61 Frames Per Second : mother

Talkin' RPGs With Itoi

Bob Mackey — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 20:05:00 GMT

Shigesato Itoi, a true Renaissance Man of Japan's entertainment world, is mostly known to us gamers as the mastermind behind the Mother RPG series. And it's his iconoclastic, "outsider" view of the video game medium that makes his projects so unique and cult-friendly; someone deeply entrenched in the world of RPG development is far more likely to make a derivative Tales of game than anything approaching the level of Itoi's imagination. With how creatively successful the Mother games have been, it's surprising that developers haven't tried bringing in more outside artists to derail the tunnel-vision quite a few franchises and genres currently suffer from.

Thanks to Itoi, I was deeply engrossed in Mother 3 over the fall and winter months of 2008, mainly because it took such a different approach than the other Mother games; rather than having a huge, worldwide scope (the usual method of most RPGs), the final entry in the Mother trilogy scaled things down to a much smaller and more detailed world that eventually changed (for the worse) over time. It was a fascinating approach that led me to care more about the game's world and inhabitants, all the way up until the heartbreaking ending.

The reason I've been thinking about Itoi lately--aside from the fact that he's so dreamy--relates to a few translated interviews with the jack of all trades posted by the equally-dreamy Tomato over at Earthbound Central. The interviews may be framed by a larger discussion of Animal Crossing, but Itoi still has a few interesting things to say about RPG game design.

Take his comments about Mother 3's small scope, for example:

That’s when I thought of an RPG in which you stay in a certain town for a long time...

The game would have character relations, and the people would all have their own lives. This way, we could do all sorts of things in the game. For example, someone who recently hung laundry out to dry would be wearing those clothes the next day. I wanted to make an RPG in which you could grow closer to the people as time went on.

Interesting stuff, though I wish there was much more of it. You can read the first part of the Mother-related interview comments HERE, and the second part HERE.

Related Links:

The Mother 3 Handbook: Better than Advertised
Mother 3's Soundtrack Disassembled
OST: Mother

The Mother 3 Handbook: Better than Advertised

Bob Mackey — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 18:00:00 GMT

Ever since I found the Starmen.net community (then Earthbound.net) a decade ago, I've been amazed by both the devotion and productivity of the insane (in a good, fun way) Mother/Earthbound fans who call the site home. Since the beginning of Starmen.net, the community has certainly been through its ups and downs, from the disappointment of Mother 3's original cancellation to the elation caused by the announcement that the game was in the works for the Game Boy Advance--then, back to disappointment again when we found out Nintendo had no intention of publishing it here. The Mother 3 translation released last October was unquestionably the group's biggest labor of love; thanks to talented superhumans like Tomato, we Earthbound fans were given a complete localization of a fantastic game far more polished than the work produced by so-called professionals.

Unfortunately, it looks like the Mother 3 translation now has a bit of competition in the category of "most ambitious, insane, and amazing Earthbound projects to reach completion:" now that I finally have the Mother 3 Handbook in my hands, it's impossible to decide what work is more mind-blowing.

One thing that must be stressed about the Mother 3 Handbook is that it's just as good, if not far better, than just about any professionally-made guide on the market--though, this isn't too surprising, given the amount of time it took to write and the people involved in the Handbook's creation. While the Handbook takes a few design cues from Earthbound's pack-in strategy guide, Fangamer's take on Mother 3 is really in a league of its own. I finished playing through the game on my own back in January, but I've been reading the guide on and off like a traditional book; the little details about characters, events, and locations added by the guide's contributors are entertaining and interesting regardlless of reading context--though I am planning on another playthrough with the guide by my side this summer, when it's open season on free time.

Really, if you're a fan of Mother 3, or just plan on playing it one day, you owe it to yourself to pick up the Handbook. Mother 3 isn't a game that necessarily needs a strategy guide, but the Handbook still adds a lot to an already amazing experience. And if my endless fawning hasn't convinced you, take a look at the following commercial produced by the cranstastic people over at FanGamer.

Related Links:

The Mother 3 Strategy Guide: Fandom Done Right
Some Games Nadia Played In 2008 Instead of Working: Mother--Awwww...
Mother 3's Soundtrack Disassembled

Excitement Time: A New EarthBound on the Way?

Bob Mackey — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 15:00:00 GMT

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

Reminder: Those Mother 3 Handbooks Are Still Coming

Bob Mackey — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 19:00:00 GMT

Remember the Mother 3 translation, released late last October? We at 61FPS couldn't stop talking about it--until that court order limited our Earthbound/Mother posts to only a mere dozen a week. Thankfully, sites like Earthbound Central (a must-visit) exist to fill the needs of the most psychotic Mother fans out there, but that doesn't mean there isn't franchise-related news worth reporting about here. Consider the Mother 3 Handbook produced by the devoted folks at FanGamer, for instance; we were all excited about it last Fall, but as its release date slipped into March, most of us have probably forgotten that we dropped 20 bucks on the guide many moons ago.

So, as we reach the final days of March, where exactly is the Mother 3 Handbook? For all those concerned, a blog post on FanGamer's front page this week has confirmed that all of the books weren't lost in some freak postal accident:

The final proof has been approved and the Handbooks (and Poster Jackets) are now being printed/bound as we speak! They should be done either on Friday or Monday. We had a few printing-related issues which put us a few days behind schedule, but we’re still hoping to get the Handbooks in the mail on or before the 24th, meaning all domestic (USA) orders should arrive well before the end of the month.

Since I played through the entirety of Mother 3 from late October to late December, I probably won't get much use out of the guide until I decide to give the game another whirl--probably sometime in the summer. But that doesn't mean I'm not going to read the Handbook cover-to-cover as soon as I get it. As a psychotic Mother fanboy, it is my duty.

Related Links:

The Reason Why Mother 3 Never Came to America
What's In My MP3 Player: Mother 3+'s "Pollyanna"
Mother 3 Makes Me Feel Human Again

What's In My MP3 Player: Mother 3+'s "Pollyanna"

Nadia Oxford — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 03:29:00 GMT

There exists a song that's a perfect accompaniment to the sunrise on the first warm day of the year. That song, as I discovered though an example of ideal iPod shuffling, is “Pollyanna” from the Mother 3+ soundtrack.

Pollyanna is one of a few pieces of music that recur through all three games in the Mother/Earthbound series. The revision done for the Mother 3+ soundtrack—which you can buy on iTunes (do it)—is very pretty and, as I already stated, God's own theme song for springtime.

However, I dare say that the first occurrence of the song (Mother for the Famicom) is the most impressive. The 8-bit era wasn't lacking for ambitious and memorable game music, but retro-Pollyanna is especially heartfelt and spunky. The story for Mother was a bit less structured than most Famicom RPG offerings: not aimless, but not as urgent as “Holy crap, a Dragon Lord draws near.” Pollyanna, which serves as the basic world map theme for Mother, reflects the laid-back start to Ninten's adventure.

The name of the song is telling in itself: “Pollyanna” is a reference to the hyper-positive lead girl of a popular children's book initially published in 1913 (it's still being printed and adapted today). When things were looking down, Pollyanna played the “Glad Game,” which allowed her to see the good bad situations. “Pollyanna” is even a term in the English language that refers to cheerful optimism.

No surprise that the Mother tune of the same name is so upbeat. Even its lyrics are warm with sugary references to love, hope, and silver linings.

Yes, Pollyanna has lyrics. Karaoke time!

Related Links:

What's in my MP3 Player: Earthbound "Snowbound" OC Remix
What's in my MP3 Player: Castlevania II "Castle of Tears"
What's in my MP3 Player: Shadow's Theme

The Earthbound Legal Conundrum In-Depth

Nadia Oxford — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 04:13:00 GMT

The recent news about Earthbound never coming to the Virtual Console because of legal reasons has struck up a chorus of “But--” and “How come--”. People are understandably upset that Ness's adventure is going to remain in eBay Hell forever, and they want solid answers about why this wretched thing is happening.

There still aren't any solid answers, but the good man in charge of Mother 3's recent fan translation, Tomato, has put together an incredibly in-depth list of reasons why Nintendo is erring on the side of caution. Put in simplest terms, the Internet has made it easier than ever to conjure reasons for an IP lawsuit, and Nintendo already has numerous lawsuits hanging off it at any one time like parasitic fish on the belly of a whale. Even a company like Capcom likely doesn't see half the number of lawsuits Nintendo does, thus explaining why it shrugged off the release of Mega Man and Mega Man 2 on the Virtual Console, despite numerous musical “tributes” in both games.

As Tomato put it:

To avoid crap lawsuits, Nintendo has a team of legal people who have to go through everything Nintendo plans to release and look for anything that can cause potential lawsuits. Then these things are fixed if necessary.

The point is: they’re trying to avoid lawsuits in the first place. It doesn’t matter if they could clearly successfully win lawsuits brought against them; they’d still lose money in the process. Having this team of legal people is cheaper than putting up with every lawsuit that every crazy money-hungry company hits them with.

Remember Star Tropics, an 8-bit RPG by Nintendo? When we were kids, Mike pelted his enemies with a Yo-Yo. On the Virtual Console, his Yo-Yo became a “Star” because some Canadian company owns the rights to the Yo-Yo name. Likely said Canadians are too busy drinking and racing moose to care about an old Nintendo game, but Nintendo figures, why take the risk?

“So why is this all a problem now?” asks the Internet collective. “Why wasn't it a problem when Earthbound first came out for the SNES?”

There were copyright problems, and as Tomato notes, they were addressed. The awesomely-named “Grateful Dead Valley” became “Peaceful Rest Valley.” The Red Cross that marked in-game hospitals was removed, because sure enough the Red Cross will pitch a fit over logo copyrights otherwise. Dr Andonuts' “Sky Walker” craft became the “Sky Runner,” and the logo on the vaguely Coke-ish looking trucks was changed to something generic.

(The “Coke” logo was better off altered, anyway: the trucks in Mother 2 feature a suggestive white line under the word “Come.”)

So is this the very end, my friends? Is a VC release for Earthbound utterly hopeless? Tomato paints a pretty convincing argument, but like the UFO people often say, I want to believe. It's a funny old world out there, and it's full of just as many happy surprises as it is soul-crushing disappointments. Maybe all the lawyers in the world will simultaneously learn how to love again and Earthbound will show them the way.

Related Links:

Abandon All Hope: No Earthbound for the Virtual Console
Whatcha Listening To: The Earthbound Soundtrack
Earthbound and Back Again

Abandon All Hope: No Earthbound for the Virtual Console

Nadia Oxford — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 04:14:00 GMT

The Mother/Earthbound fandom is the loudest on the Internet. It's also the unluckiest. Earthbound was a commercial failure on the SNES. Mother 3 just ain't never gonna doggy-paddle its way here (officially). The first Mother game was dressed up for America, but was pulled at the last minute. And now it's looking like Earthbound won't be granted its long-awaited heroes' rest on the Virtual Console.

“Oh God. What now?”

The problem is beautiful in its irony: because it's such a thorough, loving tribute to the best and most creative bits of pop culture, Earthbound is also a fat target for copyright lawyers, IP theft paranoia and the bureaucracy bred by the same culture (that's irony, right? Right?). Earthbound's soundtrack alone uses a lot of samples from other songs, from The Who to the Monty Python theme.

Shigesato Itoi makes no secret about his love for the Beatles, with John Lennon's “Mother” being not only the series' namesake, but its very foundations. Unfortunately, Apple Corps' sense of humour is about as sharp and attractive as a wet dish rag. Every IP lawyer in the world carries a list in his or her pocket that's titled, “I'm Just Not Going To Fuck With This,” and Apple Corps is on the top of each list.

Interestingly, the sometimes-emotional Earthbound supersite Starmen.net is looking at the situation from a very logical point of view:

You might be thinking, "sampling/references aren't enough to bring a lawsuit", and you'd be right. But it's also true that not everything in EarthBound is simply sampled/referenced, and even if the game was technically legal, that doesn't mean lawyers will be comfortable with it. They get paid to avoid lawsuits entirely, not to get sued and then say "here's why this lawsuit is stupid".

Starmen.net also notes that someone, somewhere, didn't want to “play ball” with proposed alterations to the game. Nintendo of America's lawyers apparently offered suggestions on how Earthbound could be made into a “safe” release, but Nintendo Japan wasn't interested in the changes for some undisclosed reason. It's not even known if Itoi was involved somewhere, somehow.

Maybe a clearer reason will be forthcoming, but for now I guess there's not much to do about the fate of Earthbound except cry many Mr Saturn-scented tears.

Related Links:

The Mother 3 Translation: We're Not Worthy!
Earthbound's Secret Evil
Earthbound's Other Secret Evil

Roundtable Discussion: The Relevance of Japanese RPGs

Bob Mackey — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 20:00:00 GMT

Roundtable Discussion takes the intrepid 61FPS blogging team and pits it against itself in the search for deeper truth. The moderator for today is Bob Mackey.

This week’s conversation deals with the mythical and possibly endangered beast known as the Japanese RPG. The genre really seems to be suffering during this generation, for two major reasons: 1.) escalating development costs due to the new necessity of high-polygon, HD resources and 2.) developers’ inability to combat the most damning problems of the genre. Over the past few years, we’ve seen quite a few JRPGs hitting the shelves that feel half-finished at best; and even when a fully-realized JRPG comes along, I worry that the absolutely abysmal pacing the genre is infamous for will end up sucking all the fun out of what could be a fantastic game. To start us off, I have two basic questions: 1.) What does the genre need to do to become interesting again, and 2.) what do you think it will do?

On a side note, the only RPGs I’ve been interested in lately have been ports of remakes of classics. Is this a sign that the genre is becoming antiquated and only accessible to those (admittedly, quite a few at this point) with an understanding of its unique grammar?

Joe Keiser: I assume we're talking about current-gen console JRPGs here, as I feel the handheld JRPG field is perhaps the most vibrant it's ever been. To answer your questions:

1. Lots of JRPG ground has been broken on the PS2 in its twilight days. Final Fantasy XII, Valkyrie Profile: Silmeria, and the Persona series all did fascinating new things with the genre that begged to be explored further. That's why it was very strange to me to see such regressive RPG design in the likes of Lost Odyssey and its brethren. There's so much excellent recent prior work to look at! So why do some of these games look back so far?

This is not a very creative answer, but JRPG developers don't seem to be particularly bold these days and I'm trying to be realistic with my expectations.

2. Fortunately, men who are much more creative than me have been given years to come up with ways to make things interesting again. I think they will. I think the real problem developers have been running into this generation (besides the general Japanese console development malaise) is that there hasn't been a leading title to come out and show the little guys that actually, there is a market for JRPGs on Xbox 360 or Wii. All we've seen so far is supposedly "exciting" titles like Lost Odyssey meet general apathy at retail, which couldn't have been heartening to anyone holding any sort of purse strings. When the Level-5s or Square Enix internal teams of the world release something that cannot under circumstances afford to fail (does the game I'm thinking of have a large roman numeral in the title? Maybe.) I think you'll see the floodgates open again. Heck, maybe Tri-Ace will do it!

Maybe.

John Constantine: Hear, hear on the handheld JRPG scene. How’s that saying go? Where Dragon Quest goes, so goes the genre! What’s most telling about the preponderance of remakes on the DS and PSP (the lion’s share of them coming from Square-Enix) is that it indicates the birth of a brand new audience being inculcated with the genres unique grammar. These re-releases pull in both lapsed gamers as well as sell to those new gamers just getting reared on what’s available for the system. For every Final Fantasy, Tales, DQ, Star Ocean, etc rehash that hits the DS and PSP, there’s two brand new JRPGs with decidedly fresh mechanics waiting in the wings. Just look at stuff like Riz-zoawd, Atlus’ just-released My World, My Way, Yuusha no Kuse ni Namaiki da on PSP, and Yuusha 30. And how could I not mention that game we all love so dearly, The World Ends With You? Even Hironobu Sakaguchi’s DS debut, ASH, took some risks, as opposed to the stale traditionalism of his Xbox 360 games. ASH sucked, but it was different, right?

But this is the biggest Japanese genre in history, so what about the big, big systems. Given how reluctant the vast majority of Japanese developers have been to make anything for the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 (even the Wii really), it’s none too surprising that the few JRPGs to show up on those systems have been stale as week-old bread. Especially Mistwalker’s games. The Gooch made the type of games that made him famous, games that are just about two decades old now. It’s ironic then that Lost Odyssey was co-developed by the team behind the Shadow Hearts series, some of the freshest RPGs to grace the Playstation 2. Joe’s right: close to a decade old, and the PS2 is still seeing exciting new ideas in the genre. In addition to the examples mentioned, I think the most exciting evolution of the JRPG on the PS2 is also the exact franchise that has the best chance of bringing life to the genre on current home consoles. Yakuza, baby. The Yakuza games flat-out are JRPGs, just with a different kind of battle system. They’re fast, detailed games that succeed by foregoing some of classic JRPG design’s most tiresome tropes, i.e. having to talk to every single NPC, menu-based fighting, needlessly grueling level grinds. I sincerely believe that Yakuza 3 is going to be the game that finally pushes more devs into the next-JRPG-gen.

Yakuza also does precisely what I think needs to be done to make every other JRPG interesting again. It has legitimately good writing and plotting. Not okay writing. Not good-for-a-game writing. Just good writing. For a genre that’s sold itself on affecting narrative, the vast majority of writing in JRPGs is crap. But it has to be married to faster play, like you see in Yakuza, TWEWY, and FFXII to really make JRPGs great. Lost Odyssey had good writing but the game, what you played, was sllllllllloooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwww. I genuinely think that’s what’s going to happen too. I’m an optimist. Like you said, Bob, that Final Fantasy XIII trailer, against all odds, was exciting. The old way of things will stick around too. Gotta re-release something, right?

Cole Stryker: Before I even begin I must request that everyone read this, one of the best pieces of game criticism I've ever read. JRPG fans should prepare to be offended. It contains the following money quotes:

Western CRPGs have kept evolving because there has always existed consciousness of a direction towards which to evolve; JRPGs, meanwhile, have been going round in circles ever since their inception -- Fallout is worlds away from Akalabeth; not so Rogue Galaxy from Final Fantasy.

The only kind of evolution JRPGs have undergone is of a cosmetic nature: Final Fantasy was no Ultima, and its endless sequels had to be justifed in some way -- and so they were. CG or anime-style cutscenes and countless hours' worth of voice-acting and orchestral soundtracks were the justification, piled up, stacked and shoved inside cartridges...

Now then. It's no secret that I'm not a fan of JRPG's. It seems to me that the things holding JRPG's back are the very characteristics that define the genre. So I guess this is another way of saying that the best way to make a good JRPG is to not make a JRPG.

Firstly, expensive poly counts have to go in order for this genre to mean anything to me. I'm happy to see that recent portable JRPG's have done this, though I haven't played any of them. They practically had to, with the limited graphical capabilities. It's interesting how a dearth of technology can actually amount to a better game because it allows developers to cut the fat.

Secondly, we've got to lose the cutscenes. Kierkegaard tells it like it is in an epic burn, calling Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, "a groundbreaking JRPG comprised of a single 106-minute-long cutscene, whose only flaw was that it didn't give players the option to skip it." Oh snap, son. The cult of celebrity that JRPG composers enjoy also brings the genre down. Focus on what's under the hood, please.

In order to push the genre into new territory, JRPG's should decide whether they want to be actual role playing games or strategy games rather than a mediocre mixture of both. I'd much rather play a proper RPG like Planescape Torment or a proper strategy game like Advance Wars than a JRPG which offers an hamstrung version of each. Even my favorite JRPG franchise, Earthbound, is super guilty of this. The combat system, even the rhythm based one in Mother 3 is pretty mindless. Developers need ways to mix up the combat mechanics. Use Ice Power to kill Fire Demons. Fight Night Wraiths with the Heavenly Light Arrows. Yawn. Chrono Trigger made these weaksauce mechanics obsolete well over a decade ago.

Make them shorter. I just don't feel like investing 70+ hours on a JRPG. The last one I played was Baten Kaitos, a reasonably fun card-based RPG. I burned out halfway through and haven't played one since (except for the nostalgic Mother 3, for which I made an exception).

Now that I've covered where I think JRPG's should go, I'll talk about where they will go: Nowhere. There are too many people out there content to play bad games. The continued existence of the Final Fantasy franchise is proof enough.

Bob Mackey: Well, there you have it; another week, another great discussion. Feel free to weigh in with your own thoughts in the comments.

Related Links:

Roundtable Discussion: Where is the Handheld Version of Console Wars?
Roundtable Discussion: The Fandom Phenomenon Part 1
Roundtable Discussion: The Fandom Phenomenon Part 2
Roundtable Discussion: The Fandom Phenomenon Part 3

What's In My MP3 Player: Earthbound "Snowbound" OC Remix

Nadia Oxford — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 03:55:00 GMT

“Snowman,” the tune that has carried the Mother/Earthbound games through its wintry spots since the first title on the Famicom, is one of my favourite pieces of game music. I actually heard the song in Super Smash Bros Brawl some months before I played Earthbound and had a name for the it. It's a peaceful bit of music, if not a little melancholy—again, my first encounter with Snowman was the background music of the Abandoned Zoo level in the Subspace Emissary, and it wasn't a cheerful visit (If someone were to make a list of the least joyous places on Earth, I imagine an “Abandoned Zoo” would be close up there with a broken-down Disneyland inhabited only by snaggle-toothed hobos and sick dogs).

I rough out five months of the year in a harsh, dead climate, so the sleepy warmth of the Winters boarding school in Earthbound, accompanied by a soft version of “Snowman,” produced an atmosphere I appreciated. My brother believes winter exists to make snowboarders happy, my dad believes winter exists to swear at, but I believe winter exists to wind us down, bring us closer to our friends and family in warm, happy gatherings.

Until the cabin fever sets in and we kill each other.

“Snowbound” is a trance-style OC Remix of Snowman. It's not as peaceful as its source material, but it's just the thing to rouse you from your winter blahs, should you be suffering from them. There are still many, many days before the Earth once again feels Demeter's gentle kiss.

Related Links:

What's In My MP3 Player: The Mother Mashup
What's In My MP3 Player: Shadow's Theme
What's In My MP3 Player: Endless Skies

What's In My MP3 Player: The Mother Mashup

Bob Mackey — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 01:30:00 GMT

If it wasn't clear by this point, I basically use 61FPS as my platform to talk about the Mother series (known to us Yanks as Earthbound) as much as humanly possible. But because of my professionalism, I'm forced to at least make my Mother chatter relevant; otherwise, I'm sure you'd be reading the 100th or so blog post about why I'm so obsessed with an obscure Japanese RPG series--and I swear I've only made 80 entries on the subject so far.

That being said, today I bring you exciting--and more importantly--not completely irrelevant--news from the mother fan community. SpamM, a member of the fan music community Earthbound Crew, has just released an awesome 40-minute mashup named Earthbound Zero, which mixes the original Mother soundtrack with some highlights from the history of hip-hop. Unsurprisingly (to me, anyway), Keiichi Suzuki and Hirokazu Tanaka's funky, catchy soundtrack serves as the perfect backbone to music that couldn't possibly be more different. Go here to download it for free, and get ready for a completely unexpected experience.

Related Links:

What's in my MP3 Player: Shadow's Theme
What's in my MP3 Player: Endless Skies
What's in my MP3 Player: Kindred

My Top 10 of 2008 in No Particular Order: Mother 3

Bob Mackey — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 17:00:00 GMT

It's the end of another year, and that can only mean one thing: it's list season. Inevitably, you're going to see top ten lists by the thousands; and, as an official member of the enthusiast press, I'm afraid I can't violate my directive. But, to make things a little more interesting, I've decided to assemble my 10 favorite games of this year in non-hierarchical form because--let's face facts--it's hard to pick a favorite. And unlike other top 10 lists, this one will be doled out to you in piecemeal for--oh wait, we've reach the end of the list! Thanks for playing.

I know, I know; Mother 3 didn't come out in 2008--its Japanese release date was April of 2006. But none of that matters when you're a love-starved Earthbound fan looking for his next fix--and besides, who's writing this list, you or me? Sorry for getting a bit emotional there, but I can't help it; Mother 3 is a game worth getting emotional about. Finally getting a sequel to something you've loved for over thirteen years is a pretty monumental event, especially when said sequel doesn't pee all over what made its predecessor good in the first place. Mother 3 may be tad different than Earthbound, but in keeping with the tradition of the series, it's completely unlike any game out there--despite being built on a very old, Dragon Quest-y foundation. And thanks to the heroic efforts of Tomato and his translation team, Mother 3 might just be my favorite game of the year. I now regret never ranking my list entries.

But my love of Mother 3 shouldn't come as a shock to any of you loyal readers out there; the fact that about 50% of my output on 61FPS has been entries about all things Mother proves that I'm absolutely crazy about the series in a "this man must be institutionalized for his own safety" kind of way. When the Mother 3 translation patch hit in late October, I celebrated the event by heading over to Fan Gamer and forking over some serious cash for unofficial Earthbound merchandise. I guess we should consider ourselves lucky that a game with such a troubled development history actually turned out good; otherwise, there wouldn't be such a call for celebration or the irresponsible spending of semi-disposable income. Of course, I haven't exactly finished the game yet, but unless it somehow makes all of my limbs fall off after exploding the final boss, Mother 3 deserves its ranking at the top of my best games of 2008 list.

Thanks for following these installments of the past few weeks; I'll be back in 2009 with more baffling choices. Happy new year!

The Final List:

Audiosurf
Braid
Grand Theft Auto IV
Fable 2
Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney
Persona 3: FES
Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2
Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen
Rock Band 2
Mother 3

The Mother GBA Translation: Tomato is a Crazy Mofo

Bob Mackey — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 16:00:00 GMT

No, not that Mother translation. I'm talking about the first Mother: released in Japan in 1989, translated by Nintendo of America, abandoned, discovered, and re-released by the ROM hacking community in 1998 as Earthbound Zero. Mother was also ported to the Game Boy Advance along with its sequel (AKA Earthbound) in 2003; unfortunately, this game fell victim to Nintendo's policy of Earthbound fans not having nice things. Fortunately we have dudes like Tomato, whose amazing hacking/translating skills will one day give us the privilege of playing the first Mother on the go. Here's a video of his progress so far:

Of course, this isn't quite as monumental as the Mother 3 translation--after all, an English script for this game already exists--but Tomato plans on making quite a few interesting changes this time around. And here they are, taken right from this blog post:

Some of the things you can expect from this retranslation:

* A retranslated script. The EB0 ROM has a good number of changes and mistakes/issues with plot details. The EB0 script is also very dry, because of limited resources. This retranslation can allow for a lot more text, and censoring/changes won’t need to be done.

* Expanded text boxes, allowing for more dialog text at one time, meaning the text will be nicer and easier to read.

* Expanded battle text boxes, allowing for more text than before. I still need to actually edit the text to use the new space though.

* I added an “Easy Ring” to Ninten’s basement, for those who don’t like to grind for experience and money. The item, when equipped, doubles the exp and money you get from enemies. It makes the game much less of a chore.

* Things like the status screen are a little fancier and more verbose.

* You can use the L Button in this game much like you can in EarthBound. It makes talking to things/checking things a little quicker.

* I plan to make a few changes with the font and the window borders to be more like EarthBound.

* Many of the little EarthBound / MOTHER 3 connections will be left intact in this translation, so fans of the series will surely enjoy that. The EB0 translation changed a lot of things, which broke some of these connections.

* Translations into other languages will be incredibly easy to do.

Mother isn't exactly the most modern game, but I'm considering playing through it again aftering seeing the changes Tomato plans on making. This is a project that's definitely worth keeping an eye on.

Related Links:

The Reason Why Mother 3 Never Came to America
Earthbound and Back Again
THE MOTHER 3 TRANSLATION IS OUT

OST: Mother

Bob Mackey — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 16:00:00 GMT

Everyone knows that Earthbound has some godly music, and we've all recently come to discover that Mother 3 is no slouch in this department, either. But what about the first Mother, AKA Earthbound Zero? Sadly, this is the one game in the trilogy that's almost always overlooked; it may be the least fun to play out of all three Mothers, but the soundtrack by Keiichi Suzuki and Hirokazu Tanaka helped lay the foundation for some of Earthbound's best tracks. American gamers had no idea back in 1995, but the sleepy, heartwarming music of Ness' house is a direct callback to one of the overworld themes of the first Mother; makes sense, given the connection with childhood homes and nostalgia.

The greatest--and at the same time, strangest--thing about the first Mother is without a doubt its Japan-only (duh) soundtrack. Instead of putting out the simple NES tunes on a CD, the producers went one step further by creating "complete" versions of Suzuki and Tanaka's songs with full instrumentation and lyrics. I'm not going to lie; most of these lyrics are pure Velveeta straight out of the late 80s--but at least a native English speaker is singing them. Embarrassing or not, these songs give us a peek into an alternate universe where Mother was a Disney musical instead of a Japanese 8-bit video game.

And notably, two of the OST's songs are far more sweeping and epic than any Celine Dion Titanic single could ever be. In order to show you just how mindblowingly awesome this soundtrack is, I now present "Wisdom of the World," which, along with "Eight Melodies," is one of Mother's best songs. Try not to giggle at the sexual subtext in the lyrics:

And, in case you want to hear the original 8-bit tune, here it is:

In closing, click here for a version of the song that, while beautiful, may scare the pants off of you.

Related Links:

The Reason Why Mother 3 Never Came to America
"Have You Heard the News? He's Gay!"
What I'm Playing This Weekend: Mother 3. Doi.

Earthbound in 3D

Bob Mackey — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 20:00:00 GMT

With writer Shigesato Itoi calling it quits with the Mother franchise after Mother 3, it won't be long until we start seeing remakes--or maybe that's just wishful thinking. As charming as the original Earthbound (Mother 2) was, those 3D renders of in-games towns Onett and Fourside in Super Smash Bros. Melee were enough to make any EB fan squeal with glee. In my wildest of video game-related daydreams, I've often thought of an Earthbound remake, made completely in 3D, with the characters looking just like their little clay models did in the strategy guide.

Some men dream, while others do; like YouTube user cswavely, who has painstakingly rendered a few of Earthbound's town in glorious 3D. Even with that whole new axis, they feel completely authentic to the original game's stubby sprites; but I'll let you judge for yourself:

He also has an awesome version of Fourside:

As well as a super-creepy version of Threed, perfect for Halloween:

Maybe I'm misremembering my adolescence, but it feels like I've really been to these places. I'll have to check the family photo albums and get back to you on this.

Related Links:

Whatcha Listening To: The Earthbound Soundtrack
Earthbound and Back Again
The Reason Why Mother 3 Never Came to America

WiiWare: Nintendo, Babe, It Just Isn’t Working Out

John Constantine — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 19:00:00 GMT

Nintendo has been on my mind over the past few days. Not as a corporation in the business of making video games. More like a singular anthropomorphic entity. This is how Nintendo exists in my head these days, so when I see them making business decisions, my psychosis interprets those decisions as being made by an individual. You know, as an affront against me personally. For example, I look at the abject madness that is Skip’s Captain Rainbow and then I remember that it will never come out in the US. Sure, WarioWare comes out, but do we get Mother 3? Tingle’s Rosy Rupee Land, a game that’s actually available in English? Nintendo doesn’t bring their weird games here, so Captain Rainbow, with its legion of obscure, z-list Nintendo characters, will flounder away on an island nation half the world away. Nintendo does things like this to spite me. Like my first experiences with WiiWare this past weekend.

On Saturday morning, I decided that, given my overwhelmingly positive experiences with original content on PSN and Xbox Live Arcade in recent weeks, it was time to give WiiWare’s offerings a shot. I loaded twenty dollars worth of Wii points onto my account and went to download Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People and David Braben’s Lost Winds. I was then promptly informed that there was not enough space on my Wii to download either title. My Wii does not get frequent use, so this was the first time I had to “clean out my fridge”. At first, I figured I would back up my Virtual Console titles to the SD Card I purchased two years back, but after fifteen minutes and only backing up five VC classics, it hit me that backing up everything was going to take up most of the day. I had to delete most everything to make space for just two WiiWare titles. It took over half an hour before I could even play them. Strong Bad and Lost Winds turned out to be okay, fun but fairly insubstantial after spending five hours total to complete both. The whole experience was, for lack of a better word, annoying.

When things like this happen between Nintendo I start to feel like the Big N is an ex-girlfriend with whom I had a messy break up but am now trying to be friends with. We're polite to one another and able to be at social functions at the same time but there's a smoldering bubble of bitterness under the pleasant small talk. Sometimes that bitterness boils to the surface.

“Well, if you would broaden your horizons we'd still be together! Try Wii Play or try not downloading so many things!”

"Well, maybe if you didn't start making such subpar software, maybe if you actually released your more interesting games in a language I can understand, and actually kept your word sometimes, I wouldn't have had to leave! Why don’t you support USB hard drives!"

“I don’t even know why I bother talking to you!”

“Go make another crappy Zelda or some Brain Training crap!”

*Door slams*

Okay, well, maybe that got a little weird. WiiWare is a chore to use and needs better games. Probably could have just said that.

Related articles:

Where is Wii's Disaster: Day of Crisis?
Trailer Review: Captain Rainbow
Many Colors in the Hardcore Rainbow
This Week in Shrieking Annoyances
Quickies: Homestar Ruiner
Whatcha Playing: Lost Winds