);

- The Mother 3 article has a duplicated paragraph at the very end of the main column that should be deleted;

- The Mother 3 article also still uses the old typography (MOTHER3) for its title;

- And finally, the line from Kiki (in English and between quotation marks) should be added at the very end of the article.

[Discoalucard]

I had a few minutes to fix it up last night, so I got rid of that double Mother 3 paragraph, though I'm not QUITE sure what you mean for the Mother 2 one. Added the Kiki quote too, though I still need to add the Itoi pic.

[iwant]

Well, the Mother and Mother 3 articles both have a "conclusion", a bunch of text under the main column; that is, with no screenshots on the right. I thought it would be more consistent if the part about Mother 2's release was formated the same way it is for the other articles.

For the pic thing, you can also simply copy/paste this over the current one, to make things easier.

<p class="image"><img src="src/pics/0_1.png"></p>
<p class="caption">Shigesato Itoi in his office after the release of Mother 3</p>
<p class="image"><img src="src/pics/0_2.png"></p>
<p class="caption">Shigesato Itoi in an interview after that of Mother 2</p>
<p class="image"><img src="src/pics/0_3.png"></p>
<p class="caption">An interview with Miyamoto in an Iwata Asks special</p>
<p class="image"><img src="src/pics/0_4.png"></p>
<p class="caption">Itoi's beloved pet dog, Bouillon</p>
<p class="image"><img src="src/pics/0_5.png"></p>
<p class="caption">The famous ad campaign that launched his career</p>
<p class="image"><img src="src/pics/0_6.png"></p>
<p class="caption">Kiki's Delivery Service Japanese theatrical poster</p>

[bakudon]

The Mother 3 article still has a repeated sentence, in the fifth-to-last paragraph: "Other theories suggested that the dark overtones meshed with the cutesy graphics and would subsequently not be kid-friendly enough to go over with the Game Boy Advance audience, a system typically thought of for children" is written twice.

Now that I have actually read through the whole article, I can say it was a nice read. Having not played Mother 3, I was happy it contained little spoilers. I felt the article was a bit preachy about how great the Mother series is, though.

[The Great Klaid]

Just to be kind of nitpicky, you mention the "Don't Care" option in Earthbound is randomnized. I'm almost positive it isn't. Certain in Earthbound, I'm 98% of Mother 2.

[Weasel]

The "Don't Care" button cycles through a predefined list of names for each thing. I think there are eight names for each thing, and the first option is the "canon" name, generally.

[iwant]

I think this is because of me using an incorrect expression that got corrected but ended up loosing its meaning in the process. What I meant is that "if you choose to name them at random using the Don't care option..." - that is, people not caring about naming their characters with personal choices but just going along with what shows up in the automated option.

[nickz]

I finally got around to reading this. Great article! it really sheds some light on why the series has its own strange personality. I never knew about Mr. Saturn in the Mother 1+2 commercial. It really is cool how Mother 3 was fished out of development hell like that.

[The Great Klaid]

Jun 17, 2013 19:19:16 GMT -5 iwant said:

I think this is because of me using an incorrect expression that got corrected but ended up loosing its meaning in the process. What I meant is that "if you choose to name them at random using the Don't care option..." - that is, people not caring about naming their characters with personal choices but just going along with what shows up in the automated option.

Oh ok, that works. Just figured I'd point it out. Very excellent articles by the way. Really enjoyed them.

[derboo]

Wow, Mother had some awesome advertising in Japan:



From gamedic.jpn.org/museum/tirasi/genre.htm

[silvastarripper]

Yeah, the commercial of Mother 1 is also really well done and matches the ad you posted as well with the same kid actors.

[iwant]

I've got a new translated interview! This time, it's Kouichi Ohyama, MOTHER2's art director, talking about his experience working on the game.

This could be added under the artwork of Onett, I guess. "An artwork of Onett by art director Kouichi Ohyama, of whom you can read an interview here."

[vnisanian2001]

iwant, I just beat the original Famicom version of Mother 1, and I have a question about it, as well as a couple of other things I would like to bring up.

I couldn't find the Sword (Teddy's second-strongest weapon) in the Crystal Caverns anywhere. Was it exclusive to the cancelled American version and GBA remake?

Also:

SPOILER: Click to show

I didn't notice this until now, but there seemed to be something symbolic about the eight melodies. They seem to represent the chronological stages of life one typically goes through.

Doll (baby/birth)

Bird (growth/toddler - the bird also sang when it's infant was returned)

Monkey (fun/childhood)

Piano (solitude/teen)

Cactus (struggle/mid-age)

Dragon (protective/family)

Robot (reminisce/age)

Gravestone (end/death)

Lastly, I'm pretty sure the tombstone was planned to be the 8th melody during the original 1988-1989 development of the game. But due to time constraints, and possibly due to memory storage limitations in Famicom cartridges, it, along with other little touches, such as the extended ending, never happened.

Instead, they were added in the cancelled American version and GBA port.

[iwant]

The "Sword" you're talking about definetely is in the Japanese game (and called "Ashigaru Sword" in that version). It could be that it's found somewhere else though, since the Magicant underground maze is different - way more straightforward - in the prototype. And yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if there was some kind of logic behind the melodies, even if I have to admit I never thought about it myself.

Also, now that the thread just got bumped, I'll take the occasion to remind the staff that there are still a few things to edit in the article - it's not that I think it absoluetely needs to be corrected right now, but the errors are a bit odd and might bother the readers: The intro about Itoi needs its image column edited and the MOTHER2 article needs to have the text starting with "EarthBound was released on August 17, 1994" put underneath as a "conclusion" (like in other articles). Also, it would be nice if a link to the translated Ohyama interview could be added somewhere around the Onett artwork.