Why did a localization never happen?
the series wasnt popular outside of japan
The DS was already out and EarthBound flopped.No, it's not the music, no it's not the drag queens. It wasn't worth the $$$.
Mother and Mother 2 sold and reviewed pretty well in Japan, but Nintendo Of America had low confidence in Earthbound (Mother 2) as a product which had them spend extra money on including a full color guide with the game, and then the game sells just kind of ok.Not finding his worthwhile, Nintendo Of Europe, which just the same hadn't published the first Mother, opts to not do that for Earthbound either.While some will argue that Earthbound is an overrated game (it kinda is), it is however also a good game (undeniable), but the American and European markets just weren't quite ready for a game of its kind yet, so NoA and NoE basically gauged the market correctly.Games like Chrono Trigger, Pokémon, and Final Fantasy 7 would just be starting to change the landscape, which is why when westerners started checking out SNES emulation more, and giving this Earthbound game a try, they found that actually it was pretty good.Mother 3 comes out fairly late in the GBA's life, and this was a time when Earthbound was still mostly known by emulator nerds, so it's looked at not likely to be viable.>>12582056Wouldn't call it an outright flop, it sold like 140k copies in America, which is alright, but not profitable enough to have been all that worth the bother at the time when you consider the cost of the included guide.Now imagine NoE looking at that prospect, and they would probably need to make the guides in multiple languages for various European countries.
>>12582056>The DS was already out and EarthBound flopped.The fucking DS Lite was already out in Japan by the time Mother 3 released, it's even on the back of the box. People who ask shit like this don't understand how dead the GBA was at this point, Mother 3 was the 2nd to last GBA game published by Nintendo, only being beaten out by Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Red Rescue Team.
>>12582005>Why did a localization never happen?There was a gay pedo sex scene. The game is radioactive and Nintendo doesn't want to touch it. Maybe a demake is possible though
>>12582197The only game that Nintendo put out after is Rhythm Tengoku. The Japanese release date for Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Red Rescue Team was before MOTHER 3's.
>>12582071Would European kids enjoy a game about American kids in America? Would it depeess them to know that they could never be Ness-kun?
>>12582441Jeff is Bri'ish and Poo is Nepalese. EarthBound is also a globetrotting game where you visit parts of Europe, Asia and Africa. Do Americans turn their brains off after Threed? The whole "American setting" only applies to the first game in the series.
>>12582207They could do it now, what's the worst that could happen? Libsoftiktok having a heart attack?
>>12582005a group of literal trannies are central to the plot of the game and one of them molests lucas in a hot spring to awaken his magical powers.
>>12582485Truly ahead of it's time
after playing it I'm glad it never came out here. To go from EB to this pretentious slog is one of the biggest downgrades of all time.
>>12582071EarthBound in the US actually sold pretty well all things considered, BUUUUUUT Nintendo's greed and ridiculous expectations and Vaguetalk didn't help, sold well but not just the 4+ copies DKC1 would sell and that pissed off Nintendo, them leftist retro YouTubers took the Vaguetalk as hint of the game selling as bad as Panic Restaurant or Nintendo World Championships on NES and went there on the telephone game.
>>12582071>EarthBound only sold 140k copiesC'mon, don't lie, it sold more then that>Bubububmuh wokepidia and goggle AIFUCK OFF! It sold more then the average SNES game at the time, and most games only sold 200k outside of minor hits who sold half a million, and mega hits who sold around 600k to 1M
>>12582508This Earthbound Central article is the source of the 140k number. Make of it what you will.
>>12582518Implying to be correct and not the cope of Reggie, look, he did good things but let's not kidd ourselves, the man was an idiot too when it came to earthbound.>Mother 2 releases on Japanese Wii VC>Bullshit reasons as to why not release it on US VC in spite of colossal fan demand and the demo being included on Smash Brawl.>Plays dumb and tone deaf and repeats the whole "game totally sold like shit, trust us" narrative>Never released in the US Wii VC>Wii U comes>Solds like shit>Oh eh gee huh ah>HERE, IS THIS WHAT YOU WANTED IT GUYS!WELL HERE IT IIIIIISSS>just buy our shitty Wii U which literally dies for not using it all the time.>Oh, you saw through our bullshit? Well it's your fault then, geesh.Fucking.......
>>12582010It sure as hell is now. It's not too late.
>>12582585I'm not really sure what you are going on about considering:A) The "Masterpieces" demo of MOTHER 2 is exclusive to the Japanese version of Brawl. A demo of EarthBound is not included in the North American version of Brawl.B) Neither MOTHER 2 nor EarthBound were released on the Wii Virtual Console in any region.C) The Wii U Virtual Console release of EarthBound was at the top of eShop's "best sellers" list for nearly the entire Wii U eShop's run.D) EarthBound has also been made available via the SNES Mini, New 3DS eShop, and NSO.I don't believe there's ever been official confirmation for why EarthBound was never released on the Wii Virtual Console, but it's not some grand conspiracy by Reggie to kneecap the series in America. What games get reissued on what platforms is seemingly completely arbitrary and not something I would put too much credence into.
>>12582472Umm Fourside is in America too you little minx.
>>12582207I've beat it, what the fuck are you on about?
>>12582716You remember the kiss in the hot tub with the gay guy?
>>12582648Winters comes before Fourside
>>12582005Mother 2 / EB had a lot of work put into its localization and marketing in NA only to be a colossal flop, NOA didn't want to localize and market an RPG in a niche and unsuccessful (in the west) series on a handheld that was already in the coffin when it released in Japan and was going to be buried by the time a translation / localization was finished. More than any of the tranny shit, (which would have been fine, it was 2006) or thinking the story was too mature, or whatever other reasons have been given, Nintendo really just didn't think they were going to profit from releasing it. As for why they didn't do it later?>The only higher-up at Nintendo who actually cared about the series and had enough power to do anything about it died before he could>The tranny shit actually matters now
>>12582005As the story goes, NoA expected more western begging for Mother 1+2 GBA but since that didn't happen they skipped it (or it was a lie, NoA was already cancelling lots of localizations announced or considered in 2003 including Oriental Blue, Kururin Paradise, Giftpia, "Legendary Starfy" (some of its work was used by the Chinese unreleased localization), Zelda Navi Trackers, Hamtaro 4 which NoE finished and another Hamtaro which was being localized but unreleased in Europe and America, and that's scratching the surface)Zelda Minish Cap underperformed in 2004 and by then NoE started to focus much more on the DS, its 2005 published games were late English localizations of stuff released in 2001 or 2003 (Klonoa GBA, Tales of Phantasia GBA which also underperformed, or the relatively low effort Final Fantasy GBA ports handled mostly by Square Enix) while they were getting started on publishing the Dragon Quest series on DS or doing their daring experiments there (Magical Starsigns DS in 2006, which also underperformed in the west).Come 2006 and their puzzle games were published by Atlus (who handled Cubivore for them earlier) or trademarked but unreleased (that Digi- series on GBA), leaving Rhythm Heaven and Mother 3 as the remaining major unlocalized first party games.By 2006 even their Zelda TP localization was a shitshow behind the scenes.Even accounting for that, that's a lot of factors against it. Some rumors say that the devs did multilingual technical pitches, that NoE and Atlus did pitches but NoA vetoed, that they were considering a DS port, that it was tied to 2008 loc plans ruined by the fan patch, that Wii U / Switch releases as a translated ROM were planned and progress made but dropped before 2020, but even then a 2006 English release would be unlikely nevertheless.
>>12582901The trannies and the pedo-erotic hotspring scene were relevant enough back then that jp dev interviews asked "was that really alright in a CERO A game (laughs)" so yes a 2006 localization would redraw the magypsies sprites, change the hotspring pedo sprite and underwater faggot air machines to something else non-human, dial down the faggotry and religious references in the text, have legal go over it and remove some more stuff (and they already did, some sprites with fridges or bikes on a moon backdrop were ported for GBA but cut), just like every other JRPG localization dealt with trannies and prostitutes (taking Tales of Phantasia GBA as a barometer). The "dark undertones" (suicide, etc) would be left alone. Itoi would not consider that an affront to his creative vision and would rationalize it that the tranny is now "passing" or doing "telepathy".That kind of localization is impossible now because redditors and trannies have built that bigger than reality aura about the game, that it's a cultural moment for their faggotry and that the "egg cracking" scene in the hotspring or the twink kisses or the butt shown in the helicopter escape scene or the facial hair of the trannies are absolutely essential to the experience and anything that falls short is tranny genocide. Or that the grandpa joking about his inner tranny to lighten up a dire situation uses they/them pronouns and the reader should be constantly reminded of this totally valid headcanon and any localization that doesn't add made up crap to support this is "bigoted censorship" and yielding to bigoted masses, the one the bean counters need for the mass appeal and the ones the true believers need as new converts for what they see as an indoctrination medium more than its own thing. This is the exact same audience Toby Fox panders to but is deathly afraid of engaging with lest he gets some pronoun wrong and they crucify him, and instead he prefers talking exclusively to nips worshipping him.
>>12582441>Would European kids enjoy a game about American kids in America?I did.>>12582508I'm not gonna argue against you (and I'd welcome if you have another source that's better), it's just a number I've always heard and seen cited. It sounds about right to me, for a game which saw some alright sales, but wasn't a smash hit on the U.S market.It clearly made some impression in its day, before emulation took off, and I think that if they had bothered publishing in just English alone in Europe (maybe with a black and white guidebook in a couple of languages), it would probably have sold comparable numbers, but again, I think it was a bit too ahead of its time and we weren't ready for it yet, which is why it took off more over time as emulation became more popular.>>12582585tbf they'd be competing with emulation by that point, most westerners who played Earthbound had not paid for it. Can you sell a product to a target demographic which already has it?
>>12582005If you look past the parts where you're a delivery monkey that got forced into slavery and pulled away from his mate with a shock collar, grieving the death of your mother, watching your father go insane, your grandfather get shoved into a dilapidated retirement home, anticipating your brother's mangled corpse being turned into a half cyborg, and collecting needles from andogynous fairies, it's actually quite bubbly and whimsical and ideal for children but it has a blatant plagiarism of the Batman theme song in it, so it's a hard no go for copyright reasons.
>>12583119>but it has a blatant plagiarism of the Batman theme song in it, so it's a hard no go for copyright reasons.Actually Nintendo went out of their way to release the soundtrack (and ONLY that) in America to assert their legal right to release the game and avoid a situation where the internet rumors go unaddressed for so long that it gives ideas to hollywood lawyers to at least try suing them regardless of the actual legal merit, until those lawsuits end up making the game release not worth it like with what happened with Sonic 3 after its fanbase successfully got the attention of Sony and Brad Buxter and all sorts of associated composers started releasing their albums with Sonic 3 art used without Sega's permission further harming Sega's claims to other parts of the game.Keep in mind NoA almost never releases game soundtracks, not even for Mario (soundtracks are usually by NoE in the 2010s). The Earthbound (M2) release and the Mother 3 iTunes release were in major part to put a rest to any claims for past, present or future releases from any region. Mother 3 itself went a throughout legal check before its JP release, everything falls comfortably under legal protections for parody, and that check was even for things as little as "things are hard but I think I'll be okay" which legal asked about because it was similar to a line in Kiki's Delivery Service, and yes there's evidence of deleted content from Mother 3 and other Nintendo games for referencing other movies too closely.
>>12583140Thank you anon I really appreciate this detailed post.
>>12582005>>12582716
>>12582585>Wii U which literally dies for not using it all the timeThat's an urban myth, it dies if yours is one of the ones built with cheaper parts.
>>12582005According to Reggie, there was much a simpler reason: The game came out in fucking 2006, two years after the Nintendo DS. Even in Japan, it was kind of pushing how late a GBA game could be feasibly released, and the localization would have added another two years to that.So NoA never even really got to the stage where they bothered evaluating anything else about it. The idea to localize it was thrown out entirely because of the release date.
>>12582005not enough mass market appealalso>2006way too late in the console's lifespan
>>12582056>No, it's not the music, no it's not the drag queensNot why it hasn't been localized so definitely doesn't help
What's the deal with the music?
>>12583830some retards think music rights could be an issue like they used to with EarthBound (never was the case)
>>12583801*but not so
>NoA keeps pussyfooting on whether they'll do it or not>Tomato/Jeffman make a fantranslation that captures over 98% of the audience by the balls>NoA's decision is made for them
>>12583424What the fuck
>>12582005Earthbound flopped, and the third game sucks.
>>12583801>>12583762>gba was dead!DS was backwards compatible and Lucas being on Smash was guaranteed sales, they fucked up
>>12583745https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUFIO6GtThk
>>12583718No, the Ram fucks the system if you don't turn it on elfor some time.
>>12583745I'm not sure if Reggie is changing his story just to get some brownie points but in his recent book he actually says he did want to bring Mother 3 over. He wanted it to be a "killer app" for the GBA micro but supposedly it was his Japanese higher ups that told him they can't bring the game over for no reason. That actually does sound more realistic to me, why not have a new game to go alongside the new system, hell Japan even got a Mother 3 edition GBA micro so they could've brought that over too. Reggie went on to say that decision made him really angry because he already didn't want to sell the GBA micro since DS was already the new hotness, and the fact that they wouldn't give him the game to go with it just made it a harder sell and he thinks that's part of the reason it didn't do well.
>>12584462Of course it's Revisionism.NoA and Reggie just didn't give a fuck.
>>12582637People forget, it was Iwata that intervened after seeing people using the Mother 2 Miiverse board to ask for a Earthbound. He even specifically mentioned it as a reason why they were finally re-releasing Earthbound.https://youtu.be/wSXyo0z6LKA?si=3H1oODIm7g0Znw9T&t=1332And before it gets brushed aside as 'so what?' Miiverse posting held much bigger weight with Nintendo because you needed a WiiU to post on it at the time.
>>12584486it could be the truth.but as the CEO he couldn't just say "you know, i want to bring m3 over but mom don't let me" because it would be taken as a fact. he knew it was a dumb thing to say and it would have created friction with NoJ.
>>12582005It was too edgy for the west.
>>12584462There's a reason why Reggie is engaging in this revisionism and why some fans were so eager to blame him. He wants to shift blame away.Around 2006-2007 there's a bunch of games that had complete English localizations and were even planned for american releases but went Europe-only, with NoA going on record, specifically Reggie, and trashing these games or saying they're uncool in some way. There's the cheesy Die Hard wannabe NCL-developed Wii game Disaster Day of Crisis that apparently was too corny and "unrealistic" for NoA's tastes, who were then pushing internal pitches for Project Hammer by NCL and instead on focusing on the gameplay they were splurging on expensive CGI cutscenes at the vertical slice stage and accusing NCL reps tardhandling them of xenophobia and mysogyny and being "out of touch with the American tastes" (they sabotaged Metroid Other M's localization too) so NCL was eventually fed up and ordered them to redo it in cartoony style, and no story, "destroying morale at NoA".Fatal Frame 4 was to be published by Nintendo worldwide and not just Japan, NoE even started its ads, but NoA sabotaged it, said the game is trash and that Tecmo should pay out of their pocket for bugfixes, all out in the press, Tecmo had NDAs and couldn't answer comfortably (similar to how NoA shifted blame to Atlus USA for Tokyo Mirage Sessions' changes and they had to deny "politely" because it would harm expectations for Persona 5) and by the time NCL noticed and did further damage control PR that release was unsalvageable. (But Fatal Frame 2 Wii did release in Europe)They said the first Tingle game was on track for a US version but cancelled over an IGN readers poll.
>>12585098NoA also did a very poor job localizing niche titles, or games for core (not casual) gamers (especially with barely anything localized post 2009 not just from Project Rainfall's trio) compared to NoA, they even sabotaged some of NoE's efforts, so Xenoblade would be shown on E3 one year, but NoE would be denied the next E3 by NoA and a NoE PR would be fired over saying it because it makes NoA look bad, but then NoA would do public digs at NoE and announce some games won't get European releases (Layton London Life, Pokemon Conquest) right in the US announcement to make their version look better.It's not like he is just some innocent bystander, he was public about influencing the decision to bundle Wii Sports, and the focus on local audiences, and admitted to rejecting SOME of the earlier games.All of that us from the Reggie tenure.Then there's the Chris Pranger interview mostly scrubbed from the internet how NoA is swayed by the internet, citing Fire Emblem Fates.Then the rumored Wii U / Switch Mother 3 localization, real and cancelled over content issues. (even now some crazies think the fan patch localization is problematic and say it needs rewrites, NoA must have some) Now you could say NoA is pozzed and doesn't care but thanks to some braggarts behind the Paper Mario 2 remake localizers/rewriters we know they (NoA) "fought" for the added Vivian so there was a fight, decision was NoA, and it was performative.So it's not hard for Reggie to see that people see his legacy as "personally rejected Mother 3" (probably happened as a half-asleep "expensive GBA project in 2006? No way") + "influenced by his pedophobic focus group and transphobic biases" and want to immediately distance himself from that mess and (correctly) say it was just a late GBA game. Maybe some "I wasn't against it you know, that text heavy rpg would have been nice for the tiny ass GBA Micro"
