61 Frames Per Second

Excitement Time: A New EarthBound on the Way?

Posted by Bob Mackey

We here at 61FPS looove Earthbound. And from personal experience I can tell you that being a mega-fan of the series is an extremely bi-polar experience; we have our good moments, such as the recent Mother 3 translation, but we also have our bad moments, like every time Nintendo completely ignores the possibility of us seeing any Mother games on the Wii's Virtual Console.

Now, we Mother fans are seemingly beset with more bad than good news, but a recent report from Earthbound Central may contain some of the best news we've heard in a looong time. In an article in the latest Weekly Famitsu about developer Level 5's unfortunately-named digital download service, Roid, the magazine hints at a possible new Mother game--though it doesn't drop any names. Here's what the amazing man behind EBC has to say about all of this:

The article doesn’t say anything about the screenshot in particular, except asking, “Could this be THAT RPG?!” and that really big-title names are scheduled to be released on it. It’s not clear if this screenshot is just concept art or what, though. If you know Japanese, you can do an interactive demo of how the Roid interface works here, but there are no game demos or anything of interest in relation to this image.

People didn't seem to believe Tomato's initial post, so, in Earthbound Central tradition, he overanalyzed the single, blurry picture of this mystery game to show how much of it was similar to EarthBound:

This could be an early April Fool's joke, but I doubt Tomato could ever be that cruel. And while it's unclear if Roid will ever work outside of Japan, you can bet savvy EarthBound fans will find a way if this news is really as good as we want it to be.

Related Links:

The Reason Why Mother 3 Never Came to America
Mother 3's Soundtrack Disassembled
OST: Mother

+ DIGG

+ DEL.ICIO.US

+ REDDIT

Posted Mar 26 2009, 11:00 AM

Filed under: earthbound, mother 3, mother 2, bob mackey, famitsu, mother, roid, level 5

Comments

DAN! said:

Didn't homeboy Itoi say it was a wrap after 3? My vote is for a retooled 1, like that cool SNES Zelda 1 remake from back in the day.

March 26, 2009 2:14 PM

Bob Mackey said:

Update: a better version of the picture just came out, and the face on the character is VERY Mother-y.

earthboundcentral.com/.../possible-new-earthbound-part-2

March 27, 2009 1:36 PM

About Bob Mackey

For a brief period of time I was Bull from TV's Night Court, but some of you may know me from the humor column I wrote for Youngstown State University's The Jambar, Kent State University's The Stater, and Youngstown's alternative newspaper, The Walruss. I'm perhaps most well-known for my bi-weekly pieces on Something Awful. I've also blogged for Valley24.com and have written articles for EGM, 1UP, GameSpite and Cracked. For all of my writing over the years, I have made a total of twenty American dollars. It's also said that I draw cartoons, which people have described with words such as "legible." I kidnapped the Lindbergh Baby and am looking to do so again in the future.

If unsatisfied, please return unused portion for partial refund.

about the blogger

John Constantine, our superhero, was raised by birds and then attended Penn State University. He is currently working on a novel about a fictional city that exists only in his mind. John has an astonishingly extensive knowledge of Scientology. Ultimately he would like to learn how to effectively use his brain. He continues to keep Wu-Tang's secret to himself.

Derrick Sanskrit is a self-professed geek in a variety of fields including typography, graphic design, comic books, music and cartoons. As a professional hipster graphic designer, his recent clients have included Nerve, Pitchfork and MoCCA, among others.

Amber Ahlborn - artist, writer, gamer and DigiPen survivor, she maintains a day job as a graphic artist. By night Amber moonlights as a professional Metroid Fanatic and keeps a metal suit in the closet just in case. Has lived in the state of Washington and insists that it really doesn't rain as much as everyone says it does.

Nadia Oxford is a housekeeping robot who was refurbished into a warrior when the world's need for justice was great. Now that the galaxy is at peace (give or take a conflict here or there), she works as a freelance writer for various sites and magazines. Based in Toronto, Nadia prizes the certificate from the Ministry of Health declaring her tick and rabies-free.

Bob Mackey is a grad student, writer, and cyborg, who uses the powerful girl-repelling nanomachines mad science grafted onto his body to allocate time towards interests of the nerd persuasion. He believes that complaining about things on the Internet is akin to the fine art of wine tasting, but with more spitting into buckets.

Joe Keiser has a programming degree from Johns Hopkins University, a tiny apartment in Brooklyn, and a fake toy guitar built in the hollowed-out shell of a real guitar. He writes about games and technology for a variety of outlets. One day he will stop doing this. The day after that, police will find his body under a collapsed pile of (formerly neatly alphabetized) collector's edition tchotchkes.

Cole Stryker is an American freelance writer living in York, England, where he resides with his archeologist wife. He writes for a travel company by day and argues about pop culture on the internet by night. Find him writing regularly here and here.

Peter Smith is like the lead character of Irwin Shaw's The 80-Yard Run, except less athletic. He considers himself very lucky to have this job. But it's a little premature to take "jack-off of all trades" off his resume. Besides writing, travelling, and painting houses, Pete plays guitar in a rock trio called The Aye-Ayes. He calls them a 'power pop' band, but they generally sound more like Motorhead on a drinking binge.